A little over a month ago, this lady (Sarah) asked me, “If a person is a Christian but does not believe in the catching away of the church, but there is, will they be caught up with the others?” I told her, “Sarah, you have asked one of the most challenging questions anyone can ask. I’ll do my best to answer it: ‘We are saved by faith,’ we can all agree on that. Concerning your question, two other questions will first have to be asked and then answered. First, what is faith? Secondly, how much faith is needed?
The rest of my conversation with her went something like this. I said, “Saving faith would include trust, sincerity, mercy, full assurance, hope, nothing doubted, good works, zeal, consistency, and confidence. We have to have faith in the Word, in the Father, in Christ, and trust in the Holy Spirit.
Faith is to believe that God is and that all his words are true. Take note of the word ‘all,’ not some or almost all. Certain declarations may have been declared in the past but may also refer to the present and the future, all being revelations and promises from God. In these things, Christians must trust God.
Paul was declared an apostle of Jesus Christ. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:31 around 55 A.D., twenty-four years after the cross. “I show you a mystery.”
This thing Paul was about to reveal to the Corinthian church was unknown, not evident, and far above human insight. Even the apostles were in the dark concerning the Rapture. But the time came for the Holy Spirit to reveal this mystery to Paul, who would then show it to the church. We will not find this doctrine in any of the four gospels; it is only in Paul’s writing.
Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14, ‘The natural man (the unbeliever) receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’
Noah’s faith in God may be a good lesson for us to review. Hebrews 11:7, ‘By faith, Noah, was warned of God of things not seen as yet, (so he) moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house (his family);’
In Noah’s day, God had determined to punish the evil cultivated and performed by men. The LORD instructed Noah, who believed and was “moved with fear.” Noah’s action resulted from his faith in the LORD. His emotions and actions correspond to the object of his belief, demonstrating the reality of his faith. One hundred and twenty years later, the words the LORD spoke to Noah came to pass. Now, ask yourself, would your patience and faithfulness have been strong enough to wait 120 years? Or would you have put your tools away after five or ten years and continued your daily routine? If so, you would have been one of the casualties of the flood.
Paul wrote, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” It’s not some or part, but all. No man can ever say they know and understand everything in Scripture. As for the things not understood, that’s where saving faith comes in.
The apostle Peter commented on Paul’s Epistles in 2 Peter 3:15-16. He said that the Lord revealed certain mysteries to Paul. He wrote, ‘Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you; as also in his (Paul’s) epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which some things are hard to understand.’
One of those hard-to-understand mysteries was the catching away of the bride of Christ. Peter had declared that Paul had an uncommon measure of wisdom given to him by the Lord, obscure things, things not easily understood. And because they are hard to understand and believe, those who lack true faith will torture and twist God’s words or reject them outwardly.
Now, to answer Sarah’s question. There will be no signs or warnings; being prepared is what Jesus expects from us. But for those who ‘are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,’ Jesus said, ‘I will spit (vomit) you out of my mouth.’ These words should answer the question, ‘If you don’t believe in the pre-trib-rapture, or don’t believe in the rapture at all, will they be raised up into heaven with the others who believe in the rapture?’
How many Christians have become trapped in denominational teachings, having forgotten how to think for themselves? They have more faith in men and the things of this world than they have in God’s Word.
Paul also wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, in 52 A.D., ‘For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.’
Paul could not have said it any more straightforward than that. There is a catching away of the bride of Christ. There is no way the Lord would even consider leaving his bride in the hands of the antichrist. Now let’s flip this coin over to its other side.
The tribulation will be a violent period, and those who enter will have to save themselves. There is no, ‘By faith are you saved;’ once they enter the tribulation period. They are given two choices: receive the beast’s mark, worship his image, and live, but later, judged. Their end, “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire; this is the second death,” Revelation 20:14.
Or they will reject the mark, refuse to worship the antichrist image, and be put to death. But these will be raised back to life before the 1000 reign.
Revelation 20:4, John saw, “The souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” That’s my understanding of this difficult subject. Your thoughts.
1