The Invitation/ Prepared/ Finding Belief for the Rapture

Belief In The Rapture

Phil 3:14 November 18, 2015

Because the Rapture is the “prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” Phil 3:14 It should be considered as the reward for the wife of Christ which is given to her for faithful service and full devotion and perfect fidelity toward her Lord and Master. (See Proverbs 31) The Rapture is the prize given for the highest calling possible, won for her total submission, for giving her all, yielding everything to Christ, and for believing in that great mystery of His promise to make her His wife. It is the reward for believing in those conjoined mysteries of dying to self and walking in the Spirit, which together with the hope in the Rapture which acts as a purifying catalyst and motivator, give reassurance that the believer will be accounted worthy to be part of the Rapture and thus, called out of troublous times to be with Him in one instantaneous moment.

Believing in the Rapture, walking in the Spirit and picking up the cross unlock the reality of two mysteries. The first is the great mystery of Christ and the church, the second is the mystery that comforts us in our journey because we know that He is true to His promise to save us from the misery of judgment that is to come on all the rebellious and faithless inhabitants of this world. Both the promises, of Brideship and rescue, keep us pressing forward, shaking the dust of the world from off our feet, casting our every care upon Him. We are energized to flee from any and all carnal lusts. We are enabled in all three areas of perfection which relate to one another on the perpetual wheel of perfection. The Rapture is a purifying effect; the walk in the Spirit which demands obedience amounts to all effective action and is our active life; denying ourselves and picking up our cross amounts to our passive existence because we are to dismiss our works as the vanity they are and enter into the rest that is denying ourselves in favor of God. We are then perfected by purity, active spirit and passive flesh, three fundamental conditions to a perfect daily life each responding to one another and impressing righteousness in unison upon the body, soul and spirit of the faithful disciple. The conflict between the active and passive will in our lives is hard for many to grasp. It seems to the unspiritual mind a contradiction that tears at the soul and bites us with confusion that will never end. But there is a perfection that dissolves the conflict in us. We must put to rest our own will and thoughts and inclinations and sense of right and wrong, and everything for that matter. We must admit we are blind and cannot see – anything. This is how far and deep our passivity must reach and extend. But we must be active. We are the lights and salt of the earth. When we go passive then the Holy Spirit can go active, be activated, be set free to do His will in the ongoing estate of our lives. (see: the Law of the Leper: Holy Spirit set free)

This passive man and active spirit is accomplished by the daily walk of the tightrope of perfection. It is actualized by desire and prayed and maintained only by vigilance and a dogged determination to let God rule over the whole of our being. The believer has received the Savior, but the disciple must learn to let the Lord of Salvation rule over their walk in a daily fashion. This is a perfect walk, not always perfectly maintained for even the virgins that have their lamps trimmed with oil have fallen asleep, but one that is always willing to hear and to let the Spirit act instead of our urgent flesh.

We pick up our cross, put our last penny in the coffers, name his name in good times and bad. We depart from iniquity, shedding the weight and sin that so easily besets us, not only living but Walking in the Spirit. Each one of these is a tall order. Many misled fundamentalists and ascetic monk-types have driven themselves mad trying to grow even one aspect of this spiritual righteousness in their life through their own intellectual skill, iron discipline or will to power. They fail. They fall short because they should not trust in themselves. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes makes this vanity of self very clear indeed. Nevertheless, the spirit of man insists that its voice should be heard from and adhered to. A huge mistake they make is underestimating the power of the motivating force that hope in the Rapture brings to the Christian life. The Rapture is the essential hope that can keep us passive from self while allowing the Spirit to be the prime mover for all our action. If I do not believe, really believe then I will not have daily faith to give up my will and reject my fears. Living passive in self and active in Spirit is proof that I believe in another place and that the Rapture is the highest promise of deliverance into the hand of God and out of this transient world. Believe – true abiding, active belief – in the Rapture staves off despair, helps us to love our enemies and realize that those who live godly lives in Christ shall suffer persecution. Why else would Paul have told the Thessalonians emphatically to “comfort one another with these (Rapture) words”1 Thes 4:18. Belief spurs man to action. If one does not believe something they will not act upon it. Belief in The Rapture spurs me on to Brideship and its intuitive knowledge of the Spirit that urges me to put on a true righteous brand of godliness and perfection. The Rapture is the promise of the Champion Himself that He has gone to build a mansion for us and that He will certainly return so that we can come to live with Him forever in His utopia. He and she, they are the beloved of the romance of Solomon’s Song. He peers at us now through the latticework of prophecy, bounding over the hills of time that separate the lovers, skipping suddenly as a swift deer into the waiting watchful promised moment when He shall awake like the morning light dawning, to take her away from ‘all of this’ darkness and chaos. This certain love with uncertain wedding day keeps the Bride on her toes, prepared and adorning herself daily, keeping herself in as beautiful state of spiritual perfection as possible. She stays Rapture-ready and poised for the day of embrace, looking for Her Champion’s sudden glorious appearance, the sun bursting through the clouds in a split moment, in only a twinkling of an eye when He shall briskly and suddenly take her home. The Rapture is a purifying agent. He said it would take place at a time when we think not. It should induce the hopeful to walk in the Spirit and pick up the cross and to look for His sudden arrival.

These three are composed by the great Composer to work geometrically together to promote the perfection of the Bride ‘so that Christ might present unto Himself a church, or separated one who is without spot or wrinkle, that is holy, and free of blemish or any such thing. Walking in the spirit will in turn help her put on the robes of righteousness so that she is decked out in the jewelry of humility and plain truth as she waits. This will in turn help her to pick up her cross. Her love and trust in Him will aid her in living for someone else (namely her champion) and to live for others. This is what He asks of her. And she firmly believes and acts on the belief that it is not about this life and this world but about the life and kingdom to come. Therefore she is not bound to this world by ‘gravity’ of temporal, worldly cares. She is a pilgrim, as Abraham was before. This is the great wheel of perfection which she must place herself upon with all devotion. This wheel revolves without beginning or end. Three things acting and reacting upon themselves and among one another to promote freedom and deliverance and a chaste virgin fit for Christ. Hope in the other world, walking in the Spirit and denying self. These daily revolve on the wheel of perfection spinning like a gyroscope and keeping us balanced in God’s will just as long as the parts move in unison, though each spins in its one direction of purpose at a given moment and then perhaps in another reversing direction at the Lord’s Will, adjusting and effecting a perfect balance. There is nothing routine about this perfection other than it must be maintained on a daily basis just as a machine might need to be oiled every day. Whether it begins with the belief in the Rapture, or picking up the cross, or loving the gentle guidance of the Holy Spirit, who can tell? They are revved up with the morning light if we will begin our waking moment with belief, faith and praise for God’s good salvation in our life. We start the engine of perfection flip the switch on determination to let the Spirit have His way, turn off the dial of our own understanding, relieve the pressures of our fear and belief that the machinery is perfectly suited to bring about that which it was designed to produce – eternal life and Brideship with the one and only, Son of God. The gears of hope in the future Utopia, the freedom worked by my cross and surging power of the Spirit perfectly oiled by belief and faith run efficiently, silently to produce God’s will in me. I am passive, shut down. He is activated and productive because I am deactivated, out of the way. I am active only in His action produced in me. Like the wheel within a wheel in Ezekiel our gyroscopic existence can go wherever the Spirit has a mind to go. Where the spirit goes, we must tag along. Our machine can fly, soar like an eagle and few things from a spiritual dimension far above the visceral things of the restrictive spheres of this passing world. But we will only follow something if our hope conforms with the purpose of the thing we follow. That is our nature. If we do not believe something we will not act upon it. If we are dead to our own leanings and understanding and will, not following them as all men are inclined to follow their own heart or leading, if we are willing to move whichever way or direction in which the Spirit lites or moves, then we are on the right track. We can then, and only then, become a righteous follower of the Spirit and not only a called and chosen disciple of Christ, but a faithful one also. Belief in the Rapture tends to help make the Bride want to be ready, to be pure and perfect in God’s sight, always seeking His will while enduring persecution and hardship for the glory set before her of being espoused and married to Christ. When we believe in the Rapture (by this I mean truly believe so that it affects my decisions and expectations of life in a real way, every day) then we come to believe that “all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose” Rom 8:28. We have confidence that God brings light out of darkness. But then again, believing in the Rapture seems to depend on yielding and listening to the advice of the Holy Ghost. Then again, yielding to the Holy Ghost (truly yielding) always leads to dying to self and living for Christ, the beloved savior and champion of salvation, the captain of our souls. So, round and round it must go just as life revolves day to day, each crucial spiritual frame of mind and set of heart fixes itself to the other, passes by and affects the other, allowing the other to freely move while influencing its ability to move without friction, promoting by synchronization, the work of Christ in His Bride like no other spiritual or carnal working could ever do. Believing and living the requisites of the Rapture, believing and walking with the Spirit and believing in the power of the cross to deny self so that Christ may live more freely and fruitfully in us, these are the indispensable realities of spirit that must sprout and then find lively soil within the heart of a believer. Fruits of the spirit may then take deeper root and grow to thirty, sixty or even a hundredfold. Humility, meekness righteousness and love take precedence over worldly concern and the blessings promised on the mount of beatitudes of inheriting heaven and earth and great reward are insured.

We are without excuse if we are caught off guard, for the Word of God has instructed us in this matter of Brideship and we have been forewarned by Christ in many parables, dealings with saints and would-be disciples, as well as by His careful itemization of the prophetic Signs. We are led by the hand right up to the instant of Jesus’ appearing and His Second Coming. When we understand the importance put on the Rapture by Christ and His apostles we should neither be cautious or fearful about delving into this mystery of the Rapture which accompanies the mystery of Christ and the church, nor surprised that Satan has tried to make it a matter of controversy and even fear among the churches. Paul pointed out that the Rapture is one of the mysteries of the Gospel. People have often become fearful, others discouraged in their faith, when the Rapture did not occur when they hoped it would. Wrong teachings and misunderstanding have wreaked havoc on whole segments of the Church over the course of this Age of Grace. A scatter-brain mentality about detecting and observing the Signs of Christ’s Return has discredited the prophetic scriptures in the minds of otherwise astute ministers causing them to miss this most vital motivational tool of Christ’s labor of hope to present unto Himself a church without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. Christ chided the smart men and know-it-alls of His day for knowing how to read the skies for accurate weather forecasts but not taking care to examine or notice the signs of the times that would have given them balance and bearings for salvation and spiritual matters. There is no substitute which can produce the fruitful effects in a prospective Bride like hope in the Rapture. Without hope in the Rapture and belief in the Rapture there will be no Rapture for that uncaring and faithless person. It will not matter how many times they have named the name of Christ or how many sacraments they compiled like merit badges. The complacent and uncaring will not hear the sound of the trumpet signaling the moment. Jesus said things like Watch! Pray! Take heed! See that you are ready! Do not say God is delaying His return! Many of the parables reveal details of instruction concerning vital matters of the Rapture. The Signs of the Return of Christ lead in a direct line to the Rapture and subsequent or related events, including the destiny and riches of the Bride of Christ.

The Rapture is the hope that purifies…
for when we see Him we shall be made like Him. It is the moment of consummation. We are told to comfort one another with these words, this means that hope in the Rapture is designed to be a consolation for trials and tribulations of the cross, and for the submission it takes to walk in the Spirit. Hope in the Rapture sustains the tougher requirements of perfection in the spiritual life: denying self and yielding the Spirit. Because the Rapture is a motivator to perfection and holiness, a source of consolation and comfort, and a hope for deliverance, as well as, the moment the Bride receives her reward for fidelity and steadfast love, it has been a primary target in Satan’s battle against the churches. It is natural that something so spiritually profound and important like the Rapture would engender endless debate and massive controversy among the churches from the very first day Jesus began to teach on it. Satan will stop at nothing to muddle so great a promise as the deliverance of His Bride from harm’s way, especially when it is so important to the virtue and spiritual chastity of Christ’s espoused wife.

Church leaders have fought against the idea of spiritual perfection tooth and nail, even though Jesus had clearly called some to perfection. Take, for instance, the rich youth to whom He said to give away all his wealth to the poor and come follow Him if he would be perfect. Suddenly the youth’s spirit sank and he went away sad. So was Christ. The Rapture is the goal line, the tape, the moment of securing perfection eternally. Either we get there, run the race well, or we fall short. You do not want to fall short. The consequences will include a heap of trouble that will be so overwhelming that most humans will not be able to overcome. When the Rapture does occur in that split second, it will all be abruptly, irreversibly over. This is why it is the great prize, it secures ultimate immutable perfection, while escaping by God’s grace that great temptation that is coming on the earth to try every man’s soul and threaten their realization of ultimate immortality and eternally secure perfection. Should anyone be so arrogant, does the Bride-spirit lack so much in humility to think it can stand any temptation? Every human’s life stands as a proof that no man can withstand all temptation without being overcome at some point. The Bride should not think of herself as the rock that her husband is, for only He can stand every temptation thrown His way. This is why he advises her and expects a reverence and submission to Him by His espoused wife. Not that He may lord it over her for power’s sake, but that she can stand in His shadow and have Him defeat temptation for her and in her behalf. She needs to submit to His will and direction at all times for her own good. This is why the controversy rages. Satan wants to take away all the power of the Rapture, the power to console, purify with hope, to encourage to wait and watch for deliverance, to flee youthful lusts and to be found in a state of walking with the Spirit, shouldering our cross, rather than partying and living for ourselves or our own amusement or aggrandizement or in dark fear because we do not know where we shall end up after our sojourn through this life. Do not be afraid of the Rapture, or prophecy, or judgment, but rather be prepared to meet Him on that day as a Bride looking for her bridegroom. Should not a bride be scrubbed, cleaned, adorned and beautiful when the ceremony begins? Believing in the Rapture makes us want to be Rapture-ready.