Closer & Closer

Closer and closer

What a warning for us!! Quite appropriate, it seems to me, with all the blether about the world ending, it does us good to remind ourselves of that which is to come. Don’t take my word for it – it is in God’s Word – several times! We can start off by saying that the end has two very different phases – the rapture and the return.

The rapture is encapsulated in these two scriptures

1 Corinthians 15:51-52 “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

1 Thessalonians 4:17 “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

Then the return and judgement is summed up first by this

Malachi 3:1-3 “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.  But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men  who will bring offerings in righteousness,”

Then by this

Rev 20:11-15 The Great White Throne Judgment, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God,  and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.  The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Gets kinda scary doesn’t it? But only scary for those whose names are not written in the Lambs Book of Life – i.e. those who did not receive their free gift of salvation, offered through Jesus Christ by His atonement for us at Calvary.

I have the strongest feeling and sense that these prophecies are all about to start coming to pass. Yes, I believe it. That Jesus is about to come for His Bride and we shall all “meet Him in the clouds” and go to be with Him forever.

Why do I believe all this? Because God’s Word says so – that’s why.