If you took time out to dip into the debate on Chris Bennett’s asking “What if the Rapture and Return are one and the same event?” you’ll have found in one day it’s scored over 100 contributions on his Facebook (and just over a dozen on mine).
It’s important to be absolutely clear about this topic in view of a couple of links on Chris’ thread referring to the ‘secret rapture doctrine’ made popular two hundred years ago by John Nelson Darby, of the early Plymouth Brethren, and to the bestselling ‘Left Behind’ books of 1990s and 2014 movie.
Moreover, we’re well aware that very many have written on End-times as though “The End Is Nigh!” – but in all honesty, we can no longer ignore global indications that we are truly living in the times foretold in the holy Bible.
We ARE fast approaching ‘The Day of the LORD’! Now back to the debate:
The opening gambit of this item below is wrong because The Rapture is part and parcel of Orthodox, Catholic and Reformed churches’ teaching (article is of historical interest):
So, now let’s check our New Spirit-Filled Life study Bible’s notes on chapter 4 verse 17 of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian church. It explains why ‘the exact word ‘rapture’ does not occur in Scripture’ and its ancient origin:
Next, check my boxed Bible received from my Godmother on my 12th birthday – the Douai-Challoner translation from the Vulgate, ie authoritative Latin Bible translated late 4th Century by St Jerome. It refers to being ‘caught up’:
Bible Study Tools is provides the Vulgate’s Latin text with translation and commentary:
Thus, it strongly implies the ‘Rapture’ – our being grasped/snatched – will be all believers’ personal Resurrection and Ascension – all at once!
Selah!
Richard's Watch 
I am glad that you are dealing with this subject as it is one capable of misleading the Church. I am going to share a vision I haven’t shared before as I believe it may help. I had often wondered about pre or post and saw in the Scriptures about being caught up. One night I was about to lay down when I experienced a vivid experience. I was at the home of another church member and we were all very afraid. Outside the sound of war was so loud that we closed our curtains to try to stop the children being afraid. As I closed one I could see the flames and explosions on the horizon all around. We sat holding our children, waiting, and suddenly the sound stopped. We were too scared to look as we thought it meant we were captured. I opened one curtain and was amazed to find our home was up in the sky, as I looked out the whole outer wall was covered with ice crystals as we were high enough to freeze the outside. I looked down and far below I saw the earth, and it looked like a tray that someone was tipping from side to side by its handles. As it tipped the people were rolling and screaming, and a volcano was erupting behind them. I called to my friend and we gazed at the horror below, but we’re high and far from it in silence. I then came out of it. I questioned the scene I had witnessed, the volcano. but remembered a scripture that Lance Lambert had taught on. That Salvation (Jesus) would come when the Jews looked like dogs. He had realised through prayer, that it was gas masks and it was during a war with a threat of chemical warfare. I sat shocked but can say we were not aware of being caught up, no sensation at all, just a sudden stop to the sound of war. It was a truly terrible, all out war, and no one was going to survive it. The elements had joined in and then we were high in the darkness is space in a home covered with ice. I believe this showed me we will be caught up just as history comes to its end. I received a stern warning later that, if the church believes it will be snatched away BEFORE it begins they will be paralysed with fear and shock when t they are not, and unable to function just when God needs his church to stand. This is what I saw and heard, for your consideration.
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Many thanks for sharing and so striking it needs careful weighing.
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My friend Chris Moyler comments on Telegram’s link to this blog:
Dear Richard
My quick two pennyworth on this.Of course the Rapture is biblical,
1Thess 4: 16,17
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
The reason WHY the brethren are removed, is that their testimony to the unbelievers is complete, and the Age of the Gentiles has ended.
The LORD does NOT “come as a thief in the night ” to the believers, but ONLY to the unbelievers:
1Thess 5: 4,5
But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.
After this gathering, the LORD descends to the earth, with the armies of heaven, the host, to rescue those of Israel who are marked for salvation, fulfilling his covenant obligation to her:
Zach 14:4
On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward.
Which is WHY this remnant of Israel had to be sealed, in order to protect them:
Revelation 7:4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
-I believe that these are the foolish virgins!
At this time, the remnant are kept safe from harm, and will repopulate the Millennium- both Jew and Gentile.
Isa 66:18f
For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD. And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the LORD.
Also, at this time, the cities of the earth are destroyed, and the earth cleansed with fire. That is WHY the believers have to be raptured:
Isa 66: 15,16
For behold, the LORD will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the LORD enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the LORD shall be many.
Joel 2:3 Fire devours before them,
and behind them a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them,
but behind them a desolate wilderness,
and nothing escapes them.
The real evil of an over emphasis on the Rapture, coupled with the heresy that it is sinless and imminent, i.e., it could happen at any moment, is that it effectively DISENGAGED the believers from their primary purpose of bringing God’s Kingdom rule to the earth
This is how the Luciferian Cabal were able to rise in power, most especially in the West- which was the epicentre of worldwide Christianity.
But Christians across the world are now waking up, as never before, and the entire Luciferian fake kingdom, Babylon the Great, is being exposed to a degree never previously witnessed, in all of human history.
Chris xx
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