On Wednesday Chris posted this on his Facebook and on His Kingdom Prophecy:
SHOCK! HORROR! HOW LONG?
I just had a Holy Spirit moment when He said to me, ‘What if the rapture doesn’t happen in the 5-10 years you’re prophesying? Many have spoken before and been wrong — only Father knows!’
Of course I’m almost certainly wrong, but I’m not trying to be ‘right’ in the sense of ‘spot on’.
I’m simply trying to put, i.e. Guessing, a time-frame around it. Many others are doing the same.
The thing is, all I do know for certain is this — it hasn’t happened today, so there’s still work for me to do!
Seriously, what if it’s 20, 50, 100 years from now?
Equally, what if it’s tomorrow, or 6 months, or 2 years?
The whole point is to be prepared, be ready at any given moment — like the 5 wise virgins, lamps full, wick trimmed, ready for the Masters call!
What, I believe, The Holy Spirit is saying, is not to pin our hopes on the rapture, but rather to live our life, like He may come soon.
In the meantime, there’s still souls to save, sickness to heal, addictions to be delivered, and dead to be raised.
There are still Worship Songs to sing, Prayers for the lost to be offered, new Christians to be discipled, and a Church for us to support.
Why are so many of us almost relying on the rapture to get us out of the mess we’re in?
The Bible tells us in the parable of The Talents in Luke 19:12-28 to ‘occupy until I come’, meaning to keep busy.
So The LORD is saying to us today, “Keep working for My Kingdom until I return for you!” (Also in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 refers to this)
So let’s ‘occupy’ ourselves with The LORD’s Kingdom work until The Father does send Him to gather us to Himself.
Whatever our calling, be it great or be it small, let us do it ‘as unto The LORD’ Himself until that great day or until He calls us home, for, until we do hear that trumpet call, there’s still plenty of work to be done.
“Therefore He said: “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Do business till I come.’ But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’
And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten minas.’ And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned five minas.’ Likewise he said to him, ‘You also be over five cities.’
Then another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief. For I feared you, because you are [b]an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’ And he said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’
And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to him who has ten minas.’ (But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’) ‘For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.”
When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.” Luke 19:12-28.
~ Chris G. Bennett
Upon sharing this on my Facebook’s timeline I comment:
‘Very few Brits in my experience know about or speak of the ‘rapture’. Imho most who’ve heard of it regard it as part of peculiar American theology.
BUT we’ve overlooked THE classic book, ‘ARE YOU READY FOR THE END OF TIME’ published 1867 by first Bishop of Liverpool J.C. Ryle’s . His first chapters are entitled:
- WATCH
- OCCUPY ‘TIL I COME
- WHAT TIME IS IT?
Romans chapter 8 ‘rapture-relevant’ verses strongly imply an essential necessity first, and which isn’t yet in play – our becoming fully functioning Children of God . Here’s Amplified Bible’s version:
19 For [even the whole] creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known [waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship].
20 For the creation (nature) was subjected to [i]frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it—[yet] with the hope
21 That nature (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children.
22 We know that the whole creation [of irrational creatures] has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now.
23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves too, who have and enjoy the first-fruits of the [Holy] Spirit [a foretaste of the blissful things to come] groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies [from sensuality and the grave, which will reveal] our adoption (our manifestation as God’s sons).
24 For in [this] hope we were saved. But hope [the object of] which is seen is not hope. For how can one hope for what he already sees?
25 But if we hope for what is still unseen by us, we wait for it with patience and composure.
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NB: Earlier related words linked below: 
Richard's Watch 