In Christian circles, one hears about “the Rapture” in awe-struck, whispered tones. It seems to be the great event that every Christian is waiting for, the wonderful reward and escape that will lift us up and away from this miserable, dreary, unfulfilling life like a fairy tale come true.
In short, the theory is that either before or some time during the Tribulation (the last seven years before Jesus returns to the earth to take possession of it as King Messiah), all the believers who follow Jesus will hear a trumpet and be suddenly transformed into immortal bodies. Moments later, all the believers of past ages who are currently dead will be miraculously resurrected, appearing on the Earth as living breathing people once again. And a moment after that, the ex-dead people will fly upward into the sky, followed by the living newly immortal believers, and the whole gang will literally fly away to Heaven with Jesus, where they will have a wonderful party for some unspecified amount of time.
While they are gone, the world will be beat black and blue by the Judgment events of the Tribulation, such as massive storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, hailstorms, fire from Heaven, plagues, war, famine, wild animal attacks, and any number of other calamity. But we won’t be bothered by all that trouble, because we will be happily shut away in Paradise drinking Heavenly wine!
What a wonderful way for God to show His great love and mercy for the sinner, eh?
There are pre-Tribulation Rapturists, Mid-Tribulation Rapturists, and Post-Tribulation Rapturists .... which means that Christians are arguing about when, exactly, we get our Heavenly party ride. Before, during, or after the earth is wrecked? (Frankly I don’t know what the point of going up post-trib is, except to get a good view of the earth from orbit before we come right back down.) Christians seem to love to argue about when the Rapture should happen, because frankly it is extremely difficult to find a place in the Bible where it happens at all.
The idea of the Rapture hit the mainstream in 1861 when Margaret McDonald reported a vision she’d had in the publication ‘The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets In the Catholic Apostolic Church’. This vision seemed to hint at this fortuitous vanishing into Heaven during the horrible events of the Tribulation (during, but not previous to), and that only those with true spiritual awareness would participate.
Margaret started out really struck by the realization that the “sign of the Son of Man” would literally be the Son of Man himself appearing in the sky. While this seems obvious to us today, in her time the verses that speak of that event had been so religiousized and smothered that she stirred up quite a bit of controversy with her awakening.
She went on to say:
Only those who have the light of God within them will see the sign of his appearance. No need to follow them who say, see here, or see there, for his day shall be as the lightning to those in whom the living Christ is. 'Tis Christ in us that will lift us up - he is the light - 'tis only those that are alive in him that will be caught up to meet him in the air.
Ironically, in her article she never specifically said we would go up to Heaven before the Tribulation. People assumed that because they wanted it to be true. Rather, even in her article it sounds as if there is going to be trouble for us before we learn to fly around.
Also, although I feel she did indeed have some really good points, and did experience a true spiritual revelation, it should be pointed out that Yeshua Himself said in the Bible that everyone would see the sign of His appearing, not just ‘those who have the light of God within them.’
There are a lot of people who believe there will be two different appearings of Yeshua in the sky, once before the Tribulation for us (and only we will see Him) and once at the end of the Tribulation for the world when they will be scared spitless; but that theory is still grasping at straws. In scripture, He is described as appearing only once. And when He appears, everyone will see and fall flat on their faces.
If Margaret was a little off on the point of only the believers in Jesus being able to see Him, she might be off on others. Her report might be a little subjective and slanted, since it was merely an enlightening vision sent to a woman and not Scripture. Can we base all our hopes on this slim foundation, one woman's vision, when the Scriptures tell a different story?
In her article, the catching up into the air mention was referring to Paul’s passage in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 which states:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of {the} archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
This ‘catching up’ into the air event should not be confused with the ‘twinkling of an eye’ event in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 which is, in fact, a completely separate occurrence and might not even happen at the same time.
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
It does sound as if at the sound of the last trumpet, both living and dead followers of Yeshua will be given immortal bodies, but how long between that moment and learning to fly is a guess. All the Bible says about it is ‘then’ we will rise. How long is ‘then’? A few minutes, an hour, a day? Other places in the Bible seem to describe events right on top of one another that, historically, happened months or even years apart.
In fact, the last trumpet will occur during the great last battle over Jerusalem, while the returned Ten Tribes led by Ephraim alongside the nation of Israel led by Judah are under seige by a vast army from Gog and Magog (the Land of the North, which may either be Turkey or Russia or both; they are joined by “the Nations” which are all those hostile nations surrounding Israel who wish to do them harm). This battle is at the very end of the Tribulation, and the Trumpet of God signals its close.
In fact, this is also when we see the Sign of the Son of Man appearing in the clouds. He literally appears over the city of Jerusalem to save His combined thirteen tribes, wipe out the enemies of His people with the sword of His mouth and with the swords of the massive army of angels at his back, and begin the Messianic Kingdom on earth. This is the Day of the Lord, when the sun and moon will darken, and there will be fire and great slaughter and trouble for everyone who is still an enemy of God at this point. (Note: the Day of the Lord is only one day long.)
I can find no place in the Bible that says we will see Jesus before this final battle, but I have found quite a few scriptures that tell me God’s true believers will probably be inside the City of Jerusalem during this final battle. How they will get there I am not entirely sure. I have some ideas from reading the scriptural prophecies, such as Isaiah 60:8, which mentions the people of God flying around like doves in the sky. Suffice it to say, both the believers from the Church and the Jews who are waiting for Messiah will end up trapped together in Jerusalem besieged by the enemy, and Messiah will show up to save them.
So when John says in 1 John chapter three....
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
...we can assume that during the battle when the People of God will be in their greatest hour of weakness, they will be given mighty power because they who cry out for Messiah shall be transformed at that moment into immortal creatures ...and those who had fallen in the battle will stand back up. That should scare the living daylights out of the enemy, to say the least.
Then the scripture in Zechariah chapter 12 will take place which states that during that final battle...
On that day, even someone who stumbles will be like David; and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of ADONAI before them.
We literally will be like God. We will be just like Messiah, because we will have seen Him as He is, and have been transformed in the ‘twinkling of an eye’ into immortal, powerful beings. We will then proceed, with Jesus at the helm and angels as our reinforcements, to slay every single one of the enemy with the sword, with the exception of the Beast and the False Prophet, whom Jesus himself will throw alive into the Lake of Fire. In that day we will all be great warriors, and we will be given the greatest millitary victory ever known in the history of Man. The Bible goes on to say that we will plunder the Earth, and bring all the riches of the earth back to Jerusalem to be split up among us.
None of this involves pre-Tribulataion, mid-Tribulation, or even post-Tribulation earthly evacuation, teleportation, or vanishing. But it does involve pointy weapons, victory, and glowing like the sun.
Matthew chapter 24 and Luke chapter 17 both quote Yeshua as saying something about people being “taken” on the night that He returns. Here is Luke's version:
I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.
Due to the popularity of the Rapture theory, most readers assume Yeshua is saying these people will be taken by Messiah into the air, “in the twinkling of an eye”, but that may not be the case at all.
In fact, seeing as this passage comes directly after a dire warning to not be like Lot’s wife who stopped to look back at Sodom being destroyed, and a firm command to run for the hills when the Day of the Lord approaches, it may be that Yeshua was warning that one will be taken by the Authorities and another left; one will be ripped out of his bed in the middle of the night and beaten, and one woman will be taken to prison, and the other left. We cannot assume that being ‘taken’ in this verse is necessarily a good thing.
But if we are to assume that being “taken” is a good thing, where will they be “taken”? And how? If the Day of the Lord is the day that Yeshua returns in power and glory to defeat the Antichrist and his army, and conquor the entire earth for himself, and if we then plunder the entire earth, it is very possible that these people will be taken away from the nations of the earth by the other believers who had victory in the battle and are now flying around through the air with super-powers. Or these people who are “taken” may be transformed into immortal beings on the Day that the Lord returns to slay the enemy and deliver Jerusalem. The passage does not indicate in any way that these people will be “taken” before the Tribulation, but rather, during or after great distress.
There are other verses that Rapturists like to quote, such as the parable of the Ten Virgins and the Lamps in Matthew 25. Five virgins went in with the Bridegroom, and the ones who were not ready didn’t go in and the doors were shut.
Most assume the doors are the Gates of Heaven, but why should we assume that? Usually the parable of the wedding feast is used as the biggest defense of the Rapture theory. In an ancient Jewish wedding, the groom would sneak over to the bride’s house in the middle of the night and steal her away, then take her to his chupah, or wedding-chamber, for a week-long honeymoon. During this week the whole town would celebrate and have a big party. At the end of the week, the bride and groom would come out of the wedding chamber and party with all the rest, acting as a King and Queen, complete with crowns and the ability to tell the guests what to do!
Rapturists say the ‘seven days’ of the wedding feast must certainly be the seven years of the Tribulation. This assumption becomes proof that we will be ‘carried away’ by the groom before the Tribulation begins, and spend the seven years having a wedding party.
But the Bible says that the Day that the Lord is crowned King is also the Day of His wedding. It will happen on the same day, not seven years later. He will return to claim His Kingdom on the Day of the Lord, which is the day He defeats the Antichrist and his evil army and kills every enemy of God. He will then judge and conquor the whole earth, and on the day He is crowned, Jesus will officially become King of the earth, and He will be ‘married’ to His bride, His people, whom He will never leave again.
This is further made significant if we understand the Jewish Feastivals: Rosh Ha Shana, the Jewish New Year, is the date that the Jews know the Messiah will return. Exactly ten days later is the dreaded Yom Kippour, the day that the world will be Judged. (Jesus talks about judging all the nations, separating them as sheep and goats.) Then a mere five days after that, we have the Festival of Sukkot, which is also refered to by the Jews as the Wedding Feast. So if we follow the schedule that God wrote down in the Bible, also known as the Jewish Festivals, we see a clear timeline:
The Lord will return on a Rosh HaShana; ten days later (after we have plundered and conquored the earth) He will judge the nations; and five days after that, He will be crowned King, and have His seven-day wedding feast. Sukkot is seven days long, and the eighth day is Simchat Torah, the Celebration of the Torah which is a separate holiday. Since Jesus is the Word, that is our day to celebrate our new King.
In the parable of the Ten Virgins, perhaps the gates being spoken of here are the gates of Jerusalem on earth, not Heaven. It is possible. Think about it.
Ezekiel 34:22 talks about Messiah judging between the sheep of His flocks, between one sheep and another. (Notice there are no goats in this judgement, this is a judgment just between sheep.) Some sheep will enter the Kingdom, some won’t. It seem the same principal is at work with the Virgins. Those who have the Holy Spirit in abundance (the oil) will go in, the others will not. He doesn’t have to take everyone. In fact, many will say ‘Lord, Lord’ but he will say He did not know them.
Since only the truly righteous can enter the New Jerusalem in Heaven, we can safely say this judgement between sheep, or virgins if you like, is happening on the Earth in some physical localle here, where the less righteous can gather together along with the righteous. And since the bad sheep and the good sheep are still mingled together until he shows up to separate and judge them, that means we have remained on the Earth the whole time. The flock didn’t go up to Heaven, then come back down, then get judged! No, He will sit as King and judge the sheep in person, on Earth, while they are still mingled, which means He returns to Earth before He judges His own.
There is also a parable of the Pearl of Great Price. Both the parable of the Virgins and the Pearl are talking about the coming of the Messianic Kingdom. In the parable of the Pearl, a man finds a treasure and sells everything he owns to buy the field in which the treasure is hidden. That doesn’t sound to me like going to Heaven; it sounds to me more like selling everything you own in your home nation in order to buy a plane ticket to Jerusalem so you can gather together with the rest of the People of God, and be there to see Messiah return and transform into a super-hero. Or something like that.
There is also the parable of Noah’s ark, and the cryptic reference in the book of Isaiah, chapter 26:
Come, my people, enter into your rooms and close your doors behind you; hide for a little while until indignation runs {its} course.
Could this be speaking of Heaven as an ‘ark’ or a ‘bridal chamber’ of safety? Perhaps, but it could equally be speaking of the city of Jerusalem and the Mountains of Israel as that sanctuary, the Land of Goshen, where God will protect His people until He returns. Or it could simply be advising God's people to shut their mouths and keep their heads down during the Tribulation to stay out of trouble.
The point I'm making here is this: sure, we could go to Heaven for a while in the middle of the Tribulation, that would be fun. But it isn’t necessary. God could very well do the entire thing without anyone ever going to Heaven, the Biblical verses would be perfectly satisfied, and the righteous would still be protected.
One last point I might bring up: the place of protection, or the wilderness. We simply don’t need Heaven as a sanctuary to escape the coming Judgment if God has already prepared a place for us to be protected down here on Earth.
This protected place is called the Wilderness in the Bible, both in the old-testament prophets and in the book of Revelation. The old-testament prophets get a lot more specific about which ‘wilderness’ we are talking about: the Mountains of Israel, which is the current West Bank. Is it possible that God will prepare a safe zone for all the Believers on earth who follow Him, a place where they can ride out the Tribulation safe and sound in the West Bank?
I know it sounds crazy, but the very stigma of danger that the West Bank has would be a wonderful ‘winnowing’ device. Only the courageous who truly hear God’s voice would come, if He were calling them to the West Bank. Only those who have no fear, who trust God. All the lukewarm scardy-cat Christians would stay home.
We can see this happening in the story of the Woman Crowned in Stars in the Book of Revelation. In Chapter 12 we see the following:
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads {were} seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. And she gave birth to a son, a male {child,} who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. — Revelation 12:1-6
The woman is very easily identified. She is clothed with the sun, which is a reference to the glory of God, for as Ezekiel among others points out (1:27 and 8:2) God wears fire as clothing. She has a crown of twelve stars, which quite obviously point to all twelve tribes of Israel; not just the tribe of Judah, or the tribe of Judah, Benjamin, Levi, and the smattering of the rest who are called 'Jews,' but the fullness of all twelve tribes, which include the Lost Ten Christian tribes. She has the moon at her feet, a clear reference to the Church of Messiah.
She is in fact all the true People of God, all together, who ever followed God and obeyed Him. No denominations, no labels, no banners, no titles.... just all of God's true people, Christian and Jew alike.
As we can see, this woman is given a place prepared by God, where she is nourished for three and a half years. This corresponds to the first half of the Tribulation. Since the old-testament prophets identify her abode as the West Bank, I am very curious to know exactly how God is going to do this. All it says is that she will “flee”.
She will have a great time in this place of safety. As Isaiah 32 says:
My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your cattle and donkeys range free. — Isaiah 32:18-20After three and a half years of living a rather nice life in the Wilderness, Satan will again return to harass the woman.
And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male {child.} But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth. So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. — Revelation 12:13-17In later verses in the next chapter, we see that Satan begins to kill “the rest of her children” left and right, leading to the wholesale slaughter of Christians and their martyrdom. But we never hear about the Woman again... all the verses say is that she is protected for yet another three and a half years. So we must assume that she remains safe for the rest of the Tribulation, untouched, while the lukewarm believers who didn't come to her place of safety are destroyed.
Only those who hear the Call of God and “flee” to the wilderness at the beginning of the Tribulation will escape this slaughter. Only those with courage, who are willing to go anywhere God calls, who are not afraid to sell everything they own, and buy the field that contains the Pearl of Great Price, will be at peace. These are also probably the people who end up in Jerusalem at the end for whatever reason. (Maybe because the army of the Antichrist sweeps through the West Bank as it moves westward, thus she flees from before their advance and ends up taking refuge in the Old City. But these are just theories.)
God’s people remaining on Earth during the Tribulation would be a powerful sign to the world that shows the separation between God’s people and the nations who do not follow Him. During the Tribulation, the protected ‘wilderness’ spot will be prosperous and untouched while heathen lands will be mashed. People will see that, and understand why. Remember the Land of Goshen during the Judgment of Egypt in Moses' day! The Egyptians looked and could see that the Land of Goshen was prosperous and happy, while they were miserable. This led them to understand that the God of Israel is real, and protects His own.
Here is another point: during the Tribulation, there will be people getting saved by the hundreds of thousands; where will they go? Will God just leave them to suffer? I doubt it. If God's people were living safely in a wilderness, they could provide a sanctuary for them as well. If there was no place for them to go to find safety, God would be punishing the righteous with the wicked, and the Bible says He will not do that.
Remaining on the Earth during the Tribulation, as a visible group, serves a far more useful purpose to the rest of the world than a bunch of believers vanishing overnight does. If we vanish, they can explain it away. (Abducted by aliens? Used the Cosmic ‘Om’ to Ascend to another plane? Killed ourselves like cultists?) If we are standing there in their midst doing miracles, they can’t ignore us. They can’t pretend we never existed. They can’t shut their eyes. In fact we may make them SO angry, that when we move from the Wilderness to the City of Jerusalem as described in the Prophets, they may attack the City just because WE are there!
After all, going up to Heaven instantaneously may not be the best God has for us. Think about this: how many people have really done their life’s work for God? How many people will be proud of this life they’ve lived when they stand before the King, giving an account of what they did with all that He gave them, their life and their gifts?
Most people haven’t accomplished anything satisfying at all. And most people won’t accomplish anything as long as the world continues to be normal, as long as they go to work every day hum-drum, and nothing ever changes. Wouldn’t it be magnificent if He would give us all a chance to do one really amazing thing for Him before we all get assigned our rewards for eternity? But remember, great heroic deeds only happen during times of great distress.
I’ve seen something very interesting about the Tribulation, something that I have never heard before. But it fits so perfectly with God’s great, powerful, and merciful character that I cannot ignore the vision I saw.
I have the feeling that we will be needed during the Tribulation. If we just up anchor and leave, we are abandoning the people of the Earth in their greatest hour of peril. God is not a God of wrath, but of Love; the only reason the Tribulation is going to happen at all is because the Tribulation is a seven-year time period during which God begins to regain authority over the Earth. As His holiness begins to interact with sin here on Earth, that holiness begins to cause the Earth to convulse and to tremble. Storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other horrible occurrances will happen not so much because God is a raging pissed-off Deity, but because the sin-tainted Earth cannot handle the thunder of His coming Presence!
Yes, the Bible says Jesus comes in anger; but He is angry with people for killing and destroying one another. He would rather see a world where nobody acted like tyrants and monsters, and all men could live in peace. That is what the Tribulation will accomplish; it is a cleansing that will consume all sin on the face of the earth, and cause there to be only peace for a thousand years after it.
God wants to save the people of the Earth, not destroy them. The Bible says God loves the sinner. But because of sin destruction at this point is inevitable and the Judgement of the earth is coming. Yet I can’t imagine God would simply turn His back on billions of people and just let them all languish and die without even trying to save a few. Has He done that before? Consider Ninevah in the book of Jonah. God saved the entire city because they repented. We know that during the Tribulation a lot of people are going to be getting saved — how? Who is going to be doing the preaching? And the Bible does say that people can't be saved without having the gospel preached to them by someone.
The Scripture promises very ardently that we will do greater miracles than Yeshua Himself ever did, and that miracles would abound on the Earth in the Last Days that astonish everyone. Where are these miracles? They aren’t happening right now. The earth is troubled, yes, but there is nothing really extraordinary happening at the moment. No big earth-shattering miracles. Some believers have learned to heal, to raise the dead even, and that’s great! But the Bible describes masses of miracles that are bigger than the miracles of the Exodus itself! Where are our clouds of smoke, and pillars of fire? Where is our splitting of the Red Sea? Where are our Elijah-fires?
The fact is that miracles of that magnitude don’t happen unless there is dire need and trouble of equal magnitude happening in the Earth. We would have to be standing smack dab right in the biggest trouble the world has ever seen to be doing the greatest miracles the world has ever seen, that is just how it works. As long as we are in a relatively peaceful, hum-drum world, we are not going to be doing the “greater miracles”. But the Tribulation WILL BE the greatest trouble the world has ever seen, the perfect time to do the greatest miracles.
In visions, I have seen these mega-miracles done during the Tribulation to save normal, common people out of the massive earthquakes, floods, and storms that will pummel the planet. The people of this world need us! How could we abandon them? That would be like everyone walking away from the victims of Hurricane Katrina! Who could walk away? Who could fly away to Heaven to party, while millions of people are dying and in desperate need? We are the only ones who know how to heal! We are the only ones who can save them from the floods! We will show them the mercy and compassion of God as we rescue them, and tell them why trouble is come upon the Earth, and get them saved!
Going to Heaven would be missing the greatest opportunity for evangelism the world has ever known! People will ignore God when they are at peace and have their TV and their good food and their comfortable slippers. But put them into the middle of catastrophe and they will listen! Can we just leave, when all the disasters of the Tribulation will open up millions, possibly billions of desperate hearts to the truth? Who will be there to preach to them?
In visions I have seen the Tribulation, and I have seen myself using massive spiritual powers greater than anything I have even heard about. There was no high, no drug to compare with it. It was so amazingly good... Using spiritual power on that level is better than the best high you have ever experienced. It was better than a rock concert. It was higher than winning the lottery or becoming President. It was a lot better than going to Heaven! (I've seen visions of Heaven too, so I can compare.) You don’t want to miss this.
Frankly, if we went up in a Rapture that missed the Tribulation, we would be cheated out of the most spectacular, amazing, awesome, ecstatic time of miracles and power the human race has ever experienced. During the days of thunder we will fly, we will walk on water, we will lift cars off of people, we will literally glow with the power, and we will save them. While the storm rages, we will become like the superheroes which are foreshadowings and visions of a greater truth. And a thousand years from now, we will look back on the Tribulation as the most worthwhile seven years we ever lived, and everyone who wasn’t there will envy us. All the greats from the past... Samson, David, Gideon, all of them... will be jealous.
So what about going to Heaven?
Here is another problem. Jesus told us to keep His Kingdom for him while He was gone. If we just leave for seven years, then return with Jesus at the end, we won’t have been keeping His Kingdom very well. We will have ditched it to leave it to the heathens for seven years, and a lot can happen in that time... like World War Three.
We are commanded to keep the Kingdom and to look after it until He returns to claim it. It is our job, as His subjects, to make sure the King has some place and something to come back to, something to rule over when He does show up. There has to be infrastructure. There has to be at least the beginnings of some kind of framework. Jesus is not going to have angels doing all the paperwork while we all lay on hammocks! We will be doing the work of the Kingdom. Since His physical return is very close now, we must all get together in one place and start organizing. A king needs warriors, messengers, diplomats, ambassadors, administrators, mayors, and citizens! A Kingdom has to be born here and now, for the King to return to!
People assume He could do it all Himself with a snap of His fingers. But that is not usually the way God works. He could have made the entire Hebrew exodus fly over the Red Sea, but instead He demanded faith. He demanded that they set foot in the water BEFORE the waters began to part. They walked to the Promised Land, carrying all their worldly belongings with them; He did not teleport them. He demands that we do our physical part on this earth before He will come in and do the rest.
But this is not the article to establish the need for a physical Kingdom, I am just saying the establishment of a Kingdom is yet another reason it would be irresponsible of us to vanish and party for seven years before He returns.
Now I’m not against visiting Heaven, going to Heaven sounds like a great idea. Personally I plan on making many visits there long before my “twinkling of an eye” experience. There are many prophecies given through very established and trustworthy prophets during the last hundred or so years that have spoken about people coming from Heaven to Earth, and people going from Earth to Heaven, during the Last Days.
In fact, it has been prophesied that the ‘Spirit of Elijah’ will come upon the Believers of God in the last days. This exciting little fact will completely pass over the head of most Christians who do not know Jewish tradition. Elijah is known to the Jews as “The Bird of Heaven”. This is because there have been Elijah-sightings for hundreds of years; it seems that the man doesn’t stay in Heaven at all. He is traveling up and down from Heaven to Earth and back so often that he barely touches foot on either shore.
Can we have the spirit of Elijah, the Bird of Heaven, the spirit of going up and coming down? Can we really commute from Earth to Heaven and back during the Last Days, and especially during the Tribulation? Can we perhaps go up and get training, advice, council, teaching, and spiritual endowments from the Jerusalem Above, then return to Earth to use those tools for the final work of establishing the Kingdom? For spreading the word of Yeshua and saving the lost? For performing miracles that save thousands of lives out of disaster during the Tribulation?
From what I read in the Bible, anything is possible; and anything a believer asks, fully expecting to receive, he shall have. God may not need to snap His fingers and teleport us all to Heaven en masse; we may be able to go up and come down right now, and we just haven’t realized it.
After all, each of us is the Temple of God, right? And the Temple of God in Jerusalem had a heavenly stair that went from Earth to Heaven. Doesn’t it follow then that if we are also the Temple, that each of us must have a Heavenly Stair that stretches from our place up there to us?
Why can’t we find and use our stairway to Heaven? It belongs to us. Surely with faith all things are possible, and during the Tribulation our spiritual power will be increased thousands of times more than during normal life. Who says during the Tribulation we can’t work to save millions and billions of people on the Earth, and at the same time visit Heaven too? We can do both!
So if you want to visit Heaven, go. You are a citizen. They can’t keep you out. Find your stair now, go up, visit, come down. Going to Heaven should not be some kind of escape, or a reward held at a far-away distance like the cookie jar on the top shelf. Going to Heaven is our right. It is our home. If we aren’t doing it, it’s because we have no idea that the Spirit of God is our passport.
I wrote all of this just to get people thinking. As far as I know the Tribulation hasn't started yet so we time. Until then, let us keep laboring here on the Earth so that when our Master returns, he finds us hard at work and not napping on our couches waiting for Him to do everything for us. It is time to arise, get up and grow up; we are no more children but men and women of God.
