Ready. Set. Go! Series

One day a pastor was flying home from a speaking engagement. During the flight he observed one of the pilots flirting and chatting it up with one of the women flight attendants. He also noticed that the pilot was wearing a wedding ring and the flight attendant was not. As he watched the couple flirt he had thought. “What if this were the moment that God picked to remove the faithful from the earth, leaving behind only their clothes and a lot of bewildered unbelievers?”

That thought stuck with him so he looked up a writer friend of his when he got home and they came up with a fictional account of what could happen if the LORD returned to earth and suddenly took all Christians to Heaven. The book, of course, is Left Behind … written by Dr. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Left Behind opens with a distraught flight attendant interrupting an airline pilot in mid-flight to report that dozens of their passengers have suddenly disappeared. Clothes and shoes were all that remained where these passengers once sat.

What Dr. LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins depicted in Left Behind is a fictional account or a conjecture of what they thought the “Rapture” might look like when it happens. Let’s hear what the Apostle Paul has to say about the Rapture in his letter to the Christian Community in Thessalonica:

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from Heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1st Thessalonians 4:13-18).

When Paul and Silas were released from prison in Philippi, they traveled to Thessalonica and stayed there for three Sabbaths. As always, Paul went to the synagogue and began preaching about Jesus Christ, explaining how Christ was the Passover Lamb. Many of the Jews were converted to Christianity, which upset some others, who proceeded to drive Paul and Silas out of the synagogue and ultimately out of the city (Acts 17).

While Paul was preaching in Corinth, a group of believers from Thessalonica approached him and told him that the Christian community in Thessalonica was in uproar and state of confusion over a couple of issues. One had to do with the return of Christ and the other had to do with those who were or would be deceased when Christ came back. Their understanding was that Jesus would come back and claim the living but those who had died … like spouses or parents or children … would be left behind. What if everyone in Thessalonica who had given their lives to Christ when Paul and Silas were there died before Christ came back? And so, Paul wrote this letter to reassure them and give them hope … something that we can use with all the craziness that’s going today, amen?

Now, Paul never did use the word “rapture.” What he did use was the word “harpazo” … which Paul chose because it has several significant meanings. “Harpazo” means “to be caught up” … to “carry off by force.” No surprise but Satan and his demonic buddies are going to do everything they can to thwart God’s plans, amen? They can try to stop Christ from claiming His own, but Christ and His angelic forces will overpower them, obviously, and take them from Satan and his demons’ hands by force.

“Harpazo” also means “to claim for oneself eagerly.” The reason that Jesus will forcibly take us from Satan’s hand is that we are His children, His people, purchased with His life and redeemed by His precious blood. Just as we would fight anyone and anything that tried to take away our children or keep us from them, so Christ eagerly fights to claim us.

Another meaning for the word “harpazo” is “to snatch away speedily.” There will be no long or protracted struggle when Jesus comes to claim His own. He will eagerly snatch them up to Heaven to be with Him and to share in His glory.