RAPTURE: WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT
Acts 2:20
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. Two sisters inherited the family farm. They desperately needed a bull to breed with their heifers and they only had $600.
2. The brunette told her sister, "I’m going to go look at a bull-calf in Jewett. If I decide to buy it, I'll contact you to bring the truck & trailer and haul it home."
3. She looked at the bull and decided to buy it, but the owner wouldn’t take less than $599, or no deal. She bought it and (being before cell phones) she went back to town to send a telegram.
4. She had one dollar and the telegram cost $1 per word. The telegraph operator was curious how she would notify her sister and tell her to bring the truck and trailer to come retrieve the bull – all in one word!
5. After a few minutes of thinking, she nodded and said, "I want you to send her the word ‘comfortable.’"
6. The operator shook his head. "How’s she going to know to do all that with just the word "comfortable?"
7. The brunette explained, "My sister's blonde. It's a big word. She'll read it very slowly.....” (come-for-da-bull)
B. WHAT IS THE RAPTURE?
1. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 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” 1 Thess. 4:16-17
2. Definition of “Rapture”: “Christ’s sudden, brief, and unannounced coming in the air to catch away His Church before the ‘Day’ of God’s wrath begins. Jesus returns to heaven with His saints for the Believer’s Judgment and Marriage Supper of the Lamb.”
3. The Greek word “harpadzo,” used in 1 Th. 4:17 and trans. as “caught up” was trans. in the Latin Vulgate as “raptus,” from whence we get our English word rapture.
B. JESUS SAID HE WAS COMING BACK
1. Early in His Ministry (Luke 4:18), Jesus told Jewish leaders that He had come to heal the sick. They didn’t believe He could, but He healed the people anyway.
2. Jesus told them He could drive out demons. They didn’t believe He could, but He did it anyway.
3. Jesus told them He would rise from the Dead. They didn’t believe He would.
a. His body was wrapped in grave clothes;
b. A heavy stone was rolled against the tomb’s mouth;
c. Soldiers were posted outside the tomb to guard it,
d. The door was sealed so it couldn’t be opened….
4. BUT NO HUMAN OR SUPERNATURAL FORCE COULD STOP THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS FROM THE DEAD! HE’S ALIVE!
5. This same Jesus told us, “I am coming back.” There are 52 prophecies of Jesus’ 2nd Coming, 535 verses! Many Christians have quit looking for His appearing, but HE’S COMING BACK!
6. The title of this message is: “Rapture: When You Least Expect It.”
7 SIGNS OF CHRIST’S SOON RETURN
The following signs have never occurred until our day.
I. ISRAEL REBORN AS A NATION
1. Never before in history has a nation been scattered by war over 1,000’s of miles and live for 2,000 years without a country, and ever formed again. But God said He would do it (not once, but twice) with Israel.
“In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of His people” Isa. 11:11. God made it happen in 1948, after 2,000 years!
2. In 1967, in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise, Jerusalem was retaken and at last became a Jewish city again. Jesus said, "Jerusalem shall be trodden down... until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24).
3. Jesus said when Israel buds forth as a nation and regains possession of the holy city, Jerusalem, it signals the end time and the return of Christ.
II. ABILITY TO EXTERMINATE THE HUMAN RACE
1. In Matthew 24:22, Jesus said that “if that time of
troubles were not cut short, no living thing could survive; but for the sake of God’s chosen it will be cut short” (Revised English Bible).
2. For the last 60 years, due to the many thousands of nuclear bombs possessed by the U.S and Russia, the human race has lived with the threat of “mutually assured destruction.” The whole world could be blown up many times over.
3. Since then, many other countries have joined the nuclear club: Great Britain, China, France, Israel, N. Korea, India, Pakistan, and sometime soon, Iran.
4. The good news is that Christian believers have an assurance, that Jesus Christ will intervene to save mankind from annihilation. This prophecy could not be fulfilled until man had the potential for self-extinction through weapons of mass destruction.
III. GOG & MAGOG FORCES GATHER
A. SPIRIT OF GENOCIDE AGAINST THE JEWS
From earliest times, there has been a genocide (attempts to annihilate) against the Jews.
1. EGYPT. Pharaoh declared, “Kill the firstborn of Israel; throw all the baby boys into the River.”
2. HAMAN of Persia. “Haman looked for a way to destroy all…the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes” Es. 3:6.
3. HEROD THE GREAT. “Herod…gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity” Mt. 2:16.
4. HITLER/STALIN. 6 Million Jews killed by Hitler, millions by Stalin.
B. MODERN DESIRE TO DESTROY THE JEWS
1. “DESTROY ISRAEL” = 3,890,000 GOOGLE HITS in Jan. 09. On Feb., 2012, there were 24,400,000 hits! 8X as many! Yesterday, 48,700,000 hits!
2. All the Terror organizations have one chief goal: the annihilation of Israel.
3. Iran is the leading radical Muslim nation actively trying to acquire nuclear tech to achieve this. Listen to what the leaders of Iran say:
a. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said the “barbaric” Jewish state “has no cure but to be annihilated;” they “must be wiped off the map.”
b. Sheikh Hassan al-Banna declared: "the Arab peoples…will drive the Jews…into the sea.”
c. Iran had a “World Without Zionism Conference!”
4. Ezek. 38:2-6 tells us that a Muslim Coalition Armed and Led By Russia Will Attack The Holy Land. Russia was prophesied 1,000’s of years ago to be allied with the people groups now represented by the N. African & Middle East Muslim nations. It’s happening today just as foretold!
5. RUSSIA’S ALLIES(GOG & MAGOG; EZEK. 38-39)
Persia – Iraq, Iran, Afghans
Cush – Egypt, Sudan
Put – Lybia
Gomer – Countries around the Black Sea
Togarmah – Syria, Turkey
C. DANGEROUS POLITICAL ASSAULT
1. Israel “Guilty of Apartheid.”
2. Netanyahu’s election pledge, “I will never allow a Palestinian State.”
3. This caused the French to abandon Israel and even the U.S. & EU are signaling a lack of support.
4. The United Nations raised the Palestinian Flag; partial statehood. 119 countries were in favor and only 8 against!
5. UN is specially convening tomorrow (Sept 28, 2015) to focus on forcing Israel to give the Palestinians land for a homeland.
6. A Nuclear “Holocaust” in the Middle East may be Imminent.
IV. THE ANCIENT ROMAN EMPIRE WILL RE-EMERGE AS A POLITICAL FORCE Rev 17:9-10
RISE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.
1. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream (Daniel 2:41-43) where he saw a huge statue, the parts of which represented the major powers from his time till the coming of Christ. The forth Kingdom was the Roman Empire. It fell in 476 A.D. It didn’t exist for 1500 years.
2. But this vision foretells that the old Roman Empire would reform again, in the Last Days. It will be the confederacy that the Antichrist takes over (Dan. 7:23-24, Rev. 17:12-13).
3. The EU, which came together in 1998 is the fulfillment of this prophecy. I believe its 28 countries will eventually be realigned into 10 super-states, which will be the 10 “horns” the Antichrist takes over.
V. THE WORLD WILL EMBRACE A SINGLE WORLD RELIGION & GOV’T
1. The idea of a single worldwide government has only evolved in the last 100 years. The United Nations is the beginning of this entity.
2. The Bible tells us that a charismatic and powerful leader is going to rise who will have all the answers to the world’s problems. A world weary of turmoil and confusion will give him the reins of Europe – and then control over all the nations.
3. Rev. 13:8,4 says, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the Beast….and asked, ‘Who is like the Beast? Who can make war against him?’” Rev. 13:8,4.
4. Allegiance to him will be of a religious nature, like it was with Caesar, Hitler, and many others -- who were venerated by their followers.
5. Miracles worked by his protégé will convince all the worldly religions that this leader is the Messiah, the alMahdi, the reincarnation of Krishna, of Buddha, etc.
6. As a result, all faiths will unite to worship and obey him. There are already movements to unite all faiths into one super-entity, especially by the UN.
VI. SATELLITE TELEVISION & COMPUTERS
1. Only with the technological advances of the last few years has it become possible for the events in Revelation 11 to occur—for people around the world to see the fate of God’s final two witnesses.
2. Rev. 11: 3, 7-10 tells how people all over the world will be able to view their dead bodies during the 3 ½ days that they lie on display in Jerusalem. This wasn’t possible before satellite television, portable communications devices and the Internet.
TECHNOLOGY FOR 666 FEASIBLE
3. The advent of computerized banking, the internet,
product codes & scanners, and the digital network make it possible to track and regulate the financial purchases of each person.
4. Rev. 13:16-17 says that the Antichrist will make it impossible to purchase anything, unless you take a mark of allegiance to him, that involves the number 666.
5. God warns us that anyone who takes this mark forfeits eternal life.
VII. THE GOSPEL PROCLAIMED AROUND THE WORLD
1. Matt. 24:14. The Bible has been translated into
nearly 2,000 languages, and missionaries have gone to every country of the world. If a nation is unevangelized today, it’s not because the missionaries didn’t go, as much as because the leaders of the nations chose to expel the missionaries.
2. The vast majority of unreached people groups -- the Muslim population -- live in geographic areas that had
been reached by the early church before Mohammed arrived in the sixth century.
3. Europe was the stronghold of Christianity for centuries but now 90% of its inhabitants are not Christians. Yet we would not say they had not had an adequate witness of Christ, but rather that their children ultimately rejected that witness.
4. Now the really unreached areas – China, Siberia, southern Africa, North and South America, the Islands of the Pacific, and Australia, etc., HAVE received an adequate witness of Christ! Jesus could come at any moment!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION:
1. It was 7:55 A.M. on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, that 175 of 360 Japanese planes came flying into Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
2. There were 50 bombers in the first wave. They dropped bombs and strafed ships and airports. They torpedoed and sank the West Virginia, California, Arizona, and the Oklahoma battleships.
3. Many other ships were badly damaged. 188 planes were destroyed and 3,400 people were killed in the attack.
4. All this happened while back in Washington, D.C. negotiators sat across the table talking about “peace and safety.”
5. Why did the Japanese choose an early Sunday morning attack in December? Because they knew:
a. the sailors would be in a lax holiday season mood;
b. would most all go out on Saturday night till late;
c. would have hangovers o be inattentive;
d. most likely would not be expecting an attack!
6. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready….39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Lk. 12:38-40.
B. THE CALL
1. Only those who’ve sincerely repented of their sins and turned to Christ for salvation will go up in the Rapture.
2. Jesus said, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect Him!”
3. Can you say without a shadow of a doubt, that if the Rapture of the Church were to happen today, that you would go?
4. Prayer of repentance and for salvation.
5. The Lord warned us that in the Last Days, the love of most would grow cold. Have you lost your first love?
6. Let’s come down to the altars and spend some time renewing our walk with God.
