Rapture Ready Part Ii Series

Rapture Ready Part II

I Thessalonians 4:16-17

I Thessalonians 4:16-17

16 - For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 - Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

This evening I would like to give us 3 more signs that the Rapture is near.

Last time we covered 3 and since we are doing a series I will give you a little recap of what we talked about.

1. Increase of knowledge and travel.

Daniel 12:4 "But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase."

2. The birth of nuclear warfare.

Zechariah 14:12 -

And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.

3. Technology for the mark of the beast.

Revelation 13:16-17 "And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name."

Tonight I would like to look at 3 more signs that show us that the rapture is near.

Now to start off I would like us to know that there is a difference between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus.

Let me give you a few differences and then I will talk about the 3 signs that show us that the rapture is near.

The Rapture - is when Jesus returns to remove the Church all believers in Jesus Christ from the earth. I Thessalonians 4:13-18 I Corinthians 15:50-54

Believers who have died their bodies will be resurrected and those still living meet the Lord in the air..

This will all happen in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.

The Second Coming - Jesus returns to defeat the Anti-Christ and destroy Evil and Establish His Millennial Kingdom - Revelations 19:11-16

Rapture

- Meet the Lord in the air

- Before the trib I Thessalonians 5:9

- removal of believer’s act of deliverance

- secret and instant

- rapture can take place at any moment

Second Coming

- Return with Him

- After the great destruction Revelations Chapter 6-19

- remove unbelievers as an act of Judgement

- visible to all

- certain events must take place before the Second Coming

Ok lets take a look at a few more signs that show us that the Rapture is near.

Now as we mention these signs keep in mind that we recently got the technology that some of these signs needed in order to come to pass.

1. Wars and rumors of war - Mark 13:7

And when ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, be ye not troubled: for [such things] must needs be; but the end [shall] not [be] yet.

We can say that this is not a sign because all these things have been happening for centuries, but when you look at the stats you can see that the frequency and intensity is greatly increasing.

For instance, over the past century there has been well over 200 wars and conflicts that has brought about the death of well over 150 million people.

And there hasn't been one single day where a war or conflict hasn't been fought.

The last 100 years have seen more wars than any time since creation.

2. The final generation will be the one that witnesses the blossoming of the "fig tree."(Matthew 24:32)

Fulfillment: Israel returned as a nation in 1948 fulfilling God's promise to Abraham. Israel is always referred to as the "fig tree" and Christ taught that Israel’s forefathers were the first fruits in his fig tree.

The Bible says in Luke 21:29-32 the generation alive at the time will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened and that is including the return of Christ with His saints.

Now what is the length of a generation - well depending on the scripture reference, but a Biblical generation can be anywhere from 40-70 years. We are more than 60 years into Israel being returned as a nation.