by Tim Buck | Mar 2, 2023 | Church, Rapture
Does Your Church
Teach The Rapture?3/2/23 By Tim Buck
Fotet.org
Somewhere in the past, a tragic divorce occurred; theologians and pastors decided we must separate the return of Jesus for His church from the proclamation of the gospel. The results of this untimely divorce have led to a dearth of understanding among believers regarding Jesus’ appearing and the joyful anticipation that comes with such awareness.
Confused believers in most churches hear that they will surely die rather than meet Jesus in the air, which directly contradicts the New Testament in passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:51 and 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The Apostle Paul believed there would be many saints alive at the time of the Rapture, including himself, but preachers today are hesitant to even mention the imminent return of the Lord.
The divorce of the Rapture from the gospel has resulted in a near blackout of teaching about our “blessed hope” in churches today. This negatively impacts new believers as well as seasoned saints as it leaves them ill-prepared to live in a fear-ridden society because such teaching provides no prophetic context into which they can place the violence, lawlessness and deterioration of the culture.
The new converts in Thessalonica were so fixated on their soon departure from the earth that when some in their midst died, they grieved unnecessarily thinking they would miss out on the Rapture (1 Thess. 4:13-19). In response, Paul emphasized the primary place of the “dead in Christ” during the rapture telling his converts that Jesus would resurrect them first at His appearing (4:16).
Another sorrowful result of this divorce is that it takes the eyes of believers away from their ultimate hope at a time when they need such a focus. Instead, their eyes remain focused on earthly aspirations.
Few pastors talk about what happens at the moment Jesus returns for His church (1 Cor. 15:51-55; Phil. 3:20-21; 1 Thess. 4:16-17). Even those that believe these things rarely discuss the wealth of biblical content on the Rapture, or on the believers’ instant transformation to receive our glorified body, for fear that talking about the Rapture might hurt attendance.
When discussion on the Rapture ended some thirty years ago in the church and elsewhere, so did the whole body of the doctrine of eschatology. Roughly thirty percent of the Bible is predictive prophecy when written and you can’t become all that God wants you to be by cutting out thirty percent.
When Rapture teaching stopped so did any discussion of the Millennium, Israel’s key end-time role, the world trending toward the Tribulation, the building of the third temple in Jerusalem, the prominence of end-time deception, the push for peace by dividing Israel and so much more!
The sad result of decades of shelving the Rapture is that it’s become almost impossible for the average believer to understand the doctrinal reasons for the times we live in from a biblical and prophetic perspective! And right at a time when people need answers more than ever because they have questions as they observe the turmoil of our times.
So, does YOUR church teach the Rapture from the pulpit? If not, my suggestion is to find one that does! You’ll be glad you did!
by Tim Buck | Feb 24, 2023 | Rapture, Satan, Tim's Articles
UFO’s:
Satan’s Prepping
For Rapture Deception2/24/23 By Tim Buck
Fotet.org
Like in the days of Noah before the flood, we are living in days of great deception. The pre-flood world experienced an invasion of demonic visitors to earth who were literally hell-bent on diluting the messianic bloodline.
Jude 6 tells us, “the angels did not keep their proper domain, but left their abode.” The fallen angels were able to indwell men who promiscuously cohabited with women and the devastating result was the permanent corruption of mankind’s DNA. Only Noah and his family came through unscathed.
Jesus warned, “as in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man” (Math. 24:37). As we draw closer to the return of the Lord, the world is experiencing an uptick in demonic activity on all levels. Including UFO sightings.
It’s my belief that demons can manifest themselves as aliens and spacecraft with ease and that is what we’re seeing today. Demonic appearances disguised as UFOs is Satan’s tactic to deceive, frighten and mislead people.
In the last-day battle between good and evil it seems the devil is using extraordinary phenomena to prepare the world to react after the rapture. If I’m right about this assessment than we must also conclude that the spirit world knows the rapture is getting close and the enemy is busy laying the groundwork to deceive those who will remain so that they won’t be open to receive Jesus and be saved.
This also means that the forces of “spiritual wickedness in high places”(Eph. 6:12) have already set us apart to be ridiculed after we go up. Paul is referring to believers taken up in the rapture when he warned of the coming “strong delusion” after the rapture (2 Thess. 2:9-12).
‘Sightings all over the world’: Another former federal official discusses UFOs, upcoming congressional report.
What a great deception to explain away the Rapture… by alien abduction! Have you noticed how the number of sightings are increasing and being publicized?
The enemy is gradually adding in lie upon lie so the world numbs enough to swallow whatever the narrative is on the nightly news!
It’s all lining up. The government is set to reveal documents in June. We could be “outta here” soon so the public will be primed for accepting aliens took us. I hope so!
I’m ready to be ‘snatched away’ in the rapture to see my Lord Jesus. Praying that others will repent and believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior so they can be raptured away from planet earth as well.
Pray for eyes to be opened and for us to speak His truth.
Pray For America!!!
As America Ramps Up Its Proxy War With Russia Through Ukraine, Vladimir Putin Suspends Nuclear Treaty And Threatens Start of World War 3.
The United States And Russia Are Now At War. Unless The Lord Intervenes, This Has The Potential To End Very Badly!
by Tim Buck | Feb 9, 2023 | Church, Rapture, Tim's Articles
The Rapture:
An Escape But Not Escapism2/9/23 By Tim Buck
Fotet.org
It’s become popular these days of accusing the teaching in a pretribulation rapture of being a doctrine of escapism! Worse yet some even infer it’s a teaching of escapism that demotivates believers away from good works.
I read about it all the time. Those who knock belief in the Rapture consider it a false doctrine satisfying the Christian’s longing to escape the world and all its problems. “Beam me up, Jesus! It’s a mess here, and I want out.”
Jürgen Moltmann, the renowned Reformed theologian, once critiqued the Left Behind series, and wrote, “The pious dream of a rapture contains a resignation that abandons this earth to destruction …. A God who only waits to rapture Christian crews … cannot be a God whom one can trust.”
I have to disagree based on the fact that Paul called the rapture our “blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
I have always thought the notion of escapism is an odd indictment against the rapture because every view of the rapture (pre, mid, pre-wrath or post-trib) has an escape element.
We pre-tribulationalists believe the promise of the rapture is our blessed hope that keeps us from the wrath of God poured out in the seven-year tribulation (Titus 2:13; Rev. 3:10). But aren’t all believers looking forward to an even greater escape than this?
Every believer anticipates that God will destroy the current earth and establish a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1). That’s the ultimate great escape that delivers us from the sinful nature, the demonic principalities, the fallen earth and the corrupt world. That is wonderful news and an escape about which we all agree!
ESCAPE FROM GOOD WORKS?
Does this final escape somehow hinder the believer from good works? Of course not. Rather, the imminent return of Jesus gives him a sense of urgency. Maybe he has several unbelieving friends with whom he wants to share the gospel so they can escape the horrors of hell with him. So it is with the Rapture. The Rapture is an escape from future hardship (praise God) but not from current responsibility. The rapture puts a degree of responsibility on our shoulders since we want as many people as possible to be raptured with us.
The escapism accusation misrepresents how pre-trib believers perceive the rapture. We’re not looking to escape the tribulation so much as we’re look to be with the Lord. That’s the biblical pre-trib view of the first century church who were told at least 8 times to be waiting for the Lord and looking for His return (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20; 1 Thess. 1:9-10; 2 Thess. 3:5; Hebrews 9:28; 2 Peter 3:12; Rev. 22:20).
If we were headed through the tribulation we should have been warned to be watching for Antichrist or the Beast or the False Prophet when God pours out His judgment on mankind (1 Thess. 5:2, 3). But instead, Paul told the beleaguered to be looking for Jesus our “blessed hope” who “delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9).
HOW THE THESSALONIANS UNDERSTOOD THE RAPTURE
For starters, the word rapture (rapturo) is biblical. It is the Latin translation of the Greek word harpazo found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which means “to be caught up.”
Paul was writing believers in Thessalonica to encourage their faith, that is, that they haven’t missed the completion of their salvation, the resurrection of their bodies.
I’m sure there was confusion at this time in the early church. Paul was addressing this issue 20 years after the death of Jesus. Christ hadn’t returned and Christians were dying. I’m sure the Thessalonians were wondering, “Did we miss something? How will God raise the bodies of those who were buried, or worse, burned or drowned?” The resurrection of the dead raised more questions than they had answers. It’s a question many believers have today, 2,000 years later.
Paul gently assured his brothers and sisters that Christ is still coming for both those who have passed and those who are alive! And when He comes, the dead will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16), then the living will be “caught up” (raptured) to meet the Lord in the air!
HOW WE UNDERSTAND THE RAPTURE
For those who believe in the Rapture of the church, our calling isn’t to escape, but to wait. We’re to wait for His coming as all His creation has been eagerly longing (Romans 8:19).
Is it wrong to long for His coming? Should we feel guilty for expressing our desire to hear the “trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16)? I certainly don’t think so.
When Paul wrote Titus about our “blessed hope,” he said we’re “waiting” for His glorious appearance. The “waiting” Paul describes is similar to the “waiting” children express on Christmas morning when they violently shake their parents from sleep long before dawn, only to find out from their parents this wasn’t the appropriate time to open the gifts that awaited them under the tree.
“No,” they might say, “it’s only 5:30 a.m.! Go back to bed.”
At 6:00 a.m. they return, “Can we go downstairs now?”
“No, back to bed you go!”
Their commitment to rip open their Christmas gifts will likely continue until the parents recognize there’s no stopping them. So, at 6:45 a.m. down the steps they go! The children weren’t looking to escape; quite the opposite, they were anxious to receive what they had waited weeks to experience.
Christians who long for the Rapture aren’t pious Houdini’s frantically searching for their escape hatch. Instead, we’re Christians confidently waiting with eager expectation for the completion of our redemption, just as Paul, the apostles, and the rest of faithful believers have for centuries.
God’s promise to resurrect believers who have gone before us and transition those who are still alive is the greatest gift we have coming, so of course, we’re excited. We should be—it’s in our spiritual DNA. So let us wait eagerly together, let us not waste what time we have, and let us pray as the apostle John did at the end of Revelation: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (22:20).
by Tim Buck | Nov 3, 2022 | Rapture, Tim's Articles
The Rapture will protect God’s saints from the Tribulation—the seven years of judgment that will be poured out on earth between the Rapture and the Second Coming.
There are some who argue the Tribulation period will begin before the Rapture. However, the Bible says that “there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), which suggests the Church will not experience God’s judgment during the Tribulation.
There are others who teach the church will go through part or all of the Tribulation. But it’s clear that God’s wrath begins at the start of the Tribulation when Jesus opens the seals and sends forth the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
In Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians, he teaches on the topic of the Rapture in every chapter and gives instruction for the church…
to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 1:9
Seven years after the Rapture, Jesus will return to earth to rescue Israel at His Second Coming. His return will be entirely different from His first coming in Bethlehem as a humble Child.
When Christ returns, He will appear as the exalted King of the universe, surrounded by His saints and angels. The powers of evil will be quickly defeated, and Christ will establish His glorious millennial kingdom on earth.
by Tim Buck | Oct 27, 2022 | Rapture, Tim's Articles
Don’t Fear Death
or the RaptureIllustrated by Elijah & Enoch
10/27/22 By Tim Buck
Fotet.org
O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:55-56
Elijah – 2 Kings 2:9-12
(9) And so it was, when they had crossed over, that Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.”
(10) So he said, “You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.”
(11) Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
(12) And Elisha saw it, and he cried out, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” So he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces.
Enoch – Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5; Jude 1:14-15
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
The Rapture was a mystery, unknown to the Old Testament saints and prophets. God illustrated it in the two prophets of Enoch and Elijah, to assure us of its certainty.
Enoch served as a prophet for over three centuries preaching future “unwelcome judgment” according to Jude 1:14-15. He was out on his daily routine of walking with God one day and without warning he was caught up and disappeared from off the earth.
The Hebrew word “walked with God” in Genesis 5:24 is “hithaleich.” It’s the same word used of God walking in the garden of Eden. It emphasizes “fellowship and communion.” The phrase “walked with God” and “pleased God” means the same thing. That was the point of the Hebrews writer – without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).
Methuselah was the oldest man to have ever lived. He died at the age of 969! However, you could say that his father outlived him. How? Because his father, Enoch, never died!
Elijah’s rapture is the most dramatic rapture in scripture with a chariot of fire and horses of fire sent to pick him up. I would have loved to have seen it! From these thrilling details, his rapture gives us a taste of how much God enjoys rapturing his children. What a ride! It’s exciting, rare and something the church should be looking forward to as much as Elijah was!
Just as we’re told in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Enoch and Elijah did not taste death but were translated and snatched up into the air. God includes the accounts of these two raptures to give us a baseline as to how the rapture is possible and to show us how glorious of an event it will be.
These are two of the greatest Old Testament saints in the Bible who were raptured. Can there be any greater experience than having this happen?
Their rapture illustrates how wonderful the status of the church is in the eyes of God. We stand as a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle as the bride of Christ and the only GROUP ever chosen by God to collectively be raptured together enabling us to enjoy the trip to heaven together, with Jesus as our tour guide!
There’s nothing to fear about death or the rapture for God’s children. God has it all planned and ready for you on the other side. Neither the believer’s death or the rapture will be a surprise to God!
Let me offer a surprising suggestion as to why we should not fear death. Instead of fearing death, we should anticipate the incredible trip.
At death or at the rapture, we begin a trip like we’ve never experienced before. We become other-worldly travelers through the universe to heaven!
When you die, you’re not going to be alone in some dark realm. Death isn’t like you’re on your own and you have to search for a map to get to heaven.
God will dispatch His angels at just the right time, and they’ll meet us at the moment of death and carry us to the heights of His glory.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
Psalms 91:11
Imagine being on your trip to heaven and discussing it with angels who are sent to keep you informed as you travel together to heaven. The Apostle John spoke often with angels and asked them questions during his tour of heaven recorded in Revelation. Upon arrival at heaven, our angel-guides will escort us into God’s Throne Room, to meet Jesus.
Angels are commissioned by God to care for His children and God’s archangel will accompany Jesus to meet us in the air at the rapture (1 Thess. 4:16).Though we don’t often see them, our lives are surrounded by angels; and they have more to do with our daily progress and protection than we realize.
“Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”
Hebrews 1:14
What do we do with all this? There are some principles from Enoch and Elijah to consider. They both walked in faith and pleased God. Something we should be doing in the last days. We also know they warned that future judgment was coming to the world. It’s our responsibility to warn of the coming Tribulation period.Lastly, they were removed so that they wouldn’t see death – an allusion to our rapture. The rapture will occur unannounced and is imminent. Our spiritual responsibility today is to be watching, warning and praying to be ready.
Maranatha,
Even So Come Lord Jesus!
by Tim Buck | Oct 25, 2022 | Rapture, Tim's Articles
Enoch, Beautiful Picture
of the Rapture10/25/22 By Tim Buck
Fotet.org
Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Genesis 5:22-24
Enoch is a beautiful picture of believers (Jew & Gentile) who will be taken up directly to heaven when our LORD returns for His Bride, the church.
Just as Enoch was translated to heaven without seeing death, so also will those of God’s people be translated, who are alive at the rapture.
Please know that the Bible assures us that the Lord will come for us before the start of the seven-year Tribulation, which begins the moment Antichrist makes a covenant with Israel to divide the land. This has not yet happened!
Join us in 2 weeks to learn more about the Rapture!
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17
Rumble
