The Holy One calls to me this morning with an interesting beginning to our conversation today. In the non-verbal ways that He guides me into all truth, today He reminds me:
“I am the God of Precedents. To understand what lies ahead, you must look to the past.”
My thoughts are laid bare before my indwelling Counselor, so He takes up my thoughts and speaks to my questions. Today I am thinking about the promise of the “Rapture” that will wrap up this chapter of His eternal plan for humanity and delightfully so, for those of us who believe.
One thing I have noticed over the years as I study the Word of God: He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. His Word speaks to all generations and over all of time. What God did at the beginning of the history of man’s days upon the earth, He will repeat during the end of man’s days upon the earth. (Matt 24:40) His Word is a “living” communication between the Creator and the created, in that it speaks wisdom and has application to every person born of woman regardless of the time in which we were born.
This morning He takes me back to His word to confirm my thoughts about the coming “rapture”.
I usually look to Elijah as our hope in the promise of a rapture, but today the Lord shows me another man whose circumstances might actually be more similar to our own.
He takes me back to Genesis to remind me about a man named Enoch, who lived and as scripture tells us in Gen 5:22-24, “After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 hundred years and had sons and daughters. So, all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And Enoch walked with God and He was “not” for God took him”.
To further explain what happened to Enoch, as a man who “walked” with God even before the flood of His judgment, the Lord takes me to Hebrew 11:3-6,
“By faith Enoch was taken away so he did not see death and was not found because God had taken him; for before he was taken, he had this testimony: that he PLEASED God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”.
This is an Old Testament precedent for the “rapture", (a sudden, rapid departure/evacuation) that we current believers are looking forward to.
The Lord honored the man who “walked” with him in the days of such depravity and called him out before the flood of judgment came. There is much symbolism for us to glean from this account of the way God works with His people and especially with those who walk closely with Him.
As I look to this account for wisdom, I understand that we must have and demonstrate faith, not only in the fact that He exists, (even Satan knows He exits!) but also faith in the goodness of His character that He will reward those who diligently seek Him.
When we confess and trust Jesus is the One God sent to save us from our sin, believe that He paid the penalty for human rebellion through His death on the Cross, and made the way for those who trust Him to have eternal life after temporal death, we will experience God's goodness and blessings.
While not everyone will experience transition by rapture, the point remains that some of us will. Many have died trusting in the Lord Jesus and they are at peace awaiting the completion of God’s eternal plan and reunion with all who have trusted in the good will and reward He has promised.
There is a day on the earth calendar when the Lord Himself will fulfill the promise He made before leaving planet earth:
John 14:1-3:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am”. IE. Jesus will come back to "pick us up" and take us to be with Him forever.
Then Paul writes this confirmation in his letter to the Thessalonians in 1 Thess. 4:16-18:
"1 Th. 4:16 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.
1 Th. 4:17 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.
1 Th. 4:18 Therefore comfort one another with these words."
In these days when darkness seems to cover the land and evil seems to prevail, our loyalty to the Lord gets tested and our faith in His good character gets challenged in a myriad of ways.
These words are a powerful reminder to stand firm in faith, stay the course, look for that day and live as if it could happen at any moment because it can.
If we go with any evil-inspired misunderstanding of our God, and we doubt His goodness, faith gives way to fear or rejection and we lose our walking unity and intimacy with Holiness.
I am thankful for these vital words and the encouragement that comes from knowing that the life and rapture of Enoch represents a Precedent in God’s will and His ways. We have been told of what pleases our Lord and what “faith” He is looking for that enables us to be excited for that great event called the Rapture of the Body of Christ.
Walking with the Lord has been made far easier for us due to the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit. But there still remains a choice that we all have to make and that is to “walk” with Him each day in the ways where our faith/trust in what He has planned, pleases Him.
The Holy Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
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