Christians Must Forsake Misconceptions
About The Rapture Of The Church
And Achieve Cultural Victory

Misunderstanding what the Bible says about the rapture of the church has done more to advance the Devil’s cause than just about anything.

Psychological warfare is just as important as bullets and bombs in defeating an enemy. War, like just about everything else, is a mind game. If you believe you’re defeated, you are.

The Devil is not called the “Old Deceiver” for nothing. He has done a masterful job of persuading the modern church that cultural defeat in history is Biblical and inevitable.

Cultural warfare is a waste of time, because Bible prophecy says that things will get worse and worse until the Anti-Christ appears – an event that triggers the rapture of the church. So why polish brass on a sinking ship. Thus, the Devil wins by default – at least temporarily.

It all hinges on one passage in the New Testament book of I Thessalonians: For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout…and the dead in Christ shall rise first. 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 so shall we always be with the Lord. The word rapture does not appear in the Bible, but that’s what it has always been called.

The fact of the rapture is not in dispute; it is the timing of the rapture that makes all the difference in the world. Modern evangelicalism teaches that the rapture of the church will occur at any moment when Jesus comes to rescue His beleaguered bride from an irredeemable world that can only get worse and worse.

Thus, the Kingdom of God is pushed into a future 1000 year period (millennium) that occurs after the rapture of the church. Never mind, that this contradicts the words of Jesus and John the Baptist that “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mt. 3:2; 10;7). Never mind that Jesus said the subjection of the Devils was evidence that the Kingdom of God had come.

Never mind that Jesus asked the Father that His kingdom would come, as evidenced by His will being done “on earth as it is in heaven.” Never mind that the stone that struck Daniel’s image became a great mountain (kingdom) and filled the whole earth (Dan. 2:35).

Yes, Jesus struck the definitive blow against Satan through His death and resurrection and the kingdom of God will grow gradually like a mustard seed until it becomes a great tree. (Mt. 13:32). Jesus has established His church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. The church will again assume the offensive against the Kingdom of Darkness and she will prevail, on the word of Christ Himself.

What about all those New Testament passages that seem to indicate that the second coming and the rapture of the church is immanent? For example, “….behold the judge is standing right at the door” (James 5:9). He was when the book of James was written, and he came in devastating judgment to Israel with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

This was the Great Tribulation, which came upon the generation to which Jesus spoke (Mt. 24: 21,34). It occurred in the middle of recorded history, because Jesus said that nothing like it had ever been seen before and nothing like it would ever be seen after.

This is obviously a summary sketch, but from it we learn that the rapture of the church does not occur until after a long period of kingdom growth and victory. All of the nations will stream to the mountain of the house of the Lord to learn his law (Is. 2: 1-3) and the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.”

Therefore, let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”

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