Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 1:1
When was the last time you heard a sermon on the Rapture? I don’t mean a brief mention during a message on another topic. I am referring to someone addressing this glorious topic at length with plenty of details. It’s been a while for me, too. But it is a subject that Paul addresses often in his epistles, and we should not neglect it or the hope and comfort that it gives us as the saints of God. And yet, it is a topic that is slipping away from us. And there is a pattern, even in the Scriptures, for that.
1 Thessalonians is believed to be the first of Paul’s letters to be included in the canon of Scripture. And it is brimming with references to the Rapture, including a clear description of the actual event in chapter 4. Paul clearly expected to see that great event himself, as we see from his words, ‘Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air’ 1 Thessalonians 4:17. But some 17 years later, when he wrote his final letter to be included in the canon, 2 Timothy, Paul barely mentions the Rapture, and speaks of his acceptance of his soon coming death.
The imminent Rapture was a big deal when I was a teenager. Preachers often spoke about it, and it was a common topic of discussion and speculation. Among the group of young Christians I was with, several of us wrote imaginative stories about the Rapture and events that preceded it; I wrote one, so did my sister Mary, and so did at least one of the Swans. Over the years, that fascination has almost completely disappeared. And we are the worse for it.
The New Believers Hymn Book includes a beautiful hymn called ‘Because He Lives’ (#136). When we first sang that hymn in Fredericton in the 1970s, shortly after Bill Gaither wrote it, I took issue with its final stanza. That verse speaks of the Christian entering Heaven by way of death, with no mention of the Rapture. And why would there be? Bill Gaither doesn’t believe in the Rapture. The so-called Reformed doctrine to which he subscribes is gaining strength around us and has even made inroads into some of our Assemblies. Only a solid grounding in the Scriptures will keep it out.
The truth of the Rapture is too precious and important for us to lose. Read of it, speak of it, and rejoice in it. -Jim MacIntosh
Here is the link to the video of this message: https://youtu.be/FDJkAu0mBuo