1 Corinthians 15: 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
1 Thessalonians 4:14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Believers being “caught up together with them in the clouds” is referred to as “the rapture”.
There is talk today about some Christians being “left behind” when the rapture takes place. Who might be “left behind”?
Let’s answer this question from the perspective of the persecuted Church in the Third World versus the materially prosperous Church in the West.
Believers in the early Church in Acts and in the persecuted Church today in some Third World countries come to Jesus despite the suffering that they might have to endure. They come to Jesus primarily for the spiritual and eternal benefits He died on the cross and rose from the dead to provide for them.
Christians in the West, by contrast, are drawn to Jesus in part if not primarily for the earthly and material benefits promised to them by not a few preachers today.
What do you think will happen when the rapture takes place?
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.Why did Jesus HATE the teaching of the Nicolaitans?.
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