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Caught Up Together in the Clouds
by Dr. David Jeremiah
According to my online dictionary, the word rapture means “an expression or manifestation of ecstasy or passion” and “being carried away by overwhelming emotion.”1 But the Bible tells us it means that millions of people will disappear from the face of the earth in less than a millisecond. And that the purpose of that evacuation is to avoid horrific devastation. This evacuation will remove God’s people from the disastrous effects of coming earthquakes, fire, and global chaos.
Rapture is the Latin version of a phrase the Bible uses to describe the catching away of all Christians before the end times. The Lord will descend with a shout and a trumpet of God. All believers, living and dead, will suddenly meet the Lord in the air.
When the Bible speaks of the Rapture, the focus is not from the viewpoint of those who remain on earth, but from those who are evacuated. Before the seven-year Tribulation breaks out, all true followers of the Lord will be caught up from the earth and delivered right into the presence of the Lord. The Rapture will fulfill the promise Jesus made to His disciples in John 14:1–3:
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Followers of Christ who are raptured will be spared the trauma of death and the coming disasters that will occur when the Tribulation breaks out upon the earth. That is indeed a cause for true rapture on the part of those who love the Lord and long to be with Him.
The New Testament indicates that the rapture of those who have put their trust in Christ is the next major event on the prophetic calendar. In other words, the Rapture awaits us on the horizon—it could happen at any moment.
REMEMBER: “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).
1 Merriam-Webster Online, s. v. “rapture,” www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ rapture (accessed June 5, 2008).