THE COMFORT OF BELIEVING IN THE RAPTURE

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye 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 unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (Jn. 14:1-3).

"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.  For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:  then we which 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 ever be with the Lord.  Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thes. 4:13-18).

I recently watched a video of two young preachers doing their very best to discredit the teaching of the Doctrine of the Rapture.  They were quick to point out that until John Darby popularized the dispensational approach to "rightly dividing the Word of Truth" (2 Tim. 2:15), in the 1830's, none of the Apostles, nor any of the "great theologians" of the previous 1800 years, had any knowledge of Dispensationalism.  To that, I agree. 

But, what they apparently neglected to consider, was that the Book of Daniel, the source for Darby's new approach to Bible study, was to be sealed (kept a mystery) until a time when transportation was accelerated, and knowledge increased (Dan. 12:4). Until the early 1800's, the fastest mode of travel was the horse; passenger trains began transporting people in the early 1800's!  In the early 1800's, there began a rapid growth in the number of students attending colleges and universities;, and by the turn of the twentieth century, there were about 300,000 enrolled in the United States!

Dispensationalism is the only approach to the understanding of the Scriptures, that provides for a literal interpretation.  It keeps what was written concerning Israel, and what was written to the Church, in context.  It recognizes that God's dealing with Israel, was put on the "back burner" until the end of the Church Age (Pentecost - Rapture).  Followed by Daniel's Seventieth Week (Dan. 9:27), a.k.a. the "Time of Jacob's Trouble" (Jer. 30:7); and the Tribulation (Mt. 24:3-29).  See also Romans 11.

Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled."  Paul said, "Comfort one another with these words."  Obviously, the Rapture of the Church is GOOD NEWS!