A MESSAGE OF HOPE FROM
DR. JACK VAN IMPE

Beloved we will continue our study of Alcohol: The Beloved Enemy
in our next newsletter. However, since we have just celebrated the
Resurrection of our Lord this past Sunday, I want to present the
following study.

THE RESURRECTION AND THE

RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH

"And if Christ be not risen, then is our
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found
false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he
raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise
not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if
Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins.
Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable."

I Corinthians 15:14-19

The Apostle Paul said it as well as it can be said. One cannot
overstate the profound importance of the reality of the Resurrection
of our Lord Jesus to our faith as Christians. If Jesus had not risen
from the dead as the Bible states, then all who had and have fallen
asleep (died in Christ) are perished and our hope for eternal life
is gone. If Jesus had remained in the grave so would we - but praise
God He is risen.

Think about what happened when Christ rose from the grave? What
was left behind? All they found in that sepulcher was our Lord's
grave clothes. What's the significance of that?

In I Corinthians 15:23, it says, Christ is the
"firstfruits" of the Resurrection. The first
fruits. Isn't that plain? Then in the text it explains that
afterwards, or later, "they that are Christ's at his
coming" will follow. It's there in God's Word. What it
means is that since His clothes were left behind, ours will be also.
Those that belong to Christ at the time of His coming will be bodily
translated into heaven just as Jesus was - leaving behind the rags
of sin for new robes of righteousness.

When Jesus Christ comes to call us home at the Rapture, He will
come exactly as He left. How did He leave? He left bodily into the
clouds. Acts 1:9 says, "And when he (Jesus) had
spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud
received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly
toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white
apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing
into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into
heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him
go.'"

In other words, if I can prove that He went bodily, then I don't
have to go any further to prove that He's coming back bodily. Why?
Because the Bible says He's coming back exactly as He left. How did
He leave? After spending three days in the grave, He rose and stood
on the earth in His new body. In Luke 24:39, He says to some of His
followers, "Behold, my hands and my feet. It is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see
me have." In verse 41, He says, "Have ye here any
meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of an
honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them."

This is Christ in His new resurrected body - a body that could be
seen, a body that could be touched, a body that could partake of
food. It's a picture of what we will have at the time of the
Rapture. How quickly will it happen? "Behold, I show you a
mystery," the Bible tells us in I Corinthians 15:51-54.
"We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and
we shall be changed. For this corruptible (the dead) must put
on incorruption, and this mortal (the living) must put on
immortality."

This is going to be a glorious event. We shall be changed to be
like Jesus. The Psalmist said in chapter 17, verse 15: "I
shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." In
Philippians 3:21, Paul says that God will change our vile bodies -
not leave them behind, change them - that they may be fashioned
"like unto his glorious body." In I John 3:2, it
says that when we see Jesus, we shall be like Him, "for we
shall see him as he is."

Did you know that Jesus wasn't the first person to be
"raptured" out of this earth? In fact, when the Rapture
occurs, it will be the fourth one documented in the Bible. The first
was Enoch in Genesis 5:24: And Enoch walked with God; and he was
not; for God took him. In Hebrews 11:5, Paul adds, that Enoch
was translated by faith so that he should not see death. He was
"raptured" - caught up in the twinkling of an eye, without
dying. The second documented "rapture" is Elijah in II
Kings 2:11. Elijah was caught up by a whirlwind into heaven. He,
too, never saw death, foreshadowing what we believers will
experience on the day the Lord catches us up in the clouds. Then,
of course, Jesus was "raptured" away in Acts 1:9:
"And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he
was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their
sight."

When Elijah was caught up, angels and chariots of fire came to
get him. I personally believe that, in a similar way, angelic hosts
may come after those of us who ascend in the Rapture. Why? Because
every believer - not just Elijah - has his own ministering angel.
They could come to whisk us home in the twinkling of an eye. Luke
16:22 provides a precedent for us: "And it came to pass,
that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's
bosom."

Is all this something that should frighten us? Excited, yes.
Frightened, no. So many people today are facing the future with
dread - with fear and foreboding. There is an anticipation - even
in the secular media - that we may be nearing the end of the world.
There is anxiety and hopelessness everywhere. The world seems to get
just a bit uglier every day as crime increases and wars break out
and immorality reigns.

This is not the way believers should feel - especially in this
season when we are remembering what Jesus did for us on the cross of
Calvary and how He victoriously defeated the last enemy, death, I
Corinthians 15:26. What could be more exciting and encouraging than
the idea that some of us will never die? In Titus 2:13, Paul calls
the Rapture our "blessed hope." In I Thessalonians
4:18, he says, "Comfort one another with these
words." "Comfort one another," he says,
not frighten one another.

I've got news for you. The world is not - I repeat, not - coming
to an end. The world is not going away in the year 2012, nor even a
thousand years after that. It is clear from scripture that the world
will not even end after Christ's 1,000-year reign on earth. The
world will never end. Isaiah 45:17 is unequivocal: It's a world
without end. "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ
Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen," Paul
writes in Ephesians 3:21.

Skeptics will no doubt point to Matthew 24:3 which states:
"As he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto
him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what
shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the
world?" Let's recall that the New Testament was written in
Greek. The Greek translation of that last world is "age,"
not "world." Once again, the world is not coming to an
end. But this epoch, this age, is closing.

Long before Christ was born, the Jewish rabbis taught a six-day
theory about the future of the world. They believed that the world
would face several eras lasting a total of 6,000 years, from Adam's
creation until the Messiah would come. This theory was based, in
part, on Psalm 90:4: "For a thousand years in thy sight are
but as yesterday." Since God created the world in six days
and rested on the seventh day, they reasoned, the world would go on
for 6,000 years followed by a 1,000-year millennial "rest"
period presided over by the Lord himself.

Think about this. From the creation of Adam until the birth of
Christ a period of 4,000 years - or four days passed. From Christ's
time on earth until now represents approximately another 2,000 years
- or two days. This total of six days is just one more reason to
believe that Jesus could return very, very soon.

Six-day periods, followed by remarkable transitions, have been
important throughout scripture. Look at Matthew 17:1, for example.
"And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his
brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And he
was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and
his raiment was white as the light." Jesus was giving them
a preview of what it would be like when He comes back as King of
Kings and Lord of Lords as described in Revelation 19:16. When they
came down from that mountain, He told them not to tell anyone of
these things until after His Resurrection.

Not only did the ancient Jewish rabbis teach this six-day theory,
but so did the church during the first 300 years of Christendom. The
church leaders based their belief on II Peter 3:8: "But,
beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
St. Victorinus, the bishop of Petah, wrote a commentary on the book
of Revelation in 270 AD. He said he saw another great and wonderful
sign - "Seven angels having the last seven plagues, for in them
is completed the indignation of God. And these shall be in the last
time when the church shall have gone out of the midst." In
other words, St. Victorinus was talking about the Rapture! This
teaching is not a present day innovation but a doctrinal statement
dating back 17 centuries to St. Victorinus and 20 centuries to Jesus
and Paul.

In the 16th century there were those expressing assurance of the
Rapture. Hugh Latimer, burned at the stake for his faith in 1555,
said: "It may come in my days, old as I am, or in my children's
days, the saints shall be taken up to meet Christ in the air and so
shall come down with him again." Joseph Medde, the great 16th
century literalist understood I Thessalonians 4:13-18 to teach the
catching up of the saints and even used the word
"rapture." So this is not some new idea.

However, understand this: The Rapture is not taught in Matthew,
Mark and Luke. You can find it twice in the Gospel of John. Any
other time you are reading about Christ's return in the gospels, it
is not referring to the Rapture. Instead, these are references to
the second phase of Christ's return - when He physically comes back
to earth to rule over it after a seven-year Tribulation period and
it's called, in theological circles, "the Revelation" or
the revealing of Christ upon earth.

Where are the two Rapture texts in the Gospel of John? John
14:1-3: "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." This is not His coming to the earth. This is the
point at which He receives us unto Himself at the great Rapture -
the snatching away - to be with Him in heaven as the seven years of
torment occur on earth. The second reference is in John 11:25,26. I
quoted this passage for years but didn't really understand it.
Christ said: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou
this?"

Jesus is contrasting those who experience death and live again
("for the dead in Christ rise first," I Thessalonians
4:16) with those who never experience death (because "we which
are alive and remain" are caught up without dying, I
Thessalonians 4:17).

It's a fact that God always spares His own from judgment. When
the horrendous worldwide flood came in Noah's day, Noah told those
who were prepared to COME INTO the ark, Genesis 7:7. When the
judgment fell on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:14, the angels
told Lot and his family to COME OUT of the city. Notice this
trilogy: In Noah's day, it was COME IN. In Lot's day it was COME
OUT. In our day, it will be COME UP, Revelation 4:1.

But, of course, as always, only a select group will be saved -
rescued from the worst period in human history. During the
Tribulation period that follows the Rapture, all hell is going to
break loose on planet earth. It will be a furious time because the
hindering power of the Holy Spirit will be temporarily removed.

How bad will things get? In Revelation 9:18, it indicates that a
third of mankind will be killed by fire, smoke and brimstone. That,
my friends, is nothing less than a first century way of explaining
all-out thermonuclear warfare. Imagine. But that's just the
beginning. In Revelation 6:8, the rider on the fourth horse brings
with him a worldwide plague of disease that causes another fourth of
humanity to perish. So half the human race will be annihilated in
this relatively brief period. This pictures the judgment predicted
by Jesus in Matthew 24:41 and 42.

As terrible as that fate sounds, there is still hope for those
left behind. I used to believe and teach that if one hadn't accepted
the Lord before the Rapture, all was lost. I was wrong. As long as
one is alive there's hope. Joel chapter 2 and Acts chapter 2
describe the calamitous tribulation period. In the midst of all the
carnage and destruction Joel 2:32 and Acts 2:21 states: "
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved."

There's always hope in Jesus. That's what we need to reflect
upon, not only during this victorious resurrection season, but all
year long.

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