In our book of some years ago, The Departure: God’s Next Catastrophic Intervention into Earth’s History, we point out crucial truth about who will go to Christ and who will be left behind when the Lord says: “Come up here!” (Revelation 4: 1, as prophesied by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18).

Even though it is “my” book in that I developed it, I say “our” book because a number of the most knowledgeable authorities in Bible prophecy wrote chapters on the most relevant topics of our day. All issues and events involving what we consider having prophetic importance are looked at in that volume through the supernatural prism of God’s Word. I therefore consider it “our” book, not just mine.

More than that, I believe each of us who wrote for it considers it to be devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ for these troubling, although exciting, times at the end of the age. We trust it has been a tool to edify God’s family by pointing to the evidence proving that the coming of “the blessed hope” of Titus 2:13 is likely very near. To that extent, that’s another reason I call it “our” book. It’s written for all believers alive today, with the prayerful hope that God’s family will awaken to Christ’s imminent coming.

I thought it good to use the Prophecyline column this week to look again at exactly who I believe will go in the Departure–the Rapture—when Christ gives the command: “Come up here” (Revelation 4:1).

There might be some among the authors who would disagree on a couple of my views about specifically who will go to be with Jesus at the Rapture. However, I will let them answer for themselves in their own forums and in their own ways. My own feeling about the differences we might have is like that of the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, who more than once said, “You can believe the way you want to believe. But, if you want to be right, you’ll want to come along with me on this.”

Dr. McGee said that with a chuckle, and I hope you can hear the chuckle in my written expression regarding my borrowing from that grand old Christian man’s humor.

First, I will state that God’s Word says, without equivocation, just who will go in the Departure:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; 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. (1 Corinthians 15:51–52)

So, Paul was clearly saying two major things about one classification of people. He was writing to the believers at Corinth. But he was also writing to every believer who would come along during the Church Age. Every believer in Corinth during Paul’s day is long since dead. So, he had to be addressing those who would be alive when Christ would call for them, as well as those alive when this letter was written.

The context of the letter is informing Christians about a mystery regarding a stunning event in their future. His words were to put to rest some of their worries about what would happen to the Christians among them who had died. What would happen to them in terms of their going to Heaven?

Paul was saying: 1) Not all believers would die; some would not have to die but would be alive at the time of a stupendous event; and 2) All believers, however, would be changed. They would be changed in one moment. The dead would be made alive and put into supernatural bodies. Those alive at the time would be changed into supernatural bodies while living.

The “mystery” Paul was revealing was the one wrapped up in Jesus’ words as recorded by John the apostle:

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. (John 14:1–3)

Paul further expounded on this “mystery” in his letter to the Thessalonians:

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. (1 Thess. 4:16-17)

So, the thing to consider is that believers of the Church Age (Age of Grace)– Paul was talking to believers of this dispensation—will ALL go to be with Jesus when He calls them in that “twinkling of an eye” (atomos of time) moment–the Rapture. ALL believers of this dispensation will go to be with the Lord! Not a single person who has accepted Christ for salvation will be left behind.

This truth includes everyone who never reached the intellectual ability–through brain incapacity or because of being too young—to understand their need to accept Christ for salvation. These are all under the blood of Christ for redemption and reconciliation to God, the Father. All will go to be with Jesus at the Rapture.

Some believe and teach that only believers who are living in the will of God will go to be with Christ at the Rapture. Those living “carnal” lives, they believe, will be left behind to go through a time of God’s judgment and wrath, along with the unbelieving earth dwellers. But God’s Word doesn’t teach a partial Rapture—that some will go and some will stay. ALL believers, Paul plainly writes, will go to be with the Lord at the Departure. Paul writes further to the Thessalonians:

For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10)

It is true that we are told by the Lord (Luke 21:36) that we are to watch and pray always that we may be accounted worthy to escape all the things of the Tribulation. But “worthy” in this sense means we should be living in such a way that we will not be ashamed when we stand before Him at the judgment seat–the bema. We should desire to hear our Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

This might not seem fair to those who disagree with me on this—those who believe they are living their own lives within God’s prescription for Christian behavior. But it’s not what we think is or is not fair that matters. It’s what the Word of God says that matters in any question of spiritual truth. God’s Holy Word says plainly that ALL believers who have died or are living during this present dispensation (the Church Age or Age of Grace) will go to be with the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, when He makes that shout heard around the world to His Bride: “Come up here!”

This makes the question all-important to every person alive today: How can one be assured of going to Jesus Christ when He calls those of God’s family to depart from this judgment-bound planet? Here is the answer:

That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)

Author’s note: The following Terryjamesprophecyline.com commentary was first posted on Raptureready.com on Monday, February 6, 2012, and was meant to examine the swiftly growing invasion of Islam into Western culture. It points out the mainstream news media complicity in allowing the invasion. My “Nearing Midnight” column, also posted this week on Raptureready.com, takes a look at the wrongly growing claim by prophecy pundits that the coming Antichrist will be a Muslim and that Islam will be the religious power that will make up the nucleus of the false worship system of the seven-year Tribulation.

In the article below is described the twisted religious fervor that leads to evil and destruction of families. Thankfully, as pointed out in “Nearing Midnight” on Raptureready.com this week, this system is slated for God’s judgment at the time of the Gog-Magog assault against Israel. Antichrist, who will assume much greater power once the Gog-Magog force is eliminated, will therefore not be part of that doomed religious system.  

What Kind of Love Is This?

A strange literary brain glitch seems to afflict mainstream news-media types these days. I find the disorder asserting its influence even in news briefs found on the front pages of my hometown newspaper. Such is the case as follows.

Mohammed Shafia, 58; his wife, Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son, Hamed, 21, all originally from Afghanistan, have been found guilty in Canada of first-degree murder in the killings of Shafia’s three teenage daughters and another of his wives in a polygamous marriage because they dishonored the family by defying its rules on dress, dating, socializing and Internet use. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “In the News,” 1/30/12)

The story is front and center, yet a glaring fact is missing. It is as if the reporters are being blocked from finding the cause of the brutal killings that are almost routinely committed these days in the name of religious doctrine. The murders in the above news brief were, for example, reported in the following way by the Associated Press as passed along by NBC:

KINGSTON, Ontario—A jury on Sunday found an Afghan father, his wife and their son guilty of killing three teenage sisters and a co-wife in what the judge described as “cold-blooded, shameful murders” resulting from a “twisted concept of honor.” The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case that shocked and riveted Canadians from coast to coast.”

Nowhere is the specific religious affiliation of the murderers mentioned. As a matter of fact, only one religion is mentioned, and that is through the use of the word “Christian” later in the piece. One of the teenagers murdered for her “twisted” concept of honor had condoms in her room and photos of herself wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, according to the story. The story broadcast by NBC never mentioned that religious reasons were at the core of the killings.

One might take from the story as presented that the reporting source wants us to infer that the girl was morally loose—as was her Christian boyfriend—and somehow deserved punishment.

What is it about the American media that causes an apparently unwritten rule that the use of the words “Muslim” and “Islam” are taboo in the contemporary journalistic lexicon?

The answer resides within the politically correct minds of those bent on shaping opinion in these dark days of setting the stage for the coming of Antichrist.

More to the point is the question posed by the title of this commentary: What kind of love is found in Islam, which we are told time and time again is a religion of love, not of hatred and violence?

It is a religion that commands–or at least condones—strapping bombs onto women and children and sending them out to kill as many as possible in the name of the religion’s god. When nearly three thousand people are murdered by nineteen adherents of the religion’s most fundamental tenets by flying airliners into buildings, the majority of Muslims celebrate in their streets. When every head of state and the governments–all of which are driven by Islamist rage—demand genocide to wipe the people of Israel from the map, good, loving Muslims around the world say nothing or agree that the Jews must go because the Koran demands it.

Killing teenage girls for the sake of Allah and a long-dead prophet of Islam because the youngsters want to assimilate into the culture that surrounds them is a growing crime in North America. Yet the news reports are completely silent about the real source of the beastly activity.

Of course, this shouldn’t surprise. Those who write and broadcast the stories are clueless pawns of the “prince of the power of the air.”

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:2–3)

Islam is neither a religion of love nor of peace–which are rooted in the same source. God’s Word tells us about His (the REAL God’s) prescription for living in love and peace:

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)

“Millie! Get out of the street!” The yelling from the room next to me pulled me from my nap.

“Millie! Get out of the street!” The plea sounded again, and a few more times.

By now I was almost fully awake while sitting upright in my office recliner. My wife was trying to reason with a cat—not even our cat—to get out of the middle of the street in front of our home.

Over the many years, a number of our cats had met their demise in that street. So, the imploring wasn’t without a reason (although reasoning was a non sequitur, as you understand if you’ve ever tried to reason with a feline).

To Margaret, that has never been a factor—whether one can reason with a kitty. She wanted that female feline out of harm’s way before a certain neighbor—one who was apparently perpetually late, and who used the road as a quick route on the way to work, I presume—hit our street with her vehicle. My wife’s imploring was urgent, but it made no impact on Miss Millie. The cat was clueless and obviously had no intention of leaving her curled-up position upon the warm asphalt sleeping place.

My mind is most often these days, as anyone who reads these commentaries knows, on things that have to do with Bible prophecy and the indicators of how near we are to the end of the age. With all the signals in view that are so much like those Jesus and the prophets foretold, my thoughts are often triggered by incidental matters, bringing up topics to address in the articles.

While my thinking was clearing after I woke from my nap, my wife’s ineffective reasoning with Millie to get out of the street triggered the thought. Most today are clueless to the lateness of the prophetic hour, and, like Millie, aren’t paying a bit of attention to the nearness of the ultimate danger ahead—both in the Tribulation to come, and in an eternity apart from God.

Nonetheless, like the call made to that feline–who had no obvious interest whatsoever in responding—it is incumbent to keep calling those lost in sin to come away from the broad way leading to destruction by accepting Christ, the only Way to eternal life with God the Father in Heaven (John 14: 6).

Likewise, it is our job—yours and mine—as Christians, to warn other Christians who are clueless to the lateness of the prophetic hour. Believers—children of God—need to be aware that our Lord and Savior is on the very cusp of calling the Church into the clouds of Glory. This great event—the Rapture—could take place at any moment. The event, we are told, will come upon the entire world like a snare, like one of those nets that snatches jungle animals. This is the description God’s Word uses to indicate the sudden and unannounced occurrence at that “twinkling of an eye” moment when Christ shouts, as He did to the Apostle John, “Come up here!” (Revelation 4: 1).

The reason it’s so important for the Body of Christ—the Church—to understand the nearness of the Rapture is to create an awareness to be diligent in doing good works, as we will all be judged on our works at the Judgment Seat of Christ—the bema. We won’t be judged for our salvation, because Christ carried away all sin on the cross at Calvary. But the judgment will be for how well we have served our Lord.

The primary good work we are called to do is to carry out the Great Commission given by Jesus before He departed from earth to Heaven:

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:18–20)

In addition to reaching out to those who are lost in their sinful condition, we should, as “watchmen on the wall” who are aware of Bible prophecy and its truth, implore clueless Christians who are within our area of influence. We should beg them not to lie in that street cluelessly with the lost. These believers are not being taught about Christ’s return–about the Rapture—from most pastors in most pulpits. This is a neglected teaching in even well-known Evangelical church bodies today.

When Christians truly understand the nearness of the call from Jesus Christ, many will have a spiritual, holy fire ignited within their desires. They’ll then earnestly want to bring as many of the lost into the family of God as possible, seeing that the time is short.

We must warn the clueless—that is, reach out to the lost and to fellow believers who need to be clued in to where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline.

Unlike in the case of the plea to a nonresponsive feline in danger in the street, our plea to lost humanity to come from that broad way of death has a supernatural voice that is guaranteed to be heard. Maybe it won’t be heeded, but if not, it will be a willful rejection–a deliberate act of unresponsiveness.

For God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

This is a guarantee from God: No person is without a call to repentance. God the Holy Spirit makes it known that there is a need of the Redeemer to save them from the danger of separation from God.

Let us warn the clueless, for the field of souls is ripe unto harvest at this critical prophetic hour. Here is the message to inform these of God’s matchless grace:

That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10: 9-10)