Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The secret of the mystery, Part 198. The Rapture will be the end of the age of no prophecy, Part 8.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Point 3. The time of the rapture or the doctrine of imminence.
Many signs were given to the nation Israel which would precede the Second Coming - a totally different event than the Rapture.
The Church is told to live in the light of the imminent return of TLJC, JOH 14:2-3; Acts 1:11; 1CO 15:51-52;PHI 3:20; COL 3:4; 1TH 1:10; 1TI 6:14; JAM 5:8; 2PE 3:3-4.
Imminency = impending, or threatening to occur immediately.
Imminency is used technically for the fact that no prophecy has to be fulfilled before the Rapture occurs.3819
The Corinthian church was made up of losers, yet Paul thanked God concerning them because they were the beneficiaries of phenomenal grace, were in union with Christ, and most of all, were “enriched by Him.”
A mature believer lives as though the Rapture could occur at any moment.
Point 4. The Work of the Holy Spirit as the Restrainer, 2Th 2.
Episunagogue = to gather together in one place, namely, in the air, for the purpose of worship and our glorification in the presence of Him.
In the Bible, “The day of the Lord” can include the Rapture, the last half of the Tribulation, Second Advent, and Millennium, totaling 1007 years.
It is also used for any portion of this period, the context dictating how long, ISA 2:12; ISA 13:6;
Joel 1:15, 2:1; ZEC 14:1,
1TH 5:2; 2PE 3:10.
Apostasia = a departure, either the departure from the faith or the departure of the saints, verse 1.
He reveals that there was to be the manifestation of the man of sin or the lawless one, Rev 13.
What restrains him now is the mystery of the spiritual life, 1TI 3:16, of the Church-age, which is restraining the mystery of lawlessness in 2TH 2:7.
That mystery of the spiritual life is empowered by God the Holy Spirit, EPH 5:18; GAL 5:16.
When you live the spiritual life, your spiritual life is what’s restraining evil from its fullest manifestation.
This lawless one could not be manifested until the “restrainers” (Church-age believers living the spiritual life) and the “Restrainer,” God the Holy Spirit, be taken out of the way.
As long as the Holy Spirit is resident within the Church, which is His temple, His restraining work will continue.
1CO 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
DAN 9:27 And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering;
- and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.
At the Second Advent He appears with the Church not for the Church.
The understanding of the pre-tribulation Rapture of the entire Church or the body of Christ comes clearly from understanding the principle of Mystery doctrine more than it does from understanding prophecy.
When one understands the contained purpose of God for the Mystery age, and that that Mystery purpose is separate entirely from the destiny of the nation of Israel and the unsaved Gentiles, then one understands the necessity of the entire Church being raptured before that time called by Daniel the 70th week of years.