Eternal life resides in Jesus and in Him alone. No one else! This is true now and will also be the case after Jesus removes His true church from the earth.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
What do people need the most? The answer remains the same as it’s always been: A clear understanding of the Gospel. By this I mean that people need Jesus, not the one that so many today create in their mind but but the One revealed on the pages of Scripture.
The Bible is quite clear about our joyful hope of receiving immortal bodies at Jesus’ appearing (1 Corinthians 15:48-54, Philippians 3:20-21).
This is not a fringe teaching, not at all, but it comes from several passages where the wording is unmistakable and cannot be misconstrued to mean anything else than our hope of resurrected bodies .
Enoch lived 365 years before God took him away from the earth. From all that we know about the antediluvian world, that’s a long time to walk faithfully with the Lord.
Like Enoch, we must persevere amid today's ridicule of our hope, such as the article CNN mocking the Rapture, as we eagerly await our “blessed hope.”
Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven, wrote, “As long as the resurrected universe remains either undesirable or unimaginable, Satan succeeds in sabotaging our love for Heaven.”
What are some popular stories about heaven that the enemy of our soul uses to sabotage our desire for the home Jesus is preparing for us?
Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven, wrote, “As long as the resurrected universe remains either undesirable or unimaginable, Satan succeeds in sabotaging our love for Heaven.”
What are some popular stories about heaven that the enemy of our soul uses to sabotage our desire for the home Jesus is preparing for us?
We hear so many differing viewpoints today regarding our hope of forever. Some reject the notion that anything physical can be spiritual or godly and on that basis deny our hope of reigning with Christ in a physical kingdom. The Bible, however, flatly rejects such thinking.
As believers seeking God’s wisdom, what does the Bible say about our future? What are the basics that can place us on firm footing amidst the myriad of false teaching that surrounds us today?
Below I list five items that I believe are the rock bottom basics of our biblical hope. For each, I start with the words of Jesus and then provide support from what He also revealed about our future from other places in Scripture.
He was perhaps the most joyous and Spirit-filled believer I had seen up to that point in my life. Though it was decades ago, I remember the joy that beamed from Paul Lundgren’s face as he sang.
I also recall the sight of Paul, bound to his wheelchair, sitting on the platform at my church. A traffic accident while delivering a piano had left him paralyzed from waist down. This did not deter him, however, from singing and talking about his expectation of walking on streets of gold.
If you have followed the news regarding Brett Kavanaugh Senate hearings, you likely feel the same frustrations I do. The false accusation of a woman, who has no proof whatsoever of her claims, could derail his confirmation to the Supreme Court.
It feels as though the wrong is winning and perhaps for a moment it is. However, Scripture tells me that any success that some may have in discrediting Kavanaugh is not the end of the story. God will have the final say in the matter.
If there’s anything has shocked me since I started writing about prophecy, it’s the large number of Bible teachers and Christian authors who relegate the entire book of Revelation to the past or else regard it as an allegory meant exclusively for first century believers.
So why do so many today put the fulfillment of the eternal state in past either historically or symbolically?
I believe it’s because Satan hates the idea of heaven (i.e. the new earth and New Jerusalem) and does all he can to discredit any teaching that regards Revelation 21-22 as literal future prophecy. He’s our enemy and as such loves to rip away our fondest hopes!
Most people disdain the whole idea; many Christians regard it as an out of date belief.
“Who really believes in the Rapture anyway?” some ask. “Why should I put my hope in something that no one believed until the nineteenth century? Why would anyone look for something that only recently appeared in the long history of the church?”
The brides of Jesus’ day did not fear the arrival of the bridegroom. The bride looked forward with much anticipation to the surprise return of her bridegroom; this was an expected and exciting part of the wedding festivities. It brought great joy to the bride as she eagerly awaited the groom’s arrival to abduct her and take her to the place he had prepared especially for her.
Jesus is now preparing a place especially for us. Many neglect to emphasize this wonderful truth when teaching about the rapture. We can be sure this place will be astonishing beyond anything we can imagine. Jesus is designing and preparing it with our specific needs and desires in mind.
Weddings are typically times of excitement to which both the future husband and wife joyously anticipate.
I believe this is why Jesus used words reminiscent of the first century AD Jewish wedding customs when He first mentioned His return to take believers back to His Father’s house, known today as the rapture (see John 14:1-3). His announcement would have sparked positive and hopeful comparisons to the disciples as they listened to Him that night in the Upper Room.
. . . . Someday, perhaps soon, the Father will tell his Son to go get his bride, to go get us! What a day of rejoicing that will be for us!!
While in college at John Brown University, I read Hal Lindsey's book The Late Great Planet Earth. His book greatly heightened my interest in prophecy to the point where I expected the rapture to occur at any moment, yes even way back in the 1970’s.
Late one afternoon I dozed off after hours of reading and studying. Suddenly, the sound of a trumpet awoke me from a deep sleep. For a moment, I thought “this is it; I am going to meet Jesus in the air.” After a second or two I realized the trumpet fanfare came from someone warming up for a nearby rehearsal. It was not the trumpet sound of 1 Thessalonians 4, which still remains a joyous future hope for all of Jesus' followers.
However, I know many people today do not take kindly to the idea of the rapture. They either fear it or disdain it for a variety of reasons. It’s certainly a source of unpopularity for those who teach or write about it; I know this from experience.
As his wife and those closest to him gathered around his bedside one evening, they believed this would be the last time they would see him in this life. Louis Talbot, the longtime president of Biola University and driving force behind the formation of Talbot Theological Seminary, was in the hospital suffering from pneumonia. Many in the room, including Carol his wife, believed he would not survive the night.
Seeing the tears stream down the face of his wife, Talbot responded with these words, “What’s the matter with you? For this I was born. For this I’ve lived all my life—to see my Savior face to face. It will be all glory. I can hardly wait.”
Do you ever have times when a line from Scripture jumps out at you and cannot get past it in your thoughts? One morning this past week was such a time. As I was reading in Proverbs 10, the first line of verse 26 struck me in such a way. It says, “The hope of the righteous brings joy.”
Our hope brings us joy; the anticipation of Jesus' appearing and all that He has promised us for all eternity.
