This may be a rehash of Bible doctrine to some, but I felt led to talk about it today.
I think about how I'm going to die sometimes. I think for most of us, the ideal death would be instantaneous and preferrably in our sleep. I watched my dad lie in a hospital bed for six days as he slowly lost consciousness and his pain medication was ever-increased to combat the physical effects of pancreatic cancer. To watch his life end in that manner and to remember the times we'd wrestle around when I was still a kid or all the times he'd teach me things still brings tears to my eyes. But our fallen world eventually takes all of us - believers and unbelievers alike.
Or does it?
Way back near the beginning of the Bible, there was a man named Enoch who was the father of Methuselah, the man who lived longer than anyone in the Bible. The book of Genesis tells us that Enoch fathered Methuselah at the age of 65 and walked faithfully with God for 300 years after that. Then he was no more because God took him away. Enoch simply vanished from Earth.
But that was Old Testament, right? You don't see folks tapping rocks with a staff to find fresh water nowadays nor is there manna from heaven waiting on us six mornings per week.
God's power to remove the faithful from the planet isn't limited to the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul clearly talks about the same thing happening to New Testament believers.
1 Corinthians 15:51-57 (NASB) tells us this:
Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In one instant in the future, believers who are on Earth and still living will not die but be instantly plucked from this planet and in the presence of Jesus forever. And in that instant our broken bodies will be transformed into everlasting ones.
Paul went on to write about this event in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
The bodies of believers who have preceeded us in death will come out of their graves and receive their imperishable bodies first then believers who are alive and remain on Earth will be caught up (or "harpazo" in Greek, "rapturo" as translated into Latin and the word from which we derive the word "rapture" today) to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will live with Jesus forever.
Oh, and one thing I haven't mentioned to you. Paul continued in verse 18:
Therefore comfort one another with these words.
One day Jesus is coming back for believers and we may be the generation that is here one moment and gone to be with the Lord the next.
If you don't know where you're headed when you die, you can know right now. There are many examples of saving faith in the Bible, but I always like to use Romans 10:9-10:
[T]hat if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
While I don't typically document the signs of the Lord's imminent return on this site, my friend Elizabeth Prata keeps close watch on those over at her End Times blog. And if you don't already, you should take a look at the weekly Hal Lindsey Report.
