The Faith That Pleases God

raptureready folks,

Do not use l Thessalonians 4: 13 – 18 any more to show the rapture unless you can show this article to be in error.

I Thessalonians 4:13- 18

13 “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are
asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others, which have no hope.”

Paul states plainly the Saints are asleep in their graves and not alive in heaven, thus no
Rapture has occurred at this point.

14 “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in
Jesus will God bring with him.”

Now this does not clearly say God the Father is sending the Saints with Jesus from heaven but this much is clear, the Saints are asleep and Christ is to bring them with Him. All this tells us is they are asleep and Jesus will bring them with Him. We must read further to find where Christ, once He calls them from their graves, is bringing those that sleep in Him back to heaven. Christ and the Apostles referred to the dead as being asleep in their graves so before the Saints are brought to Christ the Saints were dead in their graves.

15 “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and
remain unto the Coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.”

This also is very clear and qualifies verse 14; those alive at the Coming of the Lord will not prevent or come before those that are asleep in their graves.

Paul is describing the “Coming of the Lord”, in other scripture the coming of the Lord is just that; Jesus Christ is COMING back to earth.

16 “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:”

First it says the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven and further states after His descent the dead rise First! This scripture also says He comes with a shout and the voice of the Archangel and The Trump of God.

So we know for certain this is not a secret coming! With the “shout”, the “voice” and the “Trump” all earth will hear and know.

17 “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.”

As the LORD comes down, we that are alive and have remained “behind” also are caught up together with the dead into the clouds AND we will meet the Lord in the clouds which are in the air.

So with great confidence we can rest assured the dead and those still alive will meet Jesus Christ is the clouds which are in the air. And the last part of this scripture contains the Hope we all wait for: “So shall we ever be with the Lord.”

OH OH we must look elsewhere for scriptures telling us after the resurrection from the dead Christ returns back to heaven with the Saints because these scriptures only proclaim Where ever Christ will be — we shall ‘ever’ be with Him,.

Verse 17 does not reveal the destination or place to which Christ will bring the Saints, only the fact where ever Jesus Christ is from then on the Saints will be with Christ.

There is not one mention of heaven in these scriptures.

WOW I can not make these scriptures to give even a hint of a rapture back to heaven for the Saints of God.

Any thing added to the Words spoken by Paul in First Thessalonians 4: 13 -18, are your words not God’s. You must look elsewhere for a rapture as it is no where to be found in these scriptures. The First Resurrection is clearly shown but not a rapture.

18 “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

1.What is God?

Is God a giant man who once incarnated as his own son 2,000 years ago through the womb of a woman in the Middle East? Certainly not. Is God a man who created everything we see? Wrong again. These stories are just perceptions filtered through the limited human mind. They are not ultimate truths.
Is God male? No way.
This is an erroneous interpretation by the male ego.
“God” is the Life Force

In other words, it’s not a human being. It has no gender; it’s not a male. It has no color; it’s not white. It has no size and no container.

That life force, or “God,” is not a giant white man, as we have been told, who can mysteriously incarnate himself through the womb of a virgin of any particular ethnicity. Rather than being historical, these are myths that are merely symbolic for the creation of matter out of spirit.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mistic/mistic2/whatisgod_gg.htm

2.The Christians rely mainly on the four Gospels for the historicity of Jesus. But the original documents of which the books in the New Testament are claimed to be faithful copies are not in existence. There is absolutely no evidence that they ever were in existence.

Jesus himself, it is admitted, did not write a single line. He bad come, according to popular belief, to reveal the will of God—a most important mission indeed, and yet he not only did not put this revelation in writing during his lifetime, and with his own hand, which it is natural to suppose that a divine teacher, expressly come from heaven, would have done, but he left this all-important duty to anonymous chroniclers, who, naturally, made enough mistakes to split up Christendom into innumerable factions.

It is worth a moment’s pause to think of the persecutions, the cruel wars, and the centuries of hatred and bitterness which would have been spared our unfortunate humanity, if Jesus himself had written down his message in the clearest and plainest manner, instead of leaving it to his supposed disciples to publish it to the world, when he could no longer correct their mistakes.

Moreover, not only did Jesus not write himself, but he has not even taken any pains to preserve the writings of his “apostles.” It is well known that the original manuscripts, if there were any, are nowhere to be found. This is a grave matter. We have only supposed copies of supposed original manuscripts. Who copied them? When were they copied? How can we be sure that these copies are reliable? And why are there thousands upon thousands of various readings in these numerous supposed copies?

What means have we of deciding which version or reading to accept? Is it possible that as the result of Jesus’ advent into our world, we have only a basketful of nameless and dateless copies and documents? Is it conceivable, I ask, that a God would send his Son to us, and then leave us to wander through a pile of dusty manuscripts to find out why He sent His Son, and what He taught when on earth?

The only answer the Christian church can give to this question is that the original writings were purposely allowed to perish. When a precious document containing the testament of Almighty God, and inscribed for an eternal purpose by the Holy Ghost, disappears altogether there is absolutely no other way of accounting for its disappearance than by saying, as we have suggested, that its divine author must have intentionally withdrawn it from circulation.

“God moves in a mysterious way” is the last resort of the believer. This is the one argument which is left to theology to fight science with. Unfortunately it is an argument which would prove every cult and “ism” under the heavens true. The Mohammedan, the Mazdaian, and the Pagan may also fall back upon faith. There is nothing which faith can not cover up from the light. But if a faith which ignores evidence be not a superstition, what then is superstition?

I wonder if the Catholic Church, which pretends to believe— and which derives quite an income from the belief—that God has miraculously preserved the wood of the cross, the Holy Sepulcher, in Jerusalem, the coat of Jesus, and quite a number of other mementos, can explain why the original manuscripts were lost. I have a suspicion that there were no “original” manuscripts. I am not sure of this, of course, but if nails, bones and holy places could be miraculously preserved, why not also manuscripts? It is reasonable to suppose that the Deity would not have permitted the most important documents containing His Revelation to drop into some hole and disappear, or to be gnawed into dust by the insects, after having had them written by special inspiration.

Again, when these documents, such as we find them, are examined, it will be observed that, even in the most elementary intelligence which they pretend to furnish, they are hopelessly at variance with one another. It is, for example, utterly impossible to reconcile Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus with the one given by Luke.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_31a.htm#THE

3.Evidently this notion of mass global genocide appeals to many, as they prepare for the “Lord’s return” or “Second Coming.”

• Firstly, there is little evidence that Jesus Christ was ever on Earth during a “First Coming,” so a Second Coming is highly unlikely.

• Secondly, although various of the many views of the “Rapture,” “Tribulation” and “Second Coming” use different biblical verses, let us look more closely at some scripture used to create the Christian eschatology or end-of-the-world scenario.

One of the most common scriptures used for “proof” of “the Tribulation,” which will supposedly accompany Jesus’s return, is Matthew 24 (3, 29-34), the relevant parts of which are translated in the King James Bible, favored by evangelicals, as follows:

And as [Jesus] 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?…

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer [is] nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, [even] at the doors.

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Exciting stuff, particularly for those who lead dull or traumatic lives and who may not wish to live any longer.

However, let us look more closely at the most germane language here.

Coming or presence?

At Matthew 24:3, we read about the “coming” and “end of the world.”

But is that really what is meant by the writer(s) of these passages? The Greek word translated here as “coming,” as in Jesus’s “Second Coming,” is παρουσία or parousia, which also denotes “presence.”

According to The Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary, ousia means:

“being, essence, substance; property,” while para means: “near; beside, along;… towards; during; beyond, except; contrary to, against, in comparison with;… from alongside of, from;… beside, near, in the presence of; according to.”

As we can see, there is not necessarily a sense of future coming in this combined word, which could mean, among others, “in the presence of a being.”

In reality, it may be that the original biblical writers meant parousia as a current and everlasting divine presence, not the purported future coming of a physical man.

Another question we may then ask is why Christians need Jesus in the physical form, in any event? The parousia is now, as believers demonstrate every time they speak of Jesus in the present tense and pray to him.

End of the world or completion of an age?

Furthermore, the Greek words for “end of the world,” συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος, could also be translated as “completion of the age.”

Hence, the phrase would refer to a period of time, rather than a physical destruction of the earth itself, although, of course, the passages that follow do depict a dramatic destruction.

However, this sort of “apocalyptic” thought represents a genre fairly popular at the time this passage was written, as well as beforehand, as in the Old Testament book of Daniel, which contains similar thought, as do various Jewish intertestamental and apocryphal texts.

Indeed, several other religions have their end-times scenarios also, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism. Many of these concepts are pre-Christian and can be found in Egyptian, Greek and Roman mythology as well. Obviously, not all or even any of these notions may be true.

Over the centuries and even in pre-Christian times, therefore, there have been countless “endtimes predictions,” which have been as successful as palm reading.

There are many other such scriptures used by the biblically obsessed to determine the future, including some in the books of Isaiah and Daniel, at Matthew 25 and in the purportedly prophetic book of Revelation, as well as in the epistles to the Thessalonians, Timothy and Titus.

Moreover, for hundreds of years people have been interpreting these “predictions” as referring to their own times. Indeed, some of the biblical verses (Mt 16:27-28; 1 Th 4:15-17) appear to be referring to Jesus’s audience of the time, as if it he would appear “soon,” within the time of their own “generation.”

Yet, he did not return, and,

“soon really seems to be a long time.”

Prophecy or blueprint for disaster?

Exegesis of texts aside, it is unwise to base one’s worldview on ancient scriptures that have been claimed to be predicting the events of the day in practically every generation since Jesus’s alleged advent.

It is likewise perilous to contribute to such unwarranted catastrophic thinking that may indeed exacerbate a situation that truly is degenerating, i.e., the general state of the planet. Then there is the enormous personal toll this sort of thinking has taken on thousands if not millions of people over the past couple of millennia.

If past experience is any indication, all those folks who have sold their belongings and are joining Camping for the Rapture will find themselves still on planet Earth with egg on their faces.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/biblx/biblianazar_76.htm