Introduction:
Explaining the disappearances.
What really happened.
Who was involved.
What's with this sinister presence mentioned earlier?
What about the children?
Who didn't disappear.
"But I thought I was a Christian!"
False teachers are rightfully condemned.
The hope for many.
How it happened.
Where did they go?
Why did it happen?
When did it happen?
The end of the world.
The Seven Year Tribulation period.
International readers: Thanks to those who will translate this.
This letter is obviously ahead of its time, but the message is timeless. To some it's a blessed hope; to others it
is utter nonsense. Whichever your persuasion, you are encouraged to
print a copy and set it aside for future reference. Someone will truly
thank you. The things presented here may be hard to grasp at first, and for good
reason- spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and are best read
through eyes of faith. As you review this, you'll begin to see the
reasons for what has happened, and understand the importance of biblical
issues once considered insignificant. This letter was written by "born-again" believers in Jesus Christ, the
Son of the Living God. Also known as Christians, we are the ones who are
now nowhere to be found, having vanished without a trace, leaving behind
everything. Our purpose is to share with everyone that remains on the
earth the truth of all that was, and is, and is yet to come. We can only
pray that you will give your attention to this matter; it is the only
hope you have of avoiding eternal destruction. The accuracy of what the
following pages will reveal should be enough to prove the source
reliable, and that source is the Bible, the word of God. And if you find
this to be true, then you can depend on the very same word of God to
save you as well. To describe the scene here in America and around the world-- people,
young and old, rich and poor, from all different races, and almost every
child under age 12... just vanished in a single moment of time. Gone.
Silently, and without commotion on the part of the ones that went away.
Their clothing, jewelry, glasses, false teeth-- everything that was
not part of them lay in a pile where they once were. Depending on the
time
of day, there were many traffic accidents as driverless cars and trucks
careened out of control. Pilot-less aircraft fell from the skies with
disastrous results. Trains, subways and ships all lost operators.
"Utter
chaos" doesn't begin to describe it. Pregnant women find that their
unborn child is gone. And all around there is an eerie emptiness that
words cannot describe, a sense of evil that won't go away... a sinister
presence striking fear into the hearts of men everywhere.
This was the Rapture of the Church. What in the world is that, you ask?
The short answer is-- the beginning of the season of judgment by a
Holy God on sinful mankind, also referred to in the Bible as "the Day of
the Lord". The Rapture, from Latin rapturo, is translated "caught up" in
1st Thessalonians 4:13-17, and refers to an event foretold in the Bible
when Jesus Christ will come for His own; those who have believed in Him
all through the ages past and have died, as well as those of us who are
still alive and serving Him today. We have been taken away to shield us
from the awful judgments of God coming on mankind; judgments of which
His faithful servants have been warning for ages. Man has continued to
live as if judgment day will never come, ignoring the warnings of
Christians, living in wretched sin and willful disobedience of God's
word. Those who have died "in Christ", that is, they who were believers
in this life, are now raised to new life with Christ. We are all with
Him in heaven, the eternal dwelling place of God. This is also referred
to as the resurrection, an event which happened to Jesus Christ himself
on that first Easter Sunday nearly 2000 years ago... the first-fruits of
them that slept (1Corinthians 15:20). Characteristics of the people that vanished will have one common
thread- they were all Christians. A true Christian is one who: 1) has
recognized that he is a sinner; 2) realized there is nothing he can do
to pay the price for his sin to satisfy a holy God; 3) received the
forgiveness of God by confessing his sin and trusting in the death of
Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary as payment for that sin; and 4)
believed by faith he is saved, and through the leading of the Holy
Spirit of God lives a life of forgiveness and grace. The Christian has
certain distinguishing characteristics about his life and conduct that
sets him apart from unbelievers. Simply put, he follows the teachings of
Jesus Christ. The name "Christian" was originally meant to be a term of
derision, a sort of insult to describe the followers of Jesus, used
first at Antioch on the Eastern Mediterranean coast. Jesus Christ's
teachings were as radical in His day as they are today-- most people did
not accept them then, even as most reject them now. But Christ made a
promise to those who entrust their eternal souls to Him-- that He will
guide them in this life through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and when
the season of judgment is about to begin, He will come back for His own
and take them to be with Him in glory... that is, heaven, the dwelling
place of God the Father. The Christian endures the scorn and wrath of a
world that does not know God, nor does it want to know Him. All his
days the believer trusts in the perfect justice of God to repay the evil
done in this life. And now, this season of retribution has begun.
The Christian is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit of God (1
Corinthians 6:19). In simple terms, the Holy Spirit is the driving force
of good in the world. In spite of man's denials, there are the
realities
of good and evil. The presence of God's Spirit has restrained evil in
the past... the power of evil was kept in check by the presence of
Christians, and the Spirit has been working the plans and purposes of
God powerfully through believers down through the ages. A Christian
does nothing good on his own... God set it up that way so God alone
would get the glory (Isaiah 42:8). But all that has changed now. The
Christians are all gone, and along with them went the Holy Spirit. In
short, there is no longer anything or anyone on earth capable of
restraining, or even willing to attempt to restrain evil. Like a wild
beast snarling at his bindings, suddenly the chains are loosed and the
devil and all his demons are free to have their way with the remainder
of the human family. It is truly a dreadful time to be alive on the
earth.
Despite Hollywood's best efforts to defile it, there is, or better yet,
was, an age of innocence in the lives of children. God wired them that
way. Though born into the human race with Adam's sin nature deep within
their souls, God has set a time in their lives when He considers them
responsible for their sin. Once they are old enough to understand that
they must be saved, they must act upon that knowledge. This is known as
the age of accountability. Just what age that may be we do not know
(some speculate age 12 or younger), but Christ made it clear that man
should not cause a child to sin (Matthew 18:5,6). If a child has heard
and understood the Gospel message-- that Jesus came to die for sinners--
and willfully rejects that message, understanding that the consequences
include eternal separation from God, then he is accountable for that
decision, and is among you even now. An infant has no concept of sin, or
of his need for salvation; even less a child yet to be born (life begins
at conception, Psalm 139:15,16). They were taken along with the true
believers. Here is the manifestation of true versus false. You may think whatever
you wish, but please consider this event as God's way of smacking you
square upside the head with a brick-- wake up and pay attention to the
signs! This is where it gets personal. What is the reason you were left
behind? Have you ever heard the Gospel message? Has a Christian ever
shared his faith with you? Did you ever feel the tug of the Holy Spirit
convicting you of sin, telling you not to ignore your conscience but to
turn to God and be saved? Possibly you were part of a church (used
loosely) that chose to follow the way of error, claiming that they had
the exclusive interpretation of the truth. Maybe you felt wronged by
some "church-going hypocrite" and wanted nothing to do with people of
that ilk. Whatever your reason, you are now faced with the same choice
as before; namely, "What say ye about Jesus?" This has got to be truly painful, indeed. One of the most revealing
elements of this event and its aftermath is the identification of those
who did not get taken when they thought they should have. This is easily
explained but not necessarily easily accepted. To be a Christian, you
must be born again... no exceptions (John chapter 3). To be born again
is mandatory, not optional... it is the way to God. Jesus said, "I am
the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except
through Me" (John 14:6; Ac 4:12). That statement has an almost
intolerable ring of "exclusivity" to it that has repulsed many
throughout the ages, and even more in today's pluralistic world-- a
world that has convinced itself that God is irrelevant, and whatever He
says has no connection with reality whatsoever. Well, reality has just
manifested itself in ways not seen since the Flood (Genesis 6-9). If the
event of the Rapture isn't enough to make men believe God, then their
hearts are truly hardened beyond redemption, that is, they cannot be
saved because they refuse to believe the truth of God's word. The true
believers took God's word at face value, and by faith they placed their
trust in Christ. It is not enough to know about Christ, to know about
church traditions, even to participate in church things. You must know
Jesus as your Savior. Jesus said plainly that those who are His would
hear and obey His voice (John 10:1-30). There are those who have an
appearance of faith, but it is a false faith, and God knows all the
purposes of the heart (Matthew 7:15-23). Getting into the details of why someone that thought he was a true
believer, but was found to be false, leads to some probing questions.
Was there a time in your life when you admitted to God that you were a
sinner? Were you truly repentant of your sin? The question is framed
that way for it is not just any particular occurrence of sin we are
dealing with. It is the sin nature that must be dealt with..."God, have
mercy on me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:9-14). Christ died on the cross to pay
the price to cover your debt of sin before a Holy God. His blood washes
clean all who will receive Him as Lord and Savior. Did you ever receive
Him? Did you know in your heart you were forgiven? The power of the new
life is manifested in the new life. Read Galatians chapter 5. Which list
categorizes your life? Was there a time when you once enjoyed the light
of God, yet fell away, not experiencing the sustaining power of the Holy
Spirit, given to all true believers at salvation (Matthew 13:1-24)? True
self-examination at this time will show the motives of the heart, and
you will understand why you were left behind. Leaders of churches and movements that are still among you stand as
testimony to the truth of God's word. Those who claim to have had
special revelation from God are now seen for the charlatans they are:
self-seeking, godless hell-bound liars that have led their flocks
astray, yes, even having led their own followers to the brink of
destruction. Flee from them! Flee to the arms of Jesus Christ, the true
Son of God, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, crucified on a Roman cross, dead, buried, yet raised to
life on the third day, ascending to heaven where He is ever interceding
for the saints before the throne of God. This is the Jesus that saves
you...the same Jesus that saved all those that vanished in the
Rapture... come to Him and be saved today! The false teachers will not
proclaim this Jesus... they are of their father the devil, and their
purpose is to keep men out of heaven, leading them down paths of
destruction (2 Peter chapter 2). The devil himself was once a high and
glorious angelic being-- Lucifer is his name-- yet in his pride he set
his sights on the throne of God, seeking to usurp authority over all
God's kingdom (Isaiah 14:12-15). Now he is cast out of heaven, and he
prowls about as a roaring lion seeking to devour those that could be
saved (1 Peter 5:8). His purpose is to oppose all that God is and all
that God stands for. And now, in the absence of the Holy Spirit, he has
nothing to stop him from wreaking havoc on the whole earth, and all that
dwell in it. The book of Revelation points out that there will be many that will
come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ during the tribulation
period that is soon to begin. We encourage you to become one of these
tribulation hour saints, and to do it without delay. With the judgments
of God beginning soon, you have an excellent chance of finding yourself
very dead in the very near future. Please don't walk through death's
door without Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Your eternal soul
depends on it (Luke 16:19-31). The vanishing of people into thin air is the stuff of science fiction,
not of everyday life, so we might do well to look at the source of the
event, namely, God Himself. Christians hold to the fact of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of their faith. It is
recorded in all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and
discussed at length throughout the New Testament. It is prophesied in
the Psalms (16:10) and is a central theme of God's plan for His
creation. With so much attention to the topic, we should be able to
learn something about how it happened. The apostle Paul addresses the issue in great detail in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. Read it to become familiarized with the subject matter. What
it boils down to is the difference between a physical body and a
spiritual body. When Christ was raised He appeared to the disciples
behind closed doors, and they didn't unlock the door for Him. At this
appearing He invited His friends to touch, saying He had a real body,
with flesh and bones; He wasn't a ghost (Lu 24:36-45). He ate some fish
in their presence. So it is a real body capable of interacting with the
elements of this dimension, yet not constrained by them. Spirit life in
its redeemed form does not have the limitations we know and live with
in the here and now. Just because it's beyond our comprehension is no
valid reason to dismiss it as impossible, or even as improbable. There
is an inter-dimensional relationship to the spirit world that we, in the
human form, are not privileged to interact with from this earthly
existence. The resurrection changed all that for the believers. How it
actually occurred is only a matter of speculation... scripture does not
address the details beyond attributing it to Christ's power (Philippians
3:20,21). Our best guess is that physical matter gets transformed into
a state of existence which is no longer bound by time. In this state one
could be anywhere at any time, without any of the constraints offered by
matter that is bound by time. It is also possible that remaining
clothing may have signs of burned fibers in areas of skin contact, as
in the shroud of Turin. Examination of the graves of deceased
believers will find the remains gone, further proof of the veracity of
these claims. When Jesus died on the cross of Calvary, a criminal executed beside Him
repented of his sin, and asked Jesus to remember him when He came into
His kingdom. Jesus' response was a promise of paradise, this very day
(Luke 23:39-43). The apostle Paul spoke of being with Christ as "better
by far" (Philippians 1:22-24), and gave a brief account of a glimpse of
heaven (2 Corinthians 12:1-6). John the revelator saw all kinds of
things pertaining to heaven (Revelation chapters 4-22). The presence of
the saints with Jesus is made clear in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. They all
went to heaven. Spiritually ignorant men will offer many theories, however, with
everything from space alien abductions to some electromagnetic pulse or
harmonic wave that consumed those too weak to withstand it, and
everything in between. But God's word is true, and therein is found the
real explanation. One word of caution... men will refuse to accept this
explanation for the simple reason that it will force them to admit that
those who disappeared were indeed right after all. And, as God's word is
proven true in this event, the rest of it stands true as well... all of
that unpleasant stuff about sin, the need to repent and be saved, the
coming judgments on a sinful, wicked, rebellious human race, etc.
Acknowledging this is an unacceptable alternative in their eyes. And so,
as predicted (Revelation chapter 9), most will refuse to accept the very
evidence you are examining, to their own loss. But you have the
opportunity to be spared the coming destruction by placing your faith in
Christ , as well as anyone who is willing to turn from his sin to follow
God through Christ. This is by far the simplest, yet most profound issue of all. Summing it
up can be done in a single word... SIN. The cause of God's holy judgment
on mankind is singular: Sinful rebellion. It began in the garden of
Eden, survived the judgment of Noah's flood, rejected the Savior and
nailed Him to Calvary's cross, and still rejects the mercy, grace and
forgiveness offered freely to all who will trust in Christ, even today.
It is a pattern throughout history, the very essence of the struggle
between good and evil. God created man on the sixth day of creation,
and placed him in a garden paradise called Eden. Man was created a free
moral agent, free to make choices and free to reap the rewards or bear
the consequences of those choices. God had prohibited but one thing of
the man... "of the tree in the middle of the garden, you shall not eat."
Quite simple, really... a literal paradise and only one rule to follow.
Yet for a free moral agent to be free, the moral antagonist must also be
free to express the alternative to obedience. Without the opportunity to
sin,
there is no opportunity to obey. So along came Satan with his lying
promises of god-like wisdom and knowledge, successfully tempting Eve to
eat the forbidden fruit, and Adam joined her. With this, sin entered
the human family, which got them booted out of the garden, brought a
curse on all of creation and introduced death into the world (Genesis
chapter 3). Satan has not once yielded in his mission to destroy man, for man is
created in the image of God. If Satan can undo man, then it is one more
step in his quest to unseat the One who put down his own insurrection
and booted him out of heaven (the parallel- they both lost their place
of favor in God's sight). So man is reduced to life separated from God
as a direct result of believing the devil's lie. As generations passed,
man grew more and more wicked until it got to the point that God was
grieved He had created man in the first place. Then came the warning of
the flood. Only Noah and his family were spared. For nearly 100 years he
worked on building the ark, preaching the same message to his
fellowman... "it's gonna rain!" Judgment was coming, and the only way to
escape it was to be on board the ark. At the appointed time, the flood
waters inundated the earth. All living creatures were destroyed, with
only the remnant aboard the ark being saved. And yet, when it was all
over, years later Noah's descendants got into the same mess of sin that
God had previously judged the world for in the flood. The heart of man
needed to be made new. God is a Holy God. He cannot, and will not wink
at sin, pretending it doesn't matter. Sin has wages attached to it, and
the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Man simply does not have the capacity to satisfy the penalty for sin...
only the death of Christ can atone for sin. Therefore, God sent His Son
to pay that price, that through faith in Jesus we can be restored to
God; that is the only way. Until now, the patience of God had kept back
His mighty hand of judgment, that man might have the opportunity to
repent and believe. But His patience has reached its end, and the
season
of judgment has begun in earnest.
At the appointed hour (Matthew 24:36). God has not told of the day or
the hour, but all who have read and understood God's word were given
many indicators to look for. Throughout the ages man has sought to know
when the end will come. Now you have a point of reference to draw upon
which, if you read and understand God's word, will tell you exactly what
is coming next. Statements like "the world will end in the year 2050" are definitive
proof of the ignorance of those who make them. A literal reading of
God's word reveals that for the next 1,007 years the earth will remain
intact, albeit in a state of turmoil, misery and death for those living
on it over the next seven years. A more accurate statement would be "The
end [of the order of things as we have known them] is upon us",
for the changes that are about to come on humanity are far more than
the mind can fathom, and terrible beyond measure. The time of history you are now entering is referred to by several
names: The Apocalypse, the Great Tribulation, the time of Jacob's
trouble, the 70th week of Daniel [chapter 9], and quite literally, it
will be hell on earth. We're not going to elaborate much on it, for
there are thousands of pages available on the subject for you to review.
The Bible declares that the one event which starts the seven-year clock
ticking is the signing of a 7-year peace treaty with the nation of
Israel by a new and powerful world leader out of the European Union (aka
the revived Roman empire) possibly with a high position in the United
Nations (Daniel 9:24-27). This man is the Antichrist. Do not be
deceived by him. Revelation chapters 4-19 have all the details, and it
is not a pleasant sight, though for a while there will be time of
relative peace for some. By the time it's all over nearly three-fourths
of the world's population will die by famine, plague, fire or sword. A
word of warning to the reader-- prepare to meet thy God.
Thank you for reviewing this letter... please consider the claims of
the Bible, and then act on them.
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