Victory Ministries International presents:
Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts  
Treasures of awesome truths from God’s Word 
and facts that affect you!

Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

Prayer

Today’s subject – “Left Behind. The Secret Rapture?”
I find it truly amazing, to witness all the Christians that have embraced the fiction of the “Left Behind” series of the best seller books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, as if they were based on gospel truth. Even more amazing is the doctrine of the so called rapture of the church, which is supposed to take place prior to a seven year tribulation period that those left behind will have to endure. If you have had difficulty trying to understand the seven year period, which is the seventieth week of Daniels prophecy found in Daniel 9:24-27, let me say you can put your mind at ease. The seventieth week was never to be divorced from the other sixty-nine weeks and it is not future, but already past 1,971 years ago. We will be having future broadcast on the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation and we will show you the real truth from God’s word. And it will be absolutely clear. Now regarding the secret rapture, it is said, that those left behind are given a second chance. Now that whole scenario must be called what it truly is and that is extreme deception.

I stand on God’s Word when I declare the following. When Jesus comes for the second time, it will be after the church has gone through a great tribulation period and the world has gone through the six of the seven last plagues. Friends, His coming will not be secret with people plucked out of driver’s seats and pilots disappearing into thin air, rather the second coming of Jesus will be a very audible and very visible event. And absolutely there will be no second chance, because judgment is over when Jesus comes. 

You will not find the word rapture in the entire King James Bible. On that basis I believe it is inappropriate for me to add to God’s Word what is not there. So forgive me if I don’t call Jesus’ second coming the rapture of the church. The dictionary defines rapture as (A state or experience of being carried away by overwhelming emotion.) And I think there is too many so called religionists that are getting carried away by their emotions. What an insult to God!!
Forget what best sellers say, and forget what the Christian world, almost without exception, is embracing, for it is not what the Bible is teaching. I do not like to be so blunt, but friends your eternal life is at stake and Satan wants you to believe a lie. The secret rapture is an invention of Satan. Well what does it say in God’s Word? Will Jesus come again and how will He come? 

In Hebrews 9:28 we read the following, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Jesus testified under oath in Matthew 26:64 that He would come back to this earth again, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”  
In John 14:1-3 Jesus promised He would return again as He said “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Now in what manner will Jesus return? At the ascension of Jesus, he was taken up in clouds and two angels told the disciples He would come in like manner. We read that in Acts 1: 9 -11. “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”  Friends, the scriptures promise that Jesus will return to this earth in the same manner that He left at His ascension – In a visible, literal, bodily, personal manner.

The Bible establishes the fact that Jesus’ second coming will be a visible event. In Revelation 1:7 we read, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him,” 
Matthew 24:30 “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.” 
Matthew 24:27 “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” 

When Jesus comes, every man, woman and child in the world will see His coming as the threefold brightness of the glory of Jesus, God the Father and all of the angels will charge the atmosphere with brilliant glory like lightning, stretching from horizon to horizon. That is correct. God the Father will accompany Jesus and all the Holy angels at His second coming. The Bible says so in Luke 9:26. “For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels.”  

Jesus’ second coming will not only be visible to all who are alive when He comes, it will be a worldwide noisy event. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17  “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:  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.” The trumpet will raise the dead. Have you ever heard a silent trumpet? And the same Jesus who called Lazarus forth from his grave when he was dead four days, will call forth from the graves with a shout, all the redeemed of all the ages. And the trumpet of God shall sound throughout the world readying God’s people for the event that all heaven and God’s people on earth have waited so long. Then the living saved will be translated into the bodies they will have for eternity and join those ascending redeemed to meet Jesus in the air. 

When Jesus is coming it is visible and audible. His coming is not secret. I Thessalonians 5:2,3 “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.  For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” A thief comes unexpectedly.  Jesus’ second coming will be unexpected and it will be sudden. To most of the people it will be an overwhelming surprise. But to God’s people who have been preparing, for His coming it will not be a surprise as we read in verse 4, “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.”

Some have asked, “Wasn’t Jesus speaking of the secret rapture when He said in Luke 17:34-36, One shall be taken, and the other left?” In fact those three verses read as follows, “I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.”  
The secret rapturists point to these verses and say, "See, people are suddenly disappearing". But if they read carefully, they will realize that the ones who are taken, are actually taken to their death. As it reads in the very next verse 37, when the disciples wanted to know where they were taken. It reads, “And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.”
This is made clear in Matthew 24:38-39  “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”  You see, the ones that were taken were taken to their destruction. The ones that were left were in the ark saved. It was in verses 40 and 41 Jesus talks about the ones taken, which are the lost, and the ones who are left are the saved that have waited for Jesus to come back.
Matthew 24:40-41  “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.”  
Verse 42 is a direct warning from Jesus, Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
  
Did you know that Jesus warned us about deception? In fact when He was talking about the last days of earth’s history in Matthew 24, He repeatedly warned about deception. Here’s what He had to say in verse 4, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” He warned about deception again in verse 5, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many”. And again in verse 11, “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many”.   And once again in verse 24, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect”.   He even warned against the false prophets who would deceive even the elect, with a strange “secret” doctrine in verse 26. “Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.”  Friends this whole secret rapture doctrine is what Jesus Himself warned us against repeatedly. It is deception.

Jesus urged us to be prepared in Matthew 24:44 “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” 
Now why do you think Jesus tells us to be ready when the deceivers say there will be a second chance? Because friends, and listen very carefully to this, when Jesus comes, judgment is over. Every case has been decided. 

How do I know? I don’t read fiction, I read God’s word and the Bible says so in Revelation 22:12 “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Those who did not despise the Ten Commandments, but rather in love to God, faithfully kept them will be called blessed. Revelation 22:14 “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” It was Jesus on Mt. Sinai that wrote the Ten Commandments in stone, and it was Jesus in the flesh who said in John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  And keeping the commandments includes keeping God’s seventh day Sabbath which is Saturday.

No dear listener, there is no secret rapture and there is no second chance. When Adam sinned, that is when the human race got a second chance. It is now, in this lifetime, and before probation ends for the world once again, we must get it right. 

Now there definitely will be a group that is left behind. Who will be left behind? All of those unsaved who were destroyed when Jesus came for His redeemed and they will know nothing again until the resurrection of the lost, 1000 years later. We will discuss that in an upcoming broadcast, but next week the topic will be on the signs of Jesus second coming. How will we know it is near? Well friends I actually believe that we are the last generation living on planet earth, so you will want to be tuned in next week at the same time.

Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:38, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me”. I end the broadcast each week with this scripture, but did you realize when Jesus commanded us to search the Scriptures, there was no New Testament? No, the New Testament books were not written until decades later. So all 66 books of the Bible are all important. Even so, Come Lord Jesus.