The Rapture

I want to bring before you the blessed thought of the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like to take it in three parts, then maybe it will be easier to understand. The basis of it, and the background to it, and the blessings derived from it. So I think that should be quite simple for each one of us to hold.

Now brethren, let me state the background again, that this work is completely different. So that this work is not going to enter into any of the works down here upon the earth. This work is going to finish before God steps in judgement upon the earth in the time of Jacob's trouble. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is the grand sequel to a work of grace that God began at Pentecost.

The Lord Jesus is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15 as the firstfruits of them that slept. You and I are spoken of as a kind of firstfruits. Now that's a strange word, and yet if we look a little closer we will see the reason why.

The husbandman that laboureth must first be partaker of the fruits. So that firstfruits belong to the one that has done all the work. Now, if you'd like to go back in the old economy and have a look at the 7 feasts of Jehovah you'll discover that God intended the first of those feasts there to be in the land of Egypt, that is where the Passover was instituted. He intended the second of those feasts, the feast of unleavened bread, to be enjoyed, and partaken of and realised in their journey through the wilderness. But He intended that the first feast celebrated in the land of Canaan was the third of the feasts of Jehovah, the feast of firstfruits. It was their unbelief that robbed God of that privilege and that prerogative. So because of their unbelief, instead of 11 days, instead of 2 years, it was 40 years. And when they came into the land of Canaan they began with the Passover, and started all over again.

Now why did God want the feast of firstfruits to be the first feast in the land of Canaan? So that they could trace the pathway back from the bondage of Egypt, through the Red Sea, the wilderness and Jordan, and see them there in their own possession that God had promised to Abram, to Isaac and Jacob, and for them to realise that God had done it all. 7he husbandman that laboureth must first be partaker of the fruits. And because of their unbelief they robbed God of that privilege.

But brother and sister, in the lovely days that preceded Calvary there's a work of God - God sent His son into this world. He was sent to tell out the Father, and to show out the Father's love. And the person of the Christ of God, and all that He was and all that He did was the work of God. God takes the firstfruits, and Christ is 'the firstfruits of them that slept.

This present work is the work of the Christ of God. We don't have an angel in the church. We've still got some Christians talking about the guardian angels here and now. You can have them all, twelve legions of them. Listen my brother, this work was begun by the Lord Jesus Himself; this work is being maintained by the Lord Jesus Himself; this work will be completed by the Lord Jesus Himself. The Lord Jesus is responsible for this work from the beginning to the end. In this period we have this blessed promise, Not mine angel shall go before thee, but I am with thee alway. I am sure it must grieve the heart of the Lord Jesus many a time when we talk about our guardian angel, and there is the Lord Jesus Himself. Give Him the glory and enjoy the honour and the glory and the privilege that is ours of having fellowship with the blessed man of Golgotha and the man that sits upon the throne, who says I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, no, never. He is the one that has done the work, and is doing the work, and has the right to the firstfruits.

Today, brother and sister, He's gathering out his firstfruits, and one day He's coming and He's going to take those firstfruits home with Himself. Not until He's taken them out can the harvest ever be reaped. Strange enough, the harvest is going to be reaped there (Refer to chart) A company that no man can number, as the sand of the sea shore innumerable, out of every country and tribe and people and nation, in the time of Jacob's trouble. It only goes to prove that when you've got a Jew you've got a good evangelist. He'll do a lot of evangelising then.

The basis of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ rests upon the word of the Lord Jesus Himself. You remember what I read in 1 Thessalonians 4, 'For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord.' Now the basis of this lovely truth which has been the joy and the encouragement and the stimulus of God's people down through the ages depends upon the veracity and the authority of the word of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. So in John 14 He could say, 'Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and will receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also.'

Now brethren, I've said many times. that the Lord Jesus has kept every promise He's made with the exception of one. Have a look at them. Here's a simple word he says, ' I will go before you into Galilee.' Now that wasn't many miles distant, but I tell you this, it meant Gethsemane, it meant Annas and Caiaphas, it meant Pilate, it meant Herod, and back again to Pilate, and it meant the cross, and it meant Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, but He was there at Galilee to meet them. My, He kept His promise alright.

'Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them.' You believe it? We take it for granted, don't we? Just because we can't see Him with the natural eye. Would to God that we would realise the fact that He is here.

He's kept every promise with the exception of that one, and I have no doubt at all that he is going to keep that one. When, I don't know, but the sooner the better. 'I will come again and receive you unto myself.'

It mesas this, that you don't look in the Old Testament Scriptures for anything in relation to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His church.

You'll find the coming of the Son of Man, but you'll never find the coming of the Lord. I must make this exception, of course, that once you know the truth of the coming of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament scripture then you'll see a lot of lovely pictures about it in the Old Testament scriptures. You like to look at the one in Genesis 24, don't you now? Isaac going out in the fields to meditate, there she's coming. A lovely one in the Song of Songs, perhaps you're not so familiar with that, there are some Christians who don't know their books in the Bible, but that's beside the point. And here she is, let us go into the villages, there will I give thee my love, for I have much fruit laid up for thee, new and old things. A lovely thought, he's coming out from his abode, and she's coating away from her abode, and there he's her beloved, and they want-to meet in a place that is distinct from where he lives and where she lives, and she's got much fruit laid up for him. A picture of the Judgement Seat of Christ that is to follow.

Look again in the second book of Samuel, chapter 17. Absalom has usurped the throne Here are the lovely words, 'By morning light there lacked not one that

had not gone over Jordan.' Beyond the reach of the enemy, safe and sound. Oh my, once you know the truth of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ you can see a lot of pictures in the Old Testament. But then, of course, I reckon you're fed up listening to me talking about the Old Testament, aren't you, eh? But there you are, I love it.

Let's get hold of the basis of it and hold it firm, that we don't go into the Old Testament, it was not revealed unto the prophets, and we find nothing at all there. The first mention we have of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His people is given by the Lord Jesus Himself, and it's given in John 14.

Now that will save a lot of argument if you can lay hold upon that simple truth, because there are those who are trying to break with what they call tradition, when many a t/me it's not tradition, it's the things that are most surely believed among us. Now there's the basis.

Let's have a look at the background to it. In 1 Thessalonians you know as well as I do that the coming of the Lord Jesus is referred to in every chapter, but will you notice the differences?

When we are in chapter 1 the coming of the Lord Jesus has salvation in view, 'which hath delivered us from the wrath to come.'

When you're in chapter 2 it's presentation in view, with the coming of the Lord Jesus. 'Are not ye our joy, our hope, our crown of rejoicing in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?'

When we are in chapter 3 it's separation view, 'To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness.' So there's separation.

But when you turn to chapter 4, the well known one, then it's got consolation in view. 'wherefore, comfort ye one another with these words.'

Some Christians have asked me if we will know each other when we get to heaven. Well, somebody asked Spurgeon that; he said 'Do you think I'll be a bigger fool than I am now?' Of course we'll know each other. Did Peter, James and John know two men that they'd never seen in their life? Moses and Elijah.

Of course they knew them. Who are they going to sit down with, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Did the rich man recognize the one there over that great unbridgeable gulf? Did he know him? Send Lazarus, he said. We'll know each other. But I'm going to tell you this, my brother and sister, the marriage bond won't exist. You won't be living at such and such a number in such and such a street when you get to heaven, because there won't he any marriages in heaven, for they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God.

A brother said to me (he was only a young man so I excused him, and he hadn't long been married, ) 'You mean to tell me that I won't have my wife when I get to heaven?' 'Oh,' I said, 'You'll love your wife, you'll love your wife a lot more than you love her now, but the thing is you'll love everybody else just as much. 'Wherefore, comfort ye one another with these words.'

But when we come to chapter 5 it's the Lords coming with preservation in view, isn't it? 'I pray God your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.'

Now there is a study for you. Salvation, presentation, separation, consolation and preservation. So here is the background to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The things that belong to it, and the things that are going to come out of it. But let me give some more backgrounds.

You know, when we are in 1 Corinthians 15 then we find those arrogant people.

They are with the saints, but they don't belong to the saints. They are always spoken of in the third person, and not the second person. When the apostle Paul is speaking to the saints he says you, or ye; but when he is speaking about these people he says they, or 'how say some among you that the dead rise not.' They are not Christians, but are gathering with the Christians. The apostle says that if the dead do not rise then is not Christ risen. And if Christ be not risen your faith is vain, you are yet in your sins, and you are of all men most to be pitied. And if those people say the dead don't rise then Christ isn't raised, and their faith is vain, you are yet in your sins, and are of all men most to be pitied. So we need to be very careful, don't we?

There ' s lots of things that we'll differ about, but I'll tell you this, there are fundamental things that are essential to our relationship God-ward and to the assembly.

The Apostle Paul 'deals with that subject, it's the greatest thesis in the New Testament on resurrection. They defy the inspiration of Holy Scripture. 'For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.' They said the dead rise not. That's flying in the face of divine inspiration. Now brother and sister you'll never do that. There are lot's of problems in this book, and I suppose there'll remain lots of problems until I get home to glory, but I believe that book is God-breathed, and I wouldn't deny one sentence of it.

They deny. the testimony of men that had seen Him for 40 days after His resurrection, when He showed Himself alive by many infallible proofs, and then went up to glory. Then Paul goes a step further, and He was seen of above 500 brethren at once. Then he goes a step further, and last of all He was seen of me also, there's a personal witness. Yet in the face of a throng of witnesses they said the dead do not rise. By the time Paul had finished I wouldn't have liked to have stood in the shoes of those that said the dead rise not, that was arrogance. There is a very awkward text there. Is it verse 29 - 'Else what shall they do,' do you see the third person again? Not the Christians. 'Else what shall they do which are baptised for the dead,' or 'baptised towards dead ones.' The whole thing's ridiculous to be baptised if you don't believe the dead are raised. Because baptism is death, burial and resurrection, isn't it? Then what are you baptised for if you are only baptised towards the dead ones, if the dead are not raised? So apart from their arrogance they are inconsistent, and then they finish off with their ignorance. 'But some man will say, how are the dead raised up?' Now that's a background of heresy.

There's a lovely day coming when the world is going to realise this fact, that what Christ promised is going to be literally fulfilled, despite the heresy that is in the world today. They say the world will know because all the graves are going to be opened. Are they? Are they? I know the graves were opened when He rose from the dead, but that was the physical body, the natural body that to go back again. They never had to roll away the stone to let Him out of the sepulchre. He could have walked through that stone the same way He walked through the door. The stone wasn't rolled away to let Him out, it was rolled away so that everybody else should know that He'd come out. I don't believe there'll be a single grave touched, the dead in Christ shall be raised. It's sown a natural body, but it's raised a spiritual body.

If we want another background, let's have a look at Philippians 3. That's a lovely study on the person of Christ, isn't it? There we find Paul's identification with Christ. His bonds were the bonds in Christ; his compassions, or his bowels, in Christ; so it wasn't so much Paul that they were putting in prison, it was because Christ was being manifested in Paul, -: and it's Christ they wanted to put in prison. It wasn't so much Paul that was loving the saints - Saul of Tarsus was the enemy of them - it was the compassions of Christ involved, that was going out to the saints. In chapter 2 then you get the demonstration of Christ. 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.' When you come to chapter 3 it's the experiences of Christ. 'That I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings' Then he continues to go on in chapter 3 as a Jew under the Law, blameless, above many his own equals, a Hebrew of the Hebrews.

He had a terrific pedigree. Concerning zeal, persecuting the church, a conscience towards God from his forefathers, seeking to reach the goal, though he never reached it, but he met a man that did. This man that was alive on the other side of death, he met Him on the Damascus road amidst the glory that was brighter than the sun at noonday. What Paul, as Saul of Tarsus had failed to reach there was a man that had reached it, and so he says, ' I counted all but dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. That I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings.' But he had to admit, 'not as though I had already attained, but I seek after.' Then he finishes up with this, 'our citizenship is in heaven, from whence we look for the Saviour, who shall change these vile bodies, (that could not be subjected under the Law, that could not be subjected even under grace) who shall change these vile bodies, that they might be fashioned after His own body of glory, whereby He is able also to subdue all things unto Himself.'

There you are, you've got the background of flesh, haven't you, 'hm? Have a look at it brother. I tell you, it'll be grand to get home, and we'll all see eye to eye. There'll be no heresy at all. It'll be grand to get home and know that we are not going to have any trouble with the flesh again, won't it now?

Here amidst these backgrounds it's the coming of the Lord Jesus, it's set against that background, because it's the answer to all the problems. Alright, my brother, my sister, we're taking it easy here, aren't we? I think that's why we are so carnal. There are brothers and sisters over there in Russia that would give ten years of their life for ten days of ours. But I tell you this, they're more spiritual than we are, and God is honouring their testimony, too, and souls are getting saved. 'Ye received the word with much affliction,' Paul could say to the Thessalonians, in 'the first chapter. They weren't ashamed of the affliction. He goes on to talk about persecution, he goes on to talk about tribulation, not the great one, but he talks about tribulation that belongs to the child of God. Still he went on, and their testimony went out throughout Macedonia and Achaia, so that Paul need not say anything. Here, with the background of tribulation, affliction and persecution, he says we wait for the Lord from heaven which hath delivered us from the coming wrath.

I'd rather face the wrath of men than the wrath of God. That's a comfort, isn't it? So the Lord is going to take us out, and He'll save us from the coming wrath. Let men torment us for three score years and ten. What is that to the judgement of God at the time of Jacob's trouble, and then to be lost, and lost for eternity. Have a look in Hebrews 10. 'Let us hold fast the confession of our hope.' Have a look at your concordance, and the margin of your Bible, (it may be the same as mine,) but it's your confession of hope.

You know, profession can be empty, but if you're going to make a confession

it's something that you've got or something that you've done. A confession of hope, let us hold fast our confession of hope without waver/rig,. for He is faithful that promised. There's the promise of the hope.

That word hold fast could he a nautical term, to batten down the hatches.

To preserve intact the goods that you've got that they are not going to be spoiled by the store and the waves outside. It's alright to open the hatches when everything outside is fair and comfortable, but as soon as the wind rises and the clouds deepen and the storm breaks, you'll batten down the hatches, if you want to preserve what you've got intact. I'm afraid a lot of us are not doing that. 'Hold fast that thou hast,' that's what the Lord Jesus said to one of the churches. Without wavering, and that is like a tree blown by the wind.

You don't do what a tree does in the wind, you don't bend with the wind. I know some Christians that do. If the wind blows then you stand up against it, and you' 11 remain straight.

Now that's your confession of hope. Let us go a step further, that's regarding me, I can't hold fast for you, and you can't hold fast for me, that's a personal responsibility. But he says, considering one another, and so I've got a responsibility towards you, and you've got a responsibility towards me. Mark you, I don't know which is the greater responsibility. Provoking unto love and to good works: you don't talk about love and good works. If you want to provoke your brother and sister then you start doing the loving first, and love begets love. You start doing the good works, and good works will beget good works. Then it is not abandoning or forsaking the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is, so much the more as ye see the day approaching. There it is again. So I've a responsibility to you, my brother, and you to me, in the light of the fact that the day is approaching.

I don't know whether I've told you the story or not, but I'm old enough to remember world war 1. There was in the paper of a German prisoner of war camp in Scotland. They discovered as a British plane passed over that one of these German prisoners of war had gone on top of the flat roof of one of the buts and engraved in white letters the words: 'Der Tag'- the day. There they were in prison alright, to all intents and purposes the loser, but my, they looked forward to the day when the Kaiser would walk through London and sit in Buckingham Palace, and all the rest of it, but there you are, their hope burst like a bubble. But brother and sister, the day is coming, and in the light of that day then let's provoke unto love and good works and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is.

Then I've got a relationship to the world. 'You took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, and you suffered by identifying yourselves with those that are suffering for Christ's sake, knowing that in heaven ye have a better and more enduring substance. '

Then I've got a relationship with the Christ of God We have not got to cast away our confidence which hath great recompense of reward, for He that shall come will come and will not tarry.

So I've got four mentions here of that lovely day which is going to come: the hope; the day; the better enduring substance; the coming of Christ. What's the background? It is apostasy! Because of the things that were breaking in there were those who were making profession to be saved, and when the troubles started then they turned on their heels and they walked back again. We were talking on one occasion about Hebrews 6, and some of the young friends said to a brother, 'Who would you say they are?' This good brother said, 'They are backsliders, arid he asked me what I thought. I asked him who they were in chapter 2, 'We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should slip away from them.' The word doesn't slip away from us, it's us that slips away from the word. The brother said, 'they are apostates.' I agreed. Who are they in chapter 107 'Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he thought worthy of who have trodden underfoot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and have done despite to the spirit of grace.' 'They are apostates too,' he said. I agreed and said: 'It seemed strange to me that the writer, whoever he is, begins with talking about apostasy and ends with talking about apostasy and puts backsliding in the middle. I'd have thought he was still talking about apostasy. It's in the epistle to the Hebrews that we have apostasy coming up, and you can trace it and it increases in the burden of the hearts of the writers until you find the apostate there in the book of the Revelation.' I said, 'Tell me, brother, what is that sin unto death in 1 John 57' 'Well',' he said, 'that's murder or adultery.' 'Oh,' I said, 'brother, I wouldn't say that John meant you haven't got to pray for that, because I know a man that committed murder and the Lord saved him. I know a man that committed manslaughter and the Lord saved him. The Corinthians were fornicators and adulterers and the Lord saved them.' 'Well,' he said, 'it's a sin that marks you,' and these young believers said that every sin marks you, doesn't it? They were right, too. So, he said 'what do you think they are?' I said that murder and adultery was not the substance of 1 John.

'They went out from us because they were not all of us.' There's the burden. 'Who is antichrist? He that denieth both Father and the Son.' I believe that the sin unto death, that ye pray not for it, is the sin of apostasy. He had the grace to say that he would go home and have a look at that again.

There in the epistle to the Hebrews is apostasy coming to the light. I know that we can have apostates at any time in the Christian history and experience, but apostasy always stands at the beginning of an era and it always manifests itself at the end of an era. I '11 tell you this, brother and sister, if apostasy has become the burden of the heart of many of God's children today it means that we are reaching the end of the journey.

So, you see brethren, here there are backgrounds to the coming of the Lord Jesus, and things that are besetting the people of God, such as heresy, and such as the burden of flesh that can't be subdued completely to the cross there at Calvary; and there to the persecution and the trial and the tribulation; and there to the apostasy, and the departure of the professor that never was saved at all. 1he Lord Jesus is coming, and we are going to be rid of the lot of it.

Now let's have a look at the blessings, shall we?

Will you notice the Lord Jesus begins with, 'Let not your heart be troubled.' I like that. The disciples were in a position where you and I would never be, and will never be. The Lord Jesus had said to them 'what I said unto them I now say unto you. The Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of wicked men.' Now that was strange, wasn't it? The Lord Jesus had won every battle before then, hadn't he? Whether it was in word or in work. My, they had to leave Him there with their faces down, ashamed in their failure and defeat - the Lord Jesus was conqueror every time. But now you are going to get the mastery of the enemy, and to take Him, and they are going to crucify Him, hm?

Then He says this: 'One of you shall betray me.' And there's mischief, the mischief of a traitor in their own company. If you can't trust your own company then who can you trust? Then He goes on and He says this: 'Whither I go now ye cannot come.' They'd always been with Him. Then where's He going?

Now brother and sister, questions like that would never bother you and I, because we are looking back at it.

But they'd got the mastery of the enemy, they'd got the mischief of a traitor, they'd got the mystery of His departure, and they couldn't understand it and their hearts were troubled, and He says now, 'let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, keep on believing in me. In my Father's house are many mansions, and I go to prepare a place for you. If I go I will come again and receive you unto myself.' What lovely blessings!

The Lord Jesus anticipated the tribulation theory. Oh, aren't you glad? I've said this many a time, just to trust Christ and escape. That is what we've trusted in Christ for, isn't it? My, to trust Christ and enter into a thousand years like that, that's still worth trusting Christ. But I tell you, brother and sister, we've only just begun, we've got eternity after that.

If you are going to talk about the tribulation theory then you've got to wait for that to come. So you are not looking for the Saviour you're looking for signs. That belongs to prophecy, and doesn't belong to us. He says 'If I go away, I will come again and receive you,' and He puts nothing in between. So that the apostle Paul, he could say: 'We which are alive and remain. ' Whether we wake or sleep. That we be not ashamed before Him at His coming But Peter knew he was going to die. But did he? John Chapter 21, 'When thou was young thou girdest thyself, thou wentest whither so ever thou wouldst, but when thou art old another shall gird thee and take thee whither

thou wouldst not. This spake He, signifying what death he would glorify God.' Now, he wasn't waiting for the Lord's return. He knew he was going to die. But I wish they would read a little bit lower down, 'and when Peter turned and saw John following he said "and what shall this man do?" The Lord Jesus said to him, "And what if I will that he tarry till I come?"' So He put it in its right perspective again.

We have got to remember this, that the gospel of John was the last book that was written in the New Testament, and all the other apostles had passed away, every one, and he's alone. John is writing the book and he's come to the words of the Lord Jesus, and it's John that says 'this He said signifying by what death he should die.' Peter never mentions it at all, until he talks about the time of his departure at hand, not a reference. Let's be careful.

The church is not going through the tribulation. In one of the assemblies that I go to there was a lovely young brother, he's home with the Lord having died quite early. I only know his name as Tom. He was in charge of a family pottery business, and he said to me one night, 'would you like to come and have a look at what we do?' I said I'd enjoy it. So the next morning I showed up and he sat by his wheel. All you do is take a bit of clay and put it on the wheel, it's as easy as easy, and made something. Then he cut it off with his wire, crumpled it up and put it in another bin. Then he took another piece, and he did that about half a dozen times.

I said, 'Now just a minute Tom you've got a text over here, does that mean that God can do with clay what you can't do? "Can I not of the same clay make another vessel?"' Oh,' he said, 'I can do it.' I asked him why he was throwing it off and getting another piece. 'I'd better explain. Any clay that hasn't been through the fire can be used again. But once it's been through the fire you can't do anything with it. After it's been on the wheel and the pressure of the fingers had been squeezing the moisture from the clay, if you put it back again, just like that, it'll just flake off and brake. You have got to send it right back to the beginning of the process. there it's pummelled and it's worked, and there all the bubbles are taken out, until the right constituency is reached and you can bring it back to the wheel again.' 'Oh,' I said, 'thanks very much,' I was sure that would come in handy. Sure enough, it did.

One night I was baby sitting, (I didn't do that often, either.) After the meeting, when my wife came home, I asked how she got on. 'very good.' I asked what he took. 'Jeremiah, the potter and the wheel.' I asked how he dealt with

it. 'Well, he said God is the potter and the wheel is our life, and we are the clay. If we mar in His hand then He's quite prepared to make us all over again.' I said, 'It sounds lovely, but it's wrong.' I said I can prove it - we are vessels unto honour or unto dishonour, but we are vessels. God has placed this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and 'not of us, we are vessels. God doesn't make us all over again. The answer to our trouble is this: if a man will purge himself from these he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the master's use. So it's not a case of making us all over again, it's us keeping ourselves clean.

As far as the nations are concerned, they are either vessels of wrath or vessels of mercy, but they are vessels. 2here is only one piece of malleable clay in all the world, and that's the nation of Israel. God hasn't finished with it yet. He took a piece of clay out of Ur of the Chaldees, have a look at Jeremiah, and He put it on His wheel, and He moulded and fashioned in Abram, Isaac and Jacob and his sons, and it marred, and He had to take it off the wheel. But He didn't put it back again until He'd sent it to the beginning of the process, that's why it was Egypt, and that's why God heard their groanings and their sighing. The right consistency. And He brought them out from there through the wild&mess, through the judges, and the kings. It marred again, and He to take it off the wheel. But He's going to put it back again, and He's sent it back to the beginning of the process, and there was 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Then the cry came up again, godly men like Joshua and Zerubbabel and Nehemiah and Ezra, they came out, God was ready to work. BUt the whole thing collapsed, when the Son of God was here. God has taken the clay off the wheel, and has put it by. He cannot put it back on the wheel, until it's gone back to the beginning of the process, and that will be the time of Jacob's trouble. It will be a faithful remnant out of Jacob's trouble, and He'll mould it, and for the millennium it will be a vessel unto His glory..

The tribulation wouldn't make me any better than I am in Christ. I am perfect in Him, and complete in Him, I'm accepted in the beloved. God deals with every generation of Israel from Abraham until the tribulation, but not in this period, because God has put them on one side. If the church was going through the tribulation it would only be the last generation that was going through.

All the other would escape it.

So the Lord anticipated it and this is one of the lovely blessings, we are not going through the tribulation, we don't belong to it. It's the time concerning God's fulfilling of His purpose with Daniel's people, for 70 weeks are determined upon thy people, and there He'll finish the work concerning them.

But the church is gone before the tribulation ever dawns.

He anticipated the partial rapture as well, or the selective rapture. You notice that those that believe in the partial rapture, they are the ones that are going before the tribulation begins. It's us that don't believe it that are going through it. There we are, that's very kind of them, isn't it? 'If I go away I will come again and receive you.' That's Peter that was going to deny Him with oaths and curses; that's Thomas who says he will not believe unless he puts his finger in the prints of the nails in His hands, and so on; that's the company that was going to forsake Him and flee, when He looked and there was no eye to pity. I tell you, if we believe in the selective rapture I don't believe any of the apostles would be taking part in it at all. No brother, it's all of grace, and it's got nothing to do with what we deserve.

Now let's rejoice in that blessedness, that the Lord Jesus is coming, regardless about any queries about the tribulation or about the selective rapture, or about amillenialism. The Lord Jesus is coming to take us home at the close of this present work before He completes the works that He began before the church came into being.

There's many a heart that bleeds, there's many an eye that weeps, there's many a soul that sighs. There's only one answer that can heal the broken hearted, and that can take the tear from the eye, and remove the anxiety from the soul, that's when the Lord Jesus comes and takes us home.

The Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout. Some have said only the church will hear that. I have my doubts. They heard the voice in John 12, didn't they, when God spoke from heaven? Some said it thundered, others said an angel spake to Him. They got the sound, but they never got the sense. /here seems a contradiction in the conversion and the testimony in relation to Saul of Tarsus. In one it says they that were with him heard but Him they saw not; in the next one it says they saw not, but Him they heard not. There's a contradiction for you, eh? You like your contradictions, don't you? Brother and sister, they are both right. They saw the light, but they never saw the one that was in the light; they heard the sound of the voice, but they never got the sense of it. It was only Saul of Tarsus that knew what was said. 'My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. '

Maybe tonight before you get home the Lord may shout and all will be gone.

It'll finish in the twinkling of 'an eye and we'll be home in the presence of the Lord Jesus. Be like Him at the sound, brother and sister, not the seeing.

The sound, the trumpet will sound and we shall be changed. 1 John 3, and being like Him we shall see Him, for we shall see Him as He is, and we're never going to go out of His presence any more for ever.

Lift up your heart. John was introspective, on the Isle of Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, that he turned to see the voice that spake, being turned he saw one like unto the son of man. The son of man began to unfold all the glories that belong to Him, the place that God has given to Him, His judgement over the living nations, the marriage supper of the Lamb, the judgement of the Great White Throne. When he saw that lovely man and all that belongs to Him, he said 'Amen, Lord Jesus, come quickly.' He wasn't introspective after that, he got his eye in the right direction. Keep it there, brother and sister. If you keep your eye right, your feet will walk in the right direction.