Caught Away / Greg Laurie

 Caught Away

“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17 NKJV).

Some people say the teaching of the Rapture is escapism.

Yes, that’s exactly what it is. Christ will come for His Church and take us off this earth.

In 1 Thessalonians 4, we find probably the most definitive passage on the Rapture: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (verses 16-17 NKJV).

The term caught up is an interesting one because there are many shades of meaning. One way to translate it is “to catch away quickly.” This is the same translation in Acts 8:39, where we read that after Philip led the Ethiopian official to Christ, “the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away” (NKJV).

In the same way, the Rapture will take place in a quick period of time. The Biblesays, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52 NKJV).

In fact, “the twinkling of an eye” reportedly lasts about one thousandth of a second. That means if you’re a Christian, one moment you’ll be going about your life on Earth, and the next moment you’ll find yourself the presence of Christ Himself.

The Rapture could take place so rapidly that we wouldn’t even know it, except that we’d be hurtled into God’s presence. In light of this, we should live each day in expectation of the Lord’s return.