Suddenly, without warning and without fanfare, the silence of the earth’s atmosphere is shattered by the sound of a mighty shout heard only by the dead “in Christ” – “ARISE! COME FORTH! The Grave no longer has hold on your mortal remains!” And the “dead in Christ” Arise! Given new immortal bodies, they are united with their redeemed spirits that have been waiting in Heaven with Jesus – just waiting for this call to ARISE!
Simultaneously, the heavens shake with the blast of a celestial trumpet. The clouds split apart, and there, wreathed in blinding clouds of glory, clothed in shining, righteous splendor in midair, suspended between the earth and skies, stands the conquering King of Kings – the Bridegroom for whom our hearts have been pining, and our eyes longing so to see!
At His command, the dead in Christ arise first; then, a nanosecond later, the risen Lamb commands aloud to His Remnant Church – His beloved bride – “COME UP HERE!”
Quicker than the blink of an eye, in a span of time too small to be quantified or measured, “we who are alive and remain” are caught up into the air – instantaneously CHANGED – from mortal to immortal; from corruptible sin-cursed flesh to incorruptible glorified bodies fit to dwell for all eternity in the presence of the Lord!
Up through the atmosphere, up through the celestial heavens, we ascend; teleported into the very throne room of God, into the presence of the One who sits upon an emerald-encircled throne!
All of this every believer living and dead will see and hear, yet the earthbound lost – the unregenerate and the reprobates – will have no inkling of the most unprecedented event ever to befall this sin-wrecked world until after the massive vanishing of believers everywhere on earth will have already occurred.
Oh, Church, do you KNOW it? HE is coming! Believing Remnant, can you feel it? He IS coming! The nearness of His return is IMMINENT. He is COMING, bride of Christ! Can you feel it within your very bones? The time is near! HE IS COMING!
Do you long with every fiber of your being to be released from this sin-cursed world? He is COMING!
“In a moment; in the twinkling of an eye…” Are you ready? Are you excited?
Look up! Look up! LOOK UP! JESUS, King of Kings, IS COMING!
“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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).
“For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).
MARANATHA! LORD, COME!