Continuation of Part 1

By Lee Y. Martin, Ph.D. ©2008

Going back to Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, the righteous dead will rise first from the grave when Jesus shouts, and then the righteous believers who are still alive will go up …with them to meet the Lord in the air. After our rendezvous in the clouds, He will take us back to heaven with Him as per John 14:3, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

The purpose of the blast and the shout is to awaken sleeping people. Dead people are said to be asleep, and people alive are usually encumbered by worldly matters that crowd out spiritual things making them temporally dead. Regardless of what you are doing, whether awake or sleeping, you need to be ready to go as were the five virgins who were prepared with extra oil in the parable Jesus gave of the ten virgins [Matthew 25:1ff]. According to the parable, unprepared people will not be taken to heaven for the consummation of their betrothal to the Lord. This does not mean they will not go to heaven. It only signifies that they miss the wedding consummation for which they were betrothed. What a tragedy that will be. Throughout eternity they will have to settle for a lesser state in heaven if the parable of the ten virgins is correct. Every person must decide for himself or herself what the intent of the parable’s words “I know you not” mean. Those words are different from “I never knew you” in Matthew 7:23.

“Never” implies “not ever”, whereas “know not” can mean a selective knowing implying that Jesus knows not those unprepared virgins as a part of His bride. They did not heed the Words of our Lord and make themselves ready for a wedding. Readiness is clearly the point of the parable of the ten virgins. If the rapture to a heavenly wedding ends the Church Age, then those who miss it, will have to settle for a lesser, though blessed, state in heaven. The entire thrust of this website has been to warn the church about being ready for an immanent rapture.

Back At The Ranch…

Note what the passage in Thessalonians 4 does not indicate. Jesus does not set foot on earth’s ground. He meets His people in the air. This is important because this points out that He will be coming back twice at the time of His Second Advent. First, He comes FOR His bride, the church, to take her to heaven for her wedding as foretold in several parables; and second, He returns again WITH her to end the battle of Armageddon seven years later. Keep these distinctions in mind as we move along because I will be coming back to this fact of two appearances of our Lord.

Meanwhile, it is instructive to know that in Jesus’ day, a Jewish couple was secluded in their newly built home on a honeymoon for seven days (one week) after the wedding. Could there be a relationship in that fact to the church’s disappearance from earth during the seven year tribulation period – one week of years? The tribulation period is the last week of Daniel’s 70 weeks of years prophecy for Jewish time to be fulfilled before the Messiah sets up His Kingdom for ruling earth.

Jesus is right now preparing a place for us as He promised He would in John 14:3, so that when we get to heaven we will have an abode waiting for us in His house. The practice of becoming betrothed, then waiting until a place of residence was completed before consummating a marriage was customary when Jesus walked the earth. Persons betrothed were legally married although not yet wedded.

What a prospect! For 2,000 years Jesus has been preparing room after room after room in His Father’s house for His family. Someone has said that it must be a humdinger because it only took Him six days to create the physical universe. No wonder the city of God is huge according to Revelation chapter 21. Every good deed we do on earth [Revelation 19:8], every prayer we pray [8:4], and every time we think upon His name, it is recorded in a book of remembrance [Malachi 3:16] and will be reflected in some way in our heavenly mansion. What an enormous data-processing job for angels! Are you sending up timber?

Probably the hardest thing to conceptualize in the rapture text to the Corinthians is the fact that our bodies will be changed at the rapture [15:52]. When Paul said ‘we shall be changed’ he was not talking about a change of place from earth to heaven, but instead was indicating that our bodies would be changed from one temporal form to another.

The Greek word for ‘change’ is allasso, a verb meaning ‘to make different‘. Our new bodies will be like Jesus’ body that can appear and disappear and walk through walls, yet can eat physical food and feel passion. Recall Jesus was angry at the disciples …when he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them (chewed them out) with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen [Mark 16:14]. ‘Upbraided’ indicates that he was extremely upset and angry. This new body will be able to matriculate between different hyperspaces – three-dimensional spaces and multi-dimensional spaces past three. Because time is a physical property tied to our space/time existence, we will need an upgraded body not bounded by time to move in and out of hyperspaces as Jesus did.

We know that Paul was talking about a change in body because he couches his revelatory mystery in phrases that discuss mortality putting on immortality and corruption putting on incorruption. His doctrine about our translation from one species to another is an embellishment upon Jesus’ words about a seed of corn being planted as one thing and coming up as a completely new plant [John 12:24]. The seed vanishes when it metamorphoses into a plant although in some respects it is still similar in form and function.

Paul also gave the people information about when this change would occur. It was veiled in his mention of ‘the last trump’. Yes, the timing of when death would be swallowed up in victory is hidden in the sound of a trumpet. This mysterious trumpet blast about which Paul was talking centers around the Jewish custom of blowing one long trumpet blast on the Feast of Trumpets. And we have seen it is the last blast of the feast day called the Day of the Awakening Blast.

Before explaining about this trumpet blast, let me clarify one thing. Paul was not referring to the last trumpet of the series of seven trumpet blasts blown in the book of Revelation all of which signal judgment on an unbelieving world. John’s book of Revelation was not even written yet. This last trumpet blast at the time of the rapture is one of three distinctly named blasts each one of which is blown on a particular feast day celebrated by the Jews. And this trumpet blast will be a joyous sound to all those who hear it.

Not only does Paul mention to the Thessalonians about the blowing of a trumpet blast at the rapture, but he also speaks about a blast on a trumpet in his first letter to the Corinthians. There he calls it ‘the last trump’. Let’s go to that passage and settled the matter of the rapture because it is the second witness to that event – …in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established according to Jesus [Matthew 18:16].

In many of Paul’s letters to the churches, he talks about mysteries. He had the opportunity to show God’s saints truths concealed since before the foundation of the world. These realities were related to ‘his gospel’ which Jesus personally gave to him. Paul’s gospel like the gospel of the Kingdom Jesus preached was good news. The good news Jesus preached was that the Kingdom had arrived and citizenship benefits were available to anyone who would believe the gospel and vigorously press into it [Matthew 11:12].

Paul’s gospel, being an extension of Jesus’ gospel, revealed that Kingdom citizenship was now extended to Gentiles apart from the law. The fact that it was offered by grace through faith to everyone [Ephesians 2:8], Jew and Gentile alike, not only astonished but angered some Jews for they were jealous of their privileged position with the Almighty. The mysteries Paul unveiled were answers to puzzling questions arising because of the change in covenants and dispositions with God. Nevertheless, the truth of the enigmas was frequently embedded in cryptic ways in Old Testament Scripture.

Having opened up the prospect of anyone becoming a son of God, meant that there were changes in approaching Him that must be explained to heathen converts as well as unenlightened Jews. Hence, the Corinthians were given privileged information regarding Jesus’ coming again to set up His Kingdom, information that would stabilize people converted to the faith of Jesus in the midst of adversity.

Three Important Trumpet Blasts In Jewish Culture Orthodox Jews understand that there are three primary trumpet blasts marking major events in God’s redemptive plan. The first one is named ‘The First Trump’ blown on the Feast of Pentecost; the second one is called ‘The Last Trump’ blown on the Feast of Trumpets; and the third one is named ‘The Great Trumpet’ blown on the Day of Atonement. These named trumpet blasts are customarily blown with ram’s horns called shofars and hold great significance. The Feasts of Jehovah are not our topic in this study, therefore, to conserve space and time, I shall only expound upon the trumpet blast known as ‘The Last Trump’ for this trumpet blast is related to the rapture event. While the first three feasts of the seven feasts of Jehovah pertain to our Lord’s First Advent, the last three feasts speak of our Lord’s Second Advent.

Because all the feasts are prophetic rehearsals of future events, they are shadows of things to come. Recall that the middle feast, the Feast of Pentecost, we have shown to relate to the marriage of Jehovah to Israel and the betrothal of the church to Jesus through the giving of the Holy Spirit as the earnest or promise of our joint-heirship as His wife [Ephesians 1:13,14; Romans 8:17]. All the feasts have embedded meanings in the rituals associated with them linking them to future happenings in God’s time-table of history. The one we are interested in here is the Feast of Trumpets because it signifies the rapture of the church.

It is interesting and noteworthy that the actual events for which the first four feasts were shadows all happened exactly on time and fulfilled to the letter every symbolic activity connected with their rituals. If so, should not the last three feasts do the same? I’ll leave that for you to ponder.

Two Ram's Horns

Genesis chapter 22 is a very important passage of Scripture to Jews. It is the place in Scripture where Abraham offers Isaac in sacrifice to God. We find in that chapter that Isaac was never sacrificed, but a ram caught in a thicket was killed in his place. The substitute ram represented God’s Son who would someday be a substitute for man and the final sacrifice to finish the transgression against God. The ram symbolizes God’s Son in Scripture, and horns represent power throughout Scripture.

Jewish lore states that the two horns from the captured ram were removed and made into two shofar trumpets. One of them, the left horn of the ram, is blown on the Feast of Pentecost (the day of the church’s betrothal) and is called ‘The First Trump’. The other horn, the right one, is called ‘The Last Trump’ and is blown on the Feast of Trumpets (the day of the church’s marriage).

The only ritual performed on this fifth feast is the blowing of trumpets. The final blast of the shofar named 'The Last Trump' is a long drawn out one whereas all the rest are short.

Why is this? We can perhaps discern the reason from one of the names by which the Feast of Trumpets (known as Rosh HaShanah in Hebrew) is called. This feast has at least ten mysterious names associated with it. For example, it is referred to in the Torah as the Day of the Sounding of the Shofar, which translates to the Day of the Awakening Blast in English.

The purpose of a blast from a trumpet accompanied by a shout is to awaken someone. In Jewish custom, when a couple’s dwelling place was completed, as a groom came down the street, a trumpet was blown with shouting by friends to alert his bride that he was on his way to her house. This signaled that she should gather up her things in expectation to go to her new home with him. It is not the time to be getting prepared. She should be ready to go. Likewise, when Jesus descends with a shout and the sound of a trumpet, it is to awaken the righteous dead as well as alert righteous believers who are alive that He has come for His bride. There will be no time to be getting ready at that point.

At our acceptance of Jesus as our Lord, we were betrothed to Him and considered married, but the consummation has had to await a dwelling place for us in His Father’s house. Can you see the connection to the rapture that Paul was alluding to when he said that …the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed [1 Corinthians 15:52]? Note how it is referred to in the Psalms: Blessed is the people that (hear) the joyful sound…[Psalms 89:15]. The trumpet blast is a joyful sound because those that hear it will be blessed since it means they have made the rapture. Unsaved people will not hear the sound and will be left behind to go into the tribulation.

The trumpet blast therefore, signifies an awakening of people from slumber. Many believers are not eagerly awaiting the coming of the Lord. Some are not sure if He is coming at all; some say we’re raptured post-trib; and others say there is no rapture, it’s only an allegory of Scripture. Will they miss the rapture? I don’t know. I can only speak for myself. I believe in a rapture, and I am staying ready for it because Scripture has clearly shown me that one is coming.

Enoch’s Translation

What does it mean when we read that Enoch was translated by faith?

Hebrews 11:5-6

5 BY FAITH Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. 6 But without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please him: …

We can see that it is impossible to please God without faith. And we know that Enoch was translated by faith. It was his personal faith that produced his translation because every other person in the following list in chapter 11 accomplished great things by their own personal faith. In other words, without believing what God had promised them, they would not have participated in or received the blessings they were persuaded were theirs. Even Elijah knew beforehand and believed that he was going to be supernaturally taken to heaven without dying [2 Kings 2:1ff]. Would he have been translated if he had not believed what God told him, that is, that he was going to be ‘taken’ to heaven that day?

Note that the passage does not say God told Elijah he was going to die as we read in other places where people departed this world, such as Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Jacob, etc. The sons of the prophets, and Elisha too, believed that ‘to take away’ did not mean to die. They knew the Scripture that reports: Enoch walked with God: and he was not for God took him [Genesis 5:24]. Hence, the prophets believed what the Lord had told them about Elijah’s rapture departure—Enoch-style, and because of it, they were established to prosper under Elisha’s anointed mantle [2 Chronicles 20:20].

Some people say that believers will be protected through the horrors of the tribulation and that we should not be seeking removal from this time of cleansing but look on it as a time of gold being tried by fire. Some believers will be protected from it such as the 144,000 Jews who are sealed from any harm in Revelation chapter seven. And it is true that some of the church will have to endure affliction at that time, namely, the Laodicean church whom Jesus …counseled to buy of Him gold tried by fire… [Revelation 3:18]. Being an impure compromising church, the Laodiceans need cleansing. Many of them will be the martyrs spoken about in John’s Revelation …which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb [7:14].

We know that the Bible is full of types and antitypes. These are both real events separated by a vast amount of time ordinarily. Enoch was a type of the antitype rapture generation. Enoch’s translation occurred around 634 years before the beginning of the cleansing of earth by water indicating that the antitype event will happen prior to the fire cleansing of earth. Only one person was translated to not see death before God’s judgment and only eight souls were saved through it. This means that not many people believed Noah’s preaching that a flood was coming. And what of today?

The number of people who believe in a pre-trib rapture is growing smaller because of the wide push towards a unified religious system of all faiths that is supposed to bring peace via multicultural education that teaches the brotherhood of man in a global village. Yet there is ample evidence that the early church fathers did believe in a pre-trib imminent rapture. Hence, the prophesied raptured church seems to be getting smaller because of a change in worldview – very simply unbelief. Jesus wondered if he would find faith when he comes again [Luke 18:8].

So everything reduces to the bottom line that without faith we cannot receive anything from the Lord. Those who have faith in a post-trib rapture will have what they say as per our Lord’s teaching in Mark 11:23, and those who believe in a pre-trib rapture will have what they say as well.

In the first resurrection, which constitutes all believers, there will be different times for the raising of various groups of people. Paul said, But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming [1 Corinthians 15:23]. Even Daniel was told in Daniel 12:13, … go …thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days. Having said all the above, you be the judge as to whether persons who do not believe in nor preach the rapture will participate in it.

Can you see why it is important that a believer study Scripture and develop strong faith to believe for good things God wants to do for us? You must find out for yourself what you believe because no one else can believe for you.

We have seen from Scripture that Jesus is coming for those who are prepared and ready to go to the marriage feast in heaven. The trumpet blast named The Last Trump finalizes the period of waiting for the Lord’s return. The bride who has made herself ready will be taken out of harms way as the world gets ready for judgment. Interestingly, another title for the Feast of Trumpets by Jewry is Judgment Day. Could all this be coincidence?

The First Trump blown on Pentecost signifies the beginning of the harvest season and symbolizes the opening of the doors to the church. The church was born at the time when people gathered together to celebrate with thank offerings to the Lord the barley harvest, the first of many harvests lasting all summer. Hence it is named The First Trump because it starts the development of the body of Christ.

The Last Trump is blown at the very last of harvest season and so it is named symbolizing the closing of the door to the church – but not to heaven. The door to heaven will not be closed until the Days Of Awe are ended.

The ten-day period between the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement are known as the Days Of Awe because they are the days of judgment of the earth culminating in the wrath of God being poured out upon a hardened unbelieving generation of unrepentant people. Many will get saved during that time but so as by fire. The invitation to become a member of the body of Christ is open now, but at the blowing of ‘the last trump’, it’s over. The church will be complete and Jesus will have selected His bride.

After the rapture event, God deals with Israel again and the missionaries preaching the gospel of salvation will be Jews – the 144,000 sealed in chapter 5 of Revelation. The time between the Feast of Trumpets on the 1st of Tishri (the first month of the Jewish civil calendar) and the Day of Atonement on the 10th is the time of the last week of Daniel’s prophecy which I have alluded to above. This final week of the Jewish Age, which has been on hold for 2,000 years, we know to be seven years long. It is exact, specific, and fixed, and the major part of the book of Revelation is an explanation of what is going to happen during that time.

Let me give you a quick synopsis of the Revelation/Armageddon script laid out in the fall feasts of Jehovah. God Himself wrote this script by requiring certain rituals be performed by the Israelites, so I am not allegorizing.

As we have seen, when Jesus comes for His church on the Feast of Trumpets, He meets her in the air. He does not set foot on the earth at that time. After the seven year period of judgment, He returns again, but this time He is coming to end the battle of Armageddon, touch ground, and finalize judgment. This is not the Great White Throne judgment at the end of the world before God creates all things new, but the judgment to determine who will repopulate earth for the Kingdom Millennial Age, the last millennium of God’s week of millenniums.

Celebration of the establishment of the Kingdom is typified by the last feast called the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the most joyful feast of all. In between the Feasts of Trumpets and Tabernacles is the sixth feast called the Day of Atonement, the most solemn day of the Jewish year. Why? Because at day’s end, the gates of heaven are ordered by the Judge to be closed to people who have not repented. They will be cast into outer darkness, their doom is sealed, and they will be eternally lost.

The Day of Atonement

In the Temple era, the Day of Atonement was the day the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies to make intercession for himself and the people. It was the last opportunity to appease a God angry over sin. In feast symbolism, whoever does not make the rapture has to go through the Days of Awe – these being a rehearsal of the gruesome days prophesied in the book of Revelation. A blast on the shofar is blown every day to awaken the people to repentance. It is a reminder to repent before the final day for atoning.

Nothing is done on the Day of Atonement. This is the final day when God decides who deserves forgiveness. Jewish people who seriously observe this day do not eat nor drink water, cook, play, nor work. All they do is agonize over whether they have confessed all their sins for this is their last opportunity to do so. They meditate about what transpired in their lives throughout the past year trying to extract through confession anything that might keep them from receiving God’s forgiveness so they can enter His Kingdom symbolized by the Feast of Tabernacles.

The idea couched in the symbolism of the rituals related to the days of Awe preceding the Day of Atonement is that things will become so horrible as God’s wrath moves forward on planet earth that a great many people will not survive those days. As we will see, the days of Awe are a depiction of the gruesome days prophesied in the book of Revelation where a large majority of earth’s population dies. Whoever does survive still has to wonder if he or she has repented enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. At the close of the Day of Atonement, the doors of heaven are shut signifying that there is no more time to repent. Now everything is up to the Judge.

The Great Trumpet

Armageddon being over, The Great Trumpet is blown for the gathering of people for judgment [Matthew 24:31]. Jesus carries out the reality of the sheep and goat parable at this time [Matthew 25:32ff]. He divides the survivors of the Days of Awe as per the parable, the sheep entering the millennial reign of His Kingdom, and the goats being cast into outer darkness to await the Great White Throne judgment [Revelation 20:11].

Jesus used the fate of Sodom as an example of why we should stay ready for departure in order to miss the wrath of God on sin [Luke 17:28-30]. When He sent His angels to get Lot out of town before He destroyed Sodom, he and his family of four were dragging their feet, so much so that the two messenger angels had to snatch Lot and his family by the hands and literally drag them out of town before it was too late. Jesus implied that the snatching of Lot illustrated the snatching of the church from off earth in the rapture so that the Day of the Lord could begin. I’ll speak to this day in the next section.

The angels warned Lot and his family not to look back because there was no time for even a peek. You know the story. Lot’s wife looked and the explosive gases and debris turned her into a pillar of salt. Turning back in disobedience removed her body shield. The speed at which the rapture will happen will be so fast it can’t be measured, hence there will be no time to be getting ready, and if Lot’s wife is an example of what is required of us today, I suggest that rejection of what God has prophesied in His Word may not protect unbelievering believers from entering the Days of Awe.

Now you can see why I have repeatedly admonished people in the interpretations of the visions on this website to stay prepared to be seized out of here. Anyone who knows Jesus and has his mind made up to walk with Him has no fear of being left behind for God has promised to come get us. It is for this reason I wanted to explain the rapture for readers who might not be schooled in Biblical prophetic concepts. The unknown is what causes fear. Now that you understand that there is coming a time of no return, you can be sure you are prepared and stay that way so as not to be caught by surprise. I can tell you in one word how to get prepared – REPENT.

(Please click below for The Rapture of the Church: Part 2)