left behind

The rapture happened, what now?

Posted on August 20, 2020 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Where did they go?

If you are reading this, then it means that the rapture occurred. The rapture is a term for the moment Jesus calls to His believers, resurrecting the dead in Christ and bringing the already living believers up to heaven to be with Him. Here it is in scripture:

1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 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.”

1 Corinthians 15:51-52
“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

Why did it happen?

We were living in what was called the Church Age, AKA the New Testament times. In Old Testament times the people lived under the Law (The Ten Commandments.) The Old Testament folks had faith, but the faith was that their Messiah would come. Jesus the Messiah had not come yet. But in order to demonstrate that faith in the future promise of Messiah’s coming, and to be cleansed from their sins, they had to kill an animal twice a day and sacrifice it. Why? The blood is the life. (Deuteronomy 12:23). “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” (Leviticus 17:11).

Then Jesus came, but the Jews didn’t recognize Him as Messiah, or those that did, rejected Him. When Jesus died, was resurrected and ascended into heaven, everything changed. Believers no longer needed to sacrifice because Jesus was the sacrifice. He shed His OWN blood for us! As a result of the Jews’ rejection of Him, Jesus has spent the last 2000 years building His church from Gentile peoples (Romans 11:25, Acts 15:14-17). Now the Church Age is over, He is returning His attention to the Jews, and now it is Judgment time for all of those left behind.

Why weren’t we taken?

You might wonder about people whom you thought were Christians who are still here. Not everyone who professed Jesus was truly saved. We cannot tell who is saved and who is not, but Jesus knows who is who. He took the true believers. Intellectual assent is not saving faith. Tradition is not saving faith. Church-going habit is not saving faith. Only true believers were taken. A true believer is described in John 6:29: “Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”God sent Jesus to die for your sins, as the eternal sacrifice to satisfy His justice. Sin must be punished, because it is a crime. Jesus took the punishment and paid the debt for all sins forever.

As a result, you would have been pardoned- IF you had believed! But you chose to reject Jesus’ pardon, during the now concluded Church Age, or you added to belief in Him with a man-made rules or tradition. So, you are here now. John 11:25 “Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” I hope the rapture convinced you to believe it! Repent now. Right now!

What will happen next?

Unfortunately, you are in for the roughest time that there ever was and ever will be. Jesus said “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. (Matthew 24: 21-22).

He is saying that if the Tribulation went on longer than 7 years surely EVERY person would die! The Tribulation is when Jesus will pour out His anger against sin and sinners. Christians who repented in the Church Age just prior to the Tribulation do not have to endure it because we took the pardon and believed in Him before the rapture, or before they died. So Jesus removed us from this terrible time. Jesus will send increasingly terrible judgments on the earth to punish sinners.

Starting now, ¼ of earth’s population will die in war and famines and diseases. Then another 1/3 will die, equaling half the globe’s population before the Tribulation is even half over! Your life is at extreme risk. If you die before asking Jesus forgiveness of your sins and becoming a believer in Him, you will go to hell forever. Sin is real. God’s judgment of sin is real. Satan is real. Hell is real. The coming Antichrist is real.

Everything in the Bible is real. Not any other book. Not the Mormon Bible. Not the Catholic Bible. Only the Christian BIBLE is truth!

What must I do to be saved?

You must repent. The jailer at Philippi saw the marvelous joy in Paul and Silas, even while they were chained in the lowest jail, and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you & your household.” (Acts 16:30-31). You have to believe that your sins prevented you from being raptured up to heaven and will prevent you from going to heaven when you die. Sins are your wrong thoughts, words, and deeds against God. Everyone has wrong thoughts, words, deeds, so that means everyone sins! You need to be sorry for them, and have faith in Jesus. King David was sorry, in Psalm 38:4 he said: “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.” Do you feel guilty for your sins? You should. They are crimes against a Holy God.

Do as David did: “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.” (Psalm 38:18). God is so holy He cannot even look upon sin. He is offended by sin and will not tolerate it.

In so doing you acknowledge that Jesus is the only person who CAN forgive them, having lived a sinless life and shedding His blood as the pure sacrifice for YOU. Once you do this, He will forgive you and then He will send the Holy Spirit to you to help you understand the Bible. If you do not confess and come to faith in Jesus, the Bible will never make sense. And worse, you will be at risk from the lying delusion coming upon the whole earth.

What if I wait and see how things go before I confess and repent?

Don’t do it! A great delusion will come over the whole world and those who are not saved in faith by Jesus’ blood will believe the delusion. The Bible says, “The coming of the lawless one (ANTICHRIST) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

The Good News is, Jesus still loves you and wants you! If you repent and ask Him to forgive, He will. You’ll still go through the horrendous times, or even be martyred for your faith, but when you die you will go to heaven and live forever with Jesus. Your first step is to repent & believe, and you will be saved from hell. Also, you will then understand the Bible because the Lord will send the Holy Spirit to you to help you understand it. The Bible tells you what to do and what will happen next. The most important thing to remember is, JESUS LOVES YOU! Don’t mess it up again. Repent now!!!!!!!

prophecy, Uncategorized

Left Behind in Labrador

Posted on November 15, 2017November 15, 2017 by elizabethprata

Youtube offers endless hours of entertainment for those wanting a brief escape. My cousin posts a positive and humorous vlog every day, which I enjoy watching. Then I might browse videos showing funny antics of children or animals.

One Vlogger I enjoy is Don’s Family Vacations, who focuses a lot on tips for cruisers. I don’t enjoy traditional large ship cruising, but I enjoy his tips anyway. He’s kind, engaging, and the information about the Cruise Ships is interesting.

He stresses in several of his vlogs that the Cruise Ship always leaves on time. If you attend an off-ship excursion, be sure to arrive back at the dock before they take in the gangway and cast off. They will leave you behind.

This is from Cruise Critic:

Far be it from us to take joy from another’s misery, but we admit there’s something inherently amusing about passengers sprinting the length of the dock — often to the mocking cheers of those already onboard — when they realize they’re late getting back to their cruise ship. Usually these aptly named “pier runners” are lucky. They throw themselves across the gangway, and the doors close behind them. Others, however, aren’t so fortunate. Mistakes happen, in spite of the best-laid plans; if you find yourself still on dry land while your ship is sailing off into the sunset, it’s not the end of the world. Check out our tips and advice for how to avoid missing your ship, how to prepare in case you do miss it and what to do if your cruise ship leaves you behind.

Sometimes I go on Youtube to watch short vlogs of people running to catch the ship, always in vain. I look at the pier runners as the ship steams away, thinking about their predicament of being in a foreign country without resource. It must be scary to arrive from your excursion to an empty, deserted pier! Cruise Critic did say,

What must those people with unfortunate timing think? How awful to be left behind. According to Don of Don’s Family Vacations, they must somehow get home using their own money and resources. Once the passenger has missed the ship, the Cruise Line is not responsible for them any longer.

I laughed along with the observers in these videos, until I remember that once, I’d been a pier runner too!

My husband and I took a cruise that wasn’t a cruise. We traveled as passengers aboard an icebreaker/ferry/cargo ship in Upper Quebec and Labrador. (Relais Nordik). At that time, there were few roads connecting the villages that dotted the shoreline of this large Province, and the boat acted as ferry, mail boat, grocery delivery, and human transportation from one port to another. In between the towns after Sept-Iles, there was only tundra.

Back in the 1990s when we were aboard, conditions were primitive. The sole aim of the ship was to transport cargo and passengers, not to cater to people boarding the boat as a cruiser. We slept in a quadruple bunk room, ate with the crew, and played cards or watched the scenery because there were no on-board activities. Now, the Ship has nicer cabins for people who want to take the route as a cruising passenger, they suggest shore excursions, and provide dinner seatings with set tables and everything! It’s still rough and tumble though. The ship is still mainly a ferry. Due to variable and potentially rough conditions, the cruise line disclaims a specific return time shorter than a 36-48 hour window, lol.

The run went from Rimouski to Blanc-Sablon, and included Anticosti Island

I collect shells. At one stop, we walked the beach and I noticed that Canada grows some giant scallops! The shells cast up on the beach were 3 to 4 inches across. I got absorbed looking at all the shells on the beach. I saw some species I’d never been able to collect, and there were other species I wasn’t familiar with. Time passed.

Gradually I noticed that it was quiet. Too quiet. Everyone had left! Oh no!

I ran as fast as my short legs could go, and I saw the ship with engines on and lines casting off. The crew was trying to take in the gangway but my husband was standing on it and wouldn’t let them. I got up there and ran up the ramp and they withdrew the gangway and we were off. That was a close one!

They said that on this route, if we’re left behind, we’re supposed to knock on doors of the few homes until one of the homeowners takes pity on you and lets you sleep there till the ship is on the return route. When the ship returns you can get back on and resume your journey. Depending on where the ship left you behind, it may be 2-4 days until it returns.

As I hustled up to the ship I was wondering what I would do if I was left behind. I had a nasty knot in my stomach and I was breathing hard, and it wasn’t just from the running! I was almost left behind to dwell in a unfamiliar land

It makes me wonder even more about the people who will be left behind when the real ship sails. The real ship I’m talking about is the Ship of State, the Church. Paul said in Romans 11:25,

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in,

The term ‘full number’ is from the Greek pleroo, and means full number, completeness. The word was usually used in reference to a ship and its full number of crew. Admiralty law at the time banned any ship from sailing until the full number of necessary sailors were staffed to man it.

What will it feel like to be left behind for those people in the world who aren’t saved, and have some familiarity with Christianity? Maybe they’ve heard someone give the Gospel, or know of the rapture and left behind from the books or movies. The devastating feeling the cruiser has in the pit of their stomach when they’ve been left behind at the pier will be magnified a million-fold. You’ve been left behind on earth. There will be no running to catch the ship, for it will disappear in the blink of an eye. One moment here, the next…gone.

There is a solution that will ensure your participation in the rapture. When it sails will it have you in it? The solution is to repent of your sins. Ask Jesus to forgive them, and lay your life down at His feet. Once you trust in Jesus as the Savior King, then He will consider you not an enemy any more but a sheep in his fold.

Don’t be a pier runner.

Here are some fictionalized versions of what the rapture might look like.

prophecy, Uncategorized

Left Behind author Tim LaHaye, passes away

Posted on July 25, 2016 by elizabethprata

Christianity Today reports today that sadly,

Tim LaHaye, the best-selling author best known for the Left Behind series, “graduated to heaven” early this morning after suffering a stroke at age 90. His family announced the news of his passing at a San Diego hospital on his ministry Facebook page.

In my early days of Christianity, I read most of the Left Behind series. A lot of people did. Here is an article about the series from earlier in July, before Dr LaHaye’s passing.

End times author breaks down prophecy and fiction

A popular author who helped invigorate pop culture interest in Christian eschatology with the release of the first book in the “Left Behind” series 21 years ago is surprised by the novel’s monumental impact. … Years later, it not only continues to fly off bookshelves, it has been the impetus for at least four apocalyptic-themed Hollywood films.

It’s hard to imagine it’s been 21 years, even though I was not a Christian for 10 of those. The series referred to is a series of fiction books written from the point of view of non-believers living through the rapture, the rise of the antichrist, and the Tribulation. Though in the books, most of the main characters convert to Christianity subsequent to the Rapture. The books’ backdrop is Christian apocalyptic, unlike most of today’s apocalyptic books, TV shows, movies, and video games which present an apocalypse from a secular point of view. The “Left Behind” books present the real apocalypse, though sanitized and fictionalized. Continue reading “Left Behind author Tim LaHaye, passes away” →