For those of you that have been blessed with the opportunity to take a vacation occasionally, you know that the anticipation is nearly as sweet as the time spent at your choice of destination. The preparations are done with excitement, the days, sometimes even months, are counted down with joy, and although at times it can seem to take forever to arrive, when the day of departure comes, you finally get to say, “Today is the day.”
My beautiful wife and I will not be experiencing that joy this year, we have determined, through a faith that we place upon no others, that we will not be wearing a mask, for any reason, and with the possible requirements for many areas of life, including some forms of travel when the supposed vaccine arrives, it looks as if we may not be going on extended vacations ever again. It is the path that was expected, not one person left here after the rapture who have determined to not serve the Lord Jesus Christ will even question when the time comes to receive the mark, (Rev. 13:17) they will have slowly over time been conditioned to obedience.
Those who have been blessed with eyes to see know for a fact that there is no pandemic, it is the flu, and although it would be quite easy to back this statement up with statistical facts, the point of this letter to you is not the newest deceit of our adversary, it is not the faith that my lovely wife and I hold that the masks, vaccine, and all that will come after them are the subtle pathways of obedience that he is using, nor is it even vacations and the rest, relaxation, and time alone with loved ones that it brings, it is the day of the sound of the trumpet that we are addressing here. Are you just as excited for that day as you are, or in our case, were, for that long anticipated vacation, does the advent of that moment bring great joy to you, are you, in a sense, counting down the days, waking up each morning and thinking, “maybe today.”
If you are giving thoughts to getting away because of the dull and boring, monotonous life to that intended vacation spot, then you will not understand these words, for it is the time spent in the expected, as it were, that has afforded you the opportunity to “go, see, and do,” for a week or so, if you are wise, you will understand that given enough time, even that desired spot of retreat will in time become the place that you will want to escape from. It is Almighty God’s great grace and love for His children to remove them from this earth before the great and terrible day of the Lord, (Joel 2:31) before He begins to reveal His fury and wrath upon this planet, but if you are in a hurry to leave because of dire circumstances here, if you want to 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,” (1 Thess. 4:17) to escape the wrath to come, then you in no way understand the truth of that anticipatory feeling that comes with the intended journey.
If the destination is enticing enough, the journey along with it will be just as exciting. We are to “glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience,” (Romans 5:3) we are to “count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations,” (James 1:2) we are not told to attempt to escape them, if “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,” (Romans 8:28) and indeed they do, then your joy should be full here all the time, no matter where your feet are planted at, no matter the circumstances. If you are in a rush to leave this earth because of the evil in it, then eternity and the true time span it infers holds little truthful concepts for your mind, how can one compare the short span of any man’s life to countless eons of existence, how can the immediate ever be compared to the eternal. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)
There is one reason and one reason only to continue in the great anticipation of the rapture, or even our own deaths if we leave this mortal shell before that day, and that is to be in the actual presence of Christ, all other reasons are self-centered, and are not becoming of a child of God. My adoring wife and I will miss incredibly the moments we have to spend alone with each other this year, walking on the beach hand in hand, and as that day approaches that would normally be our day of departure, we will be saddened, and very upset at an evil world that has imposed unnecessary restrictions on the citizens of this planet. We are not so naïve to say “Well, we still have each other,” and leave it at that, we will express our emotions of loss, of time spent where we thoroughly enjoy ourselves. I personally will be very upset at those principalities and powers that are slowly but surely pulling the nose rings of the simple minded toward complete obedience, but we will both still have hope for “The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.” (Psalm 145:8) And we rest in the knowledge of Jeremiah 29:11 , “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
Every moment of every day listen for the sound of that trumpet, desire it as much in days of wonder and great happiness as much as you would in times of great toil and strife, but always in the context of being in the presence of your Savior. He has a vacation place waiting for you that cannot even be imagined, and you will never have to leave. “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9)
