“Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”

1 Thessalonians 4:17

It is time to weigh in on the trigger of the end of the age. For reasons I cannot explain the belief of the initial event of the end of the age has not been 1. A holy people. 2. Breaking the first seal. Peter speaks often of the holy people as does Paul. A holy people are the priests and a holy people are critiqued in Rev. 2 and 3 in the church letters from Jesus. Secondly, the incipient event of the end of the age is the first seal being broken by the Lamb. It is the release of the conquering anti christ to begin his work which will culminate in a 3.5 year empire.

Paul then weighs in at 2 Thess 2. “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, Let no one deceive you in any way…. For that day will not come, unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction…”

Some quiz questions. What order is Paul giving regarding the gathering of the saints to the Lord? Before or after the apostasy? Before or after the revelation of the man of lawlessness? It is after. After these things the gathering of the saints occurs. Paul does not give them hope that they will avoid a confrontation with the antichrist, he prepares them for it. His echo is Daniel 7.

What did Jesus say on this subject? Look at his order and how he prepares the disciples in Matthew 24, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Matthew 24:29-31

Will the saints be gathered before the tribulation of those days or after? Will the elect be gathered before the Son of man appears in great power and great glory or after? Afterward. After. The initial event is therefore not the gathering of the saints. It is not the rapture. The removal of the church from the earth is not as high on God’s list as it has become on ours. Completion is high on God’s list, and martyrdom, trial and faith bring us to completion, as we have seen and discussed together so much.

If we would have a heart after God’s heart, we would pray for the alertness and readiness of the saints, and that we would be focused on becoming perfect and complete, lacking in nothing just like James says…through trials. We should consider it joy! Because the testing of our faith produces endurance and endurance produces its perfect work so that we can become complete.

To close, I suggest a simple exercise. Using just a Bible, produce anything other than the conclusion which Jesus and Paul gave us about the order of our gathering. I would be happy to hear about it on this comment thread. Because if we can’t produce the verses that show otherwise it is time to align with the method of God in this age: the display of his manifold wisdom through the church in the era of deepest darkness.

May the joy of this season overtake the apprehension of our hearts.