Rapture and End Times

And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. (Luke 11:2)

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Belief in God in U.S. Dips to 81%, a New Low / Gallup, June 17, 2022

Fewer Americans today than five years ago believe in God, and the percentage is down even more from the 1950s and 1960s when almost all Americans did. Still, the vast majority of Americans believe in God, whether that means they believe a higher power hears prayers and can intervene or not. And while belief in God has declined in recent years, Gallup has documented steeper drops in church attendance, church membership and confidence in organized religion, suggesting that the practice of religious faith may be changing more than basic faith in God.

Belief in God has fallen the most in recent years among young adults and people on the left of the political spectrum (liberals and Democrats). These groups show drops of 10 or more percentage points comparing the 2022 figures to an average of the 2013-2017 polls.

Most other key subgroups have experienced at least a modest decline, although conservatives and married adults have had essentially no change.

The groups with the largest declines are also the groups that are currently least likely to believe in God, including liberals (62%), young adults (68%) and Democrats (72%).

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Who Needs God?

Mankind has gone through many stages of knowledge in the last 6,000 years. On July 20, 1969, the Eagle module from Apollo 11 landed at Tranquility Base. Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first person to walk on the moon.

Just as a child grows up, and learns that they are not the center of everything, so has Man reached an end of that childhood innocence in 1969.

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The ancient belief of Greek and Egyptian proto-scientists was that the Earth was the center of the universe, and everything revolved around it.

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer, who in 1510 formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe.

His heliocentric theory was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution.

In 1755, Immanuel Kant asserted that the nebulae are really galaxies separate from, independent of, and outside the Milky Way Galaxy; he calls them island universes.

In 1923, the universe was still thought to be a small place. Astronomers believed the Milky Way galaxy was at least tens of thousands light-years across, but they thought it was all there was to the universe — one grand galaxy spiraling in a lonesome ballet. Then Edwin Hubble measured the distances to a few nearby spiral nebulae (galaxies). The distances placed them far outside our Milky Way, and implied that fainter galaxies are much more distant, and the universe is composed of many thousands of galaxies.

One of the most fundamental known unknowns in astronomy is just how many galaxies the universe contains. The Hubble Deep Field images, captured in the mid 1990s, revealed untold numbers of faint galaxies. It was estimated that the observable Universe contains between 100 to 200 billion galaxies.

According to the latest scientific discoveries, there is no center of the universe. The standard theories of cosmology state that the universe started with a “Big Bang” about 14 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no center to the expansion; it is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualized as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a center into space; rather, the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell.

The Copernican principle holds that we have no special place in the infinite, center-less universe. In the early 20th century, with the advent of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the observation that the universe is expanding in all directions, that idea evolved into the cosmological principle, which assumes that the universe is the same everywhere and in every direction. In fancier terms, the universe is both homogeneous and isotropic.

Simulation of cosmic structure of galaxies

We have come a long way from the belief that the Earth is the center of everything! 

In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty:

There is Nothing: The Thought of an Atheist / Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 1921

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky – Soviet Russian rocket scientist and pioneer of cosmonautics.

There is no God-Creator, but there is the Cosmos, which creates suns, planets and living beings. There is no omnipotent God, but there is the Universe, which governs the fates of all celestial bodies and their inhabitants. There are no sons of God, but there are mature and thus rational and perfect sons of the Cosmos. There are no personal gods, but there are elected leaders of planets, solar systems, stellar groups, milky ways, islands of ether and the whole Cosmos. There is no Christ, but there is a brilliant man and a greater teacher of mankind.

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Does the understanding that we are not the center of the Universe make our Christian worldview seem quaint?

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Our Loving Father

Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. (Ephesians 1:3)

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:17)

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. To whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3-4)

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In the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, the names of God include Elohim, Adonai, YHWH and others. Yahweh and Jehovah, possible vocalizations of YHWH, are used in Christianity. In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, one God coexists in three “persons” called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The God who gives grace and brings peace is described as “God our Father”. He is personal, and he relates to us personally.

The Bible designates God as the living God. He is a rational being, One who is conscious of His own existence. As the living God, He possesses the attributes of a person.

The Bible, the Word of God, tells us about our Father God, His Son Jesus and Holy Spirit. It is the inspired Word from God.

It was written over long periods of time, and by many writers, and yet is perfect in all ways. Many philosophers and scholars have studied the Word, some to try to discredit it, but could not help seeing that it tells the Truth.

For as heaven is higher than earth,
so My ways are higher than your ways,
and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)

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The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ and the Father are One (John 1:1-4), and that He is also the only begotten Son of God (Hebrews 1:1-4). This familial term indicates God regards Jesus as a family member. Born-again believers are told that we, too, are members of this family (Romans 9:8; 1 John 3:1-2). How do we become a part of this family of God? When we hear the gospel, confess our sins, and place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we are at that moment born into God’s kingdom as His children and become heirs with Him for eternity (Romans 8:14-17).

While Jesus Christ is referred to as the only begotten Son of God, believers are referred to as children born into God’s family who need to grow and mature in our faith (Ephesians 4:11-16), and as sons and heirs adopted into His family (Galatians 4:4-7). God’s infinite grace and mercy are revealed in Ephesians 1:5-6, which says He redeems sinners, whom He has “adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

As children of God, what do we inherit? Nothing less than the kingdom of God (Matthew 25:34; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; Hebrews 12:28)!

Ephesians 1:3 tells us that believers are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. These spiritual blessings are infinite, eternal, and reside in Christ, and by God’s grace we are given these blessings as His children. As earthly children we eventually inherit what our parents leave behind for us after their death. But in God’s case believers are already reaping the rewards of our inheritance by having peace with Him through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. Other rewards of our inheritance include the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at the moment we believe in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14), which empowers us to live for Him in the present, and the knowledge that our salvation is secure for eternity (Hebrews 7:24-25).

Being a part of the family of God is the greatest blessing bestowed upon believers and one that should drive us to our knees in humble adoration. We can never do anything to deserve it for it is His gift of love, mercy, and grace to us, yet, we are called to become sons and daughters of the Living God (Romans 9:25-26). May we all respond in faith to His invitation!

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The End of the Age

The Holy Bible has numerous references about “angels” that come from the sky and return to it. Almost all of them look like humans.

Our word “angel” comes from the Greek word meaning “messenger.” Angels frequently bring God’s messages to people (Luke 1:11–19, Acts 8:26, 10:3–8, 22, 27:23–24).

The Holy Bible also has numerous references about “demons” who are fallen angels. Scriptures state that Satan fell from heaven and other angelic beings (daimons) shared in Satan’s fall and became evil (Ezekiel 28:18; Matthew 25:41; Revelation 12:4).

The opening of the Book of Job describes a Cosmic meeting that includes the “sons of God” and Satan:

One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”

“From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.”

Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Haven’t You placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out Your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

“Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “everything he owns is in your power. However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence. (Job 1:6-12)

This book is very puzzling to many readers, who wonder how Satan has access to the Lord, and how he can just freely roam through the Earth. We need some deeper insight to fully understand the Holy Bible:

The Devil knew that the Lord was setting up humans to one day rule the Universe with Him, and so he targeted the first people by turning them against their God. He then released his followers to mate with Earth women and infect the human race with his offspring, the “weeds” that would look human. The Lord rounded up these fallen angels and has kept them in His cosmic prison, but the Devil and his remaining angels are still loose. Right at this moment, the Devil, his angels, and his human agents are planning to destroy all of the Christians – the Lord’s seed.

The history of the Devil and his angels, along with their final destiny, is best understood by looking at the big picture:

The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds

He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while people were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and left. When the plants sprouted and produced grain, then the weeds also appeared. The landowner’s slaves came to him and said, ‘Master, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this!’ he told them.

“‘So, do you want us to go and gather them up?’ the slaves asked him.

“‘No,’ he said. ‘When you gather up the weeds, you might also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I’ll tell the reapers: Gather the weeds first and tie them in bundles to burn them, but store the wheat in my barn.’”

Jesus Interprets the Wheat and the Weeds

Then He dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached Him and said, “Explain the parable of the weeds in the field to us.”

He replied: “The One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; and the good seed—these are the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Therefore, just as the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather from His kingdom everything that causes sin and those guilty of lawlessness. They will throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. Anyone who has ears should listen! (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

The actual weed Jesus spoke of was the darnell, a ryegrass that in its early stages resembles wheat.  The sabotage, the sowing of the darnell, was not unheard of in the first century.  Roman law prohibited it.  While allowing darnell to grow with wheat may not be the preferred solution for a farmer, it is God’s solution to the problem of evil.

So, where did these “sons of the evil one” come from?

The Temptation and the Fall

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”

“No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Then the Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.
I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:1-5, 14-15)

Note the reference to “your seed”…

The Devil’s seed is spread throughout the world. The weeds look just like the wheat. From our human perspective, we can’t tell the difference. Only the Rapture and the End Times that follow will separate them:

The Woman, the Child, and the Dragon

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in labor and agony as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: There was a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. His tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth. And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth he might devour her child. But she gave birth to a Son—a male who is going to shepherd all nations with an iron scepter—and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. The woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, to be fed there for 1,260 days.

The Dragon Thrown Out of Heaven

Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

The salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of His Messiah
have now come,
because the accuser of our brothers
has been thrown out:
the one who accuses them
before our God day and night.

How do we have victory over Satan?

They conquered him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not love their lives
in the face of death.

Therefore rejoice, you heavens,
and you who dwell in them!
Woe to the earth and the sea,
for the Devil has come down to you
with great fury,
because he knows he has a short time. (Revelation 12:1-12)

Right at this moment, the Devil, his angels, and his human agents are planning to destroy all of the Christians – the Lord’s seed. They are following a One World Plan that will make it impossible to survive as a Christian. The Plan has always been to “devour” the Christian offspring – through abortion, war, imprisonment, martyrdom, debt slavery, and any other method that will kill, steal or destroy.

We are in the “New World Order” right now. In the very near future, a real version of Star Wars will rock the Universe. The Lord’s angels will round up the Devil and his angels, and cast them to the Earth. At the same time, the Rapture will remove all of the Lord’s true believers. This is symbolized by the child being caught up to God and His throne.

The conclusion we can reach through a careful reading of the Bible is that we are most definitely not alone. The Lord made us to rule with His Son – over all of the Universe! This is the fulfillment of the Kingdom prophecy:

The throne of God and the lamb will be in the city. His servants will worship him and see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night, and they will not need any light from lamps or the sun because the Lord God will shine on them. They will rule forever and ever. (Revelation 22:3-5)

He was praying in a certain place, and when He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”

He said to them, “Whenever you pray, say:

Father: This signifies approaching God on the basis of intimate relationship. Only children can call the master “Father”.

Your name be honored as holy: This is worship. Our prayer must include worship. Though children of God, we must devote ourselves to worship, service and praise of His name. To worship means to submit yourself to God’s will and His plan.

Your kingdom come: Jesus before His ascension said to His disciples, “the Kingdom is within you” (Luk.17:21). He was referring to the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of those who believe. There is a work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit (2 Thess.2:13).

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven: God’s will is that everyone becomes saved and comes to the knowledge of truth (1 Tim.2:4, 2 Pet.3:9). Heaven is a perfect place, and God desires that the earth be perfect just like heaven. Every good thing that is in heaven he desires for His people on earth.

Give us each day our daily bread: After you have put God first in worship, devotion to His kingdom, and saving of souls, then you can ask for your own daily bread. This refers to your daily needs. God is committed to providing our needs, but we need to put His will and His desires first. When we make God’s desires our desires, He will in turn give us the desires of our heart.

And forgive us our sins: When a person becomes saved, God wipes away all their sins of the past. Sin breaks the fellowship of God with man. Following salvation, it is not expected that there be any sins in your life.

If there has been opportunity for sin, either by commission or omission, we can trust God’s Holy Spirit to reveal this sin to us so we can confess it and make the necessary amends.

…for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us: God expects that there be no grudge in your heart as you approach Him in prayer. We are instructed by Scriptures to love one another as the mark of the new life we have in Christ Jesus (Joh.13:35). Unforgiveness is deadly.

And do not bring us into temptation. But deliver us from the evil one: God is the one who keeps us from the afflictions of the evil one. James 4:7 says “submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you”. Your submission to God’s authority in the place of prayer will commit Him to protecting you.

Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24-25)

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God Loves You.
And He is the Father
you have been looking for all your life.
This is His love letter to you.

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If you are not sure that you are saved, you can accept Christ into your life right now, by praying:

“Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.  Please forgive my sins and give me the gift of eternal life.  I ask you in to my life and heart to be my Lord and Savior.”

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Reader Comments:

Ever notice in the OT, over 1250 times father is mentioned, regarding the created man?

And this one verse, is the first and rarely again mentioned regarding God the Father?

Deut. 32:
[6] Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?

In the NT, Ever notice, father mentioned less than 500 times. With a notable difference…?
In general “the” father.
Specific Jesus says, “MY father”.
Specific to men, even Jesus when referencing for men…
“Our father”.

MY Father, is Jesus the Word of God, expressly came forth out from God.

John 16
[27] For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
[28] I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

God is the creator and maker and father OF His creations.
* That “FREEWILL” thingy…
* Seems like a conundrum of sorts.
BECAUSE;
ManKIND (angels too), have the freewill to “MAKE” whatever they freely choose, BE their God.

Just something to ponder…

Taken, June 21, 2022

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good discussion here, it’s true Americans don’t believe in God like they used to, we are truly in the End Times, & yes our Father is a wonderful heavenly Father

shortangel, June 21, 2022

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Excellent teaching! Keep up the good work.

Benjamin731, June 21, 2022