What should we do to prepare for the rapture?

[ZNP]

There are no rules in a vision.


Which as I pointed out is possible. but so too is it possible this could be all of the martyred saints ever. Because why would the saints martyred outside of the tribulation want God's justice any less than those martyred in the tribulation?

I'm saying either or both scenarios are possible because again there are no set rules to what one can see in a vision. Infact, Moses is said to have written the book of genesis. It is also said that God showed moses in a vision/Devine revelation.

It means these saints where murdered, and their blood is part of what is required for the 5th seal on the title deed to earth to be broken. Meaning thier blood was counted as a sacrifice, and they where being held till all who would be sacrificed, where..

There are rules for interpreting scripture and the one that weeds out all the crazy theories is that no verse is of its own interpretation. The Bible has one author, God, and everything that is said must agree. If your interpretation does not agree with some other portion of the Bible then that needs to be reconciled.

 

[ZNP]

Again the reason they are there, is because everyone else in the church is dead or being hunted down for execution. This group was personally protected by God and could not be harmed.

OK, everyone agrees they can't be harmed. So why are they there? If you don't believe these are raptured saints returning with the Lord according to the prophecy in Jude, then why are they there? Why weren't they raptured? I believe the 144,000 are virgins, that is the parable of the ten virgins tells us why they are there, they are there to light the way for those left behind in the tribulation to make it to the wedding feast.

 

[Drich]

There are rules for interpreting scripture and the one that weeds out all the crazy theories is that no verse is of its own interpretation. The Bible has one author, God, and everything that is said must agree. If your interpretation does not agree with some other portion of the Bible then that needs to be reconciled.

ok, great! where doesn't my interpretation not agree with the rest of the bible?

 

[ZNP]

ok, great! where doesn't my interpretation not agree with the rest of the bible?

I have asked you for ten verses from the New Testament concerning a "Jewish evangelistic team based on DNA". Paul refers to them as children of Abraham according to the flesh.

 

[2ndTimeIsTheCharm]

Make sure to buy a jumble sale shop - because if you get left behind you can collect all the clothes scattered about that have been left by those that flew away, and make a big profit

Lol, why do the clothes get left behind? Are we getting raptured naked?

 

[Drich]

OK, everyone agrees they can't be harmed. So why are they there?

Because The Rest of the church has been murdered by the anti christ.

The 144,000 become the new church. They are the remnant of not only the jewish people but of the NT church.

If you don't believe these are raptured saints returning with the Lord according to the prophecy in Jude, then why are they there?

To serve as the continuation of the church. They are protected to continue God's offer of salvation for those who can still be saved.

Why weren't they raptured?

No one to this point (the introduction of the 144,000) is raptured. The church which primarily contains gentiles is murdered not raptured..

The 144k are the only people to be raptured once God starts pouring out His wrath.

I believe the 144,000 are virgins, that is the parable of the ten virgins tells us why they are there, they are there to light the way for those left behind in the tribulation to make it to the wedding feast.

Again rev 7
13Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

14I answered, “Sir, you know.”

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation;"

The "they" are the martyred church. Martyred means murdered for your faith. Chapter 7 describes a multitude of believers who have been given the white robes of martyrdom so vast they can not be counted.

One of the 24 elders asks who these people are. and John says you know who they are. "These are They who came out of the great tribulation." Meaning the church is killed off by the anti christ and they appear before God worshiping Him and Giving Him praise. Mean while back on earth, the 144K is what is left of the church.

 

[ZNP]

Because The Rest of the church has been murdered by the anti christ.

The 144,000 become the new church. They are the remnant of not only the jewish people but of the NT church.


To serve as the continuation of the church. They are protected to continue God's offer of salvation for those who can still be saved.

No one to this point (the introduction of the 144,000) is raptured. The church which primarily contains gentiles is murdered not raptured..

The 144k are the only people to be raptured once God starts pouring out His wrath.

Again rev 7
13Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

14I answered, “Sir, you know.”

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation;"

The "they" are the martyred church. Martyred means murdered for your faith. Chapter 7 describes a multitude of believers who have been given the white robes of martyrdom so vast they can not be counted.

One of the 24 elders asks who these people are. and John says you know who they are. "These are They who came out of the great tribulation." Meaning the church is killed off by the anti christ and they appear before God worshiping Him and Giving Him praise. Mean while back on earth, the 144K is what is left of the church.

OK, a wild interpretation, where is the Biblical support from at least ten other verses and 3 other authors for this theory?

 

[Drich]

I have asked you for ten verses from the New Testament concerning a "Jewish evangelistic team based on DNA". Paul refers to them as children of Abraham according to the flesh.

and I have repeated pointed to rev 7. This time Don't just talk past me. try and understand.

The passage in rev 7
4 Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.

5 From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed,

from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,

from the tribe of Gad 12,000,

6 from the tribe of Asher 12,000,

from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000,

from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000,

7 from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,

from the tribe of Levi 12,000,

from the tribe of Issachar 12,000,

8 from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,

from the tribe of Joseph 12,000,

from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.

Being a member from a specific tribe means you share specific dna with the other members of said tribe or as Paul puts it:

"Paul refers to them as children of Abraham according to the flesh."

 

[ZNP]

and I have repeated pointed to rev 7. This time Don't just talk past me. try and understand.

The passage in rev 7
4 Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.

5 From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed,

from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,

from the tribe of Gad 12,000,

6 from the tribe of Asher 12,000,

from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000,

from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000,

7 from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,

from the tribe of Levi 12,000,

from the tribe of Issachar 12,000,

8 from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,

from the tribe of Joseph 12,000,

from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.

Being a member from a specific tribe means you share specific dna with the other members of said tribe or as Paul puts it:

"Paul refers to them as children of Abraham according to the flesh."

You are using that verse to interpret that verse. Peter makes it clear no bible verse can be interpreted by itself.

The verse: 2 Peter 1:20-21 says that no prophecy in Scripture comes from one person's own private interpretation, because prophecy never came from a human's own will — it came from God's Spirit moving holy men to speak.

The simple idea: No single Bible verse stands alone. You can't just grab one verse, ignore the rest of the Bible, and decide what it means all by yourself. Every verse is one piece of a much bigger puzzle, and the puzzle only makes sense when you look at all the pieces together.

Why that's true: Peter says prophecy didn't start with a man's own idea. It started with God's Spirit. The same Spirit spoke through every writer of Scripture — Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, John, all of them. Since it's the same Spirit behind every verse, the verses should agree with each other. So if your explanation of one verse contradicts what the rest of the Bible says, your explanation is wrong — not the Bible.

A simple picture: Think of the Bible like one long letter written by one Author using many different hands to hold the pen. If you tear out one sentence from page 200 and read it with no idea what pages 1-199 said, you can easily get it backwards. The sentence is still true — but your reading of it might not be.

What this verse does NOT mean:

• It does not mean regular people can't read and understand the Bible.
• It does not mean you need a priest or expert to tell you what it says.
• It does not mean the Bible is a locked mystery.

It means: don't rip one verse out of its home and force a private, personal meaning onto it. Check it against the whole of Scripture, since the same Spirit wrote all of it.

No verse gets to mean whatever one person privately decides — it has to agree with the whole Bible, because one Spirit wrote the whole Bible.

 

[WayneNSO]

Lol, why do the clothes get left behind? Are we getting raptured naked?

That's what you see in the movies about the rapture - a pile of clothes left - lets hope they got robes to wear and they weren't all streaking up into the clouds

 

[Drich]

You are using that verse to interpret that verse. Peter makes it clear no bible verse can be interpreted by itself.

The verse: 2 Peter 1:20-21 says that no prophecy in Scripture comes from one person's own private interpretation, because prophecy never came from a human's own will — it came from God's Spirit moving holy men to speak.

What this verse is saying is that a prophet's prophetic words do not come from the prophet, but rather from God.

What this verse does not say, is that you must find multiple different passages in the bible to support everything you believe the bible to say.

The simple idea: No single Bible verse stands alone.

Nope. That is not what is said here: let's look at it again:

20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things.

So we are talking about prophesy , Not scripture in general. As Not all scripture is prophetic

21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

So the prophet is being used by the Holy Spirit meaning the words/penmanship of the prophet is meaningless with out the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Not only did John of Patmos have the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but Jesus was also apart of John's visions.

 

[ZNP]

6. Refusing the Invitation to the False Wedding​

If the apostasy — the visible church's formal union with the world's system — is the alarm that signals the Bridegroom is at the door, then "watching" cannot mean staring at headlines or calculating dates. It has to mean something far more immediate: paying attention to invitations toward compromise as they arrive, in ordinary form, well before any single dramatic moment of "the great apostasy" ever gets named as such.

Every instance in this pattern shares a common shape. The false union is not usually announced as betrayal. It is offered as an upgrade. To Eve, it was god-like knowledge. To Israel at Sinai, it was a god they could see and touch while the true God stayed hidden on the mountain. To Adonijah's guests, it was proximity to power while the rightful king lingered, seemingly inactive, in his old age. In every case, the false wedding presented itself as the reasonable, attractive, timely choice — and the true Lord's apparent delay is what made the alternative look sensible.

This is exactly how compromise arrives for us. It rarely announces itself as apostasy. It arrives as a reasonable accommodation: soften this teaching because the culture has moved on, adopt this practice because everyone respectable has adopted it, go along with this direction because refusing looks needlessly stubborn and the cost of standing apart seems higher than the cost of simply going along. Pergamum is warned for exactly this — tolerating "the teaching of Balaam," the strategy that drew Israel into compromise through gradual, plausible accommodation rather than open rebellion (Revelation 2:14).

Practical watching, then, looks like this: naming compromise while it is still small, before the invitation becomes a fully public celebration you'd have to walk out of in front of everyone. It means asking, of any pressure to conform — in doctrine, in ethics, in loyalty — whether this is the true Bridegroom's patience being tested, or a counterfeit union being quietly extended to you disguised as prudence. It means remembering that the servants of Luke 12 were not caught off guard by a single midnight surprise; they had kept their lamps trimmed through what was, from the outside, a very long and very ordinary wait.

Refuse the false wedding the way you'd refuse any invitation you already suspect: early, plainly, and before the room is full of guests who will make refusing feel costly.

 

[Drich]

The Bible really does not say anything specific about where the Antichrist will come from. Many Bible scholars speculate that he will come from a confederacy of ten nations and/or a reborn Roman empire (Daniel 7:24-25; Revelation 17:7). Others see him as having to be a Jew in order to claim to be the Messiah. It is all just speculation since the Bible does not specifically say where the Antichrist will come from or what ethnicity he will be. One day, the Antichrist will be revealed. Second Thessalonians 2:3-4 tells us how we will recognize the Antichrist: “don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

It is likely that most people who are alive when the Antichrist is revealed will be very surprised at his identity. The Antichrist may or may not be alive today. Martin Luther was convinced that the pope in his time was the Antichrist. During the 1940s, many believed Adolph Hitler was the Antichrist. Others who have lived in the past few hundred years have been equally sure as to the identity of the Antichrist. So far, they have all been incorrect. We should put the speculations behind us and focus on what the Bible actually says about the Antichrist. Revelation 13:5-8 declares, “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.”

Gotquestions.org

 

[ZNP]

7. Samson's Pillars — Being the Thing Holding Up the Structure​

Samson, blinded and bound, is brought out to entertain the Philistines at a great festival to their god Dagon. Thousands of revelers fill the temple in celebration — in Paul's terms, drinking deeply from the cup of demons. Then, at the height of the celebration, Samson takes hold of the two central pillars and brings the entire structure down at once. Sudden collapse, in the middle of a false religious ceremony, at the precise moment of greatest apparent security.

Paul gives us the interpretive key elsewhere, describing the church as "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). A pillar's function is entirely passive in one sense and entirely essential in another: it does not move, does not perform, does not seek attention — it simply bears weight, continuously, so that what rests on it does not fall. Remove the pillar, and whatever has been leaning on it, however impressive it looked while standing, comes down.

This gives us a picture of what the faithful remnant actually does in the world, whether or not it is recognized for doing it. A society, an institution, even a compromised religious system can lean — unknowingly, ungratefully — on the presence of the faithful within it for far longer than anyone realizes. But when the pillar is removed, the structure discovers, all at once, that it was never actually standing on its own.

This is the sober warning underneath the encouragement: your steadiness is not merely a private virtue. It may be the very thing keeping a larger structure upright longer than it deserves to stand. That is a heavy responsibility, but it is also freeing — it means faithfulness that looks invisible, unglamorous, and unrewarded is not therefore ineffective.

The call, then, is not to perform readiness loudly or to seek recognition for standing firm. It is simply to be the pillar — to keep bearing weight quietly, faithfully, without leaning on the structure yourself, for as long as you are asked to stand. Whatever collapses when you are finally taken up was never actually resting on solid ground to begin with.

 

[ZNP]

8. From First Love to Shut Door — Five Warnings for Self-Examination​

Read in sequence, the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 trace a single deteriorating relationship — not five unrelated congregations, but five stages of the same courtship gone wrong, and the progression makes an uncomfortably good mirror for personal self-examination.

Ephesus: sound in doctrine, faithful in labor, yet warned — "you have forsaken the love you had at first" (Revelation 2:4). Ask yourself: has correct belief survived while warmth toward Christ has quietly cooled? Orthodoxy without affection is the first stage of drift, not proof against it.

Pergamum: neglect has become active tolerance. The church there tolerates "the teaching of Balaam" — compromise dressed as accommodation (Revelation 2:14). Ask: what have I begun tolerating, in myself or around me, that I once would have refused outright?

Thyatira: tolerance has become welcome. A false authority — "Jezebel" — now teaches from inside the house, leading people into "the deep things of Satan" (Revelation 2:20, 24). Ask: whose voice have I given a seat at my table that should never have been let in the door?

Sardis: the compromise has become invisible from the outside. "You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead" (Revelation 3:1). Ask the hardest question of all here: is my spiritual life running on reputation — how others perceive my faith — rather than on any actual current vitality?

Laodicea: the deterioration is complete. The Bridegroom stands outside, knocking, and the door — unlike the door in Luke 12 — is not opened (Revelation 3:20). Ask: is there anything, right now, that I am unwilling to let Christ have full access to?

Taken together, these five warnings are not a chart of five different kinds of churches to judge from the outside. They are five diagnostic questions to run against your own soul, in order, honestly: Has my love cooled? What am I tolerating? Whose voice have I welcomed that shouldn't be here? Is my faith more reputation than reality? And is there a door I am, even now, keeping shut? The mercy in this sequence is that it isn't given as an accusation but as a warning — early enough, at every stage, to still turn back.

 

[Blade]

"There are rules for interpreting scripture...."

Unless I am wrong.. "these" came from you. Not just some verses.. its another "what this is really saying/ what Jesus really meant".

No one was promised tomorrow so I watch and am ready now.... sharing Jesus with all. No man made up "rules". Not there word to tell others what the true living GOD really meant

 

[ZNP]

"There are rules for interpreting scripture...."

Unless I am wrong.. "these" came from you. Not just some verses.. its another "what this is really saying/ what Jesus really meant".

No one was promised tomorrow so I watch and am ready now.... sharing Jesus with all. No man made up "rules". Not there word to tell others what the true living GOD really meant

Are you referring to a post? Yes, there are rules that are from the Bible. For example, Jesus said we would be judged for every idle word, or every non working word. Therefore we can infer that every word of the Bible is a working word, there are no idle words, so when someone interprets words as having no meaning,then you can say that that interpretation is not Biblical. Another rule is given by Peter, that no verse is of its own interpretation. The bible is the word of God so every word must agree with the entire Bible. You cannot come up with an interpretation that is a direct contradiction of other parts of the Bible. So be specific, what are you taking issue with?

 

[ZNP]

9. Keeping the Lamp Burning at Ephesus — Recovering First Love​

Of all five churches, Ephesus receives arguably the gentlest warning and the clearest remedy. Nothing about her doctrine is criticized. She has labored, endured, tested false apostles, and not grown weary (Revelation 2:2-3). By every external measure, Ephesus looks like a healthy, disciplined, doctrinally sound church. And yet Christ's complaint cuts straight past all of it: "you have forsaken the love you had at first" (v. 4).

This is the most easily overlooked danger in the entire study precisely because it produces no visible wreckage. A church, or a believer, can maintain perfect orthodoxy, sound practice, and disciplined labor while the actual relationship at the center of it all has gone cold. Ephesus is not accused of sin in the ordinary sense. She is accused of having kept the form while losing the warmth — tending the lamp's structure while letting its oil run low.

Christ's remedy is short and entirely actionable: "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works" (Revelation 2:5). Three steps, in order. Remember — deliberately recall what that first love actually looked like: the urgency of first prayers, the wonder of first encountering grace, the eagerness that made obedience feel like delight rather than duty. Repent — name the drift honestly rather than excusing it as simply "maturing" or "settling in." And do the first works — not new works, but the first ones: return to the specific practices that marked the relationship when it was warm, even if they now feel unfamiliar or effortful.

Notice what is not on this list. Christ does not tell Ephesus to work harder, produce more, or defend her doctrine more forcefully. Her problem was never insufficient output. The remedy for cooled love is never more activity — it is deliberate return to the relationship itself.

Practically, this means auditing your own spiritual life the same way: not "am I still doing the right things," but "do I still love doing them, and do I still love Him in doing them." If the lamp is still lit but the oil is low, the warning to Ephesus says plainly what to do before it goes out: remember, repent, return to the first works — before drift becomes the deeper compromise the later churches fell into.

 

[Anchorite]

1. Be Dressed Ready for Service​

"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him" (Luke 12:35-37). This is not a passive posture. Dressed and burning are both active states requiring continual maintenance — a robe can come untucked, a lamp can run dry of oil. Readiness is not a decision made once; it is a condition kept.

That is the position of the faithful in every age: excluded from whatever counterfeit celebration is running its course elsewhere, and entirely undistracted by the fact that it's happening. The servants don't send someone to check on the party. They don't grow anxious that they're missing out. They tend the lamp.

And the payoff for this posture is astonishing, and easy to miss on a quick read: "Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them" (v. 37). The master, upon finding his servants ready, reverses the entire household order. He serves them. This is the picture behind every warning in this study — Eden's expulsion, Sinai's golden calf, Adonijah's interrupted feast, Samson's collapsing temple, the letters to the seven churches. In every instance, a false celebration is underway, and the true Lord's return breaks in on it. But the outcome for the ones who kept watch is not merely survival. It's reward, intimacy, and being served by the very One they were waiting for.

Who wrote this series of lessons?

Why is this commentator repeatedly claiming that the Lord went to a counterfeit celebration, a counterfeit union? Scripture says he went to a wedding. Why depict that wedding as something evil?

Scripture does not condemn the wedding.

Luke 12

35 Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;

36 And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.

37 Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.

 

[ZNP]

Who wrote this series of lessons?

Why is this commentator repeatedly claiming that the Lord went to a counterfeit celebration, a counterfeit union? Scripture says he went to a wedding. Why depict that wedding as something evil?

Scripture does not condemn the wedding.

Luke 12

35 Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;

36 And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.

37 Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.

I wrote it.

Because Jesus goes to a wedding and His servants didn't go, they are watching for His return, and when He returns he prepares dinner for those who were watching. This is not Jesus' wedding, His wedding would be at the Father's house, and He is not going to prepare dinner for the servants after the wedding.

So if you look at the Coronation of Solomon as a type, the banquet that Adonijah held would be a type of this wedding.