Terry James: Believers Take Comfort

Believers, Take Comfort

Terry James

Every significant prophetic signal is appearing every hour, indicating that Christ will at any twinkling-of-the-eye moment call believers to Himself. God’s Word offers great comfort to those who have accepted His grace gift of salvation to those who believe Christ died so they, personally, can be redeemed from the sin into which we’re all born.

I think it’s good to use this column this week to post the Scriptures that promise the stupendous rescue from this world of growing wickedness.

We are told to take comfort from thinking about and believing the stupendous promise of the Rapture.

Here are a number of those scriptural promises:

• John 14:1–3: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it werenot so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
• Romans 8:19: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”
• 1 Corinthians 1:7–8: “So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may beblameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
• 1 Corinthians 15:51–53: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal mustput on immortality.”
• Philippians 3:20–21: “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
• Colossians 3:4: “When Christ, who isour life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
• 1 Thessalonians 1:10: “And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, evenJesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”
• 1 Thessalonians 2:19: “For what isour hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?”
• 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive andremain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
• 1 Thessalonians 5:9: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
• 1 Thessalonians 5:23: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray Godyour whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
• 2 Thessalonians 2:1–3: “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and byour gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.”
• 1 Timothy 6:14: “That thou keep thiscommandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
• 2 Timothy 4:1: “I charge theetherefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.”
• Titus 2:13: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”
• Hebrews 9:28: “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
• James 5:7–9: “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.”
• 1 Peter 1:7, 13: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ….. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
• 1 John 2:28, 3:2: “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming…. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
• Jude 21: “Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”
• Revelation 2:25: “But that which ye have alreadyhold fast till I come.”
• Revelation 3:10: “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

Remember, with the privilege of the great promise of Rapture comes the responsibility of each of us to witness of His soul-saving sacrifice on the cross so many will join God’s family before their death or before that seven years of Tribulation that is awaiting those who reject Jesus, the only hope for lost humanity.

Here, again, is the Scripture in witness to Christ’s saving power:

Romans 10:9–10: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”