Although it is off topic for tonight’s reading, I HAVE to share with you a disturbing question that entered my mind. Looking on the internet, I’m not the first to have this question. And although it is back tracking to talk about the rapture, I think exploring this will give us a firm foundation on the rapture whether we actually answer the question.

So here we go…

We believe that our souls go to heaven to be with Jesus when we die but our bodies “sleep” in the grave. When Jesus comes for us we will meet Him in the air. Those who have already died and their souls are in heaven, their bodies will rise to be reunited with their souls right?

So… what if… your donated organs…are in the body of a nonbeliever when you are raptured? Do they come along? Because if God is gathering up the original matter that’s a TERRIFYING prospect for nonbelievers with corneal implants, pancreas or heart transplants.

So I got to thinking about that and we can search a lot of places but let’s look in the Bible. 

2 Corinthians 5:8 tells us that when we die we are away from the body and at home with the Lord
1 Thessalonians 4:16 tells us the dead in Christ will rise first. If their soul is already up in heaven than clearly we’re talking about bodies rising.
1 Corinthians 15:52 tells us the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed. So these bodies that rise, they will be changed
John 5:29 calls it a resurrection to life or death depending on those who have done good or evil
Verse 28 tells us people will come out of the tombs.

Returning to 1 Corinthians 15:37-38 we read

35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 

…

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

So it seems that what is raised, what comes out of the tomb, what is resurrected, is not the body that was put in the tomb but a new GLORIFIED body. This also helps explain why Jesus would be unrecognizable at first. Looking like Himself, but different, glorified, without blemish. Close enough that eventually you get it is Him, different enough that it takes you a moment (add to that perhaps the Spirit kept disciples from recognizing Him at first.) 

Mary knew His voice
Thomas His scars and punctures
Two others when He broke bread

    So no, when you donate organs God probably isn’t going to reconstitute the original matter. But that would have been a nightmare scenario. Not like there aren’t plenty of them about to happen already. 

So onto the text: silence in heaven for about half an hour
Angels have been praising God
Various praise and likely noise

If you are watching a scary movie and there is a dramatic rising soundt rack and the. Suddenly…silence… what do you think that means?
Anticipation, something BIG is about to happen

Some copyright material from the book I'm not including here

We also talked about the believer and cremation (it is not prohibited like some believe.) And we talked about how AI is rapidly progressing, can be used for good, but also is being used to fuel the kind of degeneracy that was mentioned at the end of this chapter

In the early church there was this question that had to be addressed. Israel was God’s Chosen people. But they weren’t coming to faith and salvation in Jesus. If God’s chosen people aren’t accepting salvation, how can the promise be fulfilled?

    We spoke a little on Sunday about Covenant and how it takes both parties involvement for it to hold up. But we also inherently know that God has a plan for the children of Abraham. So when are they going to be saved? This section poses the answer. 

(content removed for copyright reasons)

    Now I admit, I get lost on the math a bit, mainly because my brain is asking other questions, but it’s neat that God “carries the seven” and gives the Jews those seven years to come to faith in Him. Some will. Some won’t. But there will be a turning of hearts towards Jesus amongst the Jews.

David Jeremiah tells us that the spiritual blindness remains until the last Gentile is brought in and then the Rapture. God turns His attention to the Jews who remain during the Tribulation, many will believe and be martyred. Some are sealed and protected. 
Some have said that the Bible stands for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Some will turn to them after we’ve left earth and read those instructions. 

Revelation 6
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters,[e] were killed just as they had been.



Leviticus 4
7 The priest shall then put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense that is before the Lord in the tent of meeting. The rest of the bull’s blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

    David Jeremiah, quoting Barnhouse, points out that they are at the base of the altar where the blood is poured out. Not peeking out sheepishly but being under the altar, where Jesus was sacrificed, is not about their blood but His. They are COVERED by His blood meaning they are saved and redeemed. They are justified not by theirs poured out but by His.

Nothing can touch the believer unless it passes through the will of God.

This is a good word in ALL times. 

When we look at the world around us: calls for violence from trans individuals, Muslim prayers in Time Square (try and organize Christian prayer there and see what happens.) Fires and looting and the UN normalizing pedophilia, we might ask “just how bad is it gonna get?” the martyred asked “how long until God brings Justice and a stop to this wickedness?” The time is coming. 

IF YOU HEAR NOTHING ELSE TONIGHT HEAR THIS:
It might seem like why is God delaying when they ask “how long” and we might ask that too. But there are still more souls that need saving before He does. Which is a call for us to get busy because MAYBE HE’S REALLY ASKING US HOW LONG BEFORE WE GET TO WITNESSING TO THEM?

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one of the more disturbing realities of the black horse of the Apocalypse (famine) is that these two stories from the Old Testament may come to pass again

Jeremiah 19:9
I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them.”’

2 Kings 6:24-29
Now it came about after this, that Ben-hadad king of Aram gathered all his army and went up and besieged Samaria. There was a great famine in Samaria; and behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”read more.
He said, “If the Lord does not help you, from where shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” And the king said to her, “What is the matter with you?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”

​Also consider how farmers gone off to war might impact the global food supply