Mystery #9 mystery of the rapture

Cases: Worthy vs Unworthy; Agape Love vs Phileo Love

 

1Thessalonians 2:12 

“We exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged (summon as a martyr) you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.”

 

Introduction:

 

This divine invitation is to represent Christ and to walk worthy of that calling. The word calling can also mean invitation. The invitation to walk and live in a way that pleases God in order to receive the things of His good pleasure. We will show that the main invitation presented to the Thessalonian church is the goal to be counted worthy to go in the rapture when Christ appears. It is our hope to show the evidence that this rapture is conditional and conditioned upon being counted worthy. 

 

Add to Laboratory:

The first is the greek term “kataxio” - worthy of going in the rapture by being watchful, alert 

The second term is “axios” - to receive inheritance in the kingdom

 

It is this author’s belief that not every born again Christian will go into the rapture…..

Remember, Moses didn’t even make it into the Promised Land because of his disobedience. 

Moses will get to come back and be a witness in the Tribulation so that he will be able to inherit the Kingdom. 

 

To prove yourself worthy in the family of God does not mean you will not have eternal life with God.

Some children prove themselves worthy of greater inheritance and some children prove themselves needing greater training and discipline. For born again Christians, eternal salvation is not on the line.

This worthiness has everything to do with how we will be rewarded with inheritance and entrance into the Kingdom.

 

The mystery of worthiness is the mystery to be worthy of going in the rapture and receiving the double portion of inheritance as an overcomer.

 

“The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy…He who is loving father or mother above me, is not worthy of me, and he who is loving son or daughter above me, is not worthy of me, and whoever doth not receive his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me. He who found his life shall lose it, and he who lost his life for my sake shall find it…And take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts may be weighed down with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and anxieties of life, and suddenly that day may come on you, for as a snare it shall come on all those dwelling on the face of all the land, watch ye, then, in every season, praying that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are about to come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”…We exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged (summon as a martyr) you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory…For this reason when i could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the temptor had tempted you and our labor would be in vain…Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, and in holiness…This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of age-long destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ…Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent.  If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”

 

Conclusion:

 

In light of Paul’s encouragement to walk worthy that this invitation to enter the kingdom would be in vain if they do not continue to be worthy. 

1Thessalonians 3:5 “For this reason when i could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the temptor had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.”

The question to ask is “what was the temptor asking them to do?”….to stop running the race. 

The Book of Life is the marriage book. We are betrothed right now, what made the groom cancel this contract? Unfaithfulness….

 

Paul was fearful for these church goers (the church of Thessalonians) that they would lose out on this invitation to enter the Kingdom and be in glory.

Who will receive the Kingdom and the glory?

The glory for those who will be the raptured bride at His appearing and those entering the Kingdom will be those faithful through the tribulation.

 

Paul is both warning and encouraging the Thessalonians so they walk worthy and don’t miss out on this rapture that he is telling them about in order that they would escape.

He doesn’t want the day of Christ’s appearing to come upon them like a thief in the night.

 

(Key to the Dead In Christ; Key to Standing Before the Lord (holding up under God’s judgement); Key to Worthiness; Key to the Rock - Moses striking rock twice)