It will be wonderful for believers when Jesus comes, for then they will go to be with Him for ever. Their bodies will be made like His, and they shall live for ever with Him. Nothing could be better than that. But can you think what it will be for those who are not believers? For they will be left behind. Not one of those who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will be taken when He comes. Some day all Christians will disappear. The unbelievers will be looking for them, but they will not find them. They will be gone.
Our lesson today is about the part of the second coming of the Lord Jesus which is called the rapture. It is the first thing that will happen among the events of His coming.
After the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, His disciples saw Him many times. He talked with them of many things, but He did not remain with them forever. The day came when He was ready to leave them. He took them with Him outside the city to a mountain called the Mount of Olives. There, He promised that they should receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them and that they should be His witnesses. As He spoke to them He rose from the earth, and He ascended up to Heaven. The disciples stood watching Him, till a cloud hid Him from their sight. Then they still stood looking up where they had seen Him disappear. Perhaps they expected that He would come back again.
The only way we can be saved is through the Lord Jesus Christ. He died on the cross to take our punishment for us. If we believe that, then He is our Saviour, and we are safe for ever, for He has promised to keep us. But being saved is not all there is to the Christian life, any more than getting into a boat is the whole of a journey across the ocean. You cannot cross the ocean without getting on the boat, but if no one did anything after they got on the boat, it would be a queer kind of voyage. Some Christians are living that sort of life—just drifting around, without much of any purpose. That is not what God meant us to do. He has a plan for us.
The moment we are saved we are ready for Heaven. Having our hearts washed clean by the blood of Christ, makes us ready for Heaven, and that happens, you know, the moment you believe in Him as your own Saviour. We are just as ready for Heaven after we have been saved one minute as after we have been saved fifty years. Our readiness consists in what Christ is and did for us and not in what we are or do for ourselves.
