Have you ever thought about what it would be like to change from flesh and blood life to resurrection life without the benefit of going by way of the grave?

The pastors of today need to explain to their congregations that in order to be caught up together with the resurrected saints of all ages we first must be changed from mortality to immortality. Jumping up and down next to one's pew is not sufficient preparation for participation in the first resurrection. We must press into the resurrection life of Jesus and be willing to share His sufferings if we would attain the resurrection from the dead.

If the believers are not prepared they will seek to preserve their accustomed flesh and blood life. "Remember Lot's wife"!

"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."

"To meet the Lord in the air."

We understand that the Greek term for "meet" is sometimes employed to mean to go to meet someone who is coming. The Lord is coming from Heaven to set up His Kingdom on the earth. There is no suggestion in the context or the Greek language that the Lord will then turn around and lead us back to Heaven. Because there is no such suggestion either in the context or the Greek language that the Lord has come to take us back to Heaven, we ought not to preach that this will take place. We ought not to emphasize again and again that which is not expressed clearly in God's holy Word!

We meet the Lord "in the air," that is, in the lower atmosphere. This is the area from which Satan has been accustomed to filling the earth with evil.

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (Ephesians 2:2)

"The prince [ruler] of the power [authority] of the air."

We shall meet the Lord "in the air" because the nations of the earth are governed from the thrones in the air, the thrones that have been promised to the victorious saints.

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: . . . . (Revelation 20:4)

Now, please look carefully at what is stated.

"To meet the Lord in the air."

There is nothing—absolutely nothing—that implies in any manner that the Lord then shall turn around and bring us back to Heaven.

There is no passage in the New Testament, to our knowledge, that suggests the Lord will come and take us to Heaven.

If this is true, if we have to surmise, guess, conjecture, interpolate, with little or no scriptural support that the believers will be carried back to Heaven when the Lord appears, why, then, is the doctrine of the pre-tribulation "rapture" stressed, and stressed, and stressed Sunday after Sunday as though it were a cardinal doctrine of the Scriptures, while the emphasis of Paul that we should seek to attain the resurrection from the dead is not mentioned or even understood? How can we prosper if we depart from the teaching of the Word of God? How can we maintain that we have not departed grievously from the teaching of the holy Scriptures? We who pride ourselves on adhering to God's holy Word are emphasizing again and again that which is found only in our tradition.

To be continued.