The dead in Christ will rise. This is the first resurrection from the dead, the resurrection to the fullness of the Life of Christ. This resurrection must be attained, as Paul tells us.

You can imagine the consternation of Antichrist and the wicked of the earth as they behold these millions of shining warriors. Then the living witnesses, relatively a handful compared with those who have come with the Lord, will be changed while on their feet, also becoming shining warriors.

It is preached today that the purpose of the catching up of the believer is to deliver them from the danger of Antichrist and the great tribulation. Did you know there is not one verse in the entire Bible that teaches the purpose of the catching up of the Christian believers is to deliver them from danger? We ought not to be preaching and teaching that for which there is no Bible basis whatever.

Not only is the idea of escaping by "rapture" unscriptural, just consider how totally unrealistic the thought is when we consider what has taken place before the catching up.

The dead who have returned with Christ, the great cloud of witnesses, will rise first. This does not mean they will be caught up into the air. It means they will stand on their feet in resurrection life. The Greek term translated "rise" is never used in the New Testament to mean rise into the air but frequently is employed to refer to resurrection from the dead.

Can you imagine the terror of Antichrist and the armies of the wicked when they see this great host?

Let me ask you, who will be in danger at this point—the saints or Antichrist?

You can see how inappropriate the teaching is that claims resurrected saints or the living believers who have been changed into immortality must be carried up to Heaven to escape Antichrist and the great tribulation.

The present-day teaching of the "pre-tribulation rapture" of the believers into Heaven is a delusion. There is no scriptural or logical basis for this doctrine. It should be abandoned because it is leaving Evangelical Christians with the idea that at any moment now they will be caught up to Heaven, and so there is no reason they should really become concerned about preparing themselves to stand in the age of moral horrors we are entering.

Now it is time for us Christians to discard the Evangelical traditions that have no scriptural support. The original Gospel, preached by John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and the Apostles of the Lamb, is the Gospel of the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth, not the flight of the Church to Heaven.

After the doctrine of the blood atonement, the central doctrine of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is the bodily resurrection from the dead.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16—NIV)

To be continued.