**He will appear in the air with a great shout … **
Slight hijack here but this is kinda nifty so I’ll share.
In the old Jewish days, when a man got ready to marry, he would spend about a year preparing a home for he and his new bride to live. They would be officially engaged during this time, only there would be no date set, ever. The bride would sleep halfway dressed every night because she knew her groom was coming, but she had no idea when he would show up, so she had to be ready to throw on some clothes, grab her things and run off. Anyhow, the groom’s father would stop by the house from time to time and offer advice … “maybe she’d like teal in the bedroom” – stuff like that. After a while of this, the father would tell his son “ok, the house is ready, go get her.”
When the house was done, and it was time to go get the bride, the groom would go with a bunch of his buddies in the middle of the night to her house. One of the friends would shout really loud to wake her up, and she would grab her bags (already packed) and run off with him, and they would be married.
Anyhow, the point of this is the shout that will happen at the rapture will be the Groom (Jesus) getting his bride’s attention.
5 little dopers sittin’ in a tree
discussing bible prophecy
so many questions so few clues
how could the dopers find out which way to choose
One doper said “this has to be it”
then the other doper just about had a fit
“that’s not it”, he said, “there’s just no way”
“I’ll bet you money on it, anyday!”
So the dopers slept and around midnight
there was a really loud noise and they turned on the light
2 dopers were gone, 3 dopers left
“what should we do? There’s been a theft!”
suddenly they remembered what the two dopers had said
“Jesus is Lord, he’s risen from the dead”
He said he’d come like a theif in the night
now 3 dopers know two dopers were right
Well, WV_Woman, it sounds like a bit of truth, and a lot of hooey.
It is true that in Talmudical times, an engaged couple would wait about a year between the engagement and the actual marriage.
As for the rest of your post, I’m afraid that I’ve never heard of it. To my knowledge, there has been no custom for a bride to sleep with her bags packed and half-dressed waiting for her groom to wake her up in the middle of the night. Rather, there was a standard wedding planned, where the wedding ceremony took place, amongst family and friends and for the next seven days, the bride and groom celebrated with family and friends, a custom that remains to this day.
Actually, vanilla, from what I’ve read of her, a Messiah WV_Woman would recognize may well not be one I would recognize. In any event, I suspect one of us would be saying “He [or she!] can’t be the Messiah – he’s saying they’re right!” One would expect the Messiah to radiate a general aura of holiness, but, if Christ did so, a lot of quite religious people didn’t pick up on it, so I won’t guarantee I would.
At any rate, the timing of his return, I believe, is inherently unknowable, and none of my business. If I only behave the way I do because I’m expecting the Messiah to stop by any day now (wonder if He likes tea…), the atheists have a pretty good point about the shallowness of Christianity.
In a few hours, I’ll be saying out loud “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” That He will come again, I believe. When, I won’t worry about.
By the way, thank you for the compliments, and put me down as someone who thinks having God jump out and say “Boo!” would be kind of cool! After my heart attack that is.
Christ returned about 10 years ago. He is currently at Belview Mental Hospital and is heavily sedated, but has made it very clear that when Dad shows up to pick him up everyone is in BIG trouble!
Dreamer, I believe that earlier in this thread someone asked what it would take for you NOT to believe there was a god. Have you given that any thought?
