RAPTURE

4883 Passages On The Rapture

The Rapture of the Church is an event separated by seven years from the Second Coming of Christ. The Rapture will occur first. The more important verses describing this blessed hope of Christians are:

—John 14:1–3

—Rom. 8:23; 13:11

—I Cor. 15:50–57

—Phil. 3:20–21

—I Thess. 1:10; 4:13–18; 5:1–9

—II Thess. 2:1

—Rev. 3:10

4884 God’s “Zero”

The following verse appeared in Tokyo Mailsack:

At Christmas Island,

And in Bikini,

And in Nevada,

Scientists count seconds:

“ten”

“nine”

“eight”

“seven”

“six”

“five”

“four”

“three”

“two”

“one”

“ZERO”

In heaven,

Me thinks, Gabriel must have trumpet to lips,

And God be counting;

I hold my breath—

Aye, the whole world holds its breath—

Will God be soon saying,

“Zero”?

”FOR THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN WITH A SHOUT … THEN WE WHICH ARE ALIVE AND REMAIN SHALL BE CAUGHT UP … ” (I THESS. 4:16, 17)

4885 Worldwide Chaos

The translation of the church will be worldwide, for there are true believers in Jesus Christ in every country on earth, and they all shall be “taken.” Every country will find itself in turmoil. Each government will have to act as quickly as possible to prevent a wild tide of anarchy and terrorism. Strong measures will be put into effect.

Millions of people will suddenly disappear from the face of the earth, including all of the infant children. From all walks of life, and from virtually every phase of life, there shall be people missing.

The freeways, subways, airports and streets will be in shambles as many engineers, pilots, bus drivers and a multitude of private car owners shall suddenly be caught up out of this world. It will be many days before they can unscramble the mangled cars, trains and fallen aircraft.

Remaining millions of people will be wailing, dazed and shaken by the event. They shall be frantically striving to locate loved ones in all of the rubble of broken cars and amid broken storefronts and smashed residences.

Communications will be greatly disrupted. Many key persons shall disappear and much of the lines of communications which are still above ground will be broken by crashes of cars and aircraft. Distraught and searching multitudes will jam and overload the communication lines and systems that do remain.

Dazed and confused pleas from bewildered men over the “alert” systems will try to bring about some semblance of order. Policemen, firemen and rescue crews will work around the clock. Hospitals will overflow. Emergency shelters and first-aid stations will be inadequate. The Red Cross and all other emergency units, plus the army facilities will still not be enough.

Opportunists will add to the confusion and the misery by looting and killing. They shall feel that under such a total emergency they can get away with anything. CHAOS WILL BE ON EVERY HAND.

—Charles Taylor

4886 To Believe Anything

Authorities will try to explain the disappearances. Science-fiction writers today are pre-conditioning the minds of the masses to the point they will believe anything—even that a vast armada of UFOs came swiftly and suddenly snatching millions out of the world.

4887 Where Did Refrigerator Car Go?

A strange event in the American rail system was the mysterious disappearance of a refrigerator car from the center of a long freight train during a nonstop trip of 25 miles in Pennsylvania on a night in 1898.

Until the car was found by a farmer three weeks later concealed by a group of trees at the foot of an embankment, no one could imagine what had happened to it. While rounding a sharp, steep curve, the car had become uncoupled at both ends and, after it had toppled from the rails, the rear section of the train caught up with and coupled itself to the front section.

—Section

4888 Three Crews Sailed Into Oblivion

Among the ships that have been found adrift and deserted for no apparent reason, the most mysterious was the abandoned schooner discovered in the mid-Atlantic in 1881 by the Ellen Austin, an American vessel. Everything was in order, nothing was missing and no signs of a struggle were visible. Soon after a crew from the Ellen Austin had been put aboard and the two ships had started for port, a squall separated them and, when the schooner was located a few hours later, she was again deserted. Another crew was finally persuaded to go aboard, another squall once more separated the vessels—and the schooner and the men were never seen or heard of again.

4889 “In Twinkling Of Eye”

Scientists have computed that it takes one-fiftieth of a second to blink an eye and that a person blinks 25 times a minute. Thus, a motorist who averages 55 miles per hour on a 10-hour trip, drives 33 miles with his eyes shut.

4890 Giving Up On World

“A California newspaper carried a story about a lion that escaped from his cage during a carnival. Men showed their heels. Women screamed and shielded their children.

“Now you’d expect an escaped lion to bolt for the tall grass. But this king of beasts had been in captivity so long, he took a quick look at the world and then turned and walked back into his cage.”

4891 Right Components Only

“When I was a boy, I took a tour of Henry Ford factory in Dearborn, Mich. Then we saw an electromagnetic crane move over a large railroad car filled with what seemed to be junk steel. At the flip of a switch, everything in that car leaped up to the magnetic crane. Then I saw a strange thing: some pieces of steel fell back into the car. I waited until others had left on the tour and then climbed up to look inside and find out why these pieces fell back in. I found they were not steel at all. Lying on the bottom of the car were some old two-by-fours, a broom handle, and some broken pieces of wood. Only objects made of the right component responded to the magnet; the rest were left behind.”

—Tim LaHaye

4892 Still Wanting To Return?

During the early days of the war, a little group of people was shipwrecked on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific. After many weary months a passing ship saw their plight and sent a boat ashore. But the boat did not land at once; one of the sailors threw a bundle of newspapers on the beach, shouting that they were from the captain, and saying:

“After you’ve read them, he wants to know whether you want to be rescued.”

—Selected

4893 Refusing To Return

A pilot of the Peruvian Army, Captain Luis Conterno by name, was forced by a storm in 1940 to make a forced landing in the mountainous interior of Peru. Instead of meeting hostile tribes, as he expected, he met friendly people with white skin who greeted him in pure Castilian Spanish. What was their story? In 1904 two families were lost while crossing the Andes from Peru to Brazil. These people—450 of them—were their descendants. For thirty-six years they knew nothing of what was happening in the outside world.

The flier told them many things they did not know—World War One and World War Two, radio, market crashes, and the many other mixed blessings and curses of modern civilization! These so-called “lost” people realized how fortunate they had been in avoiding all these horrors. They did not want to return to “’civilization.”

4894 “The Starlost”

A new TV series, “The Starlost,” borrows an idea from the Bible and blows it up to space-age proportions. The creation of fiction writer Harland Ellion, the basic plot of “The Starlost” goes like this:

Two hundred and fifty years from now, a group of top UN scientists predict that the world will be destroyed in a holocaust. To preserve life, they start constructing a giant space ark between earth and the moon; all units are lifted into space by rockets. Then small, representative groups of people are lifted aboard—but isolated to retain their cultural identities.

“The scientists’ predictions prove correct: 300 years from now the earth goes Boom! But the great ark, safe in space, floats on for 100 years. Then, suddenly, it meets destruction. The different domes are instantly sealed off from one another with a built-in, fail-safe system. The separate communities, originally intended to colonize various stars and planets, are suddenly locked within their own environments. Another 500 years go by. The Starlost drifts through space, out of control. The end!”

”AND THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE FIRST” (I THESS. 4:16)

4895 Father’s Tomb Has Address

Japjohn Berg is a very handicapped boy in Holland. He must point with his chin because cerebral palsy has made his hands and legs dead. According to a religious news service report, he has carefully carved out the letters of his address to be placed on his father’s tomb.

Reason: “So that if Jesus comes back and Daddy rises first, then the Lord will find us quickly with this address.” He is 9 years old. The mother is understanding and allows her little boy to do it, although someone might think the carved address on the grave was out-of-place.

4896 Gathering His Possible Dust

Luiz Vaz de Camoes is honored today as Portugal’s greatest poet, although he was not highly touted during his lifetime and died in poverty.

Because it could not be determined where his body was buried, dust was gathered from all the places he was known to have visited during his lifetime and was placed in an expensive vault. His friends hoped that some of the dust might include a particle of his body.

4897 To Identify War Dead Bones

Honolulu (UPI)—Over 30 years ago, some 7,000 American and Japanese soldiers died in battle on Tarawa atoll in the South Pacific. A terrible legacy of that battle is now in Honolulu.

Some 400 pounds of bones—all that remains of an undetermined number of Tarawa casualties—were delivered to an army mortuary in Honolulu.

The bones were brought here by two US military personnel with the approval of the British district commissioner for the Gilbert island atoll.

According to an army spokesman, an anthropologist, working with military records, will try to identify them.

He said the army has received a number of calls from relatives and friends of men killed at Tarawa, but added that it will be another three to four months before anything can be learned about the remains.

Tarawa was fought in November 1943, on an area about 320 acres in size.

4898 Big Welcome For Man Who Wanted “Home”

On the tenth of April, in 1852, beneath the African sun, died an American. He was laid to rest in a lonely cemetery in Tunis, Africa. Thirty-one years later, as an act of a grateful public, the United States dispatched a man-of-war to the African coast. American hands opened that grave, placed the dust of his body on board the battleship, and turned again for his native land.

Their arrival in the American harbor was welcomed by the firing of guns in the fort and by a display of flags at half-mast. His remains were carried to the nation’s capital city on a special train. There was a suspension of all business, an adjournment of all departments of government, and, as the funeral procession passed down Pennsylvania Avenue, the president, vice-president, members of the cabinet, congressmen, judges of the supreme court, officers of the army and navy, and a mass of private citizens, rich and poor, stood with uncovered heads.

To whom did they thus pay homage? To a man who expressed the longing of his heart rather than the happy experience of his life; a man whose soul longed for the domestic tranquillity of a pious home, and he expressed that longing in the words of that sweet song, “Home, Sweet Home.”

—O. A. Newlin

”WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP, BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED” (I COR. 15:51)

4899 “You May Have My Home, John”

A Christian doctor in London wanted to arouse his page boy as to the salvation of his soul. One night the doctor explained to him that “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout” (I Thess. 4:16). He ended the recital by saying, “When the Lord comes, you may have my home, John.” The boy was surprised. “And my car.” John was more surprised. “And my furniture, and my money.” The boy could only gasp, “Thanks.” Alone in bed he began to think: “If the doctor goes to heaven, what will I do with his house and car and all the rest? Where will I be?” He woke up the doctor and explained his problem, and before morning he was also ready.

—Philippine Evangelist

4900 Legend Of Aurora

Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, fell in love with a mortal youth Tithonus. Zeus the king of the gods offered her any gift she chooses for Tithonus. Naturally she chose that he might live forever; but forgot to ask that he be forever young. And so Tithonus grew older and older and older, and could never die, and the gift became a curse!

4901 The Greatest Curse

Will Durant, on his seventieth birthday, says regarding the mixed blessing of a long life: “To live forever would be about the greatest curse imaginable!”

4902 Solomon And Water Of Immortality

Sir Edwin Arnold records a legend of the East in which it is related that King Solomon sat once upon his throne on a great mountain west of the Indus. All creatures were gathered about him, and in his hand he held an emerald cup full of the water of life. The intimation had come to him that if he drank of it he would be young forever. In order to get their advice, Solomon called before him representatives of all created things. All advised him to drink of the cup, “Drink, O king! Live forever!”

Then Solomon inquired if all creatures were present, and learned that the dove had not yet appeared. When he asked the dove, she said, “O King, if my mate died I should die, too. What good will immortal youth do you if you see everything to which you are attached perish around you?” Taught by the voice of affection, Solomon poured out, untasted, the water of endless life for himself alone.

—C. E. Macartney

4903 “I Want To Go Home”

For many years the eminent Dr. Sergei Voronoff of Paris devoted himself to studies of the thyroid gland and various other glands, with a view of defeating death. He hinted that when his researches were completed, men could go to the threshold of the great beyond, then retrace their steps and begin all over. This was hailed with joyful interest by many, for it seemed he was doing something colossal for the good of mankind.

Yet somehow the thing had an impious aspect, and with a view of testing its esoterics, the London Sunday Express took a poll. It sought not out the sages, but the folks directly concerned with it, the centenarians; they, it was reasoned, would know whether it was as great a boon as it seemed. Almost unanimously they replied that they would have none of it. “I want to go home,” said one; and another, “It is dusk, and I am glad of it.” To this the rest agreed.

Dr. Voronoff, having invented a way to play the same record without rewinding, finds that some at least of the guests have walked out on him.

—New York World

4904 Dr. Hinson’s Valedictory Address

The following is a quotation from the words of Dr. W. B. Hinson, speaking from the pulpit a year after the commencement of the illness from which he ultimately died: “I remember a year ago when a man in this city said, “You have got to go to your death.” I walked out to where I live, five miles out of this city, and I looked across at that mountain that I love, and I looked at the river in which I rejoice, and I looked at the stately trees that are always God’s own poetry to my soul.

“Then in the evening I looked up into the great sky where God was lighting his lamps, and I said: “I may not see you many more times, but, Mountain, I shall be alive when you are gone; and, River, I shall be alive when you cease running toward the sea; and, Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your sockets in the great down-pulling of the material universe!”” This is the confidence of one who knew the Saviour. Is it yours?

—Advent Herald

”FOR WE MUST ALL APPEAR BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST … ”(II COR. 5:10)

4905 Will It Be Printed?

At the top of his editorial page the editor of the Dahlonega, Ga., Nugget prints this advice: “If you don’t want it published in The Nugget, don’t let it happen.”

4906 Time Could Erase Debt

In the Chancery Division of the British High Court of Justice it was decided that gambling debts incurred in 1913 by a now-deceased bankrupt person were a part of his legal debts and that the receivers should pay some $15,000 of the assets of the estate to the survivor, who held the proof of debt. The fact that 47 years had passed had nothing to do with the legality of the debt, and the nature of the debt did not affect that legality.

—Grace Robinson

4907 Odds Of An IRS Audit

For the over 86 million people who filed federal income-tax returns, take heed!

The IRS has a goal of auditing 40 returns out of every 1,000. But that may be years away. Now, the overall statistical odds are that 24 individuals will get a thorough examination of their returns out of 1,000 others.

4908 Evidence In Shark’s Belly

A little over a century ago, when pirates roamed over the seas between the southern states and the Spanish main, the brig Nancy was pursued by the British warship Sparrow. She was suspected of being engaged in illicit trade and piracy, but when captured, not a scrap of incriminating evidence could be found among her papers. It was thought that she should have to be released, but the question was referred to the authorities at Kingston, Jamaica, into which port she was brought.

Meanwhile another vessel, a tender of the British frigate Abergavenny, had been cruising in the same waters. One day, off the coast of Haiti, the officer in charge noticed a dead bullock in the water, surrounded by sharks. He gave orders for the bullock to be towed alongside the boat, and by this means the men succeeded in catching one of the sharks. It proved to be an unusually large one, and when opened, a parcel of papers, tied around with string, was discovered in its stomach.

These papers (which are still to be seen in the Institute Museum of Jamaica) were found to relate to the doings of a ship called the Nancy, and thinking that they might serve a useful purpose, the officer preserved them till he reached Kingston, which was his next port-of-call, arriving there just as the case of the Nancy came before the courts.

The consternation of the Nancy’s captain and crew may be imagined, when, jubilant at the prospect of release, they were suddenly confronted with the misdeeds—in the papers which they had thrown overboard when pursued by the warship, and which they thought were buried in the depths of the sea!

—H. P. Barker

4909 Stanford’s Crumbling Foundation

In the quadrangle of Leland Stanford University near San Francisco there stood a magnificent memorial arch, built so largely, solidly, and splendidly, it seemed it would stand forever. But when the earthquake came, it collapsed in ruin. Its foundations were disclosed … the builder had put in chips and rubble. Many seem successful for a time, then suddenly collapse. The secret sin comes to light; the foundation’s rottenness is disclosed!

—J. B. Dengis

4910 The Solid-Gold Foundation

The only structure ever erected on a foundation of solid gold is the Gate of the Fortress of Purandhar, India. The Rajah of Bedar, who built it in 1290, was informed by his craftsmen that the site was veritable quagmire into which any structure would presently collapse.

In his desperation the nabob listened to a dream in which he was advised to build the gate upon a golden underpinning. He excavated two great cavities in the marshy ground. Each of the excavations measured 35 feet square and 12 feet deep. The royal treasury was emptied of 50,000 gold bricks weighing 4,320 grains each.

This precious hoard totaling 37,500 pounds—worth $15,750,000 today—was lowered into the ground to form the fabulous foundation upon which the gate was built. Both the gate and the 14-karat bonanza upon which it rests are still there. Their presence is attested by two copper plates—upon which the rajah engraved a historic record of the operation and the treasure.

—Robert Ripley

See also: Expectation, Spirit Of ; Rewards ; Second Coming . Watchfulness .