The Order Of This Great Rapture
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 160

I Thess. 4:13-18, “… Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord….”

And then, I want to speak on that tonight. And the subject is going to be, "Things That Are To Be." And now, speaking last night on the rapture, so tonight, I want to speak on this subject, that I might tie it together with last night's message. Now, there is going to be a rapture; we know that. That's in the future to be. [1]

The word "rapture" in the Bible is not even used at all. We just put that word there. The Bible said, "Caught up, being caught up." We read here in I Thessalonians the order of this great rapture that will take place in the last days. Listen to this here. We're going to begin here with 13th verse: “For the Lord himself shall descend from the heavens with a shout, and with a voice of the archangel, and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.”

Now, I want you to notice a great thing taken place here now. Don't miss this. Notice, from the 13th to the 16th verse there's three things that has to happen before the Lord Himself appears. The first thing happened, notice: a shout, a voice, a trumpet.

Three things happen, a shout, a voice, a trumpet, has to happen before Jesus appears. Now, a shout. Jesus does all three of them when He's descending. A "shout," what is a "shout"? It's the Message going forth first, the living Bread of Life bringing forth the Bride.

Now, God has a way of doing things, and He never changes His policy. [2]

Watch. Now to the Life in the Body is a vindication of the Rapture is at hand. When you see the Headship and the Body becoming One and the fullness of the measure of His manifestation, shows that the Body is about ready to be received to the Headship.

“Nations are breaking, Israel’s awakening…” See what I mean? He has begin to give Life unto His Body – the one that He has redeemed. The mediatorial work is done. He’s bringing His Life to Body in the vindication for the Rapture. [3]

Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Sodom," now watch close, "in the days of Sodom, so will it be at the coming of the Son of man, when the Son of man is being revealed." (Luke 17:26-30). Not no more as a church, not no more; the Bride's called. See? "In that day the Son of man will be revealed." What? To join the Church to the Head, unite, the marriage of the Bride.

The Bridegroom call will come right through this, when the Son of man will come down and come in human flesh to unite the two together. The Church has to be the Word; He is the Word, and the two unites together, and to do that it'll take the manifestation of the revealing of the Son of man. Not a clergyman. Do you see what I mean?

See, it's Son of man, Jesus Christ, will come down in human flesh among us, and will make His Word so real that it'll unite the Church and Him as one, the Bride, and then she'll go Home to the wedding supper. Amen. She's already united; we go to the wedding supper, not to the marriage. “And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God (Rev. 19:17); ‘cause the marriage of the Lamb has come.” But the rapture is going to the wedding supper. When the Word here unites with the person, and they two become one, and then what does it do then? It manifests the Son of man again, not the church theologians, the Son of man. The Word and the Church becomes one. Whatever the Son of man done, He was the Word, the Church does the same thing. [4]

The rapture's going to make up of all those who sleep in the dust of the earth, that's right with God (I Thess. 4:16-17).
They'll say, "Well, I thought a rapture's take place."
"It's already passed, and you knew it not. You're left." See?
"Well, everything's going..." Yes, sir.

It's a secret coming, the rapture is, comes to steal away. Like that book I read that time of “Juliet and Romeo”. He come at nighttime, when the people were sleeping in worldliness, and the church all in worldliness. And all of a sudden, the cry come, and away they went. See, it’ll be a secret catching away. [5]

I'm going to hurt here in just a little bit now, but I don't mean it. See? For the next few minutes, just a minute too; but so that you'll be sure to understand. Look: Them men who'd walked with Christ, "Why does the Scriptures first say that Elias must come," and they were John's own converts and didn't even know him (Matt. 11:2-14). Why did the Scriptures say, the teachers? Can you see what I mean? "Why does the Scriptures say that Elias must first come?" (Mark 9:11-13). Disciples that walked with him. "Why does the Scriptures say that he must first come before these things and restore all things?" He did to about a half dozen people, and that's all there was. See? That's all that was supposed to receive it. That was what was ordained to see it.

Jesus said, "He's already come, and you didn't know it. But he done just what the Scriptures said he would do. He restored them, you all, that received Me and believed on Me. He done exactly what the Scriptures said he'd do. And they did to him what the Scriptures said they would do. He's already come, and you didn't know it." Are you ready?

I want to shock you a little bit. The rapture will be the same way. It'll be so simple; no doubt it'll be likewise, till the rapture will come one of these days and nobody will know nothing about it.

Now, don't get up now, but study just a minute. I'm sure enough closing. The rapture will come in such a simple way till the judgments will fall, and they'll see the Son of man; they'll say, "Wasn't we supposed to have such-and-such... And wasn't there supposed to be Elias sent to us? And wasn't there supposed to be a rapture?"
Jesus will say, "It's already happened, and you didn't know it." God in simplicity...
The rapture will be... So few go in that Bride.

It'll be, maybe one leave Jeffersonville, just somebody come up missing. They'll say, "Well, you never..." The rest of them won't know. There'll be one leave Georgia. See? There'll be one leave in Africa. And let's say there'd be five hundred people a-living will go in the translation (I Cor. 15:51-54). Now, that ain't the church body; this is the Bride. That ain't the church; this is the Bride. See? The church will come up by the thousands, but that's in the next resurrection (Rev. 20:4-6, 11-15). They lived not for the space of a thousand years. See? But in the Bride, if five hundred people left the earth this very minute, the world would know nothing about it.

Jesus said, "There'd be one in a bed; and I'll take one, leave one." That's at nighttime. "There'd could be two in a field (over on the other side of the earth); I'll take one and leave one. And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26-36).

Think. Everything will move just as common as it can be.

God just speaks and the rapture will come. It ain't going out there, and the Angels come down and shovel out the graves and get out an old dead carcass here. What is it? It's born of sin to begin with, but a new one made in its likeness. It'll be a secret, because He said He'd come like a thief in the night (Matt. 24:37-44).

He's already told us this, the rapture, then judgments will strike: sin, plagues, sickness, and everything. The people will cry for death to take them when the judgment... (Rev. 9:6). "Lord, why is this judgment upon us when You said that there'd be a rapture first?"

He will say, "It's already come, and you didn't know it.": God hiding Himself in simplicity. Oh, my. All right. "It's already happened and you knew it not."
Why don't believers believe the simple signs of His coming? They're expecting all this things that's spoke of by the Scripture, and the moon is going to go down and the sun in the middle of the day, and there's going to be all kinds of things (Matt. 24:29-31). [6]

Therefore, we know that we're at the end time; we're here. I don't know how far away; He will never let us know that, because His coming will be as a thief in the night. But, friend, my brother, sister, let's us be ready regardless. Let's just chaste ourselves. See, because the world will go right on. They'll never even know it's happened. When the doors of mercy's closed, preachers will be preaching salvation, causing people to repent, going right on just like it always did. It did in other ages and it will in this age. And the rapture will be so sudden and so quick that the world will never even miss them, that they're gone. That's right. They'll know nothing about it. He comes and slips Her away. It'll be gone; they know nothing about it. So be in prayer. Pray for me. I pray for you. We don't know when that hour will be, but we believe it'll be soon. And stay away from shiny things. Stay with the Gospel. See? Stay right there now and pray. [7]

Reference:
[1] “Things That Are To B e”, par. 20
[2] “The Rapture”, par. 128-131
[3] “Christ Is The Mystery Of God Revealed”, pg. 77/78
[4] “Proving His Word” (64-0816), par. 236
[5] “Lord, Just Once More” (63-0628M), par. 203-206
[6] “God In Simplicity”, Seal’s-Book pg. 57-59
[7] “He That Is In You”, par. 25

Spiritual Building-Stone No. 160 from the Revealed Word of this hour, compiled by: Gerd Rodewald, Friedenstr. 69, D-75328 Schömberg, Germany
Phone: (+49) 72 35 76 13, Fax: (+49) 72 35 33 06

There´s coming one with a Message that´s straight on the Bible, and quick work will circle the earth. The seeds will go in newspapers, reading material, until every predestinated Seed of God has heard It.
[ Bro. Branham in „Conduct-Order-Doctrine“, page 724]