[Darris McNeely] Our "Beyond Today" set is empty right now. Our taping was just a few days ago of our last program, and we're busily preparing all three of us the next scripts for our next taping. I'm gonna be talking about the Rapture. Interesting teaching that people believe that they will be raptured away from this world to heaven at some point in the future when Christ appears. It's an interesting teaching that many Americans and other people in parts of the world have as well. Do you believe that? Is that part of your faith? Is it taught in the Bible? We'll cover that in the program that we'll do. We have literature in our booklets that talk about them.

I was thinking about the idea that people wanna get away. They wanna be raptured away, get away from this world. You know, there's moments that you just get tired of your problems, you know, struggles that we have, politics problems that take place in the world and human nature, and we just wanna get away. We wish we could change it all and we wish God's kingdom would come and create a just, and a safe, and a world of peace. That hasn't happened yet. Many people who believe in a rapture, I think fall prey to what I call the escape mentality. They just want to get away from it all. And you know what it leads to? It leads to an inability to really focus on what the Bible does teach about the purpose of our life and what our conversion, our calling to God in our Christian life really should be accomplishing now. We lose sight of that if we are thinking about a rapture or we just, you know, would rather escape in one sense, which is what rapture teaching does and other people suffer who don't escape.

You know, part of the teaching of a rapture falls out of Matthew 24, Christ all of it prophecy, where Christ did say that the day of the hour, you don't know when His return would be, not even the angels of heaven but my Father only. He talked about the days of Noah, when people will be caught unawares, when the flood comes to take them away so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then it says two men will be in their field, one taken and the other left, two women grinding at the mill, one taken, the other left. These are passages that people who believe in a rapture use to support their teaching.

You know what? That's not teaching the rapture. That's not even talking about the rapture. In regard to the days of Noah, those that are taken in this way, that took them all away, Christ says is by the flood. All right? And then others are left. And where are they left? They're left on the Earth. They're left to live out their life. Why? Well, God has a purpose for our human lives. God has a purpose that we should be living by. And it is to prepare in this life on this Earth, for what Christ is going to bring to the Earth, His Kingdom.

We're not going up to heaven. We're not gonna be raptured up to heaven in that way. We will be caught up in a resurrection and change but come right back down to earth. These are the things we're going to talk about on the rapture program. These are the things the Bible helps us to understand. This is what you should be focusing on, not escaping, but making sure that you use the Spirit of God to overcome sin, and to be prepared for what God is going to do on this Earth, and use you as a part of that purpose and plan.

Looking forward to doing that program. Hope you're looking forward to being challenged.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.