"Yes, Pete, I admit it; it's me!"

"Tin Foil Hat Brigade?"

10-10-16, Pete Garcia [Excerpt] -- You know who you are.  You’re the person other people tip toe around when it comes to discussing current events or religion.  You are the person who can spend hours devouring scripture or news with equal vigor, pointing out ‘last days’ events to anyone who would listen to you.  You are semi-shunned at church.  You are disinvited from church socials, because you are just too intense and narrow-minded.  You’re called a ‘conspiracy theorist’ or a ‘Jesus Freak’ behind your back.  You’re always going on about the Lord’s return and that “Rapture thingy”.  Admit it.  You are one of them, one of those “prophecy nuts”.

Isn’t it ironic how that we live in the most prophetically active times since the days of Christ, and yet the world has somehow reached the pinnacle of its skepticism and cynicism?  Now, I’m not even talking about the unbelieving, Christ rejecting world.  They have always been skeptical and mocking of our faith.  But it would seem that the trend these days within the majority of professing Christendom, is to join in on the mocking of those who believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture and literal understanding of future events as laid out in the Bible. 

When Christ walked the earth, the dominant world super-power at the time was Rome, and they worshipped the god’s such as Diana and Jupiter.  Furthermore, Jesus Himself performed hundreds of miracles, the biggest of which was bringing Lazarus back from the dead, and then resurrecting Himself, after the most brutal, public, and painful death a person could have…being publically flogged, then nailed naked to a cross to suffocate to death.  No faking that.  And yet, the nation was not convinced. 

For the last 150 years, Christianity has spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to defend itself against secular science and academia.  But by spending so much time and energy trying to quantify and validate our belief, we have in large part, neglected the supernatural aspect of our faith; primarily that we worship a God who exists outside of time and space. We still believe in things that can’t be tested in a laboratory. 

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When we bring the idea up that Christ will soon return for His Church, we are relegated to the ‘tin-foil hat’ group who go around promoting conspiracies. However, considering that all of the prophecies concerning Christ’s First Advent were literally fulfilled, let us use an equal standard of measure concerning Christ’s Second Advent.  
​To do that, we take Christ’s own words:

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare 
a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; 
that where I am, there you may be also."  John 14:1-3

Christ came and did exactly as was prophesied, even confounding the rulers of that age by dying (allowing them to kill Him), because that would once and forever, secure His victory over sin, death, and hell.

The Rapture is just icing the cake, because when we are caught up, we will be transiting through Satan’s domain. (Eph. 2:2, 6:12), and will be victoriously paraded in front of the entire Satanic host as Christ’s prized possessions of untouchables.   The Rapture will be then, a divine rubbing of salt in Satan’s wound.  After all, aren’t we supposed to be salt and light?  And as much as salt is a preservative, it’s also an irritant…and we have been an irritant to Satan and his agenda now for 2,000 years.

So knowing what we know from Scripture, Christ will return again one day, first for His Church, and then secondly in judgment with His Church. (Jude 1:14; Rev. 19:7-10, 14) Furthermore, even if we are almost 2,000 years removed from when Christ walked the earth, the implications are that we have more information now, than we ever did to validate our supernatural faith.  As the most prosperous nation, we were blessed with a complete Bible, religious liberty, and the nation of Israel stepping back into history, after a 1,900 year diaspora.   If believing those things makes me a ‘prophecy nut’ sign around my neck, then I will gladly wear it.  If it puts me in the “Tin Foil Hat” Brigade, then sign me up, because… 

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"Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes,
will find watching. … if the master of the house had known what hour
the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed
his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the
Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." Luke 12:37-40

Excerpted and adapted; full original message here:
www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=8320