Luke 21:34And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. 35For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
The Lord makes no mention of harpazo or rapture here ^^ so why should we? What an excellent way to completely disarm and debunk all of the rapture deniers. We are not talking about the rapture here. We are not talking about the rapture and we are talking about escape. Yes, there is an escape from all that is about to happen and we are to pray for it.
Want some more encouragement?
The Lord brought to my attention the fact that every single believer that has died in Christ up to this very moment has escaped all that is about to happen. That's right, all of them, 100%. Who else escaped all that was about to happen? Noah and Lot both escaped:
Luke 17:26And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 28Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; 29But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 30Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed
And who else is going to escape? Both the woman and the child:
1And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
3And
there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon,
having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
4And
his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them
to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to
be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
6And
the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of
God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
Notice what happens here ^^ the male child is "caught up" (sound familiar?) to God and the woman flees to the wilderness where she escapes from/is kept/protected from the dragon for half of the tribulation!
And oh yea, as an afterthought, the harpazo of the Church will be an escape as well but we don't have to even mention it to make our point.
What's the point? There is alot of escaping going on, and we are told to pray for escape. If you want to wholesale destroy the arguments against escape, don't even mention the rapture. Tell the deniers the argument has nothing to do with the rapture and everything to do with escape and watch as the blood drains out of their face. All of their canned arguments go swirling down the drain where they belong.
Praying for escape was not a suggestion, it was a command
36Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
Praying for escape is an act of obedience. Why should we always be praying for escape? Because our God in His infinite wisdom purposefully concealed when the escape is going to happen. Do you know why there is so much debate about (among other things) the rapture? Because our Lord hid the timing, on purpose which has resulted in endless fruitless debate. So why debate it? Why not stand on the facts. Facts? Yea, facts like there will be an escape from all that is about to happen and we were commanded to pray for it.
Not everyone is going to go through the tribulation. I know there are people out there who swear up and down that Christians must go through it but their arguments fall apart all over the place. What happened to the millions who have died in Christ up through today, not one of them went through the tribulation, why not? If we have to go through it, prove it! All of our brothers and sisters who died in Christ did not go through it and many of us will not go through it either. Thanks be to God.
He told us to pray always for our escape from all that is about to happen. It was not a suggestion, it was a command. Glory to God, there is an escape from this wicked world that is getting worse by the day. Glory to God, He told us to pray for that escape.
May the grace and peace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be with you
