The Rapture: There’s More To The Story on Who Will Be Caught Up…

The Rapture.  Everybody’s heard of it and some of us Christians are even greatly anticipating it.  My husband and I have talked about it at various times over the past few years.  And after giving it much thought and consulting with Lord, I came to some very interesting conclusions.

First of all, I will say that I’m in a group of Christians known as “Pre-Tribbers”.  That is, we believe that we will be raptured BEFORE the beginning of the Tribulation period.  Since that’s not the topic of my blog today, I’m not going to go into it.  BUT if you want to know more, I suggest you check out Chuck Missler’s video on The Rapture.  He goes into great detail on exactly why we believe that and backs it all up with Scripture.  After watching that, I don’t know how you could believe anything different.

Now back to it.  I started all this by thinking what would happen directly after The Rapture.  I think that the world would be turned upside down at first.  Loved ones and friends would be missing.  I know that my entire family would be raptured since they are all Christian and have already accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  But since I have 5 cats, my mind went directly to what would happen to them.  For many years, I have KNOWN that our pets would be with us in Heaven.  I just felt it in my Spirit.  And as much as I have loved my pets over the years, I could never imagine Heaven without them in it!  And I once heard Chuck Missler say that we know that at least 4 horses are there, right?!  Thankfully, Terry James with Tom Horn and others in the book “Do Our Pets Go To Heaven?”, addresses that very topic.

The Bible is chock full of so many references to animals, I couldn’t possibly list them all here.  If they have no soul as some Christians believe, WHY, as pointed out in the book, were they created “for His enjoyment” (Revelation 4:11) and “God never forgets about them” (Matthew 10:29 and Luke 12:6)?   That certainly doesn’t sound like a God that made animals with no soul and saw them as disposable creations!  And one of my favorite verses is Psalms 150:6; “Let Everything That has Breath Praise the Lord!”  Certainly He meant animals too.

I remember telling my husband about a year ago that I believed ALL children would be taken at the Rapture.  The Lord certainly knows the age at which a child has the ability to decide for themselves if they have accepted Jesus Christ.  It might be very personal and for one child it could be age 6 or for another could be age 16.  But whatever system He uses, if a child is too young to fully understand Christianity, then I believe they will be Raptured since they are “innocents”.  I’m sure this very topic has been addressed many times before, but I saw it for the first time in the current movie “Left Behind”, starring Nicholas Cage.  In the movie, ALL the children were caught up.  They didn’t address teenagers and none were shown in the movie but I suspect there would be some of those left behind.  If you’ve ever been the parent of a teen, I’m certain you agree they are old enough to understand.

Now moving on, I have never had children of my own and due to a surgery, I never can.  My animals have always been my “children.”  Some people understand that and some don’t.  But to those that do understand, it’s as important to me that my pets be raptured the same as my step-children will!  So I posited to my husband that I believed our 5 cats would be raptured with us.  He looked at me and just said, “you think?”  He’d never thought about it before and I wonder how many other Christians have.  Well, think about it this way.  The Rapture just happened and the world is in chaos.  And at that point there just might be more “bad” people in the world than “good” people.  Crime would skyrocket.  Most people would be concerned for loved ones and be searching for them, trying to get them on the phone and traveling to their homes to see if they are okay.  I don’t think most people would really be concerned for animals.  If you knew the family next door had been raptured, would you consider taking in their 3 dogs with the world in chaos and food probably in very short supply?  Do you leave the dogs inside to slowly starve to death?  Just from READING our Bibles, we KNOW the Lord LOVES animals!  I just don’t see Him leaving them this way to die so horribly.  It certainly makes more sense that your animals will be raptured with you!  If our animals go to Heaven and as it’s been established, THEY DO, then again it makes perfect sense they would be going with us.  I have no scripture to back that up.  I only have the Word of God given to me by the Holy Spirit that it is so.

And I wouldn’t be writing a blog if I didn’t throw out an even crazier notion or two.  So, I will say that the animals being raptured will help the case of the coming great deception.  Some of us Christians do believe that the anti-Christ will be an “alien.”  The alien will probably give the story that different aliens, evil ones, took the people for use as slave labor on some far away planet.  (And he’s one of the “good aliens” here to help us! *sneer*)  The evil aliens took ALL the children because they can train them easier and the reason they took adults is because they need us to watch over the children.  Why did they take our pets?  Well, they need to make sure we feel as “comfortable” as possible on our new homeworld.  Or, maybe we need some incentive to “go along” with whatever they tell us?  Threatening to kill my pets would certainly keep me in line.  It will be a “great deception” so the explanation doesn’t even have to make sense.  All will be deceived by it.

In conclusion, I will say that even if I was wrong, the Lord knows I’m not going without my pets.  I’m certain He will let me bring them. 🙂