WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE?

This one is a work in progress....more to come

Paper napkin theology of the end times

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This idea was taught to me by pastor Gregg in Houston. You can outline the end times very simply with three arrows and two lines!

1. UP ARROW - the rapture. Christ comes for his church

2. SQUIGGLY LINE - Tribulation. Seven years of calamity

3. DOWN ARROW - 2nd Coming. Christ comes with his church

4. STRAIGHT ARROW - Millennium. 1000 reign of Christ with his people

5. FORWARD ARROW - Eternity. Heavenly paradise forever

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE - This is a great questions that I don't think anybody fully know the answer to. Here is what I have been taught from the Bible.

For people who lived before Jesus was resurrected:
- Non believers will go to a place called Hades or Sheol which is a place of isolation where people wait for final judgment.
- Believers will go to a place called "Abraham's Bosom" which is similarly a holding place of peace before the great white throne judgment. (Luke 16)

For people after the resurrection:
- Nonbelievers still go to Hades/Sheol
- Believers go straight to heaven. Luke 23:43 - "Today you will be with me in paradise."

RAPTURE (1 Thes 4:13-18, Revelation 4-5) - Some people feel like the rapture will come after the tribulation but I think it will come before. Here are a couple of reason why

- Throughout the Bible, God often protects and removes believers before his judgment or wrath is carried out. Examples include Noah, Moses, Rehab and Lot.
- This view fits with the chronological order of the book of revelation.
- The word "church" in not found in the Bible during chapters 6-19 of Revelation which details the tribulation.

In regards to the rapture, we are told that "the dead in Christ will rise first" (1 Thes 4:16). This means that the souls believers in Christ who have died after the resurrection will come out of the graves and join Christ in the sky. Next, followers of Christ who are alive when he returns will "be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thes 4:17). This will all begin with a trumpet call (v. 16). I am not sure if all people will hear this or only those who are being called to join the Lord. Whatever the case, this will be a bizarre time when people are present one moment and gone the next. Whether our actual physical bodies will be taken or left behind I'm not sure but I hope that those who are left behind realize what has taken place and start reading the Bible of their freinds who have been taken away. The choas from removing believers from the earth will likely be the catalyst that propels the antichrist to power and signals the beginning of the tribulation.

TRIBULATION (2 Thes 2, Revaltion 6-19) - On the heels of chaos and confusion caused by the rapture, and as the world heads towards the tribulation, the Antichrist will rise to power. This will be a person that unites the world as one and ultimately calls all people to worship him. The tribulation will begin with 3 1/2 years of peace and the signing of a treaty with Israel but this will be followed by 3 1/2 years of calamity in which Christians will be martyred for their faith.

The possibility of a one-world power is becoming more and more a reality in recent years.

• Advances in media and technology would allow for global communication that could unify the entire world under the command of a single regime.
• Economic instability in the United States and abroad has people more eager than ever to find a new currency to use as the economic standard. Already the euro is in place
• The formation of the European union would be a prime starting point for a leader to take control
  
• The decline of America currently will leave a void that the one world power could step in and fill
• The political correctness with which people view religion currently is setting the stage for the Antichrist's efforts to unify all faiths and ultimately cause people to worship him.
  

"We do not need another committee. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of the people, and to lift us out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man, and be he God or the Devil, we will receive him” -Paul Henry Spack, former Secretary General of NATO, 1957

"The goal of studying prophecy is godliness."

1 Thes 4:18 "encoruage one another with these words"