In my sermon last weekend, I spent some time talking about II Timothy 2:1-5 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God — 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. This really got me thinking about end times and I have had several people ask me questions about prophecy (do i sense a new series coming?) Anyway, I wanted to take a moment to write out a few thoughts about the future. First of all, anyone who says that they know the order of end times events are usually like the person who is "often wrong but never in doubt". The Bible has a lot to say about end times but it does not lay it out neatly so we have to do our best to interpret scripture and from there begin to develop a possible timeline. I believe that the next event that we are waiting for is the rapture of the Church/Bride/Believers - I Thess 4:13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage each other with these words. Most people confuse the rapture with the second coming of Jesus. I personally believe that these are two different events. I believe that the church will be raptured out and that will be the beginning of a seven year tribulation period. At the end of this tribulation period, I believe that Jesus will return to earth and we will return with Him. I will write more about these events later but regardless of the order of these events, we do know that we will be raptured and He is coming again. This is something to get fired up about. The early church lived with this in mind. They anticipated the coming of their King. It seems that we have lost this sense of awareness and anticipation about our future. How would it change our lives if we really believed that we could see Jesus face to face today?