A Post On....Rapture....(It's Not What You Might Think)

                I used this anecdote only a few months ago.....but I'm using it here again....only with a slightly different twist to it. It was the late 80s. I have to digress here a little bit as I was on a Christian college campus again today....so the newest visitors to these web pages should be primarily college age people....and when they read....'It was the late 80s'....they probably think that this guy must be really old.....and they would be correct....sort of....but to me the late 80s are almost like yesterday.
            Anyway....back to the late 80s....I walked into a Christian bookstore....(they were everywhere back then....and we today are the less for not having them anymore)....I walked in and a book caught my eye because the cover was a bright neon orange. So I picked it up....The Christian In Complete Armor....by the mid-17th century English Puritan William Gurnall. I looked at the blurbs on the back which was then....and still is my habit. I was Pentecostal at the time.....(I do still thank the Lord for those first days)....and I did not recognize the name of Charles Spurgeon.....but I did recognize the name David Wilkerson. In the introduction to the book he said that he was initially skeptical of the book given to him....but according to him....he scanned the first twenty-five pages...and it brought him to his knees. I myself wrote way back then....that I was....I think it was 15 or 17 pages into it....and I was brought to my knees!
           So why this anecdote? I am not as up-to-date on Christian books as when we owned our own Christian bookstore....and I was reading book reviews all the time....this back in....the late 90s. So I just came across a book today....and the blurbs were excellent....by people I could trust....so I bought it....and I kid you not.....I am on page five....so include the Forward and the Introduction....and it would still only be page ten....and I may not be on my knees....(it's tough to get on my knees anymore)....but I found an answer to a question that I have had for a long time....as I would contemplate the Apostle John....who leaned on the Lord at the table. I thought that this must just be John's personality....he was just a sentimental sort.
            I don't think that anymore. I think that John....recognized more the glories of Christ....at that time....than the other Apostles....therefore he could do nothing else but lean on Jesus. That's not the only evidence that I have. In my own life....as the decades roll on by....I am increasingly more astonished at the increasing majestic glories of Jesus Christ!
            I was driving home today from that visit to a college campus....listening to a Charles Spurgeon sermon from 1871....the title of it was simply....More And More. I had picked out that sermon to listen to because of the title. Spurgeon was wonderfully preaching on the essence of what I am writing on here....how can we do anything but desire to know this Jesus....more and more!
            As I was listening....the word 'rapture' came repeatedly to my mind....not the eschatological rapture where we will be taken up....but rapture in terms of....as Merriam-Webster describes the word...."An expression or manifestation of ecstasy or passion." It would apply to the Apostle John at the table....and it should apply to us today....unless we are not seeking to know Jesus....more and more.
            Oh....you want to know the book title....well it's....Knowing Christ....by Mark Jones....with the forward by none other than J. I. Packer....(it is a 2015 book....and J. I. Packer went to be with his Lord in 2020.) I know that they must have done this purposely....but the cover of the book....and the feel to it....are so similar to J. I. Packer's 1973 classic....Knowing God!