Pentecost and the Rapture of the Church

by Jack Kelley of Grace Thru Faith

The key to the Rapture's occurrence is in Romans 11:25 where Paul used what I think were two carefully selected phrases in writing, "Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in."

The first phrase is "full number". It was a nautical term that described the number of soldiers and sailors that had to be contracted and on board before a ship could set sail. As soon as the full number was accounted for the ship could leave the harbor, but not before. The last few crew members were often obtained in suspicious ways, so the ship set sail the minute all were on board. In effect, no one knew the exact day or hour of departure, and the ship often stole away in the middle of the night, before the most recently "contracted" crew members woke up from their drunken stupor to discover what had been done to them.

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