Heaven’s Key Sheltering Strategies (Part 1)

See the series here

A casual reading of Bible stories will reveal what might appear to us to be inconsistencies in whether, when and how The Lord shelters His saints from judgments upon others. Sometimes, He allows us to be exposed to, and even to become collateral damage of those judgments. Other times, in unlimited creative ways, He totally shelters from His judgments on others. Because of His boundless creativity, His ‘sheltering repertoire’ is limitless! So when I perceive repetitive uses of some strategies, my strategic mind perks up and ponders, ‘What’s going on?’ Two seemingly repetitive strategies are the ‘Goshen-effect’ (my term) protective sheltering, and raptures.

The ‘Goshen-Effect’

As expressions of The Lord’s Grace and Mercy, He sometimes extends protections to certain individuals and groups in order to shield them/us from His pending judgments on others. The Goshen Effect (Series) examines how He tailors special protections for those He intends to shelter from judgments on others. The most popular one is how He sheltered the Hebrews slaves from the impacts of the last 7 (of 10) plagues He rained down on ancient Egypt, before the exodus. Part 2 of that series explains why He likely did not shelter them during the initial 3 plagues: They were largely scattered across Egypt searching for hay to make bricks, after Pharaoh (in response to Moses’ initial ‘Let My people go!’ command) refused to let the Egyptians deliver hay to them in Goshen. (See: Exodus 5) They might have returned home, to the land of Goshen, after the national impacts of the first 3 plagues. The series also notes several subsequent ‘Goshen-effect’-type protections across The Bible, including some pending ones. 

Raptures

The Bible Raptures – Types and Timings (Series) summarizes how various kinds of rapture (‘caught up’) events transition and provide protective shelter to targeted individuals and groups, far away from pending judgments on others. The destination is almost always into Heaven, with a few exceptions. The Bible summarizes group raptures that occurred/will occur at the ends of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th ages of our history. (See: Human History Ages (Series))  However, though the 5th age (the Millennial Reign age) is excluded from this list, the fact that will end after a thousand years, is clear indication that The Lord and all His saints from the first 4 ages of human history, will return to Heaven! That, my friends, qualifies as a rapture in my book---in any book!

 

Differences

The above triggers the question:

 

What might be the key differences between

Goshen-effect and rapture transition and sheltering events?

 

While Goshen-effects and rapture events both evidence The Lord’s Grace and Mercy, they might be scaled differently.

• Goshen-effects events regionally segregate to shelter, and may be viable when pending judgments are targeted, limited or regional.
• Most rapture (‘caught-up’) events cosmically separate to shelter, and may be viable when pending judgments are global--all-earth-encompassing.

It stands to reason that, once Heaven’s judgments ‘go global’, Earth-bound geography, itself, collapses as a protective strategy. There will be nowhere on Earth left ‘to be spared in place’. 

 

When judgments will be geographically bounded,

protective sheltering can be Earth-centric.
When judgments will be geographically unbounded, 

protective sheltering must be positional, not Earth-centric.

 

A Perceptive Question

This scenario triggers a perceptive question: 

 

What about Matthew 24:29-31, when The Lord will return

with His early ages saints, to rapture His 4th age saints,

and then govern Earth in the Millennial Reign age?? 

That rapture event will occur AFTER the apocalypse,

not before!!

 

Stay tuned for Part 2