Carried Away!
This is not a pre-trib rapture post, but rather a post of a Spiritual Encounter in The Presence of The LORD — called ‘Harpazo’.
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2024….. What can happen in a year’s time is often so surprising, isn’t it? When we look at this last year, are you amazed!
Of course we have all experienced trials and challenges, but what is so amazing, is the move of God in our lives! It’s inspires us and builds our Faith!
You know you’re headed in the right direction — or doing right by God — when the bad and ugly shows-up, yet you’re in a place of peace without feeling completely wrecked, because of your confidence that God is working.
Although we might have had to profess to ourselves, “God, I know your working” — we were able to stand firm on this amazing Faith — a gift from God, and a measure of our maturity in Christ!
We are all aware that sometimes God does unusual things. We have an example in the Books of Acts 8 when Philip was God’s instrument in bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to an Ethiopian man on a wilderness road.
After leading the man to faith and baptism, Philip and the new convert came up out of the water. When they did, the unusual thing happened: The Spirit of The LORD caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more. The evangelist simply disappeared from the sight and was not seen again there.
The inspired record is clear that this was a work of the Spirit of The LORD. Philip was supernaturally transported away from the place of that baptism.
But Philip didn’t go to heaven! Instead, Philip was found 35 km away at Azotus. It was a miracle of transportation.
This was a strange, perhaps unprecedented event in the Scriptures. But a similar thing happened when the disciples’ boat came immediately to its destination (John 6:15-21) — “Immediately the ship was at the land.”
How far they were from the place at which they landed, when our Lord came to them, we know not, but the evangelist seems to speak of their sudden arrival there as extraordinary and miraculous.
And something like this could also happen to us right? We have been told we will be caught up? (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).
“And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight” Acts 1:9
Like so many before, we are given the keys to enter His Hidden Staircase leading upward to The Father’s Chamber hidden in a cloud.
We are told as we believe in The LORD, we are counted and given keys based on our faith. (Genesis 15:6)
His keys cannot be found within our own efforts, nope, but through God himself.
“Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD with power and great glory” Luke 21:27
God makes a move or in today’s case a Spiritual HARPAZO (ἁρπάζω, harpázō, har-pad’-zo). In the Greek the word Harpazo means to seize, carry off by force or snatch away.
In Strong’s #G726 translates it as “suddenly took”. However the New Testament translators have rendered it as “caught up.”
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet The LORD in the air: and so shall we ever be with The LORD.” 1 Thessalonians 4:17
When The LORD began revealing this to me, I found myself a little awe-struck! I began reading the Scriptures in a new way and I hope I am opening this up to you as well.
One of the first scriptures I found helpful. . .
“The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Romans 13:12
Or how about,
“Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The LORD is near” Philippians 4:5
These verses are just the beginning to reveal God is near all the time once we extinguish the dark.
We have already studied how to abide in Jesus, so Jesus abides in us [a previous post] and so scriptures can take on a new light or presence of The LORD.
The presence (coming) of Christ was revealed in Revelation 3:20,
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him,(meaning presence) and he with me.” Revelation 3:20
We believe and understand Christ indwells in us as we abide in Him. This should provide peace to us as Jesus is here with us right now, as we are His Branch. (John 15)
Paul revealed the glorified Christ had returned to his own to dwell in them, uniting them into one body vitally connected with him, a body whose members were already in the Kingdom, who even sat already in heavenly places …
So, the mysterious word, harpazo. It kept begins bubbling up, day after day in a whisper last summer and I followed up with scriptures, but it wasn’t until my neighbor who asked about the rapture and I said, you mean Harpazo. She asked me… “What is that?”
The LORD always does this he’ll bring a word and drop it into my spirit, and I do a little research, gnaw in it for a bit, but end up putting it aside, until someone in my life brings it up again. So I know this is The LORD!
So let me share my research, I found there were actually seven (7) specific HARPAZO events spoken of in God’s Word.
“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed” 1 Corinthians 15:51
So this mystery, we must be awake to consider it and we will be changed. So let’s get started….
1) Enoch’s is our first illustration in Genesis 5:24,
“And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” Genesis 5:24
2) Then Elijah, in 2 Kings 2:1,
“And it came to pass, when The LORD would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind. . .” 2 Kings 2:1
We are told he went to heaven.
3) We have Philip who is ‘transported’ [Translated].
4) Next, we are shown Paul, 2 Corinthians 12 — Paul is taken up into The Third Heaven and hears words not to be spoken of.
5) And we can’t forget John, who was delivered quickly to land by boat.
“So they were willing to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.” John 6:21
6) Then we have Jesus, transported to heaven by His resurrection and then the body of Christ, or Ekklesia of Christ, His church!
“I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up [Greek, harpazo] to the Third Heaven” 2 Corinthians 12:2
I believe Philip is our best example of Harpazo for our message today, because he illustrations after Philip baptized the Ethiopian treasurer, he is suddenly taken away.
“When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of The LORD suddenly took Philip away, and was not see again, but went on his way rejoicing.” Acts 8:39-40 NIV
Was Philip miraculously transported?
7) Another example described by Dr. Luke in Acts is when Paul was in Jerusalem and the Jews accused him of speaking against their religion:
“The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks.” Acts 23:10
Here harpazo is translated as “taken by force”.
In both cases, someone is suddenly moved away from where they were — it is as though someone has seized them.
In the second case could it be “the troops” are the means of The Holy Spirit?
Now, think again about this unusual miracle.
When God does such surprising things, there are two wrong ways to respond. Some respond with doubt and unbelief, saying “How could God possibly do such a thing?” Some respond with distracted focus, trying to re-create and re-experience these remarkable events.
We should not fall into either of these errors. Yes, we believe that God can do and does do unusual things.
Yes, we keep our focus on Jesus and His good news, and not allow ourselves to be distracted with the desire to re-create unusual things God does.
Philip is a great example to us. He directly experienced this miracle of transportation. Yet, having experienced it, he got to the work of evangelism.
He didn’t wait around for God to miraculously transport him somewhere else! No wonder Philip is the only one with the title, “The Evangelist” (Acts 21:8). His transportation [Translation] empowered his work for God.
“My Beloved spoke, and said to me, Rise up, My love, My fair one, and come away.” Song of Solomon 2:10
When we look out at the world right now, the deep deep darkness that has come upon the land is an ancient darkness manifesting itself within our culture and lives.
Our world has removed God from our culture and these ancient devils spoken of in His Word have moved into God’s temple [Man is God’s temple]. They all have names, but we are known as Baal, Melusine, Moloch, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Baphomet etc…
The darkness has been set in motion by these ancient devils by transforming our entertainment, media, schools, corporations, and governments to destroy God’s values, God’s morals and perceptions so that man can’t follow God.
This unrelenting darkness seeks not only to exist, but to exercise full dominion over everything it touches until complete submission.
For those who try to stand and resist it’s conquest, it never stops to seek it’s transformation, until it has destroyed their will to resist it.
It’s a darkness that cannot rest until all light is extinguished.
If we look back in history, we can ask how was this darkness destroyed? God moved His People, right? And He sent help!
Let me quote from the book by Lady Julian:
“God of His goodness has ordained means to help us, full, fair and many; the chief being that which He took upon Him, the nature of man.”
When God came to the earth as a man, through Jesus, He came and stood as we are, He understood and could empathize and sympathize with us.
He understand this unrelenting darkness, the evil spirits that seeks not only to exist, but to grow into full force until it touches man by altering his perception of reality into it’s dark image.
It won’t stop until every single human makes a choice. The darkness is a copycat and it will requires that every tongue shall confess its name and every knee shall bow down to it!
But we can’t forget, the sovereignty of Jesus Christ who is more powerful! If we are filled with Christ these devils cannot alter or bend our reality into it’s dark image.
We are all aware now and see that we have entered a time in history of Divine Activity. Mankind must turn back to God!
This is the intense confrontation between The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.
This spiritual design by God through his promises is to destroy the darkness, when man confessing Jesus is The LORD!
As the darkness over the earth continues to grow God’s is saving a remnant. The LORD will carry us away … all who confess Jesus is our savior and Lord.
Today, if you believe in Jesus, you have been joined to the remnant of Jews that have been saved.
God has called for himself a people who were previously not a people, and has called us beloved, where previously we were not loved (Romans 9:24-26).
We are told by Isaiah as Israel had turned away from God.
“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For The LORD will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” Isaiah 10:22
God looked ahead then and he has done so today to see the corruption that would befall mankind. Each generation gets more wicked and more evil.
Today, the Father had been sharing that He is going to come to equip those who are seeking Him in your Secret Place of Prayer. He is going to give us a multidimensional-sight, that is going to carry us away, snatch us up!
God going to show His Remanent how to see forward, backward, reverse, upside down and to the right side to discern and declare His Purposes on earth! Hallelujah!
This is going to be our job — to declare light — to bind the darkness — and His Holy Spirit comes to deliver keys.
In my dream, there were two (2) rings of Keys that opened 10 Gates to gain Holy land.
Let’s stick to the facts, God’s showed Paul in the Book of Acts, chapter 9 — how to hear His Voice.
Paul’s Divine Interaction to meet The LORD will be our guide — or example — for our journey ahead.
- Paul met The LORD and heard His Voice — Acts 9:4-6.
- Paul was filled with a longing to obey The LORD and to do His Will —vs.6.
- Paul began to pray —vs.18.
- Paul was baptized —vs.18
- Paul united in fellowship with With God’s people —vs.19 .
- Paul began to testify powerfully about God —vs.22.
- Paul grew in Grace —vs, 22.
This is our road map for how we are to move into God’s Harpazo cloud.
Each one will be given holy ground and as they are given residence all strongholds will be revealed and removed by God himself.
Darkness cannot access His Divine.
God is calling this is “His City of David”.
He built it up all the way around from the supporting terraces inward. David became more and more powerful, and The LORD said ‘hosts was with him’. Building a palace for David knowing The LORD has establish Him, exalted him, for the sake of his people. (2 Samuel 5:9-12)
God is groaning, for the heavens have been opened over many nations, and He is pouring out His fire upon His Ekklesia to raise it up in his majesty — He groans because so many asleep in such intense darkness. So many people have been lulled into agreement of these ancient devils agenda’s.
“For He (has) rescued us from the domain of darkness, and (has) transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13-14
The trumpet has been sounding over the earth, can you hear it?
God is coming suddenly to His temple! The Door to His Harpazo cloud.
Think of this as a spiritual Harpazo cloud — as a Door that you’re about to walk through, to be caught up by The LORD.
As I am pondering this “Spiritual Door” with The Father, I am reminded of a Vision given when studying the Book of Songs.
I was shown His Hidden Staircase as a way to enter His Chamber — a very intimate place for each believer. This is the threshold where everything that has been hidden is going to be revealed.
To meditate about this Door, is to sit quietly, breathing deeply, waiting and expecting God to arrive as you desire to see the face of Jesus within your mind.
The word ‘meditation’ was stolen by the new age movement just like our rainbow! We need to take them back! Mediating is a powerful tool in our walk.
If we look at the word “meditation” translated in Greek “Meletao” and its derivation in Hebrew means: “Murmur,” “Muse,” “Mutter,” “Sigh,” Whisper,” “Moan,” dull sound,” and “a bowing down or to ponder.
So it’s safe to say meditate on scripture because we are bending down to ponder the word of God, and asking God to reveal important factors that pertain to your life.
What we know within our hearts as The Truth, allows us one more step up the Staircase, until we reach The Door, The Threshold of Jesus.
Now, as you read my Vision, allow yourself to visualize a picture in your mind.
Your spiritual eyes will open when your will [mind] allows it. This is known here, as bending a knee to The Holy Spirit.
This is entering the deep with God to allow your mind to be transformed and transported like Philip or John.
Vision
I begin to climb the steps within the hidden staircase, also known to many as Jacob’s Ladder. I quickly ascend upward taking every step that leads to a door ahead that is closed.
As I approach, a veil is broken to reveal a metal doorknob that I turn to open a wooden door. I have made a conscious choice to open this door, to reveal to a white marble path leading to a Throne, far off in the distance.
As I walk this path, I become aware of light weight fabric swishing back and forth along the floor behind me.
I glance back to see a floating train of lace beautifully sewn into my garment. I turn my head and look down to see tiny pearls perfectly sewn along my neckline.
To my astonishment, I am wearing a wedding dress — and later discover I have entered the wedding where I was His Bride!
For a deeper clarification of this Vision, we can look to our guide, The Holy Spirit, Who has been placed inside each of us to resettle our unholy soil within our minds, hearts and souls.
“I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, The LORD, have spoken it and performed it,” says The LORD.’ ” Ezekiel 37:14 NKJV
God’s Army is ripe and ready for The LORD to appear, and this Divine Encounter will come in a cloud to carry you away as you sit and ponder His Word.
This is your Harpazo — a personal encounter!
Shalom
~ Angela Reese
Angela is the owner of “Fruits of His Vine” website, to encourage and equip those still in wandering, or in captivity, to find our Savior in His Holy Tabernacle.
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