Most Christians believe that the Bible teaches that we cannot know the date of the Lord’s coming to catch us up to meet him in the clouds. Over the past several years books have been published that proclaimed the date of the rapture and other books have appeared that refuted the first books.

In 1988 there was a major flap over a book entitled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be In 1988. There was a particularly strong expectancy at that time because it was 40 years, or one generation, after Israel became a nation. Obviously, the book was flawed and Jesus did not come. Yet the controversy centered around the book served a purpose in that some people began to seriously consider the idea that Jesus might come in our generation. Others, however, gave up on the whole idea of the rapture.

I love the rapture. The burning desire of my heart is to enter the presence of my Lord Jesus and to live there with him eternally. While some might think this is a death wish, it isn’t. I know that as long as I live on this earth in this human body I am not fully alive. Rom. 8:11 says that if the Holy Spirit dwells in me he will make alive my mortal body. Not my dead body, although that is promised elsewhere. My mortal body: this body that I live in that is subject to death. I have a life wish. I want to enter into absolute life, free from all interference from Satan and the sin nature that currently dwells within me. I look for the day when I will be fully alive. Glorified. Literally showing forth the presence of God. Glowing with it. I have a life wish!

There have been days during the past several years when I made sure the pet’s bowls were filled, the house was cleaned, and the bills paid. Letters were written and left where they could be easily found. September 12, 1988 was a bright, sunny day. I remember it clearly because I spent several hours sitting on the porch, watching the sky. There will probably be more days like that in the future: days when preparation is made. Or maybe just one.

On September 13, 1988 I awoke disappointed to find myself on earth, but I also knew that God hadn’t made a mistake, I had. Because it was Jewish New Year, a few days later I went to a bookstore to get a new calendar and left with a whole BOOK on the Jewish calendar. With spirits soaring I started restudying the rapture. Now, in 2005, seventeen years after I had expected to be airlifted to heaven with the Lord Jesus, I still await his coming. But with every day that passes my belief that his coming will be soon grows stronger, and the time has come to publish the results of my studies.

At the risk of being labeled a heretic, I do not know the date of the rapture, but I do believe that we can know something of the timing of the rapture, and further, I believe that  it will occur before June 2, 2008 (Iyar 28 on the Hebrew calendar), the end of the fortieth year since the recapture of Jerusalem on June 7, 1967.