When Jesus ascended back into heaven in Acts 1:11, angels said to His disciples,
This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner.
So we are promised a Blessed Hope of a visible return of our Lord. Scripture elsewhere clearly records it will be in the Last Days, a tumultuous period of martyrdom, destruction, and rapture. But a huge question is still debated: Do Christians get raptured and escape all the terror, as I hear some people say? I have a theory, based on Scripture, of course, that I will lay out for you, and it will hopefully be as clear as anything you’ll read. The End Times scenario is not as confusing as some make it out. The answers are surprising.
Fact #1: From Joel 2:30-31 and 3:15 we learn that a particular cosmic disturbance will precede the day of the Lord.
And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth… 31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD…15 The sun and moon will grow dark, And the stars will diminish their brightness…
What’s noteworthy about this cosmic disturbance is that (1) it gives us a blood moon and (2) it blackens the sky—which has a specific purpose (more on that on a later blog). And, these cosmic events are before the Day of the Lord.
***The order thus far: Cosmic event, then Day of the Lord.
Fact #2: Well, what is the Day of the Lord? Is it the same as the tribulation? From Isaiah 13:6-9 we understand that the “day of the Lord” is primarily God’s wrath on men
Wail, for the day of the LORD is at hand! It will come as from the Almighty.7 …Every man’s heart will melt…8 And they will be afraid… They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth… 9 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger… And He will destroy its sinners from it.
The tribulation, on the other hand, is Satan’s wrath on men. Revelation 12:12, 17:
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time…17and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Thus, the Day of the Lord is not the same as the tribulation. This will be further proved soon by the chronology. They also have different descriptions. The Day of the Lord is not God’s Final Judgment either, when He decides eternity on our souls.
Fact #3: On the Day of the Lord, there is a surprise event just before God’s wrath breaks loose: namely, the return of Christ. He will rescue saved, righteous men who are being hunted down. Scripture promises this will occur immediately before His wrath—in fact, the rescue and the wrath happen ON THE SAME DAY. Proof for that is in Luke 17:26-30. There, Jesus cites Noah and Lot as the pattern for His return. The pattern is: (1) the rescue precedes the wrath, and (2) both happen on the same day:
And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until THE DAY that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all (there’s the pattern: in the same day, there was rescue of the righteous, then a cruel Day on the disobedient). 28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate… they built; 29 but ON THE DAY that Lot went out of Sodom (i.e, was rescued), it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all (then wrath, same day). 30 Even so will it be IN THE DAY when the Son of Man is revealed.
Note that two things happened ON THE same DAY--rescue, then judgment. “Revealed” speaks of His visible return—note that His return is a single event, not two returns. So from Facts 1-3 we have the following order of events:
***The cosmic disturbance, then, on the Day of the Lord, Jesus makes His single visible return for rapture of the righteous, and then the Lord’s wrath on evil men and women.
Note that the cosmic event occurs BEFORE God’s wrath.
Fact #4: From Mark 13:24-25 we learn that our cosmic disturbance (see #1 above) occurs AFTER an event known as the tribulation:
“But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; 25 the stars of heaven will fall, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Now we see the following necessary order of Last Days so far:
***Tribulation, then cosmic disturbances, then, on the same day: Jesus’ visible return for rescue/rapture, then the Lord’s wrath begins. Note how the rescue/rapture is after the tribulation. Thus, genuine Christians do not escape the tribulation. Note also that the Lord’s wrath and the tribulation are NOT the same thing because the tribulation is BEFORE the cosmic event, but God’s wrath is AFTER the cosmic event.
Scripture gives lots more information on the tribulation. Let’s look at events happening around it.
Fact #5: Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, describes three important trends in Matthew 24:5-31 BEFORE the tribulation, then gives two more trends DURING the tribulation. Here’s the relevant passages we will draw from in today’s installment (more study on His Discourse in our next blog):
For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows. 9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake... 15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place”… 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. …21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. …
a.Summarizing events from above highlighting: In order, they are: In verse 5, the key word is Deceive. (Keep in mind: the tribulation has not begun yet.)
b.Then we have Wars in verse 6.
c.In verse 7b, there is Famine. These first three are called the “beginning of sorrows” in v.8.
d.THEN the TRIBULATION BEGINS, as verse 9 clearly points out, with two trends: Death (they will...kill you) and Martyrdom (you will be hated…for my name’s sake). Thus, from my words highlighted, there are five important disastrous events, in the order given. Three before the tribulation begins, two after.
In verses 15, 16, and 21 above, Jesus breaks away from straight chronology, with some details, that flesh out our events: For one thing, He gave an important “tip-off” as to when the tribulation begins: The tribulation begins when they see the “abomination of desolation” (that’s the name given in Daniel to the last-days antichrist) standing in the holy place, in Jerusalem. They are urged to then escape as fast as they can, because the antichrist will begin the tribulation by starting to kill two groups of people. He strikes out at the Jews first, but he doesn’t spare Christians either. Note Revelation 13:7 on that:
It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Note: The “saints” referred here are all genuine Christians living at that time. Nobody got raptured away from this, as we proved at the end of Fact #4 above, from Scripture. Christians living then will have to endure the tribulation. Rescue doesn’t come til’ after the tribulation, just before God’s wrath.
***Now the order of End Times is: Deception, wars, famine (the 3 called the beginning of sorrows), then the “abomination of desolation” (antrichrist) in holy place, then tribulation begins with the widespread death and martyrdom of Jews and Christians. Later there is the cosmic disturbance, and then on the same day, Jesus appears, rescues/raptures His people, and then the Lord’s wrath.
My next two blogs expand further on this chronology.
I would like to take our final minutes on Part I to address two arguments brought up by the pre-tribulationists (those who believe saints are raptured before any of the five terrible events in Matthew 24. Their idea is, rapture is before any of the above disasters).
First is their insistence of “imminency,” that there are no signs preceding the rapture. Under their scenario, with no signs, the rapture can occur at any time: today, 50, 500 years from now. Under the scenario I’ve laid out, however, clearly there are signs preceding the rapture.
So, are there signs? Matthew 24:31-33 says yes: it connects rapture events with signs preceding:
And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (this happens in the rapture/rescue). 32 “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that it (the rapture,his subject matter) is near—at the doors!
As you can see, when you see all these things, these signs, you know that summer (harvest, the rapture) is near. Thus, Scripture blows the “no-signs-imminency” idea away.
“Pre-tribbers’” second argument: They believe that I Thessalonians 5:9 says that Christians will avoid the tribulation, since they think the tribulation is God’s wrath, and God will not bring down massive suffering on their bodies:
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ
To argue this, firstly, does the word “salvation” in Scripture usually mean saving our bodies? Not likely—it usually means saving our souls. Pre-tribbers assume (1) the five disastrous events above are all tribulation, and (2) the tribulation is God’s wrath, and (3) To them, avoiding God’s wrath means that God wants to save our bodies from suffering. But these are three wrong ideas. They then conclude Christians won’t go through any of the above sufferings. But the tribulation is not God’s wrath, they’re two separate events, as we have shown and pointed out above. Wrong assumptions, wrong conclusions.
But we still have to ask ourselves, will God allow massive suffering and death to His children? The simple answer is, yes, consider all the martyrdom that has gone on. Another perspective on that question, ask yourselves, what’s more important, the body or the soul? The soul, of course (Matthew 5:30 and 16:26). Christians WILL endure intense persecution of their bodies during the tribulation. Our bodies may be sacrificed for Him, but thank God, our souls won’t be touched by His wrath, whereas most souls go to hell. THAT’s what I Thessalonians 5:9 means when it says we’re not appointed to God’s wrath. We need to take the long view, thinking about our eternal souls, not our temporary bodies. Also, if we are martyrs, we go immediately to be with the Lord—which is a blessing!
I’d like to plead a word of exhortation to today’s pre-tribbers: What if all this happens while we’re alive? With the wrong mindset, pre-tribbers are terrribly unprepared for the End Times. They will feel deceived when they’re surprised by one more disaster after another and they are still around and haven’t been rescued yet. We’re talking about a lot of people who believe this theory--most evangelicals have been swayed by popular teachers like Hal Lindsay, movies and books like the “Left Behind” series, people like John Hagee, and any teachers from Dallas Theological Seminary. But the earliest church fathers (closest to Christ and the apostles) felt Christians someday would go through tribulation. It’s clearly taught in Scripture—not only in my above chronology, but look also at II Thessalonians 2:1-4:
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him (Paul is getting ready to answer their question about the timing of the rapture) we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come (called the “day of the Lord” in NIV, it’s the same thing.) Note how he’s implying that the rapture is at the same time as the day of the Lord. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day (remember, Paul is answering their question about the rapture) will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
Scripture clearly points out that the rapture, the Day, cannot come until after the antichrist is revealed! But that means they’ll still be around, and have to run for their lives, as death and martyrdom are coming. And they have to suffer the Deception, the Wars, and the Famine, as well.
Sure, it would be great to whirl off and avoid suffering. It’s easy to see how such a theory, even if it had no real Scriptural basis, would become VERY popular. But popularity is not truth.
Pre-tribbers, think about this, too: Wouldn’t this pre-trib flight of yours abandon unsaved relatives and friends to go through the world’s worst hell-on-earth without you? So, are you saying that you want to leave your unsaved friends and relatives without the Holy Spirit in us to bless them, and reduce their fear? You want to leave them without evangelism, you don’t want to try to get them saved before they die in countless numbers in God’s wrath? If you ask me, that’s “absent without leave,” or AWOL thinking! The pre-trib theory recommends an irresponsible “AWOL” mentality. It seems hard-hearted, to say the least. Not Christian. Now I ask you to probe yourself: What behaviors do you have (not counting the number of appearances in church) that prove you’re a Christian? When we consider that only a minority of people on earth make it to heaven (Matt 7:13-14), it is really possible that you’re deceiving yourselves, assuming you’re Christian. Do you have the fruits (Galatians 5:22ff) and obedience (John 15:6) necessary? Pray, confess sin, get baptized, make Jesus your Lord and follow His commandments; repent, seek a new life daily abiding in Him. Be ready to suffer or die for Him if necessary, rather than this ruthless desire to run away. He did it for us. We may have to do it for Him.
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