More Proof That Rapture and God's Wrath Do Not Begin at the Same Time; God's Wrath is NOT the Tribulation (Part 2 of 3)

n Part I last week, we showed the End Times chronology had this order of events: Deception, wars, famine—called “the beginning of sorrows”—then the “abomination of desolation” (antrichrist) in holy place, then the tribulation, consisting of systematic death and martyrdom of Jews and Christians, then cosmic disturbance, and then on the same day, Jesus appears, a rescue (rapture) and then Day of the Lord’s wrath. We spent time proving, Scripturally, that Christians go through the tribulation. Today, that point gets further proof. 

1. Let’s take a closer look at Jesus’ Olivet discourse in Matthew 24:27ff: 

"For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be… 29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven... 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 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.

What Jesus is saying is, immediately after the tribulation (v.29), here’s what happens: first the cosmic disturbance (v.29) prophesied in Joel 2 (See Part I). It has completely blackened the sky—everywhere--so that then a sign, like a huge bolt of lightning stretching from the earth’s east to the west would be visible in all the world. This rivets everyone’s attention upward—and then will appear our Lord, in glory, visible to all--it is His return. The first event of that return is the rapture (though it’s not mentioned until v. 31, see Part I for proof of this order); Jesus has come to rescue righteous men. But His coming, secondly, is to judge disobedient men (as intimated in v.30 with the word “mourn”). Thus, five events happen on the Day of the Lord, in order, from these verses and in Part I: Cosmic disturbance blackens the sky, lightning or a highly visible sign, the Lord’s appearing, the rapture, and the mourning of rebellious men who know judgment is coming.


2.Note the details of the rapture, vv.30b-31: (a) Jesus appears on the clouds of heaven in visible glory, and can be seen by all in a blackened sky lit up by huge sign--thus there is no secret rapture; (b) angels will sound a trumpet; (c) His elect (genuine Christians) will be gathered “from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other;” i.e., in the air. 

3.For anyone who would argue that Matthew 24 isn’t the rapture, look at I Thess. 4:16-17, which all acknowledge are rapture verses: 

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 

Note the important events: (a) Jesus appears from heaven; with some noise--a shout and the voice of an archangel--so there is no secret rapture; (b) angels blow the trumpet; (c) believers are gathered in the sky, to meet the Lord in the air. The very same critical three elements as Matthew 24:30b-31. Is this not the SAME EVENT? Of course. 

4.***Now the order of End Times is: Deception, wars, famine, abomination of desolation (antrichrist) in the holy place, then tribulation--systematic death and martyrdom of Jews and Christians, and then—on one day--cosmic disturbance blackens the sky, then the sign (like bright lightning, seen by all), then His Coming in the clouds with angels blowing the trumpet, believers rescued, gathered in the sky—and on the same day, as people mourn, the Day of the Lord’s wrath begins.

5. Now let’s spend some time on a second proof of this order of events. In Revelation 6:1-11, the order of the seals 1-5 correspond exactly to the same five events in Matthew 24 (read Part I for more). Here are the Revelation verses:

Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, “Come and see.” 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. 3 When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come and see.” 4 Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword. 5 When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.” 7 When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come and see.” 8 So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. 9 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

6. In verse 1 we have seal 1, with the white horse. The rider has a crown, and goes forth conquering. If you think this is Christ, you are deceived—this Greek word for “crown” (v. 2) is “stephanos.” The Greek word for the one Christ wears is “diadema,” for kingly or imperial dignity. Stephanos, on the other hand, is given for triumph in the games or for military prowess—it is a garland of oak, ivy, parsley, myrtle or olive. The wearer is an aggressive conqueror, not a king. The crown-wearer of verse 1 wants us to think he is Christ, but he isn’t. Thus seal 1 is deception.

7. Seal 2, the red horse, is clearly wars. Seal 3, the black horse, where they are carefully handling and measuring expensive food, suggests famine. Seal 4, the pale horse, is death. The seal 5 refers to martyrs. Now turn back to Part I’s analysis of Matthew 24:5-9—the order is the same! Revelation 6 and Matthew 24 refer to the same events!

8. Now observe how these two sections of verses, the same thus far, finally become different, in how they detail seal 6: Matthew 24:30-31 (see #1 above) gives us the rapture, and only hints at the wrath of God (it just gives you the word “mourn.”) Since we’ve looked at Revelation 6:1-11 in seals 1-5, let’s see how Revelation 6:12-17 handles the sixth seal. This seal begins with our familiar cosmic disturbance--a further proof that these are the same events as Matthew, since it also has that. But Revelation 6 details the judgment, the second part of the Day of the Lord, skipping the rapture. Whereas Matthew 24 detailed the rapture, and only hinted at the judgment (“mourn”). Here’s Rev. 6:12-17's key phrases:

I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. 13 And the stars of heaven fell to the earth…. 15 And the kings of the earth, the great men…every slave… hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” 

Please note v.17! God’s wrath, even at the 6th and last seal, is only set to BEGIN—yet this is AFTER the tribulation, seals 4-5, as our Matthew 24 study in Part I also outlined. Thus, Matthew 24, after tribulation, details the rapture, and hints at the wrath. Rev. 6, after tribulation, details the wrath, not the rapture. The solution to this “controversy” is simply to put both events—rapture and wrath—after the tribulation, at the same time. Both these sections of verses talk about these events—they just each emphasize a different one.

9. Clearly, after reading the previous note and Revelation 6 and Matthew 24, the tribulation is NOT the wrath of God; actually, the tribulation is the wrath of Satan, per Rev. 12:12, as we proved in Part I. 

10.In the tribulation, Satan is having a field day through his antichrist, killing Jews and Christians. But the wrath of God is different: In His wrath (particularly seen in Revelation 8 and 9), only the person of God is mentioned. He does not allow Satan to strut his stuff like the antichrist does who dominates the scene in the tribulation. Proof of this differing emphasis is found in Isaiah 2:11-Let's see what it says about the wrath: 

The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, And the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 12 For the day of the LORD of hosts Shall come upon everything proud and lofty, Upon everything lifted up—And it shall be brought low. 

The image we get for the wrath of God in the Day of the Lord is this: unanswered destruction which centers only on God, glorifying His holy nature and cleansing the earth. That’s not the tribulation, where Satan is having a gay old time sticking it to the saints. The wrath and the tribulation are just not the same event. As we have abundantly shown, the wrath of God is after the tribulation, after the rapture. As we have shown you here and in Part I, you have the tribulation, then on the day of the Lord, you have the rapture, then the wrath of God. 

NEXT WEEK: HOW LONG IS THE TRIBULATION? God's Word is abundantly clear on that, too.

Is The God of the Old Testament Different From the God of the New Testament?

Is The God of the Old Testament Different From the God of the 

New Testament?

If we were to take a poll on this question, even among people who claim to be Christian, I suspect they would answer “yes.”  The reason, I think, is emotional.  They think God in the Old Testament is mean-spirited and bloody, and they don’t want that kind of God judging them in the last day.  They would prefer Jesus doing the judging, since He was a healer, wasn’t afraid to be with sinners, and defended the common people against the evil Pharisees.  The good guy, right?  

But we’re here to study Scripture, not just emotional response.  Scripture is God’s voice of unchanging truth to us.  It contains the rules.  Listen to it.  We begin with the truth that God doesn’t change, James 1:17:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

So, God doesn’t change, or “evolve,” from Old to New Testaments.

Yes, it is true that He has covenants by which He deals with different people in different promises.  But it is an oversimplification to argue that the Covenant of Law in the Old Testament means He dealt harshly with sin, while the Covenant of Grace in the New Testament "says" that He ignores sin if you accept Jesus.  Life is not that simple; as I have argued in another series of blogs (Escaping Hell—Faith or Works, or Both?).  It is necessary to obey Christ’s commands (which go well beyond the Ten Commandments) to continue as saved.  You must abide in Christ, as was presented in John 15:1-10.  So God doesn’t ignore sin like some might hope, in the New Testament.  On the other hand, He can be forgiving in the Old Testament—and in the New.  He can send you to Hell for unrepented sin—in the New Testament as in the Old.  As Paul argues (Romans 4), Abraham, an obviously Old Testament guy, was saved by staying close to God through faith in His commands through trials.  Same rule as the New Testament. 

Many people have these countervailing feelings, I’ll call them “biases,” about the Old and New Testament.  Let me try to balance both of them out.  We'll see the forgiving, loving God in the Old Testament, and the harshness toward people with unrepentant sin in the New Testament.  We’ll start by looking at God’s mercy in the Old Testament.  Let’s begin with Numbers 14:18-19, where Moses is interceding for the sinful people of Israel: 

‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty…¹⁹ Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”

If you read the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Old Testament) carefully, the children of Israel traveling in the desert had one miracle after another shown to them (the plagues, the Passover, Pharaoh’s army washed out, manna, etc  etc).  Yet they still didn’t trust God or Moses for leadership.   God redeemed them, even though they didn’t deserve it.  Isn’t that the same story in the New Testament?  Jesus was completely innocent, yet He was killed by Gentiles and Jews.  Yet His redemption, and heaven, are available!  Yet there are conditions--which most people have missed.

Consider Ezekiel 18:20-24, another Old Testament passage:

The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son….²¹ “But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ²² None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. ²³ Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live? ²⁴ “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.

These verses explain, first of all, that God does not carry a grudge against a sinful man’s son or his grandson.  The sins that the father unfortunately taught his son, and the son copies, God holds against them individually.  Secondly, God loves repentance (v. 21:  “turns from”).  If you repent, and live righteously, He will forgive you and forget your earlier sin.  This theme of repentance is repeated in the New Testament.  But if you were first righteous, then became set in sin, He forgets the earlier days too--that means Hell for that person.  (Keep in mind when you read:  “live” means heaven, “die” is Hell.)  And this theme is repeated in the New Testament, where we are urged to continue abiding in Him and not fall away.  Falling away, failing to abide, means Hell (John 15:1-10).  The words from this Old Testament passage that I want to inspire you with are in v. 23:  “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God.  God does not love to send people to hell.  But the majority go there because they are disobedient or care nothing for God or His commandments (Matthew 7:13-14).

You must read this self-description of God.  You can see that He is merciful in Exodus 34:5-10, the Old Testament:

Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him (ed., Moses) there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. ⁶ And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, ⁷ keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” ⁸ So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.⁹ Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”  And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth

Isn’t it great that God calls Himself “merciful, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness?”  Thank you God!  Now keep in mind, these blessed words happened immediately after their sin of Israel making a golden calf idol.  Yet God here proclaimed His longsuffering mercy.  Don’t get the idea that God ignored their sin, observe the phrase, "by no means clearing the guilty."  Soon after this, He set a plague the guilty ones--but He also set up a tabernacle of meeting where He showed Himself to Moses, and renewed His Covenant with the Jews.  

So….I hope I balanced out your image of God as a “Grudge God” in the Old Testament. 

So let’s balance things out in the New Testament now.  Was Jesus all-forgiving in the New Testament?  Was He as nonjudgmental as it seems, since we like to remember when He forgave the woman in adultery, and entertained sinners?  And when He scoffed at the law, as defined by the Pharisees?  Here I would like to quote David Limbaugh, author of Jesus on Trial, about the Gospel of Mark:

Jesus tells people to repent.  He tells people to quit their jobs and follow him.  He tells a demon to shut up.  After He heals a leper, He swears him to silence, too.  Then He picks a fight with Sunday School teachers, He tells His mom He’s busy, He rebukes the wind, He kills two thousand pigs, “he offends people but doesn’t go to sensitivity training.”  He calls people hypocrites (ed, this is spoken to regular people, not just the scribes or Pharisees), and seems to call Peter Satan, He curses and kills a tree, He tells people they’re going to hell, and He rebukes the disciples for falling asleep on Him.  

Upon careful reading of all the Gospels, you’ll see that Jesus had a lot to say about hell.  In Matthew 6:15, He told people God would not forgive them if they didn’t forgive people.  In Luke 16, He tells of a man is on his way to hell, with no reason explicitly given for it.  One can only surmise it was because he, a rich man, repeatedly ignored a poor man in his daily path, begging for bread (for further proof of that idea, see James 2:15-17). In Matthew 11:23, He pronounces judgment on an entire city (Capernaum) because they did not believe in Him.  He predicts their judgment will be worse than Sodom (which reeked of rapist homosexuals).  In Matthew 5:30, He recommends that we take extreme measures to prevent sinning, lest we go to hell.  In Matthew 23 He calls scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, a brood of vipers, and sons of hell.   He asks them, “How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” 

Lest you think His harsh judgmental words were for the scribes and Pharisees only, He has an extensive argument stretching over three chapters (John 6-8) that begins by telling all the Jewish people they must eat his flesh and drink His blood.  He tells his brothers that the world hated Him because “I testify of it that its works are evil.”  A rather cynical view of people.   He tells all those listening that “none of you keeps the law.”  He tells them that “He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.”  He tells them “I go to Him who sent me…and where I am you cannot come.”  He tells them “you do not know where I come from and where I am going….You know neither Me nor My Father….you will seek me, and will die in your sin….You are from beneath…you are of this world..you do not believe that I am He…you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  …you do not hear, because you are not of God…you have not known Him…And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you…you are not able to listen to My word.  I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father… You are of your father the devil.

I hope you’re as surprised as I was, when I first really read those words.  Jesus the bare-knuckler.

I’m not being sarcastic when I say, in faith, that He is The Master Teacher, and knew the right evangelistic skills. He wasn’t just blowing them off, out of anger.  His approach, I suspect, is:  He forces them to make a decision about Him—do you believe I am God, no matter what I say?  Do you believe that I hate sin so much that I am willing to use harsh language to wake people up?  Or am I going to make you so angry that you’ll rage within, “I hate you!”-- and reveal your own condemnation to yourself?  No lukewarm preaching here.  No one skids blissfully to hell on ignorance (such as is happening in today's "preaching").  If you were for Him, you were a hated lunatic, just like He was made to be.  He was killed because He was too radical for them. Yet He and His followers evangelized thousands and turned the world upside down--so His "tough love" method worked.  What does that say for us, and our evangelistic methods?  His method of talking about sin and hell definitely would not work in seeker-friendly churches.

These three chapters in John also have His discussion with the adulterous woman.  The woman was repentant, so Jesus forgave her.  But, a lot of people forget, He also said, “Go, and sin no more.”  And He scoffed at the Pharisee “laws” because they were not God’s laws, but man’s laws--“supplements” to God’s law—often a burden.  Such as their not wanting Jesus to heal people on the Sabbath.

Thus, Jesus is no milquetoast, and He doesn’t display the PC words for today—“tolerant and nonjudgmental.”  

Now I hope I balanced the New Testament like I did with the Old.  Thus, since the "rough" Jesus is also God, this is the same God, with the same qualities—love and a hatred of sin—occupying both Testaments.  Judgment and hell hang over each of us from the day of our accountability.  God provided a way of redemption for you, to get rid of the penalty and power of sin.  In careful Scripture reading, especially the Master Teacher in the Gospels, with an eye to getting a comprehensive view, you can find your way to heaven.  Good luck—keep in mind, few people are interested.  They just assume they’re “good enough.”  Let Matthew 7:13-14 ring in your ears, and try to make it ring in their ears:

  “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. ¹⁴ Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.  

Yes, the New Testament tells us that few find their way to heaven.  Be one of the few.

Acknowledgement:  David Limbaugh, Jesus on Trial

Scripture Says Christians WILL Go Through the Tribulation (Part 1 of 3, End Times)

Scripture Says Christians WILL Go Through the Tribulation (Part I of 3, End Times)

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, beheadings, 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 article). And, these cosmic events are before the Day of the Lord.

***The order thus far: Cosmic disturbance, 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 earth, on sinners, i.e. on people whose sins have not been covered:

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 Christians (people whose sins have been covered). 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…17 and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring (ed, children of God), who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The tribulation pinpoints God's children as the target of Satan.  But in the Day of the Lord, God is judging men whose sin has not been covered.  Thus, the Day of the Lord is not the same as the tribulation, and the targets are exact opposites. This will be further proved soon by the chronology. They also have different descriptions. By the way, The Day of the Lord is not God’s Final Judgment Seat, 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. In that return, He will rescue righteous men whose sins have been covered (the rapture, as it is called, when He gathers His children to be His own).   Scripture promises this will occur immediately before His wrath on unsaved people—in fact, the rescue and then 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 (ed. except Noah's family, who, earlier, He placed inside the Ark. So 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 warned and rescued), it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 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. The word “revealed”  in v. 30 mean His return will be visible; note also 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 same day, Jesus makes His single visible return for rapture of the righteous, and then the Day of the Lord--wrath on unsaved men and women. 

Note that the cosmic disturbance occurs BEFORE rapture and God’s wrath.

Fact #4: From Mark 13:24-25 we learn that our cosmic disturbance occurs AFTER 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 End Times so far:

***The tribulation, then cosmic disturbance, then, on the same day: Jesus’ visible return for rescue (the 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 Matthew 24:5-31, called the Olivet Discourse, describes three important trends 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 article, Part 2):

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 the verses above: 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 (along with pestilences and earthquakes). 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, there are five important disastrous events, in the order given. Three before the tribulation begins, two after.

In verses 15, 16, and 21 of Matthew 24, 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: the Jews first, but he particularly goes after Christians. 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” (antichrist) 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 articles 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, in 50 years, or 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 below, a description of Jesus' rescue, says yes: it says rapture events are preceded with signs:

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. 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 (ed., 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--but 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 their point, 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, as we have proven. 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, say in the near future? With the wrong mindset, pre-tribbers are terribly 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.  Also note how he’s implying that the rapture is at the same time as the day of the Lord--which I'm asserting above.) 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 beginning of 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 help them? You want to leave them without explaining the meaning of all that's happening, 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. It recommends non-Christian behavior. 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 desire to run away. He did the ultimate sacrifice for us. We may have to do it for Him.

Messing Up the DNA. Happened to Noah, Will Happen Again. An End-Times Sign

Let’s start with Genesis 6:1-2, 4:

Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, ² that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.  ⁴ There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown

It says the “sons of God” and daughters of men bore giants, mighty men of renown.  Who are the “sons of God?”  Modern commentators say they were the descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, the ascendant of Jesus.  The “daughters of men,” they say, refers to the descendants of Cain, the wicked son of Adam who killed Abel.  But there is not one scrap of Scripture backing this up—no Scripture anywhere refers to the descendants of Seth as “sons of God.”  And why would their sexual union produce giants?  You can’t always follow the commentators.  As it turns out, the phrase “sons of God” does appear elsewhere in Scripture.  In Job 38:4-7, God is chastising Job for not seeing the big picture of His sovereignty.  He is speaking here of the creation of the earth:

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. ⁵ Who determined its measurements? Surely   you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? ⁶ To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, ⁷ When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

The sons of God couldn’t be humans, who were not around at the creation of the earth (see Genesis 1 for the order of events).  They have to be angels, who were there for that great spectacle.  In Job 1:6 and 2:1, when Satan appears in heaven to accuse Job, angels are in attendance and are called by that name, “sons of God.”  So, based on other Scripture, the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 are clearly angels.

What happened in Genesis 6 is this: angels (heavenly angels in Matthew 22:30 are unmarried, but these rule-breakers are not heavenly angels; angels are always referred to as male), lusted after earth women.  They took human form (as happens many times in Scripture, such as Genesis 18).  They entered earth to marry and have babies.  But this broke one of God’s rules.  What rule? In Jude, they are accused of the sin of “not keeping their proper domain.”  Their proper domain was heaven.  So they were severely punished by being placed in “chains under darkness.”  Jude 1:6-7 says:

 And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; ⁷ as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

This is confirmed by II Peter 2: 4-7.  Note the “chains of darkness” again.

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; ⁵ and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; ⁶ and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; ⁷ and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked… 

I would note that they were not cast down to “hell;” that was a mistranslation.  The Greek word was “tartarus,” a dark place just for them. 

God gave angels a free will.  Please keep in mind that the angels that remained in heaven were NOT disobedient; these are the ones that protect us now.  Their job in protecting us includes fighting with the demons, making warnings and happy announcements, and worshiping God in heaven. Some angels, however, left their “proper domain,” heaven, and went to earth and committed sexual immorality by going after “strange flesh”—for them, strange flesh means earth women.   So Jude and II Peter are thinking of the same event as Genesis 6.  Since they chose evil, they had an evil result:  babies that turned out to be giants. Why giants?   I’m thinking, angelic DNA is not human; but it mixed with human DNA and produced aberrant children who grew to be giants—whose appearance, it so happens, coincided with a vast increase in violence and evil.  Was this just a coincidence?  Read on in Genesis 6, starting with v.4b-7a, 12:

Those (the giants) were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. ⁵ Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth…¹¹ The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹² So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

My speculation is, the giants were loved for their sinful ability to conquer and kill the enemy.  I think they were the initial cause of much of this decline in man’s morals.  First of all, you can see the fast connection in the verses between the rise of the giants and the rapid downward spiral of men’s morals.    Could it be that the giants were often worshiped as demigods—they had one parent mortal, the other parent immortal—there would have been a fascination with them just because of that. They were called “men of renown”—the public knew them.  Plus, they were obviously strong.  They had superior intellect and could make superior weapons of war (I’ll prove that later).  So, men falling into idolatry could have been the thing of the day.  And idolatry will ruin your morals faster than anything.  The giants could have been like rock stars.  These qualities make them leaders in any society of “plain” men that they cared to reside in.  I’m sure they were happy for the attention, and it boosted their ego—egged them on to perform outrageous feats for entertainment.  But the attention, the ego, might also mean that they led the whole land into idolatry and violence.  One tribe tries to make war and oppress another tribe.  How many men could a giant kill?  Can we capture more men, make them slaves, take advantage of their wives, loot their houses, with this giant as our leader? Let’s find out!

To further prove my case, there is the definition of “corrupt” in Hebrew (Gen. 6:11-12 above).  The word means “marred, spoiled, perverted,” and “injured.” It’s not just a moral problem that the word usually conveys.  I think the mixed DNA perverted, or corrupted, the DNA genes.  If so, the giants were not the only ones with perverted genes.  We can assume they had sex.  Their babies’ DNA would be affected, and on down it would go until it perverts a great number of people (see studies on the rapid spread of syphilis, for example).  If you pervert the gene pool, who knows what immoral results you get—and you can’t go back and make it right again.  God can righteously assume He has to start over.  This word “corrupted” is the strongest hint in the Bible at the possibility that messing with DNA was the real problem behind all this.  But I have more on this later.

So I think this explains why God was fed up with man, and immediately began laying plans for Noah to build an ark to save a few righteous and kill the rest.

Lest you think this story is just too strange to be true, I have several more Bible quotes to consider.  Besides, supernatural events are what God is all about.  Think about Mary.  If I had a daughter who got pregnant, what would people say when I told them, “she is a virgin—has never known a man.  The child’s father is God.”  Would I be believed?  No.  But was it true?  Yes. The Resurrection seems hard to believe, but it happened--nothing is impossible with God.  And also consider the anthropologist argument that, when many societies have a legend that speak of the same thing, it must have really happened.  So, since every society in the world has a legend about a gigantic flood, even though their stories differ, there must have really been one.  Every society, too, has a legend of demigod men, of “gods” coming down and being intimate with earth women.  They may have been called Hercules, Atlas, or Cu Chulainn, but the point is, this worldwide legend also strongly suggests they existed. 

So, God wanted to start over with Noah’s immediate family, who had purer DNA.   But someone of Noah’s family still had some corruption in their DNA, because later Scripture stories show some of these creatures, on a lesser scale, were still being born, after the Flood.  Trace the word “Nephilim” in Scripture, using the NIV, and don’t forget Goliath. 

I’d like to take a little sidelight here. I realize I am dipping into speculation now for awhile, but it’s interesting stuff. 

Jesus said the end times would be like the days of Noah, in Matthew 24:36-38:

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. ³⁷ But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ³⁸ For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,

Everybody focuses on the drinking and multiple marriages, and the lesson we learn is that people are not thinking of God, and no one is aware that judgment is coming.  But there’s another story here—why did God pick Noah’s day as judgment day?  And I think the same reason will bring judgment again.  I’m talking, of course, about messing with the DNA. Then, it led to extreme violence and evil, as I’m suggesting.  Well, what’s happening today?  Have you ever heard the term “editing DNA,” or “recombinant DNA?”  Interesting article in Wired magazine’s August 2015, issue, gives the good side of it:  “Using the three-year-old technique, researchers have already reversed mutations that cause blindness, stopped cancer cells from multiplying, and made cells impervious to the virus that causes AIDS. Agronomists have rendered wheat invulnerable to killer fungi like powdery mildew, hinting at engineered staple crops that can feed a population of 9 billion on an ever-warmer planet. Bioengineers have used Crispr (ed: the name of the technique) to alter the DNA of yeast so that it consumes plant matter and excretes ethanol, promising an end to reliance on petrochemicals.”

And the article shows a little of the questionable side of it:  “designer babies, invasive mutants, species-specific bioweapons, and a dozen other apocalyptic sci-fi tropes. It brings with it all-new rules for the practice of research in the life sciences. But no one knows what the rules are—or who will be the first to break them.”

Bioweapons.  Invasive mutants.  You know the military would love to develop these, in addition to breeding super-soldiers, the kind that could kill more people, more efficiently.  Those who have this technology would use it to oppress other nations who don’t have the money or the scientific capability to develop it.  This would kick off a scramble of many wars of oppression again, on a scale like it hasn’t been for centuries.  That’s the military’s dream scenario.  As for the rest of humanity--most everybody would like perfect babies, so natural birth and natural genes fade away.  So here we are again, messing with DNA again, looking at the possibility of horribly sinful results again.  There are no rules, so I guarantee some scientists are going down the wrong road.  The Wired article’s headline says, “Easy DNA editing will remake the world.”  What’s really spooky is the subheading:  “The Genesis Engine.”  Are the end-times near, I’m wondering.

We have further good proof of this claim --not from Scripture, but a source close to Scripture.  It’s from the book of Enoch. Enoch was the 7^th generation from Adam, a prophet, and was so godly that he was one of only two people in history who did not die (the other was Elijah, who went out on a flaming chariot).  Genesis 5:24 says:

And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him

This means he didn’t die; God raptured him.  Jude, writing a book of the Bible, was directed by God to write one of Enoch’s prophecies.  That prophecy was recorded in the book of Enoch first, then in the Bible.  So God approved Enoch and his book.  The prophecy is In Jude 1:14-15:

Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men (false teachers) also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, ¹⁵ to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

The point is, Enoch is a good source for godly and truthful writing.  And he does have many things to say about those sinning angels.  Enoch agrees perfectly with Scripture and agrees with our deductions from Scripture, only he expressed them more plainly.  Here is a quote from Enoch

…bore beautiful and comely daughters.  The angels, children of the heavens, saw and lusted after them and said to one another, “Come, let us choose wives from among the children of men, and beget children for ourselves.  And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and began to go in unto them, and began to defile themselves with them…and they became pregnant, and they bore great giants. 

The book of Enoch then describes how these angels taught men how to make superior weapons (that would increase violence); taught women how to make cosmetics--how to become more sexually attractive (thus ignoring the inner character that God approves), and taught them astrology (not astronomy).  These are all bad.  Enoch explains that the angels are then punished by “chains…all the days of the world” because they “defiled” themselves with women and begotten children “intermingled with the blood of humans.” Note that phrase “intermingled with the blood.”  The problem is an intermingling of angelic and human DNA.  The reference to the intermingling of blood is a stronger suggestion of corrupting DNA.  Enoch says about angels, “Your dwelling is heaven.”  Here is the final plain statement from Enoch I would like you to consider: 

 The giants who are produced from the spirits and flesh shall be called evil spirits upon the earth.

Thus we have a definitive quote for giants being called “evil spirits.”  These Enoch verses, I believe, came from God.  Though the Bible’s quotes only hint that the giants were evil, Enoch says so plainly.  The corrupted giants evidently had superior technological intelligence (which could explain much of why many scientists believe that some ancient architecture must have come from an alien visitation to earth).  But superior technology has always been given over to a corrupt use, a way to more efficiently oppress or kill other men.  

Acknowledgement:  David Bercot, CD, “Satan and the Demons,” Scroll Publishing.