Scripture Gives a Definite Order of Events for the 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 early, and escape all the terror, as I hear some people say? I have a theory, based on Scripture, 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 the sun and stars 'turn off,' as well, 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? No, they are not the same. 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: 12-13, 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. 13 Now when the dragon (Satan) saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman (Israel, the Jews) who gave birth to the male Child (Jesus had a Jewish heritage)...17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring (Christians), who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

 

For proof of my parentheses identifying people in this symbology, I give you:  (a) the dragon as we look further in Revelation 12:9-10:  

...the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him... the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 

b) Christians are those who "keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

c) The woman is Israel, the ascendants of Jesus.  The Old Testament's prophets referred to Israel as a "woman" (Isaiah 54:5-6; Jeremiah 4:31; Micah 4:9-10).

d) Finally, "the rest of her offspring" means that the Jews (the woman) brought new life in Christ to the non-Jews.  See the book of Acts, chapters 10-28.

As this clarified symbology points out, the tribulation pinpoints true Christians (and Jews) as the target of Satan. But as we pointed out before,  in the Day of the Lord, God is targeting men whose sin has not been covered.  Thus, the Day of the Lord is not the same as the tribulation, and those being punished are exact opposites. This will be further proved soon by the chronology. They also have different descriptions. It will also be proven in Part II of these blogs next week.  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 to gather His own. In that return, He will rescue righteous men whose sins have been covered (the rapture).   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 (So there’s the pattern: in the same day, there was rescue of the righteous Noah, 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, Lot was warned and then 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 Jesus emphasizes "the Day" and "on the day" to conjoin two event--rescue, then judgment. The word “revealed”  in v. 30 mean His single Second Coming will be visible; it is not two returns, as has been fantasized. 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 (a) rapture of the righteous and (b) the Day of the Lord--wrath on unsaved men and women. 

Note again 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.  This is a VERY important point:

 

“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 living at that time 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, in what is 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. …

Summarizing events from the verses above: In order, they are:

a. In verse 5, the key word is Deceive. (Keep in mind: the tribulation has not begun yet.)

b. Then we have Wars in verse 6-7a.

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 flee into hiding 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” (done by the antichrist) in Jerusalem's 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 on the unsaved. 

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, Christian rapture is before any of the above disasters.

 

One of their first lines of defense 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: maybe today, maybe in 50 years, or 500 years from now. Under the scenario I’ve laid out, however, clearly there are signs preceding the rapture.

Let me give more proof that there are signs Scripturally as well. Matthew 24:31-33 below, a description of Jesus' rescue, says rapture events are preceded with signs. It begins with a description of rapture:

 

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 (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-imminence” idea away.

 

“Pre-tribbers’” second argument is based on I Thessalonians 5:9:

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ

They think this says that Christians will avoid the tribulation--but they think the tribulation is God’s wrath, and God will not allow such massive suffering on their bodies.

 

To argue their point, firstly, does the word “salvation” in Scripture usually mean saving our bodies? Not really—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 discussed. 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 (see my last blog). 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? If my Scriptural proofs are right, pre-tribbers will be shocked when they have to endure suffering.  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 Lindsey, movies and books like the “Left Behind” series, a lot of TV evangelists like John Hagee, and most teachers from Dallas Theological Seminary. But the earliest church fathers (closest to Christ and the apostles) felt Christians would go through tribulation in the End Times. 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 (the phrase "day of Christ" is translated the “day of the Lord” in NIV, it’s the same thing.  Thus, 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 those Christians (and Jews) alive at the time will 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, if a real Christian is a soldier for the Lord, that’s “absent without leave,” or AWOL thinking! The pre-trib theory recommends an irresponsible “AWOL” mentality. Thinking that way seems uncompassionate, to say the least.  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 might be deceiving yourselves by 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 sticking to this desire to run away. He did the ultimate sacrifice for us. We may have to do it for Him.