The Rapture
I have heard a lot of talk about the Rapture in different social circles and I thought it is a good time to write what I believe about this topic. There are many views on the End Times and the prophecies of the book of Revelation. Some people believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture, some believe in a Mid-Tribulation rapture, and of course, you guessed it, some believe in a Post-Tribulation Rapture. And then, on top of the three views, there are varying degrees of beliefs related to these three schools of thought.
Ultimately, I think the debates and arguments over this issue are a huge waste of time, energy, and resources. Christians can much better spend their time telling people about Jesus instead of arguing amongst themselves about when they will be plucked out of the Earth and taken up into Heaven to be with God. I also think people are entitled to their beliefs and if they disagree with each other just agree to disagree and leave it at that. I hope that whoever reads this page will read it with an open mind before making their conclusions about the Rapture. Yet, if the readers of this page disagree with me it is their right to disagree. I don’t think people should try to argue with me on this topic. I have actually studied all of the views and have read all the verses associated with each view. My views have changed over time and after many years of studying God’s Word, this is my current belief.
Someone new might ask, “What is the Rapture?” Well, the word “Rapture” is nowhere to be found in the Bible. The word “Rapture” is a theological word that was made up to describe an event that is to take place in the distant or maybe not so distant future. Nobody actually knows when it will be, as the Bible even states that only the Father in Heaven knows when it will be. The Bible says that nobody will ever be able to predict the day or the hour in which the Rapture will take place. There are references about how people will be going about their daily lives and things will seem peaceful and then it will suddenly come upon them like a thief in the night. So these people who claim to know the exact time that the Rapture is going to happen are wrong because God says that nobody knows when it will be but God Himself. But I have digressed, back to my main point; the word “Rapture” simply means, “to be caught up” “snatched up” or “taken away”. So in the Holy Scriptures, the phrase that talks about being caught up into the sky to meet Jesus is what people call the “Rapture”.
First of all, I would also like to touch on the subject of the Tribulation and the Great Tribulation. The Tribulation is a seven year span of time also known as Daniel’s seventieth week in the book of Daniel. You can read all about the seventy weeks of the nation of Israel in the book of Daniel chapter 9. But since some people are too lazy to go look it up or in case you don’t have a Bible and are not Internet savvy enough to find an online Bible, I will post the passage here.
“…therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision: Seventy weeks are determined for Your people and for Your Holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until the Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself.”
-Daniel 9:23-26
For anyone who may be a little confused, the word “week” in English is not literally what the original script says. It literally says, “Sevens”. So there are to be seventy sevens ordained for Israel. The word “sevens” was translated to be “weeks” in English because there are seven days in a week.
Anyway, as you can see, the beginning of this verse has stated that God has ordained that there be a total of seventy weeks for the nation of Israel. Sixty-nine of the seventy weeks of Daniel has already passed. How is this known? In short, the answer is hindsight. Thanks to records kept by historians it has enabled us to be certain of the amount of time that Daniel wrote about.
The book of Daniel says that there will be sixty-two weeks from the time the order goes out to rebuild and restore Jerusalem to the day that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and people declare Him as their king. Then another seven weeks before the city of Jerusalem is made desolate by the Roman Empire. Looking back over history, we can see that these prophecies, made by Daniel, were extremely accurate. Historians’ have records of when the order was given to rebuild Jerusalem, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. These events actually took place exactly when Daniel said they would. If you go by the yearly calendar of that time, which was a 360 day calendar, it adds up to being exactly sixty-nine seven year periods. That is how we know that each of Daniel’s weeks represent a seven year period. We know the seventieth week has not happened yet because of all the things that are prophesied to happen during that seventieth week of Daniel. The Bible is full of prophecies for that seventieth week of Daniel and those prophecies have yet to come to pass. So it is like the clock has temporarily stopped at sixty-nine weeks and has not yet resumed ticking again for the seventieth week.
This period of time is called the Tribulation because there will be suffering unlike anything the world has ever seen or experienced since the beginning of time and never will experience again. What is the Tribulation exactly? To put it plainly, it is God’s wrath on a God rejecting world. God has waited patiently for people to turn from their wicked ways and after waiting thousands of years in patience, God has figuratively said, “That’s it! That’s the last straw! No more of this evil! You had your chance!”
A common misconception about the Tribulation is that some people don’t believe the first half of it is God’s judgment. People believe that the first three and a half years are natural plagues on the earth and the wars are a result of mankind’s evil. However, who is the one that is opening the scroll, with the seven seals, in the book of Revelation? Jesus Christ Himself! Jesus is opening the scroll and Jesus is loosing the seals on that scroll. Each seal is God’s wrath. It is true that the seventh seal is the worst as it contains the seven trumpets and the seven bowls, but the first six seals are also God’s judgment and wrath on the earth. There are references in the Bible that say that God judges nations by raising up armies to make war against them. So He is doing it again during the opening of the seven seals. God gradually brings His judgments in the first six seals. He hopes that people will repent of their evil and turn to Him, but after the Anti-Christ sits in the Holy of Holies and declares that he is God and that people must bow down and worship him, then God increases the severity of the judgments. But the Bible says that people still refuse to repent. So during the bowl judgments, God increases the severity of them as well. So the Tribulation period continues to get worse and worse as people continue to do evil, ignore God, and not repent.
People always complain about God allowing bad things to happen in this world, but all the evil deeds of this world will not go unpunished. The reason He has not yet returned is because He keeps giving us chance after chance after chance to turn to Him and to turn away from our evil ways. The Bible says that God is patient and that He desires all to come to know Him and He desires that nobody perish. But the longer He delays His wrath, the more evil people become and the more people mock and curse God and say that His delay means that He approves of their actions.
But the ironic thing is on the flip side of the coin. On one hand people complain that God doesn’t do anything about all the evil in the world, but on the other hand when He does do something about the evil and He punishes those deserving of punishment, people complain and say God is unfair and unjust and that He doesn’t have the right to punish us. People often think they do not deserve to be judged. People think that they are good because they compare themselves to another person. We all look good when we compare ourselves to others that are worse than us. But when we compare ourselves to God, there is nobody that can stand and claim that they are good. There is no such thing as a good person in this world. We have all rebelled against God and we have all broken His laws. In a court of law, we are all guilty. I am not Bible scholar, but there is one thing I know and that is that God is fair. Anything that God decides to do or not to do is fair and just, and someday we will all see that we deserve everything that we get.
God has always been fair in regards to His judgment. In the book of Genesis, God saw how evil the world was and He wanted to wipe out the entire world, but He took notice of Noah and his family and God safely preserved them before pouring out His wrath on the rest of the people.
In the story of Abraham and Lot, Abraham saw God and two angels heading towards Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, but God was resolute in His decision to destroy the cities in that area. Abraham pleaded with God and questioned God’s fairness by asking, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” God answered Abraham and said to him, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.” So God was willing to spare the entire city of people just for the sake of fifty good people. That is mighty generous and undeserved in regards to the evil people. God is willing to give them another chance to turn away from their wickedness. But Abraham was not content with that answer and he had to push it further by saying, “Suppose there were five less than fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?” I see Abraham’s point. That would be a bummer to find out that the city was short only a few people to prevent it from being judged. But God in His goodness was willing to delay judgment of these cities for the sake of finding forty-five good people. Did Abraham stop there? Nope! Abraham went on and on and on until he got God down to ten people. After going on and on with God about God’s fairness, Abraham said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?” God replied to him and said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.” Well, unfortunately for these cities, God was unable to find ten good people. So did God destroy the cities and everyone in them? No! God found that Lot and his two daughters were righteous and God took them out of the city of Sodom and told them to head to a nearby place to seek shelter and safety. God was not able to bring His judgment until they were safe. He withheld His wrath until Lot and his daughters were far away from the city and to safety, then after they were in a safe place God brought His wrath upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Technically, God destroyed a total of five cities all together in that region, but that is beside the point. And before someone tries to refute me about Lot and his daughters being righteous, yes I know they were not righteous and that they did some pretty bad things. God does not see righteousness the same way that we see it. It says that when God told Abraham that Sarah would conceive, in her old age, and bring forth a son, Abraham believed God’s words and God accounted it to him as righteousness. Those who put their faith in God are deemed as righteous. Everybody sins and “technically” nobody is righteous, not one. We all do bad things, but God looks at us differently than we look at ourselves. So I am aware of the character flaws of Lot.
So continuing on with God’s patience and how he took Lot out of Sodom, we see that God was very fair and willing to delay judgment and postpone His wrath for the sake of people turning from their evil ways, but they did not do it. And God was willing to spare the evil people for the sake of the good people. God did not find even ten righteous people in the cities, but He still would not destroy the cities until the people that were righteous were taken out first. This shows God’s character, love, mercy, fairness, justice, and grace. Yet people want to complain that God isn’t fair. I think everyone will find that God was more than fair with us and more than patient with us all. When our eyes are opened and we see how many times God has revealed Himself to us and opened doors for us we will see how patient He was and we will all be without excuse.
Most people know the story of Moses. It is known that God brought the plagues of Egypt upon the Egyptians but the plagues did not affect God’s people. And when God parted the Red Sea and led His people across its bottom, He did not unleash His wrath on the Egyptian army until all of His people were safely on the other side. After God’s people were safe on the other side, God dropped the water on the army and killed them all.
All through scripture we can see example after example of God’s character towards those who love Him. I know some people may say, “Well what about Jesus’ disciples? God didn’t take them out of the persecution they had to suffer through and God has allowed horrible things to happen to His people and He didn’t prevent it.” That is different. Jesus promised that we will face trials and hardships from man. Jesus said that the world hates Him so we should not be surprised if the world also hates us for following Him. God did not promise to deliver us from the hand of our enemies. The examples that I just gave were of God’s wrath and judgment. When it is God dishing out the hurt, then His people are not affected by it. After all, if Jesus died for the sins of the world, and if anyone accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, then their sins are washed away and God sees no fault with them anymore.
So why would God punish people that He already forgave? Why would God pour out His wrath on people that He sees as pure white and spotless? Why would God destroy His righteous along with the unrighteous? Is God not fair? So is God going to punish the righteous along with the wicked during the seven years of God’s wrath? If God punishes the righteous for sins that God has already forgiven, then God is cruel and a liar, because He said He sees our sins no more and when He looks at us He sees Christ.
Those who believe in a Mid-Tribulation Rapture might say that the first three and a half years don’t count because it is not God’s judgment or wrath. They might say that God’s wrath comes during the Great Tribulation which is the final three and a half years. The problem with this is that the Bible tells us that when the Anti-Christ brings peace to Israel and enables the Jews to rebuild their temple, that this event will be the beginning of the seventieth week of Daniel and is known as the time of Jacob’s trouble. The Bible says that exactly half way through the Tribulation the Anti-Christ will go to the finished temple and sit in the Holy of Holies and demand to be worshipped. That event begins the Great Tribulation, which is full of suffering unlike what the world has ever known or will ever see again. If the Bible says that nobody can know the day or the hour in which Christ will return, then that sort of discounts the Mid-Tribulation views because when the Tribulation begins they can count down the days to three and a half years later and know the exact day of Christ’s return. God says in His Word that this is not possible. The Post-Tribulation camp has the same problem because they will know that it will be at the end of the seven years, so they can calculate Christ’s return down to the very day as well. Also, they have the problem of saying that God will have us all here during His wrath and judgment on the world. That’s a pretty cruel God to punish people for crimes that have already been forgiven and washed away. So when God says He remembers our sins no more, He must have been lying?
What about the Anti-Christ prevailing against the church during the Tribulation? It says in Daniel 7:25, “He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand…” It also says in the book of Revelation 13:7, “It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them…” There are other verses in Scripture that clearly show that the Anti-Christ will make war against those who believe in Christ and he will prevail against them. So does this mean that Jesus lied? Or does this mean that Jesus broke His promise when He told Peter in Matthew 16:18, “…on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” So why is the Anti-Christ prevailing against Christ’s church? Is it because it is not “the bride” of Christ but it is those of Israel that have become the new believers in Christ?
Something that stood out to me when reading the book of Revelation is how often it speaks of the church until we reach chapter 4. After chapter 4 the church is no longer mentioned. Then it tells about the people in Heaven with God. These people in Heaven with God are singing a song in chapter 5 of Revelation. The song’s lyrics are as follows:
“You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”
-Revelation 5:9-10
Is that a song of Israel? Israel, the Jewish people, they are of one people group; of one nationality. God’s chosen people cannot refer to themselves as being a part of every tribe, tongue, and nation. They are of one tongue and of one nation. If you continue reading in the book of Revelation you will see when the 144,000 of Israel are brought to Heaven and they sing their song. Their song is a song that only Israel could sing. Check it out for yourself.
Some people like to over spiritualize the Scriptures and claim that because of the Jews rejecting Jesus that Christians were grafted into the kingdom in their place. People like to think that Christians are now spiritually, Israel. The people that believe this also believe that God is completely finished with Israel and that He has turned His back on them and rejected them once and for all and Christians have inherited everything that God had promised to Israel. Yet, the truth is that God has not turned His back on Israel. The Jewish people are still God’s chosen people and God is not finished doing His work with them. In fact, the Bible reveals that Israel will be attacked by an army and the ground will open up and swallow the entire army and because of that event the world will know that God is still protecting Israel. The Bible also says that God will bless those who support Israel and God will bring curses upon those who are against Israel.
God will use the seventieth week of Daniel to reveal to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah and the Jews will turn back to God and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. This is the time where God will complete His work with Israel. God wanted it to be crystal clear that The Tribulation is for the Jews to be turned back to God by writing in chapter 7 verse 4 of Revelation, “And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed.” But in case that was not clear enough, God went ahead and repeated it over and over twelve times as He names each and every tribe of Israel by name. Revelation says that God will call and seal 12,000 people from each of the following tribes. The tribe of Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. I don’t care what people may claim, the gentiles are NOT part of the twelve tribes of Israel. I know people try to spiritualize this chapter, but it is pretty clear that this is about Israel, not the bride of Christ.
The ironic thing is that the verses that some people use to support the Mid-Tribulation Rapture don’t seem to say anything of the sort. I have met so many people that quote and reference 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. It doesn’t say anything that supports a Mid-Tribulation Rapture as far as I can see. Maybe I am missing something, but it says, “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
The funny thing is that this verse actually reinforces my point that God does not make the righteous suffer His wrath as it says in verse 9, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God did not appoint us for wrath.
People also use 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 as a way to support the other schools of thought about the Rapture, but I fail to see where they are getting their ideas from. The only logical explanation I can think of is that people are confusing “the day of the Lord” as being the same thing as the day the church will get raptured. The Bible clearly teaches that when Christ returns, the church will be with Him. Christ will be riding on a white horse and His church will be on white horses riding with Him. The Rapture is not the same event as Christ’s return. Christ is returning at the end of the Tribulation to defeat the Anti-Christ and his army and to set up a new kingdom which God will rule over on Earth for a thousand years. When the Rapture takes place, the Bible teaches that we will be taken up into the sky to meet Jesus on His way to Earth and we will join Him for “the day of the Lord” and the great battle against the Anti-Christ and his armies.
But let’s look at that Bible reference anyway:
“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. [Very plainly, the Apostle Paul is telling his fellow believers in Christ, us, that we should not believe anyone if they say Christ has already returned for that is impossible and certain events have to unfold before that can happen.] For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. [This refers to when the Anti-Christ will sit in the Holy of Holies and demand to be worshipped.] Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. [Paul says that the church is what is restraining the Anti-Christ from moving into the scene. Once the church is removed, then the Anti-Christ will be free to do his thing.] For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. [Once again, the Anti-Christ is restrained until we are taken out of the way.] And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
According to this verse, the only way someone can say it supports a Mid-Tribulation or a Post-Tribulation Rapture is if they deny that the church is what is holding the Anti-Christ back and if they claim that “the day of the Lord” is equivalent to the Rapture, and this simply is not so.
And if the church is here when the Anti-Christ rises to power, there are some faithful that will speak out against him. Without the church here, nobody will speak out against him. And if we are here and the Anti-Christ is given the authority to prevail against the church, it makes Jesus a liar when He told Peter that not even the gates of Hades will prevail against the church. The church or the “bride of Christ” is not the same as Israel and the saints that will exist during the Tribulation.
Now I know there are a countless many that will try to argue with me and debate me, but there is really no point in wasting your time and energy. This is what I believe. I have not always believed this way; I began believing in a Post-Tribulation Rapture and I gradually changed my views to a Mid-Tribulation Rapture view. After more than ten years of learning about God and His character and studying the Scriptures I am now of the strong conviction that God will Rapture His church before the Tribulation. This one makes the most sense and it is the only one that we would not be able to calculate and predict. After the Tribulation starts, we will all know that it is seven years long and we would be waiting in expectation of the rapture then. But when we have no idea when the Tribulation will begin, we are not always expecting it. That is why Paul wrote to the people of the church and instructed them to not be ignorant and be taken by surprise like a thief in the night. The Bible says that people will be thinking about how peaceful things are and be going about their daily lives not expecting it and it will suddenly come upon them. Once the Tribulation starts, everyone would be expecting it and they could be certain of it happening within that seven years.
