I can’t for the life of me see what’s so attractive in the Post-Tribulation Rapture scenario that so many people believe. In fact, a lot of adherents to this position get downright ornery when someone advocates for the sound doctrine of the pre-Tribulation Rapture. As I’ve noted in the past, such believers in post-Trib have a tendency to spew Scripture so as to “prove” that they are right. Just a hint regarding this: once you get beyond half a page of your various “proof-texts”, nobody is reading them anymore. You’re wasting valuable computer bits in this exercise.
Actually, more disturbing regarding the fanaticism of many who literally despise pre-Trib is that some number of them descend into declaring that we who believe in this doctrine are demonic and in thrall with Satan. There’s something seriously wrong with that. Among other things, they accuse us of leading people straight to hell because believing in pre-Trib makes us unprepared for the girding up necessary to enter the Tribulation.
Frankly, the timing of the Rapture becomes an issue as to the character of God. The loving and merciful God with whom I have a relationship wouldn’t allow His children to endure such a horrendous time that the Bible describes as one in which all mankind would perish unless God shortened it. The God I know must judge and punish those who have CHOSEN not to believe and follow Him. He must bring His wrath upon the UNBELIEVING world that worships any god but Him. Why would He send wrath on us who have freely accepted the gift of salvation through the blood-bought sacrifice of Jesus Christ? It makes no sense.
Beyond this very basic truth, there are a number of logistical circumstances, along with Scriptural facts, that successfully argue against the post-Tribulation Rapture. In fact, when we look at how the end-times play out according to the Bible, post Trib simply cannot even work from a logical perspective.
Transcript:
I can’t for the life of me see what’s so attractive in the Post-Tribulation Rapture scenario that so many people believe. In fact, a lot of adherents to this position get downright ornery when someone advocates for the sound doctrine of the pre-Tribulation Rapture. As I’ve noted in the past, such believers in post-Trib have a tendency to spew Scripture so as to “prove” that they are right. Just a hint regarding this: once you get beyond half a page of your various “proof-texts”, nobody is reading them anymore. You’re wasting valuable computer bits in this exercise.
Actually, more disturbing regarding the fanaticism of many who literally despise pre-Trib is that some number of them descend into declaring that we who believe in this doctrine are demonic and in thrall with Satan. There’s something seriously wrong with that. Among other things, they accuse us of leading people straight to hell because believing in pre-Trib makes us unprepared for the girding up necessary to enter the Tribulation.
Frankly, the timing of the Rapture becomes an issue as to the character of God. The loving and merciful God with whom I have a relationship wouldn’t allow His children to endure such a horrendous time that the Bible describes as one in which all mankind would perish unless God shortened it. The God I know must judge and punish those who have CHOSEN not to believe and follow Him. He must bring His wrath upon the UNBELIEVING world that worships any god but Him. Why would He send wrath on us who have freely accepted the gift of salvation through the blood-bought sacrifice of Jesus Christ? It makes no sense.
Beyond this very basic truth, there are a number of logistical circumstances, along with Scriptural facts, that successfully argue against the post-Tribulation Rapture. In fact, when we look at how the end-times play out according to the Bible, post Trib simply cannot even work from a logical perspective.
We’ll look into this after we pray and give you a Scripture to consider.
<PRAY>
Scripture
1 Corinthians 15:51-53
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
Why the Post-Trib Rapture Isn’t Possible
- First we need to make sure we’re on the same page regarding pre- and post-Trib Rapture belief
- The pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine declares that the snatching away of true believers in Jesus Christ will occur prior to the Tribulation
- It is based on Scriptural evidence found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, John 14:1-3, and various others
- It is at an unknown day or hour – that is: it is imminent
- It is the prelude to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb
- It is the true believers’ antidote to going into the 7-Year Tribulation and unjustly suffering the same fate as unbelievers
- And much more . . .
- No, we don’t find the word Rapture in English translations of the Bible
- The Greek word is harpazo
- The Latin word from the Latin Vulgate translation long ago is raptus from which we get the word we use today
- Both mean a violent snatching up or carrying away – which is exactly how various Scripture passages describe this event
- The post-Tribulation Rapture concept says that the church must pass through the Tribulation period
- Depending on which of the several post-Trib views one holds, there may or may not actually be a literal Tribulation
- This view uses multiple texts to demonstrate its position
- The Tribulation saints identified in Revelation are said to be those in the church who must pass through this period
- Tribulations that believers go through in their general walk with Christ are not distinguished or differentiated from THE Tribulation
- Post-Tribbers tend to believe in Covenant Theology versus Dispensational Theology
- Covenant Theology is a systematic set of doctrine
- It is a framework for interpreting Scripture that looks at God’s Word through a lens of the covenant
- It often applies allegorical interpretations to Scripture
- Dispensationalism – which is what most pre-Tribbers believe – tends to adhere to a literal view of Scripture and Bible prophecy
- This impacts one’s view of Israel and God’s plan – or not – for it in the latter days
- Generally post-Tribbers adhere to Replacement Theology, which essentially negates Israel having a major role in the Tribulation
- In fact, it says that the church has effectively replaced Israel as to all of God’s promises
- Thus, a definitive, Dispensational Church Age which ends, and the 7-year period of Daniel’s 70th Week, which is the Time of Jacob’s Trouble specifically intended for the redemption of Israel, isn’t acknowledged by post-Trib believers
- In other word, there is no Church Age Dispensation – the church continues uninterrupted through the Tribulation
- Much more could be said regarding these two highly incompatible viewpoints, but that’s not our primary purpose for today
- I want to simply cover four main points as why the post-Tribulation Rapture position isn’t possible – and, in fact, is incompatible with good Biblical understanding
- These four points are:
- #1 – God’s judgment regarding the shedding of blood
- #2 – The problem of the Restrainer
- #3 – Believers in heaven
- #4 – Transition from Tribulation to Millennium
#1 – God’s judgment regarding the shedding of blood
- I’ve been stressing the issue of judgment lately in my Prophecy Updates – and I think – with good reason
- As I’ve noted, the church seems to have little to no acknowledgment that judgment is coming
- Many don’t believe that God must judge the world – because we’re looking at the world through man’s eyes – and not God’s eyes
- It’s the same type of problem that Samuel experienced in the selection of Israel’s first king, as noted in 1 Samuel 16:7:
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
- In the same manner, man sees the world and that there are problems – but in his eyes it’s not so bad
- From this perspective, we’ll eventually fix it and all will continue on as before
- Far too many Christians dismiss or ignore the fact that evil is so prevalent, and that the hearts of men are so wicked and depraved, that God’s wrath is kindled and His judgment is at hand
- In fact, judgment MUST come
- Reasons for this are plentiful
- Primary among them is that sin is almost forgotten as the primary problem with man in this world and his relationship with God
- As a result, repentance is a foreign concept
- Without sin, there’s no need to repent
- Moreover, when there’s no sin, there’s no necessity for God to bring judgment
- If there’s no sin, all is good and the world can get back to normal
- Unfortunately for those who think this way, God doesn’t
- Hebrews 9:22 tells us:
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Consider also what we learn in Genesis 4:10-11 in the aftermath of Cain killing Abel:
And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
Murder is so egregious to God that when innocent blood is shed, the ground itself cries out to Him for vengeance and relief
- Not only that, but when innocent blood is shed, a curse is placed upon the perpetrator
- Now let’s think about the issue of abortion, i.e. the killing of innocent life in the womb
- This is only one of many other issue we could discuss that has the same outcome
- God has always seen the murder of children in sacrificial rituals as an abomination
- Leviticus 18:21 lays this out very definitively
And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord.
Notice that in the sacrifice of children to pagan gods, this profanes the Name of the Lord
- Here’s a clue: when someone desecrates God’s holy Name, it won’t go well for him
- In America alone, since Roe v Wade in 1973 we’ve officially murdered 70 M unborn children
- Worldwide since 1980 the number hovers around 1.6 B children offered on the altar of Molech via abortion
- I guarantee you that up till now, God has not accounted for these numbers by bringing His much-deserved judgment upon America and the world at large
- The question then becomes: Will God bring such judgment?
- The answer is a resounding YES!
- In fact, He must
- With the OT as our guide to God’s blessings and curses, we know that He reaches a point whereby He can no longer tolerate such abomination
- Blood cries out for blood
- Jesus’ atoning sacrifice does not negate this for those who choose not to accept it
- All of mankind is guilty and deserves destruction for this heinous sin alone
- But look what Jesus did!
- He came and died for the sins of all of humanity
- Those of us who CHOOSE to accept this free gift of His atoning blood for our sin are forgiven
- He took our penalty that we all richly deserve so that we might be redeemed so as to come into the presence for all eternity
- However, those who CHOOSE not to believe in Jesus by confessing their sins and humbly repenting of them must then accept the penalty of judgment from God’s wrath upon them
- I wholeheartedly believe that the Tribulation period is the worldly precursor to eternal judgment upon all who refuse God’s mercy
- What the Tribulation does is actually provide one final opportunity for all who have sinned against God – who are ALL guilty of the shedding of innocent blood – to repent and turn to the Lord
- And we see this very fact in several passages in Revelation where newly minted saints have been martyred for their new-found faith and stand before the throne of God
- The crime of murder by these new believers has been forgiven and forgotten because they’ve been acquitted of innocent blood by the shed blood of the Lamb of God
- So here’s the $64M question: If true believers today, prior to the Tribulation, have already been cleansed by the blood of Jesus for their prior participation in murder, is there any need for us to enter this period of judgment for this same work of God to happen?
- It’s a rhetorical question with the answer being: Of course not!
- Thus a pre-Tribulation Rapture causes those who have been judged innocent and those continuing to be guilty to go each to their proper destinations.
#2 – The problem of the Restrainer
- The major figure of note that we see in the 7-year Tribulation is the Antichrist
- We see Antichrist first in Daniel 7 and 11 as the one who makes the abomination of desolation in the newly built Tribulation Temple, and as the king who proclaims himself god
- He is the Beast who rises out of the sea in Revelation 13
- He is the one in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 who is restrained until the proper time
And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 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.
What we see here is a Restrainer who keeps the mysterious man of lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:3) at bay
- Proper Biblical interpretation of this verse demands that we identify this Restrainer as the Holy Spirit – He who indwells believers and the ekklesia, or the called-out gathering of the saints as the true church of Jesus Christ
- In understanding each of these players in this end-times drama, logic requires us to state that the true church must be removed so that the Antichrist can come onto the scene
- The only way for this to happen is through the pre-Tribulation Rapture
- Thus 2 Thessalonians 2:8-10 comes to fruition:
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.
- The Holy Spirit as Restrainer steps aside and allows this man of perdition to step onto the world stage
- As we understand it, this occurs at the opening of the 1st Seal by Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God
- Based on these Scriptures, Antichrist cannot appear until true believers are snatched away in the Rapture – which then effectively allows all hell to break loose on earth
- More than that – it paves the way for God’s richly deserved judgment upon the unbelieving world
- A post-Trib belief cannot accommodate the logic and logistics of this scenario
#3 – Believers in heaven
- Most Christians have a flawed view of heaven
- They think it’s passive and boring
- They think that we’ll basically be sitting around on clouds all day strumming harps and eating heavenly bon-bons
- They think that this place in the clouds is where we’ll spend eternity
- Wrong – wrong – wrong
- Let’s take these in reverse order
- The reality is that we’ll spend only a limited amount of time in what we consider as heaven
- We see the initiation of this in our famous Rapture passage of John 14:1-3
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
- These verses reflect the Rapture and its aftermath
- We go to be with Jesus in His Father’s house for a very defined period
- We as true believers are the Bride of Christ
- This is what this passage indicates in line with a Galilean wedding
- We were betrothed to Jesus through the act of being born-again
- Our salvation places us in the unique position of being Jesus’ Bride
- We know historically that after the betrothal of a man and his virgin bride in Judea that a period of up to a year could pass
- During this time the bridegroom – out of sight of the bride – prepared the place in His father’s house where the two of them would dwell
- When the father determined that all preparations were completed, he told his son to go fetch his bride – which could happen at any time day or night – just as a thief will come unexpectedly in the night
- Upon the earthly bridegroom suddenly seizing His bride, they returned to his father’s house where they spent seven days in seclusion consummating their marriage
- In the same manner, Jesus will come for His beloved on the clouds at a time no one expects
- He will bring us to His heavenly home where we will spend seven intimate years with Him
- During this time, He will perform His other duties by raining down the wrath of God upon the remainder of mankind who didn’t know Him nor chose to place their faith in Him beforehand
- At the end of this 7-Year period of Tribulation upon the earth, Jesus will come as King with all His saints, i.e. the beloved in Christ who spent the last seven years with him in seclusion
- He will bring judgment upon all who remain who have not humbled themselves and placed their faith in the Lord during this time of great trouble
- We know this final battle of the Tribulation as Armageddon
- Following the death of all remaining unbelievers, many marvelous events occur:
- There will be a 75-day period in which God cleans up the earth
- The abomination of desolation in the temple will be removed
- Likely the temple will be destroyed as having no future purpose
- The Antichrist and False Prophet will be cast into the Lake of Fire
- Satan will be chained for 1000 years
- Gentile still alive among the nations will be judged as sheep and goats
- Old Testament saints will be resurrected
- Tribulation saints will be resurrected
- The Marriage Supper of the Lamb will occur on the earth including the believing 1/3 of Israel who remain alive
- Then the Millennial Reign of Christ begins
- All glorified believers will participate in the administration of the world under submission to Jesus Christ for this 1000-year period
- We may possibly travel to and fro from the earth to heaven, but our job at this point requires our earthly presence
- At the end of the Millennium, the Lord cleanses the final sin from the earth with fire and initiates a New Heaven and New Earth
- Our presumption is that this will revert the earth to an Edenic state
- At this time, all of us in God’s presence will likely have new tasks – namely to do that which God instructed Adam and Eve from the very beginning in Genesis 1:28:
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
- If this interpretation is correct, our lives will continue to be lived out on the earth in whatever form it takes
- We will not actually be spending our time in heaven other than during those marvelous seven years for us and a horrible time for inhabitants of the earth
- From this scenario, it becomes clear that a post-Tribulation Rapture makes no sense
- Generally, the thinking of post-Tribbers is that the Rapture occurs at the end of the Tribulation sometime around Armageddon
- It effectively becomes a quick trip up and down with many of these Scriptural realities I’ve laid out not all coherent
#4 – Transition from Tribulation to Millennium
- The Bible is clear that humanity procreates during the Millennial Period
- Revelation 20:7-8 tells us that mankind will become extremely numerous
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.
- When Satan is released at the end of the 1000 years, he gathers this multitude of unbelieving mankind together – likely with the help of all the demonic host which presumably is also released with him
- In this final rebellious assembly against God, the Lord dispatches them with fire and no more wicked humanity remains
- Neither will any evil beings from the spiritual realm remain
- Let’s go back, however, to the end of the Tribulation and the beginning of the Millennium
- For human procreation to happen, men and women must be human – this is very profound(!), but a truth from Scripture for this time
- If, as the post-Trib Rapture folks say that all believers from before the Tribulation, and those who come to faith in Christ during these 7 years, are taken to heaven following Armageddon, this leaves no mortal humans remaining
- Why?
- Because believers who are Raptured are given glorified bodies
- We will be like Jesus just as the Bible says
- In that glorified state, we will be like angels, just as Mark 12:25 says:
For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
- Thus, all believers are glorified and will not procreate
- The question then becomes: Who are the men and women that will create all the millions of people described as though they were sand in the sea?
- This is a conundrum
- It creates a logical impossibility for a post-Trib Rapture event
- A post-Tribulation Rapture would leave no one to populate the earth and the Scriptural prophecy could not be fulfilled – again this is an impossibility
- All Scripture is God-breathed
- As Revelation 19:10 declares:
For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
- Scripture must be fulfilled
- It must honor and glorify Jesus Christ
- In this case, the only Rapture doctrine conceivable that glorifies the Lord is that of the pre-Tribulation Rapture because it adheres to Scripture by fulfilling it completely
- The post-Trib Rapture position simply cannot work
- It isn’t possible despite all the many so-called proof texts believers in this position throw at us
- Let’s believe Jesus and Paul and John in what they said concerning this marvelous event
- By doing so, we won’t be taken in by the imaginings of men and the faulty declarations they make
- Let’s look up
- Let’s be alert with great anticipation
- Yet, let’s also go about the work God has given us while we wait for the soon coming of our Lord
- The Rapture is imminent
- Let’s show God that we actually believe this to be true
- How blessed He’ll be for our faithfulness, and how much He’ll bless us in return!