Dear Tracie,
Thank you for the inquiry about the Rapture. It’s always good to visit God’s Word with another believer.As for your question about the timing of the Rapture, my firm belief is that the Rapture will occur before the Tribulation period and I will give you some Scriptures that I base that belief on. First of all, I believe in the literal translation of the Scriptures. I believe that God said what He meant and meant what He said.
The book of Revelation is to me one of the strongest evidences of the pre-tribulation Rapture. Christ’s church is made up of believers only and in Revelation 3:10, God said to the church, “ Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”
Revelation 1 through 3 deal with the church while still on earth, but chapter 4 opens with this: “After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.” I believe this describes the Rapture.
After this we have what is, without a doubt, an account of the Tribulation period in Revelation, chapter 4 through 19 ending with the battle of Armageddon. The Rapture will already have occurred since nowhere in those chapters is there a place or time for the Rapture to occur.
In 2 Thessalonians 2, we find the promise of the removal of the church from the earth (all believers from Pentecost until the Rapture) before the Tribulation when the Man of Sin, (Satan) will appear and rule the earth during the Tribulation.
Some other comforting Scriptures that promise the removal of the Christian from the terror of the Tribulation are 1 Thessalonians 1:10 where Paul is looking for Christ’s return. “And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.” and 1 Thessalonians 5:9: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,”
All prophecy that must precede Christ’s return for the believers has been fulfilled so His return can only be imminent if the Rapture precedes the prophecy fulfillment of the Tribulation period. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4: Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”
My belief is that those who tell the Christian he will have to go through the Tribulation only invoke fear and mistrust of our Savior. God’s Word is clear enough to me that He has promised to save me from “the wrath to come.”
You asked my thoughts on why some preach that the Christian will have to endure the Tribulation and I am really at a loss for a reason since God has promised in many verses that the Lord will come for us and meet us in the air before that time. In the time of the apostle Paul, someone told the Thessalonians a similar thing and Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote letters to the churches at Corinth (1 Corinthians 15) and at Thessalonika (1 and 2 Thessalonians) that definitely dispelled this teaching.
One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 3:5.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding.”
I don’t understand why God thought so much of me
that He would give the life of His Only Son for a sinner like me,
but He did, and I thank Him for that daily.
I trust that His Word is true
and because of that I am looking forward to the Rapture
and meeting Him in the air to spend eternity with Him
and many of my loved ones who, in faith,
have gone on before.
Don’t let those who give half truths
spoil your joy of the anticipation of meeting your Savior in the air
before the wrath that He has reserved for the un-believing
comes on this earth.
In Christ’s Name, waiting for the trumpet and the shout,
C.G. LindemanHome