Rapture Timing

Fear and Wishful Thinking

The greater my commitment to the truth and longer I search for truth, the more convinced I am that no one ever goes to the Scripture with an open heart and mind and comes away believing in a PreTrib Rapture.

Those who believe in a PreTrib Rapture were taught the doctrine of a PreTrib Rapture before they ever went to the Scriptures. Without exception, they go to the Bible already fully convinced of a PreTrib Rapture and determined to prove that which they already believe.

This is called eisegesis. Eisegesis is unilaterally condemned and universally applied. We start with what we believe and search the Scriptures for verses and passages that would seem to support our preconceived notions…

Although PreTrib is not the only example of that, i.e. we might include infant baptism or eternal security, PreTrib is the most egregious example. Driven by an unrealistic fear of the Tribulation and wishful thinking, the list of prooftexts collected by the PreTrib believers is awesome. Hundreds of verses collected in dozens of combinations… Prooftext on top of Prooftext.

But the reality remains, several websites have been offering thousands of dollars to anyone who can come up with any verse or passage that places the Rapture before the Tribulation. They are all still in possession of their funds. The truth is that no such verse or passage exists.

What the PreTribbers give us are lists of verses that say that God is good, combined with verses that say that there will be a rapture. They say that we are not destined for wrath, but the passage they quote juxtaposes that wrath with Heaven. The opposite of Heaven is not the Tribulation but Hell and the everlasting Lake of Fire.

Nowhere do they find anything that remotely indicates that God must rapture us before the Tribulation. In fact, the opposite is true; Scripture clearly indicates that we will go through tribulation, that we will be hated by all nations, that we will be handed over to be killed, and even that it is our own relatives who will betray us…

Revelation tells us that the Antichrist will make war against the Saints and overcome them… Nowhere, outside of the Left Behind books and movies, will you find mention of anything like a “Tribulation Saint”. These Saints are the Church of Jesus Christ…

1 Corinthians 15:52 tells us that we will be gathered “at the last trump.” The last trump sounds when Jesus descends at Armageddon… If you insist on a PreTrib Rapture you must accept that having been raptured, we are somehow returned to earth and grave in order to be raised at the Last Trump!

2 Thessalonians 2 tells us that we cannot be gathered to the Lord until after the Man of Sin is revealed. It even tells us that he will be revealed when he sits in the Temple, as if he were God, proclaiming himself to be God. Until and unless you see that happen, you cannot be gathered to him… That is plain as day.

Mark 13:27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Matthew 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, 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 out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

In the passage from Matthew, the gathering of the Elect is specifically and undisputedly placed “Immediately after the tribulation of those days…”

No, if you go to the Bible with an open heart and an open mind, you will understand that the Rapture cannot happen before the Tribulation… Clear and plain Scripture makes that impossible. If, on the other hand, you are convinced of a PreTrib Rapture, you will go to the Bible to prove it and you will end up with a string of verses that say that there will be a rapture and another string of verses that say that God is good… You will mix up those lists and insist that your list proves that the Rapture has to be before the Tribulation…

Eisegesis, driven by irrational fear and unmitigated wishful thinking, is a powerful tool of deception and perhaps the greatest weapon of the Devil…

Think about it!

David…