Common misconceptions about the rapture.

If I were to tell you what I see said the most about the rapture as far as disagreeing with a pre-trib rapture, this is probably the list. I will likely be adding to it as I come across others that pop up on my radar.

For those wanting to argue various theological positions, I encourage you to watch this YouTube series. Not a single idea, argument, or protest is left untouched.

"There are a few signs that need to happen before the rapture."

The imminence of the rapture is the key.

Nothing needs to happen before it.

Nothing.

It is sign-less.

Don't mistake the shadow and stage-setting for the tribulation as signs of the rapture beyond the fact that the rapture happens before the tribulation and if all that is falling into place than it is ever more imminent than ever before.

But there is not one thing that needs to happen before Christ calls his bride home.

"You pre-tribbers just want to escape!"

Yes, I surely do want to escape going through the tribulation. It's going to be awful, from day one. It's not just a matter of calculating disasters and death counts and if it'll only be bad after such-and-such a seal. I'm not deluded into thinking I can prep enough to make it through; how do you prep for natural disasters beyond a magnitude of anything we've ever seen, all over the earth? That's not to mention the abject evil that'll be on the prowl blatantly.

No, it's more than that.

Think about how we believers feel right now, looking at the increasing evil drowning our culture, nation, and world. The confusion, the evil, the depravity—it makes it difficult to even go to a store and buy anything because of the magazine headlines or images, or the clothes people are wearing, or the things people have on their T-shirts, or the general heavy feeling you get from a deceived and lost people.

If you're like me, you just feel sick to your stomach when you log into social media or read the news and see every form of evil, harm, murder, assault, incredible deception, and sexual depravity celebrated and whitewashed, or at least, seeming to triumph. The response of rage, as if we'll defeat that with our own human power, is equally exhausting.

That's going to explode in the Tribulation, the desperation and deception, all of that evil.

It makes me sick to my stomach to think about being around it any longer than I have to. Pride month in 2021 was off the charts, and the months leading up to it were laced with CRT and deception.

You're right. I absolutely want to escape the tribulation. And I'm absolutely motivated to try to get as many to go with me. That means if you're thinking rightly about the rapture and the tribulation, you'll be quick to share Jesus with as many as you can.  

There are some who believe they are going through the tribulation who are focusing on prepping and stockpiling. There are some who don't believe in a rapture or even a tribulation, and they are focused on saving the world with their own brute strength (something we see in both the left and right aisles of the church).

Sure, some might simply sit and wait for the rapture, but we learn in Thessalonians that that is wrong. We are to occupy and be faithful until that moment, keeping our lamps ready and doing what God wants us to do.

"The church has to go through the rapture because Christ has to purify his bride!"

I recently read a blog post which discussed the incident that happened between Rick Wiles (anti-Semitic supposedly-Christian broadcaster) and Jan Markell. It was ugly. You can do a search and find out for yourselves. The author of the post used that kind of ugliness and division as proof that the church needed purifying to clean it out and get us all on the same holy page, I guess, which is why we needed to go through the tribulation.

I'm not sure if they don't understand the gross divisions, false beliefs, and behavior happening in the churches Paul wrote his letters to, but I am fairly certain from early on, the church was horrifically imperfect. It's always needed purifying, which is why sanctification is an ongoing process until we one day are in the presence of the Lord.

But more to the point, what part of "it is finished" is confusing?

Jesus paid once and for all on the cross. He rose from the dead. He defeated sin and death. And because of him doing that, it is finished. We don't have to have some extra purification and extra dose of something awful to squeeze the "real" believers out of those who would crack in the face of torture. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and then pass the tests correctly, and then you'll be saved. 

The torture of believers is real, for sure. That kind of horror is something that happens and has happened to believers, but it isn't because they need a little more purification that Jesus' blood didn't quite cover. It's because the devil hates them.

This idea that the church (and it appears it will only be the church who's alive at the end, and not the church already in the grave) has to be "purified" by some form of brutalization and torture is strange.

The tribulation is God's wrath being poured out. Because we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we aren't targets of God's wrath since that was poured out on Christ on the cross. In other words, God's wrath was already poured out. We're covered by Christ. Saying God has to pour some wrath out on us to make us ready for being with him is a horrible thing to say about Christ's sacrifice.

If you believe that the church has to be purified more and that you'll be able to tell who is in the church and how purified their hearts are by outward understanding, you are essentially saying that Christ didn't finish it all on the cross. 

Christians have always had to face man's wrath and the devil's wrath, but because of Jesus, we don't have to face God's wrath. And the tribulation is God's wrath. 

+++

For more teaching on the pre-trib rapture, please see Dr. Andy Woods' video series.