The Basics of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

So here we are trying to cope with this worldwide COVID-19 virus, now at the point where some attempts are being made here in the US to reopen businesses and aim at getting back to "normal" whatever that is going to look like when we do.

This morning I was awakened about 4 AM by an earthquake rocking my recliner and rattling the blinds, which turned out to be a 6.4 Richter centered somewhere north of here.  Since I've been hoping for the Rapture more and more these days, the quake on top of the virus was another reminder that it could be close since Jesus taught his disciples that an increase in such phenomena would be signs of its closeness.

I'm still in the learning stage about the Pre-Tribulation Rapture and the Tribulation itself foir that matter, so I'm becoming aware that Jesus might have been referring to the time toward the end of the Tribulation before His Second Coming, rather than the time just before the Rapture, or even possibly to the time at the end of the Millennium which follows the Tribulation period, the End of All Things coming at the end of the Millennium.  I'm listening off and on to John MacArthur's series on the Book of Revelation on You Tube, and maybe as I continue with it he will yet make all this clear to me.  Meanwhile thanks to MacArthur and others I do have a much better grip on this End Times scenario.

It may have been Robert Jeffress' talk at Jan Markell's Understanding the Times conference last year in October that did the most to clarify some aspects of end times prophecy for me.  At the end of his talk he gave four reasons why he believes in the Pre-Tribulation Rapture that I found particularly illuminating which I'll try to remember here:

1) The reason for the Tribulation which is both redemption of the unsaved and punishment of the wicked.   Since Christians are already redeemed, and we've been promised that we won't go through God's wrath -- it's for unbeleivers anyway -- being Raptured, or removed from the Earth before it all happens makes sense.

2) As a matter of fact there isn't one mention of the Church at all during the Great Tribulation as spelled out in Revelation 6 to 18.  Since the Great Tribulation is also known as the Day of the LORD which has been prophesied for millennia as God's wrath to be poured out on the Earth, it is consistent with the nature of the Church that it isn't there.  The Church is addressed in the first three chapters of Revelation and then comes back to Earth with Jesus at His Second Coming.   In the meantime the Seven Seals of the scroll of God's judgments are opened by Jesus, unleashihng their series of judgments on the Earth.

3)  Revelation 3:10 is where Jesus tells the Church at Philadelphia that because they have "kept the word of His perseverance" He will keep them from the time of trial that is to come upon the whole Earth, which we take to mean being taken off the Earth before the wrath comes.

4)  Romans 8:1 is where Paul tells us that "there is now no condemndation to those who are in Christ Jesus" which also underscores the message that God's wrath is not to be experience by the Church.  After all Jesus paid the price on the Cross for our salvation from God's wrath so the idea that we would yet go through it contradicts the whole idea of salvation.

Which of course is not to say we won't suffer in this world.  Jesus also clearly taught that "in this world you will have tribulation" but this is a kind of tribulation that is not God's wrath.

I think it is John MacArthur who explains why the Church is to be raptured before the Tribulation and not at Jesus' Second Coming, which is one interpretation some hold, and this is because we are to be changed into our glorified bodies at the moment of Rapture, which wouldn't make sense if we are only going up to meet Him in the air in order to escort Him to Earth, but would make sense if we are being fitted for Heaven where we are with Jesus while the Earth is undergoing the Day of the LORD.  Also, at the Second Coming there will be this other great multitude of saved people who came through the Tribulation and are to repopulate the Earth during the Millennium when Christ rules.  Those believers will have normal human bodies, marry and have children, but those of us who were raptured will be in our permanent glorified bodies which don't procreate.