The Truth About the Rapture

The Kingdom Hero Show – Episode 80

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Hey, everyone! On today’s program, we’re gonna talk RAPTURE! Yes, it’s gonna happen! I, for one, am looking forward to it. But have you ever given thought to why you believe what you believe about it? Can you explain it to someone who asks you hard questions about it? Why is a pre-tribulation rapture so widely accepted today? Is that correct? Does it matter? Stay tuned as we dive into this episode, “The Truth About the Rapture,” next.

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Welcome to The Kingdom Hero Show, where CHRIST is KING and the TRUTH matters! Our mission: To advance the Kingdom of God by shining the Kingdom Light everywhere we go!

Some of you may notice the studio configuration keeps changing. It’s for the same reason I often have extended breaks between episodes. While I’d love to devote more time to doing this show, I’m not like a lot of other hosts who have huge followings and do this for a living. I have a regular job I work, and I have a life that’s often just too full and busy to allow me to do a new program every day or even every week.

One recent life change, in fact, was the addition of a new puppy. If you are a subscriber to my Rumble channel or follow me on social media, you’re no doubt aware of this. I had to make room for the little guy in a portion of my studio, hence the reason for the most recent reconfiguration. At any rate, I have no complaints about how full my life is, and I’m always glad to do the show as much as possible for the meager following I’m blessed to have.

So, let’s jump in…

The Rapture – Many Christians today believe it will happen before the antichrist is revealed and the seven year tribulation begins. Things are starting to get rough here, but lots of people believe before it gets really bad, we’re just gonna *poof* exit stage right, so to speak. It’s important to look at why this belief has become so widely accepted among followers of Jesus.

Did you know the idea of a pre-trib rapture is a relatively new concept? It didn’t appear in prophetic interpretation until the 1800s. That means that for most of Christendom throughout history, the notion didn’t even exist. But when it was introduced, many proponents of Christianity latched onto it with great fervor, and it soon became such a widely accepted concept that few dared to question it. Today, a pre-tribulation rapture of the Church is understood by most Christians to be a central part of our faith. Many movies have been made about it, most notably the “Left Behind” series of films.

As a point of fact, this idea was an inference made by nineteenth century theologians and bible scholars. But unless you’ve done due diligent research yourself on the topic, you likely thought it was actually scriptural fact. Why is this important? Why should any of us get bogged down in the minutia of it all? Simple. Understanding that a pre-trib rapture is (at best) a possibility and not set in stone allows our faith to go more or less unchallenged when and if things don’t turn out that way. Conversely, a staunch believer in a pre-trib rapture may fall away from the faith when faced with the harsh realities of the Great Tribulation arriving without being preceded by the rapture.

But there’s still more to it than that. As Christians, we need to be able to study the Word of God for ourselves and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to us. If we are only listening to this preacher or that pastor or whoever – people of God who are well-meaning and genuine in their approach to building the faith – and we’re not also reading the Bible and studying its truths as well, we can easily miss out on some important realities of scripture. It is a blessing to be able to study the Word, and one that we too often rob ourselves of.

I highly recommend that you get a copy of a book called The Blessed Hope, written by George Eldon Ladd. A former pastor and friend of mine suggested the book to me a few years ago. Now, I’m not a big reader myself. Never really have been. But this book was a very easy read, and it was interesting enough to hold my attention, so I actually enjoyed reading it. For me, that’s saying a lot! But I mention this particular book for a good reason: A biblical study of the second coming of Christ is essential to our understanding the hope we have. So alongside scripture itself, you really should read The Blessed Hope.

The whole point here is to understand what scripture actually teaches and what it doesn’t. We often get tripped up as believers when we engage in conversation with people about our hope in Christ while not having enough real knowledge about it ourselves. What happens when someone has a specific question that you can’t answer? Yeah, you might refer them to a pastor or preacher you know. But they may not be as comfortable talking to that person as they do with you. It is incumbent for every believer to learn and know as much as possible about our faith – both for our benefit and for those we witness to.

As for the topic of when the rapture happens, I could go into a lot of details that I learned from my own biblical research – as well as things I learned from reading the book I mentioned. But that would mean you’re just listening to me and not doing your own research. And I would never advise you to do that. But I will name just a couple of things about the pre-trib rapture that don’t make sense to me personally. Again, you really need to study for yourself.

Like most other Christians I know, I grew up under the teaching that God’s people would be rescued out of this world before things got REALLY bad. Just as you probably did, I accepted that as part of my Christian beliefs and never thought to question it. However, there were certain things about it that I never really understood. Rather than reading up on it myself, as a young Christian, I simply came to accept that there would be things that I would never be able to comprehend until Jesus came.

If I’m being honest, that was a cop-out – and a pretty lame excuse to not read for myself what the Bible actually says. Truthfully, I was guilty of being spiritually lazy. I’ll admit it. I simply wasn’t disciplined enough to crack open the Word of God like we all should be doing on a daily basis, right? All these faith-based movies portrayed a pre-tribulation rapture, so I just went with it even though I had unanswered questions.

So, what were my questions? What about this widely accepted doctrine did I find puzzling? First of all, if the rapture of the church comes before the tribulation, why is the return of Jesus to establish His Kingdom referred to as the 2nd coming instead of the 3rd coming? Obviously, Jesus’ first advent (or coming to earth) was when He was born. The rapture was always presented as “Jesus coming to take His Bride (the Church) away to heaven.” It’s said to be this sort of secret coming that could happen at any moment. But the so-called SECOND coming of Christ is understood to be some time later, after the Great Tribulation – a time when we would be returning along WITH Him to rule and reign on earth, right? A new earth. An earth restored to its former splendor. So then, how does this all make any sense?

Secondly, there’s the matter of God’s established pattern. What do I mean by that? Notice in scripture, whenever there was such great wickedness in the world that God had to intervene, He didn’t take the righteous out of the earth. He destroyed the wicked.

In the case of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God allowed Lot and his family to escape. Then He laid waste to those evil cities, completely destroying them along with all the wicked people in them.

In the case of the Great Flood, God gave Noah and his family – the only good people left on the whole earth – time to build an ark so they would be saved from the wrath to come. The wicked people of that day were again wiped off the planet by the flood.

Now, pay close attention to what Matthew says about the day of the Lord’s returning…

Would it not stand to reason then, that when the Bible speaks of a time when “two will be in the field and one will be taken…two will be working at the mill and one will be taken” the ones who will be taken out of the earth would surely be the wicked rather than the righteous? “Just as it was in the days of Noah.” After all, it is the weeds that must be removed from the garden. That’s God’s pattern.

That same pattern is evident time after time in scripture. It seems to even be echoed in this passage from Psalms…

That certainly sounds like the removal of the wicked, who for the moment seem to be prospering and getting away with doing all sorts of evil. Today we see corrupt politicians and rampant sexual perversions abounding, but this passage assures us that their day of reckoning is coming. Meanwhile, we are called to occupy the earth and subdue it. It’s not always easy, in fact, it’s usually an uphill battle against one injustice after another. We have to stand firm and press on, relying fully on God to help us. Tribulation will come, but when the wicked are no more, we will inherit the land and delight in abundant peace.

Of course, then people ask why God would allow the righteous to have to endure the tribulation period. To which, my response is two-fold. First, bad things happen to “good” people all the time because of the evil in the world. But more importantly, the Bible is filled with occasions when God poured out His wrath on the wicked while simultaneously protecting the righteous from the effects of that wrath. I already mentioned two examples: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the global flood which wiped out everyone but the one Godly man left and his family.

Consider also the time of Moses. God released 10 plagues on Egypt because Pharoah refused to let the enslaved Israelites go free. During this time, God’s people were protected. The final plague, death of every first-born son throughout the land, even took the Pharaoh’s own child from him. But the angel of death passed over the homes of the Israelites who placed a lamb’s blood on their entry ways. This was a foreshadowing of how the blood of Jesus would similarly deliver us from destruction.

Another example is when the three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fiery furnace. Two of King Nebuchadnezzar’s men who put them into the furnace were killed by the heat. But rather than keep the Hebrew children out of the fire, God miraculously protected them IN the fire. They came out unscathed, no hairs were singed, and they didn’t even smell like smoke! It’s certainly no stretch then to believe God will protect His people during the Great Tribulation as well. Again, that’s His pattern.

So, as I said, I always had some issues with the idea of a pre-trib rapture. But I was just too timid to ask the important questions. These are things that must be reconciled in our own minds before we can effectively relay such things to others. Frankly, I found answers for the first time just a few years ago when that pastor friend of mine gave a stirring sermon on the subject. It may seem odd without proper context, but in this post-trib scenario, you would WANT to be one of the ones that’s “left behind.” Because, following God’s established pattern, the wicked ones would be removed and the righteous ones would be left to inherit the earth.

But this removal of the wicked, while a sign of Christ’s imminent return, isn’t synonymous with the rapture. So where does that come in? Where did the term come from? We’ll get to that next…

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While the word “rapture” isn’t found in scripture, the essence of its meaning is definitely there. The Bible states that God’s people will be “carried away,” or “caught up,” to meet with Jesus. That’s where the term rapture originated. And so this rapture is understood to be the carrying away of the Church – the bride of Christ. Carried to where? Many believe we are then taken to “the marriage supper of the Lamb” – a wedding feast for Jesus and the Church. After this, we return to reign with Him in His newly established Kingdom on earth.

It would make sense then that the Tribulation would happen first, during which God would protect His people as He has so many times before. At the culmination of this time period, those enemies of God would be removed from the earth. The rapture of the Church and Jesus’ second coming would then follow. Scripture says that the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who remain will be “caught up” to meet Him in the air.

The Bible also says, when we see Him, we will be LIKE Him – we’ll be changed in the twinkling of an eye, instantaneously transformed into our new and glorified bodies. I get excited every time I think about that! Can you imagine having a new body with no more pain or sickness? Talk about a blessed hope! I look forward to that amazing day!

Folks, the best truly is yet to come – and I do believe it will be SOON! Things may get really bad for a time, and it seems that things have already gotten pretty darn crazy lately. But we should all be looking forward with GREAT ANTICIPATION to the day Jesus returns for us!

Think about this for a moment: We celebrate and commemorate and reenact the birth of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And yes, those things are all glorious and worthy of the time we spend reflecting on them and celebrating them. But there is a day soon coming that will be greater than all of these put together. The day of Jesus’ returning is getting close. And that is a hope we hold to with every fiber of our being.

As wonderful as it is to remember how God came to earth as a man, how He became flesh and dwelt among us, how He showed us the way and then paid the price for our salvation, the things He is about to do will be even more wonderful than we can even imagine. He is going to renew and restore in ways we never thought of. He will establish His eternal Kingdom and we will see glory like this world has never known. If you look at the corruption and evil going on today, sometimes it my seem that God is far off. He is not far off, but He is close at hand. And He is about to work wonders within our lifetime. We will be witnesses of this. Just talking about it gives me chills – good chills.

But now, if you find yourself rejecting the notion of a post-tribulation rapture outright, then I encourage you to – at the very least – do some serious research on it and try to find the flaws (if any exist) in the logic. The goal of this exercise is to find truth. I’m not trying to push you to believe something crazy, just to seek out whatever the truth is. Ultimately, if you end up believing in a post-trib rapture and get surprised by an earlier rapture – hey, you’re with Jesus either way! At least, I hope you are.

If you ARE interested in learning more about the specifics of the second coming of Christ, again, get yourself a copy of this book – The Blessed Hope, by George Eldon Ladd. I got my copy on Amazon. You can do that or visit your local Christian Bookstore and ask for the book by name. That’s The Blessed Hope. And I’ll just tell ya, as books on eschatology go, this is by far the easiest to understand that I’ve found. I have another book called A Basic Guide to Eschatology, but it’s ironically filled with a bit more complex terms and is a little harder to FOR ME AT LEAST to read through.

But please understand me here. I want you to hear me on this. My point is not to start an argument with fellow believers about when the rapture happens. Whether we hold the belief that it’ll be pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib, we would be wise to seek out the revealing truth of God’s Word – each of us – for ourselves. It’s important to understand exactly what you believe and why. You should be able to back it up with scripture. The Bible says we should be ready to give account for the hope we have in Christ.

So don’t be spiritually lazy, like I was for so long. Dig into the Word. Really dig. Ask God to enlighten you. Study reliable writings by folks who’ve done research and measure that alongside the Bible itself. Don’t assume something is scriptural just because it’s what you heard your whole life. Pray for discernment and learn to differentiate between biblical truth and traditional teaching. Seek wisdom, or you could succumb to foolishness. As my favorite high school teacher used to say, “Be wise, or be otherwise.”

I sincerely appreciate you being here, for watching or listening to the Kingdom Hero Show, or even if you’re one of my blog subscribers. The transcripts of this program are on the website in blog form, so you may be someone who’s reading this instead of tuning in. I thank all of you for taking the time to join me in one way or another. It truly means a lot.

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