A Radical Rapture
A dispensation is a way of ordering things—an administration, a system, or a management.
In theology, a dispensation is the divine administration of a period of time;
each dispensation is a divinely appointed age. Dispensationalism is a theological system
that recognizes these ages ordained by God to order the affairs of the world.
Dispensationalism has two primary distinctives:
1) a consistently literal interpretation of Scripture, especially Bible prophecy, and
2) a view of the uniqueness of Israel as separate from the Church in God’s program.
Classical dispensationalism identifies seven dispensations in God’s plan for humanity.
(from gotanswers.com
)
The Greek word translated here, "dispensation," is οἰκονομία which literally means "the management, or the economy, of a household." Ray Stedman's discussion of the history this term as used by Bible scholars is very helpful.
The age of the church, just concluding, has lasted close to two thousand years. God has been calling out a Bride for His Son Jesus--the whole time--while Israel has been off stage. All signs point to a sudden intervention of history now by God as He continues to orchestrate and direct the story of mankind and the history of the world.
If we are now entering a New Dispensation, as I believe we are, we are already seeing huge changes in God's dealings with everyone on our planet. That is, the Glorious Church which Jesus has been silently building for 2000 years will soon be unveiled for the world to see. The false church, and the counterfeit world cabals of finance, commerce and trade will surely be destroyed in the next few years. Evil crime syndicates, terrorist groups, cabals, monopolies, anarchists, will be dissolved and their leaders scattered. Individuals in the world system will be eligible to find salvation in Jesus Christ.
This is a season of great healing for the followers of Christ! Naturally, proud, self-sufficient people won't give up without a fight. God will persuade as many as can possibly be saved. The events of the end-time, the Seventieth Week of Daniel, 7 years in length will cascade in rapid sequence. For details see, Watch!
Back in 2019 the entire planet was under an obvious lockdown--the good and the bad among us alike were all affected. Jesus insists on getting our attention because He is running the universe, not us! God can be expected to turn up the heat on everyone who is still fighting against His grace and mercy. As our luxury living lifestyles are taken away, and God's tough love moves in, two great counterfeit world leaders will come to the forefront. God will actually be acting in maximum mercy.
Two very bad guys ("The Beast and False Prophet" of Revelation Chapter 13) will soon step on stage. They are presently held back by the Holy Spirit in His Church who is the Restrainer, (2 Thessalonians.) The ominous warning in the Bible leads to the clear teaching of the New Testament that Jesus the Bridegroom, will silently return to remove his Bride, the true Church--before all hell breaks out, for seven short years, down here on earth. If you doubt this, please read the last book in the Bible, the Book of the Revelation.
Much of the teaching on these great themes of the Bible comes from old school, old paradigm preachers who are these days largely out of intimate touch with Jesus, often running on autopilot and therefore not very credible. This is why my Number One concern today is the present terrible Bible Illiteracy in the United States at this hour. The great lockdown has gained everyone's attention and I understand that many more are now praying. I fear that most "prayers" among us insist on knowing God on our terms, not His. This of course is long-term unacceptable to Jesus. Many long for God to put things back to the way they were before the virus. I feel certain that can't happen. More crisis events surely lie ahead. None of these events can be solved by human effort, by money, by ingenuity. Nor do I believe God will heal our land temporarily this time. Too little too late. Jesus promised to come back. It's about time!
The true church, the Bride of Christ, is now being revirginized. This requires interior holiness in each of us, not mere conformity to external norms which were not put in place by God. For example, obedience to government is mandated by Romans 13 since all governments generally seek law and order in a nation. But of course many times in history legitimate protests against leaders who were autocratic tyrants, have been authored and endorsed by God. No matter, Jesus is who He says He is, whether we like it or not. He is glad to explain Himself to anyone willing to learn.
Yes, vast numbers of people, Ray Stedman said "millions," will be saved in the coming tribulation period, by the heroic campaigns (all over the planet) of 144,000 dedicated Jewish Evangelists trained and led by Jesus.
Creation 5792 BC
The Flood 3536 BC
Abraham and the Patriarchs 2304 BC
The Exile in Egypt 2014 BC-1504
The First Advent of Messiah 3 BC
The Calling out of the Church
The Seventieth Week of Daniel
The Millennial Kingdom
The New Heavens and New Earth
Old Testament Chronology: Barry Setterfield
I Missed the Rapture…Now What?
The world we live in has changed. Civility in communication seems to be a thing of the past. There was a time, not too long ago, when people could discuss any topic and agree to disagree over a cup of coffee or a meal without arguing or feeling threatened by the other interlocutor. Those days are gone! Additionally, there are topics that always seem to be more controversial than others. One such topic is the Rapture of the Believers by Yeshua. Some people believe that there is no such thing as a Rapture, while others firmly believe in the event but are arguing about the timing of such an event and if it will be before or during the Tribulation. In other words…there are more views about the rapture than we can shake a stick at. I don’t intend to write another article defending the pre-tribulation and pre-millennial Rapture, but I will state my position from the start and assert that the Rapture will occur before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble (the Great Tribulation) begins. Taking a pre-tribulational and pre-millennial position, when we read 1 Corinthians 15:52, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed,” we are told of a “last trumpet”. Many have argued that this is a reference to the last trumpet in God’s prophetic program, as in Revelation 11:15. In 1 Corinthians 15:52, the subject is the Church being caught up in the sky to be with Yeshua. The trumpet of God’s grace sounds to announce that event. It also connects to the Tekiah Gedolah, or the last trumpet of the Feast of Rosh Hashanah (this doesn’t necessitate for the Rapture to happen on Rosh Hashanah. It could, but it doesn’t have to, and if it does, it will not be because it was Rosh Hashanah since no one knows the exact date and time of the Rapture). On the other hand, the trumpet in Revelation 11:15 is within a different context. It relates to a fallen, rebellious world and the judgment of sinners and is part of a progressive series of judgments during the Great Tribulation. We are looking at two very different trumpets. Based on the biblical premise that the Rapture is an event that will only include those (Jews and Gentiles) who have placed their trust in the death and resurrection of Yeshua for their sins, only Believers will be taken up at that time. Many will be left behind, and whoever is left behind will have to deal with the consequences triggered by the Great Tribulation one way or another. The Great Tribulation, also known as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7), will last seven years (Daniel 9:26-27). In the beginning, things might appear to be under control on planet Earth. It is very likely that News and government agencies will hide the sudden disappearance of millions of people behind the cloak of alien abduction. Keep in mind that anyone who is a believer will disappear at the moment of the Rapture, a moment that nobody can schedule ahead of time. What happens when an airline pilot or train conductor disappears without any warning? What about the myriads of motorists that will also vanish at the same time? Whatever the reason people left behind will be given, they will still be in the midst of much chaos. A man will rise for the occasion and keep things under control, giving people much hope. In the Bible, this man is known as the Antichrist (Revelation 13). This charismatic, likable and convincing man will inspire people to follow and trust him until he demands to be worshipped as God Himself at the mid-point of the Tribulation. During this time, people will have a choice to make that will have eternal consequences. If you are left behind, will you take the Mark of the Beast or will you decline to accept it? The Beast’s deputy, known is the Bible as the False Prophet, will run a propaganda campaign to entice people to take the Mark (Revelation 13:11-18). People who didn’t take the Mark will have severe limitations to their existence and survival. Nobody will be allowed to buy or sell without the Mark (Revelation 13:17). Eventually, those who decide not to take the Mark will be executed (Revelation 20:4). It will not be too late to refuse the Mark of the Beast and not worship the Antichrist, but that will result in suffering great harm and dying as Tribulation martyrs. It could all have been avoided if they had been Raptured. Today, many people make fun of the Rapture and the Tribulation, mentioning that these are just superstitious beliefs with no foundation or that the Bible is a crutch used by people to go through life. I don’t expect everyone reading this article to agree with my views or even to believe that the Rapture is a literal future event that will take place right before the Great Tribulation. But if you find yourself on the other side of an event where millions of people have disappeared all over the planet at the exact same moment, don’t believe for a moment that aliens got them. If you find yourself “left behind”, you will have the most important choice of your life to make. Will you succumb under the pressure of the Antichrist, or will you reject his lies, effectively signing your death warrant from the world’s perspective but signing a new lease on eternal life in God’s presence from the Word’s perspective? What is the best thing to do? Accept Yeshua today. Right now. If you die without Him now or without him during the Tribulation, you will still be separated from God and eternity with him. If you accept Him TODAY, you will spend eternity with Him AND be spared from the Tribulation. The Lake of Fire was always reserved for the devil and his angels, not for human beings. Truly, the best thing for you now is to accept Yeshua TODAY. I Missed the Rapture…Now What? – Olivier Melnick. Added June 20, 2023. |
As we wait for Jesus’ appearing, our hearts often grow weary amid the rampant evil of our day and the hardships we encounter. Our cry often becomes one of “how much longer, O Lord?”
If you feel overwhelmed with life at times and long for our Savior to appear and intervene in our world, please know that I wrote what follows especially for you.
Our weariness of heart comes from a variety of sources:
Ongoing health issues of varying intensity
The limitations that come with aging
The sickening wickedness in our world that’s growing exponentially
Government corruption amid over-the-top deception and gaslighting by leaders
The vile depopulation efforts of the globalists
The everyday talk of a nuclear World War III
Various forms of persecution
The ridicule of our hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing
Family heartaches
Abuse from spouses or other family members
Financial woes
For those of us eagerly watching for Jesus’ return, encountering these things intensifies our longing for the day He takes us up to His Father’s house.
I believe the Apostle Paul also felt this yearning. In Romans 8:23, he wrote:
And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
The “redemption of our bodies” happens at the time of the Rapture when Jesus gives us our imperishable bodies. If you sigh with longing for this day to arrive as the result of any of the reasons from the above list, you’re in good company. You likely feel the same inward groaning that Paul felt as he also looked forward to the Lord’s appearing.
It’s our anticipation of the glory ahead for us that encourages weary hearts as we encounter the devil’s opposition through the items listed above. That’s why I’m writing to reassure you regarding the confidence we possess in Jesus’ imminent appearing.
It’s because . . .
Premillennialism, which is foundational to a belief in the pre-Tribulation rapture, is a biblical necessity. There must be a time when God restores a kingdom to Israel, which happens after a literal seven-year Tribulation when Jesus returns to the earth. We call this belief “premillennialism.” It’s the direct opposite of replacement theology, which falsely claims that God has replaced Israel with the church.
In my previous post, Israel’s future Restoration Validates Our Hope as New Testament Saints, I provide several points demonstrating the biblical necessity of God’s restoration of a kingdom to Israel.
Why is this key to placing the Rapture before the Tribulation? First, those who adhere to replacement theology don’t believe in an actual tribulation. If that’s the case, the Rapture must happen at the time of the Second Coming.
Second, if one doesn’t interpret prophecy in the way that the writers of Scripture intended, one cannot recognize how its words confirm the biblical necessity of a pre-Tribulation Rapture.
I find it reassuring to always keep in mind that the Rapture is a biblical event.
Consider the following quote from the late Dr. Ed Hindson, a beloved scholar whose insights into biblical prophecy we sorely miss:
“If you disagree on the timing of the rapture, please don’t tell people, ‘There’s never going to be a rapture.’ No, there must be a rapture or the Bible is not true. There must be a time when the archangel shouts, when the trumpet sounds, and the dead in Christ are raised and the living are caught up (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). We may differ on the timing of the rapture but not the fact of the rapture.”[i]
In other words, there must be a time when the series of events Paul describes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 happen, or “the Bible is not true.” Jesus is coming for us and at that time He will give us imperishable bodies exactly as He promises us in 1 Corinthians 15:50-54. Regardless of what one calls the event these passages describe with much detail, they form the basis of our future hope in Jesus’ appearing.
The event we call the “Rapture” is simply the Lord fulfilling the prophecies contained in the above texts as as well those found in John 14:1-3, Titus 2:11-14, Revelation 3:10-11a, and others.
The Rapture is a biblical event.
The biblical descriptions of the Rapture and Second Coming differ in ways that make it impossible for one to reconcile the two into one event. They cannot happen at the same time.
For example, the place of the resurrection in the differing sequence of events during the Rapture and Second Coming confirms this distinction.
When Paul writes about the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 and 1 Corinthians 15:50-54, he says that the raising of the “dead in Christ” happens immediately after Jesus appears.
With the Second Coming, however, the resurrection of tribulation saints does not occur until after a lengthy sequence of events (see Rev. 19:11-20:4), this raising of the dead may not even occur until a day or two or more after Jesus’ return to earth.
There’s another key distinction that comes from these passages. At the time of the Rapture, Jesus resurrects the “dead in Christ” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). In Revelation 20:4, John says that at His return to earth, He raises “those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus.” In one instance, all believers rise from the dead while in the other, the apostle only mentions a subset of them.
If the words of Scripture matter, and they do, then we cannot combine these two events into one.
The apostles repeatedly described their readers as eagerly anticipating Jesus’ return for them (1 Corinthians 1:7; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10; Titus 2:11-13; James 5:8; James 5:8-10; 1 Peter 1:13). New Testament saints watched for the Rapture as though it could occur at any moment. When we say that Jesus’ appearing is imminent, we echo this expectancy. Nothing needs to occur before the Rapture takes place.
As for the Second Coming, the Lord told us that at least two major events would happen before it. In Matthew 24:15-29, Jesus says that the defilement of the temple by the antichrist and the “great tribulation” that follows it will happen before He returns to earth. According to His own words, events that have not yet happened must occur before the Second Coming; it’s not an imminent event that we can expect at any time.
Only a pre-Tribulation Rapture fits as the eager anticipation of Jesus’ appearing that we see throughout the New Testament.
The expectation of the Thessalonians for Jesus’ appearing also supports placing the Rapture before the tribulation.
The new converts in Thessalonica grieved when some of their members died. A careful examination of Paul’s response (see 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17) reveals the cause of their unnecessary grief; they thought that the dead in Christ would miss out on the joy of the Rapture. In response, the apostle assures them of the primary place that the “dead in Christ” will have during Jesus’ return for us.
How could they have thought this way apart from expecting Jesus’ appearing to happen at any moment? They, like the apostle Paul, believed Jesus could return for them in their lifetime.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3, Paul tells his readers that the start of the day of the Lord will surprise people “like a thief in the night” with its “sudden destruction” from which “they will not escape.” The day of Lord, a primarily Old Testament term, refers to an extended time of the Lord’s wrath on the earth leading up to and including Jesus’ return to the earth and subsequent kingdom.
If the day of the Lord were to begin at any time after the seal judgments of Revelation 6 commence, this day would not catch people by surprise. No one will be saying “peace and security” (v. 3) after the pestilences, famines, pandemics, and wars of the seal judgments kill one-fourth of the earth’s population, almost two billion people.
Since the Rapture must happen before the seal judgments of Revelation 6, it must occur before the start of the Tribulation.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, the Lord through the apostle Paul assures the Thessalonians, and us, that we will not experience this time of God’s judgment upon the earth known as the day of the Lord,
“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”
The context of this promise tells us that the wrath Paul has in mind belongs to the Day of the Lord rather than hell. It begins with the “sudden destruction” that “will come upon” those taken by surprise at the start of this time of wrath.
We learn from 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 that the readers of Paul’s epistle came to faith in Jesus believing they would not experience this future time of wrath upon the earth.
“For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” (emphasis mine)
For me, this is a very strong argument favoring a pre-Tribulation Rapture as the Lord promises us that we will miss the Day of the Lord’s wrath, which includes all of the Tribulation.
We have additional verification of the pre-Tribulation Rapture in Jesus’ promise to the church at Philadelphia. In Revelation 3:10-11a we read:
“Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming quickly.”
This “hour of trial” here does not refer to a time of persecution that would come upon a particular church or even all believers, but rather points to a time of suffering that will impact all the people of the world, which fits with the events that John describes in Revelation 6-18.
The fact that this testing is specifically for “those who dwell on the earth” (Rev. 3:10) further confirms its reference to the judgments on earth known as the Tribulation. John uses this phrase eight other times in the book of Revelation (6:10; 8:13; 11:10; 13:8 12, 14; 14:6; and 17:8). In each instance it either refers to either people impacted by the Tribulation or to those refusing to repent of their sins during this time.
In these chapters, however, the apostle never refers to the church as being on the earth.
We know that the Lord has currently entrusted the church with proclaiming the saving message of the Gospel to the nations.
Why then is there the need for the two witnesses that John describes for us in Revelation 11:4-13 if the church is present on earth during this time?
Besides these two spokesmen, in Revelation 14:6–7 John tells us about an angel that will proclaim the Gospel during the Tribulation:
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
If the church is present on the earth during the events of Revelation 6-18, why does the Lord need to send an angel to proclaim the gospel? This only makes sense with a pre-Tribulation Rapture.
The presence of the 144,000 sealed Jewish believers during this time also points to the absence of the church during this time of judgment (Revelation 7:1-8). Many believe they will act as evangelists sharing the Gospel with the lost. Again, why is this necessary if the church remains on the earth during the events of Revelation 6-18?
Furthermore, if the church is still present, such a distinction between believing Jews and Gentiles couldn’t exist according to Colossians 3:11.
The Lord might catch us up to meet Him in the air today, or we may continue waiting a while longer. I’m certain we live in the season of His appearing, but I don’t know how long it will last.
When my heart grows weary from, I return again to the passages of Scripture that promise a glorious future solely because of the blood that Jesus shed for me on the cross.
Jesus is preparing a place for us in glory and He’s most certainly returning to take us to where He now dwells in glory (John 14:2-3, 17:24; Colossians 3:4). He will transform our aging bodies into ones that are immortal and glorious (see 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Philippians 3:20-21).
Know for certain that the Lord is going to judge the vile wickedness and vile agenda that’s openly promoted by most government leaders. Just this morning, I needed to again read Psalm 37:1-20 in order to calm the anger rising inside me because of all the deception, lawlessness, and murderous agenda of those in power in America.
The cry of our soul finds its answer in the certainty that Jesus is coming soon to rescue us from this troubled world before things get a whole lot worse.
In my book, The Triumph of the Redeemed-An eternal Perspective that Calms Our Fears in Perilous Times, I go into much greater detail on all the above points, and others, that demonstrate the biblical necessity of the pre-Tribulation Rapture. I also explain why this hope is so necessary for a biblical outlook on all we see happening around us.
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[i] Ed Hindson, Future Glory (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2021), p. 14.. Jonathan Brentner: My Journey
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