Who Are the Believers Who Go Through the Great Tribulation?

-

9After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvationbelongs to our God, 
who sits on the throne, 
and to the Lamb.” 11All the angelswere standing around the throne and around the eldersand the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12saying:“Amen! 
Praise and glory 
and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength 
be to ourGod for ever and ever. 
Amen!” 13Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” 14I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation;they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:9-14 Emphasis mine).

 

There are those who tell us that the rapture (the snatching up of the saints from this earth) will happen before the tribulation starts. Well, how can that be? The passage above tells us that a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language will stand in white robes before the elders (v.11), before the living creatures (v.11), before the angels and before God, aftergoing through the great tribulation. This is the rapture. How do I know? We are told explicitly that this great multitude is those who came out of the Great Tribulation (v.14). 

 

Some say that these are believers who were left behind after a pre-tribulation rapture. They got saved during the tribulation, they inform us. But is that confirmed in any Scripture? No, the very opposite. Scripture says twice that the door is shut at the rapture—there is no second chanceafter a pre-tribulation rapture (if there was such a thing). The door is closed when the bridegroom came for His bride (Matthew 25:10, Luke 13:25). If there was a rapture before all the trouble (tribulation) starts, then why do we not see the pre-tribulation saints welcoming this great multitude and rejoicing upon their coming to heaven? There are the angels, the living creatures, the elders and God Himself welcoming this great multitude, but no pre-tribulation saints! Why not? Because there is no pre-tribulation rapture! The Church must wake up and prepare to endure hardship and persecution at the hands of Antichrist. We will be delivered by a catching up (rapture) at some point (no man knows the day nor the hour) duringthe tribulation. It’stime to wake up from sleep andprepare to endure hardship for Jesus Christ—it’s time to get close to Christ.

 

Prayer: Father, help us to be the Church in these dark days. The world is crying out for truth and to see the light of Christ in true believers.

Taken from the series The Second Coming of Christ. Click on the study, The Rapture and Day of the Lord.Keith Thomas

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Organic Union with Christ

-
Image
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me (John 15:4). If you have come to the place where you have entrusted your life to Christ, at the point of repentance and abandonment to Him (believing), something happened at the core of your being. The Spirit of God came into your life and baptized you into the Body of Christ. Here’s what Paul the apostle wrote: 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit  so as to form one body —whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). In some unseen mystical way, the Spirit dipped us, soaked and saturated us (that's what the word baptism means) into an organic union with Christ. Notice that Paul the apostle writes that it is not  some ...
Read more

Paul’s 3 Things That Must Happen Before the Rapture

-
1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and  our being gathered to him , we ask you, brothers and sisters,  2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for  that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).   The apostle Paul has received a letter back from the Thessalonian church after his first letter that was in part about the rapture. We know this for he starts out this chapter with the word “concerning.” The Thessalonians had received some communication from some people t...
Read more

The Mistakes of the Five Foolish Virgins

-
Image
We are continuing to look at what Jesus taught about the Last Days and His Second Coming. He told a parable about ten virgins waiting to light up the way for the Bridegroom, a picture of the Lord Jesus in His coming. All ten were asleep before the Bridegroom came, but five had prepared extra oil, while five had nothing extra. They were not expecting that the Bridegroom would be coming so late at night: 7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.  8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’  9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’  10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.  11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’  12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I ...
Read more