Dan's Place

Okay. I'll admit it. This one's a passion with me.

For years, most denominations of the Christian church have taught that the church will be removed before suffering any of the plagues of the tribulation. When I was asked to teach a Sunday School class in my Assembly of God church, I asked to use a book, "The Rapture Question Answered - Plain and simple" as a basis for the class. My pastor asked to see the book, so I provided him with a copy. Several days later he told me that I could teach eschatology if I chose, or I could even teach a class about end-times prophecy if I wanted to, but I could not teach a class that was based upon the book that I had offered. When I asked him why, he simply said that it went against the teaching of the denomination and he could not allow it. I probably should have said "yes sir" or some other appropriately worded response in deference to his office as pastor, but I could not, in good conscience, let it go. "Does not the bible teach us to 'be Berean' ?" I asked him. "Does not the word tell us to examine the scripture for ourselves and determine for ourselves what is truth and what is not? If the teaching of the AoG is the true word of God, then what does the AoG have to fear from me or from this, or any other book?" I asked. He had no answer, but stood firm. I was not to teach a class from that book. That was when I left the Assembly of God and went non-denominational. Denominations are the works of men - God has ONE church; the church of true believers in Jesus!

Anyway, I've continued to study the subject - the relative timing of the rapture and the plagues that will precede it, and I have come to the conclusion that the true church WILL be protected from the first part of the tribulation. It will not avoid it, but be carried through it by the very will of God. How can I say such a thing? Scripture is convincing!

Note that in Matthew 24, Jesus tells us that many things will happen before He returns for His church, then He gives us the sign of His coming: 29"Immediately after the distress of those days " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' 30"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other."

Now, when we compare scripture with scripture, we see the exact sign mentioned by Jesus in Revelation 6:12, which is PRECEDED by the four horsemen of the apocolypse and the famine, death, disease and ruin that they represent.

12I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
15Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16They called to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"

So, does the church escape this wrath? It doesn't look like it! Jesus does not remove His church until AFTER the riding of the four horsemen, the first of which is the rider on the white horse, generally thought to be antichrist.

So, how does the church escape the horrible result of a world-wide famine, drought, plague, war, and starvation? By the very power of God Almighty, that's how! Jesus tells us that many will fall away in the last days. He also tells us that the tares will be removed from the wheat. What better way to make the tares separate than to present them with a horrible demise as they trust in their true god, the systems of the world, rather than the God of the universe, God the Creator?