Rochelle

Chapter 9
The Time Of The End

The Lord has given us some special promises relating to the Great Tribulation and the church. The first promise is in Revelation 3:10 to His faithful chruch of Philadelphia. "Because you have kept the word of My patience, I will also keep you from the hour of temptation which will come to try men who dwell upon the earth." Interpreting this verse to mean that Jesus would keep us in the Tribulation and take us through it by divine preservation is totally without solid scriptural foundation and lacks sound scholarship. Such and interpretation is reading into a scripture something that isn't there in order to harmonize it with a presuppositional view. Nowhere does the Book of Revelation speak about any divine preservation for the church. The only divine preservation is for 144,000 Israelites who are sealed and, thus, spared from a portion of the judgments to come. Also, the woman of Chapter 12 is given wings of an eagle to bear her into the wilderness to escape from the wrath of the dragon for three and a half years.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:9 Paul wrote about the coming of the Christ for His church. "For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." It's totally inconsistent with the nature of God to think that after Jesus bore completely the judgment for my sins, God would have me judged with the wicked world. God's wrath and judgment will be poured out upon a Christ-rejecting world. As a child of God, why would God number me with the unrighteous? God has not appointed us unto wrath.

Another intersting promis is found in Isaiah 26:19-21. The Lord first speaks of the resurrection of the dead. Then He said, "Come, my people, enter into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earh also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain."

Isaiah is prophesying of the day when the Lord comes to punish the inhabitants of the earth, the Great Tribulation period. But God invites His people to enter into His chambers and shut the doors about them, so they might be hid as it were, for a moment until the indignation, the Tribulation, is over.

This could refer to the Jews who will flee to the rock city of Petra and be preserved from the Great Tribulation. Isaiah also mentions this in chapter 16. "Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou covert to them from the face of the spoiler: for the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth, the oppressors are comsumed out of the land. And in mercy shall the throne be established: and he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness."

In this text the people of Moab are told to take the Jews and shelter them in Sela, which is Petra, during the time when the Antichrist will try to destroy the Jews. If this promise of preservation refers to the Jews instead of the church, why would the Lord shield the Jews and not the church from the Great Tribulation?

If the Lord plans to shield the church from the Great Tribulation, then where are the promises? Where does the Bible show the church as being sealed, protected, or marked, so that it wouldn't be harmed during the Great Tribulation? As John clearly details the events of the last days in the Book of Revelation, what passages tell of the chruch's preservation in the Tribulation?

In Luke 21 Jesus is talking about the Great Tribulation and His coming again. He tells us, "Take heed, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of the world, so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth."

Then again, "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass."

Escape all what things that shall come to pass? Surely I don't want to escape the Lord's coming for His church. Jesus was referring to the Great Tribulation that is coming, and I'd surely like to escape that! I'm praying and watching just as Jesus told me. "May I be accounted worthy to escape all these things of the Great Tribulation and stand before the Son of Man."

I expect to stand before the throne of God in the great multitude of Revelation 5, when Jesus takes the scroll out of the right hand of Him who is sitting upon the throne. I don't expect to be on earth when the seals are opened and God begins to pour out His wrath and indignation upon this godless, Christ rejection world. The makes the coming of Christ a blessed hope for the believers. We're passionately looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament gives us the accounts of two times when the earth was judged by God. The flood of Noah's day and the fire and brimstone that destroyed Sodom and the time of Lot; Jesus likened both of these times to the time of His return. "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be" (Matthew 24:37).

In Luke 17:28,29 "As it was in the days of Lot; they did not eat, the drank, the bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but the same day that Lot went to Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven." In both cases the righteous were delivered before the judgment of God came.

Noah was a type of the 144,000 sealed by God, so to speak, in the ark and protected in the judgment; Lot's a type of the church delivered from teh judgment. We also have the case of the three Hebrew children in Daniel who were protected in the fiery furnace. The question is, "Where was Daniel?" Do you think he bowed to Nebuchadnezzar's image?

I think not. He is mysteriously away. Many believe that the image of Nebuchadnezzar was a type of image of the beast in Rvelation 13; the three Hebrew children they type of faithful Israel protected in the Tribulation; and Daniel a type of the chruch protected from the Tribulation.


One word should be said concerning the argument that the rapture isn't a traditionally historic church doctrine. If we look at the traditional church history, and if we consider the church in the New Testament as being a part of the historic church, I believe that the scriptures clearly indicate that the early church was looking for the imminent return of Jesus Christ. The Christians were expecting Him to come at any time for them. In 1 Thessalonians 4 the believers were sorrowing over their loved ones who had died before the Lord returned, thinking they were going to miss the Kingdom Age.

Paul said to the Philippians, "For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who when He comes will change these vile bodies that they might be fashioned like unto His own glorious image." It's true that the anticipation of the return of the Lord waned during much of the church's history, especially during the Dark Ages.

Moreover, there are many things in historic church doctrine with which I don't agree. Historic church doctrine teaches baptismal regeneration of infants. I don't believe that the Bible teaches baptismal regeneration of infants. The historic church teaches the intercession of the Mary and the dead saints. I don't believe that the Bible teaches the intercession of the dead saints nor Mary. The historic church teaches the infallibiliby of the pope. I don't believe in the infallibility of the pope.

There are many things in historic church doctrine that I feel aren't scriptural. I don't look at historic church doctrine as correct in every form and concept, nor do I see the historic church as a model for us to practice or follow. The only true model is found in the book of Acts. By the time John wrote the book of Revelation, so much false doctrine had crept in, that over and over Jesus was calling for the church to repent (Revelation 2 and 3).

There are claims that the intrest in the rapture and its teachings grew out of the Plymouth Brethren. The story goes that in a meeting in England a woman began to exhort the church through the gift of prophecy, and she said that the Lord was going to take His church out and save it from the wrath to come. We're told that men like Darby and Scofield then begand to popularize this view.

In Daniel 12 the prophet was seeking an understanding from God as to the time if the end. The Lord told Daniel to "shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The increased knowledge in the context of Daniel 12 is the knowledge of the prophetic truth that had been sealed until the time of the end.

As we're approching the day in which the Lord is to take His church out of this world, it would olny be fitting that He make us more aware of the promise to the church of being caught up before the Great Tribulation. Why would the Lord reveal it to Luther, Calvin, or any Remormation church leaders? They weren't living in the age when the church was to be taken out.

The book of Daniel was to be sealed until the time of the end, and we're now in that time. Daniel 12:4 definitely promises that the knowledge of prophecy will be in creased. It's only right to assume that God would be giving us new insights into the understanding of His promises and of His Word in these days in which we live.

I don't know of any liberal church theologins who belives in the rapture of the church. However, it's a hope held by the vast majority of the evangelical Christians throughout the world-- for we truely belive that Jesus Christ is coming soon, and we look for Him to take us out of this wicked world system at any time.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!!

__________________