Pre-Rapture Tribulation

We need to coin a new term, Pre-Rapture Tribulation. Most American Christians believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. That belief has been around for a long time, and it leads to a false sense of peace and safety. It is not the “blessed hope”, it is a false hope. These believers expect to be taken up by Jesus before God pours out tribulation and judgment solely upon the unbelievers during a seven-year great tribulation.

That is not the way it will happen. We must take the risk to study the Scriptures and challenge that entrenched belief¹. We need to throw away thousands of books written about the last days that are built on the foundation of a seven-year tribulation, and a rapture preceding it. We need to heed God’s true warning that extreme tribulation will indeed be a mark of the end of the age, but it will not be a seven-year period. We need to understand that Jesus will return to rescue his beloved bride who will go through that period of testing and purification. Hence, a new term must become part of our vocabulary as we teach and discuss the end times – Pre-Rapture Tribulation (replacing the misnomer, pre-tribulation rapture). Otherwise, our hearts and minds will not be prepared to endure the extreme tribulation that we must traverse before Jesus returns to redeem us and catch us up to Himself.

We recently enjoyed a family Christmas celebration together, twenty of us in all. I read the Christmas story from Luke 2, and combined it with the passage from Philippians 2 to reinforce that the baby Jesus in the manger was actually God in human form, come to give his life to save us from our sin. I also sang for them “Stille Nacht”, to remind them of our German heritage. But after sharing the Christmas story I briefly reminded them that Jesus was going to come back again, a second time. As much as the family loved and supported one another that evening, thoroughly enjoying the embrace and love of family, I mentioned that in the near future our family support might take on a new dimension. Knowing that most of them had been taught that we would all be raptured and escape the great tribulation, I wanted to briefly introduce them to the realization that we will be enduring extreme tribulation before Jesus comes the second time -- tribulation in America as well as throughout the world. Then our love and support for each other might take on a new form, a deeper urgency, encouraging and helping each other to endure to the end.

As I mentioned the prospect of coming tribulation, I happened to glance at my high school granddaughter. She wrinkled up her face in anguish and disbelief at the thought of turmoil and distress. Then a couple days later our college age granddaughter called Grandma and asked her, “When does Grandpa think the rapture is going to happen?” Carol told her that it may happen as soon as the next ten years². Overhearing the conversation, I was grieved that she was still hoping and expecting to blissfully be raptured before that extreme tribulation that Grandpa had mentioned on Christmas night.

That little glimpse in to my own family’s response to the concept of pre-rapture tribulation made me realize, yet again, how very, very difficult it is to change the heart and mind of American Christians regarding the true nature of the last days. The prophecies that God gave us about the last days are to warn us, to prepare us, so that we will remain faithful. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will not fear!” Help me, Lord, to trust you, always.

1      In my book, Right At The Door, I dedicate an entire chapter to the great deception of a seven-year Great Tribulation.

2      Such an audacious suggestion of ten years is discussed in my blog, “As in The Days of Noah”.