I believe in the Pretribulation Rapture (Pre-Trib Rapture). Many do not.
Some insist the Church will go halfway through the 70th Week’s seven years (Mid-Trib Rapture).
Others insist on maybe three-quarters (Pre-Wrath Rapture).
Still others insist on going through the entire seven years of the 70th Week (Post-Trib Rapture).
I wonder if the non-Pre-Trib Rapture proponents really understand what they are saying.
Let us look at some rather unnerving math about the 70th Week (aka the Tribulation).
The Bible teaches in Revelation chapter 6 that, by the time the first four Seals have been broken, 1/4th of the Earth will be slain. “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Rev 6:8, KJV).
Now, the elements are as follows: “To kill with the sword” is the 2nd Seal, the rider on the red horse. It wields a “mega” (Greek μέγας megas) or “great” sword. To a world that has seen World War 1 and then World War 2, this means World War 3.
“and with hunger” is the 3rd Seal, the rider on a black horse, an incredible worldwide killing famine “and with death.” For what form(s) that death will take, we need only to look at a parallel passage in Matthew 24: “and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places” (Matt 24:7b). So, the death toll from the 4th Seal will include people dying from plagues, and from earthquakes.
“and with the beasts of the earth” is the result of the catastrophic global famine, such that animals are starving so badly that they attack and eat people. How many people, in real world terms, will die from just the first four Seals, all in the first half of the seven years of the 70th Week (aka the Tribulation)? Let us do some math. (Be warned – this is unsettling!)
The estimate for the current world population is 7.6 billion people.
So, here is the math: 7.6 billion estimated now; 0.6 billion Pre-Trib Raptured assumed (only God knows exactly how many), 1/4th of those 7 billion killed during the first half of the 70th Week via the first four Seals. 7 billion divided by four = 1.75 billion. 1.75 billion divided by 3-1/2 years = an average of 500,000,000 PER YEAR.
Friends, that is a staggering number! That is not 500 hundred thousand (which in itself is a horrifying death toll). No, that is five hundred MILLION, a thousand times worse! That is more deaths than from ALL the deaths combined from ALL the wars Mankind has ever fought since the days of Adam and Eve to our day. If the Pre-Trib Rapture is not correct, then we as believers have to face a stupendous, enormous, overwhelming death toll (as an average) of 500,000,000 (five hundred MILLION) each year!
That means we can say to the non- pre-trib Rapture people: If your non- Pre-Trib Rapture view is correct, then YOU – personally – will likely die in a WWIII atomic mushroom cloud, or starve to death, or catch and die a horrible and deadly plague disease, or be killed in a colossal earthquake, or be eaten by wild animals. Yes, those deadly things are what will happen in just the first 3-1/2 years with the first four Seals being broken before the middle of the Tribulation. Yes, to such people, we have to ask, “Do you REALLY understand what you are saying?”
It is all well and good when the discussion is in the setting of an ivory tower academic format, but what I am trying to show – in real world terms – is what the horrifying ramifications are from Scripture for what people (those believing in a non- pre-trib Rapture viewpoint) would be facing.
As I write this, it is July 2018, nearly August 2018, which means there are just five months left to this year (2018).
If the Rapture happened by the end of this month (July 2018), and the Tribulation started in August 2018, some quick math will show 500,000,000 – *5/12 equals about 200,000,000 (two hundred MILLION) people will be dead, not by some vague, far-off time in some far distant future, but by Christmas or New Year’s – THIS YEAR (2018)!
Now I ask you: what could possibly happen to kill 200,000,000 people BY THE END OF THIS YEAR, in just a short five months? (That is assuming the Tribulation started this coming August 2018).
Folks, the truth is, once the 70th Week (aka the Tribulation) begins, God is not messing around. He will be judging the world for its wickedness, and people will DIE! He hates sin.
For two thousand years, He has patiently and lovingly extended grace to the world, offering the free gift of salvation to all who would believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, believing that though we have sinned and deserve death for our sin, yet God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should NOT perish, but have everlasting life.
Now that I have laid such horrifying death toll numbers before you, may I show you a reason the Pre-Trib Rapture is true, such that the believers in Jesus Christ, the Church—His body of believers, will not be here for these terrifying death toll numbers? (I hope your answer is, YES! Show us!)
The Lord Jesus Christ, in speaking of the Tribulation, said that those days would be like the days of Noah and Lot (the nephew of Abraham):
“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 21:26-30).
Back in Genesis, God approached Abraham and revealed He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their exceedingly great wickedness.
“And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD” (Gen 18:20-22).
Abraham began to plead with God over Sodom and Gomorrah (his righteous nephew Lot lived in Sodom). “And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:23-25).
In the day of Abraham and Lot, God would not destroy righteous Lot along with the wicked people. (The Apostle Peter called Lot “that righteous man” (2 Peter 2:7-8.)
So, we see from way back in Genesis, that God will not slay the righteous along with the wicked. We who believe in Jesus today are the righteous in this day and age, and God never changes. He will catch us up from Earth in the Rapture before that 500,000,000 per year death toll begins, so that He as the Judge of all the Earth will do right and not slay the righteous along with the wicked, “that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee.”
So, the Pre-Trib Rapture is correct because it is consistent with the very nature and character of God, not to “to slay the righteous with the wicked.” He will send Jesus one day (perhaps even today) to call us who believe in Jesus to meet the Lord Jesus in the clouds in the air, and so we shall evermore be with the Lord.
“Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.” Amen!
Maranatha!
(Contact Paul Kocourek on Facebook in the group, “Bible Prophecy and Grace.”)