Author’s note: This article was posted originally on Raptureready.com on March 7, 2016. It is re-posted here because some of the same concerns as back then are being expressed through emails and in other ways. My response remains the same because God’s Plan in regard to the Rapture hasn’t changed.

We have looked a number of times in this column at those who mock the end-times message and the Rapture in particular. Because those who scoff have been of the abrasive, unbelieving variety for the most part, there is a standard Bible verse reply I’ve usually employed in response.

The scriptural reply has most often been intended to let those mocking know that they are, in actuality, fulfilling Bible prophecy.

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).

As of late, however, such a reply doesn’t quite fit that which should compose an appropriate response. That is because the questions are coming weekly from genuine believers in the Pre-Trib Rapture of the Church. These Christians are worried–some very worried.

These look around them, and on every side they see and feel the satanic pressures from this fallen sphere closing in. Issues and events –the very ambience in which they find their lives engulfed–generate thoughts that their circumstance is beginning to look much like the Bible’s description of the Tribulation itself.

To illustrate the growing angst, I’ve chosen the email of one such Christian brother who wrote this past week. His words pretty much get right to the point of the many other emails expressing like emotion. Here it is in its entirety:

Why is the Lord delaying the rapture? It should have happened years ago. We would be in the millennium now enjoying true peace and prosperity without the suffering. I don’t get it. It’s God’s call, of course, but 58 million aborted babies in the US since 1973, Christians tortured and murdered worldwide, people who believe in Jesus longing for his return suffering immensely. I don’t get it. Where is our Lord and Savior?

The emailer didn’t use any soft nuances of greetings or any other niceties. He just laid his spirit-distressed emotions right out there.

You don’t answer such gut-wrenching concern with the apostle Peter’s prophecy, as given above. This child of God is worried. He is puzzled; he is perplexed. It’s the kind of questioning I’ve heard in my own kids’ anxieties when they were young and felt disappointed for one of my failures or the other to keep a promise. “Dad should never let me down like that” is the tone.

Only this perceived unkept promise isn’t from an imperfect human father. I say “perceived unkept promise” because the promise isn’t unbroken whatsoever. The error is in the question of the imperfect child asking it. His Perfect Father will, as always, be one hundred percent faithful to keep every promise made.

The Lord Jesus, Himself, in His ascended position, said the following to John the Revelator:

“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10).

Jesus said it, and that means the Heavenly Father said it–promised it! Jesus said that He and the Father are One. They are inseparable–one and the same–the first and second Persons of the Godhead–the Trinity.

God cannot lie, the Scripture tells us. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God keeps His promises. So, this brother in Christ, like all the other believers who look to the “blessed hope” of Titus 2:13, who are in fear and worry while watching this fallen world closing in, need an answer from the Word of God.

The Heavenly Father gave the answer to Peter to pass along to us, just a bit farther on in Scripture. The answer to why the Rapture hasn’t occurred as soon as almost all of us wish it would occur is, at least in part, wrapped up in the following:

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

The Tribulation that will follow this Age of Grace will be filled with horrors that even John, under divine inspiration, had trouble describing. The Lord wants to provide every moment possible during this present dispensation for those lost in their sin to come safely into the shelter who is His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. God wants this for the lost because, following the Rapture, making the decision to accept Christ for salvation will be more difficult by a multiple of factors. Facing beheading is but one of those factors!

That is the reason–or at least a primary reason–the Rapture hasn’t yet occurred in this generation, according to God’s Word.

That said, I must take notable exception with the emailer’s contention that God is “delaying” the Rapture. You can take this to the bank–well, to the banks the way they used to be–God is not delaying the Rapture. It will happen precisely in the twinkling of the eye at the moment the Father has determined.

Jesus said: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36).

God knows exactly the instant He will send His Son to get His Bride, make no mistake. There is no delay.

On that note, issues and events closing in on us show that we are almost certainly very near that exhilarating moment of instantaneously finding ourselves face to face with the Lord Jesus. Just how near we are to the Rapture–if we could indeed know–would likely allay all fears.

I’m excited to tell you that my new book, Rapture Ready … Or Not: 15 Reasons This Is the Generation That Will Be Left Behind, is at present being prepared within the publishing process. Because of the lateness of the prophetic hour, I sense to a degree never experienced before that this is a book I’ve been commissioned to write. We will be able to tell you more soon, Lord willing.

Authors note: That book, published in 2016, is available on Amazon.

 

Things of ominous import are ratcheting up in the Syrian and Lebanese regions of the Middle East cauldron. So high have rumors of a major Israeli strike soon to come raised fears that Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian dictator, has deemed to take his entire family on vacation somewhere distant from Damascus.

Both Israeli and Arab press report Assad has abandoned the Syrian capital and that he did so suddenly and with little announcement.

The latest war-making revolves around the IDF taking out a major Iranian terrorist leader/diplomat in a building near the Iranian Embassy.

Iran has gone on a campaign of threat that has everyone in the region on high alert. Israel fully expects there will be retaliation, probably of a spectacular sort, for the taking out of senior Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus in a strike upon a building adjoining the Iranian consulate.

(See update below.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and high-ranking members of the IDF have vowed severe actions if Iran does something dastardly in retaliation for taking out one of their most heinous terrorist plotters.

Israel has constantly been battling Lebanese military forces on the border of Syria and holds Syria responsible for allowing those forces to launch attacks and retreat to within Syria. Israeli military command has vowed that action will be taken to eliminate threats from Lebanon, even if Damascus is involved.

Iran has, rather than back down, vowed to make Israel pay for the killing of their Guard. Most who keep close tabs on the situation in the region believe this is the cause of Assad and his family taking the sudden leave, claiming it’s vacation time.

The following news excerpt further enlightens on the volatile situation that threatens stepped-up war-making.

In a message to Israel, Iran sent its foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdollahian, to Damascus on Monday, a week after an airstrike in the city struck a building adjoining its consulate, killing senior Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi. Iran has vowed revenge on Israel, accusing it of the strike…

He paid tribute to the Syrian and “Iranian martyrs” during his visit and also slammed Israel.

During the visit, Syria said that it does not recognize the “Zionist regime.” Under the Assad regime, Syria was always one of the holdouts in the region that did not recognize Israel and has considered itself part of the “axis of resistance” linked to Iran. However, the Assad regime has known since the mid-1970s that it will never defeat Israel.

Since the Syrian Civil War broke out in 2011, the regime in Damascus was weakened, and so invited Iran to send over militias and the IRGC. Iran then used Syria as a testing ground for its militias to move weapons to Hezbollah and drones to Syria.

Starting in 2018, Iran began to increase threats to Israel from Syria, using drones flown from the T-4 base near Palmyra and built a base near al-Bukamal called Imam Ali. It also encouraged Hezbollah to open the “Golan file” and move Hezbollah members closer to the border. Hezbollah has been attacking Israel since October 8.

Russia and Iran manipulate Syria for different goals

Syria has now joined Iran in publicly slamming Israel, claiming it is helping “mobilize” the international community against Jerusalem. However, the real powers behind the throne in Damascus are both Russia and Iran. They may not always agree on everything, but Russia has exploited the Hamas war on Israel for its benefit, which Iran has done as well, hoping to isolate and weaken Israel. Iran’s message in sending its envoy is that it will continue to seek to punish Israel.

[Source: Iran FM threatens Israel amid symbolic visit to Damascus, By SETH J. FRANTZMANAPRIL, APRIL 8, 2024 The Jerusalem Post]

(And now an important news update from the time this commentary was begun.)

Iran directly attacked Israel, sending drones and a few missiles toward Israel –around 300 in total. None landed within Israeli territory but were destroyed or landed outside Israel’s boundaries.

One 7-year-old Arab girl in a Bedouin village was seriously injured in the attack and was reported as hospitalized.

The Jerusalem Post reported the following.

The IDF has updated that the full Iranian attack consisted of over 300 threats, of which 100 were ballistic missiles launched from Iran. Another 30 cruise missiles were launched from the Islamic Republic, along with drones. There were also two rounds of rockets, around 40 total, fired on Israel from Lebanon, with Israel responding with counterattacks in close to real-time…

Israel, the U.S., the U.K., and Jordan worked to intercept the drones and missiles over Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel, according to foreign reports. France also assisted in shooting down the aerial threats.

[Source: Iran attacks Israel: No drones, cruise missiles breached Israeli airspace, By YONAH JEREMY BOB, TZVI JOFFRE, TOVAH LAZAROFFAPRIL 13, 2024 22:47 Updated: APRIL 14, 2024 10:36, Jerusalem Post]

A CBS news report said that President Joe Biden called Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu after the attack on Israel and told him the United States won’t support a retaliatory action against Iran – that the U.S. doesn’t want a wider conflict in the region.

Damascus is known to be the city that harbors headquarters for practically every official Muslim terrorist organization that exists. Iran is known to be sponsor for a number of these. This fact might well be the primary catalyst for bringing about the city’s Biblically Forecast doom.

To the observer of these prophetic times, the likely implication of things heating up by the moment involving Syria can’t be missed. The Isaiah prophecy comes instantly to mind when thinking on all of this that is developing so quickly.

“The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isa 17:1).

We can’t know if Bashar Al-Assad has studied Bible prophecy and has looked at this Isaiah Foretelling. But his sudden decision to get out of Dodge –rather, out of Damascus—sure makes it seem as if he has seen the handwriting on the wall…

With such tyrants, such allusions or idiomatic expressions probably don’t come close to applying. But to “Watchers on the wall,” it seems appropriate to conclude that the “handwriting is on the wall” and that Isaiah’s Damascus Foretold fate might well be determined to be forming at this present hour.