The following is part of my series proving a post great tribulation rapture and resurrection of believers.
(See here)
Through Tribulation
"Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." (Acts 14: 22)
The idea of entering the kingdom of God through tribulation is what is vividly portrayed in the Apocalypse. It is also in keeping with the prayer of Christ.
"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." (John 17: 15)
The pre-tribber believes that it is the will of the Lord to take believers "out of the world" so that they be kept from the evil of the great tribulation, but this is just exactly what Christ prayed would not be. It is the will of the Lord that believers be present during the coming great tribulation and that they be kept amidst it. This is seen in type in the old testament, in the judgments meted out on the land of Egypt just prior to the Exodus. The elect of God were indeed taken out of Egypt, were delivered from the plagues of judgment, but it was not until the judgments had been sent upon the land. If the pre-trib view were correct, we would expect that the Israelites would have been taken out of Egypt prior to the judgments being sent, but this is not what actually happened. Further, the Lord's keeping of the Israelites from the evil of the judgments upon Egypt was not by taking them out, but by preserving them in the midst of it.
"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." (Luke 21: 36)
The Greek word for "escape" is "ekpheugō" and means to escape out. The prefix "ek" denotes "out of." But, how can one escape "out of" the coming tribulation if one was never "in" it? W. E. Vine says it means "to flee out of a place" (ek, "out of," and No. 1), is said of the "escape" of prisoners." But, if a prisoner escapes from prison, does that not imply that the prisoner was first "in" prison? Earlier we saw how the saints "come out of" the great tribulation and this verse simply says the same thing.
"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." (Rev. 3: 10)
The Greek word translated "keep" (tēreō) means, according to Strong, "to attend to carefully, take care of" and "to guard," and "to keep, one in the state in which he is." Also the Greek word for "from" in the text is from the Greek preposition "ek" which means "out of." Thus, again, the promise is one of protection in the midst of the coming time of testing. Did the Lord not keep the Israelites out of the Egyptian judgments? But, how did he do this? Is it not by guarding and protecting them while they were yet in the land where the judgments occurred?
The idea that the rapture will take out all the godly and leave only the ungodly in the world is contrary to Scripture. Yet, it is the constant preaching of the pre-tribbers that this is what is to take place when Christ returns in the rapture. But, if this is so, then the harvest of the saved precedes the harvest of the unsaved, and this is contrary to the teaching of Jesus in the parable of the wheat and the tares. Jesus said that both will be harvested "at the end of the age." He also will say to the reaping angels "gather first the tares." (Matt. 13: 30) However, the pre-tribber says that the wheat will be first gathered.
The pre-trib view also says that the saints will be removed from the earth at the coming of Christ and that the wicked will be left on the earth. But, this is contrary to the Scriptures.
"But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it." (Prov. 2: 22)
"But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." (Matt. 15: 13)
"For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it." (Prov. 2: 21)
"For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth." (Psa. 37: 9)
Thus, the pre-tribber has it all wrong. The ones who are uprooted and taken away are the wicked, and the ones left are the righteous.
What think ye? Are the exodus judgments a type of the judgments of the Apocalypse? Is Israel a type of believers in the days of the great tribulation?
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