Understanding the rapture and the Great Tribulation
The rapture is a time when Christians are caught up to meet Christ in the air
The Great Tribulation is a time of great trouble on the earth with suffering greater than any experienced before
The rapture may happen before or after the Great Tribulation
There's an amazingly simple way to settle a heated debate amongst Christians over exactly when Jesus is going to return, and I'm going to tell you about it right now. The debate centers around something called the rapture, and this event is described in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, verses 51 to 52. Both sides agree that there is such a thing as a rapture. Both sides agree that this passage is describing it. So I'm going to try to just center on what they agree on. The disagreement, you see, is over whether or not the rapture happens before or after another event, and that's called the Great Tribulation, a time of great trouble on the earth when there'll be suffering greater than any suffering ever experienced before. The rapture is a time when Christians are caught up to meet Christ in the air when he returning There total agreement on that There also total agreement that is described in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians The Tribulation is a time when there will be great suffering on the earth Total agreement on that Both sides agreed that it will happen and they agree that it's described in the 8th, 9th and 10th chapters of the Revelation. Those three chapters in the Revelation are punctuated by seven angels with seven trumpets. Each trumpet heralds another aspect of the Great Tribulation. Now, to settle the debate, one side says that the rapture, Christians going up to meet Christ in the air, will happen before the trouble begins. The other side says that Christians will have to go through that period of trouble, and then they'll go to heaven, then the rapture will happen. I'm going to read through the passage that both sides agree on from 1 Corinthians 15, As I read through it, I want you to ask yourself a question. That question is, how many trumpets are there after the last trumpet? Before I read this passage from 1st Corinthians I might just point out that there another passage in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 which gives a much better description of the rapture However, I'm reading this 1 Corinthians passage because it contains something that is most relevant to what we're talking about now. You'll see as I read it. It says, Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. Well, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Pretty easy, isn't it? If it's that simple, then the question comes, why all the debate? And the answer is that pastors today want to fill the churches and fill their offering plates, and in order to do that, they have to avoid uncomfortable truths. They have to say what the people want them to say. And nobody really, myself included, we don't want to think about facing trouble. But if we don think about it we not going to be prepared when the time comes For those of you who have started to read my novel Survivors in the first chapter we see how Irene Strait and her son Ramey are in great panic over the fact that trouble is starting and they haven't been raptured. I think this is a pretty accurate description of how it's going to be in the last days when a lot of people don't get what they were hoping for, and that was the free ticket to heaven without any trouble. Thank you.
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