I published the first part of this article a couple of weeks ago. I answered the claim of pre-Tribulation believers, supposedly bolstering their conviction, that if believers were not raptured before the Tribulation they would suffer from the wrath of God. This post is the continuation of that article. It’s a long post: scroll down if you need to.
WILL THERE BE SEVEN YEARS OF TRIBULATION WRATH?
Many people are certain that the coming Tribulation will be seven years long, complete with persecution, wars, plagues and stars falling from the sky. They have the impression that the first day of that seven-year period-when the ink is still wet on Antichrist’s “peace deal” document-marks the start of the outpouring of God’s wrath, which will continue for the entire period until Jesus returns physically in power and glory. Are they correct? I here demonstrate otherwise.
WHEN WILL GOD’S WRATH FALL?
If it’s God’s wrath which the rapture is to deliver us from as many believe, we ought to be sure about when that prophesied wrath falls. It certainly is true according to Revelation that God in His wrath will send plagues, colossal disasters, and the release of malevolent spirits. But how do we get a handle on the timing of such things, according to Revelation? There’s a clue given to us in the discussion of the sixth seal, which is first outlined in chapter 6.
THE SIXTH SEAL
The sixth seal opens with a “great earthquake”. There’s something very different about this seal. It’s incomparably more devastating than those before it, because it affects the very foundations of our familiar physical universe. The sun and moon turn dark, stars fall from heaven, and the sky rolls up like a scroll (verses 12-14). It’s at this point and not before, when the sixth of seven seals with all its unprecedented events has been opened, that the leaders of the earth concede or recognize the fact that the day of God’s judgment has come:
They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’ (Revelation 6:15-17).
Is it only the sixth seal which begins the wrath of God, or was his wrath released in the previous five? Why do the “kings” of the earth only recognize and acknowledge God’s wrath upon the opening of the sixth seal? Is it because they just don’t want to face up to the fact before it, or is it because the sixth is so devastating and awesome that their spirits are finally broken? Is it perhaps because all previous seals were “business as usual” events common to the history of man, while this one is undeniably the outpouring of God’s wrath? Could it perhaps be that the previous seals were not actually the outworking of the wrath of God? Is the opening of all seals concurrent?
THE SEVENTH SEAL
Upon the opening of the sixth seal the heavenly bodies react in cosmic proportions, and “then” (verse 15) the kings of the earth declare to themselves that the time of God’s wrath has come. Following the sixth seal is the seventh, and I’m not trying to be funny. The seventh is opened in seven stages, each announced by trumpets. It details events which utterly devastate the earth: hail, fire, blazing mountains, the total pollution of the waters, the darkening of the sun and moon, and the final plagues on humanity.
This seventh seal, with its trumpets, is clearly an outpouring of God’s wrath. It aligns chronologically with certain prophesies in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, as will be explained later.
(“Death on the Pale Horse”, by Gustave Dore, 1865)
SEALS 1 TO 5: PEACE AND SAFETY?
It’s difficult for us to actually commit to the idea that people are realizing God’s wrath has come only when the sky has rolled up like a scroll in the sixth seal, because we evangelicals have always been told that the beginning of a “seven-year tribulation” marks the beginning of God’s wrath. However, we can surmise with certainty that people alive during the sixth seal aren’t coming to the realization of the arrival of God’s wrath during a time of peace and safety. Peace and safety are prescribed by pre-tribulation experts for the first half of the envisaged seven-year tribulation, yet for some reason they include it in the time of God’s wrath. They tell us that Antichrist will make a “peace deal” with Israel and its neighbors, beginning the seven-year period, and that the world will think he’s a great man of peace and world order. Indeed, Paul did say, “When people are saying ‘peace and safety’, destruction will come on them suddenly” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
WILL THERE BE SEVEN YEARS OF WRATH?
Wait a minute. What about those four horsemen of the first four seals? Aren’t they riding out to conquer, to take peace from the earth, and to bring pestilence, death and Hades? How can they take peace from the earth at the start of this “seven-year” period if Antichrist is bringing peace to the world at that time? Isn’t this some sort of contradiction? Isn’t this a little confusing?
“…and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many” (Daniel 8:25 KJV).
FORTY-TWO MONTHS
Also, we’re told by Paul that Antichrist will be revealed when he enters the temple mount and not before. Why would people be hailing him as the great peacemaker before this temple appearance, since Paul tells us that his revealing only occurs when he enters the temple, three and a half years before the return of Christ, and not seven? Granted, he may be at work making peace before the temple mount incident but not revealed in his true colors until that point. However, surely any saints holding to the testimony of Jesus at that time (Revelation 12:17) who have taken the trouble to read their Bibles and all the books on the rapture, and all the “Where We Have Gone” notes, would see this peacemaker and know-before the temple appearance-that he’s Antichrist, before Paul said they could know. They would recognize him before Paul said he could be recognized.
Antichrist’s revealing at the temple mount is commonly agreed to be three and a half years before the end of the Tribulation, as Revelation states:
The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months (Revelation 13:5).
It’s at this point-the day that antichrist enters the temple, or stands in the holy place, that “great distress” begins, according to Paul and Jesus. This means that all those terrible events associated with Tribulation times, and the seven seals, cannot have yet begun. If they had, there would be no “peace”, particularly since the first seal unleashes a rider bent on conquest (Revelation 6:2). The beginning of “great distress” as described by Jesus and Paul would not be noticed if great distress were already taking place on the earth.
One answer may be that these four horsemen have been at large throughout history, and get temporarily “paused” by Antichrist. The other option is that they will only be at large after the revealing of Antichrist, who himself will bring devastation to the earth, quite apart from, or in conjunction with, what the second rider brings. Is he perhaps the manifestation of the work of the first two riders? Are these events concurrent? Is this why Revelation repeats a time period of three and a half years?
WHEN WILL THE DAY OF THE LORD BEGIN?
The day of the Lord is an important indicator of the onset of God’s wrath on the earth, in fact the two are perhaps synonymous. Paul, discussing “the day of the Lord” in his second letter to the Thessalonians gives as the first signs of its arrival a rebellion of some kind, and the revealing of Antichrist:
Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day (the day of the Lord) will not come, until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).
The day of the Lord cannot begin, says Paul, until after Antichrist is revealed, at the mid-point of that proposed seven-year period, or three and a half years before the end. Remember in conjunction with this that the sixth seal is opened before the kings of the earth recognize that the wrath of God has come. Surely, if the world had suffered a huge earthquake before the revealing of Antichrist, or if the stars had already fallen from heaven and the sky had rolled up, these would have been far more immediate and tangible signs for Paul to refer to as his onset of the day of the Lord? Knowledge of such disasters was not introduced as new revelation in later times by John, because Jesus spoke of them during his earthly ministry, and they’re mentioned in Old Testament prophesies.
No, those things will not yet have happened at the point Antichrist is suddenly revealed. All that will have happened, besides perhaps the increasing persecution of believers, is a rebellion. People will not yet have been begging the mountains to fall on them. Therefore the wrath of God has not yet fallen in the form of cataclysmic events.
SAINTS OF WRATH?
Some argue that the wrath of God will fall for the entire future seven years they envisage. The rapture will have taken place, according to them, and anyone “left behind” will, logically, be under that wrath. This is a problem for some, who have to admit that there will be believers in Jesus alive on the earth during the Tribulation. However, these believers are Messianic Jews, according to them.
Is being under the wrath of God okay for them? Is it alright for Jews to suffer the wrath of God while the rest of us are partying in heaven? Logically, the consequence of not being ready for the rapture, according to pre-Tribulation teachers who tell us that we have to be raptured in order to avoid the wrath of God, is that nominal believers and new believers will have to face all the horrors of tribulation.
There will be “saints” alive on the earth at that time. We read about those saints in several places in Revelation, and how they will be persecuted for their resistance to the kingdom of the Antichrist. Will those “saints”, who are followers of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:17) be under the wrath of God? Hardly! God said that they who give their lives for him at that time will be “blessed”! They will not be under wrath or any curse:
Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on’ (Revelation 14:12-13 NIV).
Since this is the case, how can we smugly see ourselves as the recipients of the blessing of a pre-Tribulation rapture while the saints of tribulation times will be under God’s wrath? Surely they will not be, even though they will be alive as humans in Antichrist’s kingdom. Millions of Christians have been persecuted over the centuries, and many are being persecuted this very day. Being alive in the world at that future time described in Revelation does not equate to being under the wrath of God!
A reading of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse shows his elect being gathered at the end of the Tribulation. I’ve written about who this “elect” may and may not be-search for “rapture elect” in the little box at the top of this page. The point here is that whoever comprise the elect, they are gathered during and after the events of the Tribulation. They are therefore not lost! Whatever has transpired while they lived and moved around on the earth, they are still gathered to Christ. This gathering may include the resurrection spoken of by Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Either way, they have not been lost to the wrath of God at all. Here, then, is evidence that the rapture does not at all have to occur first in order to allow believers to escape the wrath of God on the earth.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 