When do you believe the rapture occurs? And why?

Question

What view do you hold, post trib- pre trib or middle of the trib

Answer 1

prior to the great tribulation.

As you will see in the following verses, I feel there is very strong evidence from Scripture that there will be a Rapture - and that it will occur before the Antichrist starts the persecution of God’s saints, and before God starts to pour out His wrath upon the earth during the 7 year Tribulation. In other words, it will be a pre-tribulation Rapture.

1. This first verse is very interesting. You already know that one of the names of the Antichrist is the "lawless one" per the Scripture verse I gave you in my first article. This verse is definitely talking about the Antichrist. Here is the verse:

"And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming." (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8)

You know the lawless one is referring to the Antichrist because then the verse says that Jesus will destroy him when He comes back for the second time.

But look very closely at the phrase "only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed ..." The "H" in the word "He" is a capital H. This means "He" is either referring to God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

Since God and Jesus are in heaven right now, the "He" has to be referring to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has always been referred to as the One who restrains evil from getting out of control on this earth.

It says that the Antichrist cannot be revealed until He is taken out of the way. Since we know that the Holy Spirit still has to be down here even if there is a Rapture, who is "He" referring to? If there is a Rapture, there still will be a multitude of people that are going to get saved and then martyred. If they are saved, then they are sealed with the Holy Spirit, which means the Holy Spirit is living on the inside of them like He is with us.

I believe the "He" may be referring to the "Holy Spirit operating through the Church." This means that the Body of Christ, the Church, will be what is taken out before the Antichrist can be revealed.
Think about this. The Antichrist is going to be very easy to spot once he starts to enter onto the world scene. All of the Scripture verses I gave you on the Antichrist and 7 year Tribulation spell out exactly what is going to occur and there will be more than enough astute Christians who are going to be able to pick up who he is when all of these events start to occur.

With some of the powerful TV ministries that we now have in place, I am sure that the Body of Christ will be shouting from the rooftops once the Antichrist is spotted. The word will be spread and it will become very hard for the Antichrist to rise to the kind of power that the Bible is foretelling.
I believe that the Church has to be taken out, as the above verse is stating, before the Antichrist can be revealed to the rest of the world. And the above verse states that the Antichrist will not be revealed until "He" who is restraining him is taken out of the way!

Once the Body of real believers are raptured off the face of the earth, there will nothing that will be able to stop the Antichrist’s rise to power. The rest of the world is going to be easily duped into believing in this man - especially with all of the false signs and wonders that will be performed on his behalf by the False Prophet.


I believe the above verse alone is very strong Scriptural evidence that there will be a Rapture of God’s saints before the Antichrist actually rises to full power.

2. This next verse talks about those who are "alive" will be "caught up" to meet the Lord in the "air." Here is the verse:

"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be CAUGHT UP together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

This verse really seems to be implying that there will be a group of saints who are going to "caught up" or pulled up to meet the Lord in the air while we are still alive! Those words spell possible Rapture to me.

3. The next verse tells us of a "mystery" - that not all of God’s saints are going to "sleep" - and that this group is going to be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and that this event will occur at the last trumpet. I believe the Last Trumpet is God’s last call to His people, and that it implies that whoever is saved and born again when this trumpet sounds off will be raptured and spared from having to go through the horrors of the 7 year Tribulation.

I believe the word "mystery" is being used to let us know that God is keeping the possibility of a Rapture a secret and a mystery to the rest of the world. This is why many of the Scripture verses pertaining to this event do not perfectly spell it out or state it without any shadow of a doubt. However, there is enough of a hint in these verses for God's own people to pick it up, but not the rest of the unbelieving world. Here is the verse:
"Behold, I tell 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." (1 Corinthians 15:51)

I believe that the words "last trumpet" tells us this event will occur at the end of times. The words "shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," really do describe what could be a Rapture - the immediate vanishing or disappearance of God’s people from the face of the earth in the snap of a finger.

4. The next verse is coming direct from Jesus Himself out of the Book of Revelation. Here is the verse:

"Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth." (Revelation 3:10)

This verse could be literal interpretation - that Jesus will keep His Body of believers that are living at this time out of the hands of the Antichrist. He obviously will do it by either rapturing them off the face of the earth or by providing some kind of physical protection for them if there is no Rapture. My guess is that He will do this by rapturing them off the face of this earth.

5. Here is another verse from Jesus stating that we watch and pray that we be counted worthy to escape all the things that may be coming our way in the end times.

"Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:36)

This verse really seems to be hinting or implying once again that God is going to allow some of us to escape or be prevented from having to go through the horrific events of the Tribulation.

6. Now here are some additional verses that are not quite as strong as the above verses, but do suggest the possibility that God will keep us from these horrific events.

"... and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." (1 Thessalonians 1:10)

This verse either means Jesus will deliver us before the wrath comes, which would line up with a Rapture, or it may mean when He comes down for the second time at the battle of Armageddon to put an end to all of the carnage with the Antichrist.

"For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:9)

This verse could be implying that His Body will not be appointed or be subject to the events of the Tribulation - or the wrath could simply be pointing to people going to hell for refusing to accept Jesus and His gift of eternal salvation.

Answer 2

My Mission in this Life is to get people to come to
a realistic understanding of what is getting ready to
take place.
The Earth is going to go through a global catastrophe.
This will open the doors to other dimensions. Isaiah 24,
notably vs 18.
All of Revelation is cause and effect. The Domino
Theory, a chain reaction. Though we will make it 10 times worse but acting skeptical and not preparing, and then killing each other over our basic needs when it gets bad.
There are Evil beings out there, and they will create
as much chaos as possible. Why? What will they get out of it? NOTHING! They are Evil, and they do it in spite. So we can't get anything out of it!
When it interferes with the Free Will of other Life that doesn't normally relate to our world, which is multi-dimensional itself. God will put a stop to it.
The Rapture will occur right before the Wrath of God period like the Word says.

Answer 3

Never.
The rapture is an invention of some evangelical preachers in the Late XIXth and early XXth century. It has no real biblical basis. It's based on the idea God couldn't possibly let Christians suffer through the horrors of Revelations. This suspiciously resembles the Muslim idea that Christ couldn't possibly have been crucified and that somebody else had been put in his place. Furthermore, there's still a lot of debate among theologians as to what the book of Revelation means - few serious theologians take it literally. It was written at a time where stories of visions were common and was chosen by the Catholic Church, among many, to be part of the holy canon in the Middle Ages.
Even if you are religious, there is flimsy evidence at best than the text of Revelation can be interpreted as announcing the rapture.

Answer 4

Pastor Billy says: this question has been asked before please do a yahoo search.

Do I believe in it? Absolutely not, any bible verse used to propose it's existence refers to the last day. With regards to the idea of "left behind" when we examine the bible text we discover the good people are left behind and not taken. Like in the times of Noah and Lot who were taken? the bad people are taken!

This doctrine is getting an eminence amount of airtime and yet the Protestant denominations which push it forward form less than 1% of all Protestant communities.

This doctrine first got legs 150 years ago when a Anglican priest John Nelson Darby left the Church of England to start the Brethren movement in Ireland and England. It is a very dangerous doctrine as it creates confusion, misinterpretation and of course lack of responsibility.

Answer 5

The Bible says that we will never know until it occurs. However, there are signs that are given in the Bible that Jesus will be coming back soon. Of course, "soon" could be another 100 or 200 years from now.

I think He will come back and take believers with him and that will start off the tribulation period. After all, people will be freaked out that there will be so many missing people.

What do you think? What are your opinions? My own husband doesn't understand, so I don't have a lot of people to talk to about this.

Answer 6

every first friday of the month between 9 and 3, at the intersection of route 6 and route 66

Answer 7

Yeah, the Rapture Ready people are REALLY skating on thin scriptural ice with their elaborate end times scenarios which are based on almost nothing but fertile imagination.

Another good question is what happens if you're doing your toilet business when the rapture comes. Talk about being caught with your pants down.

Answer 8

I believe Jesus went through a rapture when he ascended and became truly one with his Father in Heaven. And we all know Jesus is the way to follow, right? So the rapture talked about in code in the bible for those who have eyes to see, is referring to our own personal ascension and uniting with our Father. It happened to Enoch, when he was out walking in the woods.

Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home...

Answer 9

well you could never know because only god knows when that's gonna happen he has it all planned out it could happen any time it could happen tonight, tomorrow, next tueseday,next year.....mabey even 20 years from now. we aren't gonna know when it's gonna happen that's why you should be right with and repent(ask for forgivness for your sins He died for us and rose again so you could repent and if you believe you will go to heaven the most beautiful place that is unimaginable when you die). you should read the Bible the procicy is already happening The bible says that Nations will be be at war That's hapenning they are gonna destroy Isreal.After The return of God His rath is going on to the Earth.The Left behind who change thier minds will be dieng for him because they are going to kill all Christians who are left behind.GOD'S RATH IS COMING SOON.Remember to always pray for people who don't believe pray that god will show them the truth.So I will be praying for you too.Do any of you know if you die tonight are you going to heaven or hell well if you pray this prayer and are really serios about being a believer then you would go to heaven So please pray this:
Dear Lord Jesus Please come into my heart I believed you died for me I believe you rose again with your help from this day forward I will live for you
In Jesus name ,Amen!
Now that you prayed that prayer you are going to heaven when you die.

Answer 10

I don't really understand how anyone, even a Christian, could ppossibly believe in such nonsense. I thought Christians were supposed to base their beliefs on the Bible, not a bunch of crap made up by some crackpot from the late 1800's.

Seriously, if you believe in the rapture, perhaps you'd like to buy some of my All-Curing Miraculous Snake Oil as well.

Answer 11

The rapture will come in the year 2,000...that's what all those guys on the religion stations were saying, and selling books about. Woops, the year 2000 came, and NO rapture. How could these men of god be wrong?