April 2,2025

Part 1.

This evening a spent over an hour listening to a very popular podcast, listening to a Pastor attacking the theology of Dispensionalism and the Rapture.  I must admit I was irritated by the interview.  All these interviews, present us, believers in the imminence of the Rapture and dispensionalism, as fools who are simply misled by foolish Pastors.  They always present Darby as the investor of this made up theology.

And yet, when I read the scriptures it seems so clear to me!  

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17Text: "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Thessalonians 5:9

 "For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

( Tribulation is a time of God’s wrath (Revelation 6-19), and since believers are promised exemption from wrath, the rapture must occur before it begins.

Revelation 3:10Text: "Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.

John 14:1-3Text: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-8  "And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52Text: "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Luke 21:36

"Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man."

Titus 2:13

"While we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ."

Critics of the Rapture say the Word doesn't appear in the scriptures.  Well, Bible and Trinity don't appear either so do we stop believing in the scriptures and the doctrine of the Trinity?  Of course not.

A friend recently told me we can't believe in the Rapture because the disciples suffered such horrible deaths, why should we be spared suffering and The Tribulation.  My quick response was, what about the hundreds of years that Christians in the US have lived and died without the Tribulation and persecution.  Will those believers be sent to hell for just a little while so they too won't be spared?

From the Beginning we see God's mercy on His people.  God has never punished rigtousness (we have our righteousness in Jesus).  The pain followers of Jesus have suffered has been in the hands of non-believers.  Why would believers suffer under God's wrath and the wrath of the Lamb during the Tribulation.  This does not align with the message of Love and Grace throughout the scriptures.

Personally, I am sticking to my Rapture theology, eagerly awaiting the blessed hope.