What about the timing of the rapture? That’s another hotly debated subject in the church.
While most acknowledge the day and hour is unknowable, is that day and hour before the tribulation, during the tribulation, or at the end of the tribulation? (These are the pre-, mid-, and post-tribulation rapture views). Does not knowing the day or hour mean we can’t know anything about the timing of the rapture in relation to the tribulation? That depends on which timing view you hold to. If you believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, then seeing things develop that will be fulfilled during the tribulation should stir up a sense of expectation and excitement because it could happen at any time. But if you are mid- or post-trib, then you know that because the tribulation has not yet begun, there is no expectation that the rapture could occur within the next three-and-a-half or seven years.
Not only has there been significant debate about the timing of the rapture, there are some who reject the idea of a rapture altogether: “Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:3-7).
Sadly, there are a multitude of “rapture scoffers” with us today who are fulfilling Peter’s warning. This is also consistent with Jesus stating that He would come at a time when He was not expected (Matthew 24:44). If you don’t believe in the rapture, you certainly aren’t going to be expecting it.
In 2 Thessalonians 2, the next point Paul makes to the church is, “Let no one deceive you” about this (verse 3). Then he lists a progression of events that will initiate the march toward the destruction of the man of sin by the brightness of Jesus’ second coming. Here is our point of interest: Lawlessness is already at work. That which is restraining the rise of the antichrist and his kingdom is going to be taken out of the way, and then—and only then—will the lawless one be revealed. What is the restraining force holding back utter lawlessness in the world today? The Holy Spirit. What is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit? In the saints who make up the church.
That means that if the restraining force holding back the rise of the antichrist is the Holy Spirit, and if He dwells in the saints or the church, then the church must be taken out of the way for the lawless one to rise to power. If there is no rapture, then this progression doesn’t make sense. For how can the world’s only source of salt and light be present at a time when there is no restraining force on the earth?
This leads to another question: Can the true church be present on the earth and not be a restraining force by the power of the Holy Spirit? Can the true church cease from being salt and light? What is the solution to our question and prophetic dilemma? The rapture.
“Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 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 21:34-36).
The word “escape” means “to flee out of.” Jesus described this time as one that no flesh would survive unless He did not return to stop it, and He warned that it would be a time of global judgment. Where, then, do hundreds of millions of Christians “flee out of ” in order to escape that judgment? What do those verses mean if the church goes through the tribulation?
