GO THROUGH THE TR IBULAT ION?
by Dr. Martin R. DeHaan
“ But 1 would not have you to be ignorant, breth ren, concerning them which are asleep, that y e sor row not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus w ill God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these Words.” 1 Thess. 4:13-18. In this first epistle to the Thessalonians Paul sets the hearts of the believers at rest with the assurance that the next event for them to look for is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, not after the millennium, but before that sets in. THE SECOND ERROR But this first error was hardly corrected by the apostle Paul when Satan foisted a second error upon the believ ing Church. Paul wrote his first epistle to establish the fact of a pre-millennial rapture. The second error, how ever, was in regard to the pre-tribulation rapture. Evi dently someone had written a forged letter to the Thessa- lonian Church, and had signed Paul’s name. This is very evident from 2nd Thessalonians 2:1-2, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That y e be not soon shaken in mind, or be trou bled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us.” 2 Thess. 2:1-2. Literally it should be read: “ Be not so soon shaken in your mind by a so-called spirit, or a word, or even a letter written over my signature, as though the tribulation were already here.” This spurious letter with Paul’s name forged at the end, informed the believers at Thessalonica that the trou bles and the tribulations which they were experiencing were already the tribulation of the last days. Naturally they were confounded and confused, for Paul had clearly taught them in the first epistle that they would be caught out BEFORE the tribulation set in. If this then was the tribulation through which they were passing, then it meant that they had been left behind, for the rapture
“ Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” 2nd Thess. 2:3 T h e Second Epistle to the Thessalonians was written to correct a false teaching concerning the church and the tribulation. According to the Bible this age will end in apostasy and war, and culminate in a period of trouble, sorrow, war, death and destruction without prece dent in all history. This period of time now rapidly approaching is called the “ tribulation.” At the close of this tribulation Jesus will return to this earth, destroy the man of sin, (the Antichrist) and fully restore Israel to the land of Canaan, and will set up His Messianic King dom of one thousand years here upon this earth, with Jerusalem as the capital. The Bible is equally clear that before this tribulation of the last days sets in, our Lord Jesus Christ will return for His Church, 'shout from the air, and the dead in Christ shall arise to be joined by the living believers, and together caught up to meet the Lord in the air, far, far away from the tribulation of this world. THE RAPTURE NEXT The order of prophetic events then is as follows. The next event will be the rapture of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the Antichrist will be revealed and set up his false millennial kingdom. After three and one-half years he will plunge the nations into the last great atomic war, seek to destroy the nation of Israel completely and prevent the return of Jesus Christ with His Church to this earth to set up His Kingdom. The last battle is called “ The Battle of Armageddon,” and will be terminated only by the personal return of the Lord to defeat the Anti christ and set up His throne in the city of Jerusalem. This program was the clear revelation of Scripture, and accepted by all of the early saints of the Church age, and believed by the Church in every age, and is called in Scripture, “That Blessed Hope.” But the Devil hates this truth, and seeks to pervert it, and to rob it of its blessing for the children of God, as well as its warn ing for the unsaved. And so from the earliest apostolic days, he has sought to bring in false doctrines through false teachers who taught that the Church would not be raptured either before the millennium or the tribulation period. In Paul’s day these errors were already taught and were quite prevalent. First, there were those who taught in Thessalonica that the dead in Christ would not be raised until after the Kingdom age. This greatly dis turbed the believers and they came to Paul with this vexing question. In answer to this false, post-millennial teaching of those days, Paul wrote First Thessalonians, and says in chapter 4:
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THE KING 'S BUSINESS
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