THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY

Let’s look at the words of the Messiah in the light of the other records which speak of his coming to gather the Saints, that “where he is, we may be also” (John 14:3).

Matthew 24:27, For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be…And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they (all the tribes of the earth) shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Does this scenario of his coming look and sound familiar? Let us peruse the writings of Paul for related accounts.

I Thessalonians 4:15, 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 precede 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.

Plenty of noise and glory going on here. This cannot be a secret to anyone on earth. Caught up, Greek word harpadzo, was translated into Latin as rapturo, from whence comes the term “rapture” as it is used in Christian circles today. “Caught up” and “gathering together” are used in the KJV Bible as the event described by Jesus of his coming again to his followers to receive them unto himself. The place he has prepared for us in his Father’s house, will be accessed via Jesus, who is The Way. Any attempt to approach the throne of God, other than by him, will be a futile attempt (John 14:1-6). He will come and get us how and when he told us he was coming, and not a moment sooner.

II Thessalonians 1:6, Seeing it is a righteous act with God to repay tribulation to them that tribulate you; And you who are tribulated with us, rest (Anacin) when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. P

ay back time is coming. The day of vengeance and the wrath of God nears. The tribulated church will rest (Anacin), yes, the pain will be relieved! When? When (and not a moment sooner than when) the Lord is revealed from heaven to gather the church and execute his vengeance and wrath on all those who have tribulated his people in the last days. The glory and power of the Lord will be revealed on that day.

Revelation 1:7, Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.

There is no secret here either. The last trump is the great day of victory for the Messiah and the faithful Saints. Every eye shall see and all the earth shall wail, who have not made him Lord.

I Corinthians 15:51, Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

If this is a secret rapture, the trumpet has got to go. If the English and Greek language can be depended on as a reliable means of communication, the speed at which this change will occur and the timing are both addressed in this verse. At the last trump is when. The last trumpet is not some obscure reference to a vague occurrence somewhere in the annals of ancient Hebrew history, it is the literal fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets and the establishment of the revelation that John and Paul received concerning the first resurrection of the dead in Christ at the last trump. Looking back at these verses after seeing them a thousand times, it is easy to forget that when Paul wrote concerning the changing of our bodies at the last trump, he was declaring a mystery. These Saints had never before heard this revelation. The mystery he was revealing to the believers at Corinth is the same mystery to which Jesus alluded, and God has kept secret until this time. It is the mystery of the new birth, when our corrupted or mortal bodies will be changed into a body that is equipped for the kingdom of heaven. Paul said the same thing Jesus told Nicodemus, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. Paul said the same thing Jesus told Nicodemus, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. We must be changed. We must be born again, just as Jesus was when he was raised from the dead. Jesus has been given the keys to death and hell. No one gets up until he raises us up; and the first to rise will be the justified in Messiah at the last trump. The mystery of the new birth will be executed at the last trump. John was told the exact same thing by the angel in heaven.

Revelation 10:7, But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, executed, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

Revelation 11:15,18, And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and THE TIME OF THE DEAD, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

Here it is at last. The last trump was revealed by Jesus to his servants, the prophets John and Paul. Through the mouth of these two witnesses (Deut 19:15), the when of the gathering of the saints to their reward was established. There is no confusion. This is exactly the same picture Jesus presented to his disciples, as recorded in the book of Matthew. Paul presented it to the Saints in tribulation in Thessalonica, when he was with them, and to those in Corinth, when he revealed the mystery of the new birth at the resurrection of the saints. This last trumpet is the day of the LORD and our gathering together unto him, thereby saving us from the wrath of God. The seventh trumpet is also the day of vengeance of our God, when he will tribulate those who have tribulated us. This is the glorious day of our deliverance from tribulation and the grave.

Revelation 11:18 refers to the time of the dead having now come at the last trump. Which time of the dead is this? It should be obvious to even the most casual student of the Bible. According to I Corinthians chapter 15, there remain only two times that the dead will be raised. This is certainly not the end resurrection after the millennial reign of Messiah at the White Throne Judgment! It is the resurrection of those in Messiah from all ages. The resurrection of those who looked forward in faith to the coming of messiah, such as Abraham, Moses, David, and those who looked back in faith, like Stephen, Peter, and his mother, Mary. This is the first resurrection, the resurrection of the just, the better resurrection. This is the resurrection out from among the dead, when the dead will be raised incorruptible and the living Saints will be changed. This is when we will be rewarded for faithful service by the one who raises us from the dead. This will be the execution of the “mystery of the resurrection out from among the dead and the changing of the mortal to immortality”, as was declared by the prophets (I Cor 15:51, Rev 10:7). This is the mystery of the new birth, the resurrection of the just, as was revealed and declared by Paul.

The reference to this particular “mystery of God” presented a great problem to me as a lifelong dispensational, pre-tribulation secret rapturist. When I considered the truth that this mystery is executed at the seventh and last trumpet, I had to go back and reinterpret the book of Revelation to fit what was revealed by Jesus. This was not comfortable to do, as I had over 25 years invested in my theology. But when I did, the chronology of events fit in a perfectly logical sense and I no longer had to shut my eyes to the myriad of evidence that does not make any sense at all to pre and mid-tribulation secret rapturists. After 25 years of reading it, the book of Revelation finally made sense from beginning to end.

When I say that the book of Revelation finally made sense, I mean that even the geopolitical spectrum that shapes the destinies of nations also began to unfold. Not only did the Bible begin to explode from cover to cover-unfolding God’s great plan of redemption, but the planned strategy of the rulers of this world (kosmokrateros) to devolve the world into the New World Order came alive in the pages of the prophetic records. The planned course of action that was published under the direction of the Luciferian Illuminatti and their present day atheist globalist offspring, began to make perfect sense. Their stated goal, to bring the United States and all nations into a one world government, has been moving relentlessly forward on several fronts. Fortunately for those who are watching, their plans can be clearly seen in the pages of history and the scripture. Their fulfillment is inevitable. Jesus said these things must come to pass.. but woe to him that brings the offense.

Some of these topics are part of the subject matter in the 12 hour seminar concerning the book of Revelation and the coming New World Order: From Here…To Eternity. Once the rug is pulled out from under the monetary house of cards and the coming economic earthquake ensues, there may be very little opportunity to educate yourself or prepare. From Here…To Eternity exposes the plan that will allow our melding into the final world government that will dominate the earth, and exactly which of the several options they will finally execute to bring about the Novus Ordo Seclorum out of the planned chaos.

The tameion rapture is clearly a violation of the warnings of the Messiah, as well as every scripture that concerns his coming for the saints in power and great glory. The secret rapture of the church is a heresy that has been affectionately accepted in the church for over 150 years. This snare was given its first public hearing in the first century by Philetus and Hymenaeus; it is still alive and well on planet earth. Some of the Christians were trapped into thinking that they had already missed the first resurrection. That appears to be the case as Paul writes to Timothy:

II Timothy 2:17-18, And their word will eat as doth a cancer: of whom is Hymanaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is already past; and overthrow the faith of some.

If the believers were mislead into thinking that the resurrection of the saints at the return of Messiah was going to be a secret, silent pre-tribulation rapture, it would be relatively easy to lead the gullible into thinking that the resurrection has already past and that they had missed it.

How much easier it will be to mislead disenchanted Christians into thinking that they have been “left behind” to endure God’s wrath – especially after a best-selling, pre-tribulation fairy tale of the same name has sown fruitless tares into the minds of American Christians. They have been primed by the teaching of the pre-tribulation rapture from birth. When the war that destroys national sovereignty decimates the earth, out of the ashes of this supposed “Armageddon” will arise “the Messiah”.

Very soon things are really going to get rough in America, during the coming economic earthquake and war. There are millions of Christians who live with the false hope of a tameion rapture before anything bad goes down in America, and before they need to change their lifestyle. When the seal that will plunge the world into economic chaos is stripped, revolution will erupt in the States, martial law will be declared, and your cold dead fingers will be pried from the trigger if you attempt to maintain your God given rights of self-protection and self-determination.

The nuclear war that Russia has been building toward at breakneck speed over the last “peaceful” decades, will plunge the world into chaos; the global government of the New World Order will emerge. The United States of America will cease to maintain the façade of the Christian nation that she once was. God will use atheist communists to judge a nation that has thumbed her nose at the Almighty, and now proclaims to all her offspring that there is no God. America will be smashed by Gog-Magog surely as Gog-Magog will be incinerated by God at the culmination of their invasion of Israel.

The New World Order of the “rich men of the word” (James 5) will rise up out of the smoke of this war, just as the Phoenix bird is pictured rising out of the ashes of the final glorious bloody revolution in the painting directly over the head of the secretary general of the United Nations. Satan has had this planned to perfection for generations. The plan is carried out by those who, unlike Jesus, have bowed their knee to Satan in return for the wealth, power, and glory of this present world. The plan is unwavering as it is carried out under the watchful “all seeing eye” of the god of this age, Satan. The evil in the heart of man is about to come to its full fruition in the most violent and bloody turmoil that mankind has ever, and will ever experience. Hitlers will be punished for being too easy on people. The transgressors will come to full maturity in this time of the wrath of Satan.

Those expecting the tameion rapture will believe that either Jesus stood them up and is not really returning or that the resurrection has already passed and they missed it. Jesus said that the love of God in many would grow cold. They will hate each other and betray one another to death (Matthew 24:12). These prophecies will be a reality in our lifetime. Closing our eyes to the warnings of Jesus will not make truth go away. How this hatred and betrayal could happen becomes apparent, when one considers the working of Satan and the mystery of iniquity. The stage is set for the strong delusion of the religious world.

Every one of the accounts that we read concerning the rapture is describing the very same event in specific detail. They are identical. One of the great mysteries of life still remains to be answered. Why, when the Bible shows the same clear picture of the coming of Jesus in all of his glory to gather the church, have we so easily fallen prey to the tameion rapture heresy and denied everything that he said to the Apostles, as if Jesus did not know about his return himself? The popularity of this doctrine has been legitimized by an over extrapolation of the “thief in the night” parable.

In Matthew 24 we have a parable that tells us that Jesus is returning as a thief in the night. What it communicates is sobering, but simple. If you know when a thief is coming, you will be ready for him and not allow your home to be plundered. The picture painted in this parable is a man asleep and drunk, with no idea that something is going to happen that will profoundly disturb his life. On the other hand, there are those who are aware that the times and the seasons are changing. They are doing the job that they were commissioned to complete, they are alert and prepared, so as not to be taken by surprise by the trouble that will soon be upon us.

All parables break down, as there are only so many similarities that can be compared from one situation to another. Only the point intended can be communicated with any amount of accuracy. What is the point of this parable? Accountability. When our Lord returns, what are you going to be doing with what he has entrusted to you?

Matthew 24:42-51, Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the Goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verity I say unto you, that he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellowservants and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This parable is scary. Jesus says that he expects us to be living our commitment to him. He is our Lord, and he has given us a job to do. Faithfulness will be rewarded, slothfulness and disobedience punished. He tells us to be especially careful how we live, and how we treat our fellow servants. We are fully accountable to our Lord for how we conduct ourselves and how we spend our time and money in these final years. Especially those who are his ministers! Is this the time to start a new 20-year building program? Is your life and ministry focused on the reality of the times, or are you living with the goals and aspirations of the past? Are you attempting to hold on to the American dream? Wake up! It’s gone! The priorities of the last generation should be considerably different from the generations that have gone before us. The Spirit of God wants you to know where you are today in relationship to the history of mankind and the plan of God.

Earlier in the 24th chapter of Matthew, Jesus told us of the snares that will catch the Christian’s and that many will hate one another and betray one another to death. The tameion rapture of the church is one of these snares. To teach that this parable of “the thief in the night” is indicating that life will flow gently down the stream until one day Christians will just disappear without a trace, is 99.44% pure nonsense. First, it destroys the solemn warning of accountable living that Jesus is making to his disciples. Secondly, it contradicts every scripture in the Bible that depicts his coming. This is just one of the fairy tale lifestyle pictures that has been painted over the eyelids of the sleeping, lukewarm Christian church in America. Where did we get the picture that no one will know that he has come and gone? The secret rapture has no grounds in reality, or in scripture. The fertile soil was found in the minds of those who have milked the cash cow of the prosperity gospel. If it feels good, it will sell! The secret rapture is the primary foundation stone to the “strong delusion” of II Thessalonians 2:11.

The strong delusion is the skandalidzo of Satan that will play out differently in the lives of each deceived Christian. Each person will be taken by their own ignorance of the scriptures. That is one of the reasons that Satan has worked so feverishly to dumb down the population through entertainment and the government funded public re-education centers that replaced an once independent school system. When one reads the Federalist Papers and realizes they were written to explain the constitutional republic to the general population of the late 1700s, then one can appreciate how dumbed down we have become. In the 1700s, anyone in America who would be considered educated, had to have a command of the Scriptures that few graduating from theological cemeteries today could comprehend. Our complacent ignorance has helped set the deadly snare for the mystery of iniquity.

The strong delusion according to the context of II Thessalonians 2 is: Jesus will come at any moment, and certainly before the Wicked one is revealed.

The strong delusion according to the context of Luke 21 is: His return is imminent, he can return at any moment.

The strong delusion according to the context of Matthew 24 is: Jesus is going to return in secret – before the tribulation to gather his lukewarm complacent church.

The strong delusion according to the context of II Timothy 2 is: The resurrection is past. Jesus has come and gone, and you have missed it.

The strong delusion according to the context of Matthew 24 is: Since you have missed the secret rapture, after the big war you can go see “messiah” in the temple. (Or just stay home and watch him on CNN).

The strong delusion according to the context in Mark 13 and Revelation 13 is: You don’t need to endure until the end, just say the sinner’s prayer, put the gospel of John on your shelf, and you are in. Don’t worry about the little microchip in your forehead!

The strong delusion according to the context of Dispensationalism is: None of what Jesus said has anything to do with the Christians, reeelllaaaxxx. We’ll be outa here before you know it. Don’t listen to Jesus, he will just confuse you. Listen to me! I’ll set you free from all the negative thinking that keeps you from being a full expression of the self-actualized individual you were created to be. Jesus just wants you to be haaapppyyy!

The strong delusion snare is set. The Christian church is expecting the lie and has closed their eyes to the truth. You had better start waking people up by shaking them up. The snare is about to be sprung.

If people feel more at home with a comfortable lie than they do the truth, they will believe the lie regardless of what the Bible clearly teaches. The Laodicean lifestyle does not go very well with the seventh trumpet resurrection of the just, but it does fit well with the imminent, thief in the night, pre-tribulation secret rapture delusion. The last trumpet gathering of the saints in the book of Revelation makes perfect sense. It teaches us to strip down to fighting weight and prepare for the deadly battle ahead. It constrains us to give our all now, realizing we will be judged and rewarded by what we have laid up in the Kingdom of God, and not by the junk that we accumulate and cannot take with us. Your death is a more imminent reality than the return of Messiah. We should live like we don’t have next year. We probably won’t.

The delusion of the pre-tribulation rapture allows us to live for the present time in relative comfort, if we have the things in life that can make us comfortable. We can live in denial of the trials that are part of dying Saints all over the world today, and deny that we will be required to make the same sacrifices in the upcoming great tribulation. The imminent return of Jesus theology has lulled the church of the last days to sleep, just as Jesus prophesied. Perhaps American Christians would have more cautiously guarded their nation from an internal atheist socialist takeover if they thought their children were going to have to live with the result of their sin, waste, and the ultimate judgment of God on this nation. Yes, it would be nice to get out of here before the piper has to be paid, but it won’t happen. Jesus is longsuffering, waiting for the latter rain and harvest. He needs us in there to do the work of the ministry until the last trump sounds. If you think you are getting out of here before then, you are deluded by your own over inflated self-worth. Of the twelve apostles, only John was spared a martyr’s death, and he was boiled in oil! War is hell. Yet, there are those who don’t even put on the armor and engage in the fight. The party is about over!

In I Thessalonians we see this day of the Lord referred to as coming as a thief in the night.

I Thessalonians 4:16, 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. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

Times and seasons is a figure of speech that is in use in nearly every culture and language of the world. It indicates the events that play across the stage of history, and the manifold changes that a careful observer sees in the natural world before the season changes. Life, after all, does not happen in a vacuum. Life is cause and effect, sowing and reaping. But there is a deeper truth beneath those words from a Hebrew perspective. We are oblivious to God’s reckoning of time, clearly defined in the Scriptures, but forsaken by the “Christian” world for a pagan sun god calendar. The western world has inherited a reckoning of time that is completely incongruous with reality. It is as if the hands of God’s clock have been broken from the face and we have no idea what time it is. The word “Season” throughout the scriptures is derived from the Hebrew word “moedim” which refer to the Feast of the LORD which the teachings of Paul indicate are “prophetic shadow pictures of good things to come”. But again, we in the western “Christian” world have inherited “holy days” that honour such perverse personalities as “Easter” the reincarnated sex goddess of the Babylonian child sacrifice cult, who descended from heaven in a giant egg at sunrise on the first “sun” day after the vernal equinox, and magically turned a bird into an egg laying rabbit. Even though these first century believers could not conceive of a time in which the entire world would have forsaken God’s reckoning of time; and the Feasts which play the prophetic symphony of the details of the Messiah’s first and second coming – we have been brought up in a culture in which the day, or millennium of the Lord can come upon us completely unawares.

“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them (as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape). But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief”.

The world will be crying out for peace at any price. Their personal safety will be more important than freedom of conscience or individual sovereignty before our Creator. In the aftermath of the coming desolation, all of mankind will be crying out for peace; for security. But their destruction will come forth as surely as a child will be born of a woman struggling in labor. There will be no turning back. Jesus is coming back in vengeance against those who have denied God and destroyed his people. Their destruction will come upon them as a thief, completely unaware. But we are not in darkness, we are not unaware of the signs of the times, and God’s reckoning of time is being restored now that we have returned to the Land of Israel. We have the light of God’s Word that tells us what must come to pass, and we can understand the prophetic shadows embedded in the Feasts of the Lord that were committed to Israel’s keeping. We will not falter, but by his empowering grace we will endure to the end.

That day of our deliverance is coming, when we will be caught up, raptured. The times and seasons are obvious to the careful observer. We see the day approaching. What day? What is the context? The day of the LORD which throughout the Hebrew scriptures refers to the seventh or Sabbath millennium which will begin Aviv 1, 6001, although that is not the day of the rapture. The day of the LORD also refers to the day in the seventh millennium that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. The dead in Christ shall rise first. The same day of the LORD spoken by the prophets will be fulfilled by the Messiah. That day to which we are not to be in darkness. That day that shall not overtake us as a thief. We have been given the specific parameters of what it will look like and when it will take place, so that we will not be deceived. It will be on the day that he saves us from the grave and calls us home. It is the day of victory for the Lord when he raises the dead, and gives the mortal a new, spiritual body, just before he pours out his wrath. The Day of the Lord is his day and his finest hour.

The Day of the Lord is used many times in reference to the gathering together of the saints of God. But for those “left behind” because of their disobedience to the commandments of God, it is a different kind of day. It is the day he takes vengeance on God rejecters and infidels. It is the day the “thief” takes the recalcitrant by surprise and breaks up their house. It is the day that he pours out the wrath and fury of Almighty God.

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober. (I Thessalonians 5:5)

Many are proclaiming, “Relax, there is nothing to be concerned about”, as the world marches straight into a Godless totalitarian one world government. “Jesus is coming back any second now!” No! We are not to be intoxicated by the promises of peace and safety from Moscow, the Oval office, Yassar Arafat, or the pulpit.

For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love (protect your heart); and for an helmet, the hope of salvation (protect your mind and thoughts, keep clear on your priorities). For God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

We will not be subject to the wrath of God as it is poured out on the earth. We will be saved from the wrath to come. When will we obtain this salvation? IN THAT DAY.

The day the tribulated saints will be relieved from the strain and pain of tribulation.

The day the Captain of our salvation returns to gather his elect, as he promised his disciples.

The day the angel of the Almighty will make a great blast with the last trumpet of God.

The day the living believers will be changed and caught up together to meet the Lord in the air.

The day he sends forth his angels to gather the elect from the four winds of heaven.

I Thessalonians 1:10, And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

Even though I would prefer to go to heaven much earlier than when Jesus says he is returning, we must patiently wait and endure, just as our fallen brothers and sisters did in Thessalonica, in Rome, in Persia, in Medieval Europe, in the German death camps, in the Soviet Gulags, in communist China, in Cuba, in Ethiopia, and in America. But glory be to God, we will be delivered before the seven bowls of God’s wrath are poured out. We will be received up into glory at the last trump. We are going to be delivered from the wrath of God, which has been promised for thousands of years. We will not endure his wrath, but the wrath of man and Satan will continue to be a part of our lives until the end of the age. That is just the way life is. It is written, “They that live Godly in the Messiah, will suffer persecution.”

Before the righteous judgment of God can be poured upon the earth’s inhabitants, the world must fully set themselves against the Lord and against his people. Before the entire planet is given blood to drink, they must be worthy of such wrath – because they have poured out the blood of the saints (Revelation 16:4-7). The world is, and must, polarize to the extremes. As the feast of unleavened bread reminds us, there is no room for compromise. We must aggressively obey our Lord and seek ways to separate ourselves from the entanglements of this world, while at the same time increasing our ability and intensity of reaching into the world to save that which is lost.

Romans 2:5, But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

The day of wrath is the day of vengeance of our God. This is the only reason that the Saints will be removed from the earth. They will not be subjected to the wrath of God, only the judgment seat of Messiah. The wrath of God has been promised as righteous retribution against the godless. The wrath of God revealed against Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim are pictures of the coming wrath of God. The angels sent to remove Lot and his family is a type, or prophetic picture, of the angels being sent to gather the saints (Luke 17:28-30). We will be taken to the sea of fire and glass, and the marriage supper of the Lamb. But at the same time the fury and wrath of God will be poured out on those who have tortured his saints. That day is our victory celebration. The day of his coming will be our day of redemption, and our day of perfection.

Romans 2:16, In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.

I Corinthians 1:8, Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I Corinthians 5:5, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Ephesians 4:30, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Philippians 1:6, Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 2:16, Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.

In order to teach the pre or mid-tribulation rapture, one must redefine The Day of the Lord exclusively as a period of time in which the Lord does the judging, in the future. This redefinition attempts to separate the day of the Lord pouring out his wrath, from the day of the Lord gathering the Saints. While it is true that the day of the Lord can, and at times does refer to a period of time in which the Lord judges, it definitely points to the Day that the Lord gathers his saints. It is the Day of monumental significance that ends the age of God’s goodness and longsuffering, and begins the Day of God’s vengeance and wrath. S we have seen in the previous six verses, the Day of the Lord, The Day of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Day of Redemption, and the Day of Jesus Christ, are all used synonymously. They are very clear in their meaning. They refer to the day that the righteous are gathered and the day of his wrath begins. It is the same day.

Great pains have to be taken by pre and mid-tribulation rapturists to keep us as far as possible from the last trumpet resurrection and the ensuring bowls of God’s wrath. Those espousing an early secret rapture avoid the “last trumpet” record in the book of Revelation. It clearly exposes their “added” ;unauthorized resurrections, and “taking away” the church earlier in a secret rapture. But I relate too closely with them, I did the same thing for many years myself.

They day of the Lord is when the Lord moves and shakes the foundations of the earth, and he will bring to pass a “very strange act” on the day that the Lord returns to gather his saints. That day will be the day of vengeance of our God, the end of God’s longsuffering, and the commencement of his wrath. It is the day the Lord Jesus does the judging. It is not an indistinct “period of time in the future”. It is the distinct day that he delivers his people from the hands of the enemy and takes vengeance on those who tribulated the saints of God, and it is coming soon. While the wrath of God is being poured out upon the earth, we will be standing before the judgment throne of the Messiah, giving an account of what we were entrusted in this life.

II Corinthians 5:10-11, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he had done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.

This warning is a little disconcerting isn’t it? I know it is for me. But…”work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. We are individually accountable before our Lord. We should all be a little more humble and disconcerted.

Jesus warned the “anointed ones” were going to falsely proclaim that Jesus has returned and you need to go out to him.

Jesus said, do not go, when I return I will send my angels to gather you together. You will not miss me because I will get you! He then said that religious leaders will prophesy falsely that he is returning to gather the church in secret and will not be seen. He said do not believe them. As the lightning splits the sky from east to west, that is how obvious it will be when he returns. Every eye will see him.

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