Sample Chapter 10
Warning and Promise
The main message throughout this book is not just to educate you about the Antichrist, but also to tell you how to avoid him and the Tribulation altogether. The only way to circumvent the Tribulation is to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. If you are already a Christian, and you are reading this book for information on the Antichrist, you need to take warning because the time is near, If you are not living for Jesus Christ and not sold out to the Lord God of Israel and obeying the first command, you must do so today.
God’s Messengers
God provides man the opportunity to seek Him during the Tribulation. “Two witnesses” prophesy for almost three and a half years. Men try to hurt them, and they smite the Earth with plagues that cause rain to stop, and water to turn into blood. The beast who ascends out of the bottomless pit makes war against them and kills them. The nations rejoice at their death. God raises them from the dead and lifts them into heaven (Rev. 11:3-13).
Tradition identifies these men as Moses and Elijah (Rev. 11:16) because God gave Elijah and Moses the ability to perform miracles and because they both appeared with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration (Matt.17:1-3). Some associate the two witnesses with Elijah and Elisha together as a team because of all the prophets, they performed powerful miracles, which included raising a person from the dead.
In addition, to the preaching of the two witnesses, during the Tribulation 144,000 witnesses, consisting of 12,000 from each of 12 tribes of Israel, preach the Gospel to the four corners of the Earth (Rev. 7:1-9, 14:1-7). During the Tribulation while God shakes the world with His power, He sends His messenger’s. While a few will look to Him, the greater number of mankind curses God rather than turn to Him.
Despite the outpouring of God’s anger and judgments, He still desires that men seek Him. Revelation 9:20-21 declares: “after all of these plagues, man will not repent of his evil ways. Instead, he curses God.” This phrase repeats throughout the entire book of Revelation with each plague issued. This was the same reason that God brought judgment onto ancient Israel.
Those who become Christians during the Tribulation will most likely die because of the laws under the Antichrist and his pursuit of Christians or anyone of faith. While there is no way to escape the Tribulation once it has begun, there is route to avoid it altogether.
The Rapture
The Bible teaches us about Jesus Christ and forewarns the world about the horrific events that are yet to come. Those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior will not go through the Tribulation. God takes them out of the world in the Rapture just prior to the Earth’s final seven years. II Thessalonians 4:14-18 tells us:
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this, we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
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.
Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
In John’s vision on the Isle of Patmos, he saw an innumerable multitude of people dressed in white robes, praising God. John asked who these people were. The angel answered him and said: “These are the ones who come out of the great Tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9,13,14). Jesus tells the church at Philadelphia, He will keep them from the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole Earth.
In the Bible, there are instances of men of God who did not die but went straight up into heaven. These were Elijah and Enoch. Similarly the saints of God do not see death because just prior to the Tribulation they are Raptured out of the Earth and meet Christ in the clouds.
God ushered Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah before destroying the city. He commanded Noah to build the ark, rescuing his family from the flood. God brings those who have placed their faith in his Son out of the Great Tribulation. The Rapture occurs just prior to and after the sealing of the 144,000.
A major natural phenomenon may occur at the same time of the Rapture. Some may regard it as a rare occurrence of individuals disappearing into another dimension. Others may claim that aliens abducted the missing. Various experts will offer their explanations of how the disappearance of these people could have occurred. With strange events now occurring in nature, the Rapture will seem unremarkable to most of the world’s inhabitants.
Jesus Returns As a Thief
The Bible mentions seven references to Jesus returning as a thief and seven is God’s number of perfection. The Revelation mentions two of the seven. One of the verses in Revelation gives the same blessing we see in Luke saying blessed is he who watches or for those who the Lord Jesus finds watching.
The thief reference depicts Jesus’s role in the Rapture. In the Rapture, Jesus comes when we are unaware, and he takes those of us who are his, and he takes us out of the world. It is as if we are literally stolen out of the Earth.
Jesus says in the Revelation to the church at Philadelphia, “I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world” We also have John talking to the elder and asking of the large multitude around the throne and the elder tells John, “these are they who have come out of the great tribulation and who have made their robes white.”
Jesus gets very specific when He gives the illustration of two women woman at the mill, and one is left standing still. He also states that there will be two men in the field, and one man is left in the field standing alone. This is not a reference to the end of the world return because on that day, there will be an earthquake that will divide cities across the globe, and 100-pound hail pounds and men are described as hiding in the cliffs of the rocks. Women will not calmly be grinding at the mill or a man standing in the field on that day.
The Three Wise Men
For those of you who do not feel that the Bible is clear about the Rapture consider this: The three wise men went directly to the birthplace of Jesus and greeted him with gifts of Frankincense and Myrrh. How did they know he was there? Micah 5:2 states Christ will come out of Bethlehem, Daniel 9: 25 gives a hint to the timing of the prophesied Messiah. Numbers 24:17 states, A star shall come out of Jacob. That is an ambiguous reference to most. The wise men pieced it all together and knew the star referred to a literal star and followed the star, which is Venus.
There are only so many days when Venus passes through and reaches maximum brilliance. The extreme crescent phase of Venus can be seen without the naked eye. Herod inquired of the wise men what time the star appeared. This star stood directly over Jesus’s manager. How did they know from so few references to come to the timing and birthplace of the baby Jesus? The Bible does not call them wise for nothing. Think of it, who would have thought that Jesus would have a star as a sign of his birth? An actual star shining against the sky over his manger. It is the same with the Rapture. The passages are there but not as obvious God expects us to study his word.
Jesus’s Second Coming is Not the Rapture
When you read many of the passages minus, the ones in Revelation that are Rapture verses they sound like refer to Jesus’s second coming, but His return at Armageddon is not like a thief. In Daniel and the Revelation God provides the number of days from the abomination of desolation so Jesus’s coming at that time is not a big surprise. Because the Bible gives us the number of days, you know His coming is imminent.
At His second coming, Jesus appears in the clouds with armies as King of Kings. He is not coming as a thief at the second coming, He arrives as a King coming to battle. Jesus’s arrival coincides with the cataclysmic end of the world so no one is going to be surprised. At Jesus’s second coming there is not going to be a good deal of men left on the Earth. We know that ¼ of the world’s population dies in war. We have the woes that affect a third of the population and finally, the great earthquake and 100-pound hail stones. Tsunamis’ will be unleashed worldwide, huge landslides will occur from the leveling of the mountains, cities that will be divided and those who remain will be running for safety. This is not a setting for a thief. As Terry James wrote in his article a thief in the night, the Rapture begins the period of the day of the Lord.
The Rapture Will Appear as a Natural Disaster
Jesus is coming like a thief and will arrive when people are not expecting Him. He will take his own out of the Earth. The world will regard the event as if the people were stolen out of here. It is my feeling that the Rapture is going to occur alongside some bazaar natural disaster. When we see God’s throne in Revelation 11:19 see thunder, lightening’s great hail and an earthquake… Also around the throne and in our description of God and Jesus, we see fire and the light brighter than the son.
When Jesus said on the cross, it is finished, immediately there was an earthquake and the sun darkened. We also see in the Revelation when the seventh angel sounds it is done the earthquake occurs that divides cities across the globe. Around God and big events, we see His power and glory in things like thunder, lightening’s, earthquakes and events in nature. When the Rapture occurs, there is something that will happen and cause those of us to appear to vaporize or disappear. Remember when this happens it might not be so obvious that Christians were removed because there are those going up who we would not think to have accepted Christ and there are those who we would think have accepted Christ, who will not go up.
Unexplainable Natural Disasters
When I think of a time in history when people have vanished, I think of the Bermuda Triangle with the disappearance of 50 ships and 20 airplanes in a 50-year period. Freaky was flight 19 on Dec 5, 1945. Flight 19, and a squadron of five U.S. Navy torpedo bombers, vanished into thin air during a routine training exercise in peacetime.
Before losing radio contact off the coast of southern Florida, Flight 19′s flight leader was heard saying: “Everything looks strange, even the ocean,” and “We are entering the white water. Nothing seems right.” The aircraft and 14 crew members were never found, even more freaky, the search and rescue aircraft with 13 men sent to locate the missing planes disappeared too.
Talk about other strange natural disasters, The Tunguska event an enormously powerful explosion occurred in Russia on June 30, 1908. Over 1000 reports and papers later and scientists still are not in agreement about the cause and have speculated that it was made by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment (3–6 mi) above the Earth’s surface.
Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object’s size, on the order of (330 ft.). It is the largest impact event on or near Earth in recorded history. The Tunguska explosion knocked down an estimated 80 million trees over an area covering (830 mi). It is estimated that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. This type of explosion was capable of destroying a large metropolitan area and was about 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Witnesses recorded seeing a bluish light, nearly as bright as the Sun moving across the sky. Along with a flash and a sound similar to artillery fire. The sounds were accompanied by a shock wave that knocked people off their feet and broke windows hundreds of miles away.. It will be the same with the Rapture. It will occur along with some kind of worldwide natural event. Those on the Earth will be left feeling like a thief snatched us away and assume we were vaporized by it. Similarly it will be like when the sinkhole swallowed the Florida man who literally disappeared and was never seen again. Scientists will come up with their theories as to what happened.
The Bible’s Message of Hope
Although Bible prophecy presents frightening truths to the reader, its message is not entirely one of doom and gloom. Believers in Jesus Christ will not go through the Tribulation or have to live under the dictatorship of the Antichrist. If you know Jesus as your personal savior, God will take you out of the world in the Rapture just before it begins. God provides a way out. His way offers refuge and eternal life.
God’s gift of eternal life with Christ is simple to obtain, but few will take it. All men are sinners. Sin is anything that we say or do that does not bring glory to God. God is righteous, and the slightest sin within us makes us unrighteous in His sight. There is nothing in and of ourselves that we can do to obtain the favor of God. Isaiah 64:6 states: “And all our righteousness are like filthy rags.” God will not even accept one into heaven for his good works. Salvation is by faith alone. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works lest anyone should boast.”
But Romans 10:13 promises, “For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” God promises eternal life to anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as his personal savior. John 5:24 states:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, He who hears My word, and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but has passed from death into life.”
If you want to be sure that you are saved and that heaven will be your home, and that Jesus will keep you too from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole Earth, and from the Antichrist pray this simple sinner’s prayer and mean it with all of your heart and call upon the name of Jesus: “Oh God, be merciful to me as a sinner, I believe that Jesus died for my sins, and trust Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Thank you Lord Jesus for saving me.” Romans 10:13 affirms. “For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” It is as simple as calling upon His name.