The Rapture --- When is it?
I noticed that someone did a search on “Google” today for the “most
probable timing of the rapture”. That
caught my attention because many must want to get directly to that question
without wading through tons of books all of which seem to have different
conclusions. And most importantly, what
does the Bible say? So I have tried to
lay out as simply as possible that which Jesus teaches about the timing of the
rapture. He is the only authority we
should be listening to. In what
follows, the “rapture” will be considered the same as the “harvest” which is
the same as the “gathering in the air” described in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
Let’s begin where Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 24:13, “Those who endure to the end will be
saved.” He was answering their question
about when would be the end of the age, so when He said “to the end” He meant
to the end of the age. Then in Matthew
13:39, He says that the harvest is the end of the age. So when we put these two verses together, we
see that Jesus is telling His disciples to endure to the harvest at the end of
the age. And this is confirmed by the
parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13:30, where Jesus explains that
the wheat and the weeds are to grow up together until the end of the age, and
then He will harvest them together and separate one from the other. And in Matthew 28:20, He tells His disciples
that He will be with them until the end of the age. In other words, their commission to go into the world and preach
the gospel will last until the very end of the age because they will be on
earth until the very end of the age. He
says the same thing in many different ways, and the bottom line is that we are
to endure to the harvest at the end of the age.
There are further portrayals of this harvest in Revelation 14 and in
Matthew 24:31. In Revelation 14:15-16,
Jesus is portrayed as coming in the clouds and sending His angels to gather the
elect. It is the same scene portrayed
in Matthew 24:31. But in Revelation,
the timing is more obvious. Right after
the harvest, in the beginning of Revelation 15, we see the harvested elect in heaven just before the final bowls
of wrath are poured out. This explains
the scripture that says that the elect are “not appointed to wrath” and also
indicates that the timing of the rapture takes place at the seventh or last
trumpet just before the first bowl of wrath.
Matthew 24:29-31 "But immediately after the
tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE
ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens
will be shaken. "And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in
the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the
SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.
"And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY
WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to
the other.
Revelation 14:14-16 Then
I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was one like a
son of man, having a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His
hand. And another angel came out of the
temple, crying out with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, " Put in
your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the
earth is ripe." Then He who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over
the earth, and the earth was reaped.
Revelation 15:1-2 Then
I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven
plagues, which are the last, because in them the
wrath of God is finished. And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with
fire, and those who had been victorious over the
beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass,
holding harps of God.
However, this does indicate that the majority of the church will still
be on earth during the trumpet judgments --- which are the beginning of God’s
wrath --- since the bowls of wrath are defined as the end of God’s wrath. The precedent for this is the Israelites
living unscathed in Egypt while the plagues were being poured out all around
them. This will be in part because the
trumpet judgments only effect certain portions of the earth. And we read that those marked with the seal
of God in Revelation 9:4 are protected from the trumpet judgments. God can protect His people in the midst of
judgment and wrath without removing them from the earth. However, when the final bowls of wrath which
destroy the whole earth are poured out, the church is already in heaven. The rapture or harvest or gathering in the
air has already taken place by then.
You’re going to find a thousand and one books and reasons why the
rapture is at one particular time or another.
My suggestion is that you set all that
aside and meditate on these few scriptures and ask Jesus to speak to
your heart directly. It is the Holy
Spirit who leads us into all truth.
There is much more that can be said, but I believe these few verses lock
in the answer to the question of rapture timing.
There is a more detailed discussion of rapture timing for those
interested at http://www.restoringthevision.com/Ch10RtheV.htm