10/07/2009
In our last message we saw that the Great Tribulation, as    foretold in scripture, is a period of unparalleled trouble that is coming upon the earth when God's judgments will be out poured. Where will the Church be when this terrible time is ushered in? We believe the Church will be removed from the earth before the Great Tribulation  begins, for Jesus will have come and gathered His own to Himself, according to John 14:3.

What are our grounds for believing this?

 1.   When we consider the nature of the Church, her calling and election, her place in the divine    program and her relationship to Christ, surely the Church cannot go through the Great Tribulation.

 The Church is a "called-out" company of believers, of Jews and Gentiles from every nation under Heaven,  look up

Acts 15:14. ¹⁴Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.

The place of the Church in the   divine program is in the nature of a parenthesis, and that parenthesis ends with the "mystery" of the Rapture, 1 Cor. 15:51-53; 1 Thess. 4:16-17. When the Church has been completed and translated, then the prophecies relating to Israel will take up their course again. Moreover, consider the relationship of the Church to Christ, Eph. 5:31-32. The Church is the Bride of Christ, and to make the Church go through the Tribulation would be to subject Christ Himself the second time to the visitation of God's wrath.

 2.   Not one syllable of scripture affirms that the Church will go through the Great Tribulation, nor can there be found anywhere any warning to believers to prepare for the Great Tribulation.

 If it had been part of the divine program that the Church should pass through the Great Tribulation, would not our Lord have 

referred to this fact and have warned His disciples and us of it?

 Yet in John, chapters 13, 14, 15,16 and 1 7, where He was speaking to "His own", and not with reference to events after the Rapture, which have a special relation to the Jews, not a mention is made of the Great Tribulation. He only spoke of this in Matthew, chapters 24 and 25; Mark, chapter 13, and Luke, chapter 21; but these statements and warnings have no relation to the Church at all. Our Saviour's great word to the Church is John 14:1-3. In addition to this, when we turn to the Epistles, which were written specifically for the Church, here again we find there is no word of warning to believers to           prepare for the Great Tribulation.

 3.   If the Church is to go through the Great Tribulation, then many scripture promises have  encouraged believers with a false hope.

The great hope of the Christian is not death, or even Heaven; it is "the blessed Hope", look up Titus 2:11-13. 

¹³Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

 

 The doctrine of the Lord's Return is presented in scripture as an incentive to holy living, 1 John 3:2-3; to patience, Jas. 5:7-8, and to a diligent walk, 1 Pet. 1:13-15. If the Church must go through the Tribulation then we should be looking for the Tribulation and not for the imminent return of our Lord; but look up            1 Thess. 1:10! The great "hope" which Paul holds before believers is that they may go without dying; and if they have to go through the Tribulation first, would it not be better to die than to be alive?

 4.   The scriptures expressly teach that the believer is delivered from wrath and that judgment is past, but the Great Tribulation will be a time of fearful judgment. the time of the "wrath of the Lamb".

 Psalm 2:5 tells us that the Great Tribulation will be a visitation of the wrath of God upon His enemies; but we are not His enemies and there is no wrath reserved for us, for Christ has borne our judgment for sin at Calvary, John 5:24; ²⁴"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. "

  Rom. 5:9; ⁹Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

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

 5:9.  ⁹For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

 If Christians are to go through the "purgatory" of the Great Tribulation, why must only those Christians who are alive have to put up with this fearful judgment?

 5.   In the Book of Revelation, most of which is a        panoramic view of future events, the Church is   represented as being in Heaven before the Great Tribulation period begins. 

The Great Tribulation cannot take place before the Lamb opens the book with the seven seals, Rev. 5; it is only after these seals are broken that the trouble  begins, Rev. 6.

 

(1)     The translation of Enoch before the judgment of the Flood, Gen. 5:24; Heb. 11:5, typical of the rapture of the living saints, 1 Thess. 4:17,

          prior to the time of fearful judgment upon the earth.

 

(2)     The preservation of Noah and his family through the Flood, Gen. 7:1, 16, typical of the preservation of Israel during the Great 

        Tribulation when, because of the fierceness of the Great Tribulation, God will shorten the period of  judgment for His elect's sake, 

        Matt. 24:22.

 

(3)     The deliverance of Lot from Sodom, Gen. 19:22,  the Lord says of His Church now, "I cannot do any thing, in judgment, till thou be come hither!"

 

7.   Believers in this world are declared to be God's Ambassadors beseeching sinners to be reconciled to Him,

2 Cor. 5:20. When ambassadors, who have been offering peace, have been insulted and ejected, their government recalls them, 

  and war begins! God will recall and    remove His ambassadors before the Great Tribulation!