Paul wrote of Christ's coming, "Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep [die], 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" (1 Corinthians 15:51,52).
Christ said the dead shall be raised at His coming!
When? At His return; at His coming!
The resurrection does not occur until the moment of Christ's VISIBLE, TUMULTUOUS, POWERFUL, EARTH-SHAKING RETURN!
The Resurrection and
the "Catching Up" of the Saints
Now, notice: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep [are dead] in Jesus will 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 [precede] them which are asleep [are dead].
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
"THEN [and not one second before!] we which are alive [Paul wrote to the church, the saints] 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" (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18).
Notice that the living saints are not to precede the dead in Christ by so much as a second!
WHEN, then, is the resurrection?
Notice! "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept.
"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
"But every man in his own order: Christ the Firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ's at His coming [parousia]" (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).
Now, notice another graphic, earth-shaking description of Christ's Second Coming:
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and true, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war.
"His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself.
"And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God.
"And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
"And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
"And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
"That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
"And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army.
"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
"And the remnant were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh" (Revelation 19:11-21).
Anyone who believes for one instant there is anything "secretive" about this stupendous series of events is incapable of understanding plain English.
Notice further information about Christ's Second Coming:
"Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
"For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
"Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle.
"And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
"And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
"But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
"And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
"And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name" (Zechariah 14:1-9).
This great earthquake is also mentioned in Revelation 16:17-19, in connection with Christ's coming to smash the power of the ten kings comprising the Beast power (Revelation 17:12-14).
Clearly, the prophecy includes the battle of Armageddon (Daniel 11:40-45; Revelation 16:14-16), and the Second Coming of Christ to destroy these arms gathered against Jerusalem!
The time element is inescapable. "His feet shall stand IN THAT DAY UPON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES" is as plain as the nose on your face!
Christ is not coming in "two phases," first, "for" His saints prior to the Tribulation and Day of the Lord, and then, "with" His saints afterwards!
Clearly, the living saints will not precede those who have died down through the ages; those martyred in the first century, including Peter, James, and Paul! Instead, they are to be either resurrected, or changed, in a moment, in the "twinkling of an eye" AT THE LAST TRUMP!
The last trump is the last of the seven trumpet plagues, at the moment of the great earthquake, and the Second Coming of Christ!
What Difference Does it All Make?
Why should someone who believes in the "rapture" get ANGRY when shown, from the Bible, that the so-called "secret rapture" is a myth?
If Christ is going to redeem the saved; if Christ is coming to catch up His people, including the dead in Christ, and descend with them to the mount of Olives in the same day, then His true followers will be SAVED, will they not?
They will be born of God by a resurrection, or an instantaneous change, will they not? (1 Corinthians 15:50-52).
They will then come down from the clouds, perhaps anywhere from 10 to 40,000 feet above the earth, in this earth's atmosphere, and will be with Christ as He begins to rule this earth with a rod of iron.
What is so wrong with these wondrous promises of your Bible that "pretribulationists" and "secret rapturists" seem to violently object?
It is simply this: Somehow, they cannot bring themselves to believe the "saved" could suffer any harm! For some reason, an insidious false assumption has crept into the minds of millions of people, an assumption which says God would not think of allowing His saints to come to any physical harm! No, any such terrible event is reserved only for the wicked, so they think! What they do not realize is that such a false assumption makes them out to be better than Christ!
Did not Christ say, "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also"? Did He not say, "In this world ye shall tribulation"? Did He not say, "The time will come when they that killeth you will think they do God a service"?
Another equation in this false assumption is that martyrdom is reserved for the spiritually weak!
Those who cling to the false notion of "church eras" point out how God will allegedly throw those in the so-called "Laodicean attitude" of lukewarmness into the Great Tribulation, while spiriting away into a desert wilderness the "good" people in the "Philadelphian era."
According to this scenario, those closest to God; those on fire with zeal; those with the most faith, the most works, the most spiritual character, will be PROTECTED from the Tribulation, miraculously "taken to a place of safety."
But those who are less faithful, not so close to God; those without zeal; those who are lukewarm, who have weak spiritual character, will be chosen as God's martyrs!
As they suffer, they will realize how terribly weak, and lukewarm they have been, as the theory goes, and, under torture and eventual death, they will repent!
But WHO did God choose as His martyrs?
Look at the list: Jesus Christ, Peter, James, Paul, Stephen, Antipas, dozens of others in the first century. Read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, how God's greatest prophets were oftentimes martyred for their faith.
John saw a vision of the witness of two prophets, two human beings who will personally testify against the Beast and the False Prophet! Their Prophecy is to take place during the Tribulation!
"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
"These are the two olive trees [mentioned in symbol in Zechariah 4:3], and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
"And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
"These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
"And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit [the abyss—a spiritual metaphor] shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
"And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
"And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts to one another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth.
"And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
"And they heard a great voice out from heaven saying unto them, ‘Come up hither,’ And they ascended to heaven [this earth's atmosphere, where vapors form clouds—not the "third heaven" of God's throne] in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
"And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted: and gave glory to the God of heaven" (Revelation 11:2-13).
These two men are in Jerusalem all during the Tribulation and the Day Of the Lord. Their three and one-half year's testimony coincides exactly with the "time of Jacob's trouble," of three and one-half years; with the "times of the Gentiles" of three and one-half years; with the "treading down of Jerusalem" of three and one-half years!
God gives them power far above that of Moses or Elijah. The plagues they call down upon sinning mankind, upon the Beast and False Prophet, are global in nature, not national, or local, as in the former cases.
These two prophets, the "two witnesses" of the future, are human beings, converted, Spirit-led SAINTS! They are Christ's servants, conducting the last-minute, FINAL phase of God's work on this earth of PERSONALLY witnessing to the Beast and False Prophet in the name of Christ!
What happens to them?
They are martyred!
When the Beast is finally able to "make war" against them, overcome them, and kill them, the Bible does not tell us specifically how they die. You can be sure it will not be pleasant! Yet, after lying dead in the street for three and one-half days, they are obviously resurrected, and will be given eternal life! Are these two great prophets "Laodicean"?
Are they "left behind" when the saints are "raptured," or the so-called "Philadelphia era" goes to a "place of safety"?
Do they suffer a horrible death because they are spiritually inferior?
No, God does not choose the spiritually WEAK, the lukewarm, to be His martyrs!
Instead, He chooses those who are so close to God that they literally count all things in this life "as dung" (Philippians 3:8) in comparison with the Kingdom of God, and eternal life!
"Rapturists," like "survivalists" and "escapists," have their minds on the preservation of this physical life!
Jesus Christ tells them that those who seek to save their lives in this world, who have their minds on physical things, are likely to lose out on salvation!
No, God is NOT going to "rapture" away His saints secretly. The lady with the bumper sticker will not suddenly disappear through her roof, after all!
Let us not trust in false hopes, but in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and God the Father, Who loves us, and Who promises eternal life with Him in His Kingdom to all those who "endure unto the end," whether that means the end of our own physical lives or the end of the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord!
Preterist foolery. Put John 14 and 1 Thess 4:13-18 together ... and run along to the next gaggle you can deceive.