“Rapture Verdict” Overturned

 “Rapture Verdict” Overturned – Terry James - https://terryjamesprophecyline.com/2023/08/20/rapture-verdict-overturned/ “There are a lot of people coming against the pre-Trib Rapture,” a friend I was on the phone with said. I asked him to name names, and he said, “Guys like Joel Richardson and Walid Shoebat.” These and many others, my friend said, are saying things like those of us who believe in and teach a pre-Trib Rapture are heretics. And some are saying worse, like we’re leadingpeople to Hell with our false teaching. I, of course—as reported in these commentaries—have heard those invectives and worse against those of us who believe in and teach the pre-Trib Rapture of the Church. However,I’ve met both Joel Richardson and Walid Shoebat. Mr. Richardson never came across as a man who would make such strong condemnation. And I haven’t heard much about Mr. Shoebat, an admitted former Mideast terrorist who is now a Christian, since we met at a prophecyconference some years ago. He was passionate, to be sure, and I knew he didn’t believe there will be a pre-Trib Rapture, but I never heard from him any such diatribe accusing us of being heretics, as my friend said he and others were declaring. So I did some research to see, in particular, what Joel Richardson (not his real name for his own reasons, I’ve heard) was saying. I could find no written documents of significance by Joel on the subject, so listened to his in-depth discussion with a podcast host as they dealt specifically with Joel’sopposition to the pre-Trib Rapture of the Church. I totally disagreed with all of his reasons the pre-Trib view is unbiblical. I found them so weak as to wonder why anyone should even worry about his view making inroads againstthe truth regarding the timing of the Rapture. I did agree with him on one thing, though. The pre-Trib view is diminishing amongst believers. But it is not, in my view, Richardson and others providing anti-pre-Trib Rapture teaching that is causing the diminishment. Rather, it’s a part of the end-times falling awayfrom the faith in general that is caused in part by the lack of biblical prophetic truth being preached and taught in churches. That said, however, when I met Joel Richardson, I found him to be a gentleman and a gentle man, as Paul Harvey used to say about those he found to be so. And, upon listeningclosely to him and the podcast host who was of the same anti-pre-Trib Rapture mindset, I heard the same gentleness in his presentation. As a matter of fact, he lamented that some within the pre-Trib prophecy preacher camp had called him a heretic and much worse. Someone who had hosted, or cohosted, a seventhousand-attendee prophecy conference had said these things about him. Mr. Richardson said when he confronted the Christian brother, the conference host admitted he was wrong, but had just “needed a scapegoat” to make his point while speakingat the gathering. I don’t know of any prophecy conference of that size, or what the man meant by “needing a scapegoat” in this case, but I believe Joel Richardson to be a brother in Christin every respect, and one who tells the truth as he understands it. (It’s just that, after listening to him and the host of the podcast, neither understands the truth in the matter of when Christ will call the Church to Himself.) Another anti-pre-Trib Rapture Bible-prophecy proponent I find to be otherwise quite accurate on the way things are trending toward the Tribulation is Michael Snyder. He isexcellent at gathering information and reporting news of developments in the Ephesians 6:12 minions’ attempts to bring in Antichrist’s regime of control. He wrote a book with the title The Rapture Verdict, in which he attempted to tear apart evidence from God’s Word for the pre-Trib Rapture. His “verdict,” of course, was thathe had managed to prove there will be no pre-Trib Rapture. Neither Mr. Richardson nor Mr. Snyder denies there will be a Rapture. But they lump Israel and the Church together, so to speak. Their verdict is that both Israel and believerswho comprise the Church will go through the Tribulation. Mr. Richardson, at least—I can’t remember the position of Mr. Snyder—denies that God deals with people in dispensations. They both put forth that the Rapture will take place within the Tribulation, asI understand. Their belief is based upon the “last trump of Revelation,” to a large extent. Mr. Richardson, as I heard him in the interview—and the host agreed wholeheartedly—said the best we pre-Trib Rapturists could come up with was Revelation 3:10. He admittedit did seem to indicate believers will escape God’s wrath. However, he said that Scripture didn’t mean we will not go through the seven years of Tribulation, but that we will be kept “through” that time, which will be, according to the Lord Jesus, the worstin all of human history. To me, Mr. Snyder and Mr. Richardson’s “Rapture verdict” is overthrown–overturned—in one simple word in the following promise from our God: Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.(Revelation 3:10) As I understand, Joel Richardson believes the word “wrath” means in the eternal sense, not in the sense of the physical—i.e., we won’t suffer the eternal wrath reserved forthe lost, but must be here for the physical punishment phase. But even more confusing is the that he said, if I heard him correctly, that this Scripture says we will be kept “through” this period of horror during which God judges andmakes war on unbelievers and on Satan and his angelic hordes. I find this to make little sense, as millions of new believers will die during that era. But one word totally overturns the Rapture verdict of the anti-pre-Trib argument, in my view. That term is the simple little word “from.” It is the Greek word ek, which means “out of,” not “through.” We will be kept “out of” that hour that will come upon the whole world of rebels during the Tribulation. Of course, there is an overwhelmingly extensive body of evidence that could be brought into play that proves the pre-Trib Rapture is truth. And that evidence has been presentedover and over, beginning with the great Apostle Paul’s words that we should “take comfort.” No “comfort” can come from knowing you are going through the worst time of all human history. Here are Paul’s words of comfort: 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 whichare 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18)