Within the family of evangelical Christendom there is a solid belief in a sure promise from God that this world system or this age will come to a terminus at some point in the future. Jesus Himself gave His trusted disciples details concerning this in the Olivet Discourse. Throughout the past 2,000 years devoted saints have known that Christ would return as this age comes to climactic end. He will judge the wicked, gather His chosen/elect people and establish His Millennial Kingdom. Even illiterate peasants living in the middle ages who often were fortunate to just know the Apostle's Creed understood that at the last day of this age Christ would return. They knew that at His return He would gather up His elect people, both the living, (the quick), and the dead.

How about today. Unfortunately most of the Christian family is not interested. We are too busy and pre-occupied with the things of this present world. But sincere evangelical students of the scriptures who seek the face of God and read their Bibles carefully and faithfully will most often conclude that there is to be a showdown at the end of this age. The contest will be between humanistic man allied with evil powers and YHVH, 'the God who is there'. This tribulation period will definitely involve God's elect people. During this time period, the 5th seal, many saints will find themselves on the cutting edge of witness in this epic and unfolding history. In fact in that epic time frame they will collectively bring forth the "final witness" on behalf all the saints. (Rev.6:9-11) This will open the way for God's sovereign actions into this cosmos. The 6th seal will then be opened. The sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens. His return will open up with the judgement of the wicked, the gathering of the tares, (or weeds). -Mat.13:30 This in turn will be followed by the resurrection of the righteous dead in combination with the Post-Tribulation Rapture of the church. The Resurrection and the Rapture occur in quick succession. (1Thes.4:15-17)

Now for a word on the timing of the Resurrection-Rapture. Here below are the very words of Jesus on the matter. From this scripture from the Olivet discourse we see that our Saviour clearly and specifically tells us in no uncertain terms that this endtime gathering of His entire elect company will be "after the tribulation of those days". This final gathering of Christ's elect will be all inclusive. No one will be left out. The entire elect congregation of God will be there. It will include those saints who will come into the glory via the Resurrection of the righteous and also those who will come in via the the Post-Tribulation Rapture.

Matthew 24
29. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
30. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31. And He will send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

If we look at verse 31 above we see that Jesus has told us that He will gather up all His people "after the tribulation of those days" at the end of this age. He did not say anything about splitting His elect up into two companies, the living and the dead. He did not separate the post-tribulation resurrection of the dead from the post-tribulation rapture of the living. Nor did He say anything about separating His Jewish elect/chosen people from His non-Jewish elect/chosen people. Rather He said He would send His angels to gather "His elect", period. This would be all of them, Jew and non-Jew, the quick, (or living), and the dead. A word study through the scriptures of the word "elect" will makes it very clear that there is only one elect. Our God does not oversee any "apartheid of His elect". He is not that sort of a God. So a plain reading of this passage would indicate that all of His elect, both the living and the dead, would be gathered up together at the same time and that being "after the tribulation of those days".

Having listened to what Jesus said in Mat. 24:31 let us now read what our Apostle Paul taught. A straightforward interpretation of the scripture below will lead us to conclude that both the dead saints and the living saints will be glorified together in the very same process. That is, the Post-Tribulation Resurrection and the Post-Tribulation Rapture are to be a combined event. Both of them involve the glorification of the saints and both will occur more or less simultaneously. The Resurrection and the Rapture will both be triggered at the same time by the returning Messiah at the end of the age. Here is our confirming scripture from Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians.

1 Thessalonians 4
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

This is our 'blessed hope'. (Titus 2:13) God gives us His sure promise of glorification from our corrupt present situation. His promise is sure. So whether we are alive at the time of His coming or whether we have died or have been martyred and are in the grave it matters not. Either way, we are going up! If we are in Christ we shall be glorified! We will be either resurrected or raptured at the last day! We shall be glorified period! It will either be a Post-Tribulation Resurrection or a Post-Tribulation Rapture.

From the scriptures above we can clearly see that the resurrection and the rapture occur together. The raptured saints will go up immediately after the dead saints are resurrected from their graves and will join with them in the air to meet the returning Christ. All the saints, both the living and the dead will be glorified together as one big happy family.

So then. That being the case, and in view of all the above we have a question.
Who separated them? Who separated the Resurrection from the Rapture?
Since scripture shows all of God's elect being gathered and glorified together who, pray tell, put a cleaver through God's elect? Who separated off the raptured saints from the resurrected saints?
Who concocted a fable of two endtime gatherings separated by 7 years?
And why?

Well the plot thickens here. We shall be looking further into this matter in the two articles listed at the end of this introductory article. You see God's elect and the gathering of God's elect was split up into two events for political reasons. It was a matter of church-state politics. End-time truth, (when it began to break out from the conspiracy of silence and out from medieval ignorance), had to be "adjusted". It had to be "spun" to make it "politically and religiously correct".

This is a hard truth to convey to Christian believers. We are not all saints. Christians aren't perfect, they say. The truth is we are far from it. The church is not yet a sanctified company. Not by a long shot. Most of us in the Church are not even saved yet let alone consecrated to God. And Christian people, especially those who fancy the sword or the gun, can be very rambunctious at times. The Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Holocaust, and the Reformation wars within Christendom show us this from history. So when the end-time messages were put together for this last segment of history there these concerns to deal with. Just how much truth could these people with Bibles handle without doing damage to themselves and their society. No Christian leaders wanted to see chaos rise up to disturb the peaceful flows of God's Word. Especially not on their watch. Their concerns were quite valid.

There was another reason for the "spin" to be placed on the authorized eschatology being taught in the evangelical family. In the western nations today we live in a merchant society. So there were other more pragmatic and economic reasons for the truths of the end-time to be twisted (or tweaked a little). If God's Word was going to be "sold" on the open, (let's say televangelism), market there were crowd appeal and salesmanship issues to deal with. Just what would the people buy? This was an important question. Because without that money coming in the Bible teacher does not stay on the air or, (if he is a pastor), keep the favour of his deacon board.

Well this is where we as the fundamentalist Christian family apparently fell short. Western Christians do not "buy" costly 'Blood Covenant Christianity'. This is especially true if some other more suave minister is selling into the same religious market. If your competitor is selling a cheaper less expensive Jesus then what do you do? Do you keep the faith and slip into obscurity? Or do you choose the broad way of 'easy-believism' which coddles the flesh and rejects the Way of the cross? Which will it be?

Well the broad way and a cheap Christianity, (provided it is covered with expensive masonry), will bring in more $$$dollars. Such a religi-business will be far more "profitable", (in the way that this world counts profit), than the strait gate and narrow Way of the cross of Christ. This is truly unfortunate. But that is just the way it is right now as we come to the climax of this evil age.

So this is why the rapture was dissected clear of it's Resurrection connection. It was necessary to do this to allow it to be placed independently from the Resurrection in a time slot 7 years earlier than the Resurrection which most Bible readers will know comes at the last day of this age. This allowed for the crafting in the 19th century of a new endtime doctrine known as the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. This was taylor made for the average evangelical of the age. It suited the appetites of the average, middle of the road western Christian. It would also keep them mollified and it would be something they would spend their money on. Certain churchmen in the 19th century cobbled together this very popular best-seller of an endtime doctrine. It also involved the crafting of an eschatology that compartmentalized off the Church from the Jewish nation. Is this theological alienation of the Jews from the flows of Grace in the end-time a problem? Could it open the door to other political alenations? God forbid. But history will answer that question in the times to come.

This Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine was not supported by scripture. But it may have been God's permissive will for it to dominate the eschatological landscape. Do God's people deserve to get all the truth all the time? If we were a more faithful, diligent, and trustworthy people then we probably would be getting a more scripturally sound eschatology. But if we were depending on our church leaders and not personally checking up on what we were being taught from the Holy Scriptures then who is to blame for that? If we don't bother to do our homework do we deserve any better and more accurate information?

We do not listen to our Apostle Paul's exhortation to "study to shew thyself approved unto God". (2Tim.2:15) Instead we prefer to listen to teachers who tickle our ears. Wisdom, as a woman, is crying out in the streets. But she is ignored. Wisdom is out there for anyone to find. They need only seek her in humility and in the fear of God. But alas, she goes unheeded. The news does not get through to the people. They are just not interested. This is what happens when the gnostic conspiracy of silence prevails. Wisdom, and God's Word, is neglected by the very ones whom God is calling to Himself. There are very very serious consequences to all this. (Prov.1:20-33)

Are Christians in the western church not worthy of sound doctrine at present? When will they seek the face of God and embrace the truth? If we had been worthy of the truth then we may have held our spiritual leaders to account. Perhaps we might have even opened our Bibles and checked up on what they were telling us.

There is some good news here. It is not too late for us to wake up and to personally come to God and ask Him to show us the information from His holy Word. If we search the scriptures with diligence as the worthy Bereans did then things can be turned around in a hurry. Our whole Christian life can be different when we cease from playing games with God. We shall see the truth when we understand why the cross of Christ is necessary. The Way of the cross is our passage to God and to His truth. It is a strait and narrow road. But it is the Paradise Road.

We are picking up the pieces of the puzzle. And we are seeing how they fit together. So rather than just refer to "the rapture of the church" we should have labelled the endtime gathering of the saints according to what the holy scriptures teach us. Then it would have agreed with what good saints have believed all along. For two thousand years true saints have believed that Christ would come at the end of the age at the last day to judge the 'quick and the dead'. So the 'rapture of the Church' should be labelled according to its full and more biblically correct name, the "Resurrection-Rapture of the Elect".

When we let the scriptures speak for themselves and do not impose our dispensational compartmentalist presuppositions on them the final picture of what God will do in the end-time is clear and simple. It is not difficult, complicated, or confusing. Pre-trib rapturism, on the other hand, is a different story. It is very complex, ponderous, conflicted, obfuscated and confusing. Christian believers are led to believe that "only the religious experts can get a handle on it all". This is a lie from the pit of hell.

Brothers and Sisters we can be encouraged here. Our God does not play any tricks with His people. When they come to Him with an open heart He leads them into all truth. It is His delight to do so. The truths of the end-time when pieced together by scripture gives us a clear picture that is elegant and very simple. A little child can understand it. If we go through the scriptures carefully and logically, believing what is being said to us and keeping our eyes on our God He will lead us to the simple and profound truth about the end-time.

Here then is that truth.
God gathers all His people together as one big happy family at the same time! And that time is at the second coming of Christ. Since the Resurrection of the righteous comes at the very last day of this age then that is when the Rapture comes too.

If the Bible presents the facts simply and elegantly why should the true saint be obliged to follow a mish-mash of confusing church tradition, church politics and ecclesiastical social engineering? God loves and cares for His trusted and devoted servants. They are taking up their cross and following Him. So He has laid out the plan and the pathway ahead for them. The proper and caring guidance of His beloved pilgrim people is sitting right there in the Book!

The true Biblical eschatology is not too difficult for any Christian to fathom. If he or she does the homework it is quite clear that there must be a climactic end-time witness by the saints (another name for the Church). It soon becomes very obvious what that end-time witness is all about. These and other issues I addressed in a reply to Grant Jeffrey when he came out with a public critique on the Post-Tribulation Rapture position. It is all very simple really.

So. Does the end-time truth have to remain complicated and confusing?
Do God's elect people have to remain in a state of befuddlement and suffer from the poor morale that inevitably comes from that?
God forbid!

In this devotion and study we shall come to understand more fully our vital and glorious role of witness in the last days. God's Holy Spirit will open the scriptures and our hearts to give us a clear picture of what is happening. The Comforter will comfort and encourage us. We shall come to understand why it has to be this way.

God will draw and woo each one of us individually. We shall find ourselves entering into a serendipity. We shall find ourselves strangely empowered in the Holy Spirit to face this final examination with a set purpose and with cheer. We shall have the sure knowledge that we are part of a great and awesome company. Together with all the saints from both sides of Calvary we are the ones privileged to "finish the race" on behalf of all who have gone before us. Empowered by the indwelling Christ we shall bring our final, corporate, historic and climactic witness to Him. We are His "called out" ekklesia, the true Church, and members of His Body, the Congregation of Israel. (Gal.3:29)

Here is a fuller explanation of the Post-Tribulation Rapture.

God be with you as you study and meditate in God's Holy Word.

Grace and shalom to all the saints,
- those who love His appearing.

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