Pretrib Rapture? NO!

By Dave Cottrell

Many very sincere Christians today believe that the rapture of the saints (Christians) will come before the great tribulation.

The common belief is that no Christians are going to go through tribulation.

However, many millions of Christians have gone through terrible tribulation for over 2000 years! Right back in the first century, Christians were tortured and killed by the hundreds and thousands in terrible and severe ways. The Roman Emporers had them slaughtered for sport, including wrapping them in raw animal skins and putting them in an arena with hungry wild animals, and even wrapping them on poles in resin -soaked linen, then using them for torches for their fancy garden parties.

Down through the centuries, every imaginable horrible torture and death has been used on Christians. Christians have been crucified, impaled, trampled, torn apart, burned, drowned, stoned, beheaded, jailed, and the list goes on and on.

Even in the 20^th century, the Nazis killed and tortured Christians. Christian Jews were also in the death camps (Read Corrie ten Boom's book, “The Hiding Place”)

Christians also have suffered and are still suffering in Communist and other totalitarian regimes around the world, right now.

Will Christians experience tribulation? Yes – we always have. The Great Tribulation is just one more time that many Christians will suffer.

Can this be backed up by the scriptures? Absolutely! Simply read 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Paul dealt very well with this confusion about the Great Tribulation back in his day.

What about the “blessed hope?”

Read the whole passage carefully in context!

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Titus 2:11 – 14

“That great and blessed hope” refers specifically to “the grace of God that bringeth salvation!” In order to make it mean the rapture, “the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” you need to remove the comma and the “and.” If you do that you are wresting the scriptures – that is – you are making the passage say something the writer never intended it to say!

“As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” 2Peter 3:16

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, remember to read 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The doctrine of the end times is very clear in those scriptures, as are Jesus words in Matthew 24:4 – 31 , Mark 13:5 – 27 (READ THEM – THESE ARE THE WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST!!)

May God bless you richly as you study his Word.

“ Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2Timothy 2:15