Are We Close To The End?
I have questions regarding the rapture. What is the difference between the Rapture and the 2nd coming? I keep reading that the Rapture comes at the end of the Millennium. How close are we to the end? Would it be just in saying that the rapture could be as soon as 2037?
Q. I have questions regarding the rapture. What is the difference between the Rapture and the 2nd coming? I keep reading that the Rapture comes at the end of the Millennium. How close are we to the end? Would it be just in saying that the rapture could be as soon as 2037?
A. The rapture of the church is an event in which the Church will disappear from Earth some time before the 2nd Coming. Beside the difference in timing, there are several other differences between the rapture and the 2nd Coming. One is that the rapture takes the Church from the Earth while the 2nd Coming brings the Lord to the Earth. Another is that the rapture is a secret event that happens without warning, while the 2nd Coming will follow many clear warning signs and will be witnessed by all the people of Earth.
I ‘m not familiar with an end-of-millennium rapture, so I assume you meant to say end of the Great Tribulation, the so-called post trib position. As to just how close we are to the rapture no one knows because it’s timing is one of the end times secrets that God maintains for strategic purposes, and that’s one of the problems with the post trib position. How can you have a secret rapture when the Bible gives a clear time line for every other end times event beginning with a treaty that permits the building of a temple in Israel? If the rapture happens at or even near the end of this chain of events it’s timing could be easily determined as soon as the treaty is signed, seven years before the event.
If the End Times formally began with the return of Jerusalem to Jewish control as prophesied in Luke 21:24, and if all end times prophecies are to be fulfilled within the span of a Biblical lifetime as prophesied in Matt. 24:34, then all will be fulfilled by 2037. That means the Rapture, Daniel’s 70th week, Great Tribulation, 2nd Coming and about 500 other signs must all occur by then.
