Please could you tell me why a great woman of faith warned people all over the world about Christians not being raptured as there is so much persecution already. Please watch her testimony. Corrie said the Lord sent her to warn us before we got too complacent. I want so much to go with the Lord pre-trib, and I’m so unsettled now. They say FEMA camps are going to open up all over. What’s your take on this?
Post-trib believers often make the argument that belief in a pre-trib rapture promotes an “escapist” mentality that will leave believers unprepared when the pre-trib position is proved false.
No matter how well known the person is who uses it, this argument has no merit because the Church has been persecuted in various parts of the world since the beginning and God has always given believers the strength to endure. In fact the Church has experienced some of its most rapid growth during times of persecution. Also the Lord only promised to deliver the Church from the end times judgments, not from persecution in general. In John 16:33 He said, “In this world you will have trials, but take heart because I have overcome the world”. The phrase “take heart” means “be encouraged”. The strength to endure trials comes from the Lord.
These arguments are meant to play on our fears, and they are apparently working with you. But God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of self discipline (2Tim 1:7). If we are called to endure persecution before the rapture, we won’t persevere in our own strength, but in the strength of the Lord.
The simple fact is that the Bible only teaches one rapture position, and that’s the pre-trib position. Every other opinion on the timing of the rapture requires a significant departure from the rules of interpretation that tell us to always consider the context of a passage when interpreting it.
To inoculate yourself against this kind of attack, don’t take anyone’s word for what the Bible says. Instead search the Scriptures for yourself to confirm whether what they are saying is true (Acts 17:11).