I have (yet another) question about the rapture and the Holy Spirit as the “restrainer” being taken away. My dad is adamantly post-trib, and he maintains that the Holy Spirit is both present in us and moving throughout the earth in order to soften the hearts of those who will come to the Lord and restrain the spirit of lawlessness, and that even now God is slowly removing that from the earth – which is why we see such an increase in evil in these days.
And that during the tribulation, we (the church) will be the ONLY source of the Spirit and that is why people will still be able to come to Him, because of the church’s presence and continuing testimony even in the face of persecution and during the tribulation. He always mentions scriptures about the spirit softening the hearts of men and preparing them to receive the gospel, and that the only way we can know Him is by the Spirit revealing it to us. Thoughts on this?
And just one more, what will the people of the world think when we vanish? Aliens? Plague? What will be the various world governments’ excuse for such a thing? Will this be something that leads apostate Christians back to the Lord?
What your Dad is saying about the Holy Spirit softening the hearts of people is true. But it was true before there was a church and will be true after the Church is gone. Since so many are saved during the tribulation, its obvious that after the Rapture the Holy Spirit will revert back to an old testament ministry where He was with people, and came upon them in power from time to time, but was not sealed within anyone.
As for explaining the disappearance of so many, there are already several explanations in the works. The most popular is a massive alien kidnapping, removing us to a parallel dimension so we won’t be able to interfere with the next step in human evolution.
Many who are now pseudo Christians will finally be born again because of our disappearance.