In Matthew 24, a disciple ask Jesus Christ when will be his second coming. Then Lord Jesus responded —
Greek transliteration of Matthew 24:29–30:
Eutheōs de meta tēn thlipsin tōn hēmerōn ekeinōn, ho hēlios skotisthēsetai, kai hē selēnē ou dōsei to phengos autēs, kai hoi asteres pesountai apō tou ouranou, kai hai dynameis tōn ouranōn saleuthēsontai. kai tote phanthēsetai to sēmeion tou huiou tou anthrōpou en ouranō, kai tote kopsontai pasai hai phylai tēs gēs, kai opsontai ton huion tou anthrōpou erchomenon epi tōn nephelōn tou ouranou meta dunameōs kai doxēs pollēs.
Greek transliteration to English translation:
Immediately then after the tribulation the days of those: The sun will be darkened, and the moon not will give the light of it, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, And then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then will mourn all the tribes of the earth, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and glory great.
Jesus Christ said he will come “after the tribulation”. Of course, human beings have free will. I will not force Christians to believe what Jesus Christ said himself. Go, wait for nothing and embrace the AntiChrist instead.
Paul the apostle also warns in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 that the gathering of the Church of God will not happen until after the AntiChrist is revealed – directly contradicting pre-tribulation beliefs. It is written:
We implore now you, brothers, by the coming of the Lord of us Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him, for not quickly to be shaken you in mind nor to be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as if by us, as that is present the day of the Lord. No one you should deceive in not one way, because [it is] if not [until] shall have come the apostasy first, and shall have been revealed the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction.
A great number of Christians have been using Revelation 3:10 to back up the belief of being taken before the 7-year tribulation, without realizing they’re misusing a verse they don’t fully understand. In reality, Revelation 3:10 does not speak of the future wherein Jesus Christ will allegedly remove the Church out of Earth before the 7-year tribulation. Instead, Revelation 3:10 is a message from the Lord Jesus to the Church of Philadelphia, conveyed through a vision to Apostle John while he was exiled on the island of Patmos in the 1st century CE. At that time, the people of God in Philadelphia were likely facing persecutions from both Jews and Romans, which is why the message offers encouragement and reassurance for their perseverance during trials. It is directly written to the Church of Philadelphia in the 1st century CE, not to us.
This is taken directly from my Quora blog post: Are you ready for the rapture if it were to happen now?
The doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture, which teaches that believers will be taken up to heaven before a future period of tribulation on Earth, just started in the 19th century through the teachings of John Nelson Darby, a leader in the Plymouth Brethren movement in the 1830s. Darby introduced a new prophetic framework called dispensationalism, which distinguished between God’s plan for the Church and for Israel and included a rapture of the Church before a seven-year tribulation period — a view not found in early Christian writings. His sermons and writings, such as “The Hopes of the Church of God,” clearly laid out this teaching for the first time in church history. Prior to Darby, no early Church Father —including figures like Irenaeus, Tertullian, or Augustine taught a secret or pre-tribulation rapture. In fact, most Christians throughout history expected to endure tribulation before Christ’s return.
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