For 2000 years the enemy has been sawn confusion about the timing of the rapture and the tribulation instilling fear and worry! It happened during Paul's time with false teachings and letters and it's happening TODAY! The truth is that the Rapture comes BEFORE the Tribulation!
👉🏼Things haven't changed, "There is nothing new under the sun." The enemy keeps using the same old tricks! He's been working overtime, anticipating and savoring the 7-year Tribulation moment when he won't be restrained— still perplexed by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus 2000 years ago! He never anticipated it— he believed he had won at the cross! It crushed him! The rise of the Church, a mystery concealed all along, caught him completely off guard. His best strategy was and is to do an inside job, disguise himself in white, and infiltrate the church to sow CONFUSION!!!
👉🏼Paul taught about our final victory, the rapture, and the resurrection of the dead, in 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians:
📖"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 1 Cor 15:52
📖"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord." 1 Thess 4:15-17
📖"For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him." 1 Thess 5:9
👉🏼 So, it is clear that in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul had already instructed the Church about the Rapture and the Tribulation. However, false letters attributed to him had been circulating, leading Christians to worry and think that they had missed the Rapture, and they were now living in the Tribulation. In response, Paul patiently and loving comforted the Church, carefully emphasizing and explaining that the Church is "NOT appointed to wrath BUT to obtain salvation."
📖"Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ AND our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come." 2 Thess 2:1-2
👉🏼Paul lovingly once again carefully explained the precise order of events in this passage to reassure Christians. He reminded them of his previous teachings and told them not to be anxious or tricked by misleading ideas.
📖"Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition."
👉🏼Now this part is tricky because of the term "falling away" in Greek, known as 'apostasia' - there is a debate among some people regarding whether it refers to a spiritual apostasy within the Church, where there is a departure from the faith, or the physical departure of the Church during the Rapture, REGARDLESS, when you continue reading, it clearly states that the Holy Spirit will be removed, and then the Antichrist will come.
📖"He Who restrains (Holy Spirit) will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one (Antichrist) will be revealed..."
🕯️So, any confusion should have been cleared with this verse. Paul clearly states it in two simple points.
1. The Church will be raptured before the tribulation begins. The restraint of evil must be removed, which happens when the Church is raptured. At that point, the role of the Holy Spirit as the Restrainer of evil will come to an end— He will no longer be restraining.
2: The revealing of the man of sin, who is the Antichrist, will take place after the rapture.
The enemy continues to deceive us about this topic even after 2,000 years. Don't allow false teaching and false prophets to trample on your blessed hope! We're not in the tribulation yet; we're going through the pre-tribulation time, which is tough. But at the right time, Jesus will descend from heaven and snatch us out of this world before the tribulation starts. That's our blessed hope and our salvation! If you don't believe this truth, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you personally! Keep looking up because our redemption draws near! We're very close!!
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