Ever since Jesus ascended into Heaven, Christians have been pondering on how He will come back and some even wonder how He will rescue His people during the tribulation.

And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Matthew 24:4-14

Clearly some very faithful people preaching His name during that time will be put to death. Jesus said it and I believe it. But, the rapture is most definitely in the Bible. It’s just the timing that needs to be reviewed.

There are many rapture deceptions out there and many false teachers leading people astray.

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 

2 Timothy 3:1-5

Let’s examine the evidence and let Scripture test Scripture on the timing of the rapture as defined by Jesus and the Apostles.

In Rev 20:4 it says “They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”

This is one area where it said those who are martyred during the tribulation will rise from the dead. This sounds like a reverse rapture. This reverse rapture is also supported by 1 Thessalonians 4:16 which says “And the dead in Christ will rise first.” If we are raptured before the dead in Christ rise first, then you have to wonder about the words St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and why he would deceive them. St. Paul did not deceive anyone but leaders today are deceiving people. And people are so easily swayed to believe this false doctrine.

Here’s a 10 minute summary presented from https://truthiscalling.us, which is a bible study group that provides livestream attendance on YouTube. Checkout their resources and short studies.

Here are some biblical sources talked about in the video. Always good to read the direct sources and ponder them in your heart.

1 Thessalonians 4:14-17, Jude 14-15, 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-9, Revelation 12:17, Luke 21:27-28

Lastly in Matt 24:4,9 Jesus says “Take heed that no one deceives you… Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”

Let us pray that we may be counted worthy enough of martyrdom and death only to be raised again in Christ’s presence and to enjoy His Kingship on Earth, maybe even 1,000 years, before the New Jerusalem comes from Heaven.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 

Revelation 21:1-3

Our hope as we see these things begin to happen is to lift up our heads fore our redemption draws near (Luke 21:28)

Imagine a first century Christian seeing in a vision a flying creature. That creature spew flames of fire from its mouth. It’s head was like a man but had teeth like a shark.

Imagine this plane in the air engaged in battle over Las Vegas Nevada, home of the Red Flag Operation for the US Military. The Apostle John relied heavily on imagery in “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Could this type of an image be something he saw?

Knowing who Jesus was, I can only imagine what the Apostle John might have thought if he saw a “bishop dressed in white” bring a pachamama idol onto the very altar where God is reminded of His promise in the sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son.

What could have been John’s words to describe this event? Would he have gone back to the book of Daniel and said “Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the continual burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.”

After the supposed highest ranking official in the Catholic Church performs this worship ceremony of an idol, a virus is unleashed on the public and this “bishop in white” coming as an image of Christ halts the very Sacrifice of the Mass which takes “away the continual burnt offering” the Catholic Church celebrates.

A very well known bishop in the Catholic Church was Bishop Fulton Sheen. Speaking on the Devil, the Antichrist and the antichurch he said the Antichrist will come disguised as a Great Humanitarian and that he obviously would not be called an Antichrist lest he have no followers at all. No, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect. Surely one posing as a vicar of Christ might deceive even the elect.

The new era into which we are entering is what might be called the religious phase of human history. From now on the struggle will be not for the colonies and national rights, but for the souls of men. There will be no more half-drawn swords, no divided loyalties, no broad strokes of sophomoric tolerances; there will not even be any more great heresies, for heresies are based on a partial acceptance of truth. The battle lines are already being clearly drawn and the basic issues are no longer in doubt. From now on men will divide themselves into two religions-understood again as surrender to an absolute. The conflict of the future is between the absolute who is the God-man, and the absolute which is man-God; the God who became man, and the man who makes himself God; brothers in Christ and comrades in Antichrist.

The Antichrist will no be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, no vomit Sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as “I am who am,” and the Devil as “I am who am not.”

Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, and as “the Prince of this world,” whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. his logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgement then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect-and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?

The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves. He will write books on the new idea of God, to suit the way the people live; induce faith in astrology so as to make not the will but the stars responsible for sins; he will explain guilt away psychologically as inhibited eroticism, make men shrink in fame if their fellow men say they are not broad-minded and liberal; he will be so broad-minded as to identify tolerance with indifference to right and wrong, truth and error; he will spread the lie that men will never be better until they make society better and thus have selfishness to provide fuel for the next revolution; he will foster science. but only to have armament makers use one marvel of science to destroy another; he will foster more divorces under the disguise that another partner is “vital”; he will increase love for love and decrease love for person; he will invoke religion to destroy religion; he will speak of Christ and say that He was the greatest man who ever lived; his mission, he will say, will be to liberate men from the servitudes of superstition and Fascism, which he will never definer; he will organize children’s games, tell people whom they should and should not marry and unmarry, who should bear children and who should not; he will benevolently draw chocolate bars from his pockets for the little ones, and bottled of milk for the Hottentots.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948), page 18-21

Most certainly the conditions of modern day are ripe for an Antichrist to appear.

He will tempt Christian with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ. The temptation to turn stones into bread as an earthly Messiah will become the temptation to sell freedom for security, making bread a political weapon which only those who think his way may eat. He wants mass organization through propaganda where only a common man directs the idiosyncrasies of common men. Opinions not truth, commentators not teachers, Gallup polls not principles, nature not grace-to these golden calves will men toss themselves from their Christ. The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion-one that renders unto Ceasar even the things that are God’s.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948), page 20-21

Another characteristic of this man that Our Lord said would imitate Him in appearance is that he has a great secret, “he will not believe in God” ¹

Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counter church which will be the ape of the Church because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be the mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948), page 21

Knowing that an Antichrist with these characteristics is coming, all Christians should be on watch for any cleric who promotes fraternity over Eucharistic Adoration, who supports brotherhood over veneration to Our Lady, who supports welcoming the faith of others over instilling the belief of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the sacred liturgy of the eternal mass over a watered down Catholicism where the sign of peace to your brother is more important than bending a knee to the Agnus Dei.

References

1. Communism and the Conscience of the West (1948)
   Sheen, Fulton J.