Amen, Amen and Amen. I couldn't agree more. If people would only read their Bibles instead of gobbling up what the wrong shepherds say. Just a simple read of all the scriptures and it is overwhelmingly clear. And yet, so few people talk about it. It must be such a shock when Jesus doesn't show up before the tribulation. In fact, this doctrine only started in the mid 1800's and apparently was introduced by a Jesuit who didn't care about true faith. Scofield picked it up and it's been a stumbling block ever since.
Again nonsense. You are repeating misinformation regarding Scofield et all.
And I do read my Bible time and time again on many issues including eschatology and cannot understand for the life of me why one does not, all issues and pertinent verses taken into account, the reality of a rapture proceeding a 7 year period of tribulation.
This after reading the opposing views of the preterist and the amillennialist and the postmillennialist taken by men I have a lot of respect for.
The rapture is likely a part of the great deception talked about in Thessalonians. I think it’s likely possible that the alien thing the rapture thing and the government mind control (MK) will all work together in the great illusion.
I never thought the truth you talk about here would ever come out. Hundreds of years of escapism, codified and engraved in stone, not just by zionists and other nutjob theologists, but by the culture of entertainment. It's all a show? NO, it's not. Reality will seep thru and those waiting for their ultimate validation will be paralyzed. They're already numb. Compliance does that.
While I appreciate the sentiments expressed by your post, I disagree with your conclusions.
Among the questions that go unaddressed are "Who is the restrainer", and "If the return of Christ is imminent, then what events must precede his return?"
If the Antichrist must be revealed first, then you're anticipating the coming of Antichrist and looking for his excitation.
You're also facing the temptation to become complacent in your faith, because until there is a new temple built in Jerusalem where the Antichrist can stand and declare himself God, there can be no return of Christ. You've still got time to evangelize, still have time to repent, and there's no pressure to hastily always be about the Fathers business.
For these and several other reasons I must agree to disagree with you.
I'd like to point you to an article I've written concerning the identity of the restrained.
Rocka, your frustration with escapist versions of pre-tribulation rapture theology is understandable. The idea that Christian discipleship amounts to waiting for an evacuation while the world fractures around us is spiritually unhealthy and historically foreign to the apostolic faith. The early Church expected suffering and understood tribulation as part of the normal rhythm of Christian life. No one who reads Acts or the writings of the martyrs can imagine that the Christian vocation is defined by avoidance of hardship. In that narrow sense, your critique identifies a real pastoral problem.
But the way you frame your critique ultimately obscures more than it clarifies. You treat the rapture doctrine as if it represents mainstream Christianity, when in fact it is a recent American development originating in nineteenth-century dispensationalism. It has never been the teaching of the Catholic Church, never been held by the Orthodox Churches, and never shaped the faith of martyr-churches in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. So the phenomenon you rightly worry about is not a sign of Christianity’s failure; it is a symptom of a local theological innovation that the broader Church never embraced. When you say “Christians do not resist cultural collapse,” you are speaking about a subculture, not about the people who kneel before the Eucharist in Iraq or Ethiopia or Nigeria, or the Catholics who died under Roman emperors, communist dictatorships, and totalitarian regimes. The fullness of Christian tradition contradicts the very passivity you lament.
You also set up a false alternative. You imply that believers must choose between two models: either they adopt an escapist rapture theology or they accept the idea that endurance through tribulation is the essence of the Gospel. The Church does not accept that dichotomy. Suffering is part of Christian life because the disciple follows Christ, not because tribulation is intrinsically superior to comfort. Fidelity, not affliction, is the real measure of sanctity. When persecution comes, the Church endures it with courage; when peace comes, the Church uses it to build families, form communities, and cultivate virtue. Endurance is not a rejection of hope; it is its expression. Christian hope does not say “I will be airlifted.” It says “Christ is with me, even in the fire,” and then it walks forward.
You cite Old Testament figures like Daniel and Job as proof that believers must enter the furnace because endurance produces transformation. That is true. But you glide past the deeper point that the Church has always taught: their faithfulness prefigures Christ, and Christ fulfills the meaning of suffering. The Cross is not a general call to embrace pain for its own sake. It is the place where divine love transforms suffering into redemption. A Christian does not seek tribulation as a spiritual upgrade, nor tremble when it comes. He receives it as Christ received His Passion, in obedience and trust. That is the Catholic understanding of endurance.
Your claim that pre-trib teaching “breeds cowardice” because its adherents collapse when trial comes contains a kernel of truth, but you overreach. People do not fall because they lacked the right eschatological model. They fall because they lacked formation: prayer, sacramental life, moral discipline, and communion with the Church. Christians facing persecution in our time stand firm not because they reject rapture theology, but because they live from the Eucharist, steep themselves in Scripture, and cling to Christ in His Church. It is not a theory that sustains them; it is grace.
You close with an appeal for Christians to “build” and “hold territory.” The desire for spiritual resilience is good, but the Church would frame the task differently. Christians are not commanded to seize cultural ground or establish parallel structures out of fear that Babylon will overrun the faithful. They are commanded to evangelize, to form consciences, to practice the works of mercy, and to build communities rooted in truth and charity. Endurance is not accomplished through a siege mentality. It is accomplished through holiness.
If you stripped away the rhetoric about Babylon and avoided recasting every theological disagreement as evidence of coordinated seduction, you would find that the Catholic tradition affirms nearly everything you say about the need for courage, vigilance, and fidelity. What it cannot affirm is the notion that tribulation itself is a kind of spiritual credential, or that Christians must adopt a perpetual war-footing to prove their authenticity. The saints show a different pattern: they lived ordinary vocations with extraordinary love, and when suffering came, they accepted it with the confidence of people who already belonged to Christ.
Your instinct to call Christians out of passivity is good. But the answer is not to replace one distorted eschatology with another framework built around pressure, muscle, and strategic resistance. The answer is the Church’s perennial wisdom: repent, pray, receive the sacraments, practice charity, endure hardship with faith, and hope in the Lord who does not abandon His own. That is the path that sustained the Church under emperors, caliphs, revolutionaries, and dictators. It will sustain her still.
Hideous slackers? Another misconception propagated by assumption. Most of my Christian friends are dispensational and everyone to a tee, believes in reaching out to a lost world with the gospel and trying to influence society according to Christianity.
Amen, Amen and Amen. I couldn't agree more. If people would only read their Bibles instead of gobbling up what the wrong shepherds say. Just a simple read of all the scriptures and it is overwhelmingly clear. And yet, so few people talk about it. It must be such a shock when Jesus doesn't show up before the tribulation. In fact, this doctrine only started in the mid 1800's and apparently was introduced by a Jesuit who didn't care about true faith. Scofield picked it up and it's been a stumbling block ever since.
Again nonsense. You are repeating misinformation regarding Scofield et all.
And I do read my Bible time and time again on many issues including eschatology and cannot understand for the life of me why one does not, all issues and pertinent verses taken into account, the reality of a rapture proceeding a 7 year period of tribulation.
This after reading the opposing views of the preterist and the amillennialist and the postmillennialist taken by men I have a lot of respect for.
The rapture is likely a part of the great deception talked about in Thessalonians. I think it’s likely possible that the alien thing the rapture thing and the government mind control (MK) will all work together in the great illusion.
I never thought the truth you talk about here would ever come out. Hundreds of years of escapism, codified and engraved in stone, not just by zionists and other nutjob theologists, but by the culture of entertainment. It's all a show? NO, it's not. Reality will seep thru and those waiting for their ultimate validation will be paralyzed. They're already numb. Compliance does that.
While I appreciate the sentiments expressed by your post, I disagree with your conclusions.
Among the questions that go unaddressed are "Who is the restrainer", and "If the return of Christ is imminent, then what events must precede his return?"
If the Antichrist must be revealed first, then you're anticipating the coming of Antichrist and looking for his excitation.
You're also facing the temptation to become complacent in your faith, because until there is a new temple built in Jerusalem where the Antichrist can stand and declare himself God, there can be no return of Christ. You've still got time to evangelize, still have time to repent, and there's no pressure to hastily always be about the Fathers business.
For these and several other reasons I must agree to disagree with you.
I'd like to point you to an article I've written concerning the identity of the restrained.
https://open.substack.com/pub/zerodegrees/p/why-hasnt-the-antichrist-been-revealed?r=f7gyt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
God bless.
Sorry good sir. I fundamentally disagree with this post.
Rocka, your frustration with escapist versions of pre-tribulation rapture theology is understandable. The idea that Christian discipleship amounts to waiting for an evacuation while the world fractures around us is spiritually unhealthy and historically foreign to the apostolic faith. The early Church expected suffering and understood tribulation as part of the normal rhythm of Christian life. No one who reads Acts or the writings of the martyrs can imagine that the Christian vocation is defined by avoidance of hardship. In that narrow sense, your critique identifies a real pastoral problem.
But the way you frame your critique ultimately obscures more than it clarifies. You treat the rapture doctrine as if it represents mainstream Christianity, when in fact it is a recent American development originating in nineteenth-century dispensationalism. It has never been the teaching of the Catholic Church, never been held by the Orthodox Churches, and never shaped the faith of martyr-churches in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. So the phenomenon you rightly worry about is not a sign of Christianity’s failure; it is a symptom of a local theological innovation that the broader Church never embraced. When you say “Christians do not resist cultural collapse,” you are speaking about a subculture, not about the people who kneel before the Eucharist in Iraq or Ethiopia or Nigeria, or the Catholics who died under Roman emperors, communist dictatorships, and totalitarian regimes. The fullness of Christian tradition contradicts the very passivity you lament.
You also set up a false alternative. You imply that believers must choose between two models: either they adopt an escapist rapture theology or they accept the idea that endurance through tribulation is the essence of the Gospel. The Church does not accept that dichotomy. Suffering is part of Christian life because the disciple follows Christ, not because tribulation is intrinsically superior to comfort. Fidelity, not affliction, is the real measure of sanctity. When persecution comes, the Church endures it with courage; when peace comes, the Church uses it to build families, form communities, and cultivate virtue. Endurance is not a rejection of hope; it is its expression. Christian hope does not say “I will be airlifted.” It says “Christ is with me, even in the fire,” and then it walks forward.
You cite Old Testament figures like Daniel and Job as proof that believers must enter the furnace because endurance produces transformation. That is true. But you glide past the deeper point that the Church has always taught: their faithfulness prefigures Christ, and Christ fulfills the meaning of suffering. The Cross is not a general call to embrace pain for its own sake. It is the place where divine love transforms suffering into redemption. A Christian does not seek tribulation as a spiritual upgrade, nor tremble when it comes. He receives it as Christ received His Passion, in obedience and trust. That is the Catholic understanding of endurance.
Your claim that pre-trib teaching “breeds cowardice” because its adherents collapse when trial comes contains a kernel of truth, but you overreach. People do not fall because they lacked the right eschatological model. They fall because they lacked formation: prayer, sacramental life, moral discipline, and communion with the Church. Christians facing persecution in our time stand firm not because they reject rapture theology, but because they live from the Eucharist, steep themselves in Scripture, and cling to Christ in His Church. It is not a theory that sustains them; it is grace.
You close with an appeal for Christians to “build” and “hold territory.” The desire for spiritual resilience is good, but the Church would frame the task differently. Christians are not commanded to seize cultural ground or establish parallel structures out of fear that Babylon will overrun the faithful. They are commanded to evangelize, to form consciences, to practice the works of mercy, and to build communities rooted in truth and charity. Endurance is not accomplished through a siege mentality. It is accomplished through holiness.
If you stripped away the rhetoric about Babylon and avoided recasting every theological disagreement as evidence of coordinated seduction, you would find that the Catholic tradition affirms nearly everything you say about the need for courage, vigilance, and fidelity. What it cannot affirm is the notion that tribulation itself is a kind of spiritual credential, or that Christians must adopt a perpetual war-footing to prove their authenticity. The saints show a different pattern: they lived ordinary vocations with extraordinary love, and when suffering came, they accepted it with the confidence of people who already belonged to Christ.
Your instinct to call Christians out of passivity is good. But the answer is not to replace one distorted eschatology with another framework built around pressure, muscle, and strategic resistance. The answer is the Church’s perennial wisdom: repent, pray, receive the sacraments, practice charity, endure hardship with faith, and hope in the Lord who does not abandon His own. That is the path that sustained the Church under emperors, caliphs, revolutionaries, and dictators. It will sustain her still.
Good stuff!
Maybe not, but I hope I do and believe I will before Gods sh#}<t hits the tribulation fan, the time of Jacobs’s trouble. 😝
What about mid and post trib? What are they like? Probably not the hideous slackers pre tribbers are, right?
Hideous slackers? Another misconception propagated by assumption. Most of my Christian friends are dispensational and everyone to a tee, believes in reaching out to a lost world with the gospel and trying to influence society according to Christianity.
Lyle, you missed the sarcasm.
Sorry, my apologies.
It’s happened before 😩
Forgiven 😎