Terry James: The Snare And Sudden Destructions

The Snare and Sudden Destruction

Terry James

The pre-Tribulation Rapture is built upon a body of scriptural references. But the most powerful proof that the Church—all believers in Christ of the Church Age or Age of Grace—will be kept out of the time of God’s wrath and judgment is given by the Ascended Lord Jesus Himself in one statement:

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10)

The word “from” in the phrase “from the hour” is the Greek ek, meaning “out of,” as stated previously. Jesus will keep the Church out of those seven years of judgment and wrath soon to come.

Jesus, in His ascended position following His resurrection, gave John the message He wanted to be presented to the churches of the Age of Grace. The message gave Christ’s holy assessment of each of the seven churches John was to address.

In the above statement, Christ was commending believers of the Age of Grace for their faithful belief in His death, burial, and resurrection as payment for their sin.

Because of this unbreakable belief that seals their souls forever (Romans 8:38–39), Christ would keep them out of the terrible wrath and judgment that would befall all of the world’s unbelievers. This promise was a prelude to John being called into Heaven, symbolically foreshadowing the believers being kept out of the wrath and judgment.

Revelation, then, beginning with chapter 4, lays out in terms of seven scrolls, seven trumpets, and seven bowls or vials, twenty-one specific judgments through which God deals with the rebels of earth. This is the unfolding of the time, the latter part of which the Lord foretells will be the worst time of all human history (Matthew 24:21).

The purpose of this time of wrath and judgment, the overall picture Bible prophecy portrays, is to: 1) judge the world for sin and rebellion; and 2) bring out of that terrible era a remnant of Israel (Jewish believers). This remnant will comprise the head nation of the world during the millennial reign of Christ, which follows Christ’s return at Armageddon.

Now the reason for the title of this commentary.

The writers and other presenters who ignore any possibility of the pre-Tribulation Rapture of believers in Christ watch and report on the issues and events of this darkening age, but see no hope for believers escaping the seventieth week of Daniel—the coming seven years of Tribulation. If Christians are alive when that era begins, they will, according to the anti-pre-Rapture pontificators, go into that time along with all the lost (those who don’t know Christ for salvation) and who are alive at that time.

However, here again is what the Bible tells us:

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. (Titus 2:13)

What hope is there in “looking for” the worst time in all of human history? Our hope is in Jesus Christ and His promise to call us into His presence before the seven years of judgment and wrath begin, as, again, He told John to write to the Church.

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10) 

The anti-pre-Trib Rapture proponents do not discern the entire body of prophecy; else they wouldn’t miss the following:

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:34–36)

There is a sudden moment coming when all things on earth will change in a millisecond. It will come as a snare upon the world. Here is that moment from another Holy Spirit perspective:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. (1 Thessalonians 5:1–6)

What is this moment of snare-like change upon earth? Paul explains in the verses immediately preceding the above. In the last verses of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, he says this:

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4: 15–18)

A profound question: What are the closing words of this Rapture promise? “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

What comfort can be found if we are facing seven years of the most horrendous times in all of human history?

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!