What this study is: a full study of the end times from the King James Bible, built chiefly on the book of Revelation and the Lord's own Olivet Discourse, teaching the order of events exactly as the Scripture lays it down: the church will go through the tribulation of the Antichrist, and the Lord Jesus Christ will gather His saints after the tribulation of those days, when the sun and moon are darkened — and before God pours out His wrath in the trumpet and vial judgments. This is the position commonly called pre-wrath: the rapture is post-tribulational and pre-wrath. It is the teaching set forth in our day by Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in his film After the Tribulation and his preaching through the book of Revelation, and this study follows that map — while every word of the teaching here is our own, drawn from the King James Bible alone.

How to read it: every Scripture quotation in this study is from the King James Version and has been checked word-for-word against the verified KJV text. Read the quoted passages slowly and in order; the whole argument of this study is the order of the passages themselves. Where the popular pre-tribulation teaching is answered, its own proof-texts are quoted in full first and weighed fairly, and then answered from the same Bible.

PART ONE — THE ORDER OF THE END

One Coming, in the Open Sky, After the Tribulation

The Bible does not give us two returns of Christ — one secret and silent, and another public and glorious, seven years apart. It gives us one glorious return, and it tells us plainly where that return stands in the order of the end. The Lord Jesus Himself fixed the order on the Mount of Olives, when His disciples asked Him, "what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" His answer runs in a straight line: deception, wars, persecution, the abomination of desolation, great tribulation — and then, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun and moon darkened, the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and the gathering of the elect by the angels with the sound of a trumpet.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

— Matthew 24:29–31

That is the skeleton of the whole end-times order, given by the Lord Himself, and every other passage in this study hangs on it. Notice what stands before the gathering: tribulation. Notice what the gathering follows: the cosmic signs — the sun darkened, the moon darkened, the stars falling. Notice what is nowhere in the passage: a silent removal of the church before any of it begins.

The book of Revelation follows the same order, and that is no accident — Revelation is the Olivet Discourse unfolded. The seals of Revelation 6 carry the same sequence the Lord gave in Matthew 24: false christs and deception, war, famine, death, the martyrdom and persecution of the saints — and then, at the sixth seal, the sun blackened, the moon as blood, the stars falling, and heaven departing as a scroll. Only after those signs does Revelation 7 open with the sealing of God's servants and the innumerable multitude standing before the throne — the gathered saints of every nation. And only after that, at the seventh seal, do the angels receive the trumpets of God's wrath.

Lay the two accounts side by side and the agreement is exact, seal by seal. The first seal's rider on the white horse, going forth conquering, answers to the Lord's warning of deceivers coming in His name and conquering the minds of many. The second seal, war and men slaying one another, and the third, famine weighed out in balances, and the fourth, death over the fourth part of the earth by sword, hunger, and pestilence, answer to the wars, famines, and pestilences of the discourse — the beginning of sorrows. The fifth seal, the souls of the martyrs under the altar, answers to the Lord's word that His disciples would be delivered up to be afflicted and killed, and hated of all nations for His name's sake — the tribulation itself. And the sixth seal, the great earthquake and the sun blackened and the moon turned to blood, is the very sign the Lord placed immediately after the tribulation of those days (Matthew 24:29). Two accounts, one order. The Revelation does not smuggle the church out between the verses; it carries her through the seals to the signs, and gathers her in chapter 7 — precisely where the Lord in Matthew 24 gathers His elect, after the same signs, with the same trumpet.

So the order of the end, as both the Lord and the Revelation give it, is this:

• First, the tribulation of the Antichrist: deception, the falling away, the man of sin revealed, the abomination of desolation, persecution of the saints, the mark of the beast.
• Second, the cosmic signs: the sun and moon darkened — the signal that the tribulation of those days is cut short and ended.
• Third, the coming of Christ in the clouds and the gathering of His elect — the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the rapture of the living saints, one event, in the open sky.
• Fourth, the wrath of God poured out on the earth that remains: the trumpet judgments, and then the vials of the wrath of God — while the saints are with the Lord.
• Fifth, the return to earth in power, the battle of Armageddon, and the binding of Satan.
• Sixth, the thousand-year reign of Christ on this earth — the millennium — with the resurrected saints reigning with Him.
• Seventh, the last judgments: Satan loosed and destroyed, the great white throne, and then the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Why the Order Matters

This is not a quarrel about words. The order a man believes will decide what he is prepared for. A church taught that it will be snatched away before any trouble comes is a church unprepared for the trouble that the Scripture says is coming — trouble aimed at the saints themselves. A church taught the Bible's order will do what the saints in the Scripture do: endure, watch, pray, preach, and refuse the mark, knowing that their redemption draweth nigh and that God has not appointed them to His wrath. Hold the order fast, and passage after passage that seemed scattered falls into one straight line.

PART TWO — DANIEL'S SEVENTIETH WEEK AND THE TRIBULATION OF THE SAINTS

The Prince That Shall Come

The last week of Daniel's seventy weeks — a week of seven years — is the frame of the tribulation. Daniel was told of a coming prince who would confirm a covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and set up the abomination that maketh desolate.

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

— Daniel 9:27

This is the abomination of desolation the Lord Jesus told His disciples to watch for — standing in the holy place — and when they saw it, they were to flee, for then would be great tribulation such as never was. The Lord was not describing an event already past in His own day, nor one the church would never see; He was giving His people their orders for the last days.

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

— Matthew 24:15–21

The Beast Makes War with the Saints

Daniel saw the same ruler in the fourth beast's little horn — a king who would speak great words against the most High, and wear out the saints of the most High, and prevail against them for a time, and times, and the dividing of time — three and a half years, the second half of Daniel's week.

And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

— Daniel 7:25

Revelation 13 takes up the same vision and names the same season. The beast is given a mouth speaking blasphemies, power for forty and two months — the same three and a half years — and it is given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

— Revelation 13:5–7

Let the plain words settle a question that much teaching muddies: the tribulation is not God's wrath against the church; it is the Antichrist's war against the church. The saints are its targets. Any teaching that empties the tribulation of the saints must first explain away verse after verse in which the saints are present, persecuted, martyred — and, at the end of it, gathered.

The Falling Away and the Man of Sin Come First

Paul settled the timing question for the Thessalonians in words that cannot be misunderstood, because some in his day were already troubled by the claim that the day of Christ was at hand — that it could arrive at any moment, with nothing before it. Paul answered that the gathering of the church could not come until two things happened first: the falling away, and the revealing of the man of sin.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

— 2 Thessalonians 2:1–4

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition". The day of our gathering unto Christ has prerequisites. The man of sin must first sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God — the very abomination Daniel and the Lord described. Only then does the Lord come, and consume that Wicked with the brightness of His coming.

And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

— 2 Thessalonians 2:8–10

So before the rapture ever takes place, the church that is alive in that generation will see apostasy on a scale never known, and will see the Antichrist revealed and enthroned. That is not a doctrine of fear; it is the doctrine of the New Testament, and it is given so that God's people will not be deceived when they see it.

PART THREE — TRIBULATION IS NOT WRATH

The Distinction the Whole Question Turns On

Nearly every confusion in this doctrine comes from treating two different words as one. The Bible speaks of tribulation and it speaks of wrath, and they are not the same thing, they do not come from the same hand, and they do not fall on the same people.

Tribulation is what the world, the devil, and the Antichrist do to God's people. The Lord promised His church tribulation in this world from the beginning, and the tribulation of the last days is that same persecution raised to its highest pitch: the beast making war on the saints. Wrath is what God does to a Christ-rejecting world in judgment. The saints are appointed to suffer the first; Scripture is emphatic that they are not appointed to the second.

Here is the promise, exactly as Paul wrote it — the verse on which the whole pre-wrath position stands:

For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

— 1 Thessalonians 5:9

"God hath not appointed us to wrath". Amen — but whose wrath? God's. The verse does not say God has not appointed us to tribulation; the same apostle told the same church that they would suffer tribulation, and told them not to be moved by their afflictions, "for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto" (1 Thessalonians 3:3). We are appointed to tribulation by the testimony of Scripture; we are not appointed to wrath, by the same testimony. Keep the two apart, and the end-times order unlocks.

Wrath Is Announced After the Signs, Not Before Them

Revelation marks the boundary line for us with perfect clarity. Through the seals of chapter 6, the world suffers the beginnings of sorrows and the saints suffer martyrdom — the fifth seal shows the souls of the slain saints under the altar, crying for judgment, told to rest yet a little season. Then the sixth seal opens: the sun blackened, the moon as blood, the stars fallen, every mountain and island moved — the very signs the Lord placed immediately after the tribulation of those days. And it is only then, at the end of the sixth seal, that the word wrath is first pronounced over the earth — and pronounced as something that is come, arriving at that point, not something that has been falling all along:

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

— Revelation 6:16–17

"For the great day of his wrath is come". The kings of the earth hide themselves at the sixth seal because wrath is beginning, and it begins after the signs that end the tribulation. The wrath of God in Revelation is the trumpets and the vials — poured out in chapters 8 through 16, all of it after the gathering of the multitude in chapter 7. The church is delivered, not from the Antichrist's tribulation, but from the Lamb's wrath — delivered at exactly the moment the Lord said: immediately after the tribulation of those days, at the darkening of the sun and moon.

Wrath, everywhere in the New Testament, is God's judgment on the disobedient — on them that know not God and obey not the gospel — not an affliction appointed for His own:

Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

— Ephesians 5:6

And it is worth one more observation: the Lord Jesus, in Luke's account of the same discourse, told His disciples to pray that they be accounted worthy to escape what is coming and to stand before the Son of man — an escape He places at His appearing, for people who are present on earth watching these things come to pass, not people removed seven years before any of them occur. We will weigh that verse fully in Part Six.

The Days Are Shortened for the Elect's Sake

One more word belongs to this part, because it is the mercy inside the severity. The great tribulation has a limit set by God Himself — not by the Antichrist. The Lord said that except those days should be shortened, no flesh should be saved, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. The tribulation does not run on until it burns itself out; it is cut short by the appearing of Christ, at the signs, for the sake of the very saints who are enduring it. The pre-wrath order is therefore not a doctrine of doom for the church; it is the doctrine that the church's deliverance interrupts the worst season the world has ever known.

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

— Matthew 24:21–22

PART FOUR — THE RAPTURE TEXTS IN FULL

1 Thessalonians 4 — The Resurrection and the Gathering

This is the passage from which the very word for the event is drawn in popular speech, and it deserves to be read whole. Notice, as you read, that Paul describes one event: the Lord descends with a shout and the trump of God; the dead in Christ rise first; the living saints are caught up together with them. Notice also that nothing in the passage places this event before a tribulation — the timing is given elsewhere, and Paul himself gives it in his second letter to this same church, which we have already read in Part Two: that day shall not come until the falling away and the man of sin come first.

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 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 4:13–18

Everything in the pre-wrath order agrees with this passage, and nothing needs to be added to it. The trump of God here is the same trumpet that sounds at the gathering in Matthew 24:31. The dead in Christ rise — and Revelation 20, as we shall see in Part Seven, calls this the first resurrection and tells us exactly who is in it, including the martyrs of the tribulation. If the first resurrection includes those beheaded for refusing the mark, then the resurrection of 1 Thessalonians 4 cannot have happened seven years before the mark exists.

1 Corinthians 15 — At the Last Trump

Paul's great resurrection chapter closes with the same event, and fixes its trumpet in a single phrase — "at the last trump":

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

— 1 Corinthians 15:51–52

A last trump implies a series ending — and in Revelation, the trumpet series is the trumpets of God's wrath, the seventh and last of which announces the kingdom and the time of the dead to be judged (Revelation 11:15–18, read in Part Five). The rapture does not occur before the trumpet series begins, in some silent, trump-less removal; it occurs at a trumpet — the trumpet of the gathering, sounding as the wrath of God is about to fall and as the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord. However the trumpet of Matthew 24 and the seventh trumpet of Revelation are related in the fine ordering of that day, this much is plain from the texts themselves: the gathering is loud, public, and at the end of the tribulation — not secret, silent, and before it.

Revelation 7 — The Multitude That Came Out of Great Tribulation

Between the sixth seal — the signs, and the announcement that wrath is come — and the seventh seal with its trumpets of wrath, Revelation sets a chapter of pure gathering. John sees the servants of God sealed, and then a multitude no man could number, of all nations, standing before the throne in white robes. John is told exactly who they are and exactly where they came from:

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

— Revelation 7:9–10

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

— Revelation 7:13–14

"These are they which came out of great tribulation". The gathered company of the end is a company that has passed through the great tribulation and come out of it — washed, white, and before the throne. This chapter is the rapture seen from heaven's side, standing precisely where the pre-wrath order puts it: after the tribulation, at the signs, before the wrath. Any scheme that removes the church before the tribulation must explain why the great multitude before the throne at the end is defined by having come out of it.

John 14 — I Will Come Again and Receive You

No passage is loved more in this connection than the Lord's word in the upper room, and it should be read whole and believed entirely:

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

— John 14:1–3

"I will come again, and receive you unto myself" — amen, every word of it. But notice what the passage does and does not contain. It promises a coming, a reception, and a prepared place; it gives no timing whatsoever. It does not say 'before the tribulation', any more than it says 'after' — the timing of the receiving is the very thing supplied by the passages that speak of timing: Matthew 24, where the receiving follows the tribulation and the signs; 2 Thessalonians 2, where the gathering follows the falling away and the man of sin; and Revelation 7, where the received company is seen before the throne, come out of great tribulation. John 14 tells us what will happen and Who will do it; the rest of the New Testament tells us when. A promise of reception was never meant to be read as a promise of exemption, and the disciples who first heard it went on to suffer in the tribulations of the first century, received at last by the same Lord who spoke it. The pre-wrath order believes John 14 with its whole heart — and reads its timing where God wrote the timing.

2 Thessalonians 2 Again — Our Gathering Unto Him

It is worth returning once more to the verse with which Part Two opened, because Paul there names the event by the very description this study is about: "by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him" (2 Thessalonians 2:1). The gathering together unto Christ — the rapture, by Paul's own name for it — is the subject of the sentence in which he says it shall not come until the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed. There is no plainer statement of the order in all the Bible, and no answer has ever been given to it from the pre-tribulation side that does not first have to make the verse say something other than what it says.

PART FIVE — THE WRATH OF GOD: TRUMPETS AND VIALS

The Seventh Seal Opens, and Heaven Is Silent

When the seventh seal is opened, there is silence in heaven — and then the seven angels receive seven trumpets. Everything before this point has been the tribulation: deception, war, famine, martyrdom, and the signs in the sun and moon. Everything from this point is the wrath of God upon the earth that has rejected His Christ and murdered His saints.

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

— Revelation 8:1–2

The trumpet judgments that follow fall on the earth, the sea, the rivers, the sun, and the men who dwell on the earth — hail and fire mingled with blood, the mountain burning with fire cast into the sea, the star Wormwood, the locusts from the bottomless pit, the horsemen from the Euphrates. This is the wrath the saints were never appointed to. They are not its targets, and they are not under it: they are with the Lord who has gathered them.

The Seventh Trumpet — Thy Wrath Is Come

When the seventh and last trumpet sounds, heaven announces the transfer of the kingdoms and, in the same breath, the arrival of God's wrath and the judgment of the dead:

And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O LORD God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

— Revelation 11:15–18

In the same breath, heaven says, "the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged". The trumpet series is the wrath series, and it sounds after the tribulation and the two witnesses and the gathering — in the second half and at the close of the last days' events, not before them. This is also why Paul's "last trump" (1 Corinthians 15:52) fits here in the Revelation order: the resurrection and the gathering belong to this trumpet-season of the end, when wrath comes and the dead are judged — the very things this verse announces together.

The Vials of the Wrath of God

After the trumpets, Revelation shows the completion of the wrath in the seven vials — called, in so many words, "the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God":

And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.

— Revelation 15:1

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

— Revelation 16:1

The vials fall on the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image (Revelation 16:2) — God's answer, plague by plague, to the beast's kingdom: on his throne, his city, and his armies gathered to Armageddon. This is wrath with an address: it is poured on the mark-takers and the beast-worshippers, the very company the saints refused to join. The distinction of Part Three is written across the whole section: tribulation falls on the saints from the hand of the Antichrist; wrath falls on the Antichrist's followers from the hand of God; and the gathering of the saints stands between the two.

The Harvest and the Winepress — Revelation 14

Revelation itself draws this study's central picture once more, in two harvests at the end of chapter 14, and the order of the two is the whole doctrine in miniature. First, one "like unto the Son of man" sits on a white cloud, crowned, with a sharp sickle — and He reaps the earth:

And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

— Revelation 14:14–16

Only after that harvest does the other angel thrust in his sickle — not to gather saints, but to gather "the vine of the earth" into "the great winepress of the wrath of God" (Revelation 14:18–19), trodden until blood comes out of the winepress. The order in the chapter is unmistakable and it is the order of this study: the Son of man's harvest first — the gathering of His own at His appearing in the clouds — and then, and only then, the winepress of wrath upon those who remain. God's wrath never falls on a field still holding His wheat; the harvest comes out of the earth before the clusters are crushed in the press. That is pre-wrath in a single picture, painted by the Revelation itself.

Vengeance at His Revelation

Paul describes the same arrival of wrath in 2 Thessalonians 1, and he ties it — as he always ties it — to the revelation of Christ, the one public coming. When Christ is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, He takes vengeance on them that know not God. And to the church, in the same passage, that day is rest: the persecuted Thessalonians were told their rest would come at the same revelation that brings tribulation to their persecutors — not seven years earlier, and not apart from it.

And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

— 2 Thessalonians 1:7–9

Rest for the saints and vengeance on the wicked at one and the same revelation: that is the pre-wrath order in a single paragraph. The church's deliverance and the world's judgment are two sides of one appearing.

PART SIX — THE PRE-TRIBULATION POSITION ANSWERED

The pre-tribulation teaching — that Christ will remove the church secretly, at any moment, before the tribulation begins — is held by many sincere believers, and its proof-texts deserve to be read in full and answered honestly, one by one. When that is done, a pattern appears: every one of its texts either says something other than what the teaching requires, or belongs plainly to the post-tribulation order already set out in this study.

Kept from the Hour of Temptation — Revelation 3:10

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

This is the strongest text the pre-tribulation position has, and it must be answered carefully. Three things are to be noticed. First, the promise is made to one church — Philadelphia — for a stated reason: "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience". It is a promise of keeping, given to a faithful church; it is not a timetable given to all. Second, to be kept from an hour is not necessarily to be removed before it. The Lord Jesus used the same construction in His high-priestly prayer, and there He defines it for us — He prayed for His disciples, not that they be taken out of the world, but that they be kept from the evil in it:

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

— John 17:15

The disciples were kept from the evil through every persecution that followed — kept, in the world, unto the end. Third, "the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world" most naturally names the hour of God's wrath, the day of the Lord's judgment on the whole earth — and from that hour the pre-wrath order says plainly the church is kept, for she is gathered before the trumpets sound. Kept from the wrath; present through the tribulation: Revelation 3:10, read with John 17:15, fits the pre-wrath order without straining a word.

Not Appointed to Wrath — 1 Thessalonians 5:9

This verse has already been quoted in full in Part Three. The answer is in the verse's own terms: the wrath we are not appointed to is God's wrath, and the whole argument of 1 Thessalonians 5 concerns the day of the Lord — God's day of judgment. The same Paul who wrote this verse told this same church they were appointed to affliction and tribulation (1 Thessalonians 3:3–4) and comforted them about the tribulation they were enduring while he wrote (2 Thessalonians 1:4–7). A verse that promises deliverance from God's wrath cannot be made to promise exemption from man's persecution, when its author promises the persecution in the surrounding letters.

Come Up Hither — Revelation 4:1

After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

— Revelation 4:1

It is sometimes taught that John's being called up to heaven in vision pictures the church being raptured before the tribulation of chapters 6–18. But the text says what it says: this is John, alone, in the Spirit, shown things to come, on Patmos, in the first century — and John thereafter is present on earth writing what he sees, and speaks to the churches again in the book's close. No church is raptured in Revelation 4:1; a prophet is given a vision. And the argument built on it — that the word "church" disappears from Revelation until chapter 22 — proves too much and too little: the saints fill those chapters from beginning to end (Revelation 5:8; 8:3–4; 11:18; 13:7, 10; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24; 19:8; 20:9), and it is the saints, by name, whom the beast makes war on and overcomes (Revelation 13:7). The church is not absent from the tribulation chapters; she is their subject, under her New Testament name of the saints.

Escape All These Things — Luke 21:36

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 21:36

This text is often quoted as if "escape" must mean a removal years before the events. Read it in place: the Lord is speaking to disciples who will be present through the events of the discourse, and His counsel to them is watch and pray always — the counsel given to people who will live in the season described, exactly as the pre-wrath order holds. To be accounted worthy to escape the snare that comes on the whole earth, and to stand before the Son of man, is precisely the hope of the gathering: delivered out of the hour of wrath at His appearing, as Lot was delivered out of the city he was living in on the very day judgment fell — not removed years before there was anything to escape from. And the verse's own condition — watch, pray — is meaningless as counsel to a church guaranteed absence; it is the exact counsel of Part Nine of this study.

The Days of Lot — Delivered the Same Day

The Lord's own pattern for deliverance in the discourse's companion passage settles the manner of it. Of Lot in Sodom, He said:

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

— Luke 17:28–30

"But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." Lot was not removed seven years before Sodom's judgment, nor seven days; he was in the city, under the shadow of its wickedness, until the very day the fire fell — and he was delivered on that day, out of the city, immediately before the judgment, by a deliverance that found him where he lived. Noah's pattern is the same: he entered the ark in the season of the flood, and the flood came the same day. So shall it be, the Lord says, at His revealing. The pre-wrath order is simply the Lot pattern read at the scale of the last days: the saints are on the earth through the tribulation of the Antichrist, kept and witnessing; and when the day of God's wrath arrives, they are gathered out of it on that day, and then — and not until then — the fire falls.

That Day and Hour Knoweth No Man — The Imminence Argument

The deepest argument of the pre-tribulation position is not a text but a doctrine: imminence — that Christ's coming for the church can have no signs before it, since no man knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:36). But the Lord spoke those words inside the very discourse in which He had just listed the signs that precede His coming, and in which He commands His disciples, when they see those signs, to know that His coming is near, even at the doors (Matthew 24:33). Paul states the balance exactly: the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night upon them — the world in darkness — but not upon the brethren, who are children of the day and are told to watch and be sober precisely because the times and seasons are written for them:

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.

— 1 Thessalonians 5:1–4

"But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." A day that cannot overtake the watching brethren as a thief is not a day without signs for the brethren. The unknown day and hour is the exact point on the calendar, which no man is given; the season and its order are given in full, and the order is the one this study has followed. Imminence, as the pre-tribulation teaching defines it — any-moment, sign-less, next-event — is contradicted by the single clearest timing sentence in the New Testament: "that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed" (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

The Man Child of Revelation 12:5

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

— Revelation 12:5

The man child caught up to God in Revelation 12 is sometimes identified with the church raptured mid-tribulation or before it. The passage identifies him itself: he is the one who "was to rule all nations with a rod of iron" — the very description Revelation 19 gives of the Lord Jesus Christ at His return (Revelation 19:15), and the words of Psalm 2 concerning the Son. The woman brings forth Christ; the dragon seeks to devour Him at His birth; He is caught up to God's throne in His ascension. Revelation 12 is a sweeping view of the whole war — Christ's birth, the dragon's rage, and the persecution of the woman and the remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:17). The saints are on the earth, at war with the dragon, all the way through it.

Daniel's Week Is 'For Israel, Not the Church'

Finally, it is argued that Daniel's seventieth week belongs to Israel and not the church, so the church cannot be present in it. But Daniel himself places the saints of the most High inside that very season — worn out by the little horn, and receiving the kingdom when the Ancient of days comes:

I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.

— Daniel 7:21–22

And the New Testament knows no doctrine of a church absent from the earth while God deals with Israel apart from her; rather, the elect in Matthew 24, the saints in Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, and the gathered in 2 Thessalonians 2 are one people under one Lord, and the tribulation is aimed at all of them together. Where the Scripture puts the saints in the tribulation, there — and only there — teaching must leave them.

PART SEVEN — THE MILLENNIUM AND THE JUDGMENTS

The First Resurrection — and Who Is in It

After the wrath, after Armageddon, the Lord reigns. Revelation 20 opens with Satan bound in the bottomless pit for a thousand years, and thrones set — and then it describes the resurrection that begins the reign. Read with care exactly who John sees raised:

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

— Revelation 20:4–6

"This is the first resurrection." And in it — named expressly — are "them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands". The first resurrection includes the martyrs of the tribulation, killed for refusing the mark. Therefore the first resurrection takes place after the tribulation, after the mark, after the beast — and since 1 Thessalonians 4 calls the raising of the dead in Christ the church's resurrection and gathering, and Revelation 20 calls this resurrection the first, the two passages describe one resurrection, standing at the end of the tribulation, not its beginning. This single verse is, by itself, a sufficient answer to any scheme that raises the saints before the beast appears: there is no resurrection of the saints in Scripture before the first resurrection, and the first resurrection has the tribulation's martyrs in it.

The thousand years are stated six times in this one passage, and this study receives them as they are stated: a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on this earth, with His saints, after His return and before the last judgment — the kingdom the prophets promised and the church has prayed for since the Lord taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come."

The Judgment Seat of Christ

For the saints themselves there is a judgment — not of condemnation, for there is none to them that are in Christ Jesus, but of reward, where every man's work is made manifest. It stands after the gathering, before the Lord who saved us:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

— 2 Corinthians 5:10

Here the deeds done in the body are received, good or bad; here the gold, silver, and precious stones are separated from the wood, hay, and stubble. The judgment seat of Christ is the saint's appointment after the rapture — not wrath, but review; not the lake of fire, but the Lord's own reckoning with His servants, and the giving of crowns to them that endured.

The Great White Throne — and the Lake of Fire

At the end of the thousand years, Satan is loosed for a little season, makes his last war, and is cast into the lake of fire. Then the books are opened. This study states the doctrine of eternal punishment exactly as the Scripture states it — plainly, without softening and without apology:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

— Revelation 20:11–15

"And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." This is the second death, and it is eternal. The same chapter has already told us its duration: the devil, the beast, and the false prophet "shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Revelation 20:10) in the lake of fire and brimstone. There is no annihilation here, and no restoration; there is a judgment seat of awful whiteness, a book of life, and a lake of fire. A study of the end times that blurs this sentence has failed at the point where the stakes are highest, for it is this judgment that gives the preaching of the gospel its urgency — and it is from this end that the saints of the tribulation would not turn back, though it cost them their heads.

PART EIGHT — NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH

All Things Made New

Beyond the last judgment stands the end of the beginning — God's final order, in which the curse is removed and God dwells with men. John's vision of it is the Bible's last great picture, and it belongs in this study because it is what everything before it is for:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

— Revelation 21:1–4

The first heaven and the first earth pass away — Peter describes that passing with fire, and in the same breath gives the saints their forward look: "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13). The order of this study therefore ends where the Bible ends: not with the church escaping a world abandoned, but with God renewing all things and wiping away every tear.

The Two Ends of Man

Revelation 21 sets the two destinies side by side in consecutive verses — the thirsty given the fountain of the water of life freely, and the fearful, the unbelieving, and the abominable given their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. Both sentences must be preached, and both are preached in this study without trimming either:

He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

— Revelation 21:7–8

Between these two verses stands the whole of human destiny, and the whole reason the order of the end times matters: the saints endure a short tribulation rather than take a mark that ends here; the world takes its ease and its mark, and ends here. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

PART NINE — THE CHRISTIAN'S DUTY IN THE TRIBULATION

Refuse the Mark

The study closes where the saints of the last days will live: with duty. The first duty is negative and absolute — do not take the mark. The mark is the beast's seal of worship and commerce, enforced in the tribulation, and Revelation pronounces the consequence of taking it in the plainest words in the book:

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

— Revelation 13:16–17

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

— Revelation 14:9–11

And joined to that warning, in the very next verse, is the description of the saints of that hour — not removed, not hidden away in heaven, but present, patient, obedient, and faithful on the earth in the worst of it: "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus" (Revelation 14:12). That is the church's portrait in the tribulation, painted by the book itself.

Endure to the End

The Lord's counsel to the saints of that generation is the same counsel He gave the first disciples, for it is the same war: "he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved" (Matthew 24:13). Nor is endurance asked of them without a crown held out in the asking: the Lord's word to the persecuted church at Smyrna — written to a church in tribulation, and never once promising her removal from it — is His word to the saints of the last days as well: "be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life" (Revelation 2:10). Endurance is possible because the end is known and the days are shortened. The saints are not enduring toward an uncertain rescue that might have left seven years ago; they are enduring toward an appearing that is dated by signs they can see — the abomination, the persecution, and then the darkening of the sun and moon, after which their redemption is next.

Preach Until He Comes

And the duty that governs all the others is the duty of this university and of every street preacher: preach the gospel in the tribulation. The Lord set evangelism inside the tribulation period itself, in the same discourse that orders the whole end: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come" (Matthew 24:14). The tribulation is not a season in which the church is absent and the world is left without a witness; it is the season of the church's final witness — two witnesses prophesying in Jerusalem, an angel flying in the midst of heaven with the everlasting gospel, and a multitude of saints keeping the faith of Jesus under the beast's war. The pre-wrath order does not make the church passive; it makes her necessary. The mark is refused, the gospel is preached, the end is endured — and then the trumpet sounds, and the dead in Christ rise, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

The Last Word

John's book, and this study, end with the promise and the prayer that have carried the church through every tribulation she has ever known — and will carry her through the last one:

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

— Revelation 22:20

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.