The rapture doctrine says that Christians will be taken off to the third Heaven either just prior the 'Tribulation Period' or afterwards when Yahweh sends plagues on the earth. The idea of a rapture is said to have originated with a Spanish CATHOLIC Jesuit priest named Ribera, in 1580 A.D.* during a time of much bloodshed in Europe as Roman catholics Persecuted and Murdered * their opponents. This doctrine said that Christ was going to come and secretly snatch away the Church before a great seven-year tribulation, when the "Anti-Messiah" would rule the world. This futuristic interpretation of the book of Revelation, along with the future coming of the Anti-Messiah, was designed to take the pressure off the Roman catholic Pope, who was universally regarded as being the anti-Messiah by His opponents (his opponents were definitely on the right track).

* Read "The Rapture of the Wicked", by Stephen E. Jones or "The Rapture of the Saints", by Duncan McDougall.

* True Believers do not Kill or Murder their neighbors or their enemies.

While Revelation does describe a great many future events, involving The Anti-Messiah, it is still nevertheless true that the spirit of the Anti-Messiah, was already on the scene as early as the latter part of the First Century, A.D.*. Today, a future anti-Messiah concept complete with a pre-tribulation rapture, has become a popular view among Protestant churches too. The idea of going to a place of safety, whether on Earth or in Heaven, is a concept held by many. BUT... Is it the truth?

* I John 4:1-3 Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of G_d, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of G_d: every spirit who confesses* that Yahshua has come in the flesh is of G_d, and every spirit who doesn't confess* that Yahshua has come in the flesh is not of G_d, and this is the spirit of the anti-Messiah, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already.

Note: Confess or confesses, as used here, comes from the Greek "homologeo" (Strong's G3670) which carries with it the implication of having a "Covenant with Yahweh". This word, homologeo," is made up of two other words. "logos" (Strong's 3056) and "homou" (Strong's 3674). "Logos" means mental "Intent" OR "Plan," as in the "Intent of the Heart" OR "Plan of Salvation;" and "homou" means having or being the same, as in being "Spiritually Identical". In other words, confess or confesses simply does not mean to make a statement that Yahshua is the "Son of G_d." It means having and maintaining through your love of Yahweh a Spiritual Marriage Covenant with Yahweh. It means that when Yahweh looks at you He sees a reflection of Himself. Everyone who does not have just such a relationship with Yahweh and His Messiah (to mankind) is basically "Anti-Messiah" in their thoughts and actions.

Note: First let us look at the logic of the first three verses of 1 John 4. If someone teaches or believes that the Messiah is G_d, a god, part of the Trinity or an immortal prior to his physical birth, then somehow they must rule out as impossible the only explanation that cannot possibly be wrong. It is totally impossible for the belief that the Messiah was never anything more than flesh and blood to violate the principles of the first three verses and therefore fit the definition of an Anti-Messiah. To say Messiah Yahshua was purely flesh and blood can in no way be construed to say that he did not come "In The Flesh." Every man or woman who was ever born "Flesh" came into existence "In The Flesh," and none of us are G_d, a god, part of the Trinity or immortal. Additionally, the spirit of the Anti-Messiah or the teaching or the belief that the Messiah did not come purely "in the flesh" began before 95AD., and not with this Sabbatarian Ministry or any other ministry that does not teach the Trinity.
The Trinity is a pagan Babylonian belief, and a Roman catholic Institution, and is not taught by pristine Scripture.
On the other hand, the other two possibilities, that Messiah Yahshua is a god (G_d) or a demigod (G_d in the flesh) definitely betrays these false beliefs as teachings of Satan and his religious-government organizations. The only mystery here is how anyone can believe such lies.

It is well known to True Believers and others that the saints shall undergo much tribulation and persecution, even right up to the time that they receive the Kingdom. (Daniel 7:8, 21-27) "I beheld, and the same horn (little horn) made war with the saints, and prevailed against them . . . . 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 (three and one-half times)" Daniel 7:21,25. Verses 26-27 speak of the time when the little horn's kingdom (The Earth) shall be taken away and given to the saints **.

John 15:20-21 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is NOT greater than his lord. If they have PERSECUTED ME, they will ALSO PERSECUTE YOU; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things THEY WILL DO unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.

1 Peter 1: 7 That the TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory AT THE APPEARING of Messiah Yahshua:

* Julian and Gregorian Calendars, and Sunday as a sabbath, Play down the importance of Yahweh's Commandments (Laws of Love), etc... Of course, it was the Roman government and their Roman catholic church that caused Yahweh's Sacred Calendar and Seventh Day Sabbath to be abandoned.

** Matthew 5:5 "Blessed are the meek (True Believers), for they shall inherit the earth.

Rapturists believe that their Christ will first come for his saints, taking them in a rapture to the third Heaven, and then later come back with His saints to Earth. Thus, they must illogically believe that many who have already died and gone to the third Heaven (according to catholic and protestant doctrines) will somehow be put back into the grave and be raptured to immortality again so that the dead saints can go back to the third Heaven and be with Yahshua (again). This is so ludicrous as to be laughable. But much of the confusion is due to the fact that the Anglican-catholic King James Bible uses the singular word Heaven to represent three distinctly different heavens.

I Thessalonians 4:16-17 says nothing about Messiah Yahshua taking the saints to Heaven. The saints (who were asleep in their graves) are awakened and given immortality for the first time, and then rise up to meet Yahshua (WHO IS ON HIS WAY TO ESTABLISH HIS KINGDOM ON THE EARTH) in the First Heaven (Clouds or Atmosphere of Earth).

I Thessalonians 4:14 "For if we believe that Yahshua died and rose again, even so them also which SLEEP (In The Grave) in Yahweh will Yahshua (Yahweh's Proxy) bring with Him."

Supposedly this verse teaches that before Messiah Yahshua returns, the righteous dead are taken to Heaven and now they are returning from Heaven. No, this is not the correct meaning! Paul knew that the dead are asleep (I Thessalonians 4:13-14), and so did Yahshua (John 5:28). The righteous dead remain "asleep" in their graves, until the coming of the Kurios of Yahweh! Then they meet with HIM (Yahweh's Kurios or Proxy) in the CLOUDS (1st heaven). Then, Once They (Yahshua, Angels, and the Saints) have ALL gathered together in the CLOUDS (Matthew 24:30-31), they return back to the surface of the Earth with The Messiah (Yahshua) to cast out evil and establish G_d's Kingdom on this Earth.

The Great and Terrible Day of the LORD immediately follows The Tribulation Period (wrath of Satan). Matthew 24:29, Revelation 6:9-12, 8:1. It is not a day when we will all be snatched up into heaven. It will be a time when G_d will shake both the heavens and the earth and He will separate the wheat and the chaff. Both will be shaken until only wheat remains. See Isaiah 13:9-13, Hebrews 12:26-28, Amos 5:18, Matthew 13:24-30, 37-43. I repeat, only the wheat remains, because it is not the wheat that is removed or snatched away, but the chaff!

In Matthew 13:47-50, Yahshua gives another parable of the good and bad fish caught in a net. Verse 49: "So shall it be At The End of The World: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just." Thus if there is to be any rapture at all, it must be a "rapture of the wicked" to a Place of Desolation.

In Matthew 24:36-42 there is a section used by rapturists to twist the Scriptures to mean the opposite of its true intent. Verses 40-41 are taken out of context to support the rapture, as being taken away to a place of safety. However, verses 36-39 speak of the wicked people in Noah's day (An Anthropomorphic Physical to Spiritual Parallel) who continued "doing their own thing" and "knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall, also, the coming of the Son of man be", verse 39. Those who are to be "taken" in verses 40-41 do not appear to be raptured to a place of safety, but taken away to be slain. As we have seen, "the righteous (wheat) shall never be removed: but the wicked (chaff or tares) shall not inhabit or inherit the Earth," (Proverbs 10:30). The wicked shall be gathered for punishment (Revelation 14:18-20). Yahshua's prayer was not that His servants would be taken out of the world, but that they would be kept from the evil one (John 17:15, 20). No doubt the Savior wanted His followers to inherit the Kingdom of Yahweh on The Earth (The Coming Paradise), Psalms 115:16. Solomon, also, knew this: "For The Upright Shall Dwell in The Land, and the Perfect Shall Remain in it (land), but the wicked shall be cut off from it (land), and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it (land or "Promised Land") . . . . Be not afraid of sudden fear neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For Yahweh shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken" (Proverbs 2:21-22, 3:25-26). The chaff will be blown away, Psalms 1:4.

Nearly all rapturists falsely teach that after the rapture the saints will attend the "Marriage Feast of the Lamb" in the third heaven for a few years while the Great Tribulation rages on the earth. The Marriage Feast, as described in Revelation 19:7-9, must be to what Matthew 26:29, Matthew 22:1-14, Luke 22:18, and Luke 14:15-24 are referring. In these passages The Church makes herself ready and partakes of a feast with the Eternal, but no passage indicates that this marriage feast takes place in Heaven. This false understanding is due to the false belief that people go to heaven when they die. Instead, The Marriage Feast will take place when His Kingdom has been established on this Earth.

As a result of the Eternal's war against the wicked, many are slain in the winepress of His wrath. All manner of birds will be called together to Feast on the dead flesh of those slain by the conquering Messiah. Truly, the wicked shall be cut off from the earth to be slain and removed (snatched or "raptured" if you will) from the Righteous. *

* Revelation 19:10-21.

* Ezekiel 39:17-20.

I Thessalonians 5:1-4 Says that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. Will Messiah Yahshua return, rapture away His true believers, with the rest of mankind unaware of what happened? Not at all . . . There will be a lot of noise, and destruction when the Messiah (and His Father) return. The whole earth shall see Him returning. HE will come "unexpectedly,"as a thief, in full view of all (not secretly) Revelation 3:3, 16:15.*

* Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, And it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

* Joel 2:1-2 Blow you the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of Yahweh comes, For it is close at hand: A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, A great and strong people; There has never been the like, Neither will there be any more after them, Even to the years of many generations.

* II Peter 3:10 But the day of the Kurios of Yahweh (Lord) will come as a thief in the night (unexpectedly); in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

* Matthew 24:26-30

The word rapture comes from the Latin "raptus" meaning to snatch or seize. A similar Greek word is "harpazo"*, meaning to seize, pluck up or take by force. This Greek word is used in I Thessalonians 4:17, "caught up together with them in the clouds." Does this refer to going to the third Heaven where G_d's throne is? Not hardly!

* II Corinthians 12:2, 4 and Revelation 12:5 do use "harpazo" to refer to being caught up to G_d's Heaven (the clouds of the first heaven), but "Harpazo" does not infer Heaven, just the act of being snatched.

At a moment when we are about to perish, the merciful Eternal will snatch us up to meet with Him (and His Angels) In The Clouds (first heaven), as He is returning to defeat our enemies and rid The Earth of all the wicked*.

* Revelation 20:1-3 I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for one thousand years (The Sabbath Millennium), and cast him into the abyss (Tartarus Hell), and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time (100 years).

Some Rapturists believe in "two phases" of Messiah Yahshua's coming: first a "secret" rapture for the saints to take them to Heaven for 3 1/2 or 7 years, while the Anti-Messiah deceives the nations and tortures all who won't submit to him. This time they refer to as the "tribulation" and "Day of the Lord." Then they say the "second phase" of the Messiah's coming will occur. Yahshua will come visibly, in power and glory, with the saints, to conquer the Anti-Messiah. However, the Bible time sequence of last day events does not allow for this interpretation. Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 parallel the events described in Revelation 6 and 8:

1.) False prophets (deception)....... Matthew 24:3-5 ....... Revelation 6:2

2.) World wars .................................. Matthew 24:6-7 ....... Revelation 6:3-4

3.) Famines ........................................ Matthew 24:7 .......... Revelation 6:5-6

4.) Pestilences (disease) ................ Matthew 24:7 ........... Revelation 6:7-8

5.) Persecution (Tribulation) ..Matthew 24:9-13, 21-22 ... Revelation 6:9-11

6.) Heavenly signs ........................ Matthew 24:29 ......... Revelation 6:12-17

7.) Day of The Lord (Elect gathered) .. Matthew 24:29-31 .. Rev. 6:8-9, 16-19.

It is very clear from the above that the "Tribulation" and "Day of the Lord" represent two distinct periods of time, separated by the heavenly signs. Matthew 24:29 shows that the heavenly signs happen immediately after the Tribulation, and Joel 2:31 says that the heavenly signs occur before the Day of The Lord. Pretty easy, huh?

The Tribulation Period is Satan's wrath. He is angry because he knows his time is short, and he wants revenge on the faithful believers who keep the Eternal's commandments (Revelation 12:7-17, 3:10).

The "Day of the Lord" is Yahweh's wrath (Revelation 6:17) during which seven trumpets of punishment are sounded, culminating in the seventh trumpet of seven last plagues, Revelation 8, 9, 15, 16, 19.

Notice that the Elect (Chosen Few) are not gathered before the Tribulation, but during the Day of The Lord (Matthew 24:29-31). Specifically, the righteous dead are resurrected at the seventh, or Last Trumpet (Revelation 11:15-18 / I Corinthians 15:50-52 / I Thessalonians 4:16-17). The prophetic time sequence laid out in Scripture allows no such thing as a "pre-tribulation rapture." Even during the wrath of the "Great And Terrible Day Of The Lord", the true servants of Yahweh are not taken to Heaven, but remain on Earth. Revelation 7:1-10 describes 144,000 servants of Yahweh who are sealed in their foreheads (Shema), so they will be protected during the wrath of Yahweh on the Earth.

Now, if Yahweh's servants were already in Heaven, and immortal; why would they have to be sealed for protection?

It is during the "Day of the Kurios" that the feet of the Kurios (the Messiah) will stand on the Mount of Olives (on Earth), Zechariah 14:1, 4.

Ezekiel 9:4-10 (A Dual or Parallel Prophecy)

Yahweh said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst of it. To the others he said in my hearing, Go you through the city after him, and strike: don't let your eye spare, neither have you pity; kill utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but don't come near any man on whom is the mark: and begin at my sanctuary.

Then they began at the old men that were before the house. He said to them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go you forth. They went forth, and struck in the city. It happened, while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell on my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord Yahweh! will you destroy all the residue of Israel in your pouring out of your wrath on Jerusalem? Then said he to me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of wrestling of judgment: for they say, Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh doesn't see. As for me also, my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will bring their way on their head.

Will the Christians be raptured off the face of the Earth? Absolutely, and they will be accompanied by all other pagan tradition observing religious people, and those that do not honor Yahweh's Holy Sabbaths. There are certainly going to be a huge multitude of extremely shocked and severely disappointed Christian rapturists when they discover that they are not being raptured into heaven, but into hell (Hades or the grave, and ultimately Gehenna Hell)!

The Sabbatarian Network
Used with permission.