Rapture Context

The text above directly follows the 'rapture texts' of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, which is explained on the previous pages. The division of Bible books in chapters and texts is man-made and should not be taken into account. From his unfolding of the prophetic mystery of the rapture of the church, Paul directly goes on with the description of the earthly context in which the rapture would take place. The circumstances at the rapture Paul calls 'the times and seasons'. These 'times and seasons' would be characterized by the following:

 

1. A thief in the night

The world will be in complete ignorance about the coming of the Lord in the rapture of the church. This wordly ignorance is why the enormous worldwide rapture event will come as 'a thief in the night'. Paul does however not mention the rapture as a separate event but he relates the world's ignorance to 'the day of the Lord'. This 'day of the Lord' is not a normal day of 24 hours. The day of the Lord is the era during which creation will experience the presence of the Lord in a thousand year long sequence of his mighty and earth-reshaping actions. Among these actions are the judgments that will be brought over backslidden humanity during a short period of 3.5 years that is called 'the Endtime', 'the great tribulation' or 'the hour of temptation'. Among these actions is also the rescue of a totally downtrodden people of God by the powers of this world, the Palestinians.  Among these actions are also multiple resurrections of multitudes of dead peope. Among these actions is also the regenerating influence of his Spirit on as many people that are still receptible or honesty and truth. Among these actions is also the taking away of the curse from creation so that universal righteousness, peace and abundance will arise all over the earth.

That 'the day of the Lord' is an era of 1000 years, is indicated as follows:

(1) while speaking of 'the day of the Lord', Peter writes: 'But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.' (2 Peter 3:8).

(2) In the same letter, Peter also writes: 'But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.' (2 Peter 3:10) This indicates that the coming of the day of the Lord will be as a thief in the night (completely unexpected to the world) and that it ends in the passing away of the heavens. The book of Revelation teaches us that Jesus will reign for a thousand years. Therefore the day of the Lord must be about a thousand years.

(3) In the gospel of John, the day of the Lord is called 'the last day', the last era of 1000 years before the end of the present heaven and earth, as we saw under (2). This 'last day' would be characterized by the resurrection of those that believed in Him (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54). It would however also be characterized by the judgment upon unbelievers (John 12:48). We know that the resurrection of believers will happen at some moment during the return of Jesus, be it at the rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:17, 1 Corinthians 15:51,52) or at the second coming, about 3.5 years later (Revelation 20:4).

The rapture of the church is the very first action of the Lord at the 'day of his coming'. For this 'coming' the New Testament frequently uses the word 'Parousia', which has a broader meaning than just 'coming'. It means presence and can thus include a longer time span than just one day of 24 hours. In the case of the Lord, it is a 'coming', a 'presence'  of thousand years.

 

2. 'Peace and security'

The time of the rapture would be characterized by reassuring messages of 'peace and security'. Indeed, 'peace and security' has become a slogan of many UN-organizations and many a government tries to appease the population with these same soothing words.

That Western governments and international bodies are using such words can only mean that the situation in the world is not one of peace, nore one of security. Those in power need such words in order to keep the public quiet while the world's situation grows more violent, more hostile and more insecure by the day.

A world full of uncertainty with lying politicians that try to calm their citizens with words of 'peace and security' is exactly the world we are living in since 9/11. The events of 9/11 of 2001 were not random. They were a concerted trigger to usher in a new world order in which the already powerful ruling class behind the US-empire would grab even more power by taking away citizen's rights and by forever conquering the Middle East, thereby securing that no rival powers would ever be able to arise on the world stage.

Since 9/11, the USA and Israel and their vassals in the Gulf have attacked seven countries, the last of which is Iran. The foregoing six have all come down and have been changed into failed states that could be looted and exploited. The strange thing is that Afghanistan was not even on the list, while the US was attacking that country first. At the moment of writing this, the war with Iran has been going on for more than 7 months and the US has not been able to make any progression toward subdoing it. On the contrary. After 7 months with intervals of very intense bombing campaigns, the US bases in the Gulf states have all been largely destroyed and forsaken. The US has come to its wits' end and if it doesn't act decisively, it will loose its position as the global hegemon.

Another war front is Ukraine. Since 2014 the US has used the puppet regime that it had installed in the 2014-coup as a battering ram against Russia. That made the US, Israel and Turkey successful in the 2024-downfall of the Syrian Assad-government, which lacked the support of a strong and resolute Russia. Backed by the US-empire, Israel has emerged as a vicious military power, taking much of Palestine and parts of Lebanon and of Syria, creating havoc every in every peace of land it sets its foot upon. The people of Palestine, which are the true descendants of old Israel, bear most of the burden of the fascist forces of evil, posing as 'nation for the Jews'.

While many are suggesting defeat for the US-empire on all fronts, it has nonetheless gained many victories. It had an overwhelming presence in Iraq that it acquired since the 2003-Iraq war. Through covert actions in the form of its terrorist Al-Qada-, ISIS- and HTS-forces, it has substituted the antagonist Assad regime of Syria with its own puppet regime at the end of 2024. It completely dominated its Gulf vassals, which became clear when Saudi Arabia started attacking the Ansarallah-government of Yemen in the summer of 2026. This action was completely against their own Saudi interests and resulted in a war that devastated Saudi oil exports.  The only huge problem remaining is Iran. To many commentators, the US would be a victim of the high energy prices resuting from the closing of the strait of Hormuz by Iran as a result of the war and from the reduced flow of oil out of Saudi Arabia. And indeed, the average American pays much higher gas-prices at the pump. But those behind the empire have seen windfall profits because of the rising energy prices. And with dwindling energy reserves because of a disrupted flow of energy from the Gulf states, the largest producer of energy in the world, the USA, becomes an essential partner to many countries. The Hormuz-energy crisis could very well have been concocted in order for the US-empire to regain its position as the sole dominant world power.

The enormous influence that the US is still wielding, is also visible in the behavior of Europe. European governments act as obedient vassals towards US-interests, agreeing to very unfavorable deals with the US, permitting the US to cut one of the most important energyflows (Nordstream), going along with the sanctioning of Russian energy to the detriment of its own industry, supporting the US-proxy war on Russia with enormous financial and military support for Ukraine, promising to more than double the defense budgets by raising taxes and cutting social welfare programs, conscripting its youths into the army and allowing the US to wage an unlawful war of agression against Iran from European territory. All of this is the result of the US-policy of 'burden sharing' or 'division of labor', leaving the war against Russia to Europe, transforming the 'defense pact' NATO into one big proxy, so that the US itself can concentrate on Iran and, if necessary, China, which it considers its greatest threat to world hegemony.

To the US-empire, Iran still is an enormous obstacle for an undisputed position of primacy on the world stage and the US-empire is obsessed with its defeat. Since the upcoming BRICS, the position of the dollar in global finance has deteriorated while the position of the dollar as the world's reserve currency has been the financial basis under the US-empire. An empire that is loosing the ground that it depends on is extremenly dangerous. This level of danger that threatens world peace has not been seen since WWII. The wars and rumors of wars in the world all result from the efforts of the empire to hold on to its world domination. Amidst these tumultuous circumstances, governments need to reassure their citizens with messages of 'peace and security'.

 

3. Sudden destruction

The moment will comet that the tensions in the world, that have been building, will reach a boiling point. An enormous conflict will envelope the whole world. World War III will emerge, a sudden destruction. This will happen after the rapture of the church. For Paul speaks of 'we' that will be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17) and he speaks of 'they', that will be caught off guard by 'sudden destruction'. And, he adds: 'ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.' When the shout from above sounds, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, the Christian should not be surprised. He should lift up his head an both arms in a smile in eager expectation for the fulfillment of the greatest wonders that ever happened in history. For the Christian that has an eye on scripture and on world events has seen this day coming for quite some time.

The 'sudden destruction' will be ignited by what the Bible calls 'the abomination of desolation that will be standing in the holy place' (Mathew 24:15). An abomination is an idol. The holy place in bible prophecy is the temple mount. At the moment, the temple mount is the area of Muslim worship, with the Omar mosque and the Al Aqsa mosque at the center. According to the prophecy, an idol will be set up in the mosques on the temple mount. Like the rising tensions in the world point to the outbreak of a worldwide conflict, there are rising tensions around the temple mount that will ignite a war in the Middle East that will lead toward the third world war.

Since October 7, 2023, the Al Aqsa, which had already become a target of Israeli assaults, came under fierce attacks of the far right religious movement in Israel, with daily incursions of so called settlers on the Haram Al Sharif, the third most holy place in Islam. While these settlers exercise Jewish prayers, songs and teachings, under protection of the Israeli temple police, Palestinian muslims are barred from entering the premise. All of this goes totally against international laws that were established after the 6-day war of 1967, when Israel started its occupation of Palestinian territory, that had been assigned to Palestinians in the UN-resolution 181 in 1947. The obvious efforts of the state of Israel to change 'the status-quo' of the Al Aqsa and to Judaizise the Haram-Al Sharif has led to the 'Al Aqsa flood' of October 7, 2023. Everything that happened on that evil day hints at a stand down order for the IDF, so that the outbreak from Palestinian fighters could be used as a pretext for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza (and the West-Bank) which followed during the three years thereafter.

The present tensions in the world are tightly linked to the tensions around the Al Aqsa. The attack on the Al Aqsa by Israel in the form of increasing Jewish rituals on holy Muslim ground formed the provocation for a total devastation of Gaza. Likewise Jewish ceremonies in the Al-Aqsa could be the provocation that is necessary for Iran to overstretch. According to Bible prophecy, future Jewish ceremonies in the Al-Aqsa will be performed in the presence of the US-president, who will somehow claim to have the authority to change the character of the Al-Aqsa from Islamic to Jewish, in other words, to be equal to the most High. This will enrage the complete Muslim world and Israel will be invaded, first by Egypt (under the pressure of an outrageous population) and then by Iran. Israel will go under in total devastation. That is why Jesus warned those in Judea witnessing the 'abomination' in the holy place to flee to the mountains. Multiple bible prophecies point to this event of the abomination and/or the resulting desolation: Daniel 9:27, Daniel 11:39-45, Daniel 12:11, Isaiah 28:14-19, Zechariah 13:8. The moment of the abomination of desolation is extremely important because it is the start of the Endtime clock of 3.5 years.

The US needs this provocation in order for Iran to overstretch and to weaken. After the total destruction of Israel, the US will be able to defeat Iran and to retake its world primacy. While the war in the Middle East starts, other wars will also erupt for that specific goal. The NATO-Russia war and the US-China war, possibly because of Taiwan and the adjacent sea-lanes. All of these wars are part of the second Apocalyptic horseman on the red horse, of the second seal, that will be opened by Jesus in heaven (Revelation 6:3,4). WWIII wil be more devastating than WWI and WWII combined because of modern technology and the lethality of modern weapons. Moreover governments will exert a tyrannical control over their populations (the 'great sword' of Revelation 6:4). In the wake of the battles that will be fought will come food-shortages and hyperinflation (the black horse of the third seal) and famine, harsh death sentences by governments and pestilences (the pale horse of the fourth seal). This is the 'sudden destruction' that will ambush the world a short while after the rapture.