If you've been following this web site, you know that we believe Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God and our Lord and Savior. You also know that we believe Jesus came to earth once already, He was rejected by His own people, was wrongly accused, crucified, died, raised from the dead and ascended to heaven where He now sits at the right hand of God. You also learned that we believe Jesus is coming again soon to take those who believe in Him to heaven during what is known as the Rapture. Only believers will see Him during this great exodus of Christians from the earth and that He will come again, after this time and every eye on earth will see Him coming in wrath to judge and wage war.
But what happens in between the Rapture and Christ's second coming? We believe there will be a period of seven years between the Rapture of Christ's Church (believers) and His second coming in wrath. This period of time is known as the Great Tribulation or sometimes just by the word Tribulation. Immediately following the Rapture there will not be any Christians left on the earth. They will all have been swept up to heaven...and oh how glorious that will be! Those who remain here on earth will have varying responses to the instant disappearance of millions of people. I should say that many will respond in horrific terror! There will be great panic, sorrow and shock among those who are "left behind".
Many who are left behind will instantly know where the Christians went. There will be those on earth who had loved ones and friends who tried to win them over to Christ, but to no avail. There will also be many people who truly thought they were Christians, but actually had no relationship with Christ. If God does not know you through His Son Jesus Christ, you will be left on earth to suffer through this great time of tribulation! If any of these people had been exposed to any information about the Rapture at all, they will instantly know in their heart that this has happened to their friends or loved ones.
There will be others who will come up with all kinds of outlandish theories about what has happened to those of us who instantly disappear without a trace. The seeds of some of these theories have already been planted in books like Michael Drosnin's "Bible Code". Many people will choose to believe that millions of people have been carried off by aliens than to believe what the Bible says about the Rapture of Christians prior to the Great Tribulation! Others will actually believe that they are the morally correct and that God, Buddha or some other deity vaporized those who have disappeared in some sort of earthly cleansing! Though the horrors that will quickly follow our departure should put this theory to rest in lightning speed! Without the love of Christians on the earth, evil will multiply rapidly!!
Wrath and evil are what the Great Tribulation are all about. During this seven year period, God will basically step back and let both the evil of man and the evil of Satan run rampant on the earth. Without the love, laws, forgiveness, morals, charity and positive example of Christians on this earth, other humans will exercise their free will to the hilt and evil will be the result. If that is not bad enough, the evil of Satan will gradually be unleashed through the Antichrist. Finally, the wrath of God will be poured out on the earth and those left on it in the form of warning after warning to turn from evil before it is too late!
One can only imagine the forms of evil human beings are capable of! Just reading the paper or watching the evening news gives you a pretty good idea of how evil some people already are even with the positive example of Christians still on earth. The Bible states clearly that good will be perceived as evil and evil good during these "end times". The difference between right and wrong will be increasingly blurred. While the Bible does not go in to very many specifics about the evil acts of men during the Tribulation, it does provide details about the specific warnings and plagues brought by God, as well as the deceptive tactics and eventual complete dictatorship of the Antichrist during this seven year period. It is during these seven years that anyone left on earth will be forced to choose, through one way or another between the ultimate good = God/Jesus and ultimate evil = Satan/Antichrist.
