There has never been anything in the history of the world exactly like this event before or since!

Pentecost in A.D. 31 was absolutely unique. It is the birthday of the New Testament church.

Toward the end of the second chapter of the book of Acts, we read how three thousand were baptized, given God's Holy Spirit, and "put into" God's true church in that one day! We also read how God "added to the church daily such as should be saved!"

This is an important point.

Many times, people speak of "joining" the church. But you cannot "join" God's true church! Only Almighty God can put you into His true church! He does this by the miracle of granting repentance, watching to see if you will broken-heartedly repent of your sins, ask to be baptized, and then receive the laying on of hands for the begettal with the Holy Spirit. If your repentance is genuine, your baptism sincere, Almighty God will then give you His Spirit, which automatically PUTS YOU INTO His true church, or the spiritual "body of Christ."

Paul wrote,

"By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many" (1 Corinthians 12:13,14).

A little later he said,

"Now you are the body of Christ [this is a spiritual metaphor], and members in particular" (1 Corinthians 12:27).

All too often, the word "church" is completely misused and misunderstood today.

To many, it merely means a building on a street corner, featuring a steeple and a cross, perhaps stained-glass windows, which is called "a church." To others, it is the headquarters or the national denomination of this or that "church," like the Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Church Of Christ, First Christian Church, Lutheran Church, or dozens of others.

But the original Greek word merely meant the "assembly" of the called-out disciples of Jesus Christ in whom God had placed His Spirit!

The church can never be a political organization. Instead, it is a spiritual organism, the mystical "body of Jesus Christ," which transcends national, political, racial, cultural, linguistic and sociological bounds! God has members of His true church who represent practically all the races and sub-tribes of this earth; members of His true church in whom is God's Holy Spirit in dozens of nations, representing all the color strains of the human family, and speaking dozens of different languages!

No doubt, many of these members of God's true church have never heard of one another, do not remotely belong to the same "political organization" and never will! Yet, God "knows His own," and Christ knows His own "sheep," and says His sheep "know His voice." Many who espouse the doctrine of the "secret rapture," tend to view the church as their own political organization. When they speak of "the church" you might as well add the name of the denomination, or the name of the organization. For, many of them seem to believe that unless your name is in their files; unless you are a "member in good standing" of THEIR ORGANIZATION, you cannot be a member of "the true church."

But this is pure nonsense in the light of the Holy Word of God! Christ said, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you " (John 15:16). Today, many people "choose a church of their choice." They "transfer their letter," or "join" this or that church.

But you cannot "join" the true Church of God, which is the body of Jesus Christ! Only God can put you into His true church! When this happens, you are then connected directly to Christ!

Paul wrote to the Gentiles in Galatia,

"If ye be Christ's [if you are converted, baptized, and receive God's Holy Spirit] then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29).

Regardless as to where you are on this earth, when you become Christ's, you are then joined to Him! He told His disciples, "I am the Vine and you are the branches!" He did not say to Peter that Peter was the vine to which all the other "branches" had to be joined! Rather, He described His church as "branches," emphasizing the plural!

We see the early true church of the New Testament in a completely different light from the monolithic, hierarchical political organizations of man-made churches of today!

The apostle Paul was completely independent from Peter, conducting the ministry of preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God as a witness and a warning to then Gentiles.

Is Christ Coming in Secret?

Strangely, the very word rapturists use to claim Christ's coming is in secret, to "snatch up" His saints, is the Greek word translated from the Aramaic equivalent which His disciples used when they asked,

"Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Thy COMING [Greek: parousia], and of the end of the world [consummation of the age]" (Matthew 24:3).

The very first warning from Christ was that false prophets would attempt to deceive His true servants. Later, He defined the kind of lying deceptions they would use, saying their message would be that Christ would be in "secret" places (Matthew 24:24-26).

Is it any wonder that millions in the mainstream fundamentalist denominations believe in the false hope of the "secret" rapture? Many believe Christ is already here, perhaps "hiding" somewhere, to reveal Himself later! One mainstream fundamentalist TV preacher says the Kingdom of God is already here, NOW, that all we must do is somehow "enter" it. But this is so much "spiritualizing" double-talk!

Are saints ruling this world with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:26)? Did Christians in South Central Los Angeles stop the riots by the power of God? Are the saints ridding this world of crime and drugs, of divorce, child molestation, and pornography? Are saints enforcing God's laws on millions of people? Nonsense!

True to Christ's predictions, the majority are deceived by false teachers. Millions confidently expect they will be secretly "snatched up" from this earth to escape any involvement in the time of Tribulation!

Therefore, they believe God will not allow Satan to bring about persecution, perhaps even torture and martyrdom, to any members of their church! But Christ said His servants are NOT better than He was, and that if they had persecuted and hated Him, they will persecute and hate His servants. He said the time would come when those who killed His saints would "think they were doing God a service."

Who, then, does the persecuting? The state; the civil authority? Not necessarily. It was the religious fanatics who had Christ put to death! It will be the self-righteous, self-important, egotistical, proud, religious people who will persecute Gods true saints! Will it be the very ones who hope in a "secret rapture" who turn on those who do not, when they find their pie-in-the-sky dreams shattered?

Some grow terribly angry when their cherished doctrine of the "secret rapture" are challenged from Scripture.

But Christ did not describe the tumultuous, earth-shaking events to precede His return as "secret." Instead, He continually spoke of wars, of drought and famine, of disease epidemics, of terrible religious persecution, of a time so horrible that millions of human beings would perish, a time of such trouble that it would pale into insignificance any previous wars (Matthew 24:21), a time so violent, so destructive, that if God did not step in to cut it short, humanity itself would NOT SURVIVE.

There is not one whisper, breath, hint, or shading of meaning in the entire twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew that Christ is coming to secretly "snatch up" His saints!

Instead, the Greek word parousia, meaning "coming," is used for the second time in this chapter in verse 27 which says, .

"For as the lightning [already discussed: probably, the SUN, not merely the lightning of a thunder storm] cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall the coming [parousia] of the Son of man be" (Matthew 24:27)

The sun is powerfully VISIBLE. This word means something of powerful, visible brilliance, not something "secret."

In Luke's account of this Olivet prophecy, he wrote,

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity..." (Luke 21:25).

Of course! Massive power failures; interference with global communication systems; ships and aircraft radios and navigational equipment gone awry; massive traffic pileups when noon suddenly turns to midnight; millions in the streets, looking up, wailing; people terrified by the things they see! Is this SECRET? Only a fool could assert such.

To continue: "...the sea and the waves roaring" - a description of massive coastal destruction from the mind-boggling storm which would be triggered by such violent celestial activity! Like the colossal tidal waves from earthquakes, the "tsunamis" that smash inland for miles, carrying huge ships onto dry land, smashing buildings, inundating whole cities - Christ described a massive earthquake that will be a part of the last plague, which immediately precedes His coming!

"Men's hearts failing them for fear [people dropping dead of heart attacks because of their fear!], and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass,"

Christ told His disciples,

"then LOOK UP, and lift up YOUR heads [His true servants, the saints! ] for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21:25-30).

Is there anything secret about any of this? Nations collapsing, warfare raging, millions dying in nuclear explosions, disease and starvation raging, millions dying in nuclear explosions, disease and starvation, waves roaring, the sun black as sackcloth of ashes, the moon red like blood, people dropping dead of heart failure, and then the heavens splitting open, and a brilliant light shining like the power of a thousand suns, with Christ descending to this earth as the conquering KING OF KINGS!

Secret? Ridiculous! Absurd!

Paul wrote of Christ's coming,

"Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep [die], 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).

Christ said the dead shall be raised at His coming!

When? At His return; at His coming!

The resurrection does not occur until the moment of Christ's VISIBLE, TUMULTUOUS, POWERFUL, EARTH-SHAKING RETURN!

The Resurrection and the "Catching Up" of the Saints

Now, notice:

"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep [are dead] 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 [precede] them which are asleep [are dead]. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: THEN [and not one second before!] we which are alive [Paul wrote to the church, the saints ] 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" (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18).

Notice that the living saints are not to precede the dead in Christ by so much as a second!

WHEN, then, is the resurrection?

Notice!

"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the Firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ's at His coming [parousia]" (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

Now, notice another graphic, earth-shaking description of Christ's Second Coming:

"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and true, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh " (Revelation 19:11-21).

Anyone who believes for one instant there is anything "secretive" about this stupendous series of events is incapable of understanding plain English.

Notice further information about Christ's Second Coming:

"Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name" (Zechariah 14:1-9).

This great earthquake is also mentioned in Revelation 16:17-19, in connection with Christ's coming to smash the power of the ten kings comprising the Beast power (Revelation 17:12-14).

Clearly, the prophecy includes the battle of Armageddon (Daniel 11:40-45; Revelation 16:14-16), and the Second Coming of Christ to destroy these arms gathered against Jerusalem!

The time element is inescapable. "His feet shall stand IN THAT DAY UPON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES" is as plain as the nose on your face!

Christ is not coming in "two phases," first, "for" His saints prior to the Tribulation and Day of the Lord, and then, "with" His saints afterwards!

Clearly, the living saints will not precede those who have died down through the ages; those martyred in the first century, including Peter, James, and Paul! Instead, they are to be either resurrected, or changed, in a moment, in the "twinkling of an eye" AT THE LAST TRUMP!

The last trump is the last of the seven trumpet plagues, at the moment of the great earthquake, and the Second Coming of Christ!

What Difference Does it All Make?

Why should someone who believes in the "rapture" get ANGRY when shown, from the Bible, that the so-called "secret rapture" is a myth?

If Christ is going to redeem the saved; if Christ is coming to catch up His people, including the dead in Christ, and descend with them to the mount of Olives in the same day, then His true followers will be SAVED, will they not?

They will be born of God by a resurrection, or an instantaneous change, will they not? (1 Corinthians 15:50-52).

They will then come down from the clouds, perhaps anywhere from 10 to 40,000 feet above the earth, in this earth's atmosphere, and will be with Christ as He begins to rule this earth with a rod of iron.

What is so wrong with these wondrous promises of your Bible that "pretribulationists" and "secret rapturists" seem to violently object?

It is simply this: Somehow, they cannot bring themselves to believe the "saved" could suffer any harm! For some reason, an insidious false assumption has crept into the minds of millions of people, an assumption which says God would not think of allowing His saints to come to any physical harm! No, any such terrible event is reserved only for the wicked, so they think! What they do not realize is that such a false assumption makes them out to be better than Christ!

Did not Christ say, "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also"? Did He not say, "In this world ye shall tribulation"? Did He not say, "The time will come when they that killeth you will think they do God a service"?

Another equation in this false assumption is that martyrdom is reserved for the spiritually weak!

Those who cling to the false notion of "church eras" point out how God will allegedly throw those in the so-called "Laodicean attitude" of lukewarmness into the Great Tribulation, while spiriting away into a desert wilderness the "good" people in the "Philadelphian era."

According to this scenario, those closest to God; those on fire with zeal; those with the most faith, the most works, the most spiritual character, will be PROTECTED from the Tribulation, miraculously "taken to a place of safety."

But those who are less faithful, not so close to God; those without zeal; those who are lukewarm, who have weak spiritual character, will be chosen as God's martyrs!

As they suffer, they will realize how terribly weak, and lukewarm they have been, as the theory goes, and, under torture and eventual death, they will repent!

But WHO did God choose as His martyrs?

Look at the list: Jesus Christ, Peter, James, Paul, Stephen, Antipas, dozens of others in the first century. Read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, how God's greatest prophets were oftentimes martyred for their faith.

John saw a vision of the witness of two prophets, two human beings who will personally testify against the Beast and the False Prophet! Their Prophecy is to take place during the Tribulation!

"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees [mentioned in symbol in Zechariah 4:3], and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit [the abyss—a spiritual metaphor] shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts to one another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice out from heaven saying unto them, ‘Come up hither,’ And they ascended to heaven [this earth's atmosphere, where vapors form clouds—not the "third heaven" of God's throne] in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted: and gave glory to the God of heaven " (Revelation 11:2-13).

These two men are in Jerusalem all during the Tribulation and the Day Of the Lord. Their three and one-half year's testimony coincides exactly with the "time of Jacob's trouble," of three and one-half years; with the "times of the Gentiles" of three and one-half years; with the "treading down of Jerusalem" of three and one-half years!

God gives them power far above that of Moses or Elijah. The plagues they call down upon sinning mankind, upon the Beast and False Prophet, are global in nature, not national, or local, as in the former cases.

These two prophets, the "two witnesses" of the future, are human beings, converted, Spirit-led SAINTS! They are Christ's servants, conducting the last-minute, FINAL phase of God's work on this earth of PERSONALLY witnessing to the Beast and False Prophet in the name of Christ!

What happens to them?

They are martyred!

When the Beast is finally able to "make war" against them, overcome them, and kill them, the Bible does not tell us specifically how they die. You can be sure it will not be pleasant! Yet, after lying dead in the street for three and one-half days, they are obviously resurrected, and will be given eternal life! Are these two great prophets "Laodicean"?

Are they "left behind" when the saints are "raptured," or the so-called "Philadelphia era" goes to a "place of safety"?

Do they suffer a horrible death because they are spiritually inferior?

No, God does not choose the spiritually WEAK, the lukewarm, to be His martyrs!

Instead, He chooses those who are so close to God that they literally count all things in this life "as dung" (Philippians 3:8) in comparison with the Kingdom of God, and eternal life!

"Rapturists," like "survivalists" and "escapists," have their minds on the preservation of this physical life!

Jesus Christ tells them that those who seek to save their lives in this world, who have their minds on physical things, are likely to lose out on salvation!

No, God is NOT going to "rapture" away His saints secretly. The lady with the bumper sticker will not suddenly disappear through her roof, after all!

Let us not trust in false hopes, but in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and God the Father, Who loves us, and Who promises eternal life with Him in His Kingdom to all those who "endure unto the end," whether that means the end of our own physical lives or the end of the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord!

Written by: Garner Ted Armstrong