CONCLUSION pt. 1

If there is going to be a Rapture, I believe that God will rapture His believers off of this earth sometime before the start of the 7 year Tribulation. I don’t think He will wait to the midpoint of the Tribulation where the Antichrist seats himself in the Temple proclaiming himself to be God and then starts all the persecution of God's saints.
I believe the Antichrist will be fully revealed to the world near the beginning of the 7 year Tribulation when he enters into a peace treaty and covenant with Israel, and then allows them to start rebuilding their Temple so that he can eventually get into it at the midpoint of the Tribulation to proclaim himself to be God.
And remember the very first verse above, that the Antichrist cannot be revealed until "He" is taken out of the way. And when "He" is taken out of the way, then the Antichrist can be fully revealed to the rest of the world. And the "He" in my opinion may be the Church or the main Body of Believers that are living at the time of these events.
The other reason I think the Rapture will occur sometime before the start of the 7 year Tribulation is that the Antichrist is going to need some time to set things up. Once the Church is taken out, he will be free to start operating at full throttle.
The first thing he is going to do is convince and persuade the rest of the world to follow him, and I feel he will do that by trickery and deception. If he starts the mass persecution too early on those who will not take his mark, he will risk not being able to gain full control of everything.
I believe he will first suck everyone in by peace and diplomacy and the promise of a better world. Then once he has enough of the nations on his side and the Jewish Temple has once more rebuilt, that will be the time that He will then go for all of the marbles.
He will seat himself up in the Temple at the midpoint of the Tribulation, proclaim himself to be God, kill anyone who will not accept his mark and will then seek total world domination and control.
Think about this. This one man, through the power of Satan, will get a chance to have more power and more control over the entire world than any other man has ever had during the entire course of our human history. This will be the ultimate ego trip for a power hungry human being.
I believe that the last three and half years of the Tribulation is going to be the last and final history lesson from God to us. With the Church being taken out of the way so Satan and the Antichrist can operate at full force, I feel that God is going to show all of us how much terror, death and destruction humans and demons are capable of committing if given half the chance without God directly intervening.
In three and half years, Satan and the Antichrist are going to cause so much death and destruction on this earth, that Jesus Himself says that had these days not been shortened by God the Father Himself - that no flesh would have been saved! I really feel that Satan, if he knew he had the chance, would set up the entire scenario with the Antichrist to destroy the entire world through nuclear weaponry.
Satan already knows he is defeated. He already knows he will eventually end up in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone forever and ever. He knows that this will be his last chance for mass destruction and terror. He hates all humans and anything to do with God and heaven.
If God would allow him anymore time than the three and half years, I really believe Satan would set the world up for mass destruction through nuclear weapons. He would then have the satisfaction that he literally destroyed the entire world before he goes to his final fate.
.......................2 b continued...

* Article written by Michael Bradley of Bible Knowledge Ministries.
Theirwebsite is a resource of Bible commentary and teaching.

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