The Rapture Paradox
A woman from the Netherlands, who years ago was a frequent visitor to www.raptureready.com once proposed we address a troubling thought she lived with as a Christian. It is a paradox I believe many Christians who look for Christ to come for believers in the rapture have considered, at least to some extent.
The writer those years ago sent an article about the growing Islamic population in Europe and the threat Islam represents not only to Israel, but to the rest of the world that is not Islamic. She recognized that Israel being at the center of world controversy indicates the lateness of the hour, prophetically speaking. She put it this way in her email:
Every time I see these articles, I am on one hand horrified at the treatment of the Jewish people, but on the other hand full of anticipation as I know that with each event that pushes the Jewish people back to their homeland of Israel, the closer the rapture is for Christians. I do feel badly that I am excited for the rapture though, as I know what that means for those that will be left behind… Should we be as excited as I am to know that we can (I believe “will”) be raptured any second? I know this gives me an urgency to share the gospel with friends and neighbors, but I still always feel guilty for the anticipation and excitement I get when I see the current events played out daily.
This dichotomy within the believer’s thinking is, I believe, not unusual for those who truly look for Christ’s any-moment call as prophesied by Paul the apostle:
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive 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 Thess. 4:16-17).
Christians who believe the pretribulation rapture is truth from God’s Word, yearn–without need to apologize–for the blessed hope that is found in Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13). At the same time, they know that when that call from their Lord comes, those left behind will soon endure a time of horror, about which the Lord Himself foretold:
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:21).
Those left behind will, the Christian knows, include perhaps close friends and beloved family members. So, the paradox of wanting the rapture to take place, and at the same time dreading it for those who will stay on this planet that will endure God’s judgment and wrath is, to some, troubling.
The article this writer sent with her email those years ago encapsulates just a small part of the building evil that the Lord of heaven will judge with His righteous wrath. The matters the article involved point to the satanic rage represented within Islam, the number-one Israel-hating entity on the planet. Hatred for Israel, and the desire of the international community to force the Jewish state to divide the tiny portion of its God-given land in order to come up with a formula for peace with its Islamic neighbors, will lead to Armageddon, God’s Word says:
“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3:2).
The article the emailer sent contained a speech by Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament for the Netherlands. He synopsized with stunning description how Israel’s Islamic enemy was systematically infecting Europe, thus threatening world stability–or what little of it that remains.
Wilders, who was chairman of the Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, spoke at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem. He announced that Europe was in dire straits as it was undergoing Islamization. America and the world, he warned, faced the same fate as Europe if the threat wasn’t confronted and defeated everywhere it exists.
Wilders said that entire city sections throughout Europe were taken over by Islamists one street at a time. Local governments and police forces were often so intimidated that they dared not go into those areas to govern. Women, treated no better than slaves, according to the speaker, were covered from head to toe in tent-like attire, sharia law took precedence, and women in sections of the cities not part of the Islamic communities more and more were hearing hate-filled shouts of “Whore!” from those of the Islamic populations.
(http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wilders.asp)
That news report was from a decade and a half ago. Today, the Wilder’s prediction is manifest in hourly news reports while American cities and states, such as Texas, are experiencing what can only be described in my view as an Islamic invasion.
In 1991, the Muslim Brotherhood issued a confidential memorandum that outlined the strategy for the group in North America. It details a plan for the “Enablement of Islam in North America,” understood as “establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is.”…
The aim of Islamists is not integration into our society, nor to isolate themselves within their own enclaves, but rather to energetically integrate America into Islamist culture. Far from a Muslim “Benedict Option,” the Islamist strategy is political and confrontational…
Islamists oppose the American sense of nationhood and form of government and seek to replace constitutional and national governments with the global Islamic state…
The digital age means the annihilation of distance. Thanks to the internet, Islam’s reach and networks have globalized. Immigrants talk regularly with relatives on the other side of the world and establish international revenue streams. This new technology presents Islamists with an opportunity they never enjoyed a hundred years ago.
Those advocating for stricter Islamic practices can use the power of digital connections to reach and reeducate Muslims around the world. Videos from conflicts in far-off places can be broadcast instantly to millions of Muslims in the West, encouraging them to see themselves as participants in the same struggle.
The 1991 memorandum indicates how Islamists exploit this situation by encouraging Muslims to think of themselves not as members of a Western polity but as internationally interconnected engineers who are building one global Islamic state. Islamists will not permit Muslims to blend into America’s purported melting pot. Source: The Islamist Threat to American Communities, by Nathan Pinkoski, May 7, 2025]
Israel and its being targeted for extinction by Islam, which has infected so much of the American radical leftist anti-Semite insanity with hatred, is the sure sign that the tribulation is in view. The rapture of the church is, therefore, an event that must be very near to occurring indeed. That being the obvious case, what should be the Christian’s foremost priority? The answer is that it should not be considered a paradox for the believer, but an exhortation, a call to duty.
There is nothing anyone can do to hurry or delay the coming of Christ for His saints in the rapture. The timing of that great event is out of our hands. Therefore, longing for the blessed hope (Titus 2:13) to rescue us from the terrible time to come (Revelation 3:10) doesn’t conflict with our concern and compassion for those who will be left behind if they don’t come to Christ for salvation. It is time for those who name the name of Christ to recognize the lateness of the prophetic hour, witness to those around us of the truth that Jesus Christ is the one and only Way to salvation, and live in such a way that we can earn our Lord’s commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
— Terry
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We Must Be So Very Close
We live at a time like no other. We live in biblical times.
The Bible says that the last days would look exactly like what we see all around us today. How can anyone miss how closely world events align with what God prophesied for the days leading up to Jesus’ glorious return to the earth? The many distractions of modern life effectively blind the multitudes, and even most believers, to the multitude of signs pointing to the rapid approach of God’s judgment upon the planet.
We are witnessing the convergence of signs at an ever-accelerating rate. It borders on the surreal. Below are just a few of the reasons for believing that the start of the Day of the Lord could happen at any moment, which means that our homegoing is even closer to reality.
The lawlessness and corruption of our day already far exceed what I thought possible before the Rapture. Paul described the antichrist as “the man of lawlessness” and wrote that the “mystery of lawlessness is already at work” (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7). The disregard for civil authority that we see today is extreme, no doubt, and fulfills a key aspect of the apostle’s warning concerning the “perilous times” of the last days (2 Timothy 3:1-9). The ramping up of anarchy and violence, as evidenced by the murder of Charlie Kirk, points to the soon arrival of the “lawless one” on the world scene.
We know that he cannot begin his reign of terror until after the restraining work of the Holy Spirit ends with our departure from planet Earth. How much longer can it be before Jesus comes for us?
The Bible says God will judge the world in real time. According to 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3, there’s coming a time when the world will experience the “sudden destruction” that will mark the beginning of wrath during the Day of the Lord. The Old Testament prophets wrote of an extended period of God’s vengeance upon the earth that they referred to as “the Day of the Lord.” This time will culminate with Jesus’ return and thousand-year rule over the nations.
Someday soon, God’s patience with the wickedness and killing of the innocent in both America and the world will end. The Lord Jesus will take all born-again believers out of this world, and His wrath will fall upon those now promoting the violence and mayhem of our day.
Modern technology not only makes the mark of the beast possible, but it also makes it highly likely. With the advances in artificial intelligence (AI), the creation of huge databases, the arrival of digital currencies, and other advances in technology, the day of a cashless society with governments possessing the ability to control the buying and selling is not only possible but highly probable. It’s remarkable that even those who might scoff at our belief in the mark of the beast (Revelation 13:16-18) tell us that the day is coming when those in authority will be able to dictate all monetary transactions.
Twenty years ago, I thought that the antichrist would need a huge army of loyalists in every nation to control all the buying and selling. About ten years ago, I began to see how he could use recent technical advances to accomplish it. Now, even those who don’t believe what John wrote in Revelation say that such a time surely lies ahead for the world.
The clamoring of the nations to divide Israel and Jerusalem tell us the antichrist will soon arrive on the world scene. The purpose of the September 22 UN meeting is to carve out a Palestinian state in the Land that God gave to the Jewish people. Just as technology has advanced in readiness for the unveiling of “the man of lawlessness” after our departure, so has the world’s attitude toward Israel and Jerusalem opened the door for his arrival.
The meeting in New York later this month will not yield the covenant that kicks off Daniel’s seventieth week (Daniel 9:24-27). However, the antichrist will someday bring all the sides together in agreeing to a package that will guarantee Israel’s security and bring peace to the region. The fact that this happens after the Rapture shouts with the message that we will be going home soon, very soon.
The UFO mania underscores Satan’s prepping of the world to believe “the lie” regarding our sudden disappearance. During the past twenty-five years, there’s been a growing consensus of belief that alien life is real. Just this year, the belief in small UFOs has grown to that of gigantic alien spacecraft either heading toward the earth or already here. The devil is actively conditioning the world to believe that the Rapture will be an alien abduction.
These unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) have grown from compact objects to gigantic ones capable of housing a multitude of people whom the aliens could beam up from the earth. I don’t think this is a coincidence; Satan knows that his time is short, and as a result, he’s actively preparing people to believe anything but the truth regarding our sudden disappearance.
The widespread unawareness that judgment is coming is precisely what the Lord predicted for the time just before He again intervenes in human history. When speaking about the signs of the last days, Jesus used those living at the time of Noah’s flood and those in Sodom as examples of the unawareness that would characterize the last days (Matthew 24:36-39; Luke 17:26-30). God’s judge will come as a “thief in the night” for those left behind because they have no idea that they live in the last days.
Is this not what we see today? Not only do most pastors ignore the many signs of the rapidly approaching sudden destruction of the Day of the Lord, but they also actively deny the Lord’s soon intervention in our world. Sadly, it’s not just the world that’s soundly asleep, but many saints are also totally unaware that they may soon meet Jesus in the air.
These are just a few of the great many signs that together proclaim the nearness of the Rapture.
I am still in shock over the murder of Charlie Kirk. It comforts me to know that Charlie is with Jesus whom he loved and served, but it also makes me long all the more for the day Jesus appears to take us home. When Jesus comes, He will administer justice in our world and continue to do so until He returns in great glory and sets up His righteous kingdom over all nations.
Maranatha! I pray He comes soon, very soon!
-Jonathan