Yet another pointer to where this generation stands upon God’s prophetic timeline is the emerging of globalism’s powers as they construct the final world kingdom. We have God’s Word on what I believe we see beginning to form as Daniel the prophet foretold through interpretation of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s strange dream:

“And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay” (Daniel 2:40-43).

This is the description of the ten-kingdom power base that will form Antichrist’s regime for controlling all peoples of the world. This power platform, too, is described in a brief mention by John, another of God’s great prophets:

“And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:7-8).

Fifth and Final World Power

Daniel prophesied that the fifth world power will come out of the fourth. We know the order of world empires from history. The first Daniel interpreted was Babylon. The second would be the Medo-Persian. The third would be the Greek Empire, and the fourth would be the Roman Empire, represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s night vision by the legs of iron. The fifth empire–the final empire, and the only one that is yet to come into being as fulfilled prophecy–is represented by the feet and toes of that metallic monstrosity.

To my understanding, the five world empires given to Daniel in metallic representations–i.e., gold for the head, silver for the breast and arms, brass or bronze for the belly and thighs, and iron for the legs, feet and toes–is indicative of money and the power to rule over the inhabitants of planet Earth. Metals have most always been at the center of any economy throughout history. And when the metals represented the power to mold and construct weaponry–e.g., spears, bullets, bombs, warcraft-like tanks, planes, and ships, et cetera–the power of the metal and the economies of the world powers become understandable. Money is power, and power is control. These are inextricably linked.

The fifth world power will come from the Roman Empire, which disintegrated but is reforming, we who observe prophecy from the pre-Trib view believe. We believe the European Union is almost certainly the nucleus out of which this last Gentile power is emerging. This is the area of central Europe in particular. Rome is the very heart of that nucleus.

Antichrist Comes Forth

Daniel also prophesied about the last world empire’s leader who would leap to center stage at just the right moment in Satan’s plans to bring him to power:

“And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (Daniel 9:26-27).

Antichrist, “the beast,” as this vicious future tyrant is termed, will come to power and rule ruthlessly. His power will emanate from economics–the ability to call all to worship him through a mark-and-numbering system that will control buying and selling. (Read Revelation 13:16-18 to understand this 666 system of absolute control.)

Economics Set the End-times Stage

We are witnessing economic rearrangements at present like no other generation has seen. Even the United States–as anyone with any sense of what’s been going on in the news will attest–is being forced into a mold of one-world economic order. It is all leading toward the mark-and-numbering system that will give Antichrist his power. (Read Revelation 17:12-13 to learn of the ten economic power blocs that will develop, then give power and authority to the Beast–Antichrist, the ruler of the fifth and final world empire.)

Again, the European powers are apparently to be the nucleus of this satanic kingdom of ten kingdoms. However, the whole world will be absorbed into this agglomerate power base.  The following reports the continuing emergence of other areas of the world that will ultimately join so Antichrist can control most of the world once he leaps upon the stage of post-Rapture history.

The agglomerate bloc known as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) represents growing economic and demographic heft: the eleven BRICS countries now comprise more than a quarter of the global economy and almost half of the world’s population:

“Whether it’s called a BRICS or ‘Western’ order, it is all the WEF-UN global order.

“BRICS-based multipolarity will save us from ‘The Technocratic Dark State’ by making the rollout of an oppressive global surveillance state much better. This will be the result of ‘improving global governance.’ At least, that is according to the BRICS Outcome Document published by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs after the latest riveting meeting of BRICS foreign ministers.

“The global dictatorship will be a happier, fluffier kind of new world order tyranny under the BRICS’ multipolar model because it will be ‘more just, equitable, agile, effective, efficient, responsive, representative, legitimate, democratic and accountable.’ Fantastic news, doubtless welcomed by those Hrvoje Morić refers to as the ‘Multipolaristas.’

“Though the BRICS’ document reads like the worst kind of globalese dross imaginable, it is important to remember that the BRICS are offering us the promise of a ‘beautiful multi-polar world order defined by win-win cooperation.’ Presumably, this is because humanity must have some sort of centralized, oligarch-led global dictatorship enslaving it for any of us to have a chance to ‘win.’”(“BRICS proposes a multipolar world order; it is the same as the WEF-UN led world order under a different name,” By Rhoda Wilson, Expose, May 18, 2026)

Paul the apostle wrote of the economic reality that drives the world toward God’s judgment and wrath:

“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:9-10a).

Rushing toward the End

Certainly, the truth of God’s Word frames what’s happening at this time in history, and where it all is heading as the rulers of this fallen sphere grasp for the wealth of this world and strive to cast off the bonds of governance God wisely placed upon the would-be masters of planet Earth.

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you” (James 5:1-6).

We are in the end-of-the-age era of the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s night vision.

Only the Rapture of believers stands between the people of planet Earth who will be left behind and this, what Jesus called the worst time of human history (Matthew 24:21).

You don’t want to be part of that left-behind world. Here once again is how to escape that time and go to Christ and safety when He calls believers:

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

 

Author’s note: This article was written years ago when the preTrib view of the Rapture was under attack. That Truth is now under an attack of an even more virulent sort. So I believe it is time to revisit this, the most Electrifying Event of all of history that precedes the Tribulation and Christ’s Return in the Second Advent.

Rapture – Answering the critics

This generation is full of scoffers, mocking the prophesied return of Jesus Christ to Planet Earth. This is as the great Apostle Peter foretold it would be at the end of the Age of Grace (Church Age).

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet 3:3-4).

God’s prophecies are 100% accurate, so it doesn’t surprise in the least that there is scoffing and mocking today, exactly as one of God’s prophets said there would be as time nears the Lord’s return. There are many signals occurring simultaneously, and with phenomenal frequency and intensity, pointing to where we are on God’s Prophetic Timeline. Chief among these are all of the geopolitical dynamic intrigues surrounding the nation Israel – God’s Prophetic timepiece. The sneering at the thought that there could possibly be a Rapture just throws fuel on the fire of the end of days deluge – the end that is coming in with a flood of last days indicators as foretold by Daniel the prophet.

“And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof [shall be] with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined” (Dan 9: 26).

Daniel was foretelling what would happen from the time the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would die for the sins of mankind, until the very end of human history at Armageddon. Great, convulsing, prophesied issues and events would, near the very end of the age, he forecast, gush through the generation alive at the time like a flood.

Daniel’s end-time flood

One of those predicted events of the end-time flood is the level of anger that will be against believers who proclaim that one of the most stupendous events of all human history will one day – perhaps very soon—take millions upon millions from the earth’s surface in a fraction of a second.

We receive in our e-mail each week any number of messages declaring that the Truth we champion regarding Bible Doctrine and prophecies – particularly the Pre-Trib Rapture of the Church — are everything from ludicrous to heretical. This criticism gets especially intense whenever the raptureready.com website is written or spoken about in a major media outlet. That is to be expected, because there can be no spiritual discernment among those of the lost world. Believers in Jesus Christ can understand, while those who do not belong to God’s Family through belief in His only begotten Son cannot understand.

“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:11-14).

Defense of Rapture to lost and saved

Trying to explain or defend the Rapture to the world of the lost is, therefore, fruitless. There is just no way they can come to understand or believe this doctrine, unless, and until they repent, ask for, and accept God’s Grace Gift offer of Salvation through Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice on the cross at Calvary nearly 2 Millennia ago.

We can go through the vast body of scriptural text, laying out the Bible facts, as we are confident God’s Word presents Truth about the Rapture. But, unless and until one is capable of spiritual discernment from the Holy Spirit, a person, no matter how intellectually brilliant, can never come to believe those facts. They might even come to understand the facts in a purely cerebral sense, but never truly comprehend them to the point of knowing that the Rapture is a cataclysmic event in the future of one particular generation of earth’s inhabitants.

So, our efforts to explain the Rapture will meet with quite limited results, seeing as how there is a great spiritual discernment disconnect when explaining to those who don’t know Christ for Salvation. This we accept; thus, we can move ahead with limited frustration in putting the Truth about prophecy and the Rapture before these as best we can.

Dealing with the Body of Christ –all born-again believers—is quite another thing when it comes to our frustration meter. It becomes a bit more disconcerting when our efforts to put out Truth about prophecy, and the Rapture in particular, are met with the same arguments, no matter how thorough and how cogently we organize and present what God’s Word has to tell His children about these matters.

Hard shell Rapture detractors

There are, of course, the die-hard preterists (believing that most all prophecy has been completed or should be spiritualized) and the reform replacement theological enclaves (those who declare God’s promises have been taken from Israel and given to the church). These make their living throwing mudballs – usually with stones at the centers—at those of us who proclaim the Truth that Jesus will come for His Church –all born-again believers—BEFORE the Tribulation era – the last 7 years of human history that culminates at Armageddon.

Those who refuse to see 2 programs of God’s dealing with mankind, Israel, and the Church — these two dovetailing into one magnificent prophetic culmination — castigate us who believe that God deals with His creation called man dispensationally (the ages of Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, the Church, Tribulation, Millennium, etc.).

Sometimes, it seems fruitless to try to break through the thick spiritual iron wills of these, in trying to present Truth about the Rapture. But these are not the most troubling that seem to fit the 2 Peter 3:3-4 description, so far as scoffing is concerned.

The more concerning, to me at least, are those who, despite being given, time after time, the same tremendously in-depth explanation from God’s Word about the Rapture, and the Truth that it will be a Pre-Trib Rapture, continue to come to us with the same arguments to the contrary. This despite the fact that they visit the Rapture Ready website and can read over 15,000 articles on matters of God’s Truth, many dealing specifically with eschatology.

These are Christians who just seem to have it in their determination that they must go through – endure—the Tribulation, the time about which Jesus foretold the following:

“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).

The Tribulation, if we can imagine, will be worse than the concentration camps, torture chambers, crematoriums of Hitler, or the most terrible days of the inquisitions, with all of the devilish methods of torture. Yet, there seems to be a need – they deludedly think—for some Christians to go through that time, during which Antichrist will do his dead level best to kill every person who refuses to worship him.

Anti-Rapture example

I’ve chosen one letter from such a Christian. It is a simple and mild letter, no mud-ball throwing. But it represents the most troubling of all of the critics of the Rapture of the Church, in my view. It is most troubling that these types think as they do, because it shows an almost willfulness against accepting God’s promises, summed by this passage:

“For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes 5:9).

Here is what she wrote, in part:

“I know that the Tribulation is going to be extremely bad and even worse than I can imagine, but I sincerely believe I, along with you and other Christians that are living at the time, will be going thru the bad. I am prepared mentally and will do whatever comes my way to either get thru or stand up and say no when needed. If I am one that is to [be] beheaded, then so be it. I know GOD will be holding my hand, and whatever comes my way, HE will see me thru.

If I can be of any use to GOD to help save people, then I am prepared to do as HE wants. I have many family members that are not believers now and pray daily that will change. I do believe that many souls will be saved. I know that I am a sinner and do not like verses of the Bible taken out of context. The whole book, or at least the chapter, needs to [be] read and understood, not just a verse here and now to prove a theory that did not even come into being until a couple of hundred years ago.

How is every eye going to see JESUS return if HE comes back in secret? Just don’t believe any are going to be ‘raptured away.’ The Bible states that HEAVEN will be coming down here, not us going up there.”

Tragic misconceptions unscriptural

The Christian sister makes a number of statements of misconception that are dealt with through hundreds of thousands of articles on the RR website. This is my problem. Many criticisms of us who hold to the Pre-Trib Rapture are issued forth by those who obviously have never mined the rich resources available to them before making their criticisms/argumentations.

She writes that she is sure that she will be going through the Tribulation in order to stand for Christ and help God save people out of that horrendous time. She charges that she has disdain for those who twist scripture out of context, with those (like us, I presume) using scattered and sporadic scripture to make our points.

She, at the same time, provides no scripture for any of her criticisms of the Rapture “theory” as she puts it. However, most who make this charge do so using scripture from Revelation that they declare shows saints in the middle of that time of Tribulation. Thus, they conclude, the Church is right there, taking the brunt of Antichrist’s rage and God’s Wrath.

Dispensational discernment required

Indeed, believers will populate that era by the millions. It will, many who study that period believe, be a time of the greatest coming to Christ in the history of man.

What she –and the others—fail to recognize, or even consider, is that God deals with man, including His children, in dispensations. There are saints of the Church Age at present, and there will be saints during the Tribulation. Neither will be together in the same dispensation.

Jesus told us that He would build His church upon the Gospel Message the apostle Peter had just given, telling Jesus that he believed Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

“And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:17-18).

Do you see that? The gates of hell – Satan—will not prevail against the church. That’s all about the Church Age saints.

The Revelation tells quite another story for God’s saints. The following scripture is speaking, of course, about Satan’s great tyrant, antichrist, during the Tribulation era.

“And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations” (Rev 13:7).

The Church will not be “overcome” by Satan because it won’t be here. The Tribulation saints (those who accept Christ after the Rapture) will be overcome to a large extent – lose their physical lives for the cause of Christ.

Myth-making against Rapture

Our Christian critic-friend proves that she has at least done some study, but not from God’s word. She has read the books and literature of those who incessantly and speciously claim that we who believe in the Pre-Trib Rapture have learned our “false” doctrine from a 19th-century witch, who somehow influenced John Darby to later perpetrate the hated Rapture theory.

The most ludicrous of the criticisms is that we base our view that there will be a Rapture upon Margaret MacDonald’s vision in the 1800s. It makes me almost nauseous to have to even address this –for the thousandth time- when, if the critics would just read what is already written on the subject on the site, it should quell their proclivity to make such ridiculous claims. But I will briefly answer again, these who are so intellectually and spiritually lazy.

The Rapture, the catching up (harpazo) was revealed by Paul the Apostle. It is a mystery he gave us through Holy Spirit Inspiration, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

The Rapture was not the concoction of John Darby who picked up this teaching and gave it an improved order of presentation centuries after the Doctrine was believed and taught  by the early church fathers (first 2 centuries AD.)

The Rapture isn’t built on one or two scriptures but on an entire body of Scriptures. When viewed in totality and in context, the Doctrine flows with prophetic signals we observe occurring in the world today. i.e., the world isn’t getting better and better as the Kingdom Now people believe (that the Church will make the world better until Christ can return to set up His Throne). The Pre-Trib Rapture view puts forward that the world will grow worse and worse. The Church will be removed from Earth, then God’s Judgment will begin to fall on rebellious earth-dwellers.

Which do we see happening today – the world getting better and better – or are things looking worse and worse for Planet Earth? Read the daily headlines, or watch the hourly news, and you will have your answer.

Two phases of Second Coming

Again, Paul shows us the mystery –i.e., he reveals the mystery of the Rapture in 1 Cor. 15:51-55. The mystery he is expanding upon is the wonderful Promise Jesus made, as shown in John 14:1-3. Jesus is coming for us — before God’s wrath must fall.

A foreshadowing of that principle is seen in Genesis, chapter 19, when God said that He could do nothing in the way of sending Judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah until Lot was first removed. Lot represented the only Righteousness God recognized. It was Lot’s Faith — as puny as it was — that kept him and the other few believers of his family from the time of God’s Wrath — again, Rev. 3:10.

Our critic asks how all eyes can see Christ return if He comes secretly in some rapture.

She declares she just doesn’t believe anyone is going to be raptured away, and she states Christ will be coming down to Earth, not Christians going up to Him.

Again, she and those who fill her head with anti-Rapture rhetoric fail to or willfully refuse to see God’s Dispensations in dealing with man. In the case of the return of Christ, scripture makes it clear there are two separate returns. These are at least 7 years apart from one another.

Jesus will return at some unknown time in the Rapture. Jesus Himself likens that coming to a thief-in-the-night experience for those on Earth. They won’t know what has happened and certainly won’t see Christ. Paul says it is a moment in time when all believers (the Church) will meet Jesus in the air.

“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 Thes 4:16-17).

Jesus will come the second time, following at least 7 Earth years, at the close of the Tribulation era, known also as “Daniel’s seventieth week.” This time, He will come all the way to the planet, and every eye will behold Him.

There will be absolutely no doubt about this Re-entry and landing.

“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” (Rev. 19:11-15).

Scriptural Proof required

As stated before, each of these things intended to deny the validity and credence of the Pre-Trib Rapture is dealt with at great length, and in tremendous depth throughout the RR website. All opposing views are carefully dissected, and with scripture given at every point along the way in addressing any and every question. But it DOES take determined research to seek out Truth found in the articles –Truth that is God’s Word, not merely ours.

And here is the main crux of this dear lady’s problem in not discerning Truth about Christ’s coming for the Church – for her. She presents not one scripture to back up any of her assertions, declarations, or suppositions/postulations. She simply parrots things critical of the Rapture doctrine she has read or heard from those who mock, without anything of spiritual substance to back her/their criticisms.

My intention is not to pick on her. I want only to use her method of criticism – a method used in almost every instance by those who listen to the anti-Rapture crowd — as an example to show there is no foundation to her/their argument/denial that the Rapture is a Doctrine taught in God’s Word.

This is our answer to such critics. Study the Word of God. Make your criticisms from His Word –as the dear woman says—not from just a scripture here or there, but from the whole context of the matter, whatever the matter happens to be.

I have studied most all of the positions and variations thereof involved in these arguments for decades — which gives away my age, I guess. The Pre-Trib view of prophecy yet future is absolutely the only one that makes sense in the totality of scriptural context, and in terms of what we see unfolding today in things of geopolitics, global socio-economics, and religion.

Salvation – Rapture inseparable

The Rapture is an issue incontrovertibly linked to Salvation — something Jesus did on the cross, which puts us in God’s Family when we truly Believe. That Faith keeps us from the time of God’s Wrath — both in the coming Tribulation and in Eternity. Wrath and Judgment must fall upon rebellious mankind because of Sin. Jesus paid the price for that sin. He said on the cross, “It is finished.” Sin was forever paid for at that moment, for those who would accept His Sacrifice –the only Sacrifice that God will accept — the precious Blood of His Blessed Son.

We are told that we, as Christians, while in the flesh, will have tribulations (troubles). Certainly Christians have had troubles down through the years. Persecutions — genocide, martyrdom, etc. These horrors are still happening in some places around the world. But this was not and is not God’s Wrath and Judgment, but was and is Satanic rage against God’s People. The Tribulation will include Satanic rage, but it will be within the horrific Storm of God’s Wrath and Judgment.

Christians (those who have been — as our critic says — saved following the Rapture- – will certainly suffer Satanic rage, but not God’s Wrath. Many will be martyred, as in the times of the early persecutions — like Christians are being martyred in some nations today. But we are told that we (Paul denotes the difference between Christians of the Church Age and those who aren’t in God’s Family by the use of pronouns) aren’t appointed to wrath but to Salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are told by Paul to “comfort one another with these words.” Not look to fear but to comfort… (Read 1 Thes 4:18 and 5:9-11.)

We will be kept out of “the time of testing (the apocalypse or Tribulation) John was told by Jesus (Rev 3:10).

Rapture Ready or not…

Now, you might not agree, and that’s fine. If you know Christ, you are going instantly to Him anyway when Jesus says, “Come up hither,” as He did to John in Rev. 4:1-2. You will have no other choice if you are in God’s Family.

But, please don’t ever think — or claim — that there are only scattered verses here and there, or that there is no tremendously deep body of Scriptural evidence and proofs beneath the Truth of the Pre-Trib Rapture.

Again, you can disagree, but please don’t accuse us of not knowing about the other views, and don’t just blindly accept what opponents falsely say when they lie, proclaiming that we just believe in something a 19th-century Englishman said, or that we follow some woman who dabbled in the occult. That isn’t true, and you should look more deeply into the evidence upon which we base these understandings than just to take the word of those who make such shallow and deceptive accusations.

Put this scripture in a place you can memorize it – and make it your model Truth for avoiding the pitfalls of intellectual and scriptural laziness.

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).