Before and After

Being the steely-eyed, analytical type that I am, I admit that I am one who doesn't tend to put a great deal of stock in dreams. I don't automatically dismiss them out of hand, of course, but neither do I tend to go gaga over them. People have all kinds of dreams, and it strikes me that in the majority of cases, they are just that: dreams.

Not necessarily prophetic visions straight from the throne of God—just dreams.

I know that in the last few years, many people have had dreams pertaining to the Rapture. I've heard a few—some are pretty wild, and some are genuinely captivating.

Case in point: I'm sure some of you are familiar with Carl Gallups, a well-known pastor and author who is perhaps best known for his books The Magic Man in the Sky (2012) and The Rabbi Who Found Messiah (2013). A couple of years ago, he publicly shared a dream he'd had a number of years earlier, and the dream and the amazing story behind it garnered no small amount of attention in Bible prophecy circles. If you haven't seen it, I want to encourage you to watch the YouTube video (28 min.) of Carl sharing the dream and the related story, because it is fascinating and deeply compelling for all those of us who are looking for that blessed hope.

But like I said, as a rule I'm not big on dreams, perhaps because I so rarely have one that makes a lick of sense and so is worth sharing. I once described in an article a little "mini-vision" the Lord gave me while I was half-awake on a commuter train, but I believe I have only described a bona fide dream I've had once in the ten years I have been posting articles to this website. And neither one had anything to do with the Rapture.

After listening to some of the Rapture dreams I've heard others share over the years, however, especially ones like Carl's, I confess there have been times when I sorta felt left out—like I'm missing out on something really cool. I admit that for many years I have wished God would let me have a good old-fashioned Rapture dream—a real humdinger with me shooting off into the sky with other believers, with us looking at each other in utter amazement, squealing...

"It's the Rapture!! Weee!!"

I feel a bit silly admitting it, but I've actually asked the Lord to let me have a Rapture dream. I figure since we're so close, if I don't have a Rapture dream soon, the real McCoy will happen and it'll be too late!

"Come on, Father...just one, please? Just a little taste, ya know?"

But...nada.

That is, up until several months ago.

Dream #1: Before

Earlier this summer, I finally had my first dream pertaining to the Rapture! Well, sort of. The strange thing about it, however, is that I didn't realize it had anything to do with the Rapture until after I woke up and God began to sort things out for me.

I know that sounds a little confusing, so let me recount the dream and you'll see what I mean.

In the dream, I was in a two-story wooden house, similar to the one I grew up in back in Illinois. My sense was that it was around sunset, and I was downstairs. There was only one light on in the whole house, and that was a small lamp in the living room.

I was just puttering around, not doing anything noteworthy or memorable. It seemed I was alone, but I didn't feel alone. I remember sensing that another family member (perhaps one of my sisters) was somewhere else in the house...but I didn't actually see her or anyone else. In retrospect, I have no sense that this was an important detail—that's just my sense of the situation.

Then I walked upstairs, and since it was around sunset and there were no other lights on, it was fairly dim inside. I entered a bedroom, and I was looking around for something but I can't recall what. I'm not sure why, but it didn't occur to me to turn on any other lights.

As I was looking around in the dim bedroom, I noticed a window with the curtains drawn open, affording me a clear view of the yard and trees outside. As I gazed absentmindedly out the window, my eyes were drawn to a large tree with beautiful green leaves that stood perhaps 20 or so feet from the house.

Suddenly, I sensed movement. I felt the house shifting—and as I looked out the window, I saw the large tree I just mentioned begin moving past the window as if the house were falling down. I sensed that the house was literally tipping and falling over, and my view of that large tree passing by the window confirmed that sense—that's exactly what it felt like and looked like based on what I saw through the window.

I had no idea what was happening. The possibility of an earthquake flashed through my brain, but I hadn't felt any shaking. All I knew was that all of a sudden the house was falling down. I was on the second floor, and I knew that the room I was in was about to come crashing to the ground—and I knew it was only going to be a couple of seconds. I instinctively grabbed a bedpost to brace myself (yeah, that'll help), and stared blankly at the floor. There was no point trying to run—there was no time. I knew the house was falling over and the room I was in was about to be crushed into splinters—with me in it.

I was in a panic, and my mind went blank. I waited...several seconds ticked agonizingly by.

Tick...tick...tick...maybe four or five seconds.

   And nothing happened.

Suddenly I felt nothing—no more movement, no more falling, nothing. Astonished and confused as to why I hadn't felt the crash that I knew for a fact was about to occur, I woke up. End of dream.

The moment I woke up, I knew the dream was from the Lord. I think you always know—there is an unforgettable level of clarity that distinguishes dreams from the Lord. You just know He's spoken something to you.

But what?! What was I supposed to take away from this?!

As soon as I woke up the next morning, the Lord wasted no time in letting me know in no uncertain terms what He had shown me. As I said, I saw with my own eyes that the house I was in was falling over and about to crash, and I had felt a very normal sense of panic as it began to fall. I knew I was about to be involved in a big, violent crash...but it was a crash I never experienced. In my dream, it was almost as if I had stopped falling, as if something was suspending me, or somehow stopping me from feeling the impact of the crash—a crash I never even heard or was at all aware of, even though I knew for a fact it was inescapable. The Lord showed me that this is essentially what the Rapture is going to do for us:

The Rapture will remove us from the "falling house"
of a world that we can see is coming crashing down,
but we won't be here to feel the impact of that crash.

It was a relatively short, simple dream...but it had a big impact on me. At first I hesitated to call it a "Rapture dream," since I didn't really experience the Rapture per se. In fact, I had no idea it even had anything to do with the Rapture until the next morning, when the Lord made it all sink in.

As far as interpretation goes, I don't want to belabor details that didn't seem significant, but I would at least say this: I believe the house is the world we currently live in and the satanic system we languish under. It was around sunset, and that suggests to me the idea of the sun going down on the Age of Grace. I believe I typify the Church at large in my dream, fumbling around in the nearly dark bedroom (a place to sleep), looking for something, but not sure what...and not finding it. Church at large? Oh yeah. Oh, and not having the presence of mind to turn on the light...h-e-l-l-o.

An apt description of today's corporate Church if there ever was one.

The corporate Church has caustically dismissed the doctrine of the Rapture and much of what the Bible clearly teaches about the end-time scenario, and mocks anyone who has the audacity to take Christ's command to watch seriously. They arrogantly revel in biblically unsupportable nonsense about how we are supposed to go out and build Christ's kingdom for Him, and only when we've got things up to scratch can He return to rule it. Either that, or they seriously believe that we're in the kingdom now. Seriously.

But glory to Jesus...God always has a faithful remnant of people who seek Him and trust His Word (and obey His command to study that Word), and those people are fully aware that the catching away of the body of Christ is rapidly approaching and is very nearly upon us.

But trust me, the panic I felt in the dream was real. Things were pretty ordinary until I felt the house begin to move, and when it did it was panic city in a big hurry. I've seen the wreckage of two-story wooden houses back in Illinois after a tornado struck, and that was the image that flashed through my mind as I waited those final agonizing seconds for the inevitable destruction that was about to befall me.

But when I didn't feel that crash I knew was coming, I didn't have time to feel joy or elation—in those last few seconds of the dream, all I felt was a brief moment of confused disbelief, and the dream ended.

Missiles come down, we go up: It's possible that the crash I saw coming was the Tribulation itself; but it's also conceivable that it was something a bit more specific, such as the attack on Israel by the Gog-Magog coalition of Ezekiel 38–39. There are some well-versed watchmen who speculate that the Rapture will occur in conjunction with the battle of Gog-Magog that Ezekiel describes, as if we would go up as the missiles come down. I want to tread lightly here, however, because even though I agree that this makes reasonably good biblical sense, I don't see any scriptural reason to pin the Rapture down with quite that degree of precision. But I'd have to admit that on the face of it, my dream seems to be at least compatible with that interpretation.

(Contrary to the above graphic, however, I don't believe those missiles are actually going to fall—I think God is going to beat the Gog-Magog coalition to the punch.)

As I have discussed in the past, I am convinced that, at the very least, the Rapture has to occur prior to the conclusion of Gog-Magog. But as far as anything solid I can find in Scripture is concerned, that "prior to" could realistically be 30 minutes...or 30 months.

Personally, I am inclined to see at least a brief gap between the Rapture and the battle of Gog-Magog, and the reason I say that is because in my view the Rapture accomplishes three important things that contribute to the unleashing of this attack:

1. America, which I believe will be in the process of falling when the Rapture occurs (as in my dream), will crash and burn in its aftermath. In fact, I am in complete agreement with those who say that fall has clearly already begun. Although I didn't feel that crash in my dream, that doesn't mean there was no crash. There absolutely will be, and the crash that follows the Rapture will effectively remove Israel's strongest ally from the equation. As a result, Israel will be left standing alone against the forces of its enemies, and this will put Israel in a position where they have no one to turn to but their God—and that's precisely the position where their God intends to put them. That way He can reintroduce Himself to His people by miraculously saving their hides, which is the God-ordained purpose of the battle of Ezekiel 38–39 to begin with.

2. This resulting isolation of Israel after the Rapture will be seen as nothing less than an "Allah-send" by the Gog-Magog coalition, and they will see it as their divinely appointed opportunity to move in and destroy the evil Zionist occupiers—and move they will.

3. Although Ezekiel 38:4 says it is God who will put hooks in the jaws of Gog, it's Satan who's got the itchy trigger finger to destroy Israel. I am of the opinion that Satan is currently being restrained from launching such an attack before the appointed time; however, the Rapture will remove the Restrainer, and the absence of the Restrainer will leave Satan unrestrained. That means the Rapture may effectively be the green light for Satan to finally launch this attack intended to destroy Israel, which is his primary objective.

Of course, none of these necessitates a substantial gap between the Rapture and the battle of Gog-Magog. But it's enough to make me lean toward the idea that they are not necessarily simultaneous.

But what a sad commentary on a significant portion of the Church today! When that blessed hope arrives and we are harpazo'ed into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, people like you and me—people who are looking for the blessed hope of the Rapture—are going to be thrilled out of our socks.

We're gonna be shoutin', I guarantee you.

But like I said, there are many otherwise good, sincere, born-again folks in the Church today who have been utterly misled and mistaught about the Rapture, and they aren't going to have a clue what is happening. Hopefully someone can explain it to them on the way up, as per the old pre-trib vs. post-trib joke.

Anyway, I was pleased as punch that the Lord had finally seen fit to give me a kinda sorta Rapture dream, and I was grateful for that:

"Thank you Father! That was enough for me!"

I struggled with the idea of devoting an entire article to the dream, however, because...well, to be honest, there's really not all that much to it. I was afraid it would turn out something like...

"Hey, I had a dream...I was in a house and it was falling, but I never felt the crash. Sorta like the Rapture. Oh, did I mention I panicked?"

Bada bing, bada boom...over and out. I mean, anyone as long-winded as I am can turn almost anything into a 15-page article, but still I balked at the idea. After a while, I just prayed:

"Lord, if you really want me to share that dream, just let me know."

As the weeks went by, I got caught up with other topics. Although the dream remained crystal clear (that kind always does), as the weeks turned into months I figured I may as well keep the dream to myself. I assumed God had just given me that little dream to make me happy, and that He wasn't particularly pressing me to write about it. Cool.

And that's how it was...that is, up until a few weeks ago.

Dream #2: After

As if the first dream wasn't enough, a few weeks ago I had another dream. Again, it was a relatively short, simple dream, and during the dream itself I didn't realize it had anything specific to do with the Rapture. This dream is a little more challenging to describe because there wasn't a lot of action—it's more about the surroundings in which I found myself and other contextual subtleties than it is about what actually occurred.

In this dream, the first thing I was aware of is that I was sitting in what seemed to be some kind of huge auditorium at a large gathering of people that had the atmosphere of a church service—I had the feeling that I was among a large crowd of believers. I want to be careful here, because that was just a vague sense—there was no one preaching, or any observable activities in the front that captured my attention, church-related or otherwise. My sense was that whatever was on the agenda for this large crowd of people hadn't started yet, but would momentarily.

I wasn't paying much attention to the front area, however, because I was too busy observing the people near me. As I looked around, I noticed that the place was packed—there were no empty seats that I could see. There were people sitting to my left, to my right, and all along the row in front of me, and everyone just seemed happy and excited to be there (wherever we were). As we waited for the activities to begin (whatever they were), people would look around a bit, glance at each other and smile, exchange quiet chit chat, and so on.

As I was looking at the people around me, I noticed a young man sitting in the row in front of me and two people over to the right. I looked at the side of his face for a second, and as I did, he seemed to look familiar. I thought to myself, Do I know that guy?! As I looked at him, he casually glanced at the person to his immediate left, and as he did so I got an even better look at his face.

And I was right...it was somebody I knew! It was a guy I had gone to high school with, and in my dream I struggled mightily to remember his name, but simply couldn't dredge it up. We hadn't really been close friends or anything—he was just a guy I recognized from high school, and whose name I felt I should have remembered but didn't. And for reasons unknown to me, he just happened to be present at this large gathering.

About the time I recognized him, he turned more fully to his left and then he noticed me. I got the impression that he was experiencing the same thing I was—he recognized me as a guy he had gone to high school with (and whose name he evidently couldn't remember either), and we just grinned and nodded in mutual recognition. He leaned back and to his left, and I leaned forward and to my right so we could exchange a few words in a quiet tone of voice so as to not bother the people sitting near us any more than necessary.

We exchanged a few bits of small talk...Hey, how ya doin', man? Long time no see! and so on. As we chatted for a moment, we basked in the memories that came flooding back to us.

In the dream, I had no specific sense that this guy had been a born-again believer when I knew him in high school. But even if he had, I probably wouldn't have known anyway. Although I had been brought up in a church-going family, I wasn't exactly what you would call a beacon for Christ as a teenager. As we chatted briefly, we were just two guys who had gone to the same high school and who had known each other on a casual basis, and who recognized each other after many years.

After a few seconds, there was a brief lull in our how-ya-doin's. Suddenly, almost as if he had been waiting for an opening, he leaned a little closer toward me and with a broad smile that he just couldn't quite rein in, said something that caught me completely off guard:

"I love Jesus!"

Now, I had no idea where I was, no idea how I had gotten there, and no idea why this large crowd of people was gathered together. Although, like I said, I did have a vague sense I was in a large gathering of believers who seemed happy and excited to be there, there had been nothing overtly religious about it up to that moment. We were just all gathered together for some reason, happy and eager for something to get underway, although I didn't have the faintest idea what it was.

But at that moment I sensed that the Holy Spirit was at work.

There was something disarmingly revelatory about the way he said those words—it was as if those were the only three words his mind could grab hold of, and I were the only person he had ever said them to. It was as if he knew I would understand. It was as if he knew I wouldn't think he was a doofus or a Bible-thumper or any of the other unflattering epithets that Midwestern high-school students would be quick to slap on someone who went around saying stuff like that.

He knew I'd get it.

He spoke as if his words needed no prefacing remarks. He didn't waste time striking up a generic conversation about churchianity. Like some people I have met, he didn't start off by proudly blathering on about how he attended the United Methodist Lutheran Reformed Presbyterian Episcopal Suit-and-Tie Church over on Mainline Boulevard and hey, did I attend church anywhere. He just blurted out those three simple words as though if he hadn't, he would have exploded. And he spoke them with such a sense of joy and peace—unassuming and unashamed—that my spiritual man perked right up because I recognized the source of that joy and peace: the Holy Spirit, who was busy doing what He does.

Those three simple words hit me like a pile driver. I was crushed by their raw power, and the unbridled joy and sincerity with which he had uttered them. At first, I was nonplussed—his words had come so unexpectedly that for a brief moment I was speechless. After a pause of a couple of seconds, with a frog now solidly lodged in my throat and my eyes welling up with tears, I leaned in and with the same genuine, Spirit-charged sincerity, said the only three words my mind could grab hold of:

"So do I!"

We exchanged knowing grins, and that was the end of the dream.

Once again, as soon as I woke up, the Lord wasted no time revealing to me the nature of what the dream was about, and showed me how it was connected with the first dream:

The first dream was a taste of what we
will experience right before the Rapture.

The second dream was a taste of what we
will experience right after the Rapture.

Before and after. Although I didn't actually experience the Rapture itself in either of my two dreams, they served as bookends that gave me a sense of what will occur just prior to and shortly following the catching away of the body of Christ.

In this second dream, it was as if we were all gathered together at the judgment seat of Christ (aka the bema) following the Rapture—I suddenly found myself among a huge gathering of believers, and we were all happily waiting for some kind of exciting event to commence. Of course, in reality the bema may not work exactly that way, but I think the Lord knows this is an easy, natural way for me to visualize it.

Talk about changed: One detail about this dream that struck me later was that in reality, this guy would have been in his mid-60s, as am I. But in the dream, he didn't look a day over 30. And I didn't have a chance to look at myself in a mirror, but I sure didn't feel a day over 30.

And come to think of it, I don't remember seeing any senior citizens in the crowd. Now, I get that dreams are just like that sometimes, so feel free to make of that what you will.

But still...I am inclined to believe that this speaks to the fact that we will all be issued glorified bodies before we even arrive in heaven. It's conceivable this is connected to the "changed" bit in...

At least I like to think so every time I have no choice but to look at myself in a mirror. (Talk about before and after...)

Other than that, the dream pretty well speaks for itself. Shortly after the Rapture takes place, we're all going to be gathered together to receive our rewards at the bema, and I'm sure it's going to be a real hoot. After the Rapture, we will get to see many believers we knew during our lifetimes, and I'm sure we will all be in for a few surprises when we see some of the people who fill the seats at that joyous occasion.

An empty seat?

As I said, in my second dream, there were no empty seats at that huge gathering—as far as I could see, every seat was filled. But I've been asked before about the sensitive issue of unsaved loved ones, or the possibility of there being an "empty seat" at the gathering following the Rapture. I have known a number of people who agonized over the fate of an unsaved family member—a parent, a spouse, a child, a sibling, etc., and the same thought haunts them all:

"How in the world can it be heaven for me if (a certain loved one) ends up in hell?! How could I bear that pain for eternity?!"

Well, there's this:

People argue about whether this verse is actually speaking of the Millennial Kingdom or the eternal state that follows it (I've heard arguments both ways), but I'm not going to get into that here. Whichever it applies to, the bottom line is crystal clear:

After we get to heaven via the Rapture, no matter what we do or what follows, it will be joy-filled beyond comprehension. Forever.

Admittedly, it may not be clear to us how that can possibly be true due to the pain and angst we currently feel in regard to a loved one we fear may never come to a saving faith in Christ, but God's Word says that He will wipe away all our tears. And make no mistake:

That means after the Rapture we will never again experience sadness.

Now, I admit that I don't know exactly how that works. Personally, however, I am comforted by two facts: God has complete control over (a) what we remember, and (b) how we remember it. So...some might argue that He simply wipes away the memory of that loved one.

That may be a possibility, but I am more inclined to believe that even though we do remember that person, our mind or our psychological makeup or whatever may be developed or enhanced to the point where, although we remember them, we can deal with those memories in a somewhat more detached manner (for lack of a better word), and as a result they will no longer have the power to cause us grief. In other words:

Perhaps the memories remain, but the grief is supernaturally assuaged.

Either way you look at it, however, God will wipe away every tear—we have His Word on it, and that's good enough for me.

The big squeeze

I've noticed there seems to be a number of people these days buzzing about signs they claim to have received from the Lord that reportedly are telling them the Rapture will occur in 2021. The attitude among them is that God is tossing out signs like taffy at a Fourth of July parade that the Rapture is going to happen before the end of this year.

There is also currently a buzz about certain astronomical alignments and events that are set to occur in the spring of 2022 that are connected to the Feast of Passover that some claim portend the Rapture.

I do actually try to read through some of this astronomical stuff, but one problem I have is that I know shockingly little about things astronomical—the movement of the planets and the procession of constellations that make up the signs of the zodiac and all that stuff. I've just never acquired more than a surface knowledge of that sort of thing, which is one reason I am so grateful we have people like Lu Vega at Postscripts (who discovered the REV12 sign around 2008) and others such as Gary and Jeff at Unsealed—people who can navigate the intricacies of the stars and planets with a healthy degree of expertise and biblical authority.

Don't go there: Please...be careful not to confuse or conflate the study and observation of astronomical objects and events that students of eschatology speak of with astrology, which is a species of divination that attempts to use such things in a predictive manner in regard to earthly events. Any such attempts to predict the future are condemned in Scripture as sin, whether you use the stars and planets or tea leaves and turtle shells.

Some of you may recall that this has been an issue in the past. In the run-up to the confirmation of the first great sign John saw in Revelation 12:1–2 on September 23, 2017, there were well-known ministers who railed against such dangerous fiddle-faddle, slamming it as astrology and self-righteously condemning all those who "dabbled" in it. Well, it wasn't astrology then, it's not astrology now, and those ministers ended up making themselves look foolish and uninformed.

Simply observing objects and events in the heavens that represent and put on panoramic display in astronomical form both past and future biblical events is not the same as trying to use those objects and events to predict the future with a degree of precision that God has ordained for us to not have access to. So don't go there.

Me? I get about halfway through one of those astronomical studies, talking about eclipses, conjunctions, and full moons...oh my, and before God, I just start to go glassy-eyed. So, I don't tend to get too caught up with it. I usually just end up saying "I hope you're right, dude" and get back to whatever I happen to be writing.

Me? I'm probably better off just sticking with Scripture and with writing my little articles, because when it comes to words...oh baby.

That's when I'm in my element.

Now, maybe it's just my imagination, but I've been noticing something interesting recently, and that's the way Rapture speculation seems to be shifting gears in a sense—shifting gears in relation to the time focus.

For example, I can still remember as a kid hearing people talk about whether the Rapture would occur in the 1970s, the 1980s, or the 1990s. In other words, many people who studied eschatology would talk in terms of decades. Which decade would the Rapture fall in? But the end-time scenario continued to congeal into the shape outlined in Scripture, and by the time we had gotten past the lunacy of Y2K, the focus had shifted slightly and it became more about specific years. Would the Lord return in 2008, or 2011 (Israel's 70th anniversary minus seven), or (gasp) 2012 as per the Mayan lollapalooza?

But in the last year and a half or so, with the advent of the coronavirus scamdemic and the disaster of the 2020 election, things seem to have shifted again. Now many people are talking about individual months or seasons within the time frame of the next two to three years, and generally not a whole lot beyond that.

In other words, the Rapture is getting so palpably close that the speculative time frame is getting squeezed down further than ever before. No? Imagine a believer today innocently inquiring:

"Gosh, do you think the Rapture will happen by 2040?"

Or even 2030, for that matter. That person would be patted on the back and politely dismissed as a clueless newbie in terms of their grasp of the end-time scenario, and the reason is simple:

Study your Bible. Look around.
Pay attention. It's happening.
WE. ARE. ALMOST. THERE!

In a very real sense, we are getting so close to the Rapture that speculation over its timing is almost redundant. I'm not knocking that speculation...I'm just saying. We're getting so tantalizingly close to the Rapture that speculating about the specifics of its timing just isn't quite as big a deal as it used to be.

"Winter of '21...April of '22...spring of '24, tops...it's time, folks!"

Now, I'm not sure where that leaves me in terms of hankering for a good old fashioned Rapture dream, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. In fact, I'm beginning to look at it this way:

"Forget the dreams...I'm gettin' geared up for the real McCoy!"

Greg Lauer — NOV '21

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