Square Peg, Round Hole

I've touched on this topic several times in the past, but it is an issue that continues to rear its bellicose head with increasing frequency and vitriol these days, especially on the Internet, and I just felt the urge to address it in an especially focused manner.

That topic is the timing of the Rapture. That's right, sports fans: It's the old pre-trib vs post-trib debate.

The donnybrook that never dies.

This debate has long been a rancorous one, and it seems to bring out the worst in Christians who have an interest in end-time prophecy. And if the comment sections on a lot of YouTube videos are any indication, it's getting more antagonistic all the time as a large and ever growing cadre of bitter, militant individuals roam the Internet, seeking to browbeat and confuzzle unsuspecting believers with Scripture twisted out of context and flawed, fleshly arguments that leave said believers sucked dry of the blessed hope that the Rapture was intended to be.

You don't have to read very many of my articles to know that I believe in a pre-tribulation Rapture, although I can still love and respect other believers who hold to different views. Yes, even post-tribbers, who insist the Rapture will not occur until the end of the Tribulation. Of course, it helps immensely if they can tone down the bluster and put away the brass knuckles.

Some can, some can't—and I have the scars to prove it.

I just felt like breaking out a secret weapon to counter the errors of the post-trib crowd that reduces their bluster-and-brass-knuckles approach to so much cotton candy, and that weapon is the sharpest sword in existence: God's Word.

Now, what I am not going to do in this article is give you a list of 347 reasons why the Rapture must occur before the beginning of the Tribulation (don't tempt me, because I probably could). Nor am I going to refute from Scripture the 347 reasons why post-tribbers believe the Rapture must come at the end of the Tribulation (don't tempt me, because I definitely could). What I want to do in this article is much more focused, and the spotlight is on one single verse of Scripture—the jugular vein of the post-trib Rapture theory.

Call me a masochist, but I go a few rounds with members of the post-trib tribe on YouTube from time to time, and I have come away from these typically unpleasant experiences with the realization that the post-trib Rapture theory rests squarely on a foundation consisting of one single verse. In fact, it rests on the interpretation of one single word in that one single verse.

First, the two preceding verses to set the stage:

And then the crown jewel of the post-trib Rapture theory—the Topper of Toppers...the Clincher of Clinchers: (drum roll, please...)

And there it is—the clinching verse they claim explicitly places the Rapture at the end of the Tribulation. So, here's the post-trib game plan in a nutshell:

(a) Refer to the phrase "Immediately after the tribulation of those days" in verse 29 to establish that whatever follows comes at the end of the Tribulation.

(b) Claim that the "elect" being gathered in verse 31 must be the Church (after all, it's in the New Testament and everything).

(c) Shout "Wow! Look at what we found! Haven't you ever read this verse?! The Rapture is obviously post-trib!"

(d) Do the post-trib victory dance and arrogantly, mockingly challenge anyone who dares to disagree with them to produce their airtight clinching verse to support their (obviously unscriptural) view.

Sigh. Oh, post-trib people will quote tons of other verses and do their best to give them a post-trib spin and strain to show how they support a post-trib Rapture (which they invariably do not), but the whole post-trib kit and caboodle ultimately depends on interpreting the "elect" mentioned in Matthew 24:31 as the Church, so much so that if you successfully refute this interpretation, the post-trib Rapture theory begins to crumble like a sand castle at high tide. You've just pulled the plug on it. You've just knocked over the lead domino, and the rest begin to fall one after another clickety-clackety-click.

Without the scriptural underpinning of the "elect" in Matthew 24:31 being interpreted as living Church Age believers on earth, the post-trib tower begins to bend and buckle until it collapses into a pile of twisted scrap metal.

What I want to show in this article is that post-trib Rapture adherents do not have any such clinching verse, and the reason is simple: They don't know the Old Testament. I have one simple goal in this article, and that is to show you that the "elect" in Matthew 24:31 must be Israel (i.e., the Jewish remnant), and cannot be the Church, and the issue is about as black and white as it gets:

If the "elect" refers to the Church on earth, post-trib is RIGHT!
If it doesn't refer to the Church on earth, post-trib is WRONG!

End of conversation...and anything in between is pure heresy. The Church is not Israel and Israel is not the Church, and any effort to merge them or replace one with the other can be shown to be contrary to Scripture. Period. I have dealt with some of the issues pertaining to replacement theology in a previous article, so I am not going down that road again here.

What we will see is that the post-trib interpretation of this verse (and as a result the entire post-trib Rapture theory) ultimately fails because by inserting the Church into Matthew 24:31 and claiming that the elect who are being gathered are Church Age believers and that the gathering being described is some sort of combination Rapture/Second Coming lollapalooza, post-tribbers are attempting to do the impossible:

They are trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.

Elect? What elect?

The first order of business is straightening out an issue concerning the word "elect," so let's get that out of the way first. Post-tribbers insist the word "elect" in Matthew 24:31 refers exclusively to Church Age saints. Of course, if you had never heard of the Old Testament, that would be an easy assumption to make. So, what's the deal?

Incidentally, in addition to Matthew 24:31, we should also make note of the parallel verse in Mark's version of the Olivet Discourse, which follows Matthew's version fairly closely:

Note that Matthew 24:31 and Mark 13:27, taken together, describe Jesus gathering the elect from:

(a) the four winds,
(b) *one end of heaven to the other,
(c) the uttermost part of the earth, and
(d) *the uttermost part of heaven.

(*Note: These can be interpreted figuratively to mean "the world over." But even if we interpret them as literal references to heaven, it would most likely be the resurrection of Old Testament saints described in Isa. 26:19. Some think it includes the previously raptured Church returning with Jesus, which is possible, although I remain unconvinced. It's a moot point as far as this article is concerned, however, because post-tribbers believe the elite in v. 31 are strictly the Church being raptured. But as we shall see, v. 31 primarily involves the gathering of the Jewish remnant. Thus, even if this does include the Church, it still couldn't be the Rapture because the Rapture has absolutely nothing to do with Israel.)

At any rate, tuck these phrases into your back pocket for now.

By the way, recall that there are three versions of the Olivet Discourse, written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke (John, who typifies the Church in many ways, is silent on the subject of Jesus' discourse on the Tribulation...hint, hint).

Matthew was a Jew writing specifically to Jews, and his Gospel is by far the most Jewish in nature—and he mentions the gathering of the elect. Mark was a Jew writing primarily to Gentiles outside the region of Judea, and he mentions the gathering of the elect.

Luke, however, is the lone Gentile writing to specifically to Gentiles, and his Gospel is arguably the most Gentile in nature. Now, if the elect being gathered were the predominantly Gentile Church, you'd expect that Luke, of all people, surely would have mentioned it. In fact, he probably would have highlighted it.

But even though Luke describes the Second Coming just like Matthew and Mark do (Luke 21:25–28), he never even mentions the gathering of the elect! In fact, while Matthew and Mark both use the word "elect" three times in their versions, the word "elect" is conspicuously absent from Luke's version.

All of this, of course, proves nothing. But the point is that if the word "elect" in the Olivet Discourse refers to the Jewish remnant, none of this is particularly surprising. If, however, the word "elect" refers to the Church, it is extremely peculiar, to say the least.

The Greek word translated "elect" in Matthew 24:31 (as well as every other place it's mentioned throughout Matthew's version and Mark's version of the Olivet Discourse) is eklektous, which is typically translated as "elect," "chosen out," "choice," "select," etc. So, the "elect" in the Olivet Discourse are simply "the chosen ones."

But what "chosen ones"? Contrary to the opinions of post-trib devotees, who invariably insist that it must refer to the Church, the word "elect" is used in different ways.

Yes, it can refer to the Church, or Church Age believers, and often does in the New Testament. For example:

The apostle Paul is obviously talking about born-again believers, and so it is clear that the word "elect" here refers to the Church. Same in several other New Testament verses. No problem.

The Hebrew equivalent of the Greek eklektous is barach. Throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew word barach, which is normally translated the same way as eklektous, typically refers to the nation of Israel (or sometimes more specifically the believing remnant of Israel):

I could list more, but you get the point. It can also refer to the Messiah:

I could go on, but the point is abundantly clear:

The word "elect" does not automatically refer exclusively to the Church!

It simply means "chosen" or "the chosen one(s)," and it can clearly refer to different things, in both the Old and New Testaments. That means we must examine the context carefully to understand who is being referred to. As always, context is king.

It seems, however, that context is the post-trib camp's worst enemy.

I don't want to major on this point, but it is certainly worth noting that when the word "elect" is used a few verses earlier in Matthew 24, it is completely obvious that the context points squarely to Israel:

OK, so what does the context tell us?

"When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoever reads, let him understand)..."

The abomination of desolation occurs at the midpoint of the Tribulation, when the Antichrist erects an image in the holy place in the (rebuilt) temple in Jerusalem and demands to be worshiped as God. There's only one "holy place" in Scripture, and it's only found in the Jewish temple. Does the Gentile Church have anything to do with a Jewish temple? Uh, no. This event marks the beginning of the Great Tribulation—the worst period of persecution the Jews will ever know.

The reason Matthew adds the note to the reader is because something similar happened at the hands of Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC. Every first-century Jew was well aware of this and would have understood the meaning of the text, and Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wanted to ensure future readers would understand as well.

"Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains..."

Not Japan. Not Jamaica. Not New Jersey. Judea. That would be Israel. And I sure wish someone could explain to me why this is so difficult and confusing for some people.

"But pray you that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day..."

The Sabbath—and Jesus doesn't mean Sunday after the NFL game. He means Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, when religious Jews would be restricted from taking a journey exceeding a thousand paces, much less fleeing Jerusalem for their lives.

And these are just the ones that jump out at you. So, the context alone makes it thunderingly obvious who Matthew is talking about:

He's talking about Israel.

And if it's obvious that the word "elect" refers to Israel in verse 22, why would the word "elect" suddenly refer to the Church in verse 31 with no compelling shift in the context? I would be mortified to share with you some of the frothy, inane ways I have seen post-tribbers try to slip and slide their way around the context of this passage in their attempts to wedge the Church into verse 31.

But like I said, I don't want to major on this point, as strong as it is in refuting the post-trib position, and the reason is simple:

There's something even stronger.

I will scatter you...

After delivering Israel out of bondage in Egypt through a spectacular series of miracles, God laid out for Moses and Moses related to the people of Israel God's basic offer, and it was pretty simple and straightforward:

(a) Obey God and enjoy His blessings, or...
(b) Disobey God and suffer His judgments.

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is detailing the terms of the covenant they have entered into with God:

The point is that if Israel obeyed God's laws and walked in His ways, He would bless them beyond measure. If, on the other hand, Israel failed to walk in His ways and rebelled against Him, He would rain judgment upon them, drive them out of their land, and scatter them among the nations of the world. However, when they returned to Him with all their heart, He would regather ("fetch") them and bring them back into their land and bless them once again.

Naturally, the people of Israel were no different from any other people, anywhere, anytime. Of course they couldn't keep God's laws—nobody can. That was the entire point. Every Jew had a sin nature just like every other human being, and God knew they would rebel against Him. And rebel they did.

The law is for outlaws: God gave Israel His laws in order to prove to them, and ultimately to all of us, that sinful men can never live in a manner pleasing to a holy God. God wants us to see that nothing but the perfect sacrifice made by His Son can ever atone for man's sin and reconcile us to Him. Jesus fulfilled God's laws perfectly on our behalf, and the forgiveness and atonement He purchased for us with His blood can only be claimed and applied personally by repentance and belief in faith.

By the time the prophet Ezekiel came along in the sixth century BC, Israel had fallen pretty far—and God knew they would fall even further by later rejecting and crucifying His Son, the Messiah He promised to send them.

One of the first things God had Ezekiel prophesy was a coming judgment against Jerusalem for Israel's failure to walk in the statutes God gave them and for their abominable behavior:

And please understand: God is not being capricious here—He's not being the Great Cosmic Ogre or something. He's just enforcing the terms of His covenant with His people—terms Israel willingly agreed to. Then Ezekiel prophesied exactly what God would do to Israel, and it's just what He said in His Word:

God said a third of Israel would die from pestilence and famine, a third would fall by the sword, or be killed by attacking forces, and a third would be scattered "into all the winds." In other words, all over the world.

A few verses later, Ezekiel expands on this theme and explains that a remnant of Israel would be scattered all over the world so that they would be spared, and so that one day they would finally remember their God and repent:

Ezekiel revisits the same theme several chapters later:

The same prophetic theme of Israel being scattered all over the world is also touched on by the prophet Zechariah:

The bottom line is that God repeatedly said He was going to scatter a remnant of Israel all over the world for their failure to be faithful to Him and His ways.

Some may wonder if these prophecies were all fulfilled in the sixth century BC via the 70-year Babylonian captivity prophesied by Jeremiah. Note that Jeremiah specifically mentions King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (Jer. 25:9). Jeremiah's prophecies specify Babylon, and were literally fulfilled in Babylon. This dispersement is "among all the nations," not just Babylon.

Taken together, these verses describe the Jewish remnant as being scattered:

(a) among all the nations,
(b) *the outmost parts of heaven,
(c) into all the winds,
(d) through the countries,
(e) toward all winds,
(f) *abroad as the four winds of heaven.

(*Note: Again, most likely figurative—scattered as far away as possible.)

Ring any bells?

...but I will regather you

In one of the instances where Ezekiel is prophesying about the scattering of Israel, he goes on to prophesy that God will also regather them from the places where they would be scattered:

In other words, He will regather the remnant of Israel from all the places where He has scattered them, and will give them a new heart and a new spirit, and they will return to the worship of their God. This is the believing remnant of Israel that returns to their covenant relationship with God and finally comes to belief in the Messiah during the Great Tribulation.

Isaiah gives several prophecies concerning the regathering of Israel into her land in the last days:

In fact, throughout much of chapter 10, Isaiah's prophecy explains how God will use the Antichrist ("the Assyrian" or the "king of Assyria") to punish Israel during the Great Tribulation for their disobedience and abominations.

By the way, note that in Isaiah 10 God says that the Antichrist is the rod of His anger and that the staff in the Antichrist's hand is His indignation. In other words, God will use the Antichrist as a tool to vent His wrath against Israel during the Tribulation (and when God's done with him, the Antichrist, along with the False Prophet, will be cast into the lake of fire).

This is significant is because there are many who argue in favor of a post-trib or a pre-wrath Rapture by claiming that God's wrath is limited to a rapid-fire series of disasters coming at the very tail end of Daniel's 70th Week, and prior to that we have Satan's wrath, the Antichrist's wrath, etc. Well, Isaiah says otherwise: It's all God's wrath, from start to finish.

He continues:

"That day" Isaiah keeps referring to is when the believing remnant of Israel will be regathered in order to be ushered into the Millennial Kingdom following Christ's return to earth at the Second Coming.

Isaiah hits this prophecy again a few chapters later:

Same deal. Please note that this is the only specific reference to a "great trumpet" in the Old Testament. Matthew 24:31 is the only specific reference to a "great trumpet" in the New Testament. Gosh, I wonder if they could be referring to the same thing...

Hosea mirrors the same prophecy:

Again, during the Great Tribulation. Yes, Israel has become a nation again, but in unbelief. That means the return and the subsequent fear of the LORD being spoken of here is yet future. I'll close this out with one more from Isaiah:

Notice God refers to the remnant of Israel as "my servant whom I have chosen." By definition, the elect. Note that there are other verses that lend support to these prophecies—this is not meant to be exhaustive.

Taken all together, these verses describe the believing Jewish remnant as being gathered from:

(a) out of the countries where they have been scattered,
(b) the four corners of the earth,
(c) the east, west, north, and south, and
(d) the ends of the earth.

Nod your head if any of this is starting to sound familiar...

Stroke by stroke, these and other Old Testament prophecies paint a pretty clear picture, and it looks something like this:

As a result of Israel's stiff-necked rebellion and disobedience, culminating in their rejection of Jesus the Messiah, God brought judgment upon them and scattered them all over the world, just as He promised He would. But in the last days, after the purging of the Great Tribulation, He will gather a believing remnant of Israel—the elect—from all over the world where they have been scattered and bring them back into their land at the sound of a great trumpet. This remnant, who has returned to God with all their heart and who have finally come to faith in their Messiah, will be ushered into the Millennial Kingdom after Christ returns at the end of the Great Tribulation, just as He promised He would.

Now, fast forward to the final week of Jesus' earthly ministry.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem..."

During the last couple of days before He was crucified, Jesus taught in the temple in Jerusalem. The Pharisees and other Jewish religious leaders and experts in the Law of Moses repeatedly tried to trap Jesus with slippery theological conundrums, scrambling to find any possible way to accuse or discredit Him in the eyes of the people or refute or find fault with His teaching in some way.

And they failed spectacularly.

Again and again, Jesus put them to silence—and in the process exposed their jealous, self-serving motives and the hardness of their legalistic, hypocritical hearts for all the people to see.

So, the Jewish religious leadership did the next best thing: They hatched an evil plot to have Him arrested, tried on trumped-up charges of blasphemy (for claiming to be God in the flesh), and executed by the Romans for what in Jewish culture was a capital offense.

And they succeeded spectacularly.

But shortly before that plot came to fruition, Jesus delivered His final, scathing rebuke of the Jewish religious leadership, and His parting shot has profound prophetic significance:

Jesus' heart-wrenching lament over Jerusalem and the Jewish people gives us some insight into what will trigger His return at the Second Coming: when the remnant of believing Jews implore their Messiah to come to their rescue at the climax of the Great Tribulation, when Jerusalem will be surrounded by the forces of the Antichrist and it will look like the end of the line for Israel and the Jewish people.

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" is a messianic greeting from Psalm 118:26, and this is exactly what the crowds were shouting in jubilation as Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey a few days earlier on the first Palm Sunday, when He presented Himself as Israel's prophesied Messiah for the first time in His earthly ministry:

But when Jesus said "how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings," it gives us some insight into what Jesus was thinking a few hours later when He delivered to four of His closest disciples the single greatest discourse on the end times that He ever gave, a discourse in which He describes how He will "gather together the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

The Olivet Discourse was prompted by four of His disciples' questions relating to the future of Israel (Matt. 24:3), and Jesus told them that after the greatest tribulation Israel would ever know, He would return and send His angels out to gather the elect from all over the world—which is precisely where God would scatter the Jews less than forty years later, and which is precisely where God promised to gather them from in order to be brought into the Millennial Kingdom, all in accordance with the Old Testament prophecies we have looked at in this article.

By the way, let's make sure we clearly understand something important about the fact that Jesus uses the term "elect" in Matthew 24:31. The believing Jewish remnant that God said He would regather in the last days will be Jews who have returned to the Lord with all their heart during the purging of the Great Tribulation, and this will satisfy the requirements mentioned in Deuteronomy 30:1−2 for the Lord to gather them back into their land to enjoy their promised kingdom:

That's one reason Jesus uses the word "elect" in Matthew 24:31—by the end of the Great Tribulation, this will be true of the Jewish remnant.

And here's another:

Daniel is speaking of the end times and the Great Tribulation that will purge Israel in preparation for the kingdom. Notice that in the prophecy Daniel is being given, the people being delivered are "your people"—and Daniel is Jewish, so that's the Jews. (Is the mostly Gentile New Testament Church "Daniel's people"? Uh, no.)

Notice also that it says those who will be delivered are those who are "found written in the book." This book includes the name of every single person (Jew and Gentile) whom God in His sovereign foreknowledge knows will repent and believe in the Messiah in faith, and they are written in the book because God chose them, and God chose them because He knew before the foundation of the world that they would respond to the conviction of His Holy Spirit and come to faith in the Messiah—in this particular case, during the Great Tribulation.

In other words, God is calling the Jewish remnant that is being gathered in Matthew 24:31 the "elect" for exactly the same reason that He calls the Church the "elect" in other places in Scripture:

Both the Jewish remnant and the Church are groups of people that God elected to salvation based on His sovereign foreknowledge of their (and our) response to the message of gospel of Jesus Christ in faith.

But that does not make the "elect"
in the Olivet Discourse the Church!

The Jewish remnant will turn to God and ultimately embrace their Messiah in faith at least partly because they will see God's hand move overtly in judgment as well as preserve and deliver them during the Great Tribulation. The Church comprises those who believe without having seen anything!

They that have not seen, and yet have believed. That's the Church. And after the Church is raptured, those who are plunged into the Tribulation, including the Jewish remnant along with the Tribulation saints, neither of which are part of the Church, are going to see a whole lot more than they bargained for.

If not here, then where?

The single most important thing for anyone to understand about the Bible is that in its original form, it is precisely the words God intended to have written. But what is it that enables people to make such a brash claim? How do we know that for absolute certain? Simple: fulfilled prophecy. God confirms His Word by doing something only God can do, and that's write detailed history in advance. That's His authenticating signature, and the Bible is saturated with it.

All throughout the Bible, prophecies and their fulfillment are a bit like pegs and holes. A prophecy is given, and it's like a round peg. Later in Scripture, we see where that prophecy is fulfilled. That's the round hole where that peg fits, and so on. Of course, the fulfillment isn't just found in the pages of Scripture, but also in recorded history—with 100 percent accuracy so far.

For example, a prophecy is given in the Old Testament concerning where the Messiah would be born:

There's our round peg: The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.

And there's our round hole: The Messiah was born in Bethlehem. A perfect fit.

Now, in the Old Testament prophecies we have looked at in this article, we have seen that God promised to scatter the Jews all over the world if they rebelled against Him. Well, they did, and so did God. But God also promised He would gather a remnant of Israel—His elect—back into their land after being purged in the Great Tribulation in order to be ushered into the Millennial Kingdom on earth, which is inaugurated by Jesus Himself.

There's our round peg: A believing remnant of Israel—the elect—will be regathered from all over the world after the Great Tribulation.

So, this regathering must take place right around end of the Great Tribulation, and before the Millennial Kingdom begins. Logically, therefore, this regathering must occur right around the time of the Second Coming.

Then, just a couple of days before He is crucified, Jesus gives four of His disciples an inside briefing concerning—in the following order—the events that would characterize the early parts of Tribulation, the abomination of desolation at its midpoint, the Great Tribulation and its effects on Israel, the Second Coming which occurs at its conclusion, the gathering of the elect from all over the world, and finally the judgments that will determine who is granted or denied entrance into the Millennial Kingdom that is established afterwards.

And there's our round hole: The elect will be regathered from all over the world after the Great Tribulation. A perfect fit.

This is obviously the fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies concerning the regathering of the Jewish remnant we've looked at in this article. It can be nothing else. This is where that prophetic peg fits.

So, the question before the post-trib Rapture advocates becomes:

If those Old Testament prophecies about the regathering of the Jewish remnant are not being fulfilled here in the Olivet Discourse, then where exactly do they find their fulfillment?

If you insist that the elect in Matthew 24:31 refers to the Church and not Israel, then you are attempting to stick something else—a square peg, as it were—into that round hole. But if you do that, where does the round peg of those prophecies fit? Where does it go? Where is that hole? Where are those prophecies about the regathering of Israel fulfilled?

If not here, then where?

It's not a trick question. We should logically expect to see someplace in Scripture where those Old Testament prophecies get fulfilled. But if we claim that the elect in Matthew 24:31 refers to the Church, then we see no such fulfillment. And that's my point:

There is no other place in Scripture where those prophecies get fulfilled!

Stop and think about that for a second. And then think about this:

Do you actually think that Jesus would spend two entire chapters giving us a detailed rundown of the birth pains that would characterize the beginning of the Tribulation, the abomination of desolation at its midpoint, the Great Tribulation, the Second Coming, and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom that follows it and not even mention His gathering of the Jewish remnant prophesied throughout the Old Testament (the remnant being an integral part of that kingdom), but instead tell His disciples about the Rapture...of the Church, both of which they knew absolutely nothing about?

Are you serious?!

Incidentally, I've actually heard post-tribbers argue that if Jesus meant "the Jewish remnant" when He said the "elect" in the Olivet Discourse, He would have said so. No, He wouldn't have. Why? Simple. He didn't need to! For crying out loud, the disciples were smart enough to know exactly what Jesus meant when He said the "elect" because, unlike the vast majority of post-tribbers today, they knew the Old Testament!

If you stick the Church into the middle of the Olivet Discourse, the prophecies concerning the regathering of the Jewish remnant are left flapping in the breeze. The hole we are looking for is obviously in the Olivet Discourse, and when post-trib Rapture advocates try to cram the Church into it, it's the old "square peg, round hole" routine on a biblical scale.

Are you sure you want to do that?

Some post-trib Rapture advocates need to be reminded of one thing:

God's promises are eternal and inviolable.

Some need to be reminded of one other thing as well:

God loves His people Israel.

Israel is the apple of God's eye (Zech. 2:8), and He will keep His promises to them—and not because they are so good or so worthy.

• He will do it because He cannot lie.
• He will do it to sanctify His holy name.
• He will do it so the nations of the world will know He is the LORD.

Now, I'm quite sure that most people who read the Church into the Olivet Discourse don't consciously intend to suggest that God is a liar and a welcher, and unable or unwilling to keep His promises to His people Israel.

Most have probably just sat under some errant teaching and passively allowed others to connect the dots for them. We've all done it. We hear some persuasive, charismatic teacher, and we accept what they say. Millions of Christians of various doctrinal persuasions do the exact same thing, and tend to just follow the bouncing ball and then repeat what they have been taught—whether what they have been taught is right or wrong.

But those who read the Church into the Olivet Discourse are effectively reading Israel out of it. And make no mistake: This amounts to denying that God will fulfill His promises to His people Israel. In other words...

You actually are calling God a liar and a welcher.

Are you sure you want to do that?

God is going to fulfill His promises to regather a believing remnant of Israel after the Tribulation so they can be ushered into the Millennial Kingdom, and no amount of mishandling and misinterpreting of Scripture can stop it.

Oh, and please don't think I'm just trying cram the pre-trib Rapture down everyone's throat, even though I personally am convinced it is the view that best harmonizes Scripture. That's beside the point. It's none of my business what anyone else believes about the timing of the Rapture, or if they believe in the biblical doctrine of the Rapture at all. I genuinely hope this doesn't sound rude, but I really don't care what anyone else thinks about the Rapture or its timing. I only care about what God's Word says—and what it doesn't say.

I'm only responsible for what I believe according to my understanding of God's Word, and I just happen to believe that Scripture cannot be literally and consistently interpreted to teach anything but a pre-tribulation Rapture. But no matter how you view this issue, the point I want to get across to you is that it makes no scriptural sense whatsoever to interpret the word "elect" in Matthew 24:31 as the Church, and so neither does it make any sense whatsoever to derive a post-trib view of the Rapture from the Olivet Discourse.

So, to all the post-tribbers out there who feel compelled to beat up and belittle everyone who deigns to disagree with them: Feel free to tone down the bluster and put away the brass knuckles.

And quit trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.

Greg Lauer — JUN '15

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