Now I would like to present a summary of what we have fellowshipped concerning the rapture of the saints. Today we are in the church age. The two strong signs of the Lord’s coming and the coming last week of the seventy weeks in Daniel are the restoration of the nation of Israel and the return of Jerusalem to the people of Israel. At the beginning of the last week, the last seven years of this age, Antichrist will make an agreement with the nation of Israel to allow them to worship God freely. This is clearly spoken of in Daniel 9. Then in the middle of this seven-year period, Antichrist will annul his agreement. This will be the time when Antichrist begins to persecute the Jews and the Christians. Revelation refers to them as the ones who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus (12:17; 14:12). The ones who keep the law are the Jews, and the ones who have the testimony of Jesus are the Christians.
Before this period of tribulation begins, the overcomers represented by the man-child, the firstfruit, the overcomers in Philadelphia, the watchful and beseeching saints, and the watchful one of the two saints will be raptured to the third heaven to God’s temple. The majority of the living Christians will be left on this earth. They have to pass through the time of three and a half years of the great tribulation to be disciplined for their maturity. At the end of the great tribulation, the majority of the saints, including the resurrected saints and the living saints, will be raptured to the air. After the rapture of the majority of the dead and resurrected saints and of the living ones, Christ will judge all the saints at His judgment seat. At His judgment seat, He will decide who among His saints should be rewarded as overcomers and who should be disciplined as defeated ones. After His judgment seat, Christ will have a wedding and marry His overcomers.
The two witnesses will prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days during the great tribulation. Antichrist will kill them, and their corpses will lie on the street of the city of Jerusalem for three and a half days (Rev. 11:8-9). These two witnesses will then be resurrected and raptured (vv. 11-12), and will probably also pass through the judgment at Christ’s judgment seat and participate in His marriage (Rev. 19:7-8). Then Christ will come down with His overcomers to defeat Antichrist and his armies at Armageddon.
Revelation 14 shows that after the harvest of the majority of the believers, there will be the treading of the great winepress (v. 19), that is, the battle at Armageddon (Rev. 16:14, 16). The war at Armageddon is also mentioned in Revelation 19:11-21. Christ as the One from the heavens with His heavenly army, the overcomers, will come down to defeat Antichrist and to throw him into the lake of fire. Revelation 17:14 also refers to this war, saying that the overcomers, the ones who are called and chosen and faithful, will defeat Antichrist and his armies. They are the bride who will come down from the heavens with her husband to fight against Antichrist.
On the same day these four things will take place: the majority of the saints will be raptured to the air, the two witnesses will be resurrected and raptured also to the air, Christ will come down to defeat Antichrist and throw him into the lake of fire, and all of Israel will repent and be saved. All these things will take place on the last day of the great tribulation. That will be the close of this age. Then a new age will begin. This will be the age of the millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ.
In the light of the truth concerning the rapture of the saints, we need to prepare ourselves, to make ourselves ready for the Lord’s coming by watching and praying. We need to watch and pray so that we can grow and mature in the spiritual life. Then we will mature earlier and be raptured before the hour of trial, the great tribulation. The tribulation may be likened to the scorching sun. The suffering of the great tribulation will be like the scorching sun, drying the earthly waters from the believers then remaining so that they may ripen. This means that we all have to grow so that we may become ripe for the Lord’s coming back. There are surely details of the Lord’s coming that are not revealed in the Bible, but the principles that the Bible gives us are sufficient to teach us the spiritual lessons.