According to Revelation 14:15, at the end of the great tribulation there will be another angel who comes out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sits on the cloud, “Send forth Your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come because the harvest of the earth is ripe.” He who sits on the cloud will thrust His sickle upon the earth, and the earth will be reaped. The harvest of the earth is God’s people on earth, the believers in Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 3:9). At His first coming to the earth, the Lord sowed Himself into His believers (Matt. 13:3-8, 24). All the believers who have received Him as the seed of life have become God’s crop on the earth. The first-ripe ones will be reaped as the firstfruits to God before the great tribulation. However, the majority will remain on the earth during the great tribulation. The suffering of the great tribulation, like the parching sun, will dry up the earthly waters from the believers, enabling them to ripen and to be reaped at the end of the great tribulation (Matt. 13:30, 39; Rev. 14:15-16). They will be raptured to the air with the resurrected believers to meet the Lord (1 Thes. 4:15-17; 1 Cor. 15:52).
There are two other raptures, which are of martyrs, during the great tribulation. One is the rapture of the two witnesses who will be sent by God to prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth (Rev. 11:3). They will fulfill their ministry and be killed. On the last day of the great tribulation the two witnesses will be resurrected and raptured, going up into heaven in the cloud (vv. 11-12). The other rapture is the rapture of those standing on the glassy sea referred to in Revelation 15:2. Standing on the glassy sea signifies that these ones have been resurrected from the dead and raptured to be above the lake of fire (which the glassy sea refers to and which is the second death—4:6; 20:14), that is, to be above God’s eternal, fiery judgment (14:9-11). These are the late overcomers who will pass through the great tribulation and overcome Antichrist and the worship of Antichrist (15:2). They will be martyred under the persecution of Antichrist and then resurrected to reign with Christ in the millennium (20:4).
After the rapture of all the resurrected dead believers and the rapture of all the living believers, Christ will set up His judgment seat to judge these genuine believers. This judgment will determine whether a believer will receive a reward or some kind of dispensational punishment (1 Cor. 4:4-5; 3:13-15). In 2 Corinthians 5:10 Paul says, “We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done through the body according to what he has practiced, whether good or bad.” The purpose of the judgment seat of Christ is to determine who among the saved is worthy of a reward and who still needs discipline.
The believers will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, “that each one may receive the things done through the body according to what he has practiced, whether good or bad.” Receive is a technical word used for receiving wages. While the believers are still at home in the body, they should do things through it to please the Lord that they may be rewarded by the Lord at His coming. In Revelation 22:12 the Lord says, “Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me to render to each one as his work is.” The Lord repeats His warning (vv. 7, 20) so that the believers will seriously consider the reward or punishment to be rendered at His coming back.
Before the judgment seat of Christ, the believers will give an account of themselves to God for the Lord to settle the accounts with them. Matthew 25:19 says, “Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.” A long time signifies the entire church age. Came signifies the Lord’s descending to the air (1 Thes. 4:16) in His coming (parousia). Settled accounts signifies the Lord’s judging at His judgment seat (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10) in the air (within His parousia), where the believers’ living, conduct, and work will be judged for reward or punishment. They will give account of how they have lived before the Lord and the kind of work they have done for the Lord after they were saved.