Question: I have a question for you that has been bothering me and I hope you can help. I have always heard that we will be raptured before the tribulation, but recently I have heard that we are going to go trough the tribulation. Now, to tell you the truth this kind of freaks me out a little. I am not sure what to believe, please help?

Answer: There are at least two different views on this issue of when the rapture will take place.. There is one view that says all believers (the church) will be raptured prior to the great tribulation. This is called the pre-tribulational view. If you hold this view, then the elect, or chosen ones, Jesus was talking in Matthew 24:22 will be those who are saved during the tribulation. It will be for their sake that the tribulation will be cut short.

Another view says that all believers will be raptured at the end of the great tribulation (called the post-tribulational view) at the Second Coming of Christ. If you hold this view, then the elect are all believers who are suffering during the tribulation.

There is yet another view that says this passage in Matthew refers to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., and therefore has already taken place. The bottom line is that this issue isn’t made clear in Scripture. The view that the rapture would take place before the tribulation is a fairly recent view in terms of the history of the church. The prevailing view of the church through the middle of the 19th century was the post-tribulational view.

All we know from Scripture is that there will be a rapture (1 Thess. 4:13-18) and there will be great tribulation before Jesus comes to earth a second time (Matthew 24:4-51). And we know that Jesus will defeat Satan, sin and death once and for all. We are to “watch and pray” and always be ready, for the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess. 5:1,2), and no one knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:36). And there’s certainly no reason to “freak out,” because God is in control, no matter what the circumstances!

If you want to study these things more thoroughly, we would suggest that you get our book, “Bible Prophecy 101,” available through our web site.