ESCAPE FROM THE TRIBULATION

By JAMES P. WELLIVER

It must not be overlooked, that to Philadelphia alone is the unconditional promise of the rapture. “I will keep thee from the hour of trial” (Rev. 3: 10). To this Church alone does He unconditionally say, “Behold, I come quickly.” The world in its present state will require something as sweeping as the Rapture of the Philadelphians, to awaken it. So also the sleeping and dreaming Church. And how few ever think of the tremendous nature of that event! Should there be a catching away of saints from one city or two, the world in its self-confidence could ‘absorb’ such an event and be unmoved, even as she now is untouched by the lesser calamities that happen. But at that Rapture millions will go, living and dead, and the graves may be left open. No part of the evangelized world will escape its solemn testimony. Those graves will probably in many cases stand open, often with their headstones to tell who came forth. Christianity as a supernatural Faith, and the testimony of God’s despised people, will be vindicated. Men’s mouths will for a few moments be stopped.

This will be Philadelphia’s vindication and Laodicea’s rejection, in a single event. To go is acceptance, to remain is rejection. Thus the nauseating lukewarm mass will be spued out of the mouth of Him whom they presumed to call Master and Lord. But there are also among them those whom He loves. He so says, and they are to be chastened (verse 19) unto repentance. They did not abide in Him, and now men are to gather them and cast them into the fires of tribulation, not for destruction, but for purging that they may bring forth fruit. To this end He exhorts to zeal and repentance. The overcomers from among them will yet sit with Him in His throne. Chastening, repentance, zeal and even martyrdom, await them.

Teachers are distressed because some see the Church going to heaven in more than one company. But Paul said every man would go in his own ‘order.’ This word is also translated ‘rank,’ and means literally a series or succession (1 Cor. 15: 20-23). Military men were not distressed because the First Division of the American Army in the world war went over the sea first, nor because it took many shiploads to take the millions across. Neither did they count the army ‘rupture’ because some remained for training while others were at the front. And if, through the ages, God has taken generation after generation into His rest and comfort ahead of time, through death, and this has not ‘ruptured’ the body, what is so forbidding about the idea of a few of these who precede, doing so without death? God will get the companies all there in due time, and this age will not end without some kind of transition events, as others have done. The principle of a Double Rapture is sound. All the parts put together will constitute ‘The Rapture’ - one event in two (or more) phases.

All ends with the visible appearance of Christ in the heavens, the crucial hour when for the first time in the whole plan ALL the elect have been gathered from the ends of heaven. The residue yet living must be raptured in order to be in the final gathering, and the martyrs of their number must be raised. A final phase of the (one) Rapture! How beautifully it fits in every detail! That great last gathering of all the elect could not have been possible so long as the duties of some of them had not been accomplished. Almost up to the moment of His appearing there will be some of the elect still engaged in testimony, or else waiting in the grave or at its edge, for resurrection and rapture. But with some called to Him from the ends of heaven, whence they were taken in the former phases, and some now taken in the final phase of the (one) Rapture, nothing remains lacking, and any seemingly unanswerable passage is made clear.

The reader will see in these studies, impartially considered, a way to reconcile the extreme views, which have seemed hopelessly far apart heretofore. Nor is it in the slightest degree a compromise, as any mind willing and able to weigh the evidence will admit. The Gospel outlines become clear and simple. God prepare us for the great and fast approaching Day of Christ, both in knowledge of and submission to the inspired Word.*

* From Suggested Solutions for Prophetic Problems.