The Antichrist and the Rapture – John Boruff

Posted on October 29, 2016 by John Boruff

2 Thessalonians 2; Revelation 20.

For a post-tribulation view of the end times, see Robert Gundry’s The Church and the Tribulation and First the Antichrist.

About John Boruff

John Boruff is the founder of WesleyGospel.com, a husband, father, and sometimes an open air preacher. He graduated from UNC Pembroke in 2008 with a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion and views himself as a Wesleyan-Arminian Reformed Pentecostal. As a Christian, he feels connected with all members of the body of Christ, but can identify the most with churches like the Assemblies of God and the Vineyard. In 2015, he released "The Gospel of Jesus Christ," which is meant to be a Bible study for open air preaching. For his other writings, search articles on this site or see the E-Books section.

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4 Responses to The Antichrist and the Rapture – John Boruff

Eric F. says:

May 20, 2017 at 12:24 pm

I’m a Weslyan in that I’m Arminian in my beliefs with respect to Salvation may be lost due to reasons of free will. I’m with you on teaching against non-sense of Calvinism, yet it bums me out that you don’t accept a Pre-Tribulation catching away of the spiritual church. What’s funny, is that I’ve attended churches all my life, yet I was not born again. I was always Amillenial. I thought that Rapture idea was garbage and how Tim LaHaye made a lot of money. When I was unsaved, I despised the Rapture!

I found your blog, because I was trying to understand the orb/angelic manifestation, which you wrote a brilliant post on that. You’ve enhanced my understanding of what’s happening to me. Yet, with your rejection of the Pre-Tribulation catching away, I’m saddened for you. To me Post-Trib is absolutely senseless! Pre-Trib has biblical precedent on it’s side. Plus, you totally misread both letters to the Thessalonians so severely, that I shook my head while watching this.

The Early church believed in a Pre-Trib “harpazo,” catching away and a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ in Jerusalem. Look at Ephraim the Syrian’s sermon about the concept. Read Justin Martyr’s letter to Trypho. Post-Trib believers flat-out lie when they say Brother John Darby created this belief after listening to Mary McDonald in 1830 (what she said is actually Post-Trib). It’s not true. Also, Post-Tribbers like to state that the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD declared Chiliasm as a formal heresy. Nope. Didn’t happen. Didn’t happen at Ephesus in 431 AD either.

Then there’s immanence. No Post-Trib believer has EVER explained away the fact that Jesus says ad nauseam “watch and be sober, ye know not the hour.” With Post-Trib, you can definitely set a date once the AC signs the peace treaty in Daniel 9. Jesus said that we have to watch for him. The apostles would teach their infant churches to repent, be sober, be holy, and be like the wise-virgins. Post-Trib destroys immanency.

The Day of the Lord happens after the Rapture, The Lord comes to Earth with 10,000s of his saints to rule with a rod of Iron from a restored new Jerusalem. The 1st Resurrection and catching away of the rapture have to happen first. If Post-Trib is correct, who goes into the Millenium? No Post-Trib believer has satisfactorily grappled with this.

The same letters you’re reading from (Thess.) state plainly that Jesus died for us but also “delivered us from the wrath to come..” What part of the previous sentence do you not understand? Is it equivocal? Noah, Lot, the Passover nation of Isreal, Rahab, etc. I need you to read Genesis 18:23. “…wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?”

What does the Lord say?

God does NOT change. He’s not going to subject his church to the worst period of human history on the Earth that could ever be known during his extreme wrath. To me, Post-Trib believers has some sort of weird Mel Gibson masochism fetish, thinking that they have to add on to Christ’s sufferings in the redemptive process and work of the Cross. It’s bizarre thinking gone to seed. Like “we must be purified in this suffering! Oh, Father in heaven, please punish us harder until we’re pure enough for you!”

Look, Christians may well be tortured and killed by other humans and the Satanic legions on Earth, but divine retribution is something no righteous person will ever endure. Why? Because it would be an injustice. God is just. Period. Go back to Genesis 18:23. Read it slowly and hang on every word until it sinks in your head. Post-Trib debunked. Fore ever.

Look at the fruits of the Post-Trib belief. They’re poisonous. They rob new Christians of their “blessed hope.” The purpose of the Letters to the Thessalonians was to calm them down as some one wrote a letter in Paul’s name telling them that they were in the Day of The Lord, and they were going to be subjected to The Wrath of The Lamb. Paul had to write them that letter so that they wouldn’t fall into utter despondency.

Oh, and I did hear your bit on the video about an Islamic Antichrist. Oh, no. Daniel 9:26 lays waste to this concept. Who destroyed the Temple? Romans… Where will the Antichrist come from, then? Rome. Yes, I see that Joel Richardson’s camp say there were thousands of Syrians in the Legion, but that’s a distraction. The decision makers and instrument of God’s judgment was Rome.

Daniel’s statue in Daniel 2 does not allow for the insertion of the Ottoman Empire. It’s impossible! How would The Eastern Empire was Greek. It was called the Byzantine Empire, and they were as Roman as a pagoda. The feet mixed with clay would most likely represent the modern European Union and since the iron in the calves represent the Roman Empire, then that follows quite logically. It’s unstable and will provide a clear path to the coming Man of Sin when he be revealed. Don’t fall for this Islamic Antichrist garbage. Walid Shoebat and Joel Richardson are out trying to make money and stoke fears of Muslims in the West among unquestioning US evangelicals with 0 grounding in scriptural study.

In Daniel 11:37 the text states “Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.”

Does that describe the Mahdi? No, it sure doesn’t. The coming Antichrist will come out with a new god. One we haven’t heard of before. A Mahdi, by definition, will not be crafting a new god. He would definitely honor the god of his fathers.

How in the world do you think that any sane Muslim will worship a man as a god? How in the world do you think any Israeli will accept a Muslim Antichrist? Joel Richardson’s books and reasoning are well written but so full of holes, that I classify them as “white propaganda.” Be careful what you read and teach, brother.

Teachers are judged more severely.

Rant over…

Reply
- John Boruff says:
  
  May 20, 2017 at 1:31 pm
  
  Hi Eric, your rant and feedback are welcome and accepted. But I’m still not persuaded. I can’t get beyond post-tribulation conviction because of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4. It is too convincing to me.
  
  With that being said, I don’t know what a lot of other post-tribbers say about the wrath of the Lamb and such things. I have no views about that. My view of the saints passing through the tribulation period agrees with Corrie ten Boom’s sentiments as a post-tribber. Because of Hitler, she had to live in a concentration camp for several years because she was a Christian, and later she said in a 1974 letter, beginning at 2:41 in this YouTube video, “There are some among us teaching that there will be no tribulation. That Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the last days. Most of us have little knowledge of what is going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution…we are training for the tribulation…We need to think about that when we are sitting down in our nice houses, in our nice clothes, eating our steak dinners, that many members of the body of Christ are being tortured to death at that very moment: yet we continue right on as though we are going to escape the tribulation…”Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15).”
  
  I look at the post-tribulation as no different than “The Voice of the Martyrs” magazine becoming a global reality rather than being in just a few select countries like China or the Middle East. Violent persecution of Christians by the Antichrist will sweep over the globe for 3 1/2 years. We better get ready for that.
  
  With that being said, Corrie and I are not alone in this view. There are a number of respectable theologians down through the ages who were post-tribbers. Check out this article on Wikipedia at the very bottom and see the names and references: people such as Augustine, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Victorinus, Tertullian; and more modern ones like George Muller, J. C. Ryle, John Gill, Charles Spurgeon, James Montgomery Boice, John Piper, George Eldon Ladd (influenced John Wimber), Wayne Grudem, and Mike Bickle. A lot of godly Reformed, Puritanical types; and few “Reformed charismatics” not to mention about 6 or 7 church fathers all bear witness to the truth of a post-tribulation rapture being taught in the Scriptures.
  
  Reply
  - Eric F. says:
    
    May 20, 2017 at 1:53 pm
    
    Fair enough. I still love your blog, and at least we agree on the major points of salvation. I suppose with respect to the End Times, let’s just agree to disagree. I’ll stay Pre-Trib, but if if doesn’t happen, then I’ll eat crow, repent of it, and ask for God’s help in facing persecution. We’ll see how things go. In the mean-time, I will declare “Maranatha.”
John Boruff says:

May 20, 2017 at 2:19 pm

Sounds reasonable.

Reply