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The Relationship of the 2024 Total Eclipse to the End Times
Eclipse and Path of Totality
My wife and I live in the path of totality. Yes, that’s right. We live in the path where for three or four minutes we will see a total eclipse. For that reason, this rural area with a relatively small population will grow in population over the next few days with people who want to be here too. For those coming into our parking lot, our church will offer eclipse glasses through which to look at the eclipse when it shows itself in the most significant fashion.
Many people think the eclipse is an eschatological sign. Even unbelievers around this area speak in a wary way about what’s happening in the sky and what it means for their future. I’m happy that it has them thinking about their lives.
Signs of the Times Are Everywhere?
I grew up in a small Baptist church in rural Indiana, and I’m not endorsing the song, but I have the words in my mind of one we sang then:
Signs of the times are everywhere,
There’s a brand new feeling in the air,
Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky,
Lift up your eyes, redemption draweth nigh.
For many, that sounds about right. Signs of the times are everywhere. Except they’re not. Signs won’t appear until after the Antichrist reveals himself (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10). On April 8, if you keep your eyes upon the eastern sky, you better at least be wearing your eclipse glasses.
I know people are writing and producing youtube presentations about the eclipse as a sign of the end times. I have not read any of these works but just have heard people asking and talking about it as such. So here goes. The total eclipse on April 8 is not a sign of the end times. It isn’t.
Seeking After Signs
What gets people’s attention, I believe, is the weird or earie astronomical nature of the eclipse. It’s obvious and odd. Jesus’ own birth provided a star, a sign in the sky for that event. People who followed Him around also wanted astronomical signs from Him, but He said He wouldn’t give them. He said in Matthew 16:4:
A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
The sign of the prophet Jonas was Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. So He says, besides that, He would give no more signs to that generation. The message of Jesus was that scripture was sufficient. “But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luke 11:28). Blessing came to those who believe the word of God without having or seeing signs. Signs are not for them who believe, but believe not. Believers don’t need signs. They believe, and faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17), not from signs.
Era of Astronomical Signs
Jesus in Luke 21:25 says that during the Tribulation period on earth, Revelation chapters six through sixteen, God will give astronomical signs:
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.
Peter references these occurrences in Acts 2:20 on the Day of Pentecost:
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come:
This references Joel 2:31, which also also says this is when “the great and terrible day of the LORD come(s).” These signs mark the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when He opens the seals of His judgment. People on earth will know they have little time for salvation at that point.
None of us need signs, because nothing needs to occur for the rapture of the saints (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Neither do unbelievers need signs for sufficiently knowing they’ll be left behind for God’s judgment. Not just that, but it is already appointed unto man once to die (Hebrews 9:27), and no man knows when that will occur (Proverbs 27:1, James 4:14). In the next second, eclipse or no eclipse coming, the Lord could descend through the clouds to meet true believers in the air.
Signifying Nothing
This total eclipse signifies nothing. Eclipses happen. The fact that we could predict this one indicates that God created astronomical bodies with mathematical precision. Ships navigate by the movements of celestial bodies. This testifies already to the glory of God, eclipse or no eclipse.
Eclipses testify to man’s helplessness and the immensity of God’s creation. The sun is just one star of many, not even the largest. It is a fiery, hot mass that God created just the right distance away for enough heat without burning up men. It’s not always going to be this way though. Everything in the future will burn with a fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10), annihilating everything, and God will create a new heaven and a new earth. Only those who believe in Jesus Christ will make it to the other side and a whole new and eternal and blessed era.
Reminder of Opportunities
Man does not have interminable opportunities for salvation. If the eclipse helps him remember this, the eclipse offers a great blessing to him. No doubt an eclipse gets people’s attention and makes them think. If men continue in their sin, never listening to God’s Word, then the eclipse serves very little purpose for them. Perhaps it just makes men more proud, because they saw it with their special glasses. Now they can say they’ve done another thing that makes them more special.
The total eclipse does provide an opportunity. It parallels with future astronomical events that will be signs. They provoke men to think about the last times. On April 8, 2024 and even before and after that day, let everyone consider what Jesus warned in Matthew 24:44:
Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
The eclipse is not a sign, but Jesus said always to be ready. Be ready for His return. Paul says that it will occur in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52-54). Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).
The Real Dovetailing of Future Antichrist Agenda and World Power Now
PART FOUR
Separation of Powers
Whom we call the founding fathers of the United States designed into the government checks and balances and separation of powers. They also formed a system of federalism that divided power between the states and the federal government. Their understanding of man’s sin nature grounded their desire to limit the concentration of power in one entity. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, in Federalist 51 wrote:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
The states could impede the nation and one branch could obstruct another in the tendency of consolidating power. Even within the legislative branch, the Senate could thwart the House of Representatives and vice versa.
Private Property Ownership
God founded private property ownership. Even though He owns everything, He designed the concept of ownership itself. When Israel entered the land, God divided up the property among twelve tribes. Then among the tribes, families received their own pieces. God also established with laws rights of private property.
Dividing land by boundaries could separate and check evil. You can see this in the concept of landmarks in the Old Testament. Proverbs 22:28 says:
Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
Fathers set these landmarks, which is a smaller governing unit. Under fathers were sons and grandsons. Bigger than fathers were clans and larger than clans were tribes.
You probably notice how that globalists attack the family unit. When Hillary Clinton said, “It takes a village,” she sees the elimination of basic separation. Heavy taxation inclines toward government ownership of property. You hear this in a statement, like President Obama famously said, “You didn’t build that.” The government has ownership of what it contributed toward building.
Globalist Agenda
Public Education
The fathers of public education, Horace Mann and John Dewey, saw educational reform an efficient mechanism for social control. Public education standardized curricula and centralized the disbursement of funds. It restricted competition. Public schools seized on the influence of making children wards of the state. Education then became a department of the executive branch of the federal government.
Common Language
Nations have languages. God confused the languages at Babel to cause separation. The United States is an English speaking country. Requiring English represses globalism.
Obscure Sex or Gender
In a rudimentary way, obscuring differences in gender eliminates a significant substructure of separation. On the way to one world is one sex or gender. Each sex has a role and eradicating those roles also erases a God-ordained boundary.
Common Currency and Free Trade
On a larger scale than federalism and the separation of powers, nationalism checks globalism. The elimination of borders portends the loss of God-designed natural separation. Even if it is not physical boundaries like the line between the United States and Mexico, it is economic ones like separate currencies and cultural ones like unique ways of life based on founding principles.
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:21), “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Globalists pour their efforts into a life of physical things. They are materialists who prioritize the natural universe and the planet. Most of them don’t care about national boundaries. They don’t want separation of powers.
National boundaries prevent greater wealth. Globalists don’t want trade protectionism and economic isolationism. They want unfettered ability to have and take. Free trade means buying and selling across borders with little to no intervention or inhibition. Worldwide companies grow more powerful making it more difficult for solely national, state, and local businesses to compete. Fewer companies control more until only a few men can control everything, like an Antichrist and his handpicked, loyal subordinates.
To gain more power and stay in power, globalists gladly offer limited security to the masses. They market protection and a very basic quality of life. Adherents trade freedom and opportunity for safety. Greedy globalists also play on greed by offering a certain stipend and free education and healthcare. Without compliance, occupants or residents lose privileges and finally life.
Censorship
To keep safety and security means control of communication. Censorship becomes the rule with few exceptions. Censorship says “no” to preaching the gospel. Jesus said the truth shall set you free indeed. The Antichrist will round up and destroy those speaking the truth.
Antichrist Versus Christ
The human leader of a future one world government is the Antichrist. He’s called the Antichrist (1 John 2:18). In that way, he has something in common with Christ. Christ will rule the world. The Antichrist wants this just as the power behind him, Satan, wants this. Globalism fails because of sin.
On the other hand, Christ saves from sin. He brings world peace. Everyone lives in harmony one with another with safety and security. However, the kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth comes only through Christ, not the Antichrist. Until Jesus sets up His kingdom on the earth, all globalism rebels against His plan.
The Real Dovetailing of Future Antichrist Agenda and World Power Now
PART TWO
Globalism and God’s Opposition
As you open to the first chapter of the Bible and then read it to its last book, you see God’s opposition to globalism. On the other hand, Satan’s plan as the prince of this world is bringing the world system into a cohesive, homogenous whole. These two ideas combat each other in the Bible and so world history as part of the conflict of the ages between God and Satan.
Early, Satan could think he’s got all of mankind against God. Adam and Eve take his bait in the garden. God says in essence, Not so fast. But everything is ruined by Genesis 3. It was two people, a small group, but Satan angled for their alignment with him against God.
Biblical, Historical Markers
Some simple historical markers against globalism are (1) the confusion of languages at the tower of Babel. Before the global flood (Genesis 6-9), mankind banded together and only eight people stood against that. On the other side of the flood, the same situation began to repeat at the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), so God confused the languages. In line with this outcome is the statement in Genesis 10:25, “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided.”
Another perhaps less considered aspect of God ordained division on the earth is (2) the reality and history of plate tectonics. Biblical evidence shows that all the land was once connected (Genesis 1:9). Both secular and Christian geologists agree that what are several continents look to fit like a jig-saw puzzle. At one time these several continents were one big continent. These divisions of land provide natural separations that long time impeded globalism.
Acts 17:26 reveals that (3) God founded nations on the earth:
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
Rise, Fall of Nations and Boundaries
God determined the rise and fall of nations and the boundaries where they would live. After man’s fall, God intended boundaries that separated men from one another. Genesis 10 records the first ever table of nations that chronicles the fulfillment of God having done this. Genesis 10:5 says:
By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
God also started the separate nation Israel (2 Samuel 7:23):
And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods?
Genesis 18:18 says:
Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
Each nation functions under the following axiomatic truth expressed by God in Psalm 33:12:
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
Globalism Ends the World
First World and the Next
Just like the first world ended with globalism, the next world will end with globalism. The Book of Revelation calls the Antichrist, the final one world leader in opposition to God, “the Beast.” Revelation 13:3 says about that world:
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
He will draw the whole world together around him and his and Satan’s plan. Revelation 13:8 continues:
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him,, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Satan Wants Globalism
Concerning Satan’s part in this, Revelation 12:9 says:
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
He will deceive the whole world.
The hunger and thirst for globalism dovetails with the purpose of Satan and the future Antichrist. One of the ways the Antichrist can succeed at this complete cohesion and convergence of the whole world is by controlling everything economic. Revelation 13:17 says:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Eliminating Boundaries to Globalism
This requires a common currency, probably a digital one in a cashless society. Anyone who will not succumb to globalism under the Antichrist will not buy or sell. More than ever economy exists across national boundaries. Whatever you may say about the United States relationship with China, much of what you buy probably still comes from there.
The globalists oppose nationalism. They continue to strive to break down the boundaries and barriers. This occurs through the media, communication, and finance. The state schools teach this globalist agenda.
Social media eliminates boundaries and crisscrosses the world. Companies are worldwide. Just three companies, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta, control half of the advertising market and revenue for the whole world. Five Big Tech companies dominate business, adding to the previous three, Apple and Microsoft. The five account for 25% of the entire S & P 500. Like Big Tech dominates, just three companies dominate investment banking: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and J. P. Morgan.
Almost every religious denomination now reduces doctrine and practice to its lowest common denominator, endeavoring to diminish the differences that divide. Whatever does differentiate is minimized. Agree to disagree.
Rather than have biblical doctrine guide people, it’s instead a common experience. Church growth depends more on relationships and shared activities.
More to Come
The Real Dovetailing of Future Antichrist Agenda and World Power Now
Satan
Maybe people don’t know that Satan is the “prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:36, 16:11). Jesus uses this title of him. He is a usurper as a monarch over this world, taking the place of man and specifically, the God-man, Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, Satan holds sway over the world.
As a result, “the world” in the Bible, most often does not speak of the earth, the planet within a solar system. No, it s “the world system.” “The world system” means the entire Satanic organization functioning in the world of men against the plan of God.
Subjection Unto Angels
In Genesis 1:28, upon the creation of man, God mandated him to subdue and have dominion over the earth. Hebrews 2:8 says, “Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” “His” refers to “man.” That’s the purpose of God. God will fulfill that purpose through His Son, Jesus Christ, when Jesus comes back and sets up a kingdom on the earth. Men will reign with Jesus Christ and complete that God-ordained task.
Later in the same verse in Hebrews, the author writes: “But now we see not yet all things put under him.” Okay, so if man is not in charge, then who is? An earlier verse in the chapter, Hebrews 2:5, gives a clue:
For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
So the angels won’t be in charge of the world to come. What’s the deal with that? The present world, the one in which we live, is under the subjection of angels. See above with Satan. Even though this is clear in the Bible, I would say a vast majority of people do not know this. They should consider with every imagination of the world and the world specifically around them, that Satan is in charge of it. That’s a big reason it is the way that it is. This significant truth is rarely mentioned, only sometimes in preaching, but seldom. This truth that angels rule over the present world fits with what Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12:
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
You can read there “the rulers of the darkness of this world.”
“Conspiracy Theory”
What I’m writing about the world and Satan and his angels, demons, some might call a conspiracy theory. I’m saying the overall direction of this world, it’s in Satan’s plan. However, the way he accomplishes his rule is through men, who work for him. That is where the “conspiracy theory” really comes into play.
What I’m writing is not taught in schools. No one mentions Satan as a significant feature of worldly existence. No. The only acceptable worldly position is that we’re here alone, trying to troop through on our own, us men, or people. This itself is part of a Satanic conspiracy, that Satan will work unrecognized, like he is completely camouflaged in this world. Don’t look behind that door — nothing to see there.
“Conspiracy theory” as a terminology is mainly used today as communicating that someone is telling a crazed lie. It would be like saying that Jesus is God. That thought does not belong to polite society, except hovelled away in very private religious places.
The Antichrist
The human personification of Satan in the Bible is the character, the Antichrist. There have been antichrists, who are types of the future antichrist. They are antichrist, but they are not The Antichrist. When I talk about the Antichrist, I believe that it is easy to see the agenda of the Antichrist in this present world. Why wouldn’t we see a parallel agenda, since Satan will also hold sway the antichrist, even as he does his underlings today?
While Bible believing and practicing people like myself go our sweet way, doing evangelism and discipleship with results coming at a glacial pace, the path toward the fulfillment of Satan and the Antichrist’s agenda keeps moving along much more quickly. I’m all for the former. Even though I do believe it is the answer, that does not mean that the latter isn’t also occurring. It also does not mean that someone should not say something or do something to expose the present agenda of the Antichrist.
The Antichrist in the future will do his thing, as we can read in Revelation and related passages. It will occur and he will lose. What he and Satan want now is against what true believers do. Many powerful people today though are working with and toward the agenda of the Antichrist. It is a globalist agenda, a one-world-order. You hear this language today and it is easy to see how many policies pushed by the most powerful institutions glove fit with the Antichrist.
Tools of Control of the World
When the Antichrist finally takes charge, he will inculcate many of the same instrumentation or tools to control everyone and send them in a path roughshod against God. That path already exists. It is a globalist super high way pushing an agenda that accords with Satan.
If anything, one of the most important means of Satan and the Antichrist is shutting down voices that damage their agenda, that do the most to impede their goals. They want to give you the impression that you possess a suitable voice for your message, as long as you don’t stop the treads of their machinery from operating at their highest speed. Keep your little audience. Barely make a noise that will interrupt the march toward the final form of Satan’s rule over the world through the Antichrist.
Case of Alistair Begg
Counsel to a Grandmother
Consider the pressure that even professing preachers feel. A mini-explosive event occurred the last several days in evangelicalism. A fairly conservative evangelical, albeit already compromising preacher, Alistair Begg, got in trouble with prominent figures for publically encouraging a grandmother to go to her grandson’s transgender wedding. The idea here with Begg was compassion and not condemnation. In Begg’s assessment, compassion would be going to the wedding, condemnation was not going.
When Begg started getting kickback for his counsel, he did what many called, double downed. He did not retract. He would not repent of his counsel. Many podcasters went after him. Others defended him. Public leaders stood on either side of his decision.
The Pressure
What’s the pressure on a Begg to answer a public question with a weak, unscriptural answer? He lives under that pressure. The Antichrist will have pressure during the Tribulation Period to control men. He will wield many different means of coercion. Someone summed up the issue with this paragraph:
From the accounts I have seen, we are not exactly sure what we are dealing with, but it is bent however you look at it. Either the grandson was marrying a woman who pretends to be a man, in which case the marriage itself is an actual marriage, and the homosexual delusion (pretending you are marrying a man) is still a sick delusion, or he is marrying a man who thinks he is a woman, and so you have both actual sodomy and quite a different delusion, just as broken. But for our purposes here, it doesn’t really matter. The issue is the lawfulness of a Christian’s celebratory participation at an event that is truly dark.
Why would a godly leader not tell the grandmother not to go? The grandson will feel the sting of her rejection. He would not experience suitable affirmation. Begg knows this too. But it really isn’t that. It is that the present world, the one so against God, requires approval.
Approval of the Counsel or Activity
Who was for the counsel by Begg? The world and its groups that support transgender ideology. They would not throw him much of a biscuit, but they would look maybe somewhat admiringly. Who would be against? Godly people. People against the world system. There is very strong pressure to please the former at the risk of the latter. Just say you’re sorry to your people and they’ll understand. Some Christians will applaud, because they also want approval from the acceptable, appropriate people in the culture of the world.
The Antichrist will ask for full approval from everyone in the world. His forms of coercion will surpass whatever kind Begg presently feels to impel him to give the kind of counsel he did. It still follows that this is what Satan and the Antichrist want to become irrelevant, something that is an abomination to God. They gladly accept the capitulation in the present. The trajectory of such counsel is the future total domination of the Antichrist agenda.
More to Come
2 Thessalonians 2:3 & Pre Trib Rapture: “Day Shall not Come”
People that deny the pre-Tribulation Rapture of the saints sometimes use 2 Thessalonians 2:3 to argue for their position. Let us examine this verse in its context:
1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? 6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. 8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Opponents of the Biblical doctrine of the pretribulational, premillenial Rapture of the saints may argue that “the day of Christ” cannot be “at hand,” that is, it cannot be about to take place, until there “come a falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” That is, the Antichrist has to be revealed before the Rapture can take place, according to this argument.
However, this argument against the pre-trib Rapture is clearly invalid. The phrase translated “the day of Christ is at hand” in 2 Thessalonians 2:2 comes from the Greek hoti enestēken hē hēmera tou Christou. The word enestēken comes from the Greek enistēmi, meaning “to be present”; the sense in 2 Thessalonians 2:2 is that “the day of the Lord has come” (BDAG). Some at Thessalonica thought that they were already standing in the time of the Day of Christ; they thought they were already in the Tribulation period, and so they were doing things like no longer going to work at their lawful employments. Paul explains that if they were already standing within the Day of Christ, if they were already present in the Tribulation, then they would see the Antichrist ruling the world, as he is the one who takes power immediately after the Rapture (Revelation 6:1-2). No Antichrist ruling the world? Then they were not in the Tribulation, argues Paul.
The other texts in the New Testament with the verb enistēmi verify this interpretation:
Rom. 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
1Cor. 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
1Cor. 7:26 I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be.
Gal. 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:
2Th. 2:2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. [“the day of Christ is present.”]
2Tim. 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come [Greek future tense: “perilous times shall be present in the future.”]
Heb. 9:9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
While in English we use the phrase “at hand” in a variety of ways, the Greek word in 2 Thessalonians 2:2 and its uses elsewhere in the New Testament demonstrate that Paul was warning that if one was actually in the Tribulation period, he would already see the Antichrist in power. Paul was not saying that the Antichrist would arise and then the Day of Christ would start at some point afterwards. Indeed, in the following context, Paul identifies the Holy Spirit as the Restrainer who is holding back the Antichrist until He is taken out of the way (2 Thessalonians 2:6-7). Notice that the Holy Spirit is referred to with a neuter (KJV, “what” withholdeth, to katechon) in 2:6 and a masculine (KJV, “he” who now letteth/restraineth,” ho katechōn) in 2:7. The neuter is used because pneuma, “Spirit / breath / wind,” is grammatically neuter word in Greek (as are all words ending in –ma), but because the Holy Spirit is a Person, He is referred to with a masculine form in 2 Thessalonians 2:7. When will the Spirit be taken away? When the saints are taken away in the Rapture–and then the Antichrist, no longer restrained, will be revealed.
Thus, in context, 2 Thessalonians 2 supports a pre-Trib Rapture, and nothing at all in 2 Thessalonians indicates that the Antichrist must start ruling before the Rapture can take place.
Many other passages support the pre-Tribulation Rapture of the saints, and refute a mid-Tribulation or post-Tribulation error, including passages such as 1 Thessalonians 4, which have been discussed in other articles on this blog.
–TDR
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