The Timing Of The ‘Last’ Trump (Part 7)

So now we’ve seen what the Apostle Paul revealed about the rapture and its timing with regard to the sounding of the last trumpet. We will now look at what the Lord Jesus said about the same subject.

In Matthew 24:30-31, Jesus spoke these words:

There’s that trumpet again. We see here that Christ describes His coming in the clouds of heaven accompanying the sound of a trumpet. If the integrity of scripture is to be trusted (and we know it can!), then this trumpet is the same one Paul describes in his letter to the Thessalonians where he describes it as the “last” trump. What an incredible passage! And you can see that the events described here harmonize perfectly with Paul’s account of these same events as he described for us in 1 Cor. 15:5-53, where he writes,

Here we see the trumpet sounding and then the gathering together of the elect, whom Paul describes as “we”, i.e., the church of Jesus Christ. And note that in Christ’s description we see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory with the sounding of a trumpet. This is not some secret coming as professed by pretribulation devotees.

This harmonizes perfectly with Christ’s declaration in Matthew 24:27:

It is interesting to note Jesus’s use of the word “gather” in Mt. 24:31. We see a similar use of this word by Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, where he writes,

The word used in Matthew 24:31 to describe the rapture is “gather” (Greek root episynagō) which is the same word (gathering) Paul uses to describe the same event in 2 Thes. 2:1. “Gather” and “gathering” are from the same Greek root word episynagō.

The context of both these passages deal with the second coming of Christ and the rapture, i.e. the gathering together of the saints.

We’ve established, then, that the Matthew 24 trumpet and the 1 Corinthian 15 trumpet are the same. They both describe the rapture of the church, and by taking a closer look at the Matthew 24:29-31 passages, we can get a better handle on the timing of this even with reference to the unfolding of eschatological events.

We know that both Jesus’s and Paul’s passages describe the same trumpet, because the same events transpire in both accounts. In both Jesus’ description and in Paul’s, the saints are “gathered”. There are not two gatherings, only the one.

This trumpet referenced here in Matthew cannot follow the 1 Corinthian trumpet, since we have already established that the Corinthian trumpet is the “last” trumpet. Since it is the last trump, no trump can follow. Hence the Matthew trumpet cannot follow the Corinthian trumpet.

And we see from verse 29 that the sounding of the final trumpet and the immediate subsequent rapture of the church occur after the tribulation. The scripture quoted above says “after the tribulation of those days”. Which days was Jesus referring to? Which tribulation?

Just a few verses prior in Matthew 24:21-22, Jesus describes which tribulation and what days he is referring to:

This is none other than the great tribulation. Jesus says, “then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” This has to be the “Great Tribulation”, since there has never been one as great and there never will be ever after.

So we see from a careful study of the trumpets in scripture that the rapture of the church occurs after the Great Tribulation.

Another interesting observation can be drawn from this passage. Jesus states that the days of the tribulation shall be shortened for the elect’s sake. If there was a pretribulation rapture of the church, there would be no elect present for whom the days of the tribulation needed to be shortened.

(Yes, I realize that some pretribulation devotees envision a revival occurring during the tribulation and that the elect mentioned above passage would refer to those saved during that time.)

One Final Thought

There is the idea put forth by pretribulation advocates that the rapture will occur prior to the tribulation so that the church will be snatched away and thereby avoid the cruel wrath of the antichrist. They cite 1 Thessalonians 3:3 which states:

But this scripture is speaking of the wrath of God, not the wrath of Satan. Throughout history, the righteous have suffered under all forms of wrath imposed upon them by the devil and his cohorts. Sometimes God delivered them and sometimes He did not. And in no case, did He deliver them by removing them from the earth. Even when God destroyed the earth via Noah’s flood He did not snatch Noah and his family out of the earth, but provided a very earthly way of escape, i.e. the ark.

God has never delivered His people from Satan’s wrath by extracting them from the earth. In fact, when Jesus was praying for his church in John chapter seventeen, He said:

God is well able to protect His people on earth from wrath without snatching them out of the earth. Notice how God commands the locusts in Revelation 9:3-4:

The locusts go forth to harm only those men who have not the seal of God on their forehead. Those with God’s seal are protected from the evil, just as Christ prayed the father that His church would be.