My Journey

[full version found in the manual]

It  was as a seventeen year-old freshman student attending a college-age  Christian gathering during the “Jesus Movement” of the late sixties,  that I came into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  I trusted  Him to be the only one who could be the forgiver of my sins and the Lord  of my life.

Soon after, I picked up The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, and my passion for knowledge of end-times prophecy began.  I was hooked!  I devoured any book on the topic I could get my  hands on and listened to any speaker who spoke on the subject.  The  pretribulation position was all I knew and it sounded plausible to me.

As  a new Christian, I followed where I was led.   What I was taught, I  taught to others--the arguments and rationale of the pretrib position.   The only problem was that my knowledge was based on what others had told  me.  I had never taken the time to do my own searching of the  Scriptures to see if these things were so nor did I take the time to  study opposing views.  What I was taught and believed was never  challenged, because either I didn’t put myself in a place where I could  be challenged or I wasn’t that interested or I simply didn’t have the  time or know where to look.

When I finally did begin to look at  the Scriptures, doubts began to surface.  Did the concept of a pretrib  Rapture actually appear in the Bible?  Was it an explicit teaching of  the Word of God or was it the result of inferences, assumptions, and  theological presuppositions?  That became the question I was  asking---“Where is the pretrib Rapture of the Church taught in  Scripture?”

TWO BOOKS BY A POSTTRIB AUTHOR STUNNED ME!

During  the 1980’s, while browsing through a bookstore, I purchased two books  on the subject of end-times written by George Ladd, a  posttribulationist.  For years these books, The Blessed Hope and The Last Things,  remained on my bookshelf.  But my passion to understand end-times  chronology had not waned and my doubts about the pretrib position had  grown.  Eventually I pulled them down and my search for the Rapture  continued.

Three points made by the author hit me hard!  One,  in particular, stunned me and challenged me to reconsider my  understanding of the timing of the Rapture.  I had never heard these  things before.  Those three points are discussed in the chart and  manual.

I knew something wasn’t right with the pretrib position.   Ladd’s two books convinced me I needed to make a shift; however, I  wasn’t sold on the posttrib’s view of the timing of the Rapture as  occurring at the end of Daniel’s 70th week.  I was moving away from the  pretrib position, but didn’t know where to go from there.

IT ALL CAME TOGETHER

In 1990, during another one of my many trips to a Christian bookstore, I picked up yet another book on the Rapture entitled, The Pre-wrath Rapture of the Church,  by Marv Rosenthal.  I didn’t even hesitate.  I wanted to understand  other people’s perspective on the issue.  Needless to say, it was an  "Emmaus Road" experience for me!  Rosenthal gave me two additional clues  or pieces to this end-times puzzle that I never saw before.  Those two  additional points are covered in the chart and manual.

I kept saying to myself, “It’s so clear!  How could I have missed it?”

Other  confirming evidence, showcased in The Prewrath Chart, convinced me of  the timing of the Rapture.  Notice where it occurs in the following  sequence of events: 1) the Great Tribulation days begin at the mid-point  of the 70th week, and are then cut short by the universal darkness  created by the cosmic disturbances (this occurs within the second half  of the 70th week), 2) the darkness is then dispelled by the glorious  coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds, 3) the Rapture occurs at  this point, and 4) God’s wrath, found in the Day of the Lord, begins to  be poured out on those “left behind!”

Putting  it another way, Scripture confirms the Rapture's timing at an unknown  point within the second half of the seven-year period—immediately after  the Great Tribulation days are cut short by the cosmic disturbances of  seal six and prior to the start of God’s Day of the Lord wrath in the  first trumpet—a PREWRATH RAPTURE!

Have I taken a journey into  confusion or has it been a journey towards truth?  Follow the clues in  The Prewrath Chart and then decide