The Restrainer And The Rapture

There's been a buzz this week about the potential prophetic significance of Shavuot and Pentecost. Specifically, that we could very well see a Pentecost Rapture for this who believe in a literal Rapture event let alone a Pre-Tribulation one.

I've subscribed to this point of view for a couple of months now so it was nice to see someone else write about it and others seeing the exciting possibilities. Given the fact that this is a pro-Rapture ministry, I wanted to publish a few pieces today that speak to this belief that is quite convincing in my eyes. This is the first of a few articles on the subject.

Some will claim that I'm putting more stock in the words of a man (in this case Brother D) than I am in the Word of God. I'm sorry, but that's just absurd.

I've been including a lot of his material here because, quite frankly, I haven't found anyone else who has been able to use the Bible to prove the Bible like he can. He backs up EVERY SINGLE STATEMENT with the appropriate and relevant Scripture, which is refreshing. It also helps that even though he and I have never communicated with each other we share very similar views about a lot of things.

More importantly, I believe that God has used him and his ministry many, many times in recent months to confirm a conclusion I had made about a discovery that was given to me. Case in point, remember how I wrote about that bizarre incident involving me getting sick at 4am and "hearing/seeing" Revelation 6 over and over again during the entire episode? Brother D wrote something -- only a few hours before my strange experience -- that may be connected to all of this and serve as confirmation that the Rapture and Tribulation are at hand.


I. THE RESTRAINER - WHO IS HE?


We know there is a Restrainer at work today. This Restrainer holds back the man of sin and what comes with the arrival of the man of sin -- wrath (Revelation 6 / Seven Seals):

2 Thessalonians 2:6-12 -- "And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness." (emphasis mine)

To say that the lawless one is being restrained also says that everything that appears with the lawless one is being restrained along with the lawless one. We know there is a Restrainer, and we are told "you know what restrains him now." We "know what restrains him now"?

We are told that the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah and the days of Lot. We see a restraining of the evil one AND a restraining of what comes with the evil one when he is revealed - - destruction (the rider on the white horse shows up first, then wrath-sword famine, pestilence, etc.). Forgive me for the lengthy section of of Scripture here, but we need to look a little closer at the days of Lot and see what we find relating to this topic of "what restrains..."

Genesis 19:15-22 -- "And when the dawn hath ascended, then the messengers press upon Lot, saying, 'Rise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters who are found present, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.' And he lingereth, and the men lay hold on his hand, and on the hand of his wife, and on the hand of his two daughters, through the mercy of Jehovah unto him, and they bring him out, and cause him to rest without the city. And it cometh to pass when he hath brought them out without, that he saith, 'Escape for thy life; look not expectingly behind thee, nor stand thou in all the circuit; to the mountain escape, lest thou be consumed.' And Lot saith unto them, 'Not so, I pray thee, my lord; lo, I pray thee, thy servant hath found grace in thine eyes, and thou dost make great thy kindness which thou hast done with me by saving my life, and I am unable to escape to the mountain, lest the evil cleave to me, and I have died; lo, I pray thee, this city is near to flee thither, and it is little; let me escape, I pray thee, thither, (is it not little?) and my soul doth live.' And he saith unto him, 'Lo, I have accepted thy face also for this thing, without overthrowing the city for which thou hast spoken; haste, escape thither, for I am not able to do anything till thine entering thither;' therefore hath he calleth the name of the city Zoar." (emphasis mine)

First of all, do you see any familiar words from that section? How about that word "ESCAPE"? Where have we seen that before?

Luke 21:36 -- "Watch ye, then, in every season, praying that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are about to come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man."

What can we deduce from this discovery?


II. THE RESTRAINER'S CONNECTION TO THE RAPTURE


Brother D wrote: "The time to build your faith is not when you hear 'the bridegroom is coming' or when you are staring face to face with the great delusion. The time to get on your knees and remember your 'first love' (Revelation 2:4) is now. Satan is going to do what he's going to do, you need to do what you need to do today. We don't have a timeline that will tell us exactly when our Lord will show up for us, but we do have his word that tells us to be watching and ready today. We have his word that tells us to pray to be counted worthy to escape all that's about to happen and stand before him. Many are those who toss aside the Lord's commands. As if men's pet doctrines somehow trump God's own commands? Don't be caught like the foolish virgins, or Lot's wife, or the worthless servant who hid his talent in the dirt. Warnings are an act of love. People say 'I don't like to motivate with fear' but I can assure you the Lord does."

Now, here we tie together the "escape" and "what restrains" in the story of Lot, which the Bible specifically refers us to in order to understand the coming of the Son of Man.

What did the angel explain to Lot? Destruction could not fall on Sodom until he, Lot (the righteous) were removed. How could Paul tell us that "we know what restrains?" He knew we have the story of Lot, we know the Lord referenced both Noah and Lot, we know that it was explained to Lot that destruction COULD NOT FALL until the righteous (Lot) were removed!


III. "IN THE MOUTH OF TWO WITNESSES" - RAPTURE/TRIBULATION SOON


As mentioned, a few months ago I kept finding the Holy Spirit draw me to Shavuot and Pentecost. At first, I had no idea why. All I knew was that these time period was being highlighted to me for some reason and I assumed that could only mean that it would somehow be prophetically important to us.

Sure, I've had "feelings" like this before that amounted to nothing and I know that we're supposed to live by faith not feelings, but this time feels different. Most importantly, I studied the Word of God to show myself approved and came to the conclusion that the next few days are as good as any for a possible Rapture.

Imagine my surprise when I began to find other like-minded Brothers and Sisters in Christ seeing the same things. Of course, Brother D from the Christian Apostasy ministry was one of those individuals:

"I've seen it debated that the Holy Spirit is the Restrainer, then I've seen people argue that the church is the Restrainer. I would argue based on the stories of Noah and Lot (Bible interprets the Bible) that the presence of the righteous is the Restrainer. Both camps are right in a way, the righteous are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, so they are one entity. The Holy Spirit won't leave the Earth because he is everywhere all the time, but what happened on Pentecost could indeed be reversed to put the floodlight back on the Lord's dealings with the people of Israel. The Holy Spirit worked with believers in a different way before Pentecost than after Pentecost."

Wow! Friends, please spend some time reading the next few entries today because the hourglass could be ready to go empty at any moment now.