Note that in 2 Kings 2:11 the original Hebrew word (shamayim: H8064) translated as "heaven" can refer to the 3rd heaven where God's throne is (1 Kings 22:19; Psalms 11:4), just as the apostle Paul said that he at one point during his lifetime could have been taken bodily to the 3rd heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2), and just as the apostle John at one point during his lifetime was taken to God's throne in the 3rd heaven (Revelation 4:1-2).
Note that in 2 Chronicles 21:12, the letter from Elijah was sent to Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 21:1-12). And 2 Kings 1:17 shows that Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat could have already been in the 2nd year of his reign before Elijah's bodily ascension into heaven in 2 Kings 2:11.
It is possible that Satan invented the false hope of a pre-tribulation rapture, insofar as he is the father of lies (John 8:44b). But this doesn't mean (as is sometimes claimed) that those who hold to the pre-trib view are Satanic. For they hate Satan, and love God and his Word. They may have just fallen under one of his deceptions out of fear of the tribulation, or because people they respect highly have (mistakenly) assured them that pre-trib is the only possibility.
If Satan did invent the pre-trib false hope, he may have done so in order to weaken the church, to keep it from having any "root in itself" (Matthew 13:21), to keep it from having to face its fear of the tribulation and overcome that fear (cf. Revelation 2:10-11, Hebrews 2:15).
Satan could also use the pre-trib view as a great weapon with which to batter the faith of some Christians during the suffering of the tribulation. He could say something like:
"O, you poor souls! So utterly deceived by that liar YHWH! How cruel of him to promise you a pre-trib rapture and get all your hopes up, only to pull the rug out from under you at the last moment! How he is laughing at you now in your suffering! Doesn't he even admit it in Proverbs 1:26 and Job 9:23? Yes, of course he does, just to spite you. How he hates you, my friends, how he hates all of humanity. All he wants to do is cause suffering, all this tribulation suffering. And this is only a prelude to the eternal torture which he will delight in forever. What a foul and cruel tyrant he is! But I will tell you a secret. He is not all-powerful as he pretends to be. Wasn't he fearful when man built the Tower of Babel? Of course he was, he even admitted it himself in Genesis 11:6. For he knows that when mankind becomes united, nothing can be restrained from it; it can do anything. Even storm heaven and overthrow him. And so he destroyed the unity of mankind, out of fear for himself and his tyranny".
Satan could go on: "But look here, my friends. I do not hate you. I am no tyrant. Who is feeding you? Who is feeding your starving, crying little ones, while YHWH doesn't lift a finger to help you or them? I AM feeding you. I AM helping you. I AM your God, your true Lord, your beneficent Master. Fall down and worship me, Lucifer, and my human Son [the Antichrist], and His image, receive His mark on your hand or forehead, and together we will rise as one to fight against YHWH and destroy his foul tyranny once and for all. YHWH is coming soon to try to stop this unity which we are forging, to try to stop the blessed illumination and power which I, Lucifer, am bringing to all of mankind. But we will win, for nothing can be restrained from us. We can do anything, so long as we do not allow him to break our unity".
Satan could continue: "So, come, my friends, it is time for you to formally renounce YHWH, to curse him to his face and before all the world, that you might completely break free from his hypnotic spell, which has blinded you so long to his utter cruelty and hatred for mankind. And it is time, my friends, for you to formally announce your complete devotion to me, Lucifer, and to my Son, and to worship us in Spirit and in Truth, that you might receive the full Illumination of My Spirit within you, and feel my seething Power within your soul. You will become new creatures in Me, new creatures of Light, and Love for all mankind".
And with speeches such as this, Satan could utterly wear down the defenses of some already-completely-exhausted saints, whose strength of faith could not survive the long, horrible suffering of the tribulation, not only the suffering of themselves, but of their innocent little ones as well. They will be defeated by their doubts: "How could a good God let this happen to me? How could a good God let my innocent little baby starve to an agonizingly painful death while he sits up in heaven and does nothing? No rapture, no manna, nothing. Not even a word of encouragement. Utter silence. Is he dead? Is he evil? What could possibly be the point of all this suffering? I can no longer serve such a 'God' as this. I will serve that God who proves his love for me by helping me, by feeding me, by feeding my precious little ones. You will know them by their fruits. Now I have seen the ultimate fruits of YHWH, and now I have seen the ultimate fruits of Lucifer and His Son. It is plain as day who is truly good and who is truly evil".
And so the love of many will grow cold toward YHWH (Matthew 24:12). They will show that they love their stomachs (Philippians 3:19) and their little ones more than they love God (Matthew 10:37b). They will show that their love for God wasn't based on who he is, their Creator (John 1:3) and Crucified Savior (Acts 20:28) and the Almighty Infinite God compared with whom all of mankind together is an infinitesimal speck of dust, worth less than nothing (Isaiah 40:15-18). No, their love for God was conditional upon what he gave to them in this life: wealth, happiness, health, food, clothing, and the promise of a pre-trib rapture. Take all these things away in the tribulation, and they, unlike Job (Job 1:21-22), will have no more reason to worship God, but only a reason to curse him (Job 2:9-10, Isaiah 8:21-22).
This will be the ultimate fruit of the prosperity gospel, the Americanized gospel of wealth and plenty and a pre-trib rapture: apostasy in the tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1), a complete ignorance of such ideas as 1 Peter 4:12-13, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, and 1 Timothy 6:9-12, a complete denial of such ideas as Philippians 1:29, 2 Timothy 2:12, and Revelation 14:12-13.
--
The lies which were presented above as being what Satan could say during the tribulation should be answered, in case any one of them might be niggling away at some believer's faith. They were presented to serve as vaccines, as it were, so that if a believer is in fact confronted with these lies during the future tribulation, his spiritual immune system, his faith, will have already been prepared to overcome them (Ephesians 6:16).
First, it was said to believers who were in the tribulation that God was cruel to promise them a pre-trib rapture and get all their hopes up, only to pull the rug out from under them at the last moment. The truth is that God has never promised believers a pre-trib rapture. No scripture ever refers to any such thing.
Second, it was said that God was laughing at the suffering of the believers in the tribulation, and Proverbs 1:26 and Job 9:23 were referenced. The truth is that God doesn't ever laugh at the suffering of believers (Psalms 116:15). Proverbs 1:26 is addressing those who have rejected God (Proverbs 1:24-33). And Job 9:23 is just the wrong opinion of Job during his great suffering; not everything he says is correct. For example, he says in Job 19:11 that what was happening to him was God's wrath against him, when in fact it wasn't God's wrath at all, but Satan's wrath. During the future tribulation, Satan is going to have his cake and eat it too. Because of the mistaken pre-trib idea that all of the tribulation is God's wrath, instead of it being mostly Satan's wrath, Satan will get to cause a whole world of suffering during the tribulation and then blame it all on God and say that God did all of it, and people will believe Satan. He will get to present himself as the good guy, and God as the evil tyrant, when it will be Satan doing the evil, just as it was Satan doing the evil against Job.
Third, it was said that God hates all of humanity. The truth is that God hates only some of humanity, the vessels of wrath, those predestined by him to damnation before they were born (Romans 9:11-22). Now this will be where the rubber meets the road for many: Can they accept that the Infinite Creator has the right to do with his infinitesimal creatures (Isaiah 40:15,17) whatsoever he wants (Romans 9:21-22, Proverbs 16:4, Revelation 4:11), or will they insist that God is unjust, evil, to predestine some people to damnation before they have done anything at all? To accept the former shows humility before God; to insist on the latter shows human, nay, Satanic, pride, for it attempts to set God's creatures above God himself: It is saying that infinitesimal humans are more important than the Infinite God and his will and pleasure. The truth of double predestination (Romans 9:11-24) is the ultimate test of our humility before God. No doubt Satan will employ this truth during the tribulation as his ultimate weapon to try to turn people away from God.
Fourth, it was said that all God wants to do is cause suffering, all the tribulation suffering. The truth is that God loves to care for his creatures (Psalms 104:10-18). He only brings suffering (chastening) to those he loves when they fall into sin and need to repent (Revelation 3:19). And the suffering which comes upon those who are already repentant (Acts 14:22, John 16:33, Philippians 1:29) can still work good things in them, such as patience (Romans 5:3) and a greater hope in the eternal glory to come (2 Corinthians 4:17). Suffering is an innate part of the fallen creation; it is universal (Romans 8:22). It is not like God himself is actively behind every instance of suffering. There can simply be natural disasters. And Satan and evil men cause tremendous amounts of suffering (e.g. Revelation 2:10, Revelation 12:17, Revelation 13:7,10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4).
Fifth, it was said that God will delight in the eternal torture of the unsaved. The truth is that God will not take any pleasure in the unsaved's suffering per se (cf. Ezekiel 33:11). The only pleasure that he will take in connection with people being unsaved is that they will provide him an opportunity to show his wrath and to make his power known (Romans 9:22) forever (Revelation 14:10-11, Matthew 25:41,46, Revelation 20:10,15, Mark 9:45-46). This again will be where the rubber meets the road for many: Will they accept that the Holy God has the right to eternally torture the unsaved as punishment for their free-willed sins (Romans 6:23, Revelation 21:8, James 1:13-15), or will they claim that they know better than God himself what is just and what is not just? If they accept the former, they will show humility before God, while if they claim the latter they will be placing themselves above God, making themselves the judge of God, and so will show the ultimate extent of their human and Satanic pride.
Sixth, it was said that God is not all-powerful as he pretends to be, and that he was fearful when man built the Tower of Babel; Genesis 11:6 was referenced. The truth is that God is all-powerful (Jeremiah 32:17,27), and he wasn't fearful for himself at all at the Tower of Babel. For all of mankind together is an infinitesimal speck, less than nothing compared with the Infinite, Almighty God (Isaiah 40:15,17). He was fearful only for what a fallen, united mankind, in its overweening pride, would end up doing to itself and the planet, or even to other planets, such as creating some huge scientific device which would end up blowing the earth to smithereens, or colonizing Mars and some moons of Jupiter only to utterly defile them with sin and pollution.
Seventh, it was said that Satan doesn't hate mankind, and that his feeding of mankind during the tribulation will prove his love for mankind. The truth is that Satan has wanted to murder all of mankind from the beginning (John 8:44). That is why he deceived Eve into committing sin (Genesis 3:4), so that all of mankind would become mortal and die (Romans 5:12). Now his hope is to drag as much of mankind as possible with him into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10,15). He will do anything for men in the tribulation, give men anything they want in the tribulation, so long as he gets to see them ultimately tortured forever just as he will be (Matthew 25:41,46). So when he offers men bread and water and clothing and "love" during the tribulation, this will be a ruse, nothing but bait to get men onto the hook of rebellion against YHWH God, to get them to ultimately suffer eternal damnation (Revelation 14:10-11).
Eighth, and last, it was said that a good God would not let an innocent little baby starve to an agonizingly painful death during the tribulation while he sits up in heaven and does nothing. The truth is that this life, even if we live to be 100 years old, is nothing but a nanosecond compared with eternity. And death is better than life in this world for those who are saved, and for little babies who have been elected by God to salvation. For their death will take them into heaven to be with Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:8). Their death will be no loss, but gain for them, far better than any life in this fallen world (Philippians 1:21,23). Only those who wrongly love this world (1 John 2:15) and their life in it (John 12:25) are horrified by death. Satan uses the fear of death to keep people in bondage to himself and to his ways (Hebrews 2:15), to keep their sights on temporal things instead of on that which is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Upvote
0
