Page 12 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Promise of His Coming
21 as a time of “great tribulation” (AV, RSV), or “great dis­
tress” (NIV, neb). In His prophecy He exhorted those living in
Palestine at that time to “flee to the mountains” (Matt.
24:16). The exigencies of that day are graphically described in
His exhortation, “Let no one on the roof of his house go down
to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go
back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for
pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight
will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there
will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the
world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days
had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake
of the elect those days will be shortened” (Matt. 24:17-22).
To earnest believers in the Scriptures who are looking for
the second advent of Christ, these prophetic words raise im­
portant questions. Does this awful period of trial predicted by
our Lord lie between us and the end of the present age? In
other words, must the church go through the Great Tribula­
tion?
The question of whether the church must continue on
earth through the predicted time of trouble is obviously a
major problem of Christian faith. While there has been increas­
ing interest in prophetic themes among the liberals and the
neoorthodox, some conservatives have manifested a disposi­
tion to consider the study of prophecy as unimportant. In our
day, when the authority of the Bible is disputed and when
many have denied the infallibility of Scripture, some feel that
there is little profit in debating eschatology. In other words,
why improve the building if the foundation is not sure?
If this contention is proper, an inquiry into the present
problem of whether the church will go through the Tribula­
tion is, of course, futile. There are many, however, who are not
willing to scuttle all investigation and study of scriptural
prophecy in an effort to refute attacks on the Word of God on a
more general front. The question of whether the church will go

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