Question
It is my understanding that the body of Christ meets the Lord in the air, the Anti-Christ makes a seven-year peace treaty with Israel revealing his identity and beginning the seven year tribulation, two witnesses and the 144,000 proclaim the gospel of the kingdom, Christ returns to destroy the mystery of Babylon.
All believers, in Christ, are taken to be with the Lord, right? So, what is the world left with? Those who rejected the gospel, right? So, who are these 144,000 and those who are saved as a result of their ministry? Are these the same ones who rejected the gospel before the rapture of the Body of Christ?
Response
Briefly and simply put my understanding is as follows:
First of all, when this present dispensation ends not all men left in the world will be ones who rejected “the gospel of Christ” during this dispensation and who are therefore going to perish in the Lord’s day as described, for example, in II Thessalonians 2:9-12. Those who, as the passage states, “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” will perish during the Lord’s day. They will be successfully deceived by “the working of Satan” in that time, and will be the recipients of the “strong delusion” that God will “send them” at that time, because they were ones who “believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness”. However, my understanding is that this does not refer to ‘all men’ who are not saved at the time this present dispensation concludes, but particularly to those who at the time this dispensation ends are ones who have deliberately and outrightly rejected the truth of the gospel as described. My understanding, therefore, is that when this dispensation ends there will be many who have not truly heard “the gospel of Christ” and rejected it, and hence will not be counted among the ones described in II Thessalonians. So then, my understanding is that there will be ones who having lived during this dispensation will be able to respond positively to “the gospel of the kingdom,” and will do so, when God resumes His program and dealings with Israel following the rapture of the body of Christ.
Moreover, it is also my understanding that though God immediately resumes His program and dealings with Israel when He concludes this present dispensation, the seven year time schedule that is part of that time does not begin right away. It is evident to me from what God set forth through Daniel, as well as from what He has Paul say in II Thessalonians, that the final installment in Israel’s program has an opening stage to it before the seven year time schedule that pertains to it actually clicks in. In fact, this is a feature of each of the culminating installments in Israel’s program, just as God related it to be so through Jeremiah and Daniel in particular. Each installment has a time schedule associated with it. However, the time schedule for each installment does not begin immediately upon the commencement of the installment. Instead there is an opening stage, so to speak, to each installment in which certain things take place that lead up to the event which then begins the time schedule for the installment. And as God sets forth through Jeremiah and Daniel, the opening stage to each of the installments is of an unspecified length of time. And in connection with those installments that have already transpired before God suspended His program with Israel, it is evident that the time involved in the opening stage to an installment can end up being rather lengthy. Wherefore, it may very well be that the opening stage to the final installment in Israel’s program may have a considerable length of time to it as well; even to be of sufficient duration to allow for many to be born and to ‘come of age’ during it.
So then in connection with all of this, it is my understanding that the 144,000 men from the tribes of the children of Israel that are described in Revelation 7 will be men of Israel who either were not outright rejecters of “the gospel of Christ” during this dispensation, or they will be ones who are born and grow up during the opening stage to the final installment in Israel’s program, or they will be men of Israel who will be from a combination of these two sources. Likewise, it is my understanding that the ones who are saved through their ministry will be ones from the same two sources.
This is the gist of my understanding on this matter.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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