As we work our way through the words of the Prophet Zephaniah, we ended with God making a clear statement about how He will wipe all the inhabitants off the face of the earth and how He will do that.
If you recall, I pointed out how, in my estimation, there is only one practical place, in terms of timing, to do that: after the great white throne judgment. (By using the phrase “in my estimation,” I am leaving room to be wrong. No, that does not make me comfortable, but many things in scripture have no firm definition, making it difficult to say with certainty that what I am saying is the only answer.)
If you, like many others, have the mentality that everyone standing before the final great throne is going to hell, an attitude like this is only feasible if you exclusively focus on Revelation 20 as the omniscient and angry God. Of course you have to keep your mind closed to God being able to shew mercy to some, like He does in Matthew 25 where we see the sheep and goat judgment; a time in which some obtain mercy based upon simple works like giving someone a drink of water, visiting someone in prison, or putting clothing on someone who is down and out. (Matthew relays to us that Jesus considers that these simple acts were, by extension, performed upon Him.)
If you were hoping that there would be no mercy at the throne of Revelation 20, well, that is not what happens here, and you are in for a bewildering surprise. Oh, sure, plenty of people will be sent to hell, but not all, as some will gain entrance into the eternal kingdom.
This is the appropriate point in time to burn up all the earth because after this judgment, all sin will be done away with, and everyone who passes this point will be eternally held in the arms of the Father. From this time forward (the great white throne), everyone will be eternally free from sin, sinners, and the associated guilt that goes along with the sin, such as death, which is eternal separation from God and has nothing to do with physical death.
Now we move on to Zephaniah 1:4.
“I will crush Judah and Jerusalem with my fist and destroy every last trace of their Baal worship. I will put an end to all the idolatrous priests, so that even the memory of them will disappear.” Zephaniah 1:4 NLT
A couple of questions or comments.
What happens after the rapture?
The rapture is the return of the “body” of Christ – the Church, back to Christ. It is also the trigger for God's wrath upon the nation of Israel – in general, for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, and it is the judgment of the nations for their wanton slaughter of humans, the destruction of the earth, and of course, their rejection of Jesus.
You want proof, don't you?
“Let no one deceive you in any way, for the Day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the one destined to be destroyed. 4) He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits in the Temple of God, proclaiming himself that he is God. 5) Don’t you remember that when I was still with you I was telling you these things? 6) And you know what now holds back, for him to be revealed in his own time.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-6 TLV
It is the removal of the church that releases the antichrist to come on the scene. For those who cannot see the removal of the church, I give you another version, written long before the King James Version was demanded by the state church, the Catholic Church.
“Let no man deceiue you by any meanes: for that day shall not come, except there come a departing first, and that that man of sinne be disclosed, euen the sonne of perdition,”
(2 Thessalonians 2:3 Geneva)Even the earliest church fathers understood that we would be leaving the earth before the man of sin, the antichrist character, would be presented to the world. Prior to that point in time, when the world sees who the antichrist is, all we have is conjecture, and conjecture typically leads us into deception.
Many cannot distinguish between Jesus's coming back for His Church and the time of wrath.
As I stated, the catching away of the Church also initiates the time that can also be deemed “the day of the Lord,” also understood as the time of God's wrath.
Unexpectedly, Zephaniah gives us information that applies to those who will be caught up in the pre-tribulation rapture.
Zephaniah 2:3 “Seek the Lord [inquire for Him, inquire of Him, and require Him as the foremost necessity of your life], all you humble of the land who have acted in compliance with His revealed will and have kept His commandments; seek righteousness, seek humility [inquire for them, require them as vital]. It may be you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger.”
Peter, on the day of Pentecost, quoted the Prophet Joel when he said,
Acts 2:16-21 NLT
16) No, what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel:
17) ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.
We are finally there, in the last days.
18) In those days, I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike—and they will prophesy.
19) And I will cause wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below—blood and fire and clouds of smoke.
We have seen wonders in the heavens and signs on the earth for several years.
20) The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the LORD arrives.
Under the guise of weather manipulation, the sun's light has been diminished, and we have seen blood moons.
21) But everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.’
While it is true that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved, you have to ask a question.
After the rapture, will people continue to be saved?
The answer is yes, but I do not think it will look the same as it was for those of us who were fortunate enough to come into the family of God during the age of grace.
If it is God's intent, after He catches His bride away, to eliminate all flesh from the earth, then how do you explain salvation?
(Revelation defines those, that will eventually be martyred, as saints, and we eventually find them worshiping before His throne.)
Revelation 7:14 NASB “I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
And then there are those who are still coming to salvation during the millennial reign. This bit of information is alarming to those who will not accept that scripture tells us that non-believers will enter the thousand years of Jesus' rule. It becomes rather evident that the 1000 years are filled with those who have their free wills intact, choose not to follow Jesus, and many will be deceived by Satan at the end of time (This number is deemed uncountable,) right before the great white throne.
Proof?
“When
the thousand years are completed, Satan
will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the
nations which are in the four corners of the earth,
Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the
number of them is like the sand of the seashore. And
they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp
of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven
and devoured them.
And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they
will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
(Revelation
20:7-10 NASB)
Judgment
Before the Great White Throne
I will lay out the scriptures before you and comment on them.
Revelation 20:11-15 BSB
11) Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them.
Revelation 20:4 opens by giving us a picture of thrones.
In Matthew, under the title “The Final Judgment,” we find the narrative showing “The Son of Man” coming to sit upon “His glorious throne.” (Matthew 25:31).
Matthew 25:32 BSB conveys that “
All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
With a Jewish mentality, you can understand that anyone who was NOT a Jew was a gentile and, by Jewish mentality, not worthy of God's mercy and grace.
Our understanding of scripture, from the Apostle Paul's pen, tells us that there are only three classes of people: the Jews, the nations, and the church. Many Jews are followers of Christ and are, therefore, a part of the church. All those who are outside of the church, and NOT a Jew, are, therefore, a facet of the nations.
Consider the possibility that these people did not make it in the rapture of the church. Since death has nothing to do with breathing air, and everything to do with what you did with Christ, some of these may well be taking dirt naps, while others are still breathing air.
It is clear that the deceived at the end, just before the great throne, and therefore freshly dead, will be included among nations.
You need to occasionally remind yourself that the entirety of the Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ; this understanding also impacts what we see in Revelation 20:4.
“Then I saw the thrones, and those seated on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4 BSB
One of those thrones is the one upon which “the Son of Man” is seated, and He judges.
Revelation 20:12-15 continued.
12) And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And there were open books, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books.
13) The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds.
14) Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire.
15) And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
At this point, you might ask, Why did we cover all this information? Because it demonstrates that death is only separation from God, and God clearly causes a vast number to take dirt naps. Judgment is fair and includes mercy for some. Those shown mercy gain entrance into the eternal kingdom, leaving NO ONE on earth that is NOT a part of God's kingdom.
