In stark contrast to this section of articles is the doctrine of the secret rapture. This doctrine is a dispensational view, proposing that the people of God will be secretly taken to heaven while everyone else remains on the earth to receive a second chance. The secret rapture doctrine is false, and gives a false hope. It does not encourage people to change their lives and make themselves right with God.

This is what Scripture has to say about getting right with God:

Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:7).

“But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD (Ezekiel 18:21-23 NKJV).

There is a clear "if" in these verses. Salvation is conditional to obedience. When the judgment comes, we will be held accountable for our deeds, and won’t have another chance.

The people of God will experience the tribulation and feel the wrath of the Antichrist. Their only hope will be the return of Christ. Just as the blood of the lamb was to be painted on the doorposts of the Israelite dwellings during the night of the final plague in Egypt (Exodus 12:7-13), so the blood of Christ the Lamb must be painted on the doorpost of the heart to alert the destroying angel that we have been purchased by God’s sacrifice.

And it will be said in that day: “Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the LORD; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation (Isaiah 25:9 NKJV).

The Secret Rapture and the Word of God

The following passage is often quoted to support the secret rapture:

For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming (Matthew 24:38-42 NKJV).

CC BY-ND 2.0 Cristian V on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/shyald/3194950746

This text does not prove a secret rapture. It merely points out that at the return of Christ, some will be saved and others will be lost.

The dispensationalist view that the Antichrist will arise after the secret rapture is also not in line with the teaching of Scripture. The Bible clearly teaches that this power will arise from the Church, not after the Church:

Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us (1 John 2:18-19 NKJV).

The secret rapture is not a Biblical teaching. Learn more about the rise and spread of false doctrines surrounding the end times.