January 3, 2025
New Year’s Day 2025 in America began with deadly terror violence in a triangle from New Orleans, to Las Vegas, to New York City. 2025 will bring an acceleration of end-time prophetic calamities. Anything from wars, terrorist attacks, fiscal failure, food insecurity, natural disasters to new pandemics and social unrest, world citizens must prepare to endure things that many have never even given thought to. As signs and prophetic decrees of the end-times grow this year, may we hold God’s promise that “You [God] will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isa. 26:3). May God’s word be our guiding light of truth in 2025 until the return of Christ “Immediately after the tribulation” (Matt. 24:29–31), at the resurrection, John 5:28–29. Today is the day of salvation, make certain of your salvation faith in Christ Jesus.
God would have us each one take careful stock of our lives because “you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). God also said “it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27), for “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). Let’s make every day count for the glory of Christ, for only He can be our Advocate unto eternal life. Our political status here, number of friends, titles and awards, our occupation, social status, wealth or poverty here will not matter in eternity, for “what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). And “what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). Christ is our Rock, Fortress and Deliverer.
In the face of these end-times God reminds us that “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). It’s critical that “we are ambassadors for Christ”, and not for any of the 40,000+ Christian denominations in the world. Embrace that truth. Jesus Christ suffered death on Calvary and rose again the third day for the blessed resurrection life that all who have true faith in Christ will enjoy for eternity. We are not ambassadors of any denominational church, nor any tradition, but “we are ambassadors for Christ”! So, why do many believers exchange their ambassadorship of Jesus Christ for traditions of men? Why do millions believe and act as ambassadors of their church and traditions instead of Jesus Christ? It’s because they were told what to believe by men and women who elevate their own authority above the authority of God in Christ, and most pew-sitters believe them instead of God and His Christ whom they cannot see! Millions have been led to believe men instead of God in Christ because they listen to so-called authorities in the church.
I warn here of pastors and Bible teachers who do not prepare their flocks in the testimony of Christ, but teach instead the false pre-trib rapture narrative which occurs nowhere in the Bible. The pre-trib rapture is a lie and deception designed by Satan to lead God’s people away from the truth and ambassadorship of Christ. It’s a lie that promises the ignorant that God will magically rapture them before the seven-year tribulation even begins. But what those tradition-laden souls don’t know is that that promise is one hundred percent opposed to the biblical character of God! Consider all the prophets of the Old Testament whom the religious elite killed; and the apostles of the New Covenant were brutally murdered. Did God rescue/rapture any of them before their tribulation horrors? No! So on what basis does a lying tradition promise believers that they will escape the seven-year tribulation! God does not show favoritism, Luke 20:21, Gal. 2:6; nor partiality, Rom. 2:11, Acts 10:34. But the pre-trib rapture reveals God to be contradictory to the Word! But they will fall into their own snare for devising a lie that destroys the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ who gathers His elect “Immediately after the tribulation” (Matt. 24:29–31). Be warned, the pre-trib rapture does not show people the love of Christ, but literally deceives them.
There’s a terrible danger in believing the false pre-trib rapture, but few are they who discern it as they prefer to believe men who are seen rather than Christ who is unseen. They do not have true faith in Christ proven by the fact that they don’t believe He gathers His elect “Immediately after the tribulation”, and in that state of unbelief are unprepared for the 7-year tribulation just ahead. Christ foresaw that in the end-times many would exchange His word for traditions of men that make God’s word of no effect, Mark 7:13, and the pre-trib rapture lie makes God’s word of no effect. Yet, millions have put their faith, hope and trust in what God and His Christ never said!
Ministers who teach and promote Dispensationalism’s pre-trib rapture lie will tell you they love Jesus Christ with a Colgate smile on their face. Yet, in order to protect their tradition they reject that Christ was speaking to the church during His Olivet Discourse which is the first of their lies. Their lies fully disarm believers from being prepared to endure the seven-year tribulation which we must endure in keeping with Christ’s words that “he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13, Matt. 10:22, Mark 13:13). False teachers of the pre-trib rapture promise what they have absolutely no authority to promise and their false teachings will cause a great offense and sudden falling away when believers can no longer deny that they are in the tribulation, and then like Jesus said “many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another” (Matt. 24:10). This is a deceptive plan by Satan to have believers believe that God will rescue or rapture them in a 7-year earlier gathering than what Christ Himself taught. You see, after Satan couldn’t destroy Christ at His birth, nor at His wilderness temptation, nor at the Cross, it became Satan’s mission to destroy the testimony of Christ so that believers would be unprepared to endure the long dark night and difficulties of the tribulation, no different from the five foolish virgins of Matt. 25:1–13 who were unprepared to endure to the end as they awaited their Bridegroom.
It’s remarkable that millions of believers have been led to believe a lie that tickles their ears and casts unbelief upon the testimony of Jesus. This is just one example of many why the Holy Spirit warned of the end-times “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Tim. 4:3–4). To exchange the testimony of Christ for the pre-trib rapture lie does not “do justice”, nor does it “love mercy”, neither does it “walk humbly with your God”. No, the pre-trib rapture lie produces the exact opposite of the Micah 6:8 command – pride, partiality and favoritism. Like every sin of unbelief, don’t think for a second that the pre-trib deception escapes the all-seeing eye of God which does not prepare believers to endure to the end, but creates instead a snare.
My new book “ON EAGLES’ WINGS” was written with much Bible study and prayer and reveals many truths in preparing unbelievers and believers alike for the 7-year tribulation and finding God’s safety and provision for the last 1,260 days of “great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21).
Marlin J. Yoder
