Recently the Pope has thought that he possesses the authority to change Jesus’ words and intention with one of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer, which I am sure most of you have heard about by now (“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” Matt 6:13). This issue is germane to the tests, temptations, trials that the Lord will ordain for the last generation of the church under the Antichrist’s great tribulation.
One of the reasons why so many pretribs (not all) believe that they will be raptured and escape before the Antichrist arrives is because they hold to an aberrant theology that teaches that “God would never do that to his Bride.” This stems from a more fundamental and ancient heresy called Dualism, which says that God and Satan are independent sovereign beings vying for supremacy throughout the ages.
All this to say, it is an important point in prewrath theology that teaches that God has good purposes why his church will suffer—not only throughout the church age—but its worst suffering just before Jesus returns during the Antichrist’s great tribulation. Robert Van Kampen, Marvin Rosenthal, Roger Best, Charles Cooper, Ryan Habbena, myself and a host of other prewrath exponents have taught that we must trust—not question—God’s all-good and all-wise purposes when believers suffer under the Antichrist.
Ironically, many pretribulationists have fallen into the same error of the Thessalonians who identified the suffering of persecution they were experiencing with the eschatological wrath of God. This is why they thought the day of the Lord’s wrath had already begun. Tragically, I believe this scenario will play out again in the future when the Antichrist arrives and starts persecuting the church. Many petribbers will think they are experiencing God’s wrath under the Antichrist’s persecution; consequently, they will end up losing hope, faith, and love, and worse may apostatize by falling prey to the trials and temptations that God brings into their life under the Antichrist.
You can read Denny Burk’s refutation of the Pope’s error here. But while you read it, think how this can apply to future end-time trials.
