POST-RAPTURE TRIBULATION
After people learn how to hear God’s spoken voice, they have love, peace, hope and joy in their hearts, and they have all the rewards of hearing God’s voice, but they also experience suffering, insult, and persecution as they carry on Jesus’ ministry functions. These experiences are the substance of post-rapture tribulation. This is what people who follow God’s commands to love their neighbor can expect. 

People who hear God’s voice (i.e. they have been raptured) understand that, because God’s laws are written on their hearts, they are true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, warriors and members of the cloud of witnesses. They not only hear God’s voice, they speak for God. Knowing this, they will put their lives at risk by replicating Jesus’ character and ministry.

Even if they understood intellectually that religion is the enemy before they were born again, they will experience the reality of dealing with the enemy after they get serious about being a warrior in God’s army. Once they begin speaking for God, as all New Covenant disciples must do, they will understand the following:

• • • Why Jesus suffered and died.
    • Why they, as God’s servants, true prophets, messiahs, high priests, witnesses and warriors, must also suffer and die.

When they understand these things, they will understand why they should expect tribulation.

As soon as they begin speaking what they hear God say to religious people who will probably not listen to what they have to say, and who do not welcome anyone who tells them that religion is sin and that God is calling them out of religion, they will experience suffering and tribulation. They are servants who will suffer for their obedience to speak for God.

STUDY TIP: See these scriptures for pictures of what it means to serve God. The picture of a “suffering servant” is typically, and wrongly ascribed exclusively to Jesus. The truth is that all New Covenant disciples will be suffering servants because they will all fulfill the ministry functions represented in the life and death of Jesus. That is what it means to follow Jesus.

As soon as people who hear God’s voice begin preaching the true gospel as true prophets will do, they will understand why religious Israel killed the prophets and conspired to kill Jesus. True prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, warriors and the cloud of witnesses are all threats to the kingdoms of religious leaders because they all preach a true gospel message that says “religion is sin“, religion is your enemy“, “come out of religion.”

When religious people hear this message, the kingdoms of the religious leaders will crumble as true prophets symbolically tear down idols and high places. The religious institutions that enable and nurture religious pride, and earn income for religious leaders, will be destroyed. It is no surprise then, that religious leaders will try to neutralize (e.g. kill, disable, discredit, neutralize, etc.) true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, and warriors.

This is the pattern we see in the life of Jesus. It is the pattern that will be replicated in the lives of his followers. The picture of Jesus’ suffering and death in the Easter story is nothing more or less than excessive efforts by religious leaders to discredit, disable, neutralize, and ultimately kill Jesus because he was a serious threat to their personal religious kingdoms and income.

The trouble that religious leaders will cause for New Covenant disciples (i.e. followers of Jesus) is called tribulation and persecution. This trouble only comes after people learn how to hear God’s spoken voice (i.e. after they are raptured, born again) and only after they begin to lay down their lives by speaking for God.

Post-rapture tribulation is also called the second death. This is the death that scriptures portray in the death of Jesus. The second death is symbolically represented as crucifixion on a cross. God uses this imagery to portray the inner tribulation of the heart that New Covenant disciples will experience when former friends and neighbors verbally attack them and reject and despise them when they report how God sees religion to them. They will suffer the costs of holiness but will gain the rewards of hearing God’s voice.

STUDY TIP: See How God Sees Religion.