The Rapture is for saints, not sinners
Or, the Tribulation is for sinners, not saints!

The purpose for the Tribulation cannot be ignored. It was always intended to be a time of judgement, a time of cleansing for the whole earth, particularly for God’s people Israel. The end-times will usher in Israel’s time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30) which will bring Israel face-to-face with extreme affliction and annihilation. Israel will be terminal, with only one pathway out of it all: repentance and a return to God as His people. Likewise, the rest of the world will also be faced with a critical decision: Repent before the Lord God or be condemned for eternity. By the end of the coming 7-year Tribulation period, all who enter that period will have chosen one way or the other. Those of Israel who repent before God will be declared saved; those who don’t repent will be destroyed (Zechariah 13:8-9) Also note also the sheep and goats judgement of Matthew 25:31-46 – The world will either side with Israel and her God (the sheep) and be granted eternal life, or reject Israel and her God (the goats) and be condemned forever.

Once the Church (with all the righteous redeemed) departs (when God takes them home in the Rapture), the 7-year period yet remaining to Israel will begin (Romans 11:25-26); it has been called the great Tribulation. Joel 2:31 calls it the great and the terrible day of the Lord.  “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.” (Also see Revelation 6:12) It will end with Armageddon and the return of Christ their Messiah. When Israel sinned in rejecting their Messiah 2000 years ago, the Church took their place. But Israel has a 7-year period yet remaining on their timeline of Daniel 9:24-25. The Church age will be over and their ministry handed back to Israel for just 7 years before the end.

All those who enter this 7-year Tribulation period will have just 7 years or less to decide whether to repent or to be condemned. During this 7-year period, God will bring the most extreme tribulation and affliction ever. Such judgement on the world will be designed to force people to decide one way or the other. And it will be all over by the end of that 7-year end-times Tribulation period.

Those who are already saved and sanctified through faith in Jesus Christ before then will not enter the Tribulation. There will be no need for them to be cleansed because they have already been declared righteous. God will snatch them away from this world and off to heaven. Salvation will return to Israel only after all the righteous have been taken out of this world (Romans 11:25-27). It will be Israel’s final opportunity to repent before God; those who repent will be saved; those who do not repent will be condemned. Only those of Israel who repent will be declared Israel; the rest will be rejected by God just as they rejected His mercy.

So, if you are not taken away to heaven in the Rapture before the Tribulation begins, then God has declared you to be unrighteous and will use the Tribulation to turn you back to Him in repentance. No-one who is righteous will enter the Tribulation! Like Noah who was taken away in the ark before judgement fell, the righteous of this world will be taken away before God’s judgement falls upon the unrighteous remaining.

Those who teach that the Church will go through the Tribulation will find out that if they remain here after the Rapture, then they were not righteous and therefore must repent or be condemned. Calvinists teach that they have replaced Israel as God’s people and will not have to hand back the ministry to Israel. In doing so, calvinists must accept that if they are now “Israel” (as they claim), or even if they are in authority over Israel, the affliction for iniquity will be real and savage. If they enter the Tribulation, then God has declared them the unrighteous who must repent of their sins. All who enter the Tribulation will have been declared unrighteous, including Israel, along with the world with all its false religions and heresies. If calvinists wish to be “Israel”, then they must be treated as having the iniquity of Israel!

Calvinists and any others who believe they will go through the Tribulation (including all those who believe the Rapture will be at the end of the Tribulation) have to understand the purpose of the Tribulation, which is to purge the unrighteous (who repent) of iniquity. Because the goal of the Tribulation is to purge of sin, then it is impossible to justify believing that the Rapture is at the end of the Tribulation. The extreme affliction can have only one purpose. Those who are righteous do not require purging from sin and therefore do not need to suffer affliction to purge them. It is Israel and the world who must be purged or condemned. The righteous will leave before the Tribulation commences!

Jeremiah 30:7-9 – ⁷Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. ⁸For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: ⁹But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them. 

Zechariah 13:8-9 – ⁸And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. ⁹And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God. 

Matthew 24:21-22 – ²¹For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. ²²And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.