Possible Rapture Dates Revealed

"The Rapture will be the final metamorphous of a believer"

First let's start off with the understanding that the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ are two completely different events that happen on two completely different dates set 7 years apart. Next, the Book of Matthew Chapter 24 is Jesus answering a specific question asked to Him by His disciples concerning the establishment of His Kingdom here on earth. It was not a question concerning the rapture of the Church. Jesus answered this question by saying that no one knows the day nor hour, no not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son but only the Father. However, Scripture tells us that the Rapture will occur before the Tribulation period. And the Book of Daniel tells us that the Tribulation period last 7 years. And Jesus tells us that 3.5 years into the Tribulation period, the Antichrist will commit a blaspheme in the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. Then, 3.5 years after this event, Jesus will appear in what is referred to as His Second Coming. In Matthew 24, Jesus gives the disciples (and us) specific details about His second appearance on earth. So, its not that the people of earth will not know that Jesus' Second Coming is imminent, but only that they do not know the exact day and hour. And this is only because when Jesus appears, one side of the earth will be day and the other side night. One side will be maybe Tuesday and the other side Wednesday. Not to mention the exact hour as the earth has twenty four time zones. So what Jesus said was correct, in the sense that His appearing will happen at one time, but days and hours will differ depending on where a person is located on the earth.

In the first century, the fact that the earth had simultaneous days and nights as well as time zines was not understood. So, Jesus was commenting on this fact without spelling it out to His first century listeners. Jesus could have explained this issue of time being relevant to where you are on earth, but He did not want future followers to have faith in Him by way of His giving scientific revelations. He could have said, "E=Mc 2" and just told the disciples to write it down for future generation to contemplate. But He wanted His audience then and now to have faith in Him for what He said about the human condition and the exemplary way He conducted Himself and life He lived.

So, we are scripturally free to prognosticate about the possible exact time of the Rapture. Now, this event is different from Jesus' Second Coming as it could happen at any time. That said, one can only postulate about the time in two ways. It will correlate with dates that were important in the life of Christ. Or, it will happen around the time of certain world events such as wars, or a possible asteroid strike. It is clear that the Rapture of the Church will trigger the Tribulation Period and here's why.

The earth currently has a population of approximately eight billion people. The Rapture will take the 2.5 billion Christians currently living on the earth. The Rapture will also take an additional 2.5 billion children under the age of nineteen currently living on the earth. That means that five out of eight billion people will suddenly disappear. Unfortunately, this also means that the bad actors of the earth will be left behind and try to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Rapture. So, the Muslim world population will be left behind, the Chinese agnostics/atheist's will be left behind, India's Hindu population will be left behind, the Buddhist population will be left behind. Many Africans who practice religions that involve the worship of nature will be left behind. All Europeans atheists/agnostics will be left behind. And the Jewish race will be left behind.

Matthew goes to to say that a believer should always be ready, because just when they think the Rapture, or the Second Coming will not happen, that's when it will occur (Matthew 24:44). Scripture tells us we should stay awake, mentally active and aware of the signs of the times concerning this event. For example, Paul gave us explicit instructions as to when the Rapture would occur, how believers would be caught up, and where we would be going. And, in Mathew chapter 24, Jesus gives us an entire chapter on what to look for concerning the timing of His Second Coming. So, we are to live each day to its fullest yet suspecting that the Rapture could occur at any moment.  

Now, with that information out of the way, let’s look at Scripture's most reliable timeline concerning the most probable date for the Rapture. This date is found among the seven annual Jewish Feasts.

The Jews have celebrated 7 annual feast dates since the time of Moses (Leviticus 23). These feasts were created by God as prophetic shadow events that would be fulfilled by their Messiah. His hope was that by seeing these events being actualized/realized/accomplished by Jesus, they would understand that He was in fact the Messiah. However, not only were the majority of Jews spiritually blind to Jesus at the time of His ministry, they still stubbornly refuse to believe that Jesus was their Messiah. So today, they are now only going through the spiritually empty motions of rituals and traditions. They are unwillingly to acknowledge that the prophetic meaning of the first four Fests were fulfilled by Jesus in His death, burial, resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirt at Pentecost. But believers can now look with great anticipation for the final three feasts to be actualized with the Feast of Trumpets (Rapture), Feast of Yom Kippur (Tribulation period) and the Feast of Tabernacles (Second Coming of Christ).

It is therefore important for Christians to consider these seven Jewish feasts for three reasons. First, as previously stated, Jesus fulfilled the first three feasts during His earthly ministry. Second, after His resurrection, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to indwell all believers fulfilling the fourth feast. The final three feasts and their traditions mirror the prophesied Rapture, Tribulation Period and the Second Coming. 

Here are the feasts in the order they are celebrated. The first feast is the Feast of Passover. It literally commemorates the Jews being freed from slavery in Egypt. The night of the Exodus, the Jews sacrificed a lamb and painted its blood on their doorposts so that the angel of death would pass- over their homes. But prophetically, it was on Passover of 33 A.D. that Jesus self-sacrificed Himself for the sins of the world so that death, the grave and Hell were defeated. Now death has no hold on His believers and so passes over them. So we can say that Jesus satisfied this feast prophecy. 

The second feast is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The feast is celebrated the day after Passover. During this feast, the Jews literally sweep their houses clean which is symbolic of their desire to sweep leaven or sin out of their lives. Prophetically, Jesus was born, lived and died without sin. His body was laid in a new tomb free from leaven or corruption (Acts 2:31). So, we can say that Jesus satisfied this feast prophecy. 

The third feast is the Feast of First Fruits. This feast is celebrated on the third day after the Feast of Passover and is called Easter by the Church. Literally, three days after Passover, the Jews brought sheaf's of grain and seven fruits including the pomegranate to the Temple as an offering in thanks for the anticipated harvest bounty to come in the Fall. Prophetically, on the third day after Passover, Jesus arose from the dead as the first fruit of the Resurrection (I Corinthians 15:20). So, we can say that Jesus satisfied this feast's prophecy. 

The fourth feast is the Feast of Pentecost. This feast occurs 50 days after Passover and literally commemorates Moses being given the Law on Mount Sinai. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments in hand, he found three thousand Jews worshipping a golden calf. He ordered the Tribe of Levite to execute all three thousand of these people (Exodus 32:28-29). Prophetically, ten days before the Feast of Pentecost, Jesus commanded His disciples to stay in Jerusalem, that He would send them a helper, and then publicly ascended into Heaven. On the day of Pentecost, the disciples were sitting in the Temple plaza praying when the Holy Spirit arrived and began to permanently indwell all believers in Christ. That day, three thousand believes were baptized, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and received eternal life. Many scholars believe that this event was the official start of the two thousand year and Church Age. So, we can say that Jesus satisfied this feast prophecy. 

These then are the first four literal, figurative, and prophetic feasts that Jesus satisfied during and immediately after His earthly ministry. Now let’s look at the last three feasts that have yet to be fulfilled by Christ. 

The fifth Feast is the Feast of Trumpets. This occurs in the Fall when the crops have literally had the time to mature, ripen and are ready to be harvested. It is then that the Temple priests sound the Shofar or rams horn to announce that the time of nurturing the crops has ended, and the time of the great harvest has arrived. The Shofar makes a sound similar to that of a trumpet. It is a clear sharp signal that can clearly be heard for many miles. When the Shofar is sounded, the people throughout the country rush into the fields to quickly harvest a bountiful crop. They then transport the crops out of the fields and up into silos where they are temporarily stored and protected from the coming stormy weather, infestations and thieves. The people then celebrate the blessing of a bountiful harvest and praise God.  

It is overtly obvious that the Feast of Trumpets is prophetic concerning the rapture of the Church. First, the sounding of the Shofar or trumpet is synonymous with the trumpet sound the Apostle John heard while exiled on the island of Patmos. In c. 95 A.D. John, the last surviving disciple, wrote that he was praying on the beach when he heard a sound like that of a trumpet. He looked up and saw Christ in the sky. He then heard Him say, “Come up!” and was suddenly taken up into the sky where he saw a door open. He went through the door or portal and found himself before the Throne of God.  

It is important to note that the first three chapters of Revelation as written by John, deals exclusively with the state of seven early churches that were located in Asia Minor know today as Turkey. Then, from chapter four until the end of the Book, the Church is never mentioned. Instead, the Book is focused only on the unfolding of the Great Tribulation period on the earth. However, after the tribulation period descriptions, the Book once again describes the Church and the followers of Christ returning to the earth as part of the Second Coming. It is then that the wicked are destroyed and Christ reigns on the earth with His followers for the next one thousand years.  

So, here we see that the Feast of Trumpets was always a future or prophetic shadow event. The Apostle Paul writes that at the Rapture, a trumpet will be sounded and heard only by a follower of Christ as the rapture will only involve followers of Christ. Then a clear sharp voice will be heard saying “Come up here!”. All followers of Christ both dead and alive will be instantly and simultaneously harvested or caught up from the earth and into the air. There they will find themselves face to face with Jesus just as He physically appeared while He was here on earth. He will then lead His followers up and into a place He has prepared for them (John 14:3). Paul describes this event when he states that this gathering in of the faithful will be worldwide and occur in the “twinkling of an eye”. This was the shortest amount of time that could be expressed in the first century. Today we would say the rapture will take place in a nano second. In fact, followers will be taken up so quickly that the human eye will not be able to follow the movement. Thus, a person will seem to disappear.  

The followers of Christ have now gathered or been harvested from the earth and are deposited up in Heaven safe from the impending tribulation that is about to be released on earth. They will initially appear one by one at the Bema Seat Judgment of Christ. There they will talk with Jesus and give an account of how they followed His command to spread His Gospel of the good news of salvation. Some may have tithed, or helped in the church, or served as missionary, or helped the poor or sick, some gave sound advice to friends and family members based on biblical principles. Others gave their lives in the fight for human freedom. All are now cleansed of their sins, and given various degrees of rewards of governance for their earthly efforts on behalf of Christ. They are then dressed in special garments and are ushered into the Throne Room of God the Father (Revelation 19:8). It is here that they will personally witness a royal ceremony in which the followers of Christ are officially adopted into the Family of God. This ceremony is likened to an earthly wedding in which two people symbolically become one. In this case, the followers of Jesus become His people and are thus grafted into the family of God with all the rights, privileges and honors that come with that royal status. Then, a reception takes place called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Unknown to the wedding party, Satan has used this scared occasion to try one more time to unseat God and expel Him from Heaven. His hope was that God would be so preoccupied with the ceremony that Satan and his forces could overwhelm the armies of God with an audacious surprise attack (Revelation 12: 7-10). The army of Satan is defeated and Satan is thrown out of Heaven and literally down to the surface of the earth (Revelation 12:12-13). It is then that he has a demon spirit indwell the World Leader who has sufferer a head wound, but now is revived as the Antichrist. This event marks the beginning of the Great 3.5 year Tribulation Period.

The Supper of the Lamb is a spectacular event with physical food for Christ's physical followers. Friends and relatives will celebrate in an atmosphere of laughter and beauty. While the reception will seem to last only a few hours, three and one half years will have passed on the earth. The Supper will end with an announcement from Jesus that the time has come for the wedding party to return to the earth and enjoy their new homes on a soon to be reconstituted planet. In earth time, this event will be occurring on the last hour of the last day of the Great Tribulation Period which is also the last day of the War of Armageddon. The arrival of Jesus followed by His wedding party will save a remnant of Jew in Israel and also perhaps a billion or more people who have come to believe in Christ over the past seven years. With Jesus' arrival, all wars, crimes, diseases, famines, and hate of any kind come to a sudden end.

As Jesus begins His descent to the earth, He speaks a word on behalf of the Godhead. It is then that the power of the Holy Spirit causes all the unrepentant people of the earth to instantly drop dead where they stand, sit, sleep or hide (Revelation 19:15). Jesus then descends on to the Mount of Olives. He lands on the exact spot where He ascended from two thousand years earlier (Acts 1:11). He now rides a great white horse of war through the Beautiful Gate of Jerusalem. On Palm Sunday 33 A.D. He rode a humble young colt of peace through this very same gate (Zechariah 9:9; Revelation 19:1). He then will walk into the Third Temple and sit on the Throne of King David. It is from here that He will rule the earth for the next one thousand years. Having witnessed and celebrated His return to the Temple, the wedding party now disperses throughout the earth to various locations and begin to conduct their duties as assigned at the Bema Seat Judgement seven years earlier.

On a side note, when the Jews harvested their fields, they left the edges of the crops for the poor to harvest and survive on. This is referred to as the ‘gleanings’. When the Rapture takes place, the main harvest of believers will be taken. However, there will be tens of millions of people who will come to Christ during the Tribulation Period. These are the gleanings that Jesus will save by way of His Second Coming. And it will be these people that will repopulate the earth as those raptured are now immortal and will not marry, neither will they create families (Matthew22:30). They accomplished this act, or had the opportunity to do so during their past lives on earth. 

So, it is obvious that the Feast of Trumpets will most probably be the date that the Rapture takes place. And, it is no coincidence that when five billion Christians and children disappear on this feast date, that the Jews will begin to have the scales of disbelieve in Jesus as Messiah fall from their eyes. There is also no doubt that this event will create a great spiritual awaking not only within Israel and the Jewish race but worldwide (Revelation 7:4). It will in fact create the greatest Christian revival that the world that has ever witnessed in the history of mankind. 

The sixth Feast is the Feast of Yom Kippur in which the Jews pray to God to be allowed to live another year. This is obviously a prophecy concerning the Tribulation Period in which Scripture states that two thirds of the Jewish race will be destroyed (Zechariah 13:8-9). It is currently estimated that there are 16 million Jews living at this time. There are six million in Israel, five million in Europe and five million in America. So, we can rightfully deduce that it will be primarily only the Jews of America that survive the coming tribulation holocaust.  

The seventh and final feast is the Feast of Sukkot or Tabernacles. This feast currently commemorates the time when God personally lived with the Jewish people during their forty years of wandering the Saini wilderness. This shadow event will be realized with the Second Coming of Christ and His millennial reign on earth as God incarnate.

A SECOND POSSIBLE DATE FOR THE RAPTURE 

A second possible date for the rapture concerns the dates of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Because we know that Jesus was crucified April 3^rd, 33 A.D. and arose on Sunday the 5^th, we also now know that the two thousand year anniversary of these monumental events will occur on April 3rd & 5th of 2033 A.D. We know that Jesus ascended or was raptured on Resurrection Sunday and consummated the Everlasting Covenant between Himself and God the Father in behalf of mankind. Therefore, April 5^th could be a rapture date. We also know that Jesus was raptured into Heaven 40 day after his resurrection. So, May 15th, 2033 could also be a rapture date. 

Also, fifty days after Jesus’ crucifixion (May 24^th), the Holy Spirit arrived and the Church Age began. So, because May 24th of 33 A.D. was the anniversary of the founding of the Church Age, it could be reasoned that this date two thousand years later may make a fitting date to officially end of the Church Age. Therefore, the month of April during Passover or May during the Feast of Pentecost 2033 might be possible rapture dates.

MOST PROBABLE DATES FOR THE RAPTURE & SECOND COMING

If the Second Coming occurs on the two thousand years anniversary of the ascension of Christ. The date would be May 15th 2033. However, there are three Jewish feast dates whose prophetic meanings have yet to be fulfilled. These feasts are the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Yom Kippur and the Fest of Tabernacles or Booths. It seem common sense that Jesus would return to earth on Yom Kippur for two reasons. First His conception was during this feast in September of 3 B.C. Second, this is also the feast when the Jews pray to God to be allowed to live another year. This fits perfectly with the end of the Tribulation Period when the Jews pray to survive the gynecide regime of the Antichrist. Similarly, the final feast known as the Feast of Tabernacles will be satisfied when Christ returns and God lives with mankind. Therefore, the fifth Feast of Trumpets which represents the gathering or harvest of crops, must rightfully be the feast date of the Rapture. And because we know the Rapture is pre Tribulation, it must occur seven years before the Second Coming year of 2033. So the Rapture will likely occur during the Fall Feast of Trumpets in 2026 as this is the next feast date that needs to have its prophetic meaning fulfilled. 

Bottom line, the years 2026 and 2033, the two thousand year anniversary of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, are definitely years which should be watched closely. But again, Scripture is clear that no Biblical related event needs to take place for the Rapture to occur. And, Scripture tells us that the Rapture will occur when the world is saying, “Peace and safety at last!” (I Thessalonians 5:3-6)