Isaiah 28: 15-18 and the Pre-Trib Rapture

Posted : 13 Nov, 2010 05:49 AM

Isaiah 28: 15-18 and the Pre-Trib Rapture

Bernard



Isaiah 28: 15-18 says "Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: 16Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

17Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

18And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it."



The overflowing scourge is not necessarily just one event, one judgment of God. Its a judgment of God which in Isaiah 28: 15 and 28: 18 is not spelled out in detail.. However, the overwhelming scourge sounds a lot like the Tribulation. Gill mentions that the overwhelming scrouge could be the Roman army invading Judea. It could apply to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, as well as to the Tribulation. Christ in Matthew 24 answers the questions of the disciples by talking about both the Roman destruction of the temple and Jerusalem and the Tribulation aty the end of the age.



John Gill, in his commentary on Isaiah 28: 15, says:



"when the overflowing scourge shall pass through;

when the judgments of God shall come upon the earth, and pass through the whole world, as a chastisement and correction of men for their sins, and as a punishment for them, like a mighty torrent spreading itself, and carrying all before it; or particularly when the Assyrian monarch with his army shall pass through the land of Judea, signified, in (Isaiah 28:2) , by a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, a flood of mighty waters overflowing; or rather the Roman army invading Judea: it shall not come unto us;"



Those who believe in the theory that the Church will be raptured off the earth before the Tribulation begins think that the Tribulation as the overwhelming scourge shall not come unto us.



Then Isaiah 28: 18 warns them that "...when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." They have made lies their refuge (Isaiah 28: 15), and for this God sends them into the overwhelming scourge in which some will change their doctrines and turn to Christ who accepts them (Zechariah 13: 8-9).

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