WAS NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN A MID-TRIBBER?
By David Walsh
Even if you’re a Christian who is vaguely familiar with the Bible and End Times Prophecy, you will probably not get the connection between Neville Chamberlain and the Mid-Tribulation Rapture Model of Bible Prophecy but if you indulge me by allowing me to explain some Pre-World War 2 history and the afore mentioned model in the chart below, that also somehow managed to get into the hand of Mr Neville Chamberlain above… If you will bear with me I hope that you will find the humour in this picture to be humorous by the end?? Also there will be a serious implication brought to light in this article about why this stuff should matter to Christians. However if you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you’ve got bigger problems than when the Rapture takes place.
The chart above is a typical summary representing the Mid-Trib or Mid-Week rapture position. At the top it says Daniel 70th Week which is a week of years rather than a week of days that we are more familiar with, so it is 7 years long and divided into 2 halves as shown. The starting event of this 7 year period is a Peace Treaty according to the chart. This is drawn from Daniel 9:27 “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week (of years)”. To call it a Peace Treaty is a bit of an assumption but I wouldn’t be too hard on that but I would say in summary it’s not necessarily a water tight assumption. The scripture indicates it’s an agreement to facilitate the reintroduction of the animal sacrifices in the Holy Place on the Temple Mount. This agreement is broken halfway into this 7 year period and it ends with the so called “Battle of Armageddon” where Jesus wipes out the Anti-Christ’s army at His Glorious Appearing, The Second Coming.
Straight away we run into a difficulty regarding the use of certain labels such as Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib and Post-Trib. For starters these labels are not in the Bible per se, they are phrases coined to define the different models of Bible Prophecy for handiness sake but to me they cause more confusion than anything else. So I avoided the use of them in my previous post “The Future in a Nut Shell, Bible Prophecy Explained” but now they must be dealt with. Part of the problem is these labels have been used by different people in different ways that hold to different views on End Times. In the recent history of the study of Bible Prophecy, what was called the Pre-Tribulation position was made popular by the likes of Hal Lindsey and Tim La Haye.
A chart for this Pre-Trib/Pre-Week model is below.
So to summarise the Pre-Trib camp say the tribulation is 7 years long and the rapture occurs before this 7 year tribulation and before Daniel 70th week so this also known as the Pre-Week/Pre-Trib. Back to the Mid-Trib camp, they say there is no 7 year tribulation because of Matthew 24:15 “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be”. They say this scripture means there is only a 3 ½ year great tribulation so they use the labels differently and so we have a Pre-Great Trib/Mid-Week Rapture.
I don’t agree with either of these positions for different reasons. I believe it is the case that these labels have been turned into superlatives and have passed into the common vernacular in the study of End Times. As a result of these superlatives being entrenched into this area of study, they have dominated and shaped the way people think and discuss End Times. So if a person develops an interest in the study of End Times, they are immediately rustled into one of these positions as I was and it took me the 8 or 9 years to extract myself out of these preconceived “End Times Sheep Pens” (to coin a phrase of my own). I have to give The Lord credit for getting me out rather than myself doing that.
Getting back to the Mid-Tribber’s (sticking with the label in popular use). This is not a particularly widely held view and I’m not saying something has to be popular to be right. It also seems to be uncharted territory in terms of study done in the refuting of this model. So the reason I have for writing about this model is that it is taught at the fellowship I attend, by a visiting Pastor. So I have a lot of exposure to this model without actually agreeing with it myself and this puts me in a unique position to express some particular concerns I have about this model.
The first scripture on the chart for the Mid-Trib model (back near the top) is;
1 Thessalonians 5:3 “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape”. As the chart shows this one scripture defines the first 3 ½ years of Daniel’s 70th Week as a time of “Peace & Safety”.
The chart states this is also the time of “The Apostasy”. Apostasy means to fall away from or to turn away and start believing in something else basically. It’s mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition”.
Getting back to the “Peace & Safety” part, to me this model’s interpretation of the 1 Thessalonians 5:3 scripture just isn’t reading the scripture correctly; it says “they shall SAY, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them”. To me that simply means they say one thing and the exact opposite thing happens suddenly.
History has given us a few big examples of this kind of thing happening.
The Great War (World War One) was predicted to be the war to end all wars but it didn’t happen.
After the first moon landing, it was predicted that this achievement would unite mankind and bring world peace. It didn’t even come close to happening, the Vietnam War continued uninterrupted.
Israel gave up the Gaza Strip in 2005 in what was a “land for peace” deal and that didn’t bring peace with frequent rocket attack happening there and more to this day.
Of course there was President Obama’s receiving of the Noble Peace Prize in 2009 in anticipation that he was going to save the world and bring peace and that didn’t happen either, surprise, surprise.
The 1 Thessalonians 5:3 scripture also compares what’s happening here to, “travail upon a woman with child”. I’m a man so I don’t have any personal experience in giving birth but from my limited understanding when a woman goes into labour the contractions start off far apart and get closer and closer together and more difficult and painful until the baby is delivered. So it doesn’t fit the picture the scripture gives here to say, for the first 3 ½ years everything is fine on earth, there’s peace and safety even though people are very bad and apostate. Then all the pain comes in the second half of this 7 year delivery process.
This period of “Peace & Safety” is also referred to as a “False Peace” because it doesn’t last. My take on that is if there’s “Peace & Safety” for 3 ½ years then, there’s “Peace & Safety” for 3 ½ years. The ending of that “Peace & Safety” wouldn’t falsify its previous existence so this is a nonsensical argument to me. Also if “Peace & Safety” is promised and it doesn’t materialise, then it makes no sense to put a time span on something that you are never going to receive or is never going to be realised. So to say we have 3 ½ years of this false peace, then Great Tribulation comes makes no sense either.
Given the current state of world events, it would be a dramatic improvement to have 3 ½ years of “Peace & Safety” on the earth, especially for Christians who are being persecuted and killed from the Middle-East to China. So bizarrely the Anti-Christ’s arrival would actually improve the lives of a lot of Christians in this model. So that should tip you off that it isn’t correct. I am certain there will be no peace until the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus comes.
Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”.
Also the idea of peace and apostasy going together is totally inconsistent with the entire history of Israel, God’s chosen people in the Bible. When they were obedient and held up their end of the covenant that they agreed to, in the “Law of Moses”, they were blessed. When they didn’t they were cursed and that was the agreement. So why would God allow a different arrangement during the first half of Daniel’s 70th Week, which is very Jewish in its nature?
Now back to Neville Chamberlain. Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 28th May 1937 – 10th May 1940. He died 9th Nov 1940. He is most remembered for his involvement in the Munich Peace Conference in 1938. Czechoslovakia was forced by diplomatic pressure into giving territories to Nazi Germany known as the Sudetenland because it had 3 million Germans living there who were being persecuted.
The thing is the persecution was being perpetrated by the Nazis in a false flag terror campaign against their own people and blaming the Czechs for it. The reason this endeavour was undertaken was that the terrain of the Sudetenland was impossible for the Nazis to invade by conventional means. So everybody fell for the ruse including Neville Chamberlain who brokered the peace deal forcing the Czechs to give up their shield from invasion to Hitler. When Neville Chamberlain returned to 10 Downing Street in London he famously pronounced, “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep”.
By the end of 1939, Hilter’s Nazi Germany had invaded Poland and the rest of Czechoslovakia and France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. To add insult to injury, Neville Chamberlain had the task of making the declaration of war on Germany, as he was still the Prime Minister. Neville Chamberlain got it so wrong. Time is yet to tell but I believe like Neville Chamberlain, the Mid-Trib model will prove to be wrong also.
So that’s where the joke was and after writing all this it isn’t actually all that humorous I have to admit. I believe the lack of teaching and the poor teaching of End Times with models like this being taught, will leave the vast majority of professing Christians unprepared for the persecution that is coming our way.
Approximately 30% of the Bible is prophetic. Some of that 30% is prophecy that is already fulfilled. However there is still more volume written on the things that are happening right now and the things that will happen very soon, than there is written on the Gospel period which is the time that Jesus Himself walked among us. So I find it astonishing that this Mid-Trib model would define the first half of the most important 7 years of future history by this one scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. The weight of an entire mountain of meaning and significance has been put upon this one scripture. I therefore find this to be an unstable model and not grounded in the whole council of God’s Word on the “End Times”.
I don’t believe those who teach this Mid-Trib model intend to mislead anyone. I believe that they just don’t see the implications of the model because they have rustled themselves into this particular “End Times Sheep-Pen” and can’t step back far enough from the model to assess it properly. The Pre-Trib model has similar pitfalls in its potential to mislead Christians into thinking they’ll be raptured before anything bad comes, like in the Left Behind movies.
I reckon that could be why those movies were allowed to be made by the media that’s under Satan’s control but I’m only speculating on that. I don’t subscribe to the Post-Trib model either, in case you were wondering.
This is a previous article of mine that summarises my views on "End Times".
https://steemit.com/religion/@logos1/the-future-in-a-nutshell
Jesus Himself speaking in Matthew 24 about the “End Times” gives a different picture than the Mid-Trib model.
Matthew 24:9 “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. It says ye will be hated of all nations, not just some so this is a worldwide persecution yet to be fulfilled. This talking about Christian Believers as they are hated for Christ’s name sake”.
Matthew 24:10 “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. This is talking about people that claim to be Christians. They fall away and betraying one another and hate one another, this is where “The Apostasy” happens and it isn’t a time of “Peace & Safety”. We’ve seen a precursor to this in relatively recent history in the USSR when professing Christians were caught and when push came to shove, they renounced their faith and informed on and gave up their former brothers and sisters in Christ to cut deals for better treatment.
If you read into these 2 scriptures a bit more closely, it seems it is the real Christians that are killed first probably because they are more visible in doing ministry and sharing the Gospel as we are all commanded to do. Then those who are less visible seem to get weeded out later in the second verse and compromise themselves.
I’ve heard Christians dismiss the applying of these passages to the church because they say the Gospel of Matthew was written to the Jews. Well if that’s true then it isn’t doing its job because most Jewish people are either secular or they are still under Judaism and only read the Old Testament and are not reading Matthew. What is the case about the Gospel of Matthew is that the focus is on Jesus as the Messiah and the King of the Jews. It’s not about the Jews or for that particular audience, it’s about that aspect of Jesus and each Gospel focuses on a different aspect of Jesus, it’s all about Jesus. Psalm 40:7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me. There are parallel verses in Mark 13 and Luke 21 that give the same warnings also, in case anyone still doesn’t want to heed the warning because it comes from Matthew.
So what does Jesus expect from us and tell us?
John 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
So I hope you are blessed by this article in Jesus Name and you will rejoice in persecution like it says in Matthew 5:10-12. If you don’t agree with me, please don’t call me any names like, an unstable scripture twister and quote to me;
2 Peter 3:16 “which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction”. It’s a bit clichéd.
I have only hit this Mid-Trib model from one angle in this article so this is not an exhaustive study of the model and maybe I will write more on it in the future.
As Chuck Missler always says I don’t claim to be a “Teacher”. I would encourage you all to do your own studies and check everything for yourself like it says about the Bereans in;
Acts 17:11 “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether those things were so”.
I would also advise that you not become too dependent on one person but get a wide sampling of views if you are unsure about something. Proverbs 11: 14 “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety”.
Also I hope that I will not have to address the Pan-Trib model which states, it will all pan out. After writing all of this I hope that model is debunked by default by now.
While this article is intended to be a wake-up call, I don’t want to leave anyone discouraged by it and so let’s be reminded it’s who you believe in that saves you, not what you believe.
2 Timothy 1:12 “nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”.
Matthew 24: 13-14 “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come”.