Episode Details

In this episode I addressed another prophecy that undermines pretribulational imminence doctrine.

Now when they are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction comes on them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will surely not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would.(1 Thess 5:3–4)

In this passage the apostle Paul teaches that the thief-like return of the Lord will result in sudden destruction for the ungodly. He summarizes the perception of unbelievers when they will exclaim “peace and security.” During the Antichrist’s great tribulation, the world will experience peace and security for those who are loyal to him. Hence, Paul prophesies that the world will be saying, “There is peace and security” before Jesus returns to mete out his day of the Lord’s wrath upon the wicked. The world will be oblivious to the impending wrath, uttering this slogan before the day of the Lord occurs. Accordingly, this event will happen before the rapture, because the rapture and the day of the Lord’s wrath are back-to-back events; consequently, the prophesy of the world proclaiming “peace and security” renders imminence invalid. Therefore, this is just another prophesied event in a long series of intervening events that will happen before the rapture—rendering the pretrib teaching of imminence contradictory in light of this biblical evidence.[1]

I want to make a couple more comments on this passage. The peace and safety will be illusory, a false security for unbelievers, because eventually unforeseen calamity will come upon them just as unexpected labor pains come upon a pregnant woman (cf. Matt 24:37–39). Paul’s analogy of labor pains is drawn from a day-of-the-Lord passage in Isaiah.

Wail, for the Lord’s day of judgment is near; it comes with all the destructive power of the sovereign judge. For this reason all hands hang limp, every human heart loses its courage. They panic—cramps and pain seize hold of them like those of a woman who is straining to give birth. They look at one another in astonishment; their faces are flushed red. Look, the Lord’s day of judgment is coming; it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, destroying the earth and annihilating its sinners. Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations no longer give out their light; the sun is darkened as soon as it rises, and the moon does not shine. (Isa 13:6–10; see also Isa 26:17–21)

We should be careful not to confuse Paul’s use of the birth pangs analogy with Jesus’ purpose in using the same phrasing in the Olivet Discourse (“All these things are the