Joseph Prince’s Pre-tribulation view that the Holy Spirit is taken out of the world is refuted by Michael Brown & RC Sproul – By Rev George Ong (Dated 2 Dec 2022)
Don’t miss the 1-minute video each of Michael Brown and RC Sproul.
Don’t miss the 830 Rapture Testimonies of Pastors, Elders, Leaders and Church Members who have written their testimonies and comments after they had attended my Rapture and Great Tribulation Seminar, some time ago.
The vast majority of these 830 testimonies have not only affirmed the truth of Post-tribulation rapture but they have also confirmed that Pre-tribulation is false.
To view, kindly click on the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A0ENPkpU0DkikAIFb_eZxLsew-o2cfOZ/view
Note that Joseph Prince didn’t preach in the worship services for the past 2 Sundays: 20 and 27 Nov 2022.
(This article was also sent to Rev Dr Ngoei Foong Nghian, General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) office, and for the attention of the Executive Committee Members.)
In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube on 13 Nov 2022, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 45-second video:
“In fact, what is restraining the Antichrist from appearing… You know what is holding back the antichrist?… But what is holding him back, what is holding evil back is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. So the moment the (Pretrib) rapture happens, that’s when evil runs unhindered, unrestricted on this earth. That’s when the antichrist appears.”
“No, Friend, the mark of the beast cannot appear because we are here. The Holy Spirit is here. And he’s the one that holds back evil. But the day that we are raptured, the church is raptured, then and only then, can all this happen. Then you see the 7 years tribulation kicks in, like the world has never seen since the beginning of time until now. Trouble like never before. Then Jesus will return at the end of 7 years with all of us and He will rule from earth. Hallelujah.”
Joseph Prince states that what is holding the Antichrist (who personifies evil) from appearing is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church because the Holy Spirit is the one who holds back evil.
But once the Pre-trib rapture of the church happens, the Holy Spirit will be taken out of this world with her.
Although Joseph Prince didn’t state explicitly that the Holy Spirit is taken out of this world together with the Pre-trib rapture of the church, it is clearly and strongly implied.
This is because the teaching that the Holy Spirit will leave this world together with the Pre-trib rapture of the church is a common doctrine of Pre-trib theology, which Joseph Prince subscribes to.
Joseph Prince also states that the Pre-trib rapture of the church will occur before the Antichrist appears – who will come to institute the great tribulation.
The view of Joseph Prince that the rapture of the Church occurs before the appearing of the Antichrist,
and that the Holy Spirit will leave this world together with the Pre-trib rapture of the Church
is contradicted by Michael Brown who said;
Please click here to view the 1-minute video of Michael Brown:
“What I can say categorically is that it cannot be that the church is taken out (in 2 Thess 2:6-8) because Paul has already said explicitly (in 2 Thess 2:1-3) that’s at the coming, the appearing of the Lord, the revelation of Jesus for the world to see.
And that’s the time when he destroys the Antichrist as Jesus says in Matthew 24, the coming is after the tribulation of those days. That’s when He gathers his elect from one end of the earth to the other. There’s the gathering word again.
And it can’t be that the Holy Spirit in the Church is now taken out of the world (2 Thess 2:6-7), because, allegedly with the Pretrib scene, we’re going to have the greatest harvest of all time, of people coming to faith, Revelation 7, according to the Pre-trib view, the multitudes to come out of great tribulation, those are the people on the earth, getting saved during the great tribulation. How are they getting saved when the Holy Spirit has left the earth? How are they getting saved when Jesus tells His apostles, you can’t go anywhere to go on your mission without the power of the Holy Spirit?
So, it’s completely contradictory, aside from being an interpretation of the verse that no one ever heard of until relatively recent times. How can believers endure, how can they endure and overcome without the Holy Spirit?”
Joseph Prince’s view that the Holy Spirit will be taken out of the world together with the Pre-trib rapture of the Church is also contradicted by RC Sproul who said;
Please click here to view the 1-minute video of RC Sproul:
“Now, one of the most fascinating – and I think frankly bizarre arguments that dispensational scholars bring for their view of the Pre-tribulation rapture – the view that the church will be taken out of the world before the last tribulation.
The arguments I’ve read have gone like this – that the only one who really can operate as the restrainer of evil in this world is the Holy Spirit. So, the first assumption is that the restrainer of the 2 chapter of 2 Thessalonians is the Holy Spirit.
And then the speculation goes like this. Since the Holy Spirit indwells Christians, the only way the Holy Spirit could be taken away, and the only way the full restraining power of the Holy Spirit could be removed from the planet would be you have to remove every Christian from the planet.
So they see this as a sort of disguised teaching of the Pre-tribulation rapture, which I think is really unwarranted speculation.”
1. Joseph Prince’s teaching that the Pre-trib rapture and Christ must come before the Antichrist is a fallacy.
What Joseph Prince is falsely teaching
is that the Antichrist will come after Pre-trib rapture,
or the rapture of the church happens before the appearance of the Antichrist.
But in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, it clearly states that
regarding the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him (rapture),
the day of the Lord will not come
unless the apostasy comes first,
and the man of lawlessness (the Antichrist) is revealed,
1 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, regarding the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit, or a message, or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
Paul instructed the Thessalonians not to be deceived into thinking that the Lord had already come.
He promised them that the Lord would not come to gather the Church in the rapture,
until she finds herself in the great tribulation when the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist is revealed
because the Antichrist will institute and reign during the great tribulation,
and the church will be around to face it, and not to escape from it.
The words of Paul are so clear and plain that anyone with an average level of intelligence could understand.
How could they be any plainer?
Show these words in the passage to any person who is not prejudiced by preconceived ideas or interpretations, and he will say,
“These verses say that Antichrist is going to be revealed before Christ comes to gather the Church in the rapture.”
So how can Joseph Prince teach that Jesus will come to rapture the Church before the Antichrist,
when Paul had warned the Thessalonian Church in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 not to be deceived,
as the day of the Lord or Christ to gather us in the rapture will not come
until the Antichrist is revealed!
Joseph Prince is clearly teaching against Paul as Paul reminded the Thessalonians that before the rapture could happen, two events must take place:
First, apostasy, presumably on a massive scale will occur, and,
second, the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist will be revealed.
Paul’s point was that the Church will be around during the great tribulation to face the Antichrist.
If the Pre-trib rapture theory is true – that the Church would be raptured before tribulation,
why would Paul talk about and instruct these Thessalonian Christians (and us) to look for events that are supposed to happen during the reign of the Antichrist in the tribulation?
It is obvious that Paul presupposes that the Church will indeed be present on earth during the great tribulation.
Both the Apostles Paul and John taught that the Church must be prepared for the coming of the Antichrist before the coming of Christ.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Thessalonian believers in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-9,
goes into a fair amount of detail describing about the coming of the Antichrist,
and explicitly warns the Thessalonians
that the Antichrist must come before Christ:
2 Thessalonians 2:3-9 NASB
3 No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? 6 And you know what restrains him now, so that he will be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is removed. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will eliminate with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and false signs and wonders,
The Apostle John, in 1 John 2:18, also warns;
1 John 2:18 NASB
18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.
Why would Apostle John warn the Church about the coming of the Antichrist in 1 John 2:18,
if she isn’t going to come under his persecution during the great tribulation?
Why did the Apostle John go into great detail in describing the Antichrist in Revelation chapters 12, 13 and 17
if the Church isn’t going to be persecuted by him?
If God intends to remove the Church through the Pre-trib rapture before the great tribulation and before the Antichrist is revealed,
why do Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-9
and John in 1 John 2:18 and Revelation chapters 12,13 and 17,
provide so much information about the Antichrist in the scriptures?
To satisfy our intellectual curiosity?
Written for an imaginary audience?
Far from it!
The reason is plainly obvious ─ to warn us about the kind of enemy we will be facing
so that we are spiritually and mentally prepared to fight the end-time battle and overcome Satan and his cohorts.
Think with me, if Christians in the Church are not around in the great tribulation,
who is the Antichrist going to ‘anti’?
This is a simple and down-to-earth but a penetrating question one must answer.
If the Church is not around, “God will have a lot to answer to Satan” who will blame Him for not giving him any work to do and he will be bored to tears and even to “death” during the great tribulation (half in jest)!
The Bible repeatedly warns us about the signs of the times, specifically about the rise of the Antichrist
to forewarn the Church that he is the arch-enemy that she will face.
For Joseph Prince to teach that the Church will disappear from earth to heaven and will not have to face the Antichrist,
even though the Bible has devoted so much space warning us about the Antichrist,
is plainly illogical.
In their defence, Joseph Prince and the Pre-tribbers argue that the hope of the Christian
is about the second coming of Christ,
and not about the horrors of the tribulation that will be experienced with the arrival of the Antichrist.
They further argue that if we focus too much on the Antichrist, it would take our focus off on Christ.
This criticism is easily countered with the following illustration.
A young couple discovers that the wife is pregnant!
They are eagerly expecting the arrival of their new baby.
The gynaecologist says to them,
“Well, it will not be all that easy. In fact, just before your baby arrives, you will go through some pretty intense time of labour, and you need to be prepared for that.”
Now, do you think the couple would quit looking forward to the birth of their baby because they are so focused on the time of intense labour?
Will they be so focused on the labour that they would lose the excitement about the “blessed hope” of the baby to come?
Of course not! They are excited! Their baby is coming!
Sure, there may be some tough times between now and then, but the awareness of difficult times to come would in no way diminish their sense of anticipation of their coming baby.
By the same token, our watching for the signs of the Antichrist, and the tribulation that comes with it,
would in no way, take our focus off on the coming of Christ.
A student who is about to graduate from varsity does not stop looking forward to his graduation just because he has to sweat it out to take his final exam first.
Therefore, for Joseph Prince and others to contend that just because we are going to encounter the Antichrist,
we can’t be looking towards Christ’s coming, is a simplistic and a lame argument.
Such arguments are not even worth considering
as they are concocted just to protect their Pre-trib doctrine from being exposed.
Some, such as Joseph Prince, even mockingly say something like,
“If you like to meet the Antichrist, please go ahead but as for me, I would prefer to meet Christ rather than the Antichrist.”
It is as if one has a choice of who to meet first.
It is as if Joseph Prince is blind to what has already been revealed in the scriptures in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4?
Joseph Prince is effectively saying,
“I don’t care what the Bible says but meeting Christ is what I’m interested in, and I would never see the Antichrist as I would have already been raptured.”
But Joseph Prince’s desire to meet Christ before he sees the Antichrist
is to go head-on against the scriptures as Paul has already revealed in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
– that we must see the Antichrist before we meet Christ.
2. Joseph Prince’s teaching that the Holy Spirit would leave believers in this world, is erroneous.
Joseph Prince and the Pre-tribbers have no answer to the crystal clear teaching of the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
that the church will see the Antichrist before the rapture and Christ’s second coming.
So they came up with a distraction by trying to prove a Pre-trib rapture in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-8:
2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 (NASB 1995)
1 Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
2 Thessalonians 2:6-8 (NASB 1995)
6 And you know what restrains him (Antichrist) now, so that in his time he (Antichrist) will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he (Holy Spirit?) who now restrains will do so until he (Holy Spirit?) is taken out of the way. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;
(Note that ‘Antichrist’ & ‘Holy Spirit’ are put in by George Ong in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-8 to make Pre-trib view clearer.)
So Joseph Prince and Pre-tribbers explain that there is someone restraining the man of lawlessness,
and the one restraining the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist, is the Holy Spirit,
and until the Holy Spirit is taken out from this earth, the Antichrist cannot be revealed.
Once the Holy Spirit is taken out of this world together with the raptured church, the Antichrist will be revealed.
This, obviously, is their backhanded way of proving the Pre-trib rapture of the Church before the Antichrist is revealed.
However, Pre-trib teachers have taken the forbidden liberty to equate ‘taken out of the way’ to ‘taken out of the world’:
2 Thessalonians 2:6-8 (NASB 1995)
6 And you know what restrains him (Antichrist) now, so that in his time he (Antichrist) will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he (Holy Spirit?) who now restrains will do so until he (Holy Spirit?) is taken out of the way. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;
Just because “The Holy Spirit and the Church are taken out of the way” in 2 Thessalonians 2:7,
does not necessarily equal to
“The Holy Spirit and the Church are taken out of the world” by Pre-trib rapture.
The words “way” and “world” are two different words and they aren’t synonymous.
This proves that Joseph Prince and Pre-tribbers, have
dishonestly, read into the scriptures in order to prove their doctrine.
But the greater problem Joseph Prince and the Pre-tribbers have to deal with
is simply that 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 had already established that before our gathering together to Christ or rapture can occur,
the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist, must appear:
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 NASB
1 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, regarding the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit, or a message, or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
This means the Church will be around during the great tribulation and that our gathering together to Christ, the rapture,
cannot take place until the Antichrist is revealed.
Paul clearly states in verses 1-3 that the Antichrist must appear before the rapture can happen,
meaning the Church will see the Antichrist.
But Joseph Prince and the Pre-trib’s interpretation of verses 6-7, which is a mere hypothesis,
says rapture must happen first before the Antichrist appears,
meaning the Church will NOT see the Antichrist,
as the Holy Spirit will go out of this world with the raptured church, before the Antichrist appears:
2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 NIV
6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.
This clearly puts verses 1-3 and verses 6-7 into a stark contradiction.
One moment Paul says in verses 1-3 that the Church will see the Antichrist.
And the next moment, Joseph Prince says in verses 6-7, that Paul switches gear and says the opposite that the Church will not see the Antichrist.
Since the word of God never contradicts itself, the Pre-trib’s interpretation of verses 6-7, which is a mere hypothesis, has to be ruled out.
Next, Joseph Prince’s Pre-trib’s argument is theologically unsound.
The Holy Spirit can certainly work in any place and any situation.
And to believe that the Holy Spirit can only stop restraining the Antichrist when He is out of this world
is to believe God’s power is limited in some way.
Furthermore, there is hardly any biblical precedent or historical incident
that the Holy Spirit in the Church restrains wicked and evil people from rising to power and seizing control in the world.
Many Antichrists have risen to power and slaughtered millions of lives: Pol Pot, Stalin and Hitler, are just some examples.
Were these Antichrists restrained from committing atrocities by the Holy Spirit that indwells the Church?
Did God have to remove the Holy Spirit and the Church in order for them to rise to power?
No!
Then why would Joseph Prince assume that the Holy Spirit and the Church must be removed for the final and last Antichrist to rise to power?
To believe that the Holy Spirit must completely leave this world, thus, taking all Christians out of this world in the rapture,
so that the Antichrist will not be restrained and be free to work out his evil plan,
is not only bizarre but unscriptural.
We would have to ask Joseph Prince that if the Holy Spirit is not present in the world after the Church is raptured,
how are the Tribulation saints
(which, according to Pre-trib theology, that after the Church is being raptured, there are multitudes of Christians who will be saved during the tribulation)
saved in the first place?
Since the Holy Spirit is God’s agent of salvation (Tit 3:5),
no one can be saved without the Holy Spirit.
If the Holy Spirit does come back to save the Tribulation saints, will He begin to restrain the Antichrist again and disqualify the Pre-trib theory?
And if He does return, why was He removed at all in the first place?
What the foregoing arguments have shown is that there is, therefore, no time when the Holy Spirit is not present during the tribulation.
For God, the Holy Spirit to vacate this world and desert His own covenant people during their critical time of need and during the most terrible persecution of all time in the great tribulation is unthinkable.
This is clearly unbiblical.
Furthermore, the Holy Spirit, who is God himself, is omnipresent.
This means He is everywhere at all times.
It is literally impossible for the Holy Spirit not to be present on planet earth at any one time.
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there:
8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
This falsehood about the Holy Spirit not being present during the great tribulation that is churned out by Joseph Prince
has to be exposed, because the Holy scriptures tell us an entirely different story.
John 14:16
assures us that the Holy Spirit will abide with the Church forever;
John 14:16 KJV
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
Matthew 28:18-20
promises that the Holy Spirit will be with us “to the very end of the age;”
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The prophet Joel, Hosea, and many others spoke of the coming Holy Spirit’s outpouring of massive proportions that will power up right through the three and a half years of the great tribulation.
The biblical fact that we can count on is that the Holy Spirit and Christ Jesus will never leave us and will always be with us to the very end of the age (Matt 28:20).
In summary, Joseph Prince’s Pre-trib’s view that the Holy Spirit would leave this world together with the raptured Church
in order for the Antichrist to be unrestrained to institute his evil during the tribulation
is totally unbiblical and resoundingly demolished.
And what’s more, both Michael Brown and RC Sproul have refuted the Pre-trib rapture view of Joseph Prince.
Who would you choose to believe?
Michael Brown and RC Sproul,
who are both credible Bible scholars and well-regarded across denominations,
or
Joseph Prince,
the serial liar, serial hypocrite, serial double-talker and serial slanderer?
Rev George Ong