Will there be a second chance for salvation after the Rapture?

We know that the devil has his servants who preach "the gospel of the second chance." But be warned, this is the devil's gospel, not the Gospel of God. God says, "Behold, NOW is the accepted time; Behold, NOW is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. 6:2). How terrible for many who will cry — "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer. 8:20).

Where men “have not received the love of the truth that they might be saved”, God will send a working of error. It is frequently asked whether people “get a second chance” after the rapture. The clear answer is given here. No! Nothing is here said about those who have never heard the truth, but for any to whom it has been presented—and who have not received it—not only will they “not get a second chance”, but God will actively intervene so that they will be conditioned to believe what is false.

Our Lord will come for His church and we shall be with Him for ever. The parenthesis of chapter 7 shows us that afterwards there will be people who have not heard the gospel of grace but who will hear the gospel of the kingdom. We see numbers of persons here after the rapture of the church who will obtain the salvation which belongs to our God. However, those professors of the Christian faith who have perhaps often heard the gospel but have never really believed will no longer have the opportunity to do so.

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:11-12). Those people who have refused to accept the truth no longer have the opportunity to do so. It is not those people who are referred to in chapter 7 of Revelation, but in chapters 6 and 7 the Spirit of God teaches us about several different companies of believers. In Revelation 6, in connection with the fifth seal, we find those souls under the altar who are the first post-Christian martyrs. They are counselled to have patience until they are joined by those who will know martyrdom during the great tribulation, and they form the second company of believers. Then there will be the sealed ones in the beginning of chapter 7. Then the multitude from amongst the nations in the second half of chapter 7, the fourth company.

Satan will have secured a man so thoroughly committed to this horrible object that he will allow himself to be completely the tool of Satan. And though thoroughly unrighteous, yet because of the great supernatural power involved, multitudes will willingly accept him. Having no regard for what is morally upright, men throw themselves open to be willingly deceived. "They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." The pure precious truth of the Lord Jesus Christ having been rejected, then God in righteous judicial government "sends strong delusion, that they should believe the lie." There will be no second chance after the rapture for those who have despised the gospel of grace. They have sold themselves into a state of such contempt for Christ that the life of Antichrist will completely snare them and eternal damnation be their awful end.

Men may say they have a right to believe what they please, but it is false. We have a right to believe only what is right, and those who willingly refuse truth in favor of falsehood are manifestly those who "have pleasure in unrighteousness." Grace may bear long with them, but the end must certainly come in judgment.

And now a question is raised in heaven by one of the elders: “Who are these?” That they are not the Church is evident, or that question, could not be raised. Even John has to refer to the elder for an answer: but that answer is very distinct: “These are they that come out of great [or, the great] tribulation.” Thus do we learn that this happy multitude shall be gathered from the nations during the time of tribulation, after the Church is completed and taken to be with the Lord. O, gladly could I linger on this glorious revelation of my Lord! Can we not say, Worthy the Lamb to receive this honour and glory?

Do I hear a rejecter of the gospel of God say, “Oh, then I may refuse the grace and truth of God now and yet when the time of tribulation comes on this earth I may then be saved.” Let not Satan thus deceive you. The Holy Ghost has spoken plainly as to this matter. These are His solemn words: “Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thess. 2:10-12.

Why? Because of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus and because of their words "His blood be on us, and on our children" (Matt.27:25). The one third are going to come through the great tribulation, they will be gospel preachers of the kingdom and a great multitude will be saved through them during the tribulation period. Do not wait until then, dear friend, to get saved because you will not have the opportunity if you have heard the gospel of the grace of God at this time, you need to be saved tonight. But be that as it may, during that time, a great multitude is going to turn to the Lord through these preachers of the gospel (Rev. 7 : 9-10).

When the Lamb opens the fifth seal (v. 9) we are directed to the souls of those who have suffered martyrdom during the first three and a half years of Daniel's seventieth week of years. In all the events under the first four seals the power of God will work in awakening and bringing people in faith to Himself. At the time of the Rapture, millions will be living on earth who have never heard or known the gospel of the grace of God, so they are not those who have rejected Christ during our dispensation of grace. In fact, those who know the gospel now and refuse it will have no hope of salvation in the Tribulation, for God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie of the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:10-11)! But many others have not known it and will have opportunity even in the Tribulation to turn to the Lord Jesus. Many of these will be put to death because of their belief in the Word of God and because of their testimony to Himself. They are seen as crying out for the vengeance of God against those earth-dwellers who have murdered them. They know their Sovereign Ruler as holy and true, and thus have no doubt He will judge, but wonder at the length of His patience (v. 10). We do not pray this way today, but rather are told to pray for the blessing of our enemies (Matt. 5:44-45), for today is the day of grace. When the day of God's judgment begins, however, it will be right for people to pray that God will judge the ungodly.

Revelation 3:10, one of God's key prophetic verses, does not say we will be kept safe through that hour of trial which is coming to try those earth-dwellers who prefer earth to heaven. Noah was saved through God's flood judgment and finally deposited on a cleansed earth (Heb. 11:7; Gen.7-8). So he is a picture of the Tribulation-saints who will be kept safe through the Tribulation and deposited on a millennial earth. Yes, there will be people saved after the Rapture, as we will see.

Another weighty reason proving the Rapture must take place before the Tribulation is seen in the different character of the gospel now being preached and that which will be preached by the persecuted remnant during the Great Tribulation. The gospel God is sending to the world today holds out a heavenly hope and calling (Col. 1:5; 2 Thess. 2:14; 1 Peter 1:3-12; etc.), whereas the gospel that the remnant will preach holds out an entirely different hope: namely, that of having part in the earthly blessing of the Millennium. They will preach that the Messiah is coming to break down and set aside the wicked and so deliver the persecuted remnant that they may inherit the earth, over which He will establish His reign of righteousness and peace and temporal blessing (Matt. 24:14; Rev. 14:6; Isa. 44:26). God would not send two different gospels with different hopes to the world at the same time. That would be confusion, confounding the heavenly and earthly people with their respective hopes and destinies. As long as the Church is on earth it has the gospel of the heavenly calling to preach; but when the believers are raptured to heaven God will then reject the mass of apostate professors that remain behind, and will turn to the Jews and form among them a remnant whom He will send forth to preach the gospel of the coming kingdom of Christ to all nations.

After the church is caught up at the rapture there will go forth a testimony to the Jew and the unevangelized heathen. The main lines of prophecy, and certainly all the prophecies of the Old Testament, have to do with the earth, the earthly calling a seen in the promises of God made to Abraham and David. Now the church has a heavenly calling, and when God begins to visit the earth in judgment, having in view chiefly the restoration of His earthly people, the subjects of the heavenly calling—the believers of this present church dispensation—will be with the Lord in glory waiting for the day of manifestation.

The gospel of the kingdom was that which the Lord and His disciples preached whilst He was on earth, but during this present dispensation the gospel takes the character of the gospel of the grace of God, connecting souls with Christ in glory and a heavenly calling, bringing them into the church of God, making them members of the body of Christ. But when the saints are caught up, the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom will begin afresh, and the result will be seen as delineated in Matthew 25:31-46, where those who receive the testimony that the King is coming, will be found among the sheep on the right hand side of the King, and go into life everlasting, whilst the rejecters of the testimony will be classed as the goats, and pass into everlasting punishment.