Dr. Irvin Baxter, a Pentecostal minister and post-tribulation end times scholar, says there is no biblical evidence for a seven-year tribulation or a mid-tribulation rapture.
“First of all, there’s no such thing as mid-tribulation,” Baxter told Jim Bakker on The Jim Bakker Show. “That’s predicated on there being a seven-year tribulation. There’s not one Scripture in the entire Bible for a seven-year tribulation. Even though everybody teaches it, all the commentaries teach it, not one Scripture. But there are six specific Scripture that teach a three and one-half-year tribulation.”
Baxter cites Daniel 7:25, Revelation 13:5 and Revelation 12:5-6 as proofs that the Great Tribulation will last precisely three and a half years.
“Every single reference to the great tribulation in the Bible is three and one-half years,” Baxter says. “There is a seven-year period called Daniel’s seventieth week, but the Great Tribulation does not start until halfway through. Jesus taught that explicitly. He said in Matthew 24:15, ‘When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet’—which Daniel said happens in the middle of the week, in the middle of that seven-year period—’when you see that then, if you’re in Judea, flee, because then will be great tribulation such has never been before nor ever again shall be.’ So Jesus taught that the abomination of desolation, which happens halfway through the seven-year period, that’s the trigger for the Great Tribulation.”
In the clip, Bakker praises Baxter for defending a post-tribulation rapture. He says pretribulation rapture proponents have to “twist Scripture” to make their case. Baxter says Revelation 20:4-6 was the “last nail” in his “pre-trib coffin.”
“I read there where it said, ‘I saw those that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus. They did not take the mark. They did not worship the beast. These lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection.’ That froze me in my tracks. Wait. Are you telling me that people who don’t take the mark when they’re resurrected, that’s the first one? Where’s my resurrection that I’m teaching is supposed to happen seven years before this? I knew right then. I knew I was wrong. From that point, I’ve been [post-trib].”
Baxter also suggests that God will make it so that days are shorter than 24 hours during this Great Tribulation period (in accordance with Matthew 24:22). He then says this miraculous shortening of days has already started.
“God’s gonna speed everything up so the time is flying faster,” Baxter says. “… It’s already happening.”
