What Happens Next
According to Scripture, these are the next five events on the prophetic timeline
“What’s going to happen next?” That’s one of the questions I get asked on a regular basis, especially when people find out I love to study, write and speak about the end times. The Bible doesn’t offer precise, day-to-day details of a timeline—for instance, it doesn’t tell us when the Russian invasion of Ukraine will end or specifically when the Antichrist will come to power.
But it does give us a broad timeline of the five major events of the end times, starting with the Rapture of the Church. These events are clearly described in Scripture, and I believe we will see this timeline come into focus very soon.
Here is God’s agenda for the future:
1. The Rapture and Resurrection of the Dead in Christ
This two-part move of God is the next major prophetic event that will happen in our world. In fact, the evidence is clear to me that it could happen at any moment, including potentially while you are reading these words! All the signs point to the return of Christ in the very near future.
The Rapture will be accompanied by the Resurrection of the righteous dead—those who have passed away in relationship to Jesus. Scripture speaks of the Rapture and Resurrection as separate events, but they will happen so closely together that I am including them as a single point in the timeline.
God will raise the righteous dead first, and a split second later, Jesus will gather living believers into His presence. Paul describes this in 1 Thessalonians:
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.—1 Thessalonians 4:15–18
All of us—those who are living and our dead brothers and sisters in Christ—will have a grand reunion together with the Lord in the air. This event will set the rest of the timeline into motion.
2. The Marriage Supper of the Lamb and Glorious Return of Jesus
After raising the dead in Christ and gathering living believers in the Rapture, Jesus will marry His raptured and resurrected believers as His glorious bride. This will be celebrated with the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
This heavenly celebration will last for seven years, correlating to the period of the Tribulation on earth. This will be the worst time on earth in human history but a time of rejoicing for us in heaven.
The apostle John writes about the end of the Marriage Supper in the Book of Revelation:
And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.—Revelation 19:6-8
Later in that passage, John describes Jesus judging and making war on the earth accompanied by “the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen” (Revelation 19:14). That’s His Bride, riding along with Him after the Marriage Supper of the Lamb comes to a close. This is a different kind of return. The Rapture will be a private event between Jesus and His Church, but this will be public. Every eye will see Him. There will be no doubt that He has returned. It will be dramatic and worldwide.
The world will have been marching against Jerusalem at the end of the Tribulation, but then Jesus will ride in—with His armies at His side—at the battle of Armageddon. He will cast the false prophet and the Antichrist into hell, and we will be there to see it happen.
3. The Millennial Rule
After the glorious return of Jesus, the apostle John had a vision of what would happen next, detailed in Revelation 20:1-10. He says the Antichrist and false prophet will be thrown into the lake of fire, and Satan (“the dragon, that serpent of old”) will be locked in chains and sealed in the bottomless pit. Neither Satan’s power nor his words will be able to escape.
Meanwhile, believing martyrs who were killed during the Tribulation will become part of the family of believers who will rule with Christ, reigning with Jesus as kings for a thousand years. We will reign with Him, too. John refers to us as “the saints” or “priests of God.”
No one will become saved after this point, because the Age of Grace, which we are living in now, will be over.
Believers, along with Jesus, will then help impose the will of God on the earth. Jesus will be King and we will be His regents over all the survivors of the Tribulation. He will give us total authority—and we will need it, because the unbelievers left on earth still won’t submit to Jesus, nor will they recognize our authority. They will want to kill us!
These people will have hardened their hearts and continue to hate Jesus Christ. As a punishment for their sin, they will be forced to live 1,000 years under the direct rule of Christ and His saints. We will be in our glorified eternal bodies. We will know everything because we have direct access to the King of all kings. When these people stand against us, we will rule them by force. They will hate it, but God won’t allow them to die until they have served their time under His rule.
After the thousand years, Satan will be released, and he and these reprobates with unchanged hearts will try to rebel against Jesus and the saints, marching on the Holy City. It won’t go well for them.
4. The Great White Throne Judgment
After this will come judgment for those in rebellion against God. The judgment of believers will have already occurred, and the righteousness of Jesus will have covered our sins and presented us blameless before God the Father.
But this judgment—the Great White Throne Judgment—is for those who are evil. After Satan is cast into the lake of fire for all eternity, those who were deceived by him will also spend eternity in hell:
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.—Revelation 20:11–15
At this point, God will be finished with this earth as we know it. The final event on the timeline is His creation of something new.
5. The New Heaven and New Earth
Eventually, God will make all things new. John described this at the end of his vision in the Book of Revelation:
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” —Revelation 21:1-5
I can’t wait until this moment. If you long for every tear to be wiped away, for death to disappear, for the end of sorrow, then understand this: It is coming. If you know Jesus, this reality is in your future. God designed us to rule with him as priests and kings, with the authority given to the beautiful Bride of Christ.
Maybe you are looking at what you see in the world right now, just as I am. We see evil and immorality all around us. We pray for God to intervene, and sometimes He does. Other times, He gives us the grace to endure it. The only true answer to the world’s problems is the authority of Jesus Christ. Nothing else will give us peace, healing, and freedom.
Here is the good news: it’s coming! It is going to happen.
My new book, Look Up! Awaiting the Rapture and Our Final Redemption, releases next week. You can pre-order it here.
Good morning Tipping Point Family, and thank you Pastor Jimmy for this post particularly. I have been in the process of creating a new "timeline" of the end times and this helped me in a few areas that aren't specifically stated. It isn't possible to create a timeline that is exactly right because some things just aren't stated with specificity, but it is still helpful (and educational/fun) to be able to look at something and get a visual of how things might happen. Anyhow, this helped with a few of those.
Two prayer requests I know of that came about over the last few days:
*Kari and her family are battling a tough bug, including her Mama. Please pray over them for quick healing.
*Art Martin is facing uncertainty and is needing wrapped in our prayers as he is serving as caretaker for his uncle in the end-stages of COPD. His faith is as strong as humanly possible and he is still praising through fear and tears, but we all have a point where we will cry out "Give me faith when I have no more to give Lord." Praying over others is a blessing I am the most grateful for, but those prayers have to be followed with action as well. First and foremost, please be interceding for Art and his uncle right now, but please think of how we can come alongside him as well in addition to the prayer.
I know others have prayer requests too, so please give them. Repetitive asking is GOOD...God actually tells us to keep asking! Make us a list???👇👇
Excited to see the movie when it comes out later to purchase online. I wanted to share a remarkable couple of dreams that I had a couple nights ago. I had been praying intensely as I am trying to line up new work in my new area we moved. I am also navigating some natural fears-doubts about a number of relatively minor things, though they can pile up if not resolved. I had prayed some rather strong pleading with the Lord and went to bed. Got up and stoked the fire middle of the night, went back to bed. Had two different dreams early in the morning. The first, Jesus came and met me, face to face. I paused for a second and then rushed to embrace Him. It was an overwhelming outpouring of emotion that came rushing out of me as we embraced for several seconds and I was just embracing Him intensely. All this emotion was just pouring out of me. It was overwhelmingly intense. I couldn’t even talk about it the next day because it was so emotionally overwhelming. When you are holding onto Him like that, you realize total and complete fulfillment, love, acceptance, joy and fully knowing/fully being known. In my waking world, sometimes I have a hard time knowing what I am feeling. It seems there is some sort of mechanism in me that seems to cause me to detach from my emotions or certain ones at certain times. He also did something I would never have thought of. He showed me how much I love Him. It’s one of those things your mind kind of has an idea of, at least for me, but you have a hard time feeling it the way we will when we are always with Him. Probably a bad explanation. In any case, I couldn’t even talk about it for most of a day because I couldn’t keep my composure. Near the end of our time hugging, He showed me that His return is literally right at the door. In that setting, it seemed like a mere second or two that the door was going to open. In His perspective, I don’t know the earth equivalent except that it really is a very short time away. In the second dream, I went to heaven. It was definitely a lesser version of heaven than what I’m sure we will see. But it was a very nice time and pleasant there. I did seem to notice that there was less people there than I expected. I’m sure however by the time we do get there, there will be a large multitude brought in by the end of it all. So I have a lot more peace than I have lately after the face to face meeting with Him again. It just puts everything in perspective. I’ve met Him probably 3-4 times in dreams and neither of us has yet to say a single audible word. But it hasn’t been necessary either because there is a full understanding and knowing between us. It is not necessary to speak because you know the feelings and thoughts of each other completely. I’m sure there will be plenty of speaking later, it is just an incredible experience. And being directly with Him, He is really meeting me in these face to face dreams and it is all I want to do, is be with Him. Nothing on earth comes close to the experience. Anyways, I am hoping that the share is uplifting and encouraging. I would encourage you to ask Him to directly meet you or speak to you or show you things, whether in visions or dreams or in person. I did that night and He met that request immediately and I really was in need of it. He’s at the door friends and wishing you all a wonderful Maranantha today.