That the false pre-trib rapture doctrine would be a major deceptive doctrine in the last days was Old Testament Bible prophecy by God through His prophet Ezekiel.
Ezek 13:18-20
18 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of My people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?
19 And will ye pollute Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to My people that hear your lies?
20 Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.
KJV
The prophet Ezekiel was mainly sent as a prophet to the "house of Israel" (Ezek.3). In Ezekiel's day, the ten tribe northern kingdom of the "house of Israel" had already been removed from the holy land by the kings of Assyria, to Assyria and the lands of the Medes. God translated Ezekiel from his house to among the ten tribes to give them His Message.
The ten lost tribes of the house of Israel would be further scattered west. The Jewish historian Josephus said they were still 'beyond Euphrates' in his day (100 A.D.) and were a great number, too many to count.
II Esdras speaks this about them:
39 And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him;
40 Those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land.
41 But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt,
42 That they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land.
43 And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow places of the river.
44 For the most High then shewed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over.
45 For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half: and the same region is called
Arsareth.
ARZARETH:
By: Morris Jastrow, Jr., Kaufmann Kohler
"The name of the land beyond the great river, far away from the habitation of man, in which the Ten Tribes of Israel will dwell, observing the laws of Moses, until the time of the restoration, according to IV Esd. xiii. 45. Columbus identified America with this land. (See Kayserling's "Christopher Columbus," translated by Dr. C. Gross, p. 15.)
The name, it has been suggested by Schiller-Szinessy, is taken from Deut. xxix. 24-27, "Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord . . . and went and served other gods . . . the Lord rooted them out of their land . . . and cast them into another land [ereẓ aḦeret] as this day." This passage is made to refer (in Mishnah Sanh. x. 3) to the Ten Tribes (compare Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 12; Bab.
ib. 110
b; Yer.
ib. x. 29
c; Ab. R. N., ed. Schechter, A, xxxvi. 108, and Bacher, "Agada der Tannaiten," i. 143). But different opinions are expressed by Akiba and Eliezer—the traditions are rather confused as to the names—whether the Ten Tribes may be expected to return or not, since this point is not determined in the Scriptural verse. One of them takes the words "as this day" to signify that "as the day goeth, but doth not return, so shall they who are cast off not return"; the other explains the words: "as the day begins with the darkness of the night, but turns into day, so shall the darkness of their banishment be turned into bright daylight" (Mishnah Sanh.
l.c.). The fourth Book of Esdras took the latter view, which was adopted also by R. Judah ha-Nasi in the Tosefta (
l.c.), who refers to Isa. xxvii. 13."
Bibliography:
- Schiller-Szinessy, in Journal of Philology, iii. 114;
- Neubauer, Jew. Quart. Rev. i. 16.
My point concerning that history about Ezekiel being sent to the ten tribe house of Israel? Simple. The prophecy in Genesis 48 Jacob gave his grandson Ephraim was that his seed would become "a multitude of nations", and the first king of ten tribed Israel that God made was Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim, as Ephraim became the head tribe over the ten northern tribes (see 1 Kings 11 forward, and Hosea). That "multitude of nations" represents the western Christian nations that Ephraim and the ten tribes would become, along with believing Gentiles on Christ Jesus in those new lands. Even with the old 'blue laws' in early America, everyone was required to appear at Church on Sunday, otherwise the law would come and take you.
So this Ezekiel 13 Message is about pastors in the Christian Church in the last days, as that is who God points this to with the "house of Israel" for the last days in the beginning of the chapter...
Ezek 13:1-5
13:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD;
3 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
4 O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts.
5 Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.
KJV
What? To stand in the battle in the day of the LORD? The "day of the Lord" is about the last days, our days leading up to Jesus' 2nd coming (1 Thess.5). That puts this Ezekiel 13 prophecy in perspective for the latter days, our days. And for those who think the ten tribes of Israel are really no more, they need to read what Jacob said to his twelve sons at the start of Genesis 49.
