Question: "Do you believe all children under the age of accountability will be included in the Rapture, or only children of saved parents"?

Answer: I have come to the conclusion that neither the faith of the children's parents or their age of accountability come into play in this question. I believe that Ephesians 1:4 will have the greatest bearing when the Rapture occurs. It says, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

Notice the phrase, "before the foundation of the world". God knew before the foundation of the world who would accept Him and who would not. God is outside of time. He can see the beginning and the end and the in between, all at the same time. God, unlike us, can look into the crib of the little innocent baby and see that same baby at thirty years old, robbing and shooting up a bank with automatic rifles. He can also look into another crib and see an innocent baby, five years later in Sunday School, praying and asking Jesus to come into his heart. God knows all of this from the foundation of the world. It is on this basis, the basis of His foreknowledge, I believe, that He will decide who goes up in the Rapture.

Question: Does the Holy Spirit get taken out of the world at the Rapture?

Answer: No! I do not believe the Bible teaches this although there are some godly, scholarly, men who do. The argument advanced for the support of this idea usually is taken from 2 Thess. 2:7- 8. It is stated there, "For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way". "And 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".

The setting for this chapter is some point before the Tribulation. The "man of lawlessness" is obviously the Antichrist. The "restrainer", I believe, is the Holy Spirit as is His role described in John 16:8, not the Church as some teach. The pronoun "he" describing the restrainer here should be feminine, not masculine, if this was describing the Church. Notice that this "restrainer" will do so until he is taken out "of the way", not out of the world!

This verse says to me, that there is currently a condition of lawlessness in the world that is driven by the same force that a will drive the Antichrist. At some point in the future, the Holy Spirit will stop restraining this force, at which point the Antichrist will be revealed during the coming Tribulation.

I do not believe the Holy Spirit can be absent from the world scene during the Tribulation because John, the author, describes at least two groups of people who will be saved during the Tribulation in Revelation 7. One group is the "144 Thousand" in verse 4, another group, those who have come out of the great Tribulation and washed their robes in the blood of the lamb in verse 14. If salvation is possible during the Tribulation, the Holy Spirit must be present because of the words Jesus revealed to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 saying, " unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God".

No one at any point in history can be saved outside of the personal work of the Holy Spirit. It is His work that accomplishes the "new birth" without which no one will ever see the kingdom of God. I believe this truth demands that the Holy Spirit will be on earth during the Tribulation.

I believe another question comes into play here: Can the Holy Spirit be removed from anywhere? I believe the answer to this question is no. Remember that God's Spirit is omnipresent. This means He is everywhere at the same time. This is what David meant when he said in Psalm 139:8-10, "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me".

God is omnipresent. He will not be taken out of the world. He is everywhere!