The Secret Rapture: Is It Scriptural? by Ralph Woodrow.

This is a five-star book, from beginning to end. It’s a small book — 49 pages of actual content — but it would be a challenge to find a single word the author doesn’t need. In its pages, Ralph Woodrow challenges pretribulationism’s secret, two-stage rapture position in one of the most clear, direct, and concise manners I’ve ever read.

Woodrow opens with the premise held by pretribulationists that the rapture is secret event, known only to believers. He then lays out an astonishingly straightforward case - not based on theological frameworks, but solely on the clear, direct teaching of scripture itself - for the fact that, not only is the secret rapture not to be found, but that the scriptures used to prove a secret rapture actually teach the opposite — that the rapture will be a loud, joyful, noisy event.

While many of these arguments, on the surface, will be familiar to adherents of the midtrib, prewrath, and posttribulation views, Woodrow’s presentation brings to light so many overlooked points that you will find yourself underlining more than you don’t.

In responding to the pretrib premise that the rapture occurs in two stages, Woodrow uses Jesus’ own words that clearly indicate that His “coming” and the rapture cannot be two separate events. And despite the common pretrib argument that the Greek supports two different comings, Woodrow uses verse after verse to prove that the various Greek words for “coming” are used interchangeably.

This is one of the best small books I’ve read in a long time. You can read it in a sitting, but you’ll want to go back to refer to it multiple times. This is a “must have” for the bookshelf of any student of the rapture, and for pretribulationists, it presents a challenge that transcends theological frameworks.