All That In 7 Years?

Q.  A search into the average length of the longest lasting empires such as the Roman, Persian or Babylonian empires ranges from a few hundred years to over a thousand years.  How is it the greatest, most evil and last empire will begin, conquer the whole world and be destroyed within only seven years?  And a portion of that time is under the guise of peaceful intentions.  Granted Satan will not be restrained.  Should we consider a much longer time between the rapture and the beginning of Daniels 70th week?

A.  Most world empires have been built from scratch over a period of generations.  This is true of the anti-Christ’s empire as well.  Paul said the secret power of lawlessness was already at work in his time (2 Thes. 2:7).  That means work on his empire has been steadily progressing for 2,000 years, although under the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit.

After the rapture the world will be a kingdom in search of a King, and will be there for his taking with most things already in place.  His period of pseudo peace will be for the purpose of conquest (Rev. 6:2) and will require very little time, since the world will be supernaturally predisposed to accept him.  And He’ll not only have Satan’s help, He’ll have God’s help as well.

For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled (Rev. 17:17).

— Jack Kelley
http://gracethrufaith.com/ask-a-bible-teacher/all-that-in-7-years/

~ Fair use for educational and discussion purposes ~

I think everything will move very quickly after the rapture. (Remember how miraculous it was for Israel to become a nation with a 3 minute vote?!) It'll be like dominoes that were first put in place. The rapture will be the nudge to get these dominoes to rapidly topple over. There will be minimum wait time (IMO) for the AC to come into play. He's already on stage, just waiting for his cue to step into the spotlight.