Luke 21:36 a conditional promise?
Let’s look at what the scripture says about this verse. In KJV Watch you therefore and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things, that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of man. The very quick answer is yes, it is conditional on one watching and praying. If you don’t do one of these, then you won’t get or receive whatever is being promised. The promised thing is escaping all of these things I.e. the tribulation and Great Tribulation mentioned earlier in Luke 21:7-35. The escaping is to heaven so we will stand before the Son of Man (Jesus).
So let’s look deeper, the first thing is we find out that there is an accounting or determining process that will look at the evidence to see if one is “worthy to escape”. In other words you will miss out on something if you are not watching and praying to a certain degree or level which God will determine through so to speak an accounting process. The Greek word kataxioo says that it means to deem entirely deserving, or as translated “account worthy”. Many will say to this, no one is worthy, to which I counter with if Jesus said it and he believed it, so I better believe it and accept it as truth. So am I going to accept it or I will be rejecting Jesus words and his teaching. I will submit my ideas and will to Him. I then can ask Him to show me what is it that I need to know and to understand about this aspect of His revelation. What will we receive if we are watching and praying? Because we are deemed worthy by Christ we will escape “all these things” that Jesus just got done telling us about is the future things from verses 7-35. It was not just a few verses that Jesus was referring to, but then adds, if there was any doubt about what “all these things” meant, then He adds, “that shall come to pass”. That is saying that the future items Jesus just told them about that they can miss that by watching and praying. That puts the nail in coffin, if you had any doubts about what aspects. So the promise is so you can escape, miss out on, all these things that are going to happen during Daniel’s 70th week, the beginning part is the tribulation and after the middle begins the Great Tribulation. How do we know what will happen so that we can escape that part of the tribulation/Great Tribulation period. Well, Jesus alludes to the rapture that will remove us from the earth to take us to heaven, which is the escaping by saying that we can “stand before the Son of Man”, does any know where that is located? In heaven is the right answer. Yes, Jesus is right, there will be a removal of some of the believers i.e. the rapture before Daniel’s 70th week and the “tribulation” for those who are deemed worthy by Jesus to be taken to heaven as a reward for “watching and praying” and being obedient to Jesus. Rewards are conditional, and in this case based on as Jesus said watching and praying. The timing of this promise of escaping all these things is all the events which Jesus told them would happen during the 70th week of Daniel, i.e. the first half of the tribulation along with the first portion of the Great tribulation which we know begins after the abomination of desolation occurs at the middle point. Jesus confirms that is what Daniel was talking about in Daniel 9:24-27 when all 3 gospels record Jesus words concerning it in Mt. 24:15ff, Mark 13:14ff, and also in Luke 21:20-24 as the fulfillment of that prophecy. To answer the timing is, yes there is a pre-tribulation rapture for the watching and praying believers. You may ask are there other passages that would confirm this idea? The answer is yes, Rev. 3:10 and the ten virgins in Mt. 25:1-13. But that is for another time.