1 Thessalonians 4:13
"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope."
The Last Trumpet, also, is the trumpet blown during the Feast of Trumpets. That particular feast begins when two Jewish witnesses would see the new moon - and no one never knew the day or hour the feast would begin. That is why it has 2 days to begin. I believe Christ was giving us insight when he said no man knows the day or the hour of His return for His people.
The most convincing argument to me about a pre-tribulation rapture is the Doctrine of Imminentcy.
Christ said He will come like a thief in the night. Like a master who returns and the servant does not know when. Christ said two would be in the field, one would be taken, one would be left. If the rapture happens mid or post tribulation, then we would know exactly when it would occur based on the timeline of Revelation and Daniel. But we don't know, because Christ was clear. So therefore the mid and post tribulation raptures fail on the point completely.
Maranatha!
Long-winded article. Attacking or defending a rapture is immaterial. It will either happen or it won’t. You either prepare for it or you don’t. But arguing about it is stupid.
Those who don’t understand the fact of the pre trib rapture get much of the rest of scripture wrong also.
Actually, I think this is a great idea. I’m one that doesn’t believe in a pre-trib rapture but I think the idea of posting on the web in one place is great for discussion and debate. I think it could help to clarify certain aspects of each view and clear up some misunderstandings or show alternative points of view - so thanks for posting. And like he stated, it puts all the ideas and supporting scripture, articles, history in one place. No one likes to write a book for each post ;- )
Hmmm ... how long has the word “Replacementism” been in use? I’ve read a lot about Relacement Theology and Supercessionism ... but I’ve never seen “Replacementism” used before!
As an orthodox Lutheran I’ve never believed in Rapture/Left Behind pre-millenial dispensationalism (emphasis on sensationalism).
However, I didn’t realize until recently that this doctrine is often very harmful and leads to a bunch of other dangerous theological ideas and rabbit trails.
A former Evangelical who was raised on Rapturized theology but eventually became Lutheran has been enlightening me week by week, on the radio program Issues, Etc.
Just last week he discussed this very subject. If anyone is interested, go to the link below and listen. Then you can search the archives for “Wolfmueller” and find other interviews he’s done on various pitfalls of Evangelicalism... he knows from personal experience and years of deep study.
LINK:
Responding to Evangelical Prooftexts: The Secret Rapture in Matthew 24:36-42 – Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller, 2/24/15
http://issuesetc.org/2015/02/24/2-responding-to-evangelical-prooftexts-the-secret-rapture-in-matthew-2436-42-pr-bryan-wolfmueller-22415/
A fatal accident, heart attack, stroke, etc all have the same effect of causing us to suddenly and unexpectedly come face to face with Christ.
I generally think some...a minority of believers will be protected in some form during the tribulation but scripture to me appears to indicate that many if not most will have to pass through a difficult winnowing process.
“It amazes me that some folks write to me, questioning the validity of the rapture, simply because the word “rapture” doesn’t appear in the Bible.”
It does actually “raptura”
Prewrath rapture. This scholarly book nails it - “Before God’s Wrath”, author H. L. Nigro (woman).
Funny this thread was put up while I’m reading this book. I was Pretrib most of my life but I think that is incorrect and believe the Bible supports Prewrath.
I recommend this book, using old and new testament scripture, to answer questions concerning the timing of the rapture.
“Pre-wrath proponents say that the Seventh Trumpet blown in Rev 11:15-18 is the same last trump Paul spoke of in 1 Cor 15:52. However, they fail to take into account the fact that John wrote Revelation 40 years after Paul wrote his first epistle to the Corinthians. How could Paul refer to something that was not yet revealed?”
Plus the trumpet will be sounded by the angels in one event, and God in the other. Two separate trumps.
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Yes, the phrase that the pre-tribbers try to use to tell us that we cannot know the day was really Yeshua’s way of telling us exactly what day the resurrection will be.
With all of Paul’s effort to tell the Corinthians and the Thessalonians that the Man of Sin must come first, one wouldn’t expect anyone to buy into the pre-trib scam.
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I only know that if I feel myself lifting up I’m going to let go. The other thing I know is that this rapture does not really change anything about my trust in Jesus and his promises.
Pinging you on this thread.
Mat_24:19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
Going to be some tough choices during the Tribulation...You either take the mark of the beast and go to hell or refuse the mark of the beast and starve while you watch your kids starve...No medicine...No medical care...No job...No housing...No manna...
There will be no way to escape the temptation of taking the mark of the beast except for death...
All Christians, if they are to go into the Great Tribulation will go to hell by taking the mark of the beast or they will die...
I don't believe any Christians will go into the tribulation...
The key to understanding Revelation is at the end of Chapter 1 (1:19). John is told to write down
1. The things he has seen (what has preceded in chapter 1);
2. The things that are (the present church age, chapters 2 & 3); and
3. That which will follow (chapter 4 to the end).
Then compare 1:19 to 4:1 -
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.
That is the rapture. The Church is never seen on earth after that.
The thing that interests me is that such a big notion is built around such a small scripture.
Jesus himself tells us that he will raise us up at the last day and even if 1 Thes 4:16-18 is to be taken as raptured alive as far as we know it did not happen.
Paul included himself in 1 Thes 4:16-18 and it is assumed that he died in Rome, rather than being taken up alive.
So it is logical to believe if 1 Thes 4:16-18 is to be taken literally it took place at the time of Pauls so called death and we missed it by close to two thousand years.
And even then it could not have taken place before the tribulation because Christians were going through tribulations then.
When the Bible mentions people being asleep, it means they are dead and are not conscious of anything, as we commonly are when sleeping. It does not mean that people are ignorant of something.
[Here’s the latest rapture goodie I’ve seen on the net!]
MARGARET MACDONALD’S MAIN POINT
By Dave MacPherson
John Darby, Paul Wilkinson, and Thomas Ice are among those who have flunked the Margaret Macdonald test by covering up and misinterpreting what she (as the pretrib rapture originator) actually stated in 1830!
My book “The Rapture Plot” discusses Margaret’s two-part main point (lines 58-63 in her 117-line account): seeing “one taken and the other left” before “THE WICKED” (Antichrist) is “revealed.”
Hal Lindsey’s “The Rapture” correctly says she taught “a partial Rapture” - that only PART of the church will be pretribbed up.
Walvoord’s “The Rapture Question” also describes partial rapturists as “pretribulationists,” and their charts show the “church” BEFORE AND AFTER their rapture in the same way Margaret was a “church splitter.” (Google “X-Raying Margaret,” “Margaret Macdonald’s Rapture Chart,” and “Pretrib Rapture’s Missing Lines.”)
Both John Cardale (in Edward Irving’s journal in Dec. 1830) and John Darby (in his 1853 book) described their visits to mid-1830 meetings Margaret conducted in her home. Darby’s “recollection” was such a mirror of the many details in Cardale’s published account 23 years earlier that I’m convinced that Darby was merely copying Cardale’s details, and Darby listed all of the details except one!
Although Darby mentioned Margaret’s “texts on overcoming” (the “tribulation” or second half of her main point), he deliberately omitted her emphasis on “the coming of the Lord” (rapture) as the church’s “deliverance” before the “judgments coming on the earth” which all visitors, except Darby, admitted was a pretrib event (the “rapture” or first half of her main point)!
Margaret’s visitors included writers for Irving’s journal “The Morning Watch.” Within weeks it reflected Margaret’s unique and original “church/church dichotomy” (”spiritual” church members raptured and “less spiritual” church members left behind) when it saw the “Philadelphia” church raptured BEFORE “the great tribulation” and the “Laodicea” church left on earth.
Well, if Darby could be a revisionist with Margaret’s words, so could Wilkerson and Ice today.
After Joe Schimmel’s Good Fight Ministries produced the “Left Behind or Led Astray?” video (the greatest video exposure ever of pretribism’s dishonesty-riddled history!), Britisher Paul Wilkinson savagely attacked it in an uber-unscholarly way in a video produced by the Berean Call Ministry titled “Left Behind or Led Astray? - Exposed.”
In order to please his think-alike idol, John Darby, Wilkinson deliberately stopped his quotation of Margaret at line 45 so that he could omit the first (pretrib) part of her main point in order to be able to falsely declare that she advocated “a post-tribulation Rapture”!
Thomas Ice has been even more nervy than Wilkinson, his British “twin.” When Ice quoted Margaret’s 117-line account in the Dallas Seminary journal he omitted ALL OF HER MAIN POINT but made up for it by quoting just BEFORE and AFTER it! (Ice’s “PhD” was “earned” at the unaccredited Tyndale Seminary in Texas which, according to World Net Daily, was heavily fined by the State of Texas for illegally issuing degrees - too many degrees for the Texas heat!
Finally, if Ice, Wilkinson and other pretrib escape artists love Jews and Israel as much as they say they do, why don’t they want to be on earth during “Jacob’s trouble” to aid and comfort Jews and others? (Some Google items related to this include “Greatest Hebrew-Christian Scholars NOT Pretrib,” “Roots of Warlike Christian Zionism,” and “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty.”