[Buggman]

Therefore, the return for the rapture and the return to touchdown on Mt Olive MUST be different events.

Strangely enough, I agree. The problem is not in Scripture or in my position, however, but in how we think of the Second Coming.

When you speak of the Second Coming, people tend to think of Yeshua simply appearing in the sky, touching down, and destroying the Antichrist's armies all in about five minutes of time. However, the Lord's First Coming encompased His birth, growing up, His baptism, His 3+ year ministry, His crucifixion, burial, Resurrection, and numerous "comings" and goings over forty days before His final departure into Heaven. Why should the Second Coming be any less complex?

I would define the Second Coming as starting with the Lord's visible appearance on the clouds of the sky after the Great Tribulation (Mt. 24:29-31), at which point the Church is Raptured (cf. 1 Th. 4:16-5:2), continuing through the Day of the Lord, when the wrath of the Lamb is poured out, and including the "coming" for Israel at which the Mt. of Olives will be split, the final "coming" at the Last Battle, and continuing right through the Millennium and beyond.

[blue-duncan]

" I would define the Second Coming as starting with the Lord's visible appearance on the clouds of the sky after the Great Tribulation (Mt. 24:29-31), at which point the Church is Raptured"

I'm curious as to why you think Jesus would take His bride through a period of intensifying, serial, judgments? For what purpose? There is nothing in the scriptures that I know of that would explain that. The trials and tribulations we are going through now are meant to purify His church, but I don't read that explanation in Daniel, 1Thess. or in Revelation. I do read, over and over again, the phrase "they would not repent". It seems that the progressive judgments are evangelistic/punishment rather than purifying. It just doesn't make sense to me for the church to be going through this. (Of course the next client coming in does not make sense to me too.)

[Uri’el-2012]

bump for review

B'Shem Y'shua