Posted on 08/18/2008 7:48:05 PM PDT by guitarplayer1953
Where do you stand on this pre trib, mid trib or post trib and why.
Christ used the parable of the Hebrew wedding and it is descriptive of rapture. The trumpet blast of the wedding are not those of Revelation. They are two distinct blast one occurred 2000 years ago announcing the engagement , the second one announces the Groom has came to get His Bride. The Father has said the home is ready and tells the Son to bring her. The return of Christ and the Second Coming are not the same events. Christ has returned several times since His death to individuals like Paul but not to establish His Kingdom nor to take home the believers. The dead in Christ and those living will be called from the heavens with a shout in other words called up. That is the Second Trumpet Blast the announcement of the wedding. The ten virgins parable applies. Who is ready? Who is not. No one knows the hour.
Next is reconciling what is told Daniel and Israel's agreement with the anti-Christ which starts a literal clock as to how many days before Christ Second Coming. We are told these days to be measured literally. A few will come out of the Tribulations and be saved but the Dispensation of Grace man has lived under since the cross will end once the Rapture occurs. The Groom will have shown up for His Bride and the doors so to speak shut. That leaves who on earth? Unbelievers who rejected the Gospel and some who will make it through it.
While the Wedding Feast and Wedding occurs in the heavens hell happens here on earth till the days mentioned in Daniel the 7 years are over. The veil at the end of that time will also be lifted from Israel's eyes. Indeed no one knows the hour of Christ Return. Christ gave the wedding parable for a reason.
I think it is Paul's teaching as well that points to this as well as Christ. In the twinkling of an eye. One left in the field one taken up.
I believe GOD will call out His chosen before the tribulations just as He called out Noah, Lott, & later Israel from Egypt before judgements. If not He will stand beside believers as he did Daniel and also the Three Hebrews in the furnace.
That is what I believe. As such if I am right or wrong does not matter because this neither saves a soul nor condemns it to hell which ever way a person things about the matter.
I once heard a discussion re: pre, mid, post-trib.
What the speaker stated pretty much spot-on...
“You can be pre-trib, mid-trib or post-trib... just don’t be a Post-Toastie.”
Ahhhhh No. You need to re read this. This section clearly says that first from the time that the commandment to rebuild and restore Jerusalem is “seven weeks”. It took about 49 yrs to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and repair its walls, once that was done, Second, “then unto the Messiah the Prince will 62 weeks.(Dan. 9:25) Then in verse 26 it very clearly says, “And after 62 weeks shall Messiah be cut off.” So if you add the seven weeks to the 62 weeks you get 69 weeks fulfilled and one week left because the angel told daniel that 70 weeks are determined...
The 69th week ended when Jesus was crucified. These dates can and have been traced to specific times in history.
The 70th week has not happened. Verse 27 says that he will confirm a covenant with many for one week and in the middle of the week he will break that covenant. Then go and look at Matt. 24:15. Jesus is clearly telling his disiples that this is a future event. When the temple was destroyed, this prophesy was not fulfilled as the general did not make himself out to be god. Again, this is a future event as clearly shown in scripture.
Daniels 70th week is spelled out in detail in the book of Revelation. It’s all there.
http://www.elshaddaiministries.us/
Get the Feasts of the Lord DVDs with the bonus disk. The only problem is you may order it and it takes weeks to get and you miss the Rapture waiting to find out about the Rapture.
There are may interpretations of the "weeks" prophesy and you have to decide which one you believe.
As an example, If I wanted to start a war here I could take the verse "A day is as a thousand years" and make my point that evolution is lunacy and God was telling us in no uncertain terms the Earth will be here 6000 years of Man history with 1000 years of rest in God's reign here. You will have every interpretation telling you that a "God" day could be a million years or a billion years, etc and God causes evolution, etc ect, when the truth is, they just don't want to believe the Bible. That's fine, God twists no ones arm to come to Him in faith. It is up to you to decide what the "weeks" prophesy says and go with it. It is MY belief, that the starting day was 7,Jun,1967 and they amount of days will be 17640 to the day Jesus sets foot on the Mt. of Olives and splits it. There is another prophesy that says that year will have a solar and a lunar eclipse in the same year and 2014 and 2015 has that over the ME. All I'm doing is subtracting 7 years x 360 days to get the Rapture date. The Rapture will happen on some Yom Teruah or Feast of Trumpets, or any one of a dozen more names the day is called. It lasts for 2 days, ergo, the "day know one knows". It's like Americans referring to Turkey Day for Thanksgiving. The Jews know the day no one knows.
You are quite correct that the prophesy of "weeks" has many interpretations and I may very well be wrong. The point is to be watching for Him and He will take whom He takes. I believe the Feast of Trumpets foretells His Rapture and Marriage of the Lamb, Yom Kippur tells of Judgment Day, and Feast of Tabernacles foretells of the Millennial Reign. Figuring out which one it will be is the trick. If you go to that website, he has the bonus disk available to download for free. It may help you decide.
Amen to that Die once live twice or die twice and live once.
It is also argued that even some 1st century writings are pretrib. The argument about a little girl having dreams in the early 1800s being the source of all pretrib eschatology is pretty weak and disingenuous, no matter how well meant.
The Jews had several millennia of doctrinal studies and still didn’t get the suffering Messiah and Millennial King were two different events.
Considering the first 500 years or so of Christendom struggled just to get the doctrines of the Trinity established, and another 1000 years to hash out soteriology, it isn’t too surprising it took a few more hundred years to get back to sound eschatology.
I don't call it twice since our gathering to Him in the air is more like a calling of us to come to Him. 1 Th 4.
And those saved during the tribulation period are they part of the body of Christ and are they the Bride too? If not what are they second class Christians? I see no where in the bible where any born again believer is not of the body of Christ and who will not be His Bride.
The term "Church" is not used in the book of Rev. except at the beginning when Jesus is talking about the seven Churches. After that, when the Trib starts, no more mention. Neither is the Body of Christ. "Bride" and "Great Multitude" are used instead as words used to describe what was known as the Church. So far from what I see it appears these terms refer to those already in Heaven. Ref: Rev 19. Verse 9 refers to them as blessed in that they have made it to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. This taking place just before war is getting ready to be waged against the Rider on the White horse on earth were there may be some Saints or those who have come to believe during the Trib period (thus the term Tribulation Saints). Whether all those Saints become martyrs or not I do not know.
It is in Rev. 20:4 that we see the reward for those Saints and those who had been martyred - so no, they are not 2nd class Christians, they had missed the Wedding Supper but were rewarded with positions of rule. No doubt still the Bride, but just not "blessed" as it was said to have made it to the supper on time. Rev 21 and 22 refer to all believers as the Bride, this being the case after the Great White Throne Judgment and all things being new.
IMHO
Goodnight.
Best post of the night!
Hello.
This has been shown as NOT true. In scripture the early believers thought Jesus was coming for them, that is why Paul had to write a letter to the Thessalonians(the first and second letters I believe) to reassure them that they had not missed the “rapture” and explained to them what would happen, again. He reinterates in chap 4 of First Thessalonians verses 16-18 how it will happen.
The “rapture” was taught till about 400AD then it was discouraged by the “church” and it was taken up again in the 16 or 1700’s from a book written in England and also taught by a Jesuit Priest in 1812. Pseudo-Ephraem wrote of it and he lived between 327-374AD He said “All the saints and elect of GOD are gathered together before the tribulation, which is to come...”
Post-trib. Way post-trib. The Great Tribulation happened AD 63-70, and is something we look back upon with relief, not forward to with sadistic glee.
I was raised in a very conservative Baptist church, for which the rapture was considered an article of faith. I received my B.A. in theology from Moody Bible Institute, a foremost defender of the “pre-trib” view. I received my M.A. in theology from Wheaton College, and my Ph.D. in Religion from Marquette University. I have taught theology on the college level, including several years in Israel, where I walked and taught at eschatological sites such as the valley of Megiddo, Jerusalem, etc.
For much of that time I held to and would strongly defend the pre-trib view. I know the arguments posited by pre-trib proponents on this thread inside out.
My long held belief was, however, based upon ignorance and the uncritical acceptance of what I had been taught. I gradually came to realize that the pre-trib theory is unknown for the vast majority of church history. Why is that? Would God hide such a vital truth from Christians throughout the ages?
Ah yes, our pre-tribs friends are ready with an answer: it has been revealed to us because we are the generation when it is to take place...
However, pretribulationism began in the 19th century. But those back in the 19th cantury who passionately taught and believed that they were living in the last days were mistaken. The world has gone on. So, was the Lord’s timing a century and a half “off”?
Facing the fact that pretribulationism is unknown to church history at least opens one’s mind to the possibility that the theory could be novel and lacking in substance.
I am well familiar with Scofield, Pentecost, etc., and have well-marked texts from these and other supposed “pre-trib scholars.” And of course, I was spoon fed Hal Lindsay’s books, which boldly proclaimed that “everything would be fulfilled” in the generation following the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948. Now, there are different measures of the length of a “generation,” but none extend anywhere near the 60 year mark where we find ourselves at the present moment.
With the passage of time, and hopefully growing maturity, without changing my view one iota regarding the full authority of Scripture, I came to realize that the arguments for pretribulationism lacked substance.
Discussing each of the passages would take far too much time than allowed here. One thing that struck me early on was the admission by a prominent evangelical scholar that there was no verse in the New Testament that supported the pre-trib view.
With regard to Thessalonians, mentioned several times on this thread, those texts certainly do not support retribulationism. I Thess. 4 refers to the “rapture” as the “coming of the Lord.” The same theme is continued in II Thess. 1, where we specifically read that the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” will not take place until the revelation of the man of sin and “the apostacy.” That is clearly in contradiction to pretribulationism, which holds that the Church must be removed before the man of sin is revealed.
Pre-trib scholars exercise a curious and contradictory hermeneutic here: whereas the “coming” of Christ and the “day of the Lord” are generally related, they cannot admit that in Thessalonians (because it would contradict their theory).
I would encourage the reader to read your Bible without the blinders of what you have been told (speaking here of comparatively recent theories of prophecy), and use your spiritual discernment to distinguish between genuine articles of faith historically believed and taught by Christians - including the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment - and the teachings of men.
Back in Bible school I created lovely charts that fit everything related to biblical prophecy on one neat timeline, complete with Bible references. I have since come to believe that God’s plan regarding future events is far more mysterious than I can possibly imagine, and I look forward to seeing the fulfillment of all things as prophesied in Scripture, and pray along with the Apostle John “Even so come quickly Lord Jesus!”
Once, while suffering a severe case of the flu, and reading O. S. Card's novel Lost Boys, I "tuned in" to, got on the same wavelength as, the Mormon deity, a statistics-obsessed demon. Weird.
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Having said that, Jesus is believed by many to have been here many times. The "angel" that stayed behind while Sodom was destroyed, Melchezidech could have been Jesus( no beginning, no end), and a few more that are called "archetypes" of Jesus. If John says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God", and later reveals the Word dwelt among us, could he be saying Jesus came to dwell with us more than just the 33 years as the "Lamb of God"? The "purpose" of the Jesus on the cross was to die for our sins, but that is one dimensional for the Creator of the universe. We sometimes confuse the gentile "Lamb" with a hippie flower child type God and forget He spoke and everything came to be and will destroy everything the same way. Jesus on the cross is necessary for our salvation, but He is also so much more.
Jesus said "If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. I and the Father are One. Could He be the Burning Bush? Was He on top of the mountain carving the 10 Commandments into stone? The Jesus we saw hanging on the cross was God with flesh on. I don't doubt He has shown Himself here many times in other fashion.
Yes it is true that there was the preincarnated Christ. In Revelation it say behold the Lamb crucified from the foundation of the world. The word raptupture is not in the bible it has only been in the last 100 or so years that the idea of a rapture came about. The bible says as He left He shall return. He left once He will return once. The bible say that we will be changed in a twinkle of the eye. Time is outside of God sphere of reference.Meaning how long is the 1/2 hour of silence in heaven?
Call it what you want, God's Bride will not experience the Wrath of God.
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