You said — “Many post trib people get quite angry about the pre-trib Rapture, and seem determined to suffer, accusing the other side of “escapism.” The scholar you posted, Dr. Reagan, is a proponent of the pre-trib philosophy.”
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It might be good to develop an understanding as to what other views those of the post-trib (or others) hold, in their religious viewpoints, to get a good idea of their overall religious stance. Sometimes you can tell something from that. I don’t mind people knowing my overall religious stance. I think it all fits together fairly well...
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And then you were saying — “Most of the pastors I know are amillennial. They just figure God will handle things and they don’t need to worry about it. They also don’t believe in literal prophecy fulfillment, aside from the Second Coming itself.”
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Well, we could learn something from the history of the development of these various positions and how they’ve shifted over time (like the amillennial position). Also, talking about prophecy fulfillment, one should look at the prophecies of Jesus’ first coming and then ask if they were literally fulfilled, or they were spiritually fulfilled. I would imagine that in the same way that the prophecies of the first coming of Jesus were fulfilled, it should be the same way for the end times, too...
Anyway, that’s what I think.
Here, by the way, is something that addresses the issue of the Rapture being a separate event from the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (at which time He sets up the Kingdom)...
A chart that lists the individual items of the two separate events... (just some church’s chart, nothing too special about it, other than you’ll find similar information elsewhere, too).
http://letjesusloveyou.com/rapture/rap54.html
Another similar one...
http://www.bibleprophesy.org/15differences.htm
A Thomas Ice Article...
http://www.im4christ.org/rr/featured/tt10.html
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Also, a problem with saying that the Rapture is at the same time as Jesus’ Second coming when He returns to earth to set up the Kingdom — is — that one *knows exactly when* Jesus comes at that time. It’s exactly 1,260 days after the time when the Antichrist shows himself in the Temple and declares himself to be god... From that moment, you can start counting off the days, all the way until 1,260 days and you’ve got the *exact time* for Christ’s return.
That doesn’t fit with the fact that we won’t know the exact time, according to what the Bible says. So, I think it can’t be post-trib for that one reason there, plus all the other information given at those links...
The Rapture will happen — most definitely — but it’s going to be at an unknown time. How is counting down 1,260 days to the exact day, make it an “unknown time”?
EXCELLENT point.
Thanx for the invite to the caucus.