Funny thing about His re-educating how we think;...we so often read into Scripture what we think it means, until He allows us to stumble into His Word. What we frequently think is the common sense meaning,...once we understand His Word, is completely contrary to what He has been trying to communicate to us all along,...and then we realize He has been telling us everything up front all along,...we were just to scarred in our souls to realize it.
>> “and then we realize He has been telling us everything up front all along” <<
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You mean he who disclosed the end from the beginning?
I concur. Often what we have been taught so controls our thinking, we cannot see the plain meaning of the words we read.
2 Timothy 2:3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
When I did an in depth study of the rapture and tribulation, I decided I would put aside everything I had been taught, and simply look at what the scripture actually said, without forcing meaning based on pre-conceived ideas. That is what brought me to the point I am now. Simple reading of the scripture, and Occam's razor. Prior to that, so much in dispensational pre-trib prophecy did not make sense to me, and the reason was it did not make sense, period!
When I coupled that with the teachings of the early church fathers, and about Darby and heretical views of the Plymouth Brethren (whom Spurgeon critisized), as well as Scofield and his notes, I was convinced the whole pre-trib dispensational prophetic view was utter nonsense. I also found that most pre-tribbers won't even discuss the mater logically using scripture, they are convinced they are correct, and spout circular arguments to prove their vewpoint, seldom referring to scripture, and never in context. A few of my favorite "proofs":
* The church is raptured prior to the tribulation because Jesus does not want a bloody bride
* We have to be raptured so we can have the Bema Seat prior to his return
* We have to be raptured so we can have the Wedding supper of the Lamb
* We (the Church and the Holy Spirit)have to be taked out of the way so the world can be given over to the antichrist
* Matthew 24 is written to the Jews, not the Church
* The church is not mentioned after Revelation 4
* The rapture is the "firstfruits" of the first resurrection mentioned in Rev 20:5
and so on... Each one, when investigated scripturally, is woefully unsupported.