Posted on 03/13/2015 7:43:01 AM PDT by amessenger4god
Will there be a rapture? Is it pre-tribulational? I believe the answer is an emphatic 'yes' to both questions. Here are some key points:
1. For starters, I want to address the small, but growing minority of Christians who emphatically state that the rapture isn't even in the Bible. Now I believe it is one thing to hold to various views as to the timing of the rapture event, but no rapture at all? I believe that this belief is thoroughly nonsensical. The argument often takes shape the same way that Jehovah's Witnesses will say that the Bible doesn't teach the doctrine of the "Trinity" since the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible... yet the doctrine of the Trinity is found all throughout the Bible, from Genesis 1:1-3 to Revelation. The word "rapture" is not in the Bible, end-of-story.
This argument doesn't even make sense--of course the English word "rapture" is not in the Bible. So too the Latin word that we derive "rapture" from is also not in the Bible. The New Testament was written in Greek! The Greek word for "rapture" is in the Bible. Even setting aside all other scriptures, parables, patterns, and parallels that may support the rapture, the rapture event is clearly and unequivocally taught in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. This passage doesn't necessarily answer the question as to the timing of the event, but yes, the rapture is going to happen. A trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ and those who are "alive and remain" will be "caught up" into the clouds. It plainly, unequivocally says believers will meet the Lord in the air.
2. Next, I want to talk about perhaps the most common argument against the pre-tribulational rapture. This argument is now known to be factually incorrect. So if you believe in a mid-trib, pre-wrath, or post-trib rapture, that's fine by me, but don't use this argument. The argument is that the pre-tribulational rapture theory was invented by a girl in 19th century Scotland named Margaret MacDonald. This is patently false. For starters, 18 years prior to MacDonald, a Catholic Jesuit priest espoused his belief in the pre-trib rapture in his book The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. We now also have clear, extra-Biblical support for the pre-trib rapture as early as 373AD (Ephraem the Syrian who clearly taught the doctrine, even using exact language). See here: http://www.raptureready.com/rr-margaret-mcdonald.html and here: http://www.grantjeffrey.com/article/why_some_reject.htm
3. Thirdly, many Christians will often argue that the pre-tribulational rapture is not foreshadowed in the Bible and that the doctrine is just "easy-escapism". In essence they will say that God doesn't remove us from trials and tribulation, He just protects us in the midst of it.
I actually agree with their point about God protecting us in the midst of tribulation. However, this has nothing to do with the pre-tribulational rapture, which I believe is CLEARLY foreshadowed. The 70th week of Daniel (final 7 years of the age), are the years specifically set aside for God to pour out His OWN wrath. Not just the normal trials and tribulations every generation has faced because of the consequences of sin, but a tribulation God Himself sends on the world, as the Scripture says to test an unbelieving and unrepentant world (Revelation 3:10; see also Luke 21:36). That same passage says clearly says that God will keep believers from facing that coming tribulation. Elsewhere the Bible says "we are not appointed unto wrath" (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
So, yes, it is correct to say God doesn't always remove us from worldy tribulation, but He does ALWAYS remove us from His wrath if we trust in Him. This is foreshadowed:
How about God’s wrath begins with the opening of The Seventh Seal?
How about God’s wrath begins with the opening of The Seventh Seal?
Why not post some scripture that proves your idea instead of just making what appears to be a baseless claim???
So whose wrath were the first six? Was God saving them under seal for Satan or something?
Read the scriptures I posted, as an entirety, not as sound bites. Look at the seals as the timeline of the pre wrath story, the index. [Rev 6-7] Read it in the limelight of Christs answer to the question, what will be the sign of your return. [Mat 28]
Note the significance of the fig tree budding anew as the start of the sequence.
Note the timing of the landmark sign sun turning black, moon turning red as the end, and its match in Rev 6.
Note also the pattern of seal 1-6, pause, 7 and what that pause decribes.
Note also the significance of decree by the sounding of a horn in royal cultures. The seventh seal IS trumpets 1-7 and the bowls are what is royaly pronounced.
I have done az you requested, with out line. This reading should take ysu a few weeks to truely contemplate with prayer.
Will you rend in return, rejoice or respond in kind.
Proof is in the puddin.
Their is not singular, God is.
Rev. 20:3, 8, states that "nations" will survive the calamaties of the end time, continuing into the millennial kingdom in their natural bodies. A remnant of them, Zech. 14:16 identifies them the remnant "of all the nations" that are "left," i.e., who survive the end time, Armageddon being singled out, "the ones who came against Jerusalem."
Re: your posts 154-156, 159, 164. They are just inferences, my friend, inferences. Fond theories of men read into the scripture. To single out, which seems to you, to be most compelling, God’s wrath. It is INFERRED that Christians cannot possibly be in the tribulation because it is the day of the Lord, God’s wrath. Since that is a major cause of concern to you, from this post-tribbers take on what ahead of us:
The seals are an overview of what’s ahead of us, the rise of antichrist going forth to conquer, with wars, famines, pestilences, following in his wake (the first four seals), the great tribulation (seal five), the day of the Lord (seal six). All predicted by Jesus in Matt. 24, but with no gathering of the elect until verses 29-31, on the contrary Jesus has Christians continuing to preach the gospel, enduring in their faith until the end, vss 13,14.
Unless you are unrepentant, like the FRoman Catholics are with their Mariolatry, which you are a champion about here on the RF, then the wrath in the trumpet are not directed at you, Rev. 9:20, 21. Likewise the unrepentant in the vials, who have taken the mark of the beast, Rev. 16:2, etc. None of the wrath in the seals, trumpets, or vials, are directed at the faithful, but rather the unrepentant.
True, the elect must endure great persecution once the antichrist comes to power, but that has been the lot of the elect all along, beginning with Cain and Abel its been this way, nothing new there, the end time, with its seals, trumpets, and vials, is designed to bring people to repentance. God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,” 2 Pet. 3:9. A great number will, Rev. 7:9, 14.
As to the great day of God’s wrath, the day of the Lord, the cosmic signs signal its arrival, and Jesus places those signs “immediately after the tribulation of those days,” Matt. 24:29-31. THAT is the wrath of God the elect escape. Not the wrath of man, we must endure it. The rapture, the gathering of the elect, takes place at that time.
Rev. 20:3, 8, states that "nations" will survive the calamaties of the end time, continuing into the millennial kingdom in their natural bodies.
BTW, Rev. 20:8 is speaking of the period at the end of the Millennial reign, not after the Tribulation...But how did they get there...You figure that after Armageddon God is going to let a bunch of heathens move into the Millennium???
Isa. 24 describes the cosmic calamities of the day of the Lord, with such things as the earth reeling to and fro like a drunkard, verse 20, I wouldn’t think anybody could survive on earth, would you? yet verse 6 says “therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.”
Apparently these are the “nations,” surely only a remnant, left to enter the millennial.
I thought even pretribs believed there would be a remnant of the nations left to enter the millennial. After all, that is what Rev. 20 says.
That.
Explain to us who is in charge of releasing the first 6 seals if it’s not Jesus.
You didn't answer my question.
So whose wrath were the first six? Was God saving them under seal for Satan or something?
So apparently then the church has been raptured before that??? And those raptured will have resurrected spiritual bodies and will reign with Christ (we thought to reign over the 12 Tribes of Israel in the Kingdom)???
And all that's left to go into the Kingdom are those few unsaved heathen that God missed or God just did not kill in his wrath???
Where are the millions of Jews who pre-tribbers believe will go on into the Kingdom to worship Jesus???
It is my belief that everything taught and prophesied in the Bible flows into the Revelation. All lines of prophecy. The apocalyptic stuff we see there is drawn from the rest of the Bible. In this case, the line of prophecy is the olivet discourse, given by the greatest prophet of all. I believe the seals are drawn from that discourse. The Lamb opens the seals in Rev. 5, doesn’t he?
The disciples asked him what the signs would be, and he gave them: antichrist, wars, famines, pestilences, martyrdom, the cosmic day of the Lord, in Revelation the seals. The rest of Revelation greatly expanding on that general outline.
The only wrath of God I see in the seals is in the sixth seal, the wrath of God closing out this age. All the seals do is describe what is ahead of us. They follow Jesus to a tee, a general overview of the end time. The tone changes from general to specific, however, in the trumpets and vials.
So let me get this straight. With the first seal that Jesus opens there appeared a white horse, it’s rider was given a bow and a crown, but those aren’t from God right? And he is sent out to conquer but he wasn’t sent by God to punish nations right? So who gave him the crown?
I would think so. Except the millions of Jews part, it’s going to get mighty ROUGH in the day of the Lord!
You are getting into an area I don’t care to go. Does God create and allow evil, and all that kind of philosophical stuff. In short, I don’t believe what you propose is what is being portrayed. The first horseman is just following Jesus’ prediction of the antichrist, to the disciples, the first sign of what is to come. The antichrist being the curtain raiser.
Oops, my post 178 was supposed to be to you.
I wonder why?
>>Does God create and allow evil, and all that kind of philosophical stuff.<<
Did God send armies to conquer Israel when they had forsaken Him?
>>The first horseman is just following Jesus’ prediction of the antichrist, to the disciples, the first sign of what is to come.<<
So who sent the first horseman out? And who gave him his crown and the ability to conquer?
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