Biblical Support for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

Understanding the scriptures related to the timing of the Rapture and the Tribulation is no easy thing. I wouldn't be able to spell it out myself. Reading the early part of this thread I see that among the Christians here, Buzsaw, Jaywill and Iano all weighed in on the subject, and there is no simple agreement between them.I make an effort every now and then to follow some argument or other -- and there are way too many schools of thought on this one -- and give up in the end because there's always some part of it that just doesn't hang together with the overall theory, or I'm not able to get how it does if it does. This is one of those biblical problems that can drive you crazy trying to figure it out. (It's always reasonable to conclude, I think, that if we are having this much trouble with a scriptural problem it's because God doesn't want us to solve it yet, but He's perfectly happy to have us working on it because it keeps the issue alive in our minds. That may be a bit glib but it helps me deal with the frustration).I arrived at the Pre-Tribulation Rapture position less from my own ability to sort through the relevant scripturas than from being persuaded by listening to arguments for it that it is the one that hangs together best, even if some parts nevertheless seem to remain dangling.Robert Jeffress' presentation on Jan Markell's "Understanding the Times radio," that I linked when I joined this thread in Message 43, did a good job of saying why he supports this position, in those four points he made that I listed in Message 47.Scripture does promise believers that if we are in Christ there is no condemnation we have to face, that's in Romans 8:1; in Revelation 3:10 the Church at Philadelphia is told that since they have kept Jesus' word of His patience they will be kept from the "hour of trial that is to come upon the whole Earth." As Jaywill points out early in the thread that implies conditionality, IF we keep the word of Jesus' patience THEN we will be kept from that trial. The trial to come upon the whole Earthy is certainly the Great Tribulation. It is also The Day of the Lord that has been promised from way back in the Old Testament, when He comes to judge the entire world. In the Book of Daniel we learn that this will be a period of seven years at the very end. So the promise to the Church of Philadelphia, which includes all believers of course, is that we will escape it if we are faithful. That means that it is possible that some Christians will not be kept from it and have to go through it, but that's as far as I'll go with Jaywill's view because he splits things up further than that. I think if any of us go through it then we'll just go through it to the end, the Rapture isn't going to occur in stages. In a sense the second coming of Jesus can be said to occur in stages if the Rapture occurs at the beginning of the Tribulation, when He comes to get us or call us, when only believers see Him, and then He comes again in full view of the entire world seven years later.So a strong argument in favor of the Pre Trib Rapture is the promise that believers are free of God's wrath. Another strong argument is that the Church is not mentioned at all from Revelation 6 through 18. The Church is addressed by Christ in the form of the Seven Churches of Asia in the first three chapters, then is seen in heaven in Chapters 4 and 5, but when the judgments begin to be described we are in another frame of reference, the Church is not there and we are hearing about a different set of believers, a different set of martyrs we are hearing about the Jews. It all has a very Old Testament feel to it as we find symbolism of the kind we encounter in the Book of Daniel, similar references to strange animals that represent empires, the Roman Empire in particular, and the religion that dominates that Empire, the Roman Church. The judgments all play out without one reference to the Church. The last we saw of the Church was in heaven while the Lamb of God opened the scroll with the seven seals that releases the judgments onto the Earth. The next time we see the Church is in Revelation 19 when Jesus returns with a multitude following Him.I always had a problem with the scripture about how Jesus will "descend with a shout" which is interpreted to refer to the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. I still have a problem with it but I've come to accept it because the overall scenario is the best fit. It's hard to see how a shout wouldn't be heard by everybody but if it refers to the Rapture it can only be heard by believers. He shouts and believers ridse to meet Him. There's no way I can argue it beyond saying that it fits into the overall scenario. But in any case His coming with a shout is not the same description as His coming on a white horse with a multitude following Him, or coming to stand on the Mount of Olives, so we have two different scenarios anyway. One we refer to the Rapture, the other to the final coming of Christ. Yes, all this is still open to dispute, but I'm not up to disputing it. It makes sense to me that believers have been promised that we will be spared God's wrath, and that is what the Great Tribulation is, and that is enough explanation for being removed from Earth before it happens. We are also taught of course that Jesus took God's wrath for our sins. He paid the price so that we are now spared. Not that we won't have all kinds of troubles on this Earth, persecutions provoked by Satan in particular, but the Great Tribulation is God's wrath and we are to be spared that.So certainly all the parts of the Pre-Trib scemario aren't riveted together so tightly that they aren't subject to dispute, all I'm saying is that none of the other scenarios hold together even this well and this one has the most to recommend it.So I accept this scenario, also accept the Reformers' arguments for the identity of the Antichrist as the papacy of the RCC, and am alert to signs that identify this current Pope as THE Antichrist of the end times. As I've described them I think they hold together very well, but so far the responses to my posts on the subject just ignore or dismiss all that and take up tangential topics instead.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I feel obliged to keep repeating my argument, and I'd appreciate it if you'd repeat yours, showing its relevance to whatever post you are answering. It's just too hard to figure out how you are viewing the qupted scriptures if you don't make a more concerted case for them in the relevant context. Thanks.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The whole reason I wrote my previous post was to say that I don't feel able to sort all these things out, so I do my best to get a feel for the different scenarios and then trust the teachers who argue for the one that makes the most sense to me, and that's the Pre Trib Rapture. But as I said some of the scriptures remain difficult to incorporate, or for me to do that in any case.The passage you refer to IS interpreted to refer to the Pre Trib Rapture, and I'm not in any position to dispute it. You are free to make of it what you will but yes I do deny that it refers to the final return of Christ. This can be interpreted as some do as the Church's rising to meet the Lord in the air in order to escort Him to earth, the way the people would run out to meet a King returning from a journey and escort him into the city. That is the post Trib Rapture theory. OR it can be interpreted as referring to our meeting Him in the air to be taken to heaven to be with Him for seven years before He returns to Earth with all of us following Him, which is the Pre Trib interpretation. I've given my reasons for preferring this view.You did not quote Rev 3:11 so I have to end this post to go look it up.

Well, they WERE to hold out until His return even though He didn't return in their time. They were to stay faithful in any case although they died before He returned. There are many prophecies in scripture that people expected to be fulfilled in their time but weren't. They get to see their fulfillement much later long after their own death. So each generation reads those passages as pertaining to themselves. Eventually there will be a generation in which it is fulfilled during our lives.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

As I say in the previous post you can interpret the Thessalonians passage to refer to the final return of Christ, but the Pre Trib people interpret it to refer to the Rapture of the Church seven years before the final return of Christ.Mark 13 does refer to the final return of Christ in any case, which does follow the Tribulation. In the Pre Trib scenario the saints being gathered would be those who died during the Tribulation, the Church being with Christ during that period. "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years wer finished." These are not believers. These are the unbelievers who don't awaken until after the millennium to face the final Judgment and be cast into the Lake of Fire. That is are the second death. The believers are those who are judged before the Millennium and reign with Christ through the millennium. But you are the one who made the mistake of calling them "Christians" who are resurrected AFTER the millennium, but they are the unbeleivers, not Christians. jeffress doesn't address the judgments or the final resurrection in any case, he's only addressing the timing of the Rapture and the Tribulation.There are apparently two separate sets of believers, and that has bothered me a great deal, but that's what the Pre Trib scenario implies. The Church is the Bride of Christ, and we inhabit a gap in the timing of events that starts at the end of the Book of Daniel and ends at the Rapture, when Daniel's timing picks up again. Christians are believers in Christ who come to faith during the two millennia since Christ. Daniel's timing of the Seventy Weeks does not include us. It stops with the crucifixion of Christ after 69 Weeks and resumes the Seventieth Week at the beginning of the Tribulation, which is encompassed in that Seventieth Week. The Tribulation, or the Seventieth Week of Daniel, begins with the Rapture, which is the point at which the Church is removed from Earth. Then Daniel's timing resumes with the Seventieth Week and that's where we get the resumption of the Old Testament imagery as the judgments of God unfold as described in the Book of Revelation. The timing is really very convincing I think but it took me quite a while to accept it as at first it doesn't make sense, and what especially didn't make sense to me is the idea of two separate bodies of believers. But it's because of the timing factor, how it all so neatly fits into the Seventy Weeks of Daniel as it was abruptly ended after the 69 weeks, with a future week yet to come, that I now accept it. The Church is the Bride of Christ, but those saved in the Tribulation are what Paul refers to as "all Israel" but also a great multitude of Gentiles with them as well. They are the muoltitude depicted in Revelation 7. The Church is already in heaven with Christ, this is another group of believers.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Remember, at the Rapture, "the dead in Christ rise first," and that includes members of the Church at Philadelphia.

Why? Relying on the teachers God gave us is the right thing to do since we aren't all gifted at Biblical interpretation. I did my best to sort through the arguments well enough to settle on the one most persuasive to me, and there's nothing wrong with that. If something clearer comes along I hope I will be alert to it. Sorry, you lost me completely. I thought the point was to show where the Rapture of the Church fits in, the rising to meet Christ in the air. Because other parts of scripture require it. The only motivation I'm aware of is the effort to put it all together as a whole that hangs together, not to "deny" anything unless it doesn't hang together with the main scriptural indications. I never even heard of Robert Jeffress before this radio presentation, but I thought his presentation was a lot more coherent than many I've heard on this subject, and I especially appreciate his list of four reasons why he supports the Pre Trib scenario, which he gives at the very end of the podcast. So in my experience his argument is very strong, not at all weak.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So you don't believe in the resurrection at all. Interesting.

Well, oh Tangled One, all I can say is that maybe if you slowed down and stopped jumping to conclusions and tried to think through how it all hangs together quite nicely as I believe I have shown, it might start to make some sense to you.

Well, of course, if the preponderance of scripture is adding up to that interpretation, then other verses that are more ambiguous are then interpreted to support it. Of course. What else would one do? If you don't do that you will never have a whole picture at all. Since you don't quote enough to remind me of the context I don't know what you are referring to, but "the rest of the dead" that rise after the Millennium are unbelievers.I see you are keeping up this line to the end without giving any further references to help me out so I have nothing to add.And yes I remember your interpretation of Daniel and it's ridiculous.

1) I've never "admitted" that Biblical prophecies of the end times have ever failed. There have been many efforts to pin them to a particular time frame that have failed but that's our fault for getting carried away with date setting when Jesus told us not to. The prophecies themselves are still there and await the right time.2) Not being able to work it all out, as I explained, is due to the difficulty in the Biblical picture. I think it is purposely not clear so that we'll work at it over and over but that it will become clearer the closer we get to the time. Meanwhile we'll have discovered a lot about what the scripture means. Those who are really going to need to study and understand the prophecies of scripture are the ones who have to go through the Tribulation after the Church has been removed from the planet. They are going to need to know what is to happen next and how long it will be until Jesus returns. There should be an intense scramble to understand all that, everybody poring over the scriptures, in particular the Book of Revelation. A few million Jews will probably be engaged in that effort. At least those 144,000 of Chapter 7.3) But what I think really IS clear is what I said about who the Antichrist is way back when I joined the thread in Message 43. I already said I'm trusting others about the pre-Tribulation timing of the Rapture based on my attempts to sort through the scriptures and encountering many things I'm unable to reconcile myself. But I've grown into this particular interpretation, resolved some of the unreconcilable issues and trust the God-appointed teachers to do the rest. We know the Rapture is to occur, we're just trying to find out how close it is, and of course it's looking closer and closer. There is no basis for betting on the timing of the Rapture and I never even got close to betting on it even when I was most convinced of the Rosh Hashanah date a while back. I was convinced based on some calculations someone had done, and let myself get into it because I figure it will become clearer as we get closer. But apparently not THAT clear. I'm back to expecting it to come suddenly as a surprise to everybody. The best we can do is recognize that we are in the "season" in which it is likely to occur. So, no bets.I don't think I'd even bet on the identity of the Antichrist although I think the signs are very clear in that case. Best we can do with all the elements of prophecy is learn what they say and wait for them to happen.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm "expecting" it any minute but also know I could be wrong and it could be far enough in the future that I'll die before it happens. A season could be a hundred years or so, but we are all feeling that it's very close and expecting it any minute.As I say in Message 47, if Pope Francis IS the final Antichrist, and I argue the signs for that possibility there and in Message 43, since he's so old the Tribulation must be right around the corner. What that means who knows. Within ten years? Since I think he'll be possessed by Satan himself, he could even die and then "come back to life" through Satan's possession of his body.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I try to spell out in Message 15 on the thread Christianity and the End Times how the Seventy Weeks of Daniel ("weeks, or sevens, of years" that means) gets split into Sixty Nine weeks (69 x 7 years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem after the Babylonian destruction, to the coming of Messiah) that get fulfilled by the coming of Christ, followed by a long gap theologians call the Church Age, before the final Seventieth Week is fulfilled.That whole thread is where you and I hash out the Daniel prophecies. In this thread I'm accepting the interpretation that the Seventieth Week is when the Great Tribulation takes place, which is inaugurated by the Rapture or the removal of the Church from the Earth into heaven. Since the Church is in a "gap" between the events described in Daniel it is not part of the scenario he spells out, so the Church is removed and then his prophecy resumes with the Great Tribulation.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You make a lot of assertions without any evidence to support them so I can't answer.

You seem to have copied out Jeffress' first reason he believes in the Pre Trib Rapture twice and mistaken the second for his second.The actual four he gave are So the second point which you mistook for a repeat of the first point, is really the fact that the Church is not mentioned at all between Revelation 6 and 18, which fits with the idea that the Church Age is a long gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of the prophecy of Daniel. This IS a good reason to believe in the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. As are the other reasons he gives, especially the promise to the Church of Philadelphia to save them from the great trial to come upon the earth if they keep His word, and the fact given in Romans 8:1 that believers are now not under condemnation because Christ took God's wrath upon Himself that we deserved.As for the first reason Jeffress gives It is not exactly "assumed" that the multitudes do not include the Church. It has been concluded from other scriptural references that the Church has been taken off the earth before these events and is not going to go through the Tribulation. I think the evidence that the Tribulation was intended to convert is in the existence of that multitude itself in the Book of Revelation, which we understand to be a different group from the Church because of the other scripture references that show the Rapture of the Church before the events of the Tribulation. The other references include the understanding of Daniel's seventy weeks as split between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks, between which is the Church Age. I may be missing something but I think you are right that putting that one first is an assumption at that point because it rests on the evidence of the other reasons he gives. But I may be missing something.