Biblical Support for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

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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.

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If the preponderance of scripture added up to that then yes. But it obviously does not. You don’t have one clear reference to a pre-trib rapture at all.

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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.

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That’s what you say. It isn’t what the Bible says. You know, you could just go back a few posts and read the quote there. It is clear that those raised in the first resurrection are:
them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands - and that’s the complete description.

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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.

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Why would I need further references to explain text I have already given ? You have the reference. You just didn’t read it.

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And yes I remember your interpretation of Daniel and it's ridiculous.

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Because agreeing with the text over your dogma is ridiculous ?I’m not sweeping parts of the prophecy under the carpet. I’m not the one inventing gaps four times as long as the timeline given. That’s all from your side.

Having admitted that all previous prophesies of end times have failed, that you personally can't work it out and that all those that claim to have worked it out can't agree on it - how does that turn into hanging together quite nicely'?And how about that bet?

A lot of my belief is a communion of scripture with my intuition. Critics say I make it up but so many people who take scripture 100% literally (the way they understand it and were taught by others) is no different.That being said, I conclude as of this point in my life that IF A Rapture were to happen at all it would be a Mid Trib Rapture. People will have experienced enough chaos to shake them out of their comfort zone and delusions and will be as strong spiritually as they are gonna get. It makes no sense to be arguing about the pettiness of politics and watching NFL football one minute and then suddenly get taken to Heaven in the next. If a Rature happens at all it will be when people will be praying for one. To be honest, Im not ready to go yet...I tghink Faith is more eager to alleviate the pains and stresses of this life than I am at this point--but what of our charge to help others know God? Not so we can become a giant cult that wants to get the heck outta Dodge but so that the whole belief can be fullfilled that the people and their God are again One.Tangle, ringo, and jar will likely come around if they can trust God at that point. The conservative church does not market Him very well.

They will always fail.
A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign....but signs and wonders will follow those who believe. And to your credit, I think you have at least an interst in all of this. Otherwise, why waste time arguing about it? Not that you believe a word of it. You are honest. If God did turn out to exist, you would likely pay Him far more respect than most Christians now do.

Let’s consider Jeffress four reasons:

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The Tribulation has two purposes, the first is to save a multitude of Jews and Gentiles who resisted salvation up to this point and have to be saved the hard way. The multitude is pictured in Revelation 7 standing before the throne of God waving palm branches. The second purpose is to pour out God's judgments on the unbelieving world, which judgments are depicted in various ways in the Book of Revelation.

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It is simply assumption that the multitude do not include the Church. There is no citation of scripture to argue otherwise, or even support the idea that the Tribulation was intended to convert.This is NOT a reason to believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture.

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The Tribulation has two purposes, the first is to save a multitude of Jews and Gentiles who resisted salvation up to this point and have to be saved the hard way. The multitude is pictured in Revelation 7 standing before the throne of God waving palm branches. The second purpose is to pour out God's judgments on the unbelieving world, which judgments are depicted in various ways in the Book of Revelation.

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This is essentially a repeat of the first. There are possible references to the Church - not only the multitude but those who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. in Revelation 12:17This is not a reason to believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture

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In Revelation 3 the Church at Philadelphia is promised by Christ to be "kept from the trial that is to come upon all the Earth" if they change their ways and become obedient to Him.

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If they do NOT change their ways.
But this is a promise to one Church. None of those given this promise is in any danger of the Tribulation. And surely God has other options than the Rapture.This is not as bad as the first two points. But it is still very weak

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Romans 8:1 says that believers are not appointed to God's wrath, "there is no condemnation" to those who are in Christ. We are to undergo persecution and tribulation in this life, of course, but the Great Tribulation is The Day of the Lord, when He sends judgment on the entire Earth, and that is what believers are saved from. Jesus took the wrath of God on the cross and if we are in Him we are saved from that wrath ourselves. (If God shortens the tribulation before it kills everybody, that doesn't mean He's going to shorten the period of seven years, but I haven't studied this point.)

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Even if God's judgement is not directed at Christians it does not mean that they will be moved out of the way. Even for the Tribulation. Indeed the shortening for the sake of the Elect suggests that God protects believers in that way.So, again, this is just a questionable interpretation.So, out of four supposed reasons you only have two, both very weak, based on a few verses. That is not a preponderance of scripture

Preachy nonsense, just parroting learnt garbage. I'm interested in why people believe such obvious garbage. The garbage itself is irrelevant. Not if he's the evil bastard in your book I wouldn't.

If God did turn out to exist, you would likely pay Him far more respect than most Christians now do. Im taking this line of conversation and redirecting it here.

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.

But you expect it to be in your lifetime? Next 50 years? How long is your 'season'? Another 2,000 years? I'll take any of those and give you odds.

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.

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

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Not in that post.I make two points.The first is a simple matter of logic.The second has already been shown in previous messages.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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You seem to have copied out Jeffress' first reason he believes in the Pre Trib Rapture twice and mistaken the second for his second.

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Only half right. I did mess up the quotes but the answer applies to the correct quote. The second reason is essentially the same as the first.

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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

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It is not a fact, as I pointed out.

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which fits with the idea that the Church Age is a long gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of the prophecy of Daniel.

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Not really - and the idea is pretty crazy anyway.

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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.

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I’ve already shown that those claims are false.

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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.

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In other words you claim that the first reason is good because you have a better reason that wasn’t mentioned. That is obviously pretty silly. Why not use that reason instead?

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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.

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But you haven’t produced any scriptures which show that. Why not? Why rely on weak arguments when you claim you have better ones?

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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.

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Ideas invented to reinterpret inconvenient scripture are not themselves scripture. So obviously you can’t include that.