Biblical Support for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

Does it not bother you at all that people have been saying that for millennia? For you guys the end of the world has always been nigh. You see signs everywhere you look, it's completely bonkers. [/qs]You exaggerate but no it doesn't bother me at all because any sense of the world changing for the worse could cause Christians to think such thoughts. It keeps the issues alive. Eventually it has to happen. I certainly don't "see signs everywhere," but when I see them they matter a lot. The way the number 666 can be derived from a title of the Pope, otherwise known as the Bishop of Rome, written in Latin whose traditionally assigned numerals add up to that number was an exciting discovery. Of course. And by the way it was my nephew who called me up one day back in the nineties to tell me about it. I couldn't get any of my Christian friends to take it seriously but that didn't prevent me from seeing how amazingly telling it is. And then when Pope Francis was elected I forget where I got the information about the timing and the lightning and the seagull perched on the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, but all that too certainly has some kind of significance. That anyone should be able to see in my opinion. These are signs I myself have seen that so far I haven't found anyone else recognizing. I'm not bragging, I wish others would see them too. And maybe it will be nonChristians who get it first.Luther didn't have any such signs as far as I know, he understood the Pope to be Antichrist from scripture that described the characteristics of the Antichrist he recognized as fitting the Pope, or the papacy in general. And Luther said nothing about the Rapture as far as I know, certainly not a Pre-Tribulation Rapture. I think all that may be fairly recent but I'm not up on the history of it.And even the Christian leaders like Jeffress, and Jan Markell whose ministry is all about the end times, don't see the Pope as the Antichrist. This is my own thing, though I hope there are some others out there somewhere who agree with me about it. Cuz if it's the Pope it's a big waste of time to be looking for somebody else. I believe the Bible, that's all. Batshit crazy would mean I'm having my own personal hallucinations or at least my own personal ideas about it but in fact I'm basing it all on the Bible's references to the fallen Archangel Satan, and to the demons that possess people described in the New Testament. It was the thread Buzsaw started a few years ago about some people actually being possessed by demons althought they were dead, the demon giving them "life," (see Message 1) that got me thinking maybe the Antichrist could actually be a dead man animated entirely by Satan. Some writers say the Antichirst will be possessed by Satan himself, but I put all this together and thought maybe he could be possessing a dead man. That's because Pope Francis is so old it's hard to imagine him surviving much longer, let alone the seven years of the Great Tribulation.And again, taking off from the signs that were attached to Francis' election as Pope, I tentatively conclude that he is very likely to be the very last Pope who would in fact be THE Antichrist. His deviations from Christian theology that go even further than the deviations of previous Popes seem to qualify him for the job apart from those signs.All this only matters because I feel the Lord nudging me to give information that might be of help to those going through the Tribulation. I may have little personal love for anyone here but the Lord seems to care about you all and I want to obey Him.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I wanted to find a source that spells out the scriptures used to arrive at the Pre Tribulation Rapture and maybe I'll yet find that, but all I found this time was something very similar to Jeffress' list of reasons he believes in this interpretation. I don't know anything about this source, but it was the only one I found that had such a list and they are good reasons. The third reason given is very important, about the absence of the Church during the Tribulation events but the focus here is on Israel:

No idea where you get the idea that the Rapture happens during the judgment. It's PRE-Tribution, it inaugurates the judgment.There are no problems that I know of. It's one of the points Jeffress also makes, but what I like about this source is that he adds more scripture. Both 1 Thessalonians 5:9 and Romans 5:9 say that Christians are not appointed to wrath but to salvation through Christ, the point being that Jesus Christ took God's wrath FOR us. It's God's wrath we are saved from, not earthly or human-caused tribulations like the Civil War. Christians have to go through a lot of those. Sure it's all God's judgment in a sense, as all calamities are, but the Great Tribulation is largely destruction of the natural world by "natural" causes -- and sometimes supernatural -- not manmade. Maybe the best comparison is the Flood of Noah. No idea what you are talking about.Checkd the list and I guess you think it's saying only the Church of Philadelphia is being protected? But all the seven churches are understood to represent all Christians. Guess I missed it. But this source elaborates the situation of the Jews. It's always understood to mean praying to be worthy to escape them completely. "Escape" I the word used. I'm going to have to go reread those reasons since you don't quote them because I have no idea what you are talking about. I have to post this first because otherwise the way my computer has been working I'll lose what I"ve written.Looks to me like he's only referring to the judgments of the saints during the Great Tribulation, since the White Throne Judgment isn't going to occur until the end of the Millennium when everybody else is judged.Otherwise I agree, I don't know why he quotes a passage about the dead, saints or not, since yes the context is the Rapture which includes many living, and it all happens while the Great Tribulation is happening on the Earth.=====================================REASON #1: Not Appointed to Wrath
The primary proof of a pre-Tribulation rapture, given by the experts, is this: we are raptured before the Tribulation begins because the Church is not appointed to wrath. Coincidentally, that truth is revealed in Chapter 5 verse 9 of TWO separate books of the Bible: Romans 5:9 and 1 Thess. 5:9. Please look these verses up for yourself, to lock them into your thinking.
REASON #2: Kept From the Hour of Trial
Jesus Himself told the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos that we (the Philadelphia/faithful Church) will be kept from the hour of trial. Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth (Rev. 3:10). Notice also that the world is being tested. Furthermore, throughout the Book of Revelation the term earth dwellers always refers to unsaved people.
REASON #3: God and the Jews
The seven year Tribulation is specifically a time for God to work with the Jews. Both the Angel Gabriel and the Apostle Paul make that point. Let’s listen first to Gabriel, who is God’s chief messenger angel and speaks for God Himself (remember as we read that the Tribulation is called Daniel’s seventieth week). Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city (Daniel 9:24)
The Church was NOT present during the first 69 weeks of Gabriel’s prophecy, and it will not be here during Daniel’s 70th week either. Gabriel specifically said it was a time frame for God to work with Daniel’s people (the Jews) and his holy city (Jerusalem).
Next, let’s listen to the great Apostle Paul. Remember, we are making the point that scripture teaches the 70th week is a time for God to deal with the Jews. blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25)
Here we see God’s plan. The final gentile is won to the Lord after we are caught away. After we disappear the blinders come off of eyes of the Jewish people.
I personally believe we are in the time of Israel’s jealousy right now. The Christians love the Jews, support them, and defend them, even though the Jews have no deep love for us. But their jealousy turns to anger when we are caught away. They will be angry that we have left them without friends on the earth. This is explained in Deuteronomy and Romans. Let’s read it in Romans 10:19: I will provoke you [the Jews] to jealousy by those who are not a nation [the Church]. I will move you to anger by a foolish nation [the Church].
The inevitable result is God’s chosen people will be forced to turn back to Him, as they will have no friends left after we are gone. We see that in the Book of Hosea. The last line in Hosea 5 says: In their affliction [Tribulation, indignation] they will earnestly seek Me.
It is unfortunate that it takes a series of catastrophic events to bring them to the Lord as a nation. Mike Bickle explains the situation like this: God loves the Jews, but the Jews don’t love Him.
REASON #4: Escape Doctrine
The rapture is our escape doctrine. Some scoffers have used that term derisively. Never do that. This escape doctrine is not to be ridiculed, since it was coined by the Lord Himself words in red, in Luke 21:36: Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man..
REASON #5: We Receive Our Reward
Revelation 11 makes it quite clear that we receive our reward while the earth is being judged. They are simultaneous events. Revelation 11:18 declares:
The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come,
And the time of the dead [saints], that they should be judged,
And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints [that’s us],
And those who fear Your name, small and great,
And should destroy [concurrently] those who destroy the earth.
After we receive our rewards, we return to the earth with the Lord. It is literally a new day. The 7th one thousand year day we call the Millennium. The Jews call it the long awaited Kingdom Age.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The natural reading of Luke 21-36 is ESCAPE, not live through. "Escape" is the word used.You don't givew the context of the Seventh Trumpet comment but I assume you think you are answering the "last trump" statement about the Rapture, and I was just about to post something about that since it's understood not to refer to the Seventh Trumpet of Revelation but the last trumpet sounded at the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah

This statement has often confused me, and others too I think, because we immediately think of the Seventh Trumpet in the Book of Revelation, which occurs long after the Rapture has occurred, near the end of the Great Tribulation while the Church is still in heaven with Jesus.If that is the correct reading then we would have to give up the Pre-Tribulation Rapture altogether and look for another interpretation of the timing of the Rapture.But this is resolved if we understand "the last trump" to refer to the last trumpet sounded during the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Jewish New Year.That holiday seems like a great choice for the timing of the Rapture for many reasons, which is why I got so enamored of that date a couple years ago as when it was to happen. There were other signs connected with it that year too.But it's still a good time for the Rapture. Major events on God's calendar happen on the Jewish Holidays. Jesus was crucified on Passover, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurred at Pentecost. Rosh Hashanah is the next holiday in order, and it involves trumpets. It's also a celebration of a new beginning, the start of a new year, and is also a celebration of the creation. The Church is called "a new Creation," and is in fact to be the foundation for God's promise to renew the entire Creation as part of the plan of Redemption.I know we are not to know the day or time of Jesus' return, and even identifying Rosh Hashanah is date-setting, but there it is, the best possible time for it to happen. The Rapture would after all be a major event on God's calendar, and Rosh Hashanah is the next Jewish Holiday on the divine calendar. Hard to avoid the connection. But of course we don't know which year. This year it comes on September 18. No harm in being ready just in case of course.And if God brings it about on some other completely unexpected day then we'll be as surprised as we're supposed to be and maybe it will be the beginning of a completely new divine calendar.The other significant date that occurred to me is Tisha B'Av but it commemorates tragedies in the history of the Jews which doesn't seem quite appropriate. It's also not given in scripture as the Jewish High Holy Days are, it's just something that's been observed over time to be the date on which tragedies occur, such as the destruction of both temples.So I add this ...just because.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hard to avoid a worldwide catastrophe by running to the mountains.

Luke 21 is Luke's version of what is known as the Olivet Discourse, which is given in Matthew and Mark as well. This is where Jesus teaches the disciples about the very last days. It starts out with a prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD and then the scene shifts to the end times, when calamity is to come upon the whole world. This is understood to refer to the Day of the Lord or the Great Tribulation we are talking about in this thread, and Luke 21:36 tells us to pray to to be worthy to escape that worldwide calamity. And those who teach the Pre-Tribulation Rapture take it to mean we want to be worthy to be in the rapture before the Tribulation begins.The switch occurs in the second half of Luke 21:24 about the "times of the Gentiles," how Jerusalem will be given over to the Gentiles until "the times of the Gentiles are finished." And the passage goes on to describe signs in the heavens and the coming of the Son of Man. We are clearly in a time long future to the calamity of 70AD when escape can't be a matter of fleeing to the mountains because the entire world is to be in tribulation.:Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, GDR, I don't think I'm up to taking on N T Wright except to say that I don't get how he decides that a concept that sounds as physically literal as the Rapture descriptions do is really metaphorical. I cringe from the thought of getting into that kind of semantic argument here for the umpteenth time. The English language just doesn't support turning such a concept into a metaphor so I have to suppose he's winging it, with little or no justification, simply because he doesn't have the faith to believe in such a literal Rapture. And that's all I want to say at the moment.The only way I can answer PaulK is to say that you can't just read a passage of such complex prophecy as Luke 21 as if it's chronological, it has to be read in the context of all the other passages on the same subject, and although Luke 21 leaps to the context of the Second Coming that doesn't rule out a Pre-Tribulation Rapture seven years prior because the Rapture is in essence part of the Second Coming: once it occurs you know the Second Coming is seven years future.The Tribulation is described in many different places that make it clear it's the Day of the Lord that has been prophesied throughout the Old Testament to be a period of God's wrath on the earth no one will be able to withstand. And it certainly does precede the Second Coming so there's nothing out of order abourt that, then when in 21:36 we are admonished to pray that we will be worthy to escape the outpouring of wrath, it's talking about escaping it before it happens of course, and since it's a worldwide tribulation escape by being taken to heaven is a strong possibility.That possibility is confirmed by other scriptures. Few Bible verses or even whole passages stand alone, and those from which the Pre Trib Rapture is deduced are scattered and often ambiguous. It takes more study than I'm up to and when I've tried I quickly get bogged down in the ambiguities and give up. Through most of my studies I held to the idea that the Rapture, which is indisputably described in the Bible as a real event, would happen at the time of Jesus' Second Coming. Understanding why that interpretation doesn't hold together scripturally really does take quite a bit of study of all the Biblical references in relation to each other.It's taken some time to become familiar with the arguments for the Pre Trib Rapture by God's preachers and teachers who have worked through those ambiguities and do a good job of making the case; and there are many who argue for it who are independent of each other and yet come to the same conclusion using the same Biblical references, which adds to its credibility.I've been listening lately to John MacArthur's preachings on the subject, and he makes use of the same scriptures Jeffress and others do, which just keeps piling on the evidence for it. He also organizes the material in a way that's easier for me to grasp, unless that's just because by now it's becoming familiar enough to me that I don't have to struggle as much to get the logic of it. And he's succinct. I'll post a video or two of his though it may be too much for people to watch through. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Here's John MacArrhur on the Pre Tribulation Rapture. Scriptures he refers to as defining the concept are
1 Thessalonians 4,
1 Corinthians 15
and John 14.
These are whole chapters so it may be too much to copy out.AbE: I see PaulK wants me to write out his arguments. I'll try to do that but I want to get at least one other video first.
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Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, that is where Jesus is talking about the coming destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, from which He tells them to flee to the mountains. The scene doesn't change until verse 24 where the final Tribulation or Day of the Lord is foreshadowed. Luke 21 is just one account of the Olivet Disourse where Jesus talks about both the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and uses that as a model to jump to the Day of the Lord or the final Tribulation coming on the entire Earth. The other accounts are in Mark 13 and Matthew 24-25. They are all to be read together to get a fuller picture.The fuller talk of which the one I posted is just a part is titled "The Final Generation" in which MacArthur discussed Mark 13 (and says "this generation" clearly refers to the generation which will be alive at the time of the events Jesus prophesies.) The whole talk is in two parts, about one hour each so I'm sure it's too much to listen to, but I'll post the first hour and hope I'll be able to come back and give at least an outline of the points he is making.
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Near the beginning of this talk MacArthur says that he''s been preaching for over fifty years on this topic and through all his studies of the scriptures he's only continued to confirm his understanding of the Pre Trib Rapture. Other topics may be seen differently by continuing to study them over time, and certainly my own study of this topic keeps changing for that matter, but he is a much better reader of scripture than I am and the evidence for the Pre Tribulation Rapture continues to be compelling, and he lays it out compellingly as a result.Oh, yes of course, PaulK, you know much better than John MacArthur what the Bible says. Of course. Nevertheless he does represent the many preachers and theologians who argue the Pre Trib Rapture from the scriptures, so I guess the reader can decide which of you makes the more persuasive case.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, this is the situation I mentioned above somewhere that I've found to be problematic though part of the Pre Trib teaching, that there are two different sets of believers. The Church is raptured and is in heaven during all the events of the Tribulation. During the Tribulation many others are converted but they are a different group, they are not the Church. A third of Israel will be among them, and they will be the "great multitude" of Revelation 7.I am still not at all clear how we are to think of them. It took me a long time to accept the idea that there are two separate groups of believers at all, but even now that I accept it I feel a need to know a lot more about this second group. In any case they aren't the Church, they are the martyrs of the Great Tribulation and they have a separate judgment from the Church.The Church's judgment is called the Bema Seat and it's for rewarding the Christians according to their deeds. The Church is spared judgment by God's wrath because Jesus died for us, so our judgment is what our deeds have earned us, which will be different for each individual. The other judgment is the Great White Throne Judgment, and although I know the unbelievers are sent to the Lake of Fire from there I am not at all clear about the believers of the Tribulation except that they are invited to inherit the Kingdom of God. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I would suggest that you refrain from commenting on MacArthur's reading of the generation that will be alive at the time of the events prophesied before hearing his argumemts. He's certainly heard yours. Ad nauseam I would suppose.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You give no hint of having heard MacArthur on the subject.

I'm going with the reputable exegetes over you, my dear PK. As I said early on I've had to struggle to understand as much as I do, and your contradictions are not compelling in the slightest. Everybody at EvC thinks they know what the Bible says in so many direct words. Well that is one of the biggest delusions anybody has about the Bible.Anyway I'm now trying to get a grip on the Millennium. See you later.

Listening to John MacArthur on the Millennial Kingdom. Fascinating. Want to hear more after this.The martyrs you mention join with the Church Christians and the Old Testament saints to have some kind of ruling role in the Kingdom (about 10:00). Have to keep listening to find out what. Anyway, it's only the unbelievers who have to wait until the end of the Millennium to be judged.
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.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.