How did you discover the Bible teaches a pre-trib rapture?

This was one of the confusing points for me, too. I understand dispensationalism, but to say that there is a time period after the resurrection of Christ that, once saved, does not place believers into the Body of Christ, just does not make sense to me.

 

I was always just taught this when I was younger, The more I read the Bible, talked to people, read books, debates (especially Tommy Ice) , etc. I realized it just wasn't there.

 

1Th 1:10

And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

 

I accepted it from pastors I heard teaching it when I was a young believer.
Then about 15 years ago, I started testing all the teachings I'd been subjected to, to Scripture itself.

The more I read, the more I became convinced that Matthew 24 and Mark 13 is the timeline for all things "rapture-related".
The church will be here through the 3.5 years, and will suffer many losses as Satan is given the power to make war with the saints and to overcome them...believers will be put to death for not taking the mark.


Then at the last trump, when first, the dead in Christ shall rise, we which are alive and remain shall meet the Lord in the air.

 

Believers are the church.

 

I liked that book so much I moved on to Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth and The Terminal Generation.

 

Sorry, but partial preterism is as false as full preterism.
Proof: Jesus said, in Matt. 24:29-30 that IMMEDIATELY AFTER the great trib, there'd be a great cosmological disturbance, during which He will return. So, it's obvious that the trib hasn't yet happened.

And I agree with what John of Japan said. The church isn't mentioned in most of the Revelation, and also God said He'd keep His saints out of it.(With the exception of the trib saints & the 144K Israelis, plus the 2 special witnesses.) And Jesus said He'd return at an hour when men think not.

However, I plan to keep living as if He may return any minute, as for each of us, He is no further away than THE NEXT HEARTBEAT...

 

Beware of people who say "Jesus said" and then write what they want Him to have said.

 

Me too. Wasn't there another one besides these three?

 

<land promises>

 

Might have been. I forget. After him I "graduated" to Chuck Missler and then Rosenthal.

And another author who taught that the Antichrist (sic) was a resurrected Hitler!

 

To begin with, I agree wholeheartedly with your last line. Live as if He may return any moment, as His return could truly be any time. No big surprise I'm sure, but I think the "futurist / dispensationalist" view is completely wrong.

In Matthew 24, Jesus did not say there would be great cosmological disturbances. He is using symbolic language, which is pretty common in the Bible. For instance, in Ezekiel 5:5-13, God says "I will do among you the like of which I will never do again". This was regarding destruction of Jerusalem. Here, prophetic language is used to emphasize what the Lord was about to do. As you know, the Jews resorted to cannibalism during the Jewish War (AD 66-70), yet famine was described in the Ezekiel passage. Prophetic language is also used in Isaiah 13:6-16. If taken literally, you would think the sun would have been dark when it rose and other cosmological disturbances. That did not happen. Heavenly bodies often symbolize earthly rulers and events.

The tribulation was not worldwide, but only form Jerusalem. Jesus did return in AD 70 - but this was not the "2nd Coming". This was a "coming" in judgment in the same way that God "came" in judgment upon the nations (including Israel) in the Old Testament. To me, it's obvious that all the events prophesied in the Olivet Discourse happened by AD 70, and most of the events in Revelation have also already happened.

 

Hmm...never heard of those...any good?

 

A simple question with a complicated answer. I started questioning the "End Times / Rapture" view in the early 90s (just after I returned from the Gulf War). However, I wasn't sure what to make of those passages. I ran across Gary DeMar's teachings on YouTube, and they made sense to me. I realized that I had only been taking the word of the "prophecy experts" and reading their view into Scripture to make it fit. I started studying the Bible more critically, comparing Scripture with Scripture, trying to see what the author meant and how his original audience understood it.

A "new" reading of the Olivet Discourse convinced me that this was not the end of the world, but the end of the old covenant system with the destruction of Jerusalem. The "time indicators" were a big revelation for me. Jesus said "when you see", not "when they see". The prophetic passages use language to indicate the events were "near" for their original audiences. I apologize for the lengthy response. My wife says that I can take all day to say what she could in two minutes.

 

Exactly. For many years, I didn't even know there were other views.