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

While I see your point, I think it's much more likely that He means "you" in the plural sense, but only to His original audience. All believers from Pentecost onward are immersed in the Holy Spirit. This is spoken in the singular, but applies to each believer. Same thing when Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again, and we know that all of us must be born again. "You" is used in the singular sense, and each of us can apply it in the singular. Everyone from the 1st century onward must be born again.

However, in the case of "you will see", He tells the disciples that they will see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, the abomination of desolation, etc. - which they did. In the "futurist" view, it's still "singular because only the generation alive when Jesus comes again sees these things. It's still the same thing, but the time frame is moved.

 

That's not what I asked. I was asking about the Olivet Discourse, not 1 Thess.

Agreed. Those were visions to individuals. not a coming to all believers or the world.

That's my point. The word is "church" not used anywhere in Revelation after Rev. ch. 3. So for you to say the church is in Rev. 4-22, you have to define it. So far you seem to think a church is just a bunch of believers, not even necessarily gathered together.

My point was not about evangelistic crusades per se, but cooperative mass evangelism such as Billy Graham did. In that model of evangelistic crusade, many churches cooperated. It was a meeting of believers, but not a church. No one ever called it a church, and no model of ecclesiology considers such a meeting to be a church, though it was a meeting of believers.

In a proper ecclesiology, not to mention the Greek lexical meaning, a church is not simply a meeting of believers.

How are any of these a church? What in the world do you think a local church is? Prove to me that any of these passages mean a church--perhaps you should define a church first.

None of these passages mention the activities of a local church in the NT: meeting for encouragement (Heb. 10:25), leaders serving the believers (Eph. 4:11), baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Great Commission, meeting on the Lord's Day to honor the resurrection, etc.

 

Not a silly view at all. I just take a different view. Anyway, I will leave this thread for the pre-trib folks. You have been most gracious. May God bless you and yours in all your endeavors.

 

John of Japan,


HelloJOJ,

Seven individual local assemblies are addressed in ch2-3. They were there for John to address them. The Actual word church you note is not mentioned in most of the book,okay.
Individual Kingdom members in an unassembled condition are dying for the Lord.

Now according to your own post...the church is not mentioned to have gone anywhere.

I have seen some people try and say for example that Rev4:1 indicates a rapture before the last day.; that is not taught here as "the church" is not mentioned, only John individually is mentioned.
4 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

The church was on earth and nowhere is revelation is the church mentioned going anywhere.

 

I held to this viewpoint for most of my saved lifetime, and it only when got into Covenant theology from a reformed Baptist perspective did it make more sense that the historical premil position , or even mid trib position, seemed to be better supported!

 

It has been so long, brother, I don't remember if the style was good. The content certainly isn't. But often books one disagrees with still prompts us to study.

 

With respect,
Let's see what Jesus said ( not what robycop3 said ) in the passage in question:

" Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." ( Matthew 24:29-31 )

Here it is, in sequence, based on Jesus own words:

1) Immediately after the tribulation, the sun is darkened, the moon is darkened, the stars shall fall from Heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
2) Then the sign of the Son of man ( Jesus Christ ) shall appear in Heaven. The tribes of the earth shall mourn, and they shall see Jesus coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory.
3) Then He sends His angels, with the great sound of a trumpet, to gather His elect from the four winds.

So, here we have Christ coming in the clouds with power and great glory, immediately after the tribulation, gathering His elect from every corner of the world and then He does this ( Zechariah 14:4 ).
Mark 13:3-27 echos the same, exact sequence of events as Matthew 24:4-31, only it mentions a few different details.

In Luke 21:5-28, Christ is speaking of still more of the details of His coming that were not revealed in the other passages...
Taking it by itself seems to give one picture, but taking them all together yields a completely different picture, as I see it.
The Gospel accounts are a composite.
They are not meant to be taken separately, but in parallel.

Take everything that is said and combine it, and there it is.
It has nothing to do with anyone wanting Him to say something, it is what He actually said right on the pages.

Christ does not come until immediately after the tribulation.
Christ does not gather His sheep, living or dead, until immediately after the tribulation.
But He does come immediately after the tribulation.




May God bless you.

 

I like that you emphasized the "immediately after the tribulation of those days". That is exactly what I would emphasize. But I am unclear on when you think those days were/will be. The context here - and the other accounts taken compositely - clearly points to the first century.

 

See my comment below. For some reason your quote didn't show up.

 

I don't think you understand my point of disagreement with Robycop. He views the events of Matthew 24 to be actually cosmological and permanent events. But Christ's words are quite in line with the apocalyptical passages in the Old Testament. Hills have melted, stars have fallen, etc Because Christian's are largely unfamiliar with the OT they read these similar NT passages too literally.

 

Most of it is yet to come.

There has been no tribulation such as the world has never seen....yet.
What we're looking for is the world-wide equivalent of what happened in Egypt when God used Moses to plague it.

Can you describe such an event from history?

 

I think you are reading many of them too allegorically...which is where I think you're getting "preterism" from.

 

You are not reading Christ's "This generation shall not pass away until ..." carefully enough. Carefully reconsider this issue. Your futurism is clouding your perception of plain Bible teaching.

 

Tom,

There are far too many passages that I believe you are not taking seriously.
As I see it, you're asking me to believe that Anti-Christ has come, millions have taken the mark, the tribulation has already happened and that Christ is sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem right now.

He isn't.
I'm sorry, but we will have to agree to disagree.

May God bless you.

 

Yes. The Jewish War from the 60's to 73 fits Christ's description, not your's. It was not worldwide. It was through the entire Diaspora, which pretty much was the same extent as the Roman Empire.

As far as the degree of tribulation is concerned we must not just look at physical casualties - though that was high - but at the spiritual loss: Those who were once God's chosen people lost their place, the vineyard given to others who would render their fruit in their season (quoting from memory).

 

I read this after I already posted. OK, fair enough. Take care, brother.