HankD,
The means of "escape from God's wrath" is via the Rapture!
You wrote:
Son of Man "first" reaps the Tares on the last DAY as described in Rev.14!
The Angel calls it "The HOUR to reap" as He reaps the tares on the earth!!
This HOUR occurs when the Lamb rescues 144,000 Jews "from the earth"!!!
The remaining Saints are "kept from the HOUR of Trial facing all mankind"!
God's wrath is limited to an HOUR of Judgment upon all the face of earth!!
The Cup of the wine of His Wrath destroys mountains and cities globally!!!
Why should the DAY and HOUR not refer to a single day and single Hour?
Why do Pre-Tribbers refer to the Hour of Trial as a "7-Year Tribulation"?
How can there be 7 Years in two passages regarding the same context?
Mel
Please read my post again. I am not committed to a "rapture" as you atrribute to "Pre-Tribbers" however it is a possibility. In any case, you are correct and we agree that grace believers will not endure the wrath of God, not for an hour not for a day or whatever time period.
I do believe that our Father in Heaven will provide protection to grace believers during the entire 7 year period of "Jacob's Trouble" either by rapture or whatever choice He deems fit.
That is not to say that we won't have our faith challenged during that time just as the Hebrews fleeing from Pharoah.
But I don't see a "Pre-Trib" rapture as an impossibility.
Why should "kept from the HOUR of Trial facing all mankind" keep God from removing grace believers 7 years beforehand?
I do take note however that the tares of Matthew 13 are "bound" as well as being reaped subsequent to being burned. So there may be some time increment between the gathering, binding and burning.
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
"To burn them" - the infinitive form though aorist is generally timeless and non-committal in terms of temporal relationship to the gathering of the wheat "into my barn".
This is of course speculative theology. We'll have to wait and see to fill in the blanks.
There are elements which I have conviction:
The distinction between the Church and Israel.
The restoration/redemption of Israel.
The visible and bodily return of Jesus Christ to the earth to rule and reign for 1000 years.
The Rapture (we will meet Him "in the air").
The final conflagration - 2 Peter 3.
The eternal state following the Final Conflagration.
This is more of a summary than a detailed list.
HankD