There are two sets of definitions used in this topic already:
I.
rapture - the raising of the dead and the living for transport to heaven
resurrection - the raising of the dead and the living
for living on earth
(note that 'raising the living for living' is rather moot, so this
statement generally reads: 'the raising of the dead for living on earth'.)
Note that these definitions presuppose the pretribulation rapture
being different from the postribulation resurrection. So if you
use this set of definitions, you must believe in the pretribulation
rapture
II.
rapture - the 'falling away' from the earth of the living who are given
glorified bodies
resurrection - the raising of the dead who are given glorified bodies
(note that the prototype resurrections restore bodies to the
raised for living on earth: Lasuras and Jarid's Daughter)
Consider the long post by Jo$h on page 4 at
December 16, 2005 07:09 PM EST :
There seem to be two types of entries:
1. The feeling that the time the Lord comes (in the rapture)
is going to be soon.
2. A specific nearby date is projected
I've seen a third class of dates for the pretribulation rapture:
a far off date. This is just pure error.
Type 1 projects are always correct and always scriptural.
Since the Day of Pentacost, true Christians have always considered
the Return of the Lord nearby. Once an angostic asked me, how
long will you wait? Well, a year doesn't seem to long, but
with God 1 day is as a 1,000 years. So I don't suppose it would
be to long to wait 365,000 years before I start reporting
that Jesus might NOT come back? Anway, we now stand at the
end of the second day of God since Jesus left promising a
soon return. ('I return quickly' means 'soon, and very soon').
Type two projects are always wrong. In Feb 1988 I was handed
a booklet "88 reasons Jesus will return in 1988". I put it
on my reading schedule for Janualry 1989. In that book after
a nuclear holocaust destroying all of the US and half of Russian,
the pretribualtion rapture was masked by the nulear blasts.
To bad the guy didn't know that in 1984 the continent of Africa
surpassed the continent of North America in the number of
Christians living there

So if a major Nuclear war masks
the pretirbulation rapture, include sub-Saharian* Africa getting zapped .
*note 'sub_saharian' Africa means all of Africa south of the
Sahara Desert. In the Sahara and north of the Sahara is mostly
Muslim countries.
Anyway, I figured I was safe for Sept 1988 the Lord not returing
at the pretribulation rapture.
What really irks me is that the date is predicted for the
postrib coming of Jesus when He destroyes the Antichrist and
his words and his people and has a resurrection of the
trib age, Jewish, saints. For one thing, I think the pretribulation
rapture of the largely gentile (some Messianic Jews) elect saints
is the 70th week of Daniel - a period of 7 years before the
postribualtion Coming of Jesus to defeat all His enemies.
So when I see such a date prejected for the Second Coming of Jesus,
i back the calendar up 7 years and see if the pretibulation rapture
is to come off.
During the First Persian Gulf War of President Daddy Bush,
Edgar C. Whisenant of Arkansas
predicted that the Second Comming even would be in Sept 2000
at Roshanna that year, being like 20-22 Sept 2000.
Several people in the SUDDAM HUSAIN IS ANTICHRIST web predicted
that date.
So i back my calendar back to Sept 1993. Well lo and behold,
right about 21 Sept 1993 the Palistini Arafat and the whoever
was the leader of Israel at the time - there they are with President
Bill 666 Clinton: signing a peace treaty for the safety and
future of Jerusalem. Which is nice in light of Daniel 9:27.
But there was no nearly rapture of the saints to go with it.
So I knew we were safe from a post-tribulation resurrection until
after 2000.
BTW, the excessively long list is found numerous places on
the interenet where folks like to poo-poo the pretribulation rapture
or even the rapture. But like 15 years ago the same list was
(of course the last 15 yeras weren't there) found only on a few
select Missionary Athiest sites. On the Athiest sites it was
used as a stick to beat down Christians of all sorts. "If this
is an example of 'Christian' then all Christians are no good"
is what they mean.