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

[JonShaff]

So am I to understand believers who went through the tribulation (Revelation 7:9-14; Revelation 14:13; Revelation 20:4) where not of the church?

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.

 

[prophecy70]

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.

 

[loDebar]

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.

 

[Dave G]

So my question is, did you learn this from the Bible yourself or did you accept the arguments from others first, reading the pre-trib view into Scripture?

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.

 

[Dave G]

Just pointing out there are believers is not evidence the church is there.

Believers are the church.

 

[asterisktom]

Funny you say that...Immediately after i was saved someone gave me "Late great Planet Earth."

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

 

[37818]

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.

Second appearing (Hebrews 9:28). I understand to be after the tribulation (Matthew 24:29-31; Acts of the Apostles 1:9-11; Titus 2:13).

 

[37818]

Are you a historic premillennialist?

Biblical. Dispensational in that there is a distinction between saved Israel in the church and the church. The Apostle Paul makes the distinction (Romans 1:16, "to the Jew first"; Galatians 6:16 "them . . . and . . . the Israel of God.". And the Jerusalem, the bride of Christ consists of Israel and the church, Revelation 21 )

 

[37818]

I don't see how in the world anyone could take that passage as the Rapture. The whole world sees Jesus then, which is not any definition of the Rapture that I know of.

1 Thessalonians 4:17, "shall be caught up." and "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 24:31.

Scofield, as long as you mentioned him, calls the event of that passage "the return of the King in glory," (p. 1034), which refers clearly to the Second Coming in glory after the tribulation, not the Rapture. I could easily give plenty of quotes from other premil scholars. My grandfather, Dr. John R. Rice, called it "Christ's visible, Physical, Literal Return to Reign" in his commentary on Matthew (The King of the Jews, p. 386).

Well, as I understand Hebrews 9:28 and 1 John 3:2, this happens that He shall "appear a second time." His first appearing being that "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." There is no middle appearing, unless you want to count Stephen (Acts of the Apostles 7:56) and Saul (1 Corinthians 15:8). The difference being they saw Christ in His glory. Where as when Christ ascended to be our mediator (Hebrews 9:24), He did so once and for all (Hebrews 9:12) until He makes his second appearing (Hebrews 9:28.) So there is no middle coming.

Sure it does. The Bible is very specific when it teaches church, clearly using the Greek word ekklesia, such as in Matt. 16 & 18, Acts 2, 1 Cor. 12-14, Eph. 4, etc. The Bible always uses the term "church" when teaching about the church. But even if that were not so, tell me how anything in Revelation after Ch. 3 refers to a genuine church in any way? (Maybe you need to define your term "church" for me.) All of the usages of "church" in Ch. 2-3 are genuine local assemblies of Jesus in named cities. Where is that elsewhere in Revelation?

There remains the church God's temple made up of us believers and then there are the local churches. The term translated "church" is not even used in Revelation 21.

As for Revelation 14:13, of course it refers to believers dying for the Lord. I believe many will believe in Christ during the Tribulation and die for Him, but that verse does not mention an earthly assembly which can be called a church. In fact, the believers in that verse are not even gathered together. Even so, if they were, simply believers being together does not equal a church, or every Billy Graham Crusade would have been a church, and no one called them that.

An evangelistic crusade can be regarded as a non regular church meeting.
As for Revelation 14:13, there is also Revelation 7:9-14 and those mentioned in Revelation 20:4.

 

[robycop3]

When I first became a Christian, I simply accepted the "pre-trib rapture as fact because that was what I was taught. My church taught this view, my friends believed it, and popular "prophecy experts" (e.g. Hal Lindsey) promoted it. It all seemed reasonable, so I held onto that view until about 2007. I've since converted to the Partial Preterist view.

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...

 

[asterisktom]

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.

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

 

[kyredneck]

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

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

 

[kyredneck]

Genesis 17 was what got me to questioning my amillennial position. The covenant promise made with Abraham also included the land. But were an everlasting covenant(possession).

<land promises>

 

[asterisktom]

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

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!

 

[Lodic]

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...

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.

 

[37818]

When I first became a Christian, I simply accepted the "pre-trib rapture as fact because that was what I was taught. My church taught this view, my friends believed it, and popular "prophecy experts" (e.g. Hal Lindsey) promoted it. It all seemed reasonable, so I held onto that view until about 2007. I've since converted to the Partial Preterist view.

Pre tribers becoming orthodox preterist is understandable. So the following is a side question: What specifically persauded you to the orthodox preterist position? Thanks.

 

[JonShaff]

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

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

 

[Lodic]

Pre tribers becoming orthodox preterist is understandable. So the following is a side question: What specifically persauded you to the orthodox preterist position? Thanks.

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.

 

[37818]

It seems the reason most, if not all of us, were pre trib was because by whom or where we were lead to receive Christ as Savior, the pre trib view was taught to be the Biblical view. (1 John 4:6, ". . . heareth us . . . .")

 

[Lodic]

It seems the reason most, if not all of us, were pre trib was because by whom or where we were lead to receive Christ as Savior, the pre trib view was taught to be the Biblical view. (1 John 4:6, ". . . heareth us . . . .")

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