BrotherJoseph
Well-Known Member
But you did not answer my original question as to how it is that Christ could come during a time when mankind is celebrating peace and safety' (I Thess.5:2-4) while at the same time the world is in utter chaos, destruction and things are so bloody and dangerous that the Lord has to shorten the days for the very elects sake? (Mark 13:20) You didn't bother covering that issue. Why?
These two passages you cited talking about are two different different events that you are confusing as both referring to the same event as the rapture 1 Thess 5:2-4 is talking about the rapture while Mark 13:20 in which Jesus states, “20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days”, he is answering the question the disciples posed earlier in the same chapter about when the destruction of the temple and the overtaking of Jerusalem would occur (not the rapture), “And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!2 And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?5 And Jesus answering them began to say...” And so begins Jesus reply to the disciples question in Mark 13 in which you quoted.. Adam Clarke wrote “It is very remarkable that not a single Christian in the destruction perished in the destruction of Jerusalem though there were many there when Cestius Gallus invested the city” (Source Herschel W. Ford, Seven Simple Sermons on the Second Coming). Thus the fulfilling of the "elect" being "saved" as Jesus prophesied in the verse you quoted Mark 13:20.