1 AFTER THIS I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice which I had heard addressing me like [the calling of] a war trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place in the future.
Revelation 4:1 has been used a great deal in my upbringing to teach that there is a pre-tribulation rapture for the church. The people say that John being caught up to Heaven is a foreshadowing of us being caught up before the Great Tribulation. But as we will study in Revelation’s later chapters, the church has a great role to play during the Great Tribulation. While I used to be a big believer in a pre-tribulation rapture of the church, the more the Holy Spirit has shared with me the Truths of the Revelation of our Lord, I no longer do. I really believe that Jesus has far too great of role for us, as His body, to play during the Great Tribulation, for Him not to have us here.
Also, the Truth is that Paul was caught up to the Third Heaven as well, 2 Corinthians 12:2, just as John is here. Yet I never hear it preached that Paul’s accession to Heaven was a foreshadowing of a pre-tribulation rapture? It just seems to me that our Father had things to show both John and Paul and He brought them to Heaven to do it. To say that it proves that there is a pre-tribulation rapture is a very great reach. Our Father Transformed Jesus while He was still on the earth, and in the flesh, to talk with Him. Our Father is always dramatic and He does dramatic things. I don’t know about you but I love that is has a flare for doing such things.
Also there are 5 verses that clearly prove to us that there is no pre-tribulation rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, John 6:39, and Revelation 11:15.
For this we declare to you by the Lord's [own] word, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall in no way precede [into His presence] or have any advantage at all over those who have previously fallen asleep [in Him in death]. 1 Thessalonians 4:15
Take notice! I tell you a mystery (a secret truth, an event decreed by the hidden purpose or counsel of God). We shall not all fall asleep [in death], but we shall all be changed (transformed). In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the [sound of the] last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised imperishable (free and immune from decay), and we shall be changed (transformed). 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
And this is the will of Him Who sent Me, that I should not lose any of all that He has given Me, but that I should give new life and raise [them all] up at the last day. John 6:39
The seventh angel then blew [his] trumpet, and there were mighty voices in heaven, shouting, The dominion (kingdom, sovereignty, rule) of the world has now come into the possession and become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (the Messiah), and He shall reign forever and ever (for the eternities of the eternities)! Revelation 11:15
The Truth that our Father shows us is that no one who is alive in Christ shall in any way precede those of us who have died in Christ. The Truth is also that the dead in Christ shall not be raised from the dead until the Last Trumpet has sounded, on the last day, and we see in Revelation 11, that when the seventh angel, the last angel, blows the last trumpet, Jesus will take over the physical rule of the world. The pre-tribulation rapture theory tells us that Jesus won’t do this until seven years after we were raptured. The Truth is clear, and as we study the Revelation of our Lord, we will actually see that there is far too much work for our Father to do through us, for Him to take us away seven years before the end!
1 comment:
(Hi Brad. Found this on the net. Any reaction? Kenny)
PRETRIB RAPTURE SECRETS
How can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He's now there with the Father) “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. ("The Rapture Question," by the long time No. 1 pretrib authority John Walvoord, didn't dare to even list, in its scripture index, the too-hot-to-handle Acts 3:21!) Since Jesus can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends (Acts 2:34,35 echo this), the rapture therefore can't take place before the end of the trib! (The same Acts verses were also too hot for John Darby - the so-called "father of dispensationalism" - to list in the scripture index in his "Letters"!)
Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening (Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! The "rest" for "all them that believe" is tied to such destruction in II Thess. 1:6-10! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who'd be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the posttrib end of “death” (15:54). (Will death be ended before or during the trib? Of course not! And vs. 54 is also tied to Isa. 25:8 which is Israel's posttrib resurrection!)
Many are unaware that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 this "rapture" was stretched forward and turned into a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!).
Other Google articles on the 182-year-old pretrib rapture view include "Pretrib Rapture Politics," "Pretrib Rapture Scholar Wannabes," “Famous Rapture Watchers,” "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," “X-Raying Margaret,” "Edward Irving is Unnerving," “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” "Walvoord Melts Ice," “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thieves' Marketing," "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," “Deceiving and Being Deceived,” "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty," and "Christ's return is NOT imminent!" – all by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot” (see Armageddon Books).
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