Post-Trib, Post-Wrath Rapture = second coming

[BobRyan]

At the rapture "the dead in Christ rise first" 1 Thess 4 ... at the "first resurrection" Rev 20:4-5 which is part of the Rev 19-Rev 20:5 second coming event -- When Christ "comes again" to take all the saints to heaven "to My Father's house" as in John 14:1-3

 

It is after the tribulation.

How about Matt 24?

²⁰ But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. ^...

²⁹ “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. ³¹ And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

 

It is just ONE event - the second coming:

John 14:1  “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. ³ If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

Christ does not say "I will come again... and again... and again..."

 

It is sudden and surprising

Matt 24 ³⁸ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

1 Thess 5: . ² For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. ³ For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. ⁴ But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

2 Thess 1: ⁶ For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷ and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, ⁸ dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction

 

 

2 hours ago, Blueyedjewel said:

Which gender starts MOST of these eschatology threads one upping each other with each thread? Just saying. 

 

I think the rise of the Christian church and the protestant reformation itself had to have proceeded with a certain amount of "focus on the details" -- wouldn't you agree?

 

What was John the baptizer's and Christ's message? "The time has been fulfilled" -- and what "time" was that? They had a time-prophecy based message about the coming of the Messiah as predicted in the 490 timeline of Daniel 9.

Should the people of that day simply have "dismissed their message because of gender"???

 

 

 

 

 

[BobRyan]

3 hours ago, missmuffet said:

The rapture of the Church happens before the seven year tribulation. Then after the seven year tribulation is the second coming of Christ. Two separate events.

An interesting preference.

Everyone has free will - and you are of course welcome to your preferences.

By contrast -- I was talking about the details in the actual Bible texts listed in the OP.

Edited August 9, 2017 by BobRyan

[missmuffet]

58 minutes ago, BobRyan said:

An interesting preference.

Everyone has free will - and you are of course welcome to your preferences.

By contrast -- I was talking about the details in the actual Bible texts listed in the OP.

Life is full of choices. When I first became a born again Christian and started researching what the pre trib, post trib and mid trib really meant I prayed and did a bunch of Bible reading and research on many websites. The only conclusion and the only way I was led that made any Biblical sense was the pretribulation rapture of the Church.

[BobRyan]

4 hours ago, missmuffet said:

Life is full of choices. When I first became a born again Christian and started researching what the pre trib, post trib and mid trib really meant I prayed and did a bunch of Bible reading and research on many websites. The only conclusion and the only way I was led that made any Biblical sense was the pretribulation rapture of the Church.

Me too - I really prayed about this - and found that God led me to the post-trib post-wrath view as the texts above seem to point out so clearly.

Edited August 10, 2017 by BobRyan

[missmuffet]

39 minutes ago, BobRyan said:

Me too - I really prayed about this - and found that God led me to the post-trib post-wrath view as the texts above seem to point out so clearly.

I was not impressed with that view so I stayed away from it.

[BobRyan]

8 hours ago, missmuffet said:

I was not impressed with that view so I stayed away from it.

Indeed that is exactly how I felt about all the views that do not agree with the scriptures I posted in the OP. Because the scriptures affirm explicitly that "after the great tribulation of those days.. He shall gather His elect"

[Daniel 11:36]

After the great tribulation of those days the Lord will be on  the earth .... and He will gather His "elect" of Israel and of the nations

This gathering will be of mortals who will enter and populate His millennial kingdom upon the earth as mortals

Those of His "church" will rule with Him over the mortals of the period [Revelation 20:4] 
 

20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them

.... and those of the tribulation who were martyred will be included

[Guest]

18 hours ago, BobRyan said:

That suggestion does not survive the details in Matt 24. Noah's flood as mentioned in Matt 24 "was not just for Jews" - and the end of the world.. the second coming that it describes is not "Just for Jews" any more than John 14:1-3 "I will come again and receive you to myself" is --- "just for Jews."

John 17 - Christ's prayer specifically says his teaching was not "just for Jews". So also the Matt 28 great commission to teach all the world what He had taught them "not just for Jews"

Bible details matter.

I may have been misunderstood. This is a very important issue. 2 days before the cross 4 disciples came to Jesus with 3 questions. They were prompted by one of the disciples commenting on the beauty of the Temple and Jesus predicting its destruction.

The questions were:
1. When will this happen (the Temple’s destruction)?
2. What will be the signs of your (2nd) coming?
3. What will be the signs of the end of the age?

Their mindset in asking these questions is critical to our understanding. While the Jews were in Babylon during the 70 year captivity, the angel Gabriel had told Daniel that Israel would be given 490 years from the date they received authorization to rebuild Jerusalem to wrap everything up. (Daniel 9:24-27) 483 of those years had past. The Temple had been under construction for nearly 40 years and wasn’t finished yet. They were thinking they were nearing the end of the age and now Jesus tells them that everything will be torn down. There had never been any talk of a Church Age or a Rapture or of the disciples evangelizing the world. We know about all these things from hindsight, but they were probably in a state of great distress when they came to Him.

The answer to their first question is contained only in Luke 21:12-24. There you can read the Lord’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The answers to questions 2-3 are contained in all three accounts of the event. Keep in mind that when the disciples asked these questions they thought they were only 7 years away from the End. This is confirmed by the question they asked on the Mount of Olives after the resurrection. “Lord, are you now going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

As I noted in my study on the Olivet Discourse Matthew’s account is especially Jewish, warning people in Judea, invoking Jewish Sabbath Laws, and mentioning the Abomination of Desolation, an event in Jewish History. There’s no mention of the Church anywhere in any of it, because at this point in time there was no Church. Later, Paul would disclose that the Church would not be present during this time.

As for why the Olivet Discourse even appears in Mark and Luke when these two Gospels are mainly Gentile in their focus, there will be many on Earth who will miss the Rapture, perhaps coming to faith because of it. Matthew, Mark and Luke all write to them, Jew and Gentile, giving them the signs of His coming and of the End of the Age to help them persevere through mankind’s darkest Hour. Remember, just because the Olivet Discourse isn’t written to the Church doesn’t mean it isn’t for gentiles.

 

[Guest]

18 hours ago, BobRyan said:

Not true at all. In 2 Thess 2:1-10 Paul is specific about a post-trib rapture.

This is not meant to be a complete commentary on 2 Thes. 2. Instead, I want to demonstrate that Paul had to have taught the Thessalonians that the rapture of the Church would precede the End Times judgments. 

By most accounts Paul stayed in Thessalonica for only about 3 weeks and during that time he founded a Church and taught them the doctrines of salvation and sanctification, the Trinity, the nature of man, the assurance of pardon, and the Day of the Lord. He continued teaching them after he left with his first letter, written from Corinth in 51 AD, in which he introduced the doctrine of the rapture (1 Thes. 4:16-17).  Shortly after that they received another letter appearing to be from him, announcing that the Day of the Lord had come.   They reacted with fear and confusion and immediately sought clarification.

“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus and our being gathered to Him, we ask you brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy report or letter supposed to have come from us saying that the Day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.” (2 Thes 2:1-3)

From Paul’s response it’s clear the letter they were concerned about had been a forgery, sent by someone pretending to be him and designed to frighten them.  It worked.  The Greek words for unsettle and alarm literally mean to agitate, incite, and frighten. Something in the letter had contradicted their understanding of his teaching and they were upset. Reading 2 Thes 2:1-3 we see that the forgery must have disputed Paul’s teaching on events leading up to the Day of the Lord.  This is the only logical explanation for his 2nd letter to the Thessalonians.

Notice that right from the beginning Paul separated the coming of the Lord from our being gathered to Him. That’s because they’re two different events.   We can’t tell their relative timing from this, but we can tell they’re not the same thing.  The Second Coming is when He comes back down to Earth to be with His people here, while from 1 Thes. 4:16-17 we know the rapture has us going up to meet Him in the air and continuing to Heaven to be with Him there (John 14:2-3). The 2nd coming will be witnessed by everyone (Matt. 24:30), but the rapture is an instantaneous disappearance of believers only (1 Cor. 15:51-52) that happens without warning.

The quote above is from Romans 15:4.  It tells us that Paul wasn’t just writing to the Thessalonian believers.  He was also writing to us.  Think about it. The Day of the Lord is a term that always refers to the End Times and most often to the Great Tribulation. If Paul had taught them to expect a post-tribulation rapture would they have been agitated and frightened upon receiving the forgery?  No!  It would more likely have made them think the 2nd coming was only a few years away and many of them would live to see it.

The only justification for their fear and confusion would be if Paul had taught them a pre-trib rapture. In that case a letter telling them the Day of the Lord had come would mean they had missed the rapture, and that would mean they weren’t saved.  Now we can see how they would be agitated, angry and afraid. Imagine how you would you feel in a situation like that.

From 2 Thes 2:1-3 we can begin to construct Paul’s teaching on the chronology of events leading up to the Day of the Lord. Remember, there’s an abundance of proof from his other letters showing that Paul taught the doctrine of eternal security, aka once saved always saved.  Some of the most obvious references are Romans 8:38-39, 2 Cor 1:21-22, 2 Cor. 5:5, Ephes. 1:13-14, and Ephes. 4:30.  In all of them Paul taught that true believers cannot fall away from faith for any reason.  He said the Lord guaranteed our inheritance and sealed the Holy Spirit inside us as a deposit.

But Paul spoke of a rebellion (falling away) in 2 Thes 2:3 that would have to precede the Day of the Lord.  The Greek word translated rebellion is apostasia, from which we get apostasy.  It means people would abandon something they once considered themselves to be part of and the context implies that it’s the church.  You can’t fall away from something unless you first think of yourself as being part of it.   But true believers can’t fall away at all.  Therefore this rebellion or apostasy has to involve those who thought of themselves as being part of the church, but weren’t really saved.

Don’t be confused about this.  We see believers-in-name-only leaving traditional churches to join the Emerging Church all around us, but rebellion is as much attitude as it is action and they don’t think they’re rebelling against God.  They see themselves as still being in the Church.  In fact they think they’re the best part of it.  Far from being rebellious, they call themselves followers of Christ, not just believers in him, and doers of the word, not just hearers.  They’re not sitting in Churches on Sunday listening to the same tired old messages on sin and salvation and coming forward to be born again.  No.  They’re out there in the world, thinking they’re changing it for Jesus.

These advocates of the so-called social gospel don’t realize it’s not what you do for the Lord that matters, it’s what you believe He’s done for you.  The only work the Lord requires of us is that we believe in the one He sent (John 6:29).  That means to believe God chose to send His Son to Earth to die for our sins so we can choose to live with Him in Eternity (John 3:16).  The righteous work of a thousand lifetimes will not suffice in place of this belief.

When these believers-in-name-only discover the true Church has disappeared while they’ve been left behind, that’s when they’ll rebel against God and join the other side.  By the time the anti-Christ makes his claim to deity, the whole world will follow him (Rev. 13:8) and they’ll be right in the forefront.

The End Times According To Paul: "He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God." (2 Thes. 2:4) After the rapture and the falling away of believers-in-name-only into His world-wide counterfeit religion, the anti-Christ will be revealed for who he really is by proclaiming himself to be God.  Remember, the sequence Paul gave was first the apostasy, and then the man of lawlessness will be revealed.

"For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming" (2 Thes. 2:7-8). Here Paul confirmed this sequence, saying a restrainer is currently holding things back.  After the restrainer is taken out of the way the anti-Christ will be revealed.  This restrainer is the Holy Spirit, sealed within the Church.  After the rapture, the Holy Spirit will be out of the way, the rebellion will take place, and the anti-Christ will be revealed.  These things can’t happen until the church is gone.

"The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.  For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness" (2 Thes. 2:9-12). Most likely, the anti-Christ will already be known as a great statesman and leader, but by declaring himself to be God he’ll be laying claim to Planet Earth. This claim will kick off the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:15-21) and will be accompanied by all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders that will deceive those who have fallen away into thinking they have finally found the truth. But in reality they will have rejected the truth and embraced a lie.  At the end of the Great Tribulation the Lord will return to over throw the anti-Christ and destroy him by the splendor of His coming and those who believe the lie will perish as well.

In his letters to the Thessalonians Paul didn’t reveal the actual timing of the Rapture except as it relates to other events. It may be one of the things he was forbidden to speak about (2 Cor. 12:4).  All we know is for reasons of His own the Lord has never given us a specific date for the rapture.  But by carefully studying passages describing it and maintaining the view that the Bible cannot contradict itself, the astute believer can obey the commandment to “know the times and seasons” and construct with some assurance the correct sequence of events. Paul criticized the Thessalonians for not figuring this out back then (2 Thes 2:5) and would even more strongly criticize the church today for the same reason.

[BobRyan]

On 8/10/2017 at 11:41 AM, Rick_Parker said:

 The only justification for their fear and confusion would be if Paul had taught them a pre-trib rapture. In that case a letter telling them the Day of the Lord had come would mean they had missed the rapture, and that would mean they weren’t saved.  Now we can see how they would be agitated, angry and afraid. Imagine how you would you feel in a situation like that.

From 2 Thes 2:1-3 we can begin to construct Paul’s teaching on the chronology of events leading up to the Day of the Lord. Remember, there’s an abundance of proof from his other letters showing that Paul taught the doctrine of eternal security, aka once saved always saved.  Some of the most obvious references are Romans 8:38-39, 2 Cor 1:21-22, 2 Cor. 5:5, Ephes. 1:13-14, and Ephes. 4:30.  In all of them Paul taught that true believers cannot fall away from faith for any reason.  He said the Lord guaranteed our inheritance and sealed the Holy Spirit inside us as a deposit.

But Paul spoke of a rebellion (falling away) in 2 Thes 2:3 that would have to precede the Day of the Lord.  The Greek word translated rebellion is apostasia, from which we get apostasy.  It means people would abandon something they once considered themselves to be part of and the context implies that it’s the church.  You can’t fall away from something unless you first think of yourself as being part of it.   But true believers can’t fall away at all.  Therefore this rebellion or apostasy has to involve those who thought of themselves as being part of the church, but weren’t really saved.

Paul corrects their mistaken idea - by pointing out a post-trib rapture. That was the "Fix" for their broken notion.

Paul makes no statement at all in 2Thess 2 supporting OSAS.

2 Thess 2

1 Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? 6 And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not receive a love of the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.   Paul is saying that the 1260 years of the dark ages and extreme apostasy of the church - along with the persecution of true Christians for 1260 years - would come BEFORE the 2nd coming - at which we have our "gathering together to Him" -