What Biblical Evidence Is There For The Closeness Of The Rapture

[mattfivefour]

With respect, I do not understand the thinking of people such as LatterRain. How do they rationalize the Church going through the tribulation? It's a time that Jesus said would be unlike anything that has ever happened since the creation of the world. Scripture paints it as horrible beyond our ability to comprehend. It is the literal wrath of God, far worse than it has ever been displayed before. Yet post-tribbers, with some proof texts but nothing in-context, think we, the Bride of Christ, will suffer through it, abiding with all of the sinners upon whom that wrath is intended. They claim that Jesus said He would deliver us out of that wrath (meaning at the end of the Great Tribulation. And they use 2 Peter 2:9 as their proof--

"The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment."​

But 2 Peter is not speaking of the Great Tribulation. it is speaking specifically about the temptations and trials of this life. And yes, God knows exactly how to deliver us out of them. But the relevant verse would be Revelation 3:10--

"Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth."​

Here, speaking to the Philadelphian Church which represents the faithful Church of God on earth, Jesus Himself says that He "will keep" (Greek τηρέω - tereo: pronounced tay-REH-o) which is the same word used to describe a squad of soldiers given a strict charge to protect someone. But more than that Jesus says He "will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole earth." Note the word "from". It is a preposition that in this sentence construction means "out of" or "out from", and He is using it in the context of the Great Tribulation ("the hour of trial which is to come upon the whole earth.") Therefore there can be no doubt that Jesus is not promising to keep us safe through the Great Tribulation, but to take us out of it. This is indisputable.

And the process and the order of that event is explained in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 ...

"Behold, I tell to you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For it behooves this, the perishable to put on the imperishable; and this, the mortal to put on immortality."​

... and 2 Thessalonians 4:15-17 ....

"For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are [d]asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."​

And truly we shall be with the Lord forever; for when He returns to Earth, we shall be with Him (2 Thessalonians 1:10) to rule and govern with Him (Revelation 20:4,6; Revelation 3:21; 1 Corinthians 6:2).

I hope this helps someone.

 

[Margery]

This is a good reminder of the importance of being Bereans, searching the Scriptures daily, seeing if the things Paul was claiming actually held up in the light of Scripture read IN CONTEXT.

Many years back now, in that awful church of the 90's- I was in a home fellowship that was being led by a man who twisted Scripture to make his points.

At first he started off making reasonable points but he kept twisting a Scripture a little bit out of context. I would speak up, saying don't you mean this other Scripture, it backs up your point better- and he would agree with me.

The group as a whole would roll their eyes and sigh when I'd catch him again and again. Finally I started to let him be because I thought to myself, well he's at least sticking to reasonable theology even if he's twisting Scripture to do it.

BIG BIG BIG MISTAKE BY ME!!!

He then started inserting really bad theology, cult ish stuff using his twisted scripture. It was flat out APOSTASY that he ended up teaching.

And George and I took the kids and got out of that group. (I let the pastor know but he did nothing, and years later I found out he said he was against it, but actually agreed with a lot of it)

BUT GOD

there's always a BUT GOD!!!

But God USED that to teach me the ABSOLUTE IMPORTANCE of ALWAYS checking an idea (or even like what happened here and on another thread - checking the FULL context) AGAINST the WORD OF GOD!!!!


It is an essential skill for every Christian to master. I used to have that Berean verse under my signature in the old forum I used to be part of, and I need to do that again.

Acts 17:11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.



And this is WHY you often see me quoting oodles and oodles of Scripture when all I need is one verse. BECAUSE CONTEXT RULES!!!

And sadly Christians who are caught up in bad theology learn to misquote Scripture, leaving off essential parts or drawing a wrong conclusion from the quotes they use.

They refuse to accept the Bible as written. Ignorance is fixable- we all lack knowledge till we understand the Bible better. But when we are challenged by the Scripture in context

WE THEN HAVE A CHOICE

Do we Accept the BIBLE as WRITTEN or do we retreat into the "I see it differently" and carry on misquoting, or half quoting Scripture. That gets dangerous both for the person doing it (it stops them from changing their mind as the Bible sheds light on itself) and for those they talk to who accept their versions of Scripture at face value without checking.

Bottom line here

BE A BEREAN!

CHECK EVERYTHING BY THE WORD OF GOD and IF YOU CATCH SCRIPTURE BEING TWISTED challenge it.

Use the whole context of Scripture to rebut the twisting of it.