@Truth7t7 - Streamlined version, for your eyes' sake, or for your
whatever's sake
:
[repeat post]
Consider the following, about your verse, here ^ :
--Matt24, Verse 31 says, "gather... from the four winds, from the ends [plural] of the heavens [plural] to the ends [plural] of them [plural]" - meaning, "from the extremities"... no place left out.
--this is not saying "from one end of Heaven to [
as if to relocate to] the
other end of Heaven"... Instead, the entire phrase simply means "from the extremities" --gathered from the extremities [plural].
--This context is "the elect" of Israel--having come to faith in/during the trib years, following "our Rapture"--being gathered to one place upon the earth--Jerusalem--from "where scattered into the nations [plural]," i.e. where they had been "sown unto the earth". This is not a Rapture context.
--another passage showing a similar thing to Matt24:31's wording is: Jer49:36 - "And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of the heavens [plural], and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no
nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come." Scattered into various nations, not Heaven.
--thus showing that this "scattering" toward "all those winds"--that "the four quarters of the heavens [plural]" scattered them toward--is speaking not of "up in Heaven," but of the extremities whrere scattered ...on the earth, and into the various nations, in this context, Jer49:36. It is similar to that which we read in the Matt24:31 verse, though indeed the Mark passage uses the singular, for "heaven," but this is not untrue...
there will have been people/saints who die in the trib years--having come to faith in/during the trib years, following "our Rapture"--those at the 5th Seal, "under the altar," for example, who died in the trib yrs, who also will be "resurrected"--speaking of their "bodies"--at the end of the trib/after it... just like the OT saints will be "resurrected" after the trib per Dan12:13, etc... but these contexts are not speaking of "our Rapture" event--in the air.
--Matt24:29-31 is parallel to the following passage--at the "great" trumpet:
Isaiah 27:12-13, in a passage found in what is commonly called "the little apocalypse"--Isaiah 24-27 -
"12 In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one. [
Note: not "as one" like we will be!] 13 And in that day a great trumpet will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt. And they will worship the LORD in the holy mountain at Jerusalem."
--from "where they were
scattered"--or from where they've been "sown unto the earth"--same thing meant, "scattered" unto all the nations [plural]
____________
Summary: Matthew 24:29-31 is not a rapture passage, or context.