But in the pretrib rapture theory, God removes believers to avoid His wrath, then brings them BACK to earth at the Second Advent, which no one argues against.
So your argument doesn't work.
Have you understood the scenario of events?
At the time when the church is gathered, the bodies of those who have died in Christ are reanimated immortal and glorified with their spirits reuniting with those resurrected bodies. Then immediately after that, those in Christ that are still alive are transformed immortal and glorified (1 Cor.15:51-53, 1 Thess.4:16-17). At that point the entire church from beginning to end will be in the air to meet the Lord. Then in fulfillment of John 14:1-3, the Lord will take the entire church back to the Father's house to those places that He went to prepare for us so that where He is we can be also. During that time the church will be judged at the Bema Seat and will also attend the wedding of the Lamb. Sometime after the 7th bowl has been poured out, which completes God's wrath, the Lord will return to the earth and those who were resurrected and caught up, will follow the Lord out of heaven to the earth (Rev.17:14, 19:14)
To use Noah as an "example" of a pretrib rapture, He plus 7 would have had to be removed from earth and then returned to earth.
When people attempt to use Noah as example of not being removed from the earth, I simply tell them that it is not an accurate comparison. If Noah and his family were removed from the earth after the flood, then there would be no one to repopulate the earth. It would in fact be empty today.
The best example of God protecting His people is found in the 10 plagues of Egypt. Goshen is in Egypt, where the Jews resided. They were protected while the rest of Egypt went through the plagues.
Ex 9:26 - 7th plague: The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.
Ex 10:23 - 9th plague: No one could see anyone else or move about for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.
Right. Great example: NOT. What did Lot do after he walked away from the danger? Got his 2 virgin daughters pregnant in a cave.[/quote]
Many argue that believers today are no better than the apostles and first century Christians who were persecuted and killed, their argument being "why should they have suffered, but we escape?" By making this claim, they are making the trials and tribulations that Jesus said believers would have as a result of their faith making them equal to the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments that will be taking place during the tribulation and which is their error. This is why I urge them to do a deeper study on the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments, because first of all, these will be unprecedented plagues of wrath. What I am talking about is that, none of the apostles and first century Christians ever went through anything like plagues listed below: (READ EACH ONE OF THEM)
1st Seal/Rider white horse = Represents the emergence of the antichrist
2nd Seal/Rider Red horse = Takes peace from the whole world so that men kill each other
3rd Seal/Rider black horse = World wide famine
4th Seal/Rider on the pale green horse = Death and Hades personified, are given authority to kill a fourth of the worlds population
6th Seal = Sun darkened, moon turned blood red, great earthquake stirring the islands and mountains
1st Trumpet = A third of the earth and trees are burned up
2nd Trumpet = A third of the creatures over all the earth are killed and a third of the ships are destroyed
3rd Trumpet = Something falls on the rivers and springs of water contaminating it so that Many die from drinking the water
4th Trumpet = The sun, moon and stars are darkened by a third, so that one third of the light both night and day will be missing
5th Trumpet/1st woe = Demonic being resembling locusts are released from the Abyss to torment having stings like a scorpion
6th Trumpet/2nd woe = Four angels and their demonic army of 200 million kill a third of mankind
7th Trumpet/3rd woe = Satan and his angels cast out of heaven and restricted to the earth
1st Bowl = Painful ugly sores break out on those who worship the beast and receive his mark
2nd Bowl = The seal turned into literal blood
3rd Bowl = Rivers and springs (all fresh water) turned into literal blood
4th Bowl = Sun scorches the inhabitants with intense heat, searing them
5th Bowl = Beasts kingdom is plunged into spiritual darkness
6th Bowl = Euphrates dried up for the kings of the east and all the kings and their armies gathered for Armageddon
7th Bowl = World-wide earthquake causing the islands and mountains to disappear. 75 to 100 pound hail stones
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I wrote all those down above to show how utterly ridiculous it is to compare the trials and tribulations that the apostles and first century Christians went through in comparison to those events of wrath. For it is clear to see that there is no comparison of what they went through vs. plagues of wrath above. These plagues of wrath will be unprecedented and are incomparable to anything that the apostles and first century church suffered. And that because they are different types of tribulation, one being at the hands of mankind and the powers of darkness which includes persecution and death. And the wrath of God, which are represented by the plagues of wrath mentioned above. How can anyone possibly compare the two?
Now getting back to Noah and Lot, where do you think that the church could go to get away from all of that? Not to mention that we are not appointed to suffer those. Since these plagues will affect the entire world, there will be no Ark's that we can get on and no small cities to flee to. Now include the fact that the word church never appears within the narrative of God's wrath in the book of Revelation.
The fact is that scripture states that believers are not appointed to suffer those plagues of wrath and therefore must be gathered prior to their on-set. And since all of the above must take place prior to the Lord returning to the earth to end the age, then we cannot be on the earth to experience them.
What does it take to get you guys to understand that the church is not appointed to suffer the above plagues of wrath?
This is fallacious. We find the first 3 chapters of Rev were directly FOR the church. And in the final chapter we find this verse:
22:16 - “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
So, without a doubt, the ENTIRE book is FOR the church. So they will know what's coming, and be ready for it.
The testimony (the events listed in Revelation and all related information) is not a warning to believers within the church, but is information given to us of God's coming wrath in order to warn the world of what is coming. The purpose for giving the church this information is proclaimed right at the beginning of Revelation:
"
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants
what things must take place in quickness."
The purpose of the book of Revelation is not to warn the church of what they are going to go through, but to give us the information to warn unbelievers of God's coming wrath. Think of this in terms of Noah. He was building a boat for a hundred years, in a place where it had not even rained and was preaching God's word that He was going to flood the earth. But the people, like today, didn't believe him, having no faith in God's word and of course the flood came and took them all away. It is the same today. We are warning people about these coming plagues of wrath, but just like the days of Noah they are not listing. While they (unbelievers) are saying "peace and security" then destruction will come upon them suddenly, namely all of those plagues of wrath mentioned above
God gave us the book of Revelation to study and understand what is going to come upon the earth, which are those things mentioned verse 1 which must take place in quickness. We, the church, are not appointed to suffer those and therefore will be gathered from the earth prior to said wrath.