1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 Vs. Matthew 24:29-31
- Thread starter Ahwatukee
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
The emphasis of the Scriptures given to you is that the People of God / His Church are not exempt from tribulation.
Our Lord Jesus and the Apostles all testify of the same thing - through tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God.
No where can you find that we are pre-trib raptured, just the opposite is stated in Scripture, so your question has been answered.
Our Lord Jesus and the Apostles all testify of the same thing - through tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God.
No where can you find that we are pre-trib raptured, just the opposite is stated in Scripture, so your question has been answered.
i just noticed this now as i was working - sorry for the delay.
The answer to your question is easy to find, not complicated and simple for anyone to see and understand.
Before i do, are you serious with wanting to know the truth according to the word and will of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Have you carefully read the Rules set forth by our Lord Jesus Christ?
Please review comment on this thread in posts #48 and #60
Then get back to me - thank you brother
The answer to your question is easy to find, not complicated and simple for anyone to see and understand.
Before i do, are you serious with wanting to know the truth according to the word and will of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Have you carefully read the Rules set forth by our Lord Jesus Christ?
Please review comment on this thread in posts #48 and #60
Then get back to me - thank you brother
Hello Aaron,
The gathering of the church prior to God's wrath was not invented by Darby or anyone else. It is concluded from the word of God. You're just repeating a false teaching that has been going around for many years.
The gathering of the church taking place prior to God's wrath, is deduced from combined scriptures and understanding the underlying principle, which many don't even consider. Isaiah says the following regarding this:
"But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed."
Another scripture states that when we believed, we were credited with righteousness and reconciled to God.
The underlying principle is that, Christ took upon himself God's wrath that every believer deserves, satisfying it completely. Therefore, the wrath of God no longer rests upon those who believe. The other error that goes along with this, is that people don't understand the difference between the trials and tribulations that Jesus said believers would encounter because of faith vs. God's coming wrath via the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments. They make them as being the same, which they are not.
Because Jesus already satisfied God's wrath on behalf of every believer, we must be removed from the earth prior to the first seal being opened, which initiates God's wrath and is followed by the trumpets and bowl judgments.
By believing and teaching that the church will be gathered after the Lord returns to the earth to end the age, it put the church through the entire wrath of God, which is the major error. The fact is that, the word church appears 19 times throughout chapters 1 thru 3 and then disappears. That is not a coincidence, but a clue from God. The world is replaced with hagios/Saints which is referring to those who become believers after the church has been gathered and during the time of God's wrath. They are never referred to as the church.
The gathering of the church prior to God's wrath was not invented by Darby or anyone else. It is concluded from the word of God. You're just repeating a false teaching that has been going around for many years.
The gathering of the church taking place prior to God's wrath, is deduced from combined scriptures and understanding the underlying principle, which many don't even consider. Isaiah says the following regarding this:
"But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed."
Another scripture states that when we believed, we were credited with righteousness and reconciled to God.
The underlying principle is that, Christ took upon himself God's wrath that every believer deserves, satisfying it completely. Therefore, the wrath of God no longer rests upon those who believe. The other error that goes along with this, is that people don't understand the difference between the trials and tribulations that Jesus said believers would encounter because of faith vs. God's coming wrath via the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments. They make them as being the same, which they are not.
Because Jesus already satisfied God's wrath on behalf of every believer, we must be removed from the earth prior to the first seal being opened, which initiates God's wrath and is followed by the trumpets and bowl judgments.
By believing and teaching that the church will be gathered after the Lord returns to the earth to end the age, it put the church through the entire wrath of God, which is the major error. The fact is that, the word church appears 19 times throughout chapters 1 thru 3 and then disappears. That is not a coincidence, but a clue from God. The world is replaced with hagios/Saints which is referring to those who become believers after the church has been gathered and during the time of God's wrath. They are never referred to as the church.
-
1
- Show all
Hey "Ahwatukee" ..not good with words forgive me. What I have always done is look at people as if it was me. Movie a song the word.. as if its me and cry or laugh.. anyway ever wonder if I was there what I would think about everything I saw Him do and then told us before He left.. watched Him go watched 2 people (angels) why you looking up? Hes coming back the same way.
Then we all get filled with holy spirit .. we have this boldness and joy and peace we have never had.. oh and Peter? Yeah.. again hes up front as if hes the leader.. lol.
There was only the Torah no NT. All they had was again Torah and what Christ said. If He said He will come back and receive us unto Him self so where He is we will be. He just told us back to His Fathers house. Like Paul..years later saying "we which remain". Yet.. since I don't know I have this moment.. so.. maybe I should be living watching ready now
If we truly believed He is coming.. if we truly believed that person that just walked by if they don't know Jesus.. are lost forever. It does make one wonder.. what do I TRULY believe?
Thanks for this.... to get people to watch looking ready amen
Then we all get filled with holy spirit .. we have this boldness and joy and peace we have never had.. oh and Peter? Yeah.. again hes up front as if hes the leader.. lol.
There was only the Torah no NT. All they had was again Torah and what Christ said. If He said He will come back and receive us unto Him self so where He is we will be. He just told us back to His Fathers house. Like Paul..years later saying "we which remain". Yet.. since I don't know I have this moment.. so.. maybe I should be living watching ready now
If we truly believed He is coming.. if we truly believed that person that just walked by if they don't know Jesus.. are lost forever. It does make one wonder.. what do I TRULY believe?
Thanks for this.... to get people to watch looking ready amen
No one taught a pre-trib rapture until John Darby, and Anglican preacher, in the mid 1800s. So the teaching is relatively new. Now, being new does not necessarily mean a teaching is defunct: while God never changes, He reveals knowledge and understanding in a progressive manner. Things that we have not contemplated before, suddenly come alive to us in the scriptures. So, while the ideas are new to us, they were always established in the mind of God.
But the manner is which things are "revealed" should be examined. So let's look at the manner in which the doctrine of the pre-trib rapture came to be a Baptist staple.
Dwight Young, professor emeritus at Brandeis University of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, personally corresponded with a friend of mine several years ago. My friend was a young lawyer ( as an aside, had George Bush Senior been elected for a second term, there is a good possibility that my friend would have been chosen as a state supreme court judge.) Dwight was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary at the same time Hal Lindsey studied there, so this is more than 50 years ago or so. They were graduate students.
Dwight said the professors were discussing Darbyism, and whether or not it was a valid theology. This graduate student, Hal Lindsey, wrote a master’s thesis on the subject of this form of dispensationalism and the rapture. He later turned that thesis into a book called The Late Great Planet Earth. Now some of you may not know about this book, but it was a runaway bestseller. It made a lot of money. According to Dwight, that is where the Baptists made the switch. They saw that there was a market for this doctrine, and they ran with it. Dwight later moved up to and was a professor of biblical studies, biblical languages at Brandeis University, from which he retired, and he was in a state of retirement when my friend met him. So, 50 years from the writing of a master's thesis, the teaching is so entrenched in the Baptist circles you would think it was the gospel.
Historically, nobody ever thought of this doctrine before Darby. But once he popularized it in the context of dispensationalism, meaning things wrap up within blocks of time, people began to embrace it because they did not have to trust the Holy Spirit. If you are going to have any measure of understanding of prophetic Scripture, the end from the beginning and where we are at this point in time, you are going to have to walk in the Spirit. He is the One who wrote the Book; He is the One who is perfectly capable of interpreting it. And the folly of logic and reason and man-made constructs, such as dispensationalism, will lead you to increasing folly, such as the rapture.
God knows the end from the beginning, and the greatest moment of the Body of Christ is in the midst of the darkness in Revelation. That darkness has no potential to blunt our display of the glory of God, the radiance of God’s glory, or to represent Him exactly. It has no ability to influence that at all. This is the time for the glory of what God has been doing, when He established the heavens and the earth for the purpose of establishing a corporate man in creation so that He might be seen in creation as who He is. He is on a path wherein not only will He show who He is in all of His glory through the corporate body, but He will bring the enemy to judgment as well.
But the manner is which things are "revealed" should be examined. So let's look at the manner in which the doctrine of the pre-trib rapture came to be a Baptist staple.
Dwight Young, professor emeritus at Brandeis University of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, personally corresponded with a friend of mine several years ago. My friend was a young lawyer ( as an aside, had George Bush Senior been elected for a second term, there is a good possibility that my friend would have been chosen as a state supreme court judge.) Dwight was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary at the same time Hal Lindsey studied there, so this is more than 50 years ago or so. They were graduate students.
Dwight said the professors were discussing Darbyism, and whether or not it was a valid theology. This graduate student, Hal Lindsey, wrote a master’s thesis on the subject of this form of dispensationalism and the rapture. He later turned that thesis into a book called The Late Great Planet Earth. Now some of you may not know about this book, but it was a runaway bestseller. It made a lot of money. According to Dwight, that is where the Baptists made the switch. They saw that there was a market for this doctrine, and they ran with it. Dwight later moved up to and was a professor of biblical studies, biblical languages at Brandeis University, from which he retired, and he was in a state of retirement when my friend met him. So, 50 years from the writing of a master's thesis, the teaching is so entrenched in the Baptist circles you would think it was the gospel.
Historically, nobody ever thought of this doctrine before Darby. But once he popularized it in the context of dispensationalism, meaning things wrap up within blocks of time, people began to embrace it because they did not have to trust the Holy Spirit. If you are going to have any measure of understanding of prophetic Scripture, the end from the beginning and where we are at this point in time, you are going to have to walk in the Spirit. He is the One who wrote the Book; He is the One who is perfectly capable of interpreting it. And the folly of logic and reason and man-made constructs, such as dispensationalism, will lead you to increasing folly, such as the rapture.
God knows the end from the beginning, and the greatest moment of the Body of Christ is in the midst of the darkness in Revelation. That darkness has no potential to blunt our display of the glory of God, the radiance of God’s glory, or to represent Him exactly. It has no ability to influence that at all. This is the time for the glory of what God has been doing, when He established the heavens and the earth for the purpose of establishing a corporate man in creation so that He might be seen in creation as who He is. He is on a path wherein not only will He show who He is in all of His glory through the corporate body, but He will bring the enemy to judgment as well.
-
1
- Show all
Hey "Ahwatukee" ..not good with words forgive me. What I have always done is look at people as if it was me. Movie a song the word.. as if its me and cry or laugh.. anyway ever wonder if I was there what I would think about everything I saw Him do and then told us before He left.. watched Him go watched 2 people (angels) why you looking up? Hes coming back the same way.
Then we all get filled with holy spirit .. we have this boldness and joy and peace we have never had.. oh and Peter? Yeah.. again hes up front as if hes the leader.. lol.
There was only the Torah no NT. All they had was again Torah and what Christ said. If He said He will come back and receive us unto Him self so where He is we will be. He just told us back to His Fathers house. Like Paul..years later saying "we which remain". Yet.. since I don't know I have this moment.. so.. maybe I should be living watching ready now
If we truly believed He is coming.. if we truly believed that person that just walked by if they don't know Jesus.. are lost forever. It does make one wonder.. what do I TRULY believe?
Thanks for this.... to get people to watch looking ready amen
Then we all get filled with holy spirit .. we have this boldness and joy and peace we have never had.. oh and Peter? Yeah.. again hes up front as if hes the leader.. lol.
There was only the Torah no NT. All they had was again Torah and what Christ said. If He said He will come back and receive us unto Him self so where He is we will be. He just told us back to His Fathers house. Like Paul..years later saying "we which remain". Yet.. since I don't know I have this moment.. so.. maybe I should be living watching ready now
If we truly believed He is coming.. if we truly believed that person that just walked by if they don't know Jesus.. are lost forever. It does make one wonder.. what do I TRULY believe?
Thanks for this.... to get people to watch looking ready amen
"Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning. Then you will be like servants waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds on watch when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve and will have them recline at the table, and he himself will come and wait on them. Even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night and finds them alert, those servants will be blessed.
There is also a warning for those believers who are not watching and ready and who go back to living according to the sinful nature:
“Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”
One of the arguments most opponents to the Rapture use is that it can't be right as it was a theory developed much later in comparison to other views. They all say that it began around 1830 through the ministry of Darby. Actually the pretrib rapture position does have historical precedent. Besides the apostle's teaching which is the subjet of this thread, a sermon was delivered in AD 373 by the Byzantine leader Pseudo-Ephraem entitled "On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World" or "Sermon on the End fo the World". This includes a concept very similar to the pretrib rapture.
It is clear that the church isn't Israel, that Israel isn't the church. Of the promises of God to save Israel through the 70th week of Daniel (that the Lord Jesus Himself opens the first seal in Revelation 6 "the wrath of the Lamb" and the NT passages that state soooooo clearly that we (the church) are NOT appointed to God's wrath. Full stop. Period!
The early church fathers taught the Rapture.
Irenaeus (130 A.D. – 202 AD) was a bishop of the church in Lyons, France. - On the subject of the Rapture, in Against Heresies 5.29, he wrote:
“Those nations however, who did not of themselves raise up their eyes unto heaven, nor returned thanks to their Maker, nor wished to behold the light of truth, but who were like blind mice concealed in the depths of ignorance, the word justly reckons “as waste water from a sink, and as the turning-weight of a balance — in fact, as nothing;” so far useful and serviceable to the just, as stubble conduces towards the growth of the wheat, and its straw, by means of combustion, serves for working gold. And therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said, “There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be.” For this is the last contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome they are crowned with incorruption.”
Cyprian
Cyprian (200 AD – 258 AD) – Cyprian was Bishop of the church in Carthage. During his short stint as leader of the church, he guided the flock through intense persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire. In 258 AD after spending seven months of confinement to his home by order of Roman authorities, he was beheaded for his faith. Several of his works still exist today.
In Treatises of Cyprian he wrote in describing the end times Great Tribulation:
“We who see that terrible things have begun, and know that still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to depart from it as quickly as possible. Do you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, that by an early departure you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent? Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free from the snares of the world and restores us to paradise and the kingdom.”
Two Pretribulational References in the Early Church
1. The Shepherd of Hermas (95-150)
The Shepherd of Hermas was written between 96-150 AD. This document provides a statement that resembles a teaching of a pre-trib rapture doctrine. Though it is not exactly as found in modern day scholarly pretribulational writings, it still shows that an idea existed in some degree that God's people could escape the future tribulation that was to come on the whole earth. The text reads:
"You have escaped from the great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of such a beast. Go, therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If then ye prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and ye spend the rest of the days of your life serving the Lord blamelessly."
This is not a systematic teaching, nor does it answer all of the questions that one may have. But it does give a reference to the possibility that God's people can escape the great tribulation.
There are more that preceed Darby but I'll stop here.
It is clear that the church isn't Israel, that Israel isn't the church. Of the promises of God to save Israel through the 70th week of Daniel (that the Lord Jesus Himself opens the first seal in Revelation 6 "the wrath of the Lamb" and the NT passages that state soooooo clearly that we (the church) are NOT appointed to God's wrath. Full stop. Period!
The early church fathers taught the Rapture.
Irenaeus (130 A.D. – 202 AD) was a bishop of the church in Lyons, France. - On the subject of the Rapture, in Against Heresies 5.29, he wrote:
“Those nations however, who did not of themselves raise up their eyes unto heaven, nor returned thanks to their Maker, nor wished to behold the light of truth, but who were like blind mice concealed in the depths of ignorance, the word justly reckons “as waste water from a sink, and as the turning-weight of a balance — in fact, as nothing;” so far useful and serviceable to the just, as stubble conduces towards the growth of the wheat, and its straw, by means of combustion, serves for working gold. And therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said, “There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be.” For this is the last contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome they are crowned with incorruption.”
Cyprian
Cyprian (200 AD – 258 AD) – Cyprian was Bishop of the church in Carthage. During his short stint as leader of the church, he guided the flock through intense persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire. In 258 AD after spending seven months of confinement to his home by order of Roman authorities, he was beheaded for his faith. Several of his works still exist today.
In Treatises of Cyprian he wrote in describing the end times Great Tribulation:
“We who see that terrible things have begun, and know that still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to depart from it as quickly as possible. Do you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, that by an early departure you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent? Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free from the snares of the world and restores us to paradise and the kingdom.”
Two Pretribulational References in the Early Church
1. The Shepherd of Hermas (95-150)
The Shepherd of Hermas was written between 96-150 AD. This document provides a statement that resembles a teaching of a pre-trib rapture doctrine. Though it is not exactly as found in modern day scholarly pretribulational writings, it still shows that an idea existed in some degree that God's people could escape the future tribulation that was to come on the whole earth. The text reads:
"You have escaped from the great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of such a beast. Go, therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If then ye prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and ye spend the rest of the days of your life serving the Lord blamelessly."
This is not a systematic teaching, nor does it answer all of the questions that one may have. But it does give a reference to the possibility that God's people can escape the great tribulation.
There are more that preceed Darby but I'll stop here.
Jesus isn't a wife beater, but Satan is.
Revelation 12:12
12Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Revelation 13:7
7And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
Revelation 12:12
12Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Revelation 13:7
7And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
-
1
- Show all
The above verse (Rev13:7) corresponds with:
Daniel 7:21 [context, vv.20-24,25,8,11] -
"21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;"
But look what Jesus said about (what He calls) "My church" that He said He "will build [future tense]" (Matt16:18):
Berean Literal Bible
"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades not will prevail against it."
King James Bible
"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
I believe Him.
Daniel 7:21 [context, vv.20-24,25,8,11] -
"21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;"
But look what Jesus said about (what He calls) "My church" that He said He "will build [future tense]" (Matt16:18):
Berean Literal Bible
"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades not will prevail against it."
King James Bible
"And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
I believe Him.