FreeGrace2 said:
Could you provide any of the "many scriptures" that actually "suggest" a pretrib rapture?
Let me start somewhere that probably has not been the ideally starting place for discussion.
What does it mean to you that the time of the gentiles be fulfilled?
Fulfilled is completed. So there is a beginning and end. What happens then with the church?
I asked a sincere question, because I don't want to be wrong any more than you want to be wrong.
But this response is just full of speculation and presumption. Since Revelation was written to "the church", it is FOR the church. All of it.
Now paul suggest that there's something that stands in the way of the appearing of the man of sin.
That untill it's removed then the man of sin is revealed.
Now if you say it's the church where'd it go? If you say it's the Holy Spirit then how can the church operate?
Of course it isn't the Holy Spirit. Not only is He omniscient and cannot be removed, His primary ministry is evangelism, which will occur in the Trib.
What you haven't considered is that the "restrainer" is simply moral government. There have been many nations that have been keeping the possibility of a one world government from occurring.
However, since 2020, and the Marxist takeover of the USA, there is NO LONGER any moral government that will or is even capable of keeping a one world government from rising to power. In fact, the takeover by Marxists will absolutely GUARANTEE a one world government!
So, there you have it. The "restrainer" has already been taken away. And look around you. We already have the "bear" taking over one of its neighbors (conquest!). And no doubt China is eyeing Taiwan closely for conquest. All these countries are Marxist. Think about it.
Even the verse you quoted from refutes a pretrib rapture.
2 Thess 2:1-3
1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
(Second Advent) and our being gathered to him, (
"rapture" without trip to heaven) we ask you, brothers and sisters,
2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.
3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for
that day will not come until the rebellion (Tribulation- rebellion against God) occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.
Blue words refer to Christ's second advent.
Red words refer to the living believers being gathered up to the clouds to be "changed in th twinkling of an eye".
The "rebellion" in v.3 is usually argued to mean "apostasy".
apostasia: defection, revolt
Original Word: ἀποστασία, ας, ἡ
Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
Transliteration: apostasia
Phonetic Spelling: (ap-os-tas-ee'-ah)
Definition: defection, revolt
Usage: defection, apostasy, revolt.
HELPS Word-studies
646 apostasía (from
868 /aphístēmi, "leave, depart," which is derived from
575 /apó, "away from" and
2476 /histémi, "stand") – properly, departure (implying
desertion);
apostasy – literally, "a leaving, from a previous
standing."
Since the Bible plainly states that the devil "deceives the whole world", many who claim to believe in God will 'defect' and worship the beast. That's the Tribulation.