The Tribulation and the Church, WHEN?

You do not sound like a humble person who is continually seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you into understanding prophesy. You sound like someone who is guided more by their own self-righteousness.
Your browbeating helps assure me of my skepticism in man-made interpretations of the "end-times" prophesies.

I have one question for you though.

If the beast and false prophet are indeed individual human beings who are then cast alive into the lake of fire, then where is their (1st) death and judgement which is to follow? [ref: Hebrews 9:27]
I mean, if the beast and false prophet are indeed individual men, then where is their appearance before the judgement throne after they have left the body?
[ref: 2 Corinthians 5:10]

Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

To add an addendum to my above post:

Perhaps the reformers pulled not only from Scripture, but also from early church teachings, but you have only to know history and Scripture to understand Revelation prophecy, and the reformers taught historicism.

In our days of books for dollars and clicks for cash futurism has gone from a fringe element to about the only thing we see..

And I find that terribly sad, because so many are led astray as a result.

It really is that simple...

What does the Bible actually say?

You do not sound like a humble person who is continually seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you into understanding prophesy. You sound like someone who is guided more by their own self-righteousness.
Your browbeating helps assure me of my skepticism in man-made interpretations of the "end-times" prophesies.

I have one question for you though.

If the beast and false prophet are indeed individual human beings who are then cast alive into the lake of fire, then where is their (1st) death and judgement which is to follow? [ref: Hebrews 9:27]
I mean, if the beast and false prophet are indeed individual men, then where is their appearance before the judgement throne after they have left the body?
[ref: 2 Corinthians 5:10]

Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

You do not sound like a humble person who is continually seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you into understanding prophesy. You sound like someone who is guided more by their own self-righteousness.
Your browbeating helps assure me of my skepticism in man-made interpretations of the "end-times" prophesies.

I have one question for you though.

If the beast and false prophet are indeed individual human beings who are then cast alive into the lake of fire, then where is their (1st) death and judgement which is to follow? [ref: Hebrews 9:27]
I mean, if the beast and false prophet are indeed individual men, then where is their appearance before the judgement throne after they have left the body?
[ref: 2 Corinthians 5:10]

Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

You do not sound like a humble person who is continually seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead you into understanding prophesy. You sound like someone who is guided more by their own self-righteousness.
Your browbeating helps assure me of my skepticism in man-made interpretations of the "end-times" prophesies.

I have one question for you though.

If the beast and false prophet are indeed individual human beings who are then cast alive into the lake of fire, then where is their (1st) death and judgement which is to follow? [ref: Hebrews 9:27]
I mean, if the beast and false prophet are indeed individual men, then where is their appearance before the judgement throne after they have left the body?
[ref: 2 Corinthians 5:10]

Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

"The Rapture--Precisely When?" - Kenneth S Wuest

"The answer to these questions will only be convincing to the reader if it is based upon the rules of Biblical exegesis. [...<snip>...] That interpretation which is based upon the above rules is to be regarded as correct until it can be shown by the reapplication of the same rules that an error of human judgment has crept in.
"There is such a thing, therefore, as a scientific method of studying the Word. The student who follows the rules of an experiment in chemistry brings that experiment to a successful conclusion. The student who does not ends up with an explosion. Just so, the student who conducts his study of the Bible along the scientific lines noted above arrives at the correct interpretation, and the student who does not at the wrong one. The exegetical method the student uses in answering the question with reference to the time of the rapture will determine whether he believes in a pretribulational or a posttribulational rapture.
[...]

"The words "a falling away" are the Authorized Version rendering of apostasia. The verbal form afistamai from which it comes is present middle of afisthmi, the root verb, which we will study. The simple verb Jisthmi [histemi] in its intransitive sense means "to stand," the prefixed preposition means "off, away from," and the compound verb, "to stand off from." The word does not mean "to fall." The Greeks had a word for that, piptw. Afisthmi, in its various uses, is reported by Thayer as follows: "to make stand off, cause to withdraw, to stand off, stand aloof, to desert, to withdraw from one"; in contexts where a defection from the faith is in view, it means "to fall away, become faithless." The verb is rendered by the translators of the Authorized Version "to depart," in Luke 2:32; Luke 4:13; Luke 13:27; Acts 12:10; Acts 15:38; Acts 19:9; Acts 22:29; 2 Corinthians 12:8; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 2:19; Hebrews 3:12. [...]
[...]

"The writer [I think he refers to himself, here] is well aware of the fact that apostasia was used at times both in classical and koine Greek in the sense of a defection, a revolt in a religious sense, a rebellion against God, and of the act of apostasy. Liddell and Scott in their classical lexicon give the above as the first definition of the word. Moulton and Milligan quote a papyrus fragment where the word means "a rebel." But these are acquired meanings of the word gotten from the context in which it is used, not the original, basic, literal meaning, and should not be imposed upon the word when the context does not qualify the word by these meanings, as in the case of our Thessalonians passage, where the context in which apostasia is embedded does not refer to a defection from the truth but to the rapture of the church. The fact that our word [our modern English word] "apostasy" means a defection from the truth is entirely beside the point since we do not interpret Scripture upon the basis of a transliterated word to which a certain meaning has been given, but upon the basis of what the Greek word mean to the first century reader. The fact that Paul in 1 Timothy 4:1 uses this verb in the words "some shall depart from the faith" and finds it necessary to qualify its meaning by the phrase "from the faith" indicates that the word itself has no such connotation. The translators of the Authorized Version did not translate the word, but offered their interpretation of it. They should have translated it and allowed the student to interpret it in its context.

With the translation of the word before us, the next step is to ascertain from the context that to which this departure refers. We note the presence of the Greek definite article before apostasia, of which the translation takes no notice. A Greek word is definite in itself, and when the article is used the exegete must pay particular attention to it. "The basal function of the article is to point out individual identity. It does more than mark the object as definitely conceived, for a substantive in Greek is definite without the article." This departure, whatever it is, is a particular one, one differentiated from all others. Another function of the article is "to denote previous reference." Here the article points out an object the identity of which is defined by some previous reference made to it in the context." Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 has just spoken of the coming of the Lord. This coming is defined by the words "our gathering together unto him," not as the second advent, but as the rapture. The Greek word rendered "and" can also be translated "even," and the translation reads, "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, even our gathering together unto him." [<--this just means that the two phrases in verse 1 both speak of our Rapture... correct]

The article before apostasia defines that word by pointing to "the gathering together unto him" as that departure. This article determines the context which defines apostasia. The translators took the context of 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 as deciding the significance of the word, but they went too far afield, not grasping the function of the definite article preceding apostasia which points back to the rapture of 2 Thessalonians 2:1, not ahead to the refusal to believe the truth of 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12. The article is all-important here, as in many instances of its use in the Greek New Testament. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul had given these saints teaching on the rapture, and the Greek article here points to that which was well known to both the reader and the writer, which is another use of the Greek definite article. Thus, the departure of the church from earth to heaven must precede the great tribulation period [I would say, "must precede the [7-yr] tribulation period" to be more specific (for 'GREAT tribulation' refers only to the latter half of it); Wuest, here, means "before the entire trib period" not merely before the second half of it]. [...]"

--Kenneth S Wuest, "The Rapture--Precisely When?", Bibliotheca Sacra, BSac 114:453 (Jan 57), p.60

[ www. galaxie . com/article/bsac114-453-05 (no spaces)]


[end quoting; bold and underline mine; brackets mine]

Matthew 24:

29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days { Trumpet events }

30 And then { Return of Christ }

31 { Rapture }

Trumpet events immediately follow END of tribulation.

The Return of Christ follows that.

Then - Resurrection and Rapture

Matthew 24:

29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days { Trumpet events }

30 And then { Return of Christ }

31 { Rapture }

It says we Christians have a Blessed Hope provided for us nominally called the Pre-Tribulation Rapture (snatching up).

I think when we see 1/3 of the environment destroyed as described in Revelation 8, indicating severely curtailed resources, is when a global tribulation will be taking place.

That will be during the Trumpet events - which occurs AFTER the END of the Great Tribulation. All Christians except the 144,000 will have been beheaded for not worshipping the beast. (by the end of the tribulation period - which is when the Two Witnesses arrive on the scene)

...when a global tribulation will be taking place.

"The Tribulation and the Church, WHEN? "

I think when we see 1/3 of the environment destroyed as described in Revelation 8, indicating severely curtailed resources, is when a global tribulation will be taking place.
We are already seeing the commencement of this tribulation in the Middle East (Syria in particular).
They now have water trains in India to bring water to towns where the water has dried up.
In comparison to Syria with several million people, India has over a billion people.

Good day GaryA,

"Listen, I tell 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, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." - I Cor.15:52

"And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. " - Matt.24:31

The word "trumpet" is not exclusive to marking one specific event. That said, the "last trumpet" mentioned above is the last of a type of trumpet and not the last of every kind of trumpet, the latter of which is the error. To be clear, the "last trumpet" will be sounded to gather the dead and living in Christ to remove them from the earth; where the "loud trumpet call" will be sounded for the angels to gather first the wicked (Matt.13:30) and then the righteous which will be comprised of the remnant of Israel and the great tribulation saints who will have made it through the tribulation period alive. Matt.24:31 is not about angels gathering the church, but about gathering those alive, both righteous and wicked from every corner of the earth.

Regarding those who are resurrected and the living who are changed, Angels do not gather them, but they are raised in power, immortal and glorified and caught up by the Lord to meet Him in the air. In opposition, those who make it through the tribulation alive will be gathered by the angels when the Lord returns to the earth to end the age.

Last Trumpet = the resurrection of the dead and the living being changed and caught up to meet the Lord in the air

Loud Trumpet Call = The angels gathering both the wicked and righteous who make it through the tribulation alive

Once again, the events of the gathering of the church vs. the Lord's return to the earth to end the age are two separate events with different purposes. You cannot have the gathering of the church taking place when the Lord returns to the earth to end the age and that because, as I have told you before, it would put the living church through the entire wrath of God of which we are not appointed to suffer.

Needless to say, it will definitely be a tribulation - in the general sense. There is no doubt about that.

What I was addressing in my previous post was with specific regard to the period of time that Jesus defined in Matthew 24:21 - that we like to call the Great Tribulation.

Re read it.
Angels gather the elect from heaven AFTER THE GT.
We are in heaven for 7 years.
Gathered out of heaven in rev 19.
Then we return to earth AFTER the judgement.
(Like Jesus said...noah returned to earth AFTER the judgement)

Yep. Another case of Matt 24 fixation. Its a plague on this board.
There is an entire bible that must be used concordantly. And doing so always results in the correct answer: A pre-trib rapture. Always.