Posted on 03/30/2023 6:18:29 PM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
“It’s hardly wishing. There’s at least a dozen verses which I have posted to you and other deniers ad nauseum over and over again.”
I would encourage you to save a copy then and continue to post them if you think they make your case. However, from my experience, no matter how many verses, no matter how many times, none of them explicitly teach a pre-trib rapture. None of them disprove a pre-wrath rapture.
“Lastly, for you to lump the PreTrib in with Prosperity Gospel is massively naive and shows your lack of attention to the theology of those who agree doctrinally with this Eschatology.”
I’m not accusing those with the pre-trib view of buying into the Prosperity Gospel. I’m just saying that the pre-trib view is more consistent with that error than the true Gospel of Grace. I’m not trying to belittle or insult. I’m only trying to provoke thought on the subjects. I find the pre-wrath position very aligned with my understanding of the Gospel. We see it very plainly in the letters to the Thessalonians. They received the Gospel while seeing their preacher(s) suffering for the Gospel. They understood suffering came with faith in Christ. They also understood they were being rescued from wrath, not tribulation, persecution, and affliction. Further, when there was confusion over the trials they went through and the suffering they associated with the Day of the Lord, Paul corrected this.
“Max Lucado and Rick Warren are both apostate heretics who may agree with it, but the rest of their teachings are not something I would ever agree with.”
I don’t follow the teaching of these men and am generally unfamiliar with their teachings. Either way, I’m not trying to lump pre-trib rapture advocates with false teachers. I am greatly blessed by many teachers who hold the pre-trib view. But I’d say it is despite this view rather than in any way because of it. Likewise, I think the post-trib view is even worse, but a man like John Piper who holds this view may make many contributions to the understanding of scripture and encouragement to live godly.
“They truly want to go through the Tribulation.”
Not true. Christ did not want to drink the cup of suffering but surrendered to it as the will of the Father.
“And why the derision for those who hope to avoid it? Are they masochists or gluttons for punishment or what?”
No. I understand that the good news of the Gospel is accompanied by the sound doctrine that believers will follow in Christ’s steps. And this includes mandatory tribulation, persecution, and affliction.
“We expect to avoid it because as born again believers, we are not appointed to judgment, we have passed from death into life and have already had our sins judged. We don’t need to pay for them or be subject to judgement to get our attention to come to Christ.”
Would this statement NOT apply to the followers of Christ who clearly, even by your own admission, are suffering for Him during the tribulation period?
Matthew 24:9 NKJV
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
Revelation 6:9 NKJV
When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
Why would your argument against us not going through this persecution not also apply to the followers of Christ who do go through it?
Do they want to go through while we wisely don’t? Do we escape by grace while they are saved by law-keeping? Are they “masochists or gluttons for punishment”?
“All the reasons God brings judgment on people do NOT apply to Christians.”
Is the fifth seal in Revelation an example of God’s wrath? Do some followers of Jesus experience His wrath while we supposedly cannot go through the Great Tribulation because it is God’s wrath?
A time times and half a time does not equal 42 months nor do either of them equal 1260 days.
“A time times and half a time does not equal 42 months nor do either of them equal 1260 days”
I do not have a vested interest in the exact day count of various portions of this illustration, as it is, as I said, typical for illustrating the pre-wrath view. That is, I did not create it. That being said, I will try to clarify where some arrive at such precise day counts.
It is based on the idea of a 360-day prophetic year. I’m not going to do an elaborate explanation of this because it is not germane to the points I have made supporting the pre-wrath rapture. Even though I believe in the 360-day year and other prophetic explanations such as the correlation of biblical feasts to prophetic events, the pre-wrath rapture position is not based on these things but merely compatible.
Genesis 7:11, 7:24, 8:3-4, indicate that this specific 5-month period was exactly 150 days.
Daniel 7:24-25, 9:27, Revelation 12:6, 12:13-14, 13:4-7 seem to all be referring to the same time period using “42 months”, “1260 days”, and “a time, times, and half a time”. Daniel 12:11 refers to 1290 days, which represents exactly one additional month.
Isaac Newton was not only a great scientist but also a devout Christian. He said, “All nations, before the just length of the solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon, and years by the return of winter and summer, spring and autumn; and in making calendars for their festivals, they reckoned thirty days to a lunar month, and twelve lunar months to a years, taking the nearest round numbers, whence came the division of the ecliptic into 360 degrees.” (Reference: Anderson, Robert. The Coming Prince. London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1894.)
Much of what we understand about end-times events is anchored by our understanding of Daniel’s 70th week and the abomination of desolation. Christ drew attention to this event in His Olivet Discourse. In 250 AD, Julias Africanus wrote an explanation of the fulfillment of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks which used 360 days as prophetic years. Whether he was correct about the timing of the 69 weeks, I am doubtful, but I do think the 360-day year is Biblically supported.
A day is the time it takes for the earth to rotate on its axis one full turn. A month is the time it take for the moon to travel around the earth one full trip. A year is the time it takes for the earth to travel around the sun one full trip. God established the sun, moon, and stars for signs. The cataclysm of the flood of Noah resulted in an altering of the earth’s normal rotation. It is when the four seasons began because it was this event that titled the earth on its axis. Signs in the heavens marked Christ’s conception, birth, and death. They also mark His return.
Because the solar year does not exactly match a certain number of lunar months (approximately 12) every system of measuring years and months must make adjustments. We use a leap day. In the past there was a leap month every so many years, in order to bring things back in sync. Whether your claim that “A time times and half a time does not equal 42 months nor do either of them equal 1260 days” is true or not, is not particularly significant to the timing of the rapture in relation to Daniel’s 70th week as far as I can tell.
“Where did you get this?”
Genesis 1:7 NKJV
Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.
Genesis 2:5 NKJV
Before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.
Genesis 6:17 NKJV
And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.
Genesis 7:4, 10-12, 19-20 NKJV
For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made...
And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights...
And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered.
Genesis 8:1-3, 21-22 NKJV
Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. And the waters receded continually from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters decreased...
And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”
2 Peter 3:5-7 NKJV
For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
“One problem with using a 360 day year is that doesn’t work. A tropical year is 365.24 days. Is there evidence that a year was a different length during the 70 weeks?”
It is likely that the earth spins slightly faster now than at its creation due to the body of water that was previously above the atmosphere that is now in the polar ice caps.
I’ve already cited why some people believe prophetic years are 360 days. It is very possible that the rotation of the earth was proportionate to the year so that years were originally 360 days.
“You need to modify the calendar to match the tropical year to maintain the seasons.”
No. I don’t. I’m not modifying anything. As I already said, the calendar is not mine. I used it for anyone who has trouble visualizing the concept of a pre-wrath rapture in relation to Daniel’s 70th week. Some people are visual and need visual aids.
“If you were off even quarter day the seasons would shift an unacceptable amount in 490 years.”
You miss the point. From the time Artaxerxes gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to Messiah was the 69 “weeks” of 7 years each. That’s 483 years. There is debate about the exact year the command was given. But, generally, the end date would be sometime in the earthly life of Jesus regardless. There is no other person who could have fulfilled this prophecy except Jesus of Nazareth. The remaining 7 years, i.e. Daniel’s 70th week, is still to come. Regardless of whether a year is 360 days or 365.24 or some other approximation, we have a general idea of how long certain events last.
“There are five times in Revelation that these are used. Your chart shows them all the same, the last half of the tribulation. The fact that they have different names and they are different lengths introduces a possibility that they do not happen together.”
“Times, a time, and half a time” (which probably refers to 3.5 years at 360-day “times”), 42 months, and 1260 days are all time periods that represent half of the remaining “week” of Daniel 9’s prophecy. These terms/phrases represent varying degrees of precision, perhaps. But they are either the first half or second half of this “week”.
2 witnesses prophesy-1st half
Israel provided for in the wilderness-2nd half
Antichrist reign-2nd half
And, once more, it isn’t “my chart”. There are a lot of opinions about every minute detail. People who fixate on the small details and want to debate them to death are the ones who miss the big picture and most important aspects of prophecy. I’d rather talk about things that are more definitive and relevant. There are many, many details that are purely speculative and guesswork.
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