Biblically Optimistic and Gospel-Based
"For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled." (Luke 21:22)
"For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled." (Luke 21:22)
Christ didn't escape suffering...so why should we? Are we greater or more deserving than Christ?
later
I still love what a young Christian Jew used to say:(Back in the early sixties)
“Some people tell me we are in the tribulation now; others tell me we are in the Millennium.”
“It it’s the tribulation, its not as bad as I thought it would be; if it’s the Millennium, it is not as good as I thought it would be.”
We can all be assured: He (Jesus Christ) will return again,
for He said: “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will return again, and receive you unto Myself.”
“As it was in the day of Noe, so shall it be in the day of the coming of the Son of Man....”
For those who claim to interpret prophecy literally, Revelation 4:1-2 says nothing about the church being taken to heaven prior to a seven-year tribulation period
"Come up here" is John being brought into the heavenly court of God, to receive a message to deliver. This is the experience of the OT prophets, here recounted in much greater detail.
Actually, I believe it is in Revelation, in chapter 7, after the 144k are sealed.
Revelation 7: 9, 13, 14
9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
14 I answered, “Sir, you know.”
And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
If we are walking with Christ, it doesn’t make a hill of beans as to when the “rapture” is, or even if there is one.
One thing that must be dealt with is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Revelation 19:7–9 describes Christians in Heaven engaged in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Immediately after that event is described, Revelation 19:11 reveals the Lord riding out of Heaven with His saints at the end of the Tribulation to destroy His enemies. if Revelation 19:7 describes the Church being in Heaven before the end of the Tribulation, how did it get there? Well, it must have been raptured. Of course, if the Church is on earth throughout the whole Tribulation period, then when was it raptured to allow enough time for the Church to be caught up into Heaven, attend the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and then return with Christ at His Second Advent?
The sequencing seems to be very clear. The Second Advent occurs at the end of the Tribulation; the Marriage Supper occurs before that; and then, before the Marriage Supper occurs, the Judgment Seat of Christ occurs so that the Church gets her rewards which she is seen wearing at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
As Revelation 3:10 says, “Because you have kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth.” Believers will not only be kept from the testing, but the whole time period of the testing. How? 1 Thessalonians 4 says believers will be “caught up,” “snatched,” or “raptured,” from the earth to meet Christ in the clouds. That is why we “wait for God’s Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, that is, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10).