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I'm sure the driver of the car was proudly, if not a little self-righteously, displaying her belief that, should Christ suddenly "rapture her away," she would instantly soar through the roof of the car, whisk away into the clouds (unless it happened to be a clear day) to heaven, leaving her still-running car there at the intersection to create a massive traffic jam.
Is this true? Is Christ coming to secretly "snatch up" His saints before the Great Tribulation of Bible prophecy?
What Difference Does it All Make?
Why should someone who believes in the "rapture" get ANGRY when shown, from the Bible, that the so-called "secret rapture" is a myth?
If Christ is going to redeem the saved; if Christ is coming to catch up His people, including the dead in Christ, and descend with them to the mount of Olives in the same day, then His true followers will be SAVED, will they not?
They will be born of God by a resurrection, or an instantaneous change, will they not? (1 Corinthians 15:50-52).
They will then come down from the clouds, perhaps anywhere from 10 to 40,000 feet above the earth, in this earth's atmosphere, and will be with Christ as He begins to rule this earth with a rod of iron.
What is so wrong with these wondrous promises of your Bible that "pretribulationists" and "secret rapturists" seem to violently object?
It is simply this: Somehow, they cannot bring themselves to believe the "saved" could suffer any harm! For some reason, an insidious false assumption has crept into the minds of millions of people, an assumption which says God would not think of allowing His saints to come to any physical harm! No, any such terrible event is reserved only for the wicked, so they think! What they do not realize is that such a false assumption makes them out to be better than Christ!
Did not Christ say, "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also"? Did He not say, "In this world ye shall tribulation"? Did He not say, "The time will come when they that killeth you will think they do God a service"?
Another equation in this false assumption is that martyrdom is reserved for the spiritually weak!
Those who cling to the false notion of "church eras" point out how God will allegedly throw those in the so-called "Laodicean attitude" of lukewarmness into the Great Tribulation, while spiriting away into a desert wilderness the "good" people in the "Philadelphian era."
According to this scenario, those closest to God; those on fire with zeal; those with the most faith, the most works, the most spiritual character, will be PROTECTED from the Tribulation, miraculously "taken to a place of safety."
But those who are less faithful, not so close to God; those without zeal; those who are lukewarm, who have weak spiritual character, will be chosen as God's martyrs!
As they suffer, they will realize how terribly weak, and lukewarm they have been, as the theory goes, and, under torture and eventual death, they will repent!
But WHO did God choose as His martyrs?
Look at the list: Jesus Christ, Peter, James, Paul, Stephen, Antipas, dozens of others in the first century. Read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, how God's greatest prophets were oftentimes martyred for their faith.
John saw a vision of the witness of two prophets, two human beings who will personally testify against the Beast and the False Prophet! Their Prophecy is to take place during the Tribulation!
"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
"These are the two olive trees [mentioned in symbol in Zechariah 4:3], and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
"And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
"These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
"And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit [the abyss—a spiritual metaphor] shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
"And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
"And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts to one another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth.
"And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
"And they heard a great voice out from heaven saying unto them, ‘Come up hither,’ And they ascended to heaven [this earth's atmosphere, where vapors form clouds—not the "third heaven" of God's throne] in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
"And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted: and gave glory to the God of heaven" (Revelation 11:2-13).
These two men are in Jerusalem all during the Tribulation and the Day Of the Lord. Their three and one-half year's testimony coincides exactly with the "time of Jacob's trouble," of three and one-half years; with the "times of the Gentiles" of three and one-half years; with the "treading down of Jerusalem" of three and one-half years!
God gives them power far above that of Moses or Elijah. The plagues they call down upon sinning mankind, upon the Beast and False Prophet, are global in nature, not national, or local, as in the former cases.
These two prophets, the "two witnesses" of the future, are human beings, converted, Spirit-led SAINTS! They are Christ's servants, conducting the last-minute, FINAL phase of God's work on this earth of PERSONALLY witnessing to the Beast and False Prophet in the name of Christ!
What happens to them?
They are martyred!
When the Beast is finally able to "make war" against them, overcome them, and kill them, the Bible does not tell us specifically how they die. You can be sure it will not be pleasant! Yet, after lying dead in the street for three and one-half days, they are obviously resurrected, and will be given eternal life! Are these two great prophets "Laodicean"?
Are they "left behind" when the saints are "raptured," or the so-called "Philadelphia era" goes to a "place of safety"?
Do they suffer a horrible death because they are spiritually inferior?
No, God does not choose the spiritually WEAK, the lukewarm, to be His martyrs!
Instead, He chooses those who are so close to God that they literally count all things in this life "as dung" (Philippians 3:8) in comparison with the Kingdom of God, and eternal life!
"Rapturists," like "survivalists" and "escapists," have their minds on the preservation of this physical life!
Jesus Christ tells them that those who seek to save their lives in this world, who have their minds on physical things, are likely to lose out on salvation!
No, God is NOT going to "rapture" away His saints secretly. The lady with the bumper sticker will not suddenly disappear through her roof, after all!
Let us not trust in false hopes, but in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and God the Father, Who loves us, and Who promises eternal life with Him in His Kingdom to all those who "endure unto the end," whether that means the end of our own physical lives or the end of the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord!
Christians suffer trials and tribulations during this present age because we live in a fallen, evil world of which Satan is god. There is a difference between Satan's wrath and God's wrath and God never promises to always protect Christians from the realities and consequences of living in such a world. The specific, seven year period known as the "Tribulation" is a time of God's, not Satan's and fallen men's, wrath, and Jesus Christ promises to take those who know Him as Savior out of the time of judgment that He will bring on this world for those who have chosen to reject Him.
For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. (1 Thessalonians 5:9,10)
This thread is for dispensationalists.
Regarding the post attempting to discount the rapture as a myth, the argument presented contains compounded errors in understanding the timelines provided in Scripture.
It is truly consistent that the 2nd Coming occurs after the Rapture, but this doesn’t necessitate the return of the saints occurs prior to the Tribulation.
Most likely the consistent timeline allows for the Church to be prepared for the Wedding Feast in Heaven concurrent with the Tribulation.
At the close of the Church Age, we simply observe in God’s Prophetic timeline that at some point in the future the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit in each member of the Body of Christ will change by His Will. His work in us at that time will have been completed.
We will continue to live in fellowship with Him as His Bride, but God the Holy Spirit’s indwelling will shift to the Jew during the Millennium, as opposed to the Gentile.
The reading also suggests a mistaken understanding of martyrdom, focusing upon suffering instead upon a perseverant witness of Christ.
By accepting the underlying methods of spinning out a false tale, as in this excerpt's misuse of the Holy Scripture, its thought process falls into the same line as that of the unregenerate Patristics, like Clement and Origen. They led a great many (not all) seekers away from the core common-sense interpretation which Christ and His Apostles modeled, into a methodology based on nonsensical explanations that produced a religion of their liking. The long excerpt you posted here rests on a laundry-list of assumptions not only logically unsupportable, but directly contradicted by other Scripture.
Allegorizing Scripture, when a literal sense and application is demanded by the context, immediately leads to conflict of opinion, argumentation and profitless waste of time and emotion. That seems to be why this caucus prefers that one sticks to the theology framework stipulated. In this case your excerpt is distracting, though readily disproved.
Here's a suggestion: If you wish to know how the theme of the literal snatching away of the souls of Christ's believer-disciples fits in a dispensational framework of God's progressive revelation, follow along and ask. You may not believe in the scheme, but take your Bible and prove it false on our own, if you can.
But let me also suggest that you start to learn a little bit about "hermeneutics"--how to interpret the Bible. A good source is:
Bible 405: HERMENEUTICS - THE STUDY OF THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURES
This is a downloadable course outline in PDF form, from a reputable theological seminary named after an outstanding Bible interpreter. Going through this will immeasurably improve your responses in this discussion. (Hint: a section with highlights in the history of hermeneutics begins on page 23.)
With a grip on this, you probably won't want to be known as posting excerpts of the type and quality as you have here.
With sincere respect --