Summary

See also:

[link to www.fether.net]
[link to bible.fether.net]
[link to bible.fether.net]
[link to bible.fether.net]
[link to bible.fether.net]
[link to bible.fether.net]
[link to thedevineevidence.com]
[link to lamblion.com]
[link to www.biblestudying.net]
[link to media.alwaysbeready.com]


1. Jesus descends
2. Shout
3. Trumpet
4. Dead in Christ raised
5. Living in Christ transformed in an instant (1 Cor. 15:52)
6. All in Christ snatched away up into the clouds to meet Jesus
7. This is a message of comfort, not dread

Notice also that Paul makes no mention of a time of suffering to purge, test, or punish the church before this event he is now describing. He is repeating what he had told them before, and the first thing is Jesus descending from heaven to the sky. No earthquakes, no signs, no nothing, but only a message of comfort and hope.

So there it is, in the simplest terms. It is "that blessed hope" for which "there is a crown of righteousness" for all who long for Jesus to come. I implore you all to be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus, so that you can, as Jesus said, "escape all these things" to come.


Mapping Daniel to Revelation


First is the overview of the 70 weeks:

1. They concern the people of Israel and Jerusalem, not the church.
2. Purpose: to finish (complete) transgression.
3. Purpose: to put an end to sin.
4. Purpose: to atone for wickedness.
5. Purpose: to bring in everlasting righteousness.
6. Purpose: to seal up (complete) vision and prophecy.
7. Purpose: to anoint the Most Holy Place in the Temple.

The 70 Weeks would begin when the decree was given (turned out to be Nebuchadnezzar) to rebuild Jerusalem, and it would stop short of the final week when the Messiah would be killed. There would be a "prince to come", known now to have been Titus, whose "people" destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. This is the same event Jesus referred to about not one stone being left upon another, as it was literally fulfilled when the Romans wanted the melted gold that had run between the blocks. After this event there would be wars and desolations. Then after that span of wars would come "he" who does all of the following:

1. Confirm a 7-year covenant or treaty "with many".
2. Violate the treaty at the midpoint by ending sacrifice and offering in the temple.
3. Set up an idol in the temple.

Clearly Jesus did not set up any idols, nor make and break any 7-year treaties. The same "he" does all of this. Now we will see where this treaty and violation matches up with Revelation:



This point (idol in the temple, Beast demands to be worshiped as God) in Rev. is the 7th trumpet, so the 7th trumpet marks the midpoint of Daniel's 70th week. Therefore, all the trumpets are in the first 3.5 years. It is unknown whether the Seals are before or after the beginning of that time, as they may comprise a gap between the Rapture and the confirmation of the covenant for 7 years.

The Rapture precedes the Seals because it must be something Satan cannot predict, as evidenced by his continually trying to have an oligarchy in place.


New Testament


Paul is writing to calm the people who had received a forged letter claiming to be from Paul, wherein they were told they had missed The Departure and were now entering the Tribulation. Paul is writing to quash the false teaching and spell out the true teaching he had brought them before. Had he taught them they'd go through the Tribulation, they would not be comforted by his words, nor would they be afraid they had missed the Tribulation (!!).

The Day of the Lord is NOT the same as The Departure. This has to be very clear. And Paul states the order of events:

1. The Departure
2. The revealing of the man of lawlessness
3. The Day of the Lord

Paul also gives important details about The Great Lie:

1. It comes from God.
2. It is given to "them", who "have not believed the truth but delighted in wickedness".

God will not delude his own people or accuse them of hating truth and loving wickedness. Neither will true Christians accept any other seal than that of the Holy Spirit, "the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance" (2 Cor. 1:22).

Final Thoughts

The continual slander against the pre-trib view is based upon failure to understand it or blind acceptance of lies from its enemies. We do NOT smugly watch the world decay, nor do we ignore the terrible persecution of Christians now or in history, nor do we wish for the suffering of the lost. Neither are we unprepared for suffering, as this was promised by Jesus to all his followers.

The truth is that we are highly motivated to spread the Gospel so others too can "escape all these things" as Jesus said. What "things"? Not the typical wrath of Satan and man, but the wrath of God to come.

Who will really be unprepared? Is it not the ones who disbelieve in the pre-trib Rapture? The Beast/AC cannot duplicate all the requirements of Jesus coming for his Bride:

-- shout and trumpet
-- Jesus descending from heaven
-- the dead in Christ arise
-- the living in Christ are instantly made immortal
-- the whole Bride of Christ is taken into heaven (note that we do NOT have to board a ship)

In contrast, the Beast/AC will arise out of the earth. As for the Mark, Christians are ALREADY SEALED and would never be fooled into taking another one.

But opponents of pre-trib will be caught off-guard by the Rapture, and will be among those caught "beating their fellow servants" when Jesus arrives; just look at the comments in this thread for examples of such beatings. They will be caught looking for the Beast/AC rather than Jesus.

This is why I created this thread: to dispel slander and rumors, and to convey "that blessed hope" to those without hope, so they too can be given "the crown of righteousness for all who have longed for HIS (Jesus') appearing". (APPEARING, not "second coming")


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[link to www.fether.net]

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I will abbreviate “pre-tribulational Rapture” as PTR. These are not in any particular order of importance.

Claim: The PTR is a recent invention.

Rebuttal: The most common citation of this being a new teaching is a medieval teenager named Margaret MacDonald, who claimed to have had a prophetic vision in 1824. But she did not have a vision of any Rapture at all, let alone a PTR. Further, no PTR teacher ever cites her or her alleged vision for any reason. Critics who would then allege a conspiracy to hide such a source would be arguing from silence, not to mention opening themselves up to similar charges. There are also much earlier references to PTR, such as the post-apostolic writing known as The Shepherd of Hermas (ca. a.d. 140).

Claim: The PTR was a heresy started by Darby and made popular by Scofield.

Rebuttal: Darby stated that he saw the PTR in scripture, three years before MacDonald’s (non-rapture) vision. Scofield was noted for his teaching of Dispensationalism, as well as his Reference Bible. The PTR is a logical conclusion to draw from a dispensational approach to scripture, but this approach is hardly heresy. The allegorical approach is at least as open to the same charge, as is so-called Covenant Theology wherein no distinction is made between the church and Israel.

Claim: The PTR is escapist and cowardly.

Rebuttal: In Luke 21:36 Jesus said to “pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen“; in Rev. 3:10 Jesus said, “I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth”. Is Jesus teaching that escape is cowardly? How about Isaiah 26:20? “Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by.”

Claim: The PTR teaches that Christians will not suffer, so it sets them up for falling away from the faith.

Rebuttal: This is burning a straw man; PTR teaches no such thing. Jesus promised persecution to his followers (Mark 10:30), and Paul in 2 Tim. 3:12 said, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. Even today, many Christians are suffering terribly and dying for the Name of Jesus. So anyone who teaches that Christians will not suffer is clearly in error, regardless of their views on prophecy. The fact is that PTR only concerns the wrath of God and the time Daniel was told was for punishing the unbelieving world and bringing Israel back to God.

Those who oppose PTR are unprepared for the sudden appearing of Jesus; they look for the Antichrist instead of the Christ. They will also not receive “the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day— and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8). If PTR is wrong, it will be time for those who boasted of their preparation and immunity from being fooled to prove themselves. In contrast, PTR believers would never be fooled, since the Antichrist will not do any of the following:

-- sound the trumpet of God
-- give the shout of the archangel
-- raise from the dead all Christians who have died
-- give the dead new, immortal bodies
-- instantly transform the bodies of the living Christians to immortal
-- take all of us (not invite us to board a spaceship) to meet him in the air

We also know that we are already sealed with the Holy Spirit, so we will not accept any other seals. The “mark of the Beast” is a pledge of loyalty and has to be taken knowingly and voluntarily, and Jesus would never say “take this mark or starve to death”.

Claim: The PTR ignores what Jesus taught in Mat. 24.

Rebuttal: Anti-PTR ignores practically every other passage about end-times prophecy, putting Mat. 24 in a vacuum. And many people are confused by the signs and disasters in Revelation, thinking that all instances of earthquakes for example are one and the same event. But consider this: Jesus told of extreme cosmic events after the Great Oppression which will make it clear that it is indeed the end (Mat. 24:29-31, ref. Isaiah 13:10; 34:4):

-- sun and moon go dark
-- stars fall from sky
-- powers of heavens (skies and/or space) shaken
-- extreme turbulence on earth, with oceans roaring and splashing
-- the appearance of the sign of the Human in the sky
-- he descends in the clouds in great power and majesty
-- trumpet blast to send out Messengers to collect “the chosen” from all over “the heavens”

On the surface, the first four signs appear to match up with the 6th Seal of Revelation (Rev. 6:12–14), which is clearly not the end of the Great Oppression:

-- the moon is red instead of black
-- the stars fall to earth
-- the sky itself “rolls up like a scroll”
-- every mountain is shifted from its place.

There is at least one Old Testament reference to such things as well (Joel 2:31), and it too places them “before that great and terrible day of the Master”:



So we see that very similar signs both precede and follow the 70th week of the prophecy of Daniel.

Claim: The PTR is “the strong delusion” prophesied by Paul.

Rebuttal: The delusion Paul mentions is sent from God to “them” (2 Thess. 2:10-13), not from Satan to Christians. So there is no basis in scripture for this ridiculous charge, and it can be made just as easily against opposition to PTR. Since PTR comes mostly from Paul in the first place, one would be hard-pressed to show how he would call his own teaching delusional.

Claim: Paul taught that the Rapture isn’t until after “the man of sin” is revealed.

Rebuttal: The passage being referenced is 2 Thes. 2:1–12, specifically vs 3: “Don’t let anyone trick you in any way, for that day will not come until the Departure happens and then the Lawless One, the destroyer, is revealed.” But “that day” refers to “the day of the Lord” in the previous verse, which is not the Departure/Rapture. Moreover, the people Paul was writing to were afraid that they had missed the Departure and would now go through the Tribulation. Who fears an allegory, or is afraid they missed the Tribulation? Conversely, who should be comforted (1 Thes. 4:13-18) by a teaching that has them going through the Tribulation?



Claim: The PTR invents a “last trumpet” before the last one mentioned in Revelation.

Rebuttal: The 7th trump is NOT the last trump. The 7th is of an angel and is a judgment (Rev. 11:15), while the last is of God and is a blessing (1 Thess. 4:16). There was a “last” trumpet for Israel before Christ (Numbers 10:5-6), which Paul’s readers would have understood as a call to leave or break camp, as opposed to those of Revelation which had not yet been given.

Claim: The wrath of God does not begin until the Bowl judgments.

Rebuttal: It is undeniable that Jesus, the Lamb, is also God. So any wrath coming from Jesus is, by definition, the wrath of God. This is acknowledged in Rev. no later than Rev. 6:16, but note that it is the people of earth making this statement, not God or John or any heavenly Messenger. Also note that all of the Seals are opened by the Lamb, even though the results on earth are “natural” for the first four. That is, the Lamb instigates the Seal judgments, so they are all the wrath of God.

Claim: The Rapture is at the 6th Seal judgment.

Rebuttal: This claim is based upon presuming the identity of the “multitude in white robes… from every nation” in Rev. 7:9-17. But the Greek grammar clearly indicates their origin and scope: they come out of the Great Tribulation. There is no indication that this was a past, singular event (lit. “coming”), and their origin is not just “tribulation” but “THE Great Tribulation”. This same expression is used by Jesus to describe “a time of trouble never seen before and never to be seen again” (Mat. 24:21), and this is immediately after Jesus quotes Daniel’s statement about “the abomination of desolation”. So the multitude comes from the time of the Bowl judgments, even though John sees them at the sixth seal.

Claim: There is nothing connecting Daniel to Revelation.

Rebuttal: Daniel 9:27 says,



We find that same event in Rev. 13:1-8, indicating the midpoint of that ‘week’:



So both passages describe a world leader who confirms a seven-year covenant and then breaks it by declaring himself God and setting up an abomination in the temple. It is thus logical to conclude that both Daniel and Revelation, which no one denies extend to the end of human history, describe the same period, which Daniel stipulates to be seven years.

Claim: The PTR contradicts where Rev. says the saints will be overcome by the Beast.

Rebuttal: That passage was quoted above, but the “holy people” are not the church. The terms holy people, saints, elect, etc. were also used of the righteous in the Old Testament as well, so they are not exclusive terms for the church. This must be considered in context, and when the context is the point being debated, then the identity of these people depends completely on one’s view of dispensations. But if dispensationalism is the right view, then these are not church-age believers.