The Pre-Trib Rapture

[Taken]

Actually. We will.
IF the pre-trib rapture is true, there is nothing in scripture that tells us only “Eschatological system correct Christians” will be taken.

The Pre-Trib Rapture applies to those who have ALREADY given their LIFE to God through Christ through Conversion.

* Many BELIEVERS, have NOT given their Life to God.
* DURING the Trib...
* God demands an Answer from the Hearts thoughts OF ALL men...
* The past 6,000 years of kinda, sort of, maybe, believe today, doubt tomorrow, ENDS.
* The Earth Shall suffer catastrophic disasters, and by default millions of inhabitants upon the Earth “as Intended”....SHALL physically Die.
* The Facts is; God SHALL be Searching their Hearts...
/Die IN Heartful Belief, they SHALL be saved.
/Die WITHOUT Heartful Belief, they SHALL not be saved.

 

[No Pre-TB]

Which statement doesn't mean what it says? Is that what you are saying?

Much love!

I’m saying (IMHO) a prophecy given in the spirit shouldn’t be taken literal though it will happen in the real world. If you don’t consider it, you may just miss it.

 

[amigo de christo]

Be faithful unto death and I shall give you a crown of life .
Be prepared to be hated , persecuted and even killed . What is and what is coming cannot be stopped .
Many lambs will be betrayed by the false harlot we are one universal religion .
Count the cost and be faithful to Christ alone and do so unto the end .

 

[Naomi25]

The Pre-Trib Rapture applies to those who have ALREADY given their LIFE to God through Christ through Conversion.

* Many BELIEVERS, have NOT given their Life to God.

I’m confused. How can someone be “a believer” but not have given their life to God?
I suppose there could be a group of people (as in the parable of the sower) who have heard the gospel and fundamentally “believe”..or understand it, but have not embraced it.
But by and large that is not what is meant when you refer to “believers”. As supported by scripture:


Mark 1:15
..and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

John 1:12
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

John 3:15-16
…that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

John 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

.
* DURING the Trib...
* God demands an Answer from the Hearts thoughts OF ALL men...
* The past 6,000 years of kinda, sort of, maybe, believe today, doubt tomorrow, ENDS.
* The Earth Shall suffer catastrophic disasters, and by default millions of inhabitants upon the Earth “as Intended”....SHALL physically Die.
* The Facts is; God SHALL be Searching their Hearts...
/Die IN Heartful Belief, they SHALL be saved.
/Die WITHOUT Heartful Belief, they SHALL not be saved.

Most of this is beside the point. I’m not…and wasn’t, commenting on what happens or how it happens during the “tribulation period”…that whole issue is another debate entirely.
My original point was that “all” people who are “in” Christ, will go in the Rapture. Regardless when the timing of the Rapture is (again, another debate altogether), the bible doesn’t give leave to suggest only “Christian’s” who are expecting a rapture or a pre-trib rapture, will be taken up.

 

[Taken]

I’m confused. How can someone be “a believer” but not have given their life to God?

Review Jesus’ own chosen Disciples....they believed, they doubted, they denied, they believed, they wondered....they followed Jesus for Three Years... they heard, they learned, they believed, they were unsure....
^ THAT is a normal human Process of how people Listen and Process in their MIND, what they Hear in their ears, concerning ANY TOPIC.
^ THAT is a normal human Process of how people See and Process in their MIND, what they SEE in their eyes, concerning ANY TOPIC.
....at ANY point of a human Hearing and Seeing....they can Believe, Doubt, Wonder...

On one day they are believing...and the next day not believing.
** Mindful BELIEVING...IS NOT IN ACCORDANCE with Jesus’ Preaching TO BECOME CONVERTED.
** CONFESSING “HEARTFUL” BELIEF IS IN ACCORDANCE with Jesus’ Preaching TO BECOME CONVERTED.

* In Many Protestant Churches people are invited to come and HEAR the Word of God. Welcomed and at the close of Service, invited to come again and HEAR more. Every person who IS HEARING, God is blessing with measures of His Gift of Faith. Hear MORE, Receive MORE Faith.
* People may attend services for YEARS (considering Maybe an Hour Once a week)....
3 YEARS...of a person attending Once a week...= 156 hours of Hearing.
* Consider the comparison to Jesus’ Disciples (Maybe HEARING 10 hours a day For 3 YEARS...= 10,950 hours of Hearing.
until THEY WERE PREPARED TO CONFESS Heartful BELIEF....

Point being...You know not an individuals journey. They may be 10 yrs old or 50 yrs old, HEARING for the First Time. An individual sitting in a Church Pew, neither means a Mindful Believer, or a Converted person. And even the Converted are traveling the same path at Different Distances.
Scripture teaches TO HEAR. God Blesses with Faith. That is the Beginning.

My original point was that “all” people who are “in” Christ, will go in the Rapture. Regardless when the timing of the Rapture is (again, another debate altogether), the bible doesn’t give leave to suggest only “Christian’s” who are expecting a rapture or a pre-trib rapture, will be taken up.

The title Christian, the description Believer....does not conclude or mean;
Converted “IN” Christ.

Review...As in the days of Noah...Noah PREPARED. Noah Entered the Ark.
God SHUT the Ark DOOR.
Noah was IN the Ark 7 day Before the Rain was send down from Heaven.
Noah was NOT IN the Rain. As the Rain increased, the Ark lifted off the face of the Earth. As the Waters of the deep rose up from the Earth, the Ark lifted higher off the Face of the Earth.
The Ark continued rising, rising, 20+ Feet “in the Clouds” Above the Mountain Tops.
Conversion...IN Christ......On a day you do NOT KNOW...
THE DOOR IS SHUT.
YES that ^ APPLIES to ONLY those “IN” Christ...They ARE Prepared and ARE Risen up to the Clouds, Above the face of the Earth.

* Thereafter, what has ALWAYS APPLIED from the Beginning....
Today, Tomorrow, During the Tribulation....
BELIEVE ON THE DAY YOU PHYSICALLY DIE, and God SHALL “then” SAVE YOU.

 

[marks]

7 and 10 mean Completion. Its just that simple. To ever understand Prophecy in full one has to understand how God uses numbers.

But again I ask you . . . what if it meant exactly what it says?

What if that were what God is communicating here, what would He need to say so you'd believe it?

Much love!

 

[marks]

If you ant to understand Prophecy in full, look up Numbers in the bible and study it.

Why not believe what you read?

And besides . . . look at the Biblical numerologists. How many reach the same conclusions? What I've seen over the years are general ideas that sound the same, but when you get into each person's details on how they decode the Bible, they're all over the map.

Much love!

 

[marks]

I’m saying (IMHO) a prophecy given in the spirit shouldn’t be taken literal though it will happen in the real world. If you don’t consider it, you may just miss it.

I think that we need to look at the particular part of the prophecy or vision, and let the Word speak. I find symbols are made known and defined. I find timelines are clarified.

And the fact is, if the Bible isn't the source of both knowing what is a symbol, and what it means, that someone who declares something symbolic, and declares it's meaning, the only authority for that is them self, and there is in fact no Biblical authority for there interpretation.

I think that if there is unity of the knowledge of Jesus to be found in the Bible, it's by those things we can know because the Bible declares it, not because we've found the hidden numerical code, or that we just "know" that this doesn't mean what it says, that it means something different. I'm very reluctant myself to declare something to be taught in the Scriptures based on me "just knowing", and not on an actual Biblical declaration.

Much love!

 

[marks]

And not once is salvation linked to what others might see us do.
Salvation is only linked to God.

At best, we can say that others can judge our salvational status based upon what they see us do. But again…a person is, at that point, already saved…or not saved.

Not salvation. Salvation is by faith. James said . . . show me . . . I'll show you . . . this is showing whether our previous saving faith is real. God already knows. Our works are the demonstration of the faith they cannot see.

Much love!

Much love!

 

[marks]

You harmonise them by retreating to a doctrine argued by men? Rather than seeking the answer in scripture itself?

I don't get that. What do you mean?

Much love!

 

[Oseas]

The 7th Seal is opened in the 8th chapter. Chapter 7 clearly shows the whole church in Paradise prior to that last Seal being opened. You can alter and explain away the book of Revelation any which way that suits you. I prefer to just take it as written.

DETAIL: The 7th Seal was opened and there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

Question: How many years can be counted in the space of half an hour?

By allegory, knowing that 1.000 years in the watch of GOD is as one day in the human calendar (24 hours), how many years can be counted in a half of hour? 1000/24 => one hour is around 42 years in round numbers, And 1/2 hour? a half of one hour is around 21 years, by allegory.

The END of the last millennium, or the turn of the sixth to the seventh millennium or seventh GOD's Day was around year 2000, so from now on, after the turn of the sixth millennium and beginning of the seventh, there will only be, and only, plagues on Earth in all nations, for now, the punishments are at the beginning, but there will be no end never more, it is ETERNAL, FOREVER, and ever.

Be careful and get ready

 

[marks]

Because…let me ask you this: If Dispensationalism didn’t exist, would you still find your conclusions in scripture?

I don't think you are understanding me.

I don't use any kind of "system" to superimpose something on the Bible. I've found my conclusions from the Bible, and "dispensation" is just a word - the Bible itself uses the Greek form, Oikonomia, "house law", or "economy", or properly, the managing of the household to supply the needs of it's members.

Anyway, dispensation simply describes the differences in the ways God covenants with people, and how those happen. Nothing more than that. "that in the dispensations of the fulness of time", Paul used it too.

I'm not talking about Darby, or Larkin, or Anderson, or whomever, I'm relaying what I find in the Bible.

Much love!

 

[ewq1938]

DETAIL: The 7th Seal was opened and there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

Question: How many years can be counted in the space of half an hour?

By allegory, knowing that 1.000 years in the watch of GOD is as one day in the human calendar (24 hours), how many years can be counted in a half of hour? 1000/24 => one hour is around 42 years in round numbers, And 1/2 hour? a half of one hour is around 21 years, by allegory.

Probably more likely to be 30 min but there is another hour in Revelation, the hour the ten horns reign with the beast. That hour is 42 months so perhaps the half an hour means 21 months? Probably not but worth mentioning.

 

[Naomi25]

Review Jesus’ own chosen Disciples....they believed, they doubted, they denied, they believed, they wondered....they followed Jesus for Three Years... they heard, they learned, they believed, they were unsure....
^ THAT is a normal human Process of how people Listen and Process in their MIND, what they Hear in their ears, concerning ANY TOPIC.
^ THAT is a normal human Process of how people See and Process in their MIND, what they SEE in their eyes, concerning ANY TOPIC.
....at ANY point of a human Hearing and Seeing....they can Believe, Doubt, Wonder...

I think you are rather missing my point and forging ahead with a form of nit-picking.

If we look at the disciples during Jesus’ earthly ministry, then we can say that while they may have had ideas or beliefs in who Christ was or what his ultimate mission was, they fundamentally lacked understanding in all those areas. It was not until the Spirit fell on Pentecost that they gained sudden understanding of these things. But by then we know that all apart from Judas, whether they understood or not, they all loved and were devoted to their leader. That’s WHY the Spirit fell on them.

For others…having questions, or even doubt about certain aspects of your walk, is not sin. And it certainly doesn’t speak to a person’s salvational status. Many Christians…people who have been born again and have the Spirit in dwelling in them, still struggle with things.

But, as in my previous post, this does not disqualify them from being saved, or being Raptured.

.
On one day they are believing...and the next day not believing.
** Mindful BELIEVING...IS NOT IN ACCORDANCE with Jesus’ Preaching TO BECOME CONVERTED.
** CONFESSING “HEARTFUL” BELIEF IS IN ACCORDANCE with Jesus’ Preaching TO BECOME CONVERTED.

Why on earth do you assume I’m referring to people who have NOT joyfully confessed Christ?
And “mindful believing”…oh come on!
Have you heard of this: “let your yes be yes, and no be no”.
Why does any Christian need to prove that they have believed in the “proper” manner? Why is it your place to judge any of those who say, as per scripture, “I have believed in the gospel of Christ and count him my Saviour.”

.
* In Many Protestant Churches people are invited to come and HEAR the Word of God. Welcomed and at the close of Service, invited to come again and HEAR more. Every person who IS HEARING, God is blessing with measures of His Gift of Faith. Hear MORE, Receive MORE Faith.
* People may attend services for YEARS (considering Maybe an Hour Once a week)....
3 YEARS...of a person attending Once a week...= 156 hours of Hearing.
* Consider the comparison to Jesus’ Disciples (Maybe HEARING 10 hours a day For 3 YEARS...= 10,950 hours of Hearing.
until THEY WERE PREPARED TO CONFESS Heartful BELIEF....

This is the most bizarre set of reasoning. Are you honestly conflating “true belief” with the number of hours they’ve sat under teaching? That number of hours needing to be as many as the disciples?
Please.
What about the thief on the cross. That was no doubt a short transaction. But if we are to take scripture by it’s word, the thief confessed his sin and belief in Christ and was immediately accepted.
Where do you suppose he logged his hours?

And…most importantly, you seem to be missing a key aspect of Christianity: the disciples didn’t confess and be saved until the Spirit fell on them. It was the Spirit, not their hours, that saved them. The same goes for every other Christian out there. The Spirit is the guarantee of their inheritance.

.
Point being...You know not an individuals journey. They may be 10 yrs old or 50 yrs old, HEARING for the First Time. An individual sitting in a Church Pew, neither means a Mindful Believer, or a Converted person. And even the Converted are traveling the same path at Different Distances.
Scripture teaches TO HEAR. God Blesses with Faith. That is the Beginning.

I’m…trying to figure out how any of what you are saying relates AT ALL with what I’ve posted.

Do you think that I said that “any who claim to be Christian will be taken in the rapture”?
Because I assure you I did not.
I said all those who believe will be raptured.
It seems to be you who is placing distinctions on what “believers” actually mean.

How’s a about this: if your truly concerned about false believers getting sucked out because they haven’t confessed “heartfelt belief”…then rest easy…I’m sure God knows and won’t take any fakers.

The title Christian, the description Believer....does not conclude or mean;
Converted “IN” Christ.

.

Oh. Really?
Astound me: what does “converted IN Christ” mean?
And what, pray tell, DOES one call a person with salvation?

Review...As in the days of Noah...Noah PREPARED. Noah Entered the Ark.
God SHUT the Ark DOOR.
Noah was IN the Ark 7 day Before the Rain was send down from Heaven.
Noah was NOT IN the Rain. As the Rain increased, the Ark lifted off the face of the Earth. As the Waters of the deep rose up from the Earth, the Ark lifted higher off the Face of the Earth.
The Ark continued rising, rising, 20+ Feet “in the Clouds” Above the Mountain Tops.
Conversion...IN Christ......On a day you do NOT KNOW...
THE DOOR IS SHUT.
YES that ^ APPLIES to ONLY those “IN” Christ...They ARE Prepared and ARE Risen up to the Clouds, Above the face of the Earth.

I….don’t even know what to say.
How does ANY of that apply to a statement saying the the bible doesn’t exclude saved people…people with the Holy Spirit…people believing in Christ for their salvation…people “in Christ” (is there any other way I can put it??) being taken in the Rapture…whenever it is?

Answer: it doesn’t. You’re just using my statement to go on your own little rant about what you think the correct terminology to everything is.
Fine. I don’t care how you feel about that. But when you take the clear intentions of a thing and use your pet peeve to grind away at it….it makes most of what you say irrelevant.

* Thereafter, what has ALWAYS APPLIED from the Beginning....
Today, Tomorrow, During the Tribulation....
BELIEVE ON THE DAY YOU PHYSICALLY DIE, and God SHALL “then” SAVE YOU.

Once again…totally beside the point and haring off on a tangent completely besides my point.
So…I have absolutely no desire to argue with you about any of it. If you can’t even accept standard and general usage of what to call “a believer”, than I most certainly don’t have enough time to waste talking to you about assurance of salvation.

 

[Naomi25]

Not salvation. Salvation is by faith. James said . . . show me . . . I'll show you . . . this is showing whether our previous saving faith is real. God already knows. Our works are the demonstration of the faith they cannot see.

Much love!

Much love!

Ok. I’m a little confused.

You seem to see the verses in James, in #940, as meaning that this is HOW we show OTHERS our faith.

(I would argue that while this is a true outworking of the point James presents, it’s not his true point. His true point is that we need to know…ourselves…that works are an outpouring of genuine faith. That if we have no works, it signals that our faith in false. That is why faith with no works…or works alone, do not save.)

But…you also claim that salvation IS by faith.

And yet…you still feel comfortable reading a passage like Matt 25 and assume it is telling you that THEIR salvation will come via works.

Even though we’ve been told that works without faith are dead. That works based salvation brings with it the ability to boast.

I’m sorry. I don’t care if it IS a new ‘dispensation’…you cannot escape from these other biblical truths. How do you make them suddenly UNTRUE? How do you make it suddenly okay to boast in your own salvation? How do you make it suddenly ok to have works with no faith?

 

[marks]

I’m sorry. I don’t care if it IS a new ‘dispensation’…you cannot escape from these other biblical truths. How do you make them suddenly UNTRUE? How do you make it suddenly okay to boast in your own salvation? How do you make it suddenly ok to have works with no faith?

Somehow we are on opposite sides of the world. You've got ideas about what I'm saying that are virtually unrecognizable to me.

Our faith is shown - to ourselves, to others - by our works, and this is what James is talking about. But God is the One Who justifies us to salvation. You can't see the wind, just the moving of the leaves. Paul speaks of the wind, the Spirit Who saves us, James speaks of the blowing of the leaves, that shows us the wind is there.

And I'm not promoting "works with no faith", and the Bible doesn't speak of such things, however, I am saying we should accept Jesus' words as true, and find the understanding of things where we aren't saying He didn't mean what He said. I don't go there, myself, I don't think anyone should.

I take it as true, that's all I'm doing. No systems, no denial of passages, none of that. I just accept what it says, and find the harmony, and I do in fact find it.

Much love!

 

[Naomi25]

I don't get that. What do you mean?

Much love!

Hmm. Let me try and illustrate with another example.
Take the Trinity. Is there a passage anywhere in scripture that tells us outright that our God is one God in three persons?
No.
What are some passages that we might take “at face value” about God?

Deuteronomy 6:4
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.


In this verse we see a command to ‘hear the Lord God is one’. We know the Jews were outraged with Jesus because he claimed to be God…even when he acknowledge ‘the Father’ still in heaven. To them, that was directly opposing the above verse…which meant blasphemy of the highest order. Indeed…to take it ‘at face value’ we too much view Christ’s claims as blasphemy.
Except…


1 Peter 1:2
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

Here we have (as we find all throughout the NT) a clear reference to the 3 persons of the Godhead.
It is passages like this, AND the OT references, when collated together, that led the Church Fathers to develop the doctrine of the Trinity.

They did not start out with the doctrine of the Trinity, which they read into the passages.
Nor did they insist that the OT passage must be ‘taken at face value’. That would have led to a confusing tangle where there was only a single God. But also seemingly 3.

When put together though, we have one God, in three persons. Each person displaying unique characteristics…but sharing the same attributes.

I’m trying to highlight that we need to do the same thing when coming to the essential ideas of what gives a person salvation.
By assuming that a ‘new dispensation’ means Matt 25 CAN be saying that salvation by works will be possible, you’ve also assumed that EVERYTHING else in scripture that speaks to what gives salvation and WHY, is incorrect.
THAT’S why collating all the passages together before we draw our conclusions is so essential.

 

[marks]

you’ve also assumed that EVERYTHING else in scripture that speaks to what gives salvation and WHY, is incorrect.

No. I haven't. I've harmonized them while preserving the meaning of the passages. But I've come to a different answer than you have.

Things changed at the cross. That change is simply described as a new dispensation, a "dispensing", again, oikonomia, the way you run the household.

Much love!

 

[marks]

Here we have (as we find all throughout the NT) a clear reference to the 3 persons of the Godhead.
It is passages like this, AND the OT references, when collated together, that led the Church Fathers to develop the doctrine of the Trinity.

And nothing in that doctrine renders any passage untrue, or other than what it says. But it leaves us with a mystery that no man seems to be able to understand, a Triune God. We've concluded that all these seeming disparate passages are true, therefore, God must be Triune, and we accept this, because we accept that all the verses which speak of Him are true.

This is all I endeavor to do, allow the verses to speak for themselves, and find those understandings where the verses simply remain true.

Much love!

 

[Naomi25]

I don't think you are understanding me.

I don't use any kind of "system" to superimpose something on the Bible. I've found my conclusions from the Bible, and "dispensation" is just a word - the Bible itself uses the Greek form, Oikonomia, "house law", or "economy", or properly, the managing of the household to supply the needs of it's members.

Anyway, dispensation simply describes the differences in the ways God covenants with people, and how those happen. Nothing more than that. "that in the dispensations of the fulness of time", Paul used it too.

I'm not talking about Darby, or Larkin, or Anderson, or whomever, I'm relaying what I find in the Bible.

Much love!

I do understand what you are saying…but I’m not sure you get me.

Just assume, for a moment, that when you read Matt 25, it is happening simply at the end of this world. There is no new ‘dispensation’ or time on earth after the Rapture.
Assume for a moment that the Rapture happens at the END of the tribulation.
How then would Matt 25 make sense? It would be, would it not, in the same ‘period’ as the rest of us. Where faith is absolutely what saves. Where the REASONS for faith being what brings salvation are clear. So that we cannot boast, and so that our works would not be dead.
By putting it in a ‘different time’ you don’t have to reason away boasting and dead works.