Well I was influenced by the bible. I read the many views on the rapture and the millenium and the trib. a pre-mil, pre trib rapture does the least harm to Scripture.
With all due respect, it directly contradicts Paul's Postrib teaching in 2 Thes 2! How can Postrib do damage to the Bible when it is taught in the Bible? On the other hand, Pretrib is *not* taught in the Bible. People say it is in the Bible by using logic or by reading into the Bible using allegories to infer it.
Paul just let us know this event will happen and earlier He said it would happen before the wrath to come. We are to comfort one another with these words. Not much comfort if the church has to go through the most violent and deadly 7 years and get caught up as Jesus is coming down.
This is a big error caused by the Pretrib camp. They deliberately puff up the trouble that will exist during Antichrist's Reign to look as if it is worse than any other time of Christian persecution in history. In reality, this idea is taken out of context from a passage that is speaking of the NT Jewish Diaspora, which Jesus said would be the worst tribulation in Israel's history.
The idea that God's Wrath is poured out all through the reign of Antichrist is not in the book of Revelation. The 7 trumpet judgments and the 7 bowls of wrath are primarily a representation of Christ's Coming at Armageddon, which is a battle that will bring God's wrath upon the whole world.
The persecution of Christians during the reign of Antichrist will probably be located in Europe. And I seriously doubt it will be any different from previous persecutions, from ancient Rome to the Communist persecutions of our own time.
I think the prediction of Antichrist's persecution was in reality a warning to Christians in all times, since it was given during the time of the ancient Roman Empire. God knew Christians would have to face stiff resistance to the Gospel message and would have to endure some hardship. It was an encouragement to stand fast in a time of temporary trouble.
Sorry but the lake of fire is not once called the wrath of God.
Oh but it is. Maybe not using the exact words, but if the Lake of Fire is defined as Eternal Judgment, then the Lake of Fire is certainly the Wrath of God.
Rom 2.5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
Rev 20.The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
However the 70th week of Daniel or the tribulation is called the wrath of God in numerous places. I go with what the Bible calls the wrath of God poured out and not loose translations.
The "Great Tribulation" is mentioned in Dan 12.1 and in the Olivet Discourse. There is also a reference to it in Rev 7. All 3 references indicate the NT age in which Jews rebel against their calling, suffer exile, and persecute Christians. It reflects an age in which Christians are troubled by the pagan world, and Israel remains under national punishment in exile.
Dan 12.1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.
I would point out, with respect to this passage in Daniel, that the prophecy follows directly after prophecy of Antiochus 4, whose reign directly preceded the rise of Rome's control over Israel and the entire region. This period of great distress therefore began for the Jews during the ancient Roman Empire and ends at Christ's Coming, when national Israel is restored to God's good graces.
Luke 21.23 There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people.
This "great distress" directly correlates to the Jewish Diaspora of the NT era. According to Jesus, this period would begin with Rome's destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in his own generation and end at his 2nd Coming.
Rev 7.14 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."
This is a prolepsis, a vision of the end of the present age, when Jesus comes back. It indicates the Church coming out victorious at the end of the NT era, which has been troubled and characterized by resistance and persecution.
Except that Jesus did not cause the sacrifices to cease, He was not a ruler of Rome, He did not make a 7 year covenant with Israel and after 3 1/2 brake the covenant. One can only get those conclusions by reinterpreting the plain sense of Scripture.
That is one possible interpretation, that Jesus is the ruler whose 3.5 year covenant with Israel was cut short by his crucifixion. But there is another view, which I now favor. The "ruler" in view appears to relate to the ruler whose people, an army, destroys Jerusalem and the temple. This ruler could only be Roman leadership, whose army destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD.
This ruler (not the same man, but the leadership) was also the one who either had a covenant of protection for Israel, until he decided to break it, or he without being conscious of it fulfilled God's covenant with Israel to provide for them a Christian atonement. The Roman ruler did this by having Jesus killed, resulting in the cutting off of the Anointed One, and the end of God's covenant with Israel under the Law.
There is no way one can justify separating the 70th Weeks from the previous 69 Weeks and still call it a "70 Weeks period!"
Also it is impossible grammatically for Jesus to be that ruler.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,
The hes of vwerse 27 must refer back to their nearest antecedent and that is the prince of the people that shall come and destroy the sanctuary.
The church fathers are great men of the faith, but they did not write Scripture.
And the Hebrew does not say 70 weeks. It says seventy 7's. NOrmal thinking would call them consecutive but history has proven this is not the case. As well as the facts laid out in vses 24-27.
And so, to support your favored view you reject a more rational approach that this is a 70 Weeks period, which is exactly what is stated. Call it "70 7s," and it makes no real difference in how the Hebrews may have viewed it.
It really isn't my thing to convince anybody to change their mind. A person must conform to what God shows him or her. But when I see something lacking in an argument I have to give my two cents. I hope you'll give me that?