II Thessalonians 2:1-11Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:If you choose to ignore this then by all means go right ahead because that has no affect on me. Believe me, I pray that everyone will come to realize the danger of the idea of the rapture, but I fear most simply won't because it's the easy way to go.The funny thing is, Pops, is I have directly responded to almost every piece of Scriptural documentation that you have given. You're responses have been the ones to dodge the bullet and jump to another verse or verses.And quite frankly, we've made the arguments that you continue to ignore. Then you decide to take a potshot at us by posting in the Welcome Forum about your beliefs.Forget the meat, the prophecy is given to you in milk. Two verses confirm that Christ returns once at the final trump and you merely have to flip over to Revelation to see that there are seven trumps and you are also provided with a description of how it works each time.
I hear arguments that say the Church rejected the idea of the rapture 30 or 40 years ago
A little backwards, but the notion of the Rapture came to be in about the mid 19th century and then took off from there. Up until about half a century (a little less, I believe) ago, it didn't have the full grip it has today. What really gets me is that a 15 year old girl had this vision of a pre-trib. rapture as well. It was only written down about 30 years later. Give me God's Word anyday over that.
All I know about your position is that you detest the thought of JESUS CHRIST coming to rescue HIS Church from wrath as HE promises and as the early Church expected each moment.....Let me ask you something....Do you expect JESUS to come at any moment?
I know you have been provided with the links. If you cannot gather our "position" from the Bible itself, the Rapture Lie Bible Study or our page about the Rapture, I don't know what else to tell you.Now to your desperation argument. All this is going to come into play very quickly. The antichrist is going to rise and be a very appealing man to those who are not well versed in Scripture. So yes, the coming of Christ is going to be exactly as he and Paul said it would be - he's coming back like a thief in the night meaning at anytime and you absolutely have to be on your toes against the deceit.
explain why paul thought he may be caught up alive to be with the LORD
I've covered this twice now. Look at the timeline given to you by the Apostle Paul - the last trump. The answer is there. Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's not there.Kriss summed up anything else I'd have to say at this point.