rebuilder 454
Active Member
You sure get a lot of mileage out of the word "midnight".@David in NJ
First, I will respond to the ones I think you are identifying since you did not leave verses on some and chapter/verses on others. For this reason, I'd ask you to please cite the Ch. and verse for Pre-Tb rapture verses for the ones you laid out below so that I may respond to them.
1. Matthew 24. The 2 vivid comings.
2. The 2 escape verses.
3. The context of the pretrib rapture verses of peacetime and normal life of activities and commerce.
(that alone destroys all but pretrib rapture)
4. Rev 14. ( 3 gatherings)
For #4, I think you are referring to the harvest as 2 gatherings, but you labeled it as 3. Please just cite the verses you are suggesting.
Now that I have addressed current inadequacies so that I may properly respond, I will now reply to your suggestion that Matthew 25, regarding the 10 virgins, is an image of a Pre-TB rapture. I will also add into this discussion "the last supper dialogue".
Without sounding redundant of how many virgins there are and the differences between them (as you already know), I will skip to verse 5 and begin there.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. 6And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
Why was the cry made at midnight? Midnight is and was a time when everyone was asleep. It is also a time when darkness is at its height.
The requirement to see at such a dark hour would depend upon burning lamps. Doesn't Amos 5:20 say,
Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
How could the cry at midnight represent a time when darkness did not envelope the land? Pre-TB would have us in heaven at Ch.4, but according to this, darkness isn't here, the seal's haven't been opened, the trumpets haven't blown, the bowls haven't been poured out, Christ has not even ascended to heaven as a lamb slain to accept the scroll, the 5th seal martyrs haven't cried out to God asking for his wrath to begin and the earth dwellers haven't announced his wrath has now begun and somehow, though Pre-TB says all this time is wrath (1st seal on), the 144k haven't been sealed for protection till after the 6th seal had been opened.
The midnight hour in this parable identifies His unexpected late arrival in complete darkness. Not a rapture in the light of day before the Day of the Lord. With that said, let me turn to 1 Thessalonians 5.
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 3For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. 4But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. 5Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
If the Day of the Lord will not overtake us because we are children of the light, and the same day overtakes the wicked, the passage above demonstrates we are not removed from the day of darkness. For those in darkness, they cannot see when the thief comes to rob them. For those with light, the thief does not surprise them. They are prepared with lamps and oil to outlast the entire duration. Wasn't that the issue with the other 5 virgins? They did not have enough oil to go the distance.
And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
The other part of the parable I'd like to focus on is this.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut
The word used for marriage is gámos – (figuratively) the Marriage Supper of the Lamb which begins with Christ glorifying all the saints (OT, NT) at His return.
It's important to recognize they go into a wedding feast because the Lord's supper alludes to this. In Matthew 26:29, Christ said,
But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
For Christ to be drinking the wine, he must be reigning over the Kingdoms of the Earth. This will be fulfilled when Christ reigns as King over the nations, in his Kingdom, and He treads the grapes of wrath at the Wedding feast.
1. Rev 19:6 - Christ reigns over the earth. Also found as the 7th trumpet Rev 11:15-18
2. Rev 19:7 - The marriage feast has come. This ties in the wedding feast of the 10 virgins and the Lord's supper being in his Kingdom.
3. Rev 19:7-8 - The bride has made herself ready and now she was granted to wear white linen. She was not ready, married or wearing white linen any time before this and to suggest she is somehow raptured into Heaven before the 1st seal and made ready then and given white linen s impossible with this. The context doesn't allow it.
Barnes: And his wife hath made herself ready - By putting on her beautiful apparel and ornaments. All the preparations had been made for a permanent and uninterrupted union with its Redeemer, and the church was henceforward to be recognized as his beautiful bride, and was no more to appear as a decorated harlot
Directly after the 7th trumpet sounds, the dead are judged and we are rewarded at Christ glorious coming. That is the marriage to the bride in the time of darkness. Immediately after this, before the 1st bowl is poured on the wicked (Rev 11:18 - and destroy those that destroy the earth) the door is shut. (Rev 15:8)
Job 14:12 tells us through the HS,
So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
2 Peter says in this regard,
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
The resurrection will not precede the Day of the Lord. Job makes it clear. 2 Timothy 4:1 makes it clear it happens when Christ reigns as did the Wedding feast. Isaiah 25 makes it clear it happens in the mountain of God.
Now, I'm running out of room on this page to type so I will relent here and wait for your reply on my previous questions.
You jettison the parable to make "midnight" the focus.
When in actuality the setting is 100% peacetime and normal life.
Including buying and selling.
You actually changed the setting, and had no proof of any such thing.
The wedding and supper are in heaven. As depicted in rev 19 and the last supper dialogue.
Amazing how vividly the groom takes the bride to the wedding chamber , obviously in heaven, and your doctrine needs that changed to the warring King takes the saints to white horses and does a uturn to earth where postribs insist the wedding feast is.
The 10 virgin parable does not need modification.
( i know, you must modify it)