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The Timing of the Rapture (format slightly edited)
 

The subject of the timing of the Rapture of the saints
is always guaranteed to ignite a debate.

Within Church doctrine ... four main positions:

1/  No Rapture of the Church

2/  Pre-tribulation Rapture

3/  Mid-tribulation Rapture

4/  Post-tribulation Rapture

Many leaders totally avoid the topic of the Rapture.
They don't believe it is an important enough issue to
risk the division that discussion tends to create.
However, I beg to differ. I believe that the existence
of Israel unmistakably places us in the latter days.
If this is indeed the case, a correct understanding of
the end-time is essential.  The Body of Messiah needs
to be prepared for what is about to take place in the
World. If the pre and mid-tribulation doctrines prove
to be wrong, then many Christians who were expecting
to be raptured may find themselves totally unprepared
to survive the tribulation. The Lord has called us to
be His fellow-workers. Therefore we need to know what
lies before us,  so that we can invest our lives in
the work of the Kingdom. Let us also remember that
Jesus rebuked the people of His day for being able to
discern the weather from the signs in the sky, but not
being able to discern the signs of the times in which
they lived. (Matthew 16:3)

I want to take a scriptural look at this volatile
subject.
 
 

* No Rapture of the Church *

I believe that 1 Thessalonians 4:16 shows the
no-rapture option to be unscriptural.  Some Bible
teachers have quoted 1 Corinthians 15:51 to also
support the rapture.  However, if we desire to rightly
divide the Word of God, this verse on its own does not
speak of a rapture.  The verse simply states that we
will all be changed in a moment of time, even the dead
will be brought back to life.  Taken in tandem with 1
Thess 4:16, the Corinthians scripture does point to
the Rapture, but standing alone it does not.
 
 

* Timing of the Rapture *

That leaves the other three doctrines to discuss. The
Bible also teaches that every word should be
established by the word of two or three witnesses
(Matt 18:16).  I am going to give you more than three
scriptures that witness to the true timing of the
Rapture.

1/  Acts 3:21  Whom heaven must receive until the
times of restoration of all things, which God has
spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the
world began.

According to this verse, Jesus is being restrained in
Heaven until the prophecies are fulfilled.  The
prophets spoke of Israel's scattering and latter day
restoration of the nation of Israel and the
regathering of the Jewish people to the land of their
fore-fathers.  (Deut 30:3 / Jer 30:3)  Both Hosea (Hos
3:5) and Jeremiah (Jer 30:9) prophecy of the Jewish
people serving David their King.  King David was long
dead when these words were written.  It is obvious
that this is a prophetic statement referring to Israel
serving the Messiah and Acts 3:21 tells us that will
have to be fulfilled before Jesus is release from
Heaven.  Romans 11:26 says that one day all Israel
will be saved.

2/  Romans 11:15  For if their being cast away is the
reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance
be but life from the dead?

The ultimate "life from the dead" surely must be the
resurrection of the dead.  This occurs as the last
Shofar announces the second coming of the Lord. (1
Thess 4:16) and according to Romans 11:15, that event
is a result of the natural Jewish branches being
grafted back in to the Olive Tree (Israel).

3/  Matthew 23:39  Jesus said to the Jews in Jerusalem
  "You won't see me again until you say  Blessed is He
who comes in the name of the Lord"

Revelation 1:7  Behold!  He is coming on the clouds
and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced
Him.

Taking  both of those verses together, we can deduce
that if Jesus said that the Jews won't see Him again
until they are ready to welcome Him back, then no-one
will see Him until the Jews welcome Him back.

4/  Matthew 24:  I agree that some Bible verses can be
use to support the pre or mid-tribulation doctrines,
but Matthew 24 should put any debate over the timing
of the Rapture to rest.  The disciples asked Jesus
"What will be the sign of your coming and the end of
the age?"

Jesus then systematically answers their question.  I
believe the only legitimate way to rightly divide this
chapter is to read through it in the order that Jesus
spoke it out.  Lets take an overview of His answer.

v 5    Many will come in my name

v 6    You will hear of wars and rumors of wars

v 7    For nation will rise up against nation and
there will be famines,
       earthquakes and pestilencesin various places

v 8    All these are the beginning of sorrows

v 9    Then they will deliver YOU up to TRIBULATION
and KILL you and you
       will be hated by all nations for my names sake

v 13   But he who endures to the END will be saved

v 15   Therefore when YOU see the abomination of
desolation
       as spoken by the prophet Daniel,
       standing in the Holy place (let him who reads
understand)

v 21   Then there will be GREAT TRIBULATION, such as
has not be seen since the world began

v 22   Unless those days were shortened, no flesh
would be saved,
       but for the elect's sake
       those days will be shortened

v 29   Immediately after the tribulation ....
       The powers of the heavens will be shaken

v 30   Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in
Heaven,
       and all the tribes of the earth will mourn
       and they will see the Son of Man coming on the
clouds of heaven
       with power and great glory.

       He will send His angels with a great sound of a
trumpet
       and they will gather together His elect from
the four winds,
       from one end of heaven to the other (this lines
up with 1 Thessalonians 4;16)

v 36   But of that day and hour, no-one knows

v 40   Then two men will be in the field;
       one will betaken and the other left.
       Two women will grinding at the mill;
       one will be taken and the other left.
       (This surely must be a picture of the rapture
        and it occurs at the END of the Lord's
narrative,
        well after the GREAT TRIBULATION of verse 21.)
 

I used to prefer the mid-tribulation position, but on
Jesus words alone I was forced to reconsider and I
arrived at the only possible Biblically correct
position.  According to Jesus, the Rapture is
immediately after the time He called "the Great
Tribulation".  Does you theology agree with Jesus, or
do you choose to disagree with Jesus ?
 
 

I have two more points that also (tend to) confirm a
post-tribulation Rapture
 

* Ruth *

A good number of today's Bible teachers see the book
of Ruth as a prophetic picture of the end-time Church.
 Ruth the Gentile clung to Jewish Naomi.  Ruth had
done what all true Christians have done, whether they
realize it on not, in making the God of the Jews,
their God.   But Ruth had gone even further.  She said
to Naomi, "Your people shall be my people, and your
God shall be my God. Where you go I shall go, and
where you die I shall die" (Ruth 1:16)  This is a
picture of total commitment and a picture of the
end-time 'Ruth' Church standing with the Jewish people
in the last days.  'Ruth' means friend and Israel
needs as many friends as possible in the days of the
Great Tribulation.  Ultimately, the whole world will
come against Jerusalem and Israel in the final days.
The non-Bible believing world will never be Israel's
friend - quite the opposite will be seen to be true.
Only the true Church of Jesus will stand with Israel
in the dark days ahead as both Jews and Christians
pass through the days of Jacobs Trouble standing
united against the wrath of  a Satanically inspired
one world government and the false church, both of
which are already being formed.
 

* Jesus came the first time for the Jewish people *

By His own declaration Jesus came the first time for
the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Matt 15:24) and
I believe that He will come for the House of Israel
when he returns at his 2nd coming.

The only difference is that this time there are
millions of 'wild branches' that have been grafted
into the 'Olive Tree' of Romans 11:17 that represents
the House of Israel.  God only has one house, one
people.  The Church does not stand separately as many
Christians would believe.  Paul commands us not to
boast against  the (natural) branches, but remember
that you do not support the root, the root supports
you.

(Romans 11:18)  Were it not for the fact that God has
grafted the non-Jewish Church into the natural Olive
Tree - the Church would simply not exist.  Gentile
Christians are now 'fellow citizens' of the
commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:11-19)

Jesus is coming back for His bride - Do you really
believe that the Bride of the Jewish Messiah will be
void of most of the Jewish people?  Paul didn't
believe so.  In Rom 11:25 Paul tells us that there is
a certain number of Gentiles who are pre-destined for
salvation and when that number is complete, then the
Lord will supernaturally remove the veil that has
blinded the eyes of the Jews and then ALL Israel will
be saved.  (Rom 11:26)

Jesus will not take the bride out until she is
complete with Jews and Gentiles. The Jews have been
blinded to the truth and have suffered dreadfully for
the last 2000 years, so that you dear reader, if you
are a Gentile could be grafted in.  That is why Paul
also says in Romans 15:27 that it is your duty to
bless the Jewish people in material ways.  You are
called to be a 'Ruth' in the day that you have come to
the Kingdom.  Any other opinion, or the desire to
escape the time of Jacob's Trouble, leaving the Jewish
people behind to go through it by themselves, is an
un-Biblical, selfish attitude, and in the light of the
above scriptural evidence, needs to be seriously
reconsidered.
 

* And as the last word, Paul's warning: Thessalonians
2 *

Now, brethren,

concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
and our gathering together to Him,

   Let no one deceive you by any means;

   for that Day will not come
 
   unless the falling away comes first,

   and the man of sin is revealed,

   the son of perdition,
   who opposes and exalts himself above all that is
called God or that is worshiped,
   so that he sits as God in the temple of God,
   showing himself that he is God.

Do you not remember that when I was still with you
I told you these things?
 

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dwzavitz@mymelody.com
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