What confusion and example of being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. The wrath of God is confined to the last trumpet when Christ returns to give his reward to the saints.
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever… And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. (Revelation 11:15, 18)
Such a declaration, that the time of his wrath comes only upon the last and seventh trumpet, makes the sixth seal merely a flash forward of what is to come. No doubt with those with eyes to see and ears that hear, that the first six seals do not represent the wrath of God and that the Church must endure such trials because of its fallen condition in the time of the end, predicted by the NT (Matthew 5:13, 24:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12; 1 Timothy 4:1–3; Romans 14:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 3:1-17).
Christ declares these fallen conditions to the era of the church of Sardis and warns us of the trial to come in the era of Philadelphia:
… repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief… (Revelation 3:3)
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10)
God has not appointed the Church to his wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9). The evidence presented in the seventh trumpet upholds that the trial that follows the era of Philadelphia is not his wrath and establishes that being kept from the hour of temptation is aid and not the “rapture.”
The futurist scheme cannot endure the evidence of Christ’s testimony by his mediation of the New Covenant that the Church is judged by Christ and must endure the trials illustrated by the seven seals, with the exception of the last trumpet.
But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. (Romans 14:10)
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10)
It is at the last trumpet that the saints are caught up with Christ in the clouds, which is illustrated in the accounts of the two witnesses (Revelation 11:3-12) and supported by 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.