A possible end times chronology

postrib · Feb 21, 2003

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...if the day of the Lord has begun and the rapture has occured...

Does anything say or require that the day of the Lord has begun or the rapture has occurred before the trumpets?

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the trumpets as judgments...

Does Revelation say the trumpets of the tribulation are "judgments"? Isn't it possible that God's judgment may not begin until the 7 vials of wrath at the end of the tribulation (Revelation 15:4, Revelation 16:7), and that none of them will be directed at us Christians?

Could all of us Christians who will be in the tribulation (Revelation 6:11, 7:14, 9:4, 12:17, 13:7-10, 14:12-13, 15:2, 16:15, 18:4, 20:4) go through its wars, famines, plagues, persecutions, martyrdoms, and natural disasters, just as we Christians have always suffered, and not because God was bringing judgment against us?

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the pre-wrath position (occuring at the 6th seal) is so crystal clear...

Note that nothing at the 6th seal says or requires that the rapture occurs at that point.

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...they only became Christians when they were sealed...

Note that the Bible doesn't show the 144,000 getting saved during the tribulation. It's possible they were saved before the tribulation began. I believe the seal in Revelation 7:3 is not one for eternal salvation, like the one in Ephesians 1:13, 4:30, but one for physical protection, like the one in Ezekiel 9:4-6.

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...they were not Christians until they saw the coming of Jesus...

Note that the coming of Jesus is not shown until Revelation 19.

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...Jesus is actually standing on mount zion...

I believe Jesus is standing on the heavenly mount Sion (Hebrews 12:22).

I believe Revelation 14 shows the 144,000 "before the throne of God" in heaven (Revelation 14:1-5) while other of us Christians are still suffering and dying on the earth under the Antichrist (Revelation 14:12-13).

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the unknown day and hour of the rapture...

Note that Jesus didn't say "no one will know the day" (future tense) of the 2nd coming but "no one knows the day" (present tense in translation, perfect tense in Greek).

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew 24:36-37).

Note the exact correlation of the phrase and tense of "knoweth no man" in Matthew 24:36 and 1 Corinthians 2:11-12: "Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God." See also: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth... and he will shew you things to come" (John 16:13).

Jesus said his coming would be "as the days of Noah were" (Matthew 24:36-37). God told Noah when the flood would come before it came: "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (Genesis 7:4). He told him because: "Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7).

Note that Jesus comes on people at an hour they will not know only "if" they aren't watching: "IF therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee" (Revelation 3:3). Paul said that if we watch for the 2nd coming it will not overtake us as a thief: "Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night... But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief... let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch" (1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4, 6). Note that between the 6th and 7th vials, at the very end of the tribulation, Jesus is still exhorting us to keep watching for his coming: "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth" (Revelation 16:15).

Before the 2nd coming, at the abomination of desolation, I believe those of us alive and still watching will know that we'll have to wait 1,335 days until Jesus comes: "From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days" (Daniel 12:11-12).

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the book of Daniel only concerns the Jews who have rejected Anti-Christ yet not accepted Christ...

"The people that do know their God" (Daniel 11:32) can only refer to Christians, as no one can know the Father apart from Christ: "Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also" (John 8:19); "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" (Matthew 11:27); "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6); "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also" (1 John 2:23).

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the sun is darkened...

Note that if "the sun and the air were darkened" of Revelation 9:2 doesn't have to be referring to "the sun be darkened" of Matthew 24:29, then "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair" (Revelation 6:12) doesn't have to be referring to "the sun be darkened" of Matthew 24:29.

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the moon does not giver her light...

Note that the moon appearing blood red (Revelation 6:12) is not the same as the moon not giving any light at all (Matthew 24:29).

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...Joel 2:31...

Joel 2:31 says the moon will turn to blood before the day of the Lord, which indeed it will, for the 6th seal may be some time before the 2nd coming.

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the "great tribulation" refers to the Anti-Christ's persecution...

I don't believe "the great tribulation" is a technical term that must always refer only to the final 3 1/2-year period of the end-time tribulation. John said he was going through "the" tribulation (Revelation 1:9, see the Greek), and "great" tribulation has been around since at least the 1st century (Revelation 2:22). Christians have always gone through much tribulation (Acts 14:22). Note that the Greek word for "much" in Acts 14:22 is translated 59 times in the New Testament as "great."

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...this great multitude the raptured church...

Note that the great multitude being in heaven (Revelation 7:9) doesn't require that the rapture has occurred, for when their bodies die, the spirits of believers go into heaven to be with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6-8, Philippians 1:21-24, Luke 23:43, Luke 23:46, Acts 7:59).

Note that no verse says that the rapture will take anyone any higher than the clouds. And if Christ is in heaven with the great multitude (Revelation 7:17), and they had to have been raptured, then Christ would have had to have "descended from heaven" (1 Thessalonians 4:16) to rapture them, then ascended back into heaven, only to have to descend from heaven all over again to destroy the Antichrist at Armageddon (Revelation 19:19-21), making the 2nd coming (parousia) really the 3rd coming (parousia). I believe Paul taught that the Antichrist would be destroyed at the same coming (parousia) of Christ in which we will be gathered together unto him (2 Thessalonians 2:1, 8). I don't believe that Paul taught a 3rd coming (parousia) of Christ.

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...God's supernatural wrath (numerous meteors...

Note that Satan can create natural disasters (Job 1:16, 19) and cast stars down (Revelation 12:4), and he will at one point in the tribulation have great wrath (Revelation 12:12). In Job 1:16 they think "the fire of God is fallen from heaven" when really it's from the activity of Satan, who was allowed by God at a certain time to bring it about, and not because God was angry with Job in any way.

19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...locusts that avoid those with the seal of God...

Note that it doesn't say the locusts are the wrath of God.

God has allowed faithful Christians to be tortured by men, and to be tormented by scorpion stings, and to suffer from excruciatingly painful diseases such as cancer, throughout history, from the beginning of the church down until this day, and not because he was bringing his wrath against them.

I believe it's possible that "it was commanded" the locusts by God to torment "only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads" (Revelation 9:4) in the same way that God controlled exactly what Satan could do during his tormenting of Job: "The LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life" (Job 2:6); God could be saying "Behold, all men can be tormented; but the sealed men." Note that none of the suffering that God allowed Satan to bring upon Job was God's wrath against Job.

Rize · Feb 21, 2003

Why do you keep asking me the same questions?  I provide you with an answer but you don't address them.

I'm still waiting for a response to the information I presented in the Jesus Servant thread (post-trib and pre-wrath).

I demonstrated that not only are their OT passages which say that the moon will be as blood (just as the NT passages say it will "not give her light"), but that the sky rolling of like a scroll is associated with the Day of the Lord in Isaiah 34.  As I said, it is an unmistakable sign that it is the day of the Lord has begun.  Not to mention (again), the people on Earth who also believe and say that that day has come (and no, they aren't necessarily correct, but given the other supporting evidence, I have you backed againsted a wall and you know it).

So, yes, there is something that says the day of the Lord has begun and that the rapture has occured before the trumpets.  And this something naturally makes the trumpets the wrath of God (and thus I use the term "judgments").  And no, the vials of wrath are marked as the "seven plagues which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished"  This strongly suggests to me that the wrath of God has begun already.  The trumpets, being quite similar to the bowls in style and number, and occuring after the sign of the day of the Lord are a clear candidate for the beginning of God's day-of-the-Lord wrath.

Note that Paul and Jesus are emphatic that the rapture occurs at the onset of the day of the Lord (in order to spare Christians from God's wrath).

And I also believe that the 144,000 must be physically protected (as they are from the locusts by their seal).  The 144,000 Jews are, imo, going to stay through the wrath of God, and thus need to be sealed.  Whether they are Christians already or faithful Jews who will accept Jesus as their savior at some point after the rapture ("and they will look upon him whom they have peirced and mourn..." Isaiah) I don't know.  It doesn't matter.

Note that "the coming" is taken from the noun parousia.  It is not a verb.  It refers to an event and the word literally means presence.  The pre-wrath position holds that the parousia or presence of Jesus begins with the day of the Lord and the rapture at the sixth seal of Revelation.  This pariousia, of course, never ends, and so Jesus is naturally present in Revelation 19.  He is present in the wrath of God just as he is present in the mercy of God to rapture the saints before his wrath strikes.  He is bodily present at the battle of armageddon among other times.  This is not inconsistant with the meaning of the word parousia and given the clarity of the sign of the day of the Lord (see beginning of my post), is much more acceptable than Revelation 19 being the beginning of the parousia.

As for Mount Zion, if you look at Revelation 22 there is a new (heavenly) Mount Zion, but it is not present (except in Spirit as a representation of the Kingdom of God that is within us) until after the events of Revelation.  For Jesus to be physically standing on a Mount Zion, He is almost certainly on Earth.

Note how much you had to write in reference to the unknown day and hour.  It is clear from the context that Jesus means no one knows the day or hour and no one will know it.  This is just one of many things you must ignore or twist to believe in something other than the pre-wrath rapture.  Note also that the Spirit of God doesn't know the day or hour either.  Only the Father does.  God told Noah when the flood would be because he needed to build and Ark and get in it.  Using a story as a parallel leaves room for things to be different.  Or else, God would be flooding the Earth with water again and saving the animals. 

As for the thief thing, that simply emphasizes my point.  Jesus said that a thief does not let a person know when he will break in.  Just the same, we will not know the day and hour so we will have to keep watch.  That is precisely why we are keeping watch.  If we knew the exact time, we could relax and only get up to watch a moment or two before the thief was coming.  You could sit down and watch TV and set an alarm clock so that you get up and prepare to intercept the thief.

It is true that Jesus will not come as a thief to us if we are watching.  It is not because we will know the day and hour, it is because Jesus will not come to steal from us, but to give us eternal life! 

As for Jesus command between the sixth and seveth vials, this is a command to the reader.  If we don't heed his warning, then we shall suffer the wrath of those vials.  Jesus did not send an angel to the earth (as in Revelation 14 he sends three) to tell the people of earth "I am coming like a thief!".  That is absurd.

Just ask yourself this.  If you knew without a doubt that I was right, would Jesus command in Revelation 16:15 be a contradiction or could you understand it the way I do?

Luke 12:38-40
It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

Do you see now?  If you know when Jesus is coming, then it will be an hour that you expect Him.

Face it.  Your position has fatal flaws.

As for the book of Daniel:

Can it not distinguish between Jewish Christians and non Christian Jews and thus still be referring primarily to Jews?

Postrib:  just look up all of these verses:

Isaiah 13:10, 13
Isaiah 34:4, 8
Joel 2:31
Mathew 24:29

Now you want me to believe that all of that does not match up with Revelation 6:12-14.  I refuse.

Your explanation of Joel 2:31 is ad hoc.  Clearly it is meant to be associated with the day of the Lord as a sign.

As for Job, fire from the sky (a volcano?) and a great wind, are not on the same level as supernatural locusts with people faces that avoid those who have the seal of God on their forehead.  The locusts are the wrath of God.  God has been wrathful before the day of the Lord before, so you can say that if you like, but I will not believe that an angel blowing a trumpet that causes locusts that defy biology to come out of a pit and sting anyone without the seal of God on their forehead is not a wrath of God.

 

sbbqb7n16 · Feb 23, 2003

I often hear that the seven seals trumpets and bowls of wrath are the same thing except each one tells slightly more in depth....

Thoughts? maybe that could help shorten down your timeline some by correlating them all

maybe just a thought

postrib · Feb 23, 2003

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...OT passages which say that the moon will be as blood...

Note again that Joel 2:31 says the moon will turn to blood before the day of the Lord, which indeed it will, for the 6th seal may be some time before the 2nd coming.

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...the sky rolling of like a scroll is associated with the Day of the Lord...

I believe Isaiah 34:2-3 refers to the armies the Lord will slaughter at the battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:19-21), so that Isaiah 34:4 would be a sign associated with Armageddon. Note that neither Isaiah 34:2-4 nor Matthew 24:29-31 refer to the great earthquake of Revelation 6:12.

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...the people on Earth who also believe and say that that day has come...

I think that Revelation 6:16-17 could be the terrified hyperbole of the unsaved, that they can't actually see the face of the Father sitting on his throne in heaven (Revelation 5:7), and that the 6th seal may not actually be God's wrath. Note that those in heaven don't say God's wrath "is come" until after the 7th trumpet (Revelation 11:15, 18), in the 7 vials (Revelation 16:1).

I think John could be seeing a cataclysmic event that precedes the trumpets, which may be an historically unprecedented volcanic eruption which will trigger devastating earthquakes all around the world, and which will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the light from the sun and making the moon appear blood red. I think this could be accompanied (possibly triggered) by a storm of large meteorites, "falling stars," which will hit the ground, and atmospheric explosions of those which don't make it to the ground.

When they see these horrors, the unsaved will no doubt believe they're all going to die, as "seeing the face of God" means death (Exodus 33:20), and that these events are God's wrath. But God's wrath may not be come in the 6th seal, nor in the 7th, nor in the 7 trumpets. God's wrath may not be come until the final stage of the great tribulation, the 7 vials (Revelation 16), which aren't directed at believers; we are even blessed at the 6th vial (Revelation 16:15), that we might endure to the 1,335th day after the abomination of desolation (Daniel 12:11-12).

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...the trumpets the wrath of God...

Note that just as Jesus "opening" the seals (Revelation 6:1) doesn't require that they be God's wrath, so the angels "sounding" the trumpets (Revelation 8:7) doesn't require that they be God's wrath.

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...in them the wrath of God is finished...

Note that no one in heaven calls any of the seals or trumpets God's wrath. I believe it's possible that any wrath supported by God prior to the vials could be that of the plagues brought on by the two witnesses (Revelation 11:6), which plagues aren't shown as being directed at us Christians in any way.

Note that it says God's wrath (orge) will subsequently be at the 2nd coming (Revelation 19:15), and in the lake of fire forever (Revelation 14:10-11).

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...in order to spare Christians from God's wrath...

Note that we Christians can still be on the earth during the 7 vials of God's wrath (Revelation 16) without being appointed to wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9) because the 7 vials aren't directed at us Christians. The 1st vial brings a sore only "upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image" (Revelation 16:2), and not upon us Christians. The 2nd vial kills only those creatures living "in the sea" (Revelation 16:3), and not us Christians. The 3rd vial turns to blood only "the rivers and fountains of waters" (Revelation 16:4), and not any stored water of us Christians. In the 4th vial it says only that "men were scorched with great heat" (Revelation 16:9), and not that any of us Christians sheltered from the sun's heat in our "chambers" (Isaiah 26:20) were scorched. I believe that the 5th vial will bring darkness and pain only upon the unbelievers in the kingdom of the beast (Revelation 16:10), and not upon us Christians who will have light sources in our chambers, just as the darkness brought upon the kingdom of Egypt did not come upon God's people who "had light in their dwellings" (Exodus 10:22-23). The 6th vial affects only the Euphrates river (Revelation 16:12), and not us Christians, and at the 6th vial Jesus addresses us Christians; he still hasn't yet "come as a thief" (Revelation 16:15). In the 7th vial, I believe that if the armies of unbelievers gathered at Armageddon can survive the earthquake and hailstones of the 7th vial in order for Jesus to slay them with the sword of his mouth (Revelation 19:19-21), and if there can be unbelievers "left" alive all around the world in bed and working in the field and grinding at the mill (Luke 17:34-36), then we Christians will survive the earthquake and hailstones as well.

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...the Spirit of God doesn't know the day or hour either.  Only the Father does...

I do not believe the Spirit has ever been without knowledge, for "even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:11). The Holy Spirit IS the Spirit of the Father: compare: "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you" (Matthew 10:20) and "for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost" (Mark 13:11).

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...God told Noah when the flood would be because he needed to build and Ark and get in it...

I believe Isaiah 26:20-21 could be a command to those of us Christians still alive on the earth right before the 7 vials of God's wrath are poured out (Revelation 16). The 7 vials aren't directed at us Christians, so that our and our families' entering our "chambers" before the 7 vials and "shutting the doors" about us (Isaiah 26:20-21) could protect us in a way like Noah and his family's entering the ark before the flood and the "shutting" of "the door of the ark" protected them (Genesis 6:16, 7:16).

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...a thief does not let a person know when he will break in...

It's possible to know at what time a thief is coming: "Know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready" (Matthew 24:43-44).

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...If we knew the exact time, we could relax and only get up to watch a moment or two before...

Note that in the Bible, "watching" doesn't mean staring up in the sky waiting for something to happen; it means to stay awake (Matthew 26:38-41).

"And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation" (Matthew 26:40-41). Here Jesus wasn't asking "Could ye not watch with me for the pre-wrath rapture for one hour?" And he wasn't saying "Watch and pray for the pre-wrath rapture that ye enter not into temptation." He was asking "Could ye not stay awake with me for one hour?" And he was saying "Stay awake and pray, that ye enter not into temptation."

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him...

Compare: "Be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh" (Matthew 24:44). I believe Matthew 24:44 is a warning against our becoming unfaithful, for Jesus will come like a thief for us only IF we fall asleep spiritually (Revelation 3:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:4-6). Otherwise we would be saying that as long as we're ready and thinking he will come he can't possibly come.

21st February 2003 at 01:14 PM Rize said this in Post #22
...The locusts are the wrath of God...

Note again that nothing says or requires that the locusts are the wrath of God.

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A possible end times chronology

postrib

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Rize

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sbbqb7n16

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postrib

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