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
...if the day of the Lord has begun and the rapture has occured...
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?19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the trumpets as judgments...
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?
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
...the pre-wrath position (occuring at the 6th seal) is so crystal clear...
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 only became Christians when they were sealed...
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
...they were not Christians until they saw the coming of Jesus...
I believe Jesus is standing on the heavenly mount Sion (Hebrews 12:22).19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...Jesus is actually standing on mount zion...
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).
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).19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...the unknown day and hour of the rapture...
"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).
"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 book of Daniel only concerns the Jews who have rejected Anti-Christ yet not accepted Christ...
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 sun is darkened...
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
...the moon does not giver her light...
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
...Joel 2:31...
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
...the "great tribulation" refers to the Anti-Christ's persecution...
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).19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...this great multitude the raptured church...
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.
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
...God's supernatural wrath (numerous meteors...
Note that it doesn't say the locusts are the wrath of God.19th February 2003 at 08:21 AM Rize said this in Post #20
...locusts that avoid those with the seal 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.
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