Straightshot said in post 650:
The truth about this significant encounter has been revealed in advance, both the timing sequence, and the purpose .... and even the evidence
Note that nothing in the Bible teaches or requires a pre-tribulation rapture of the church. Instead, the Bible shows that Jesus won't come and gather together (rapture) the church until immediately after the future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24 (Matthew 24:29-31, Mark 13:24-27; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8). That is why the marriage of the church doesn't happen until Revelation 19:7, in connection with Jesus' 2nd coming and the physical resurrection of the church at that time (Revelation 19:7 to 20:6; 1 Corinthians 15:21-23,51-53; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-16). Matthew 24:30-31 refers to the same 2nd coming of Jesus and gathering together (rapture) of the church as 2 Thessalonians 2:1, which refers to the same 2nd coming of Jesus and catching up together (rapture) of the church as 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17.
Jesus won't return and gather together (rapture) the church until sometime after there is a falling away (an apostasy) in the church, and the Antichrist sits (at least one time) in a 3rd Jewish temple in Jerusalem and proclaims himself God (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, Daniel 11:31,36, Revelation 11:1-2, Revelation 13:4-8), and the abomination of desolation (possibly a standing, android image of the Antichrist) is set up in the holy place (the inner sanctum) of the 3rd Jewish temple (Matthew 24:15-31, Daniel 11:31). For when Jesus returns to gather together (and marry) the church, he will destroy the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:1,8, Revelation 19:7,20). Before Jesus returns, the church will have to go through the future, literal 3.5 years of the Antichrist's worldwide reign (Revelation 13:5-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-31).
At Jesus' 2nd coming (1 Thessalonians 4:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:1, Matthew 24:30), the church will be physically resurrected and caught up together/gathered together (raptured) (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1, Matthew 24:31), not to remove the church from the earth (Proverbs 10:30, John 17:15,20), but to take the church only as high as the clouds of the sky to hold a meeting in the air with the returned Jesus (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Straightshot said in post 650:
He also intends to bring judgment upon a world of unbelief to punish those who refuse to believe the truth about Him .... these are not the ones above
Note that nothing requires that the entire future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24 will be God's judgment or wrath, or that any part of the tribulation that will be his judgment or wrath will be directed against any of the saved people (1 Thessalonians 5:9) who will still be alive on the earth at that time (Matthew 24:9-13, Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6). Most of the tribulation could be Satan's wrath working through evil people and natural forces to bring disaster on the earth, like when Satan was allowed to work through evil people and natural forces to bring disaster on righteous Job (Job 1:12-20), against whom God had no wrath.
The tribulation's first 5 seals (Revelation 6:1-11) won't be God's judgment or wrath, for after the first 4 seals, the martyrs of the 5th seal ask God when he is going to bring his judgment against the world (Revelation 6:10). And the killing of even more martyrs, which the 5th seal foretells will happen sometime after the 5th seal (Revelation 6:11), won't be God's wrath against those martyrs. So Jesus' unsealing of the seals (Revelation 6), the tribulation's 1st stage, doesn't mean that the events unsealed will be God's wrath, but that they will be permitted by God to happen at that time.
The tribulation's 6th seal (Revelation 6:12-14) will happen sometime before the day of the Lord (Joel 2:31, Revelation 6:12), as in only a few years before. The day of the Lord itself won't begin until Jesus' 2nd coming (1 Corinthians 1:7-8; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10), which won't happen until Revelation 19:7 to 20:6, immediately after the future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24 (Matthew 24:29-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8). Similarly, the day of the Lord's wrath (Psalms 110:5) won't begin until Jesus' 2nd coming (Revelation 19:19-21).
So the people quoted at the 6th seal (Revelation 6:17), during only the 1st stage of the tribulation, could be just as mistaken as Job was when Job said that what was happening to him was God's wrath against him (Job 19:11). Just as what was happening to Job was actually Satan's wrath against him, not God's wrath, so the 6th seal could actually be Satan's wrath, not God's wrath. And just as the writer of the book of Job didn't go out of his way to correct Job's mistaken statement in Job 19:11, and just as the apostles John and Matthew didn't go out of their way to correct the mistaken statements of the people they quoted in John 7:12b and Matthew 27:63a, so the apostle John could have not gone out of his way to correct the statement of the people he quoted in Revelation 6:17.
After the tribulation's 6th seal will occur its 7th seal (Revelation 8:1), out of which will come its 7 trumpets (Revelation 8:1-2). Note that nothing requires that any of the first 6 trumpets' events in Revelation chapters 8 and 9 will be God's wrath. The 5th trumpet's events will be the work of strange locust-like beings from the bottomless pit (Revelation 9:2-10), led by a fallen angel from the bottomless pit (Revelation 9:11). And the 6th trumpet's events to the end of Revelation 9 will be the work of weird horse-like beings led by 4 fallen angels previously bound at the Euphrates (Revelation 9:14-19). So even though good angels of God will sound the first 6 trumpets, this could be announcing God's allowing the wrath of Satan to destroy 1/3 of different things (Revelation 8:7-12, Revelation 9:15,18), just as Satan will subsequently, mid-tribulation, be allowed by God to cause 1/3 of the angels (i.e. his fallen angels) to be cast down to the earth permanently (Revelation 12:4,9).
Revelation chapters 8 and 9 will happen before the Antichrist's (the individual-man aspect of Revelation's
beast's) future, literal 3.5-year worldwide Luciferian/Satanic reign (Revelation 13:4-18, Revelation 12:9). And the events in Revelation chapters 8 and 9 could be used by Satan to help prepare the world to welcome that reign. For what Satan could do is first take great pleasure in causing the destruction in each event, but then claim that the destruction isn't from him, but from YHWH, and that YHWH is a cruel tyrant god who hates mankind and only wants to make it suffer, while he (Satan, as "Lucifer") only wants the best for mankind (cf. Mark 8:33b). In this way, he could deceive the world into turning away from YHWH and instead worshipping him (the dragon) and the Antichrist (Revelation 13:4-18, Revelation 12:9). The Antichrist will utterly revile YHWH (Revelation 13:6, Daniel 11:36).
After the Antichrist's literal 3.5-year reign (Revelation 13:5-7) is declared legally over at the sounding of the tribulation's 7th trumpet (Revelation 11:15), the 7 plagues of the 7 vials of God's wrath will come out of the heavenly-temple opening of the 7th trumpet (Revelation 11:19, Revelation 15:5 to 16:1). The vials will then be poured out on the Antichrist's followers as God's judgment for their receiving the Antichrist's mark and worshipping his image (Revelation 16:2), and for their killing of people in the church (Revelation 16:6-7, Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13).
During the Antichrist's worldwide reign, people in the church will be hated and killed in every nation for refusing to renounce the name of Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:9-13). They will be beheaded for refusing to renounce the witness of Jesus Christ (Revelation 20:4), for refusing to accept the antichrist lies that Jesus himself isn't the Christ (1 John 2:22), and that Christ himself isn't in the flesh (2 John 1:7). They will be beheaded for refusing to renounce the sound doctrine of the Bible, the Word of God (Revelation 20:4; 2 Timothy 3:15 to 4:4), for refusing to depart from the Biblical faith and to give heed instead to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils (1 Timothy 4:1-2). They will be beheaded for refusing to worship the Antichrist's image (Revelation 20:4, Revelation 13:15). And all of this will be Satan's wrath against the church (Revelation 12:17), not God's wrath, for the church isn't appointed to God's wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
Even when God's wrath comes in the 7 vials (Revelation 16), the tribulation's final stage, because the church isn't appointed to God's wrath, none of the vials will be directed at any of those in the church who will still be alive on the earth at that time, still waiting for Jesus' coming as a thief (Revelation 16:15). Instead, they will go into protective chambers which they will have prepared for themselves on the earth (Isaiah 26:20), just as Noah and his family went into the protective ark which they had prepared for themselves on the earth (Genesis 7:11,13).
Jesus will return right after the 7th-and-last vial is completed (Revelation 16:17,19, Revelation 19:2-21, Matthew 24:29-30), and he will bring the 2nd-coming wrath of God on the unsaved world (Revelation 19:15-21). But before that 2nd-coming wrath begins, the church will be caught up together/gathered together (raptured) (1 Thessalonians 4:17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1, Matthew 24:31) into the sky to hold a meeting in the air with the returned Jesus (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Straightshot said in post 650:
His has promised to keep His true ecclesia above from experiencing His scheduled judgment of the tribulation for which there would be no purpose .... and this He will do
Regarding Revelation 3:10, note that the 7 letters to 7 churches in Revelation chapters 2-3 were sent to 7 literal, 1st century AD local church congregations in 7 cities in the Roman province of "Asia" (Revelation 1:11) (what is today western Turkey).
Revelation 3:10 meant that the literal, 1st century AD local church congregation in the city of Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7) in the Roman province of "Asia" (Revelation 1:11) would be kept safe from a persecution which came upon all the Roman world during the time of the Roman emperor Domitian. For the apostle John saw his Revelation vision (Revelation 1:1) near the end of Domitian's reign (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5:30:3c), and Domitian persecuted the church toward the end of his reign. The righteous, literal, 1st century AD local church congregation in the city of Smyrna (Revelation 2:8) in the Roman province of "Asia" (Revelation 1:11) had to suffer and die in that persecution over a period of 10 literal days (Revelation 2:10).
The 1st century AD church in Philadelphia didn't have to be taken out of the world to be kept safe from (Greek: "ek") that persecution. For, as Jesus prayed for the church in general: "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from (ek) the evil" (John 17:15,20). Also, the 1st century AD church in Philadelphia didn't have to be removed from time itself or from the earth in order to be kept from the "hour" (or the "time") of that persecution, just as, for example, a student in a classroom who has been excused from taking a test doesn't have to be removed from time itself or from the classroom in order to be excused from that time of testing. For he can be made to sit at his desk reading during that time, which won't be a time of testing for him.
Also, the 1st century AD persecution of Revelation 3:10 (and Revelation 2:10) was only "world"-wide in the sense of the Roman "world" (cf. Luke 2:1). So the subsequent reference to those on the "earth" in Revelation 3:10 should be understood as those Christians living on the earth during that time in the Roman empire, as opposed to those Christians who had already died and gone to heaven (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:8, Philippians 1:21,23).
Straightshot said in post 650:
His has promised to keep His true ecclesia above from experiencing His scheduled judgment of the tribulation for which there would be no purpose .... and this He will do
Note that the tribulation's purpose with regard to the righteous church in all nations having to suffer through it (Matthew 24:9-13, Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6) could be the same as the purpose of righteous Job having to go through his suffering at the hands of Satan (Job chapters 1-2), and the purpose of, for example, the righteous, literal, 1st century AD local church congregation in the city of Smyrna (Revelation 2:8) in the Roman province of "Asia" (Revelation 1:11) having to suffer and die at the hands of Satan during a 1st century AD persecution (Revelation 2:10).
