Why do Christians always expect that God will make explicit statements about everything? Why don't we believe that truths are also implied in Scripture, and arriving at a truth by implication is perfectly valid? I run into this all the time. "Oh, but Scripture does not SAY this!" The response is "But does Scripture IMPLY this?"
Let's take an example. All four Gospels state that Christ "gave up the ghost" or "yielded up the ghost" after His crucifixion. Oh, someone will say, it does not state explicitly that Christ actually died on the Cross. But is that not implied? Similarly, when we see the 144,000 in Heaven, it is already implied that they were taken there from earth supernaturally, or raptured.
I'm not expecting everything explicitly but the gathering of the Church is a pretty important thing and I am not going to believe where I don't even see it implied. I have 0% faith in a pre-tribulation gathering. Most of the Christian world believes the gathering is before the Tribulation or they don't believe in a literal Tribulation. Neither of these is mentally prepared to live victoriously through a difficult literal Tribulation (Matthew 24:9-13; Matthew 24:21-22) and all its deceptions (Matthew 24:4-5, Matthew 24:11, Matthew 24:23-28).
I'm in a tiny minority who believes that Jesus comes back to gather His Church when He returns after the Tribulation. (Then and only then.)
Matthew 24:29-31
29 “
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30
Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then 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. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and
they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
See, Matthew 24 teaches a Post-Tribulation Gathering at the Return of Christ.
1 Thessalonians 4:14-17
14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus,
God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the
coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.
And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then
we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
This teaches the resurrection and gathering are at His coming. That's consistent with Matthew 24:30-31.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
2 Now concerning
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and
our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way.
For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and
the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
This is what the beast of the sea will do in the Tribulation (Revelation 13:5-8).
There isn't a single Scripture in the Bible that people claim as Pre-Tribulation Gathering that doesn't work fine and better for a post-Tribulation Resurrection Gathering.
I believed in Pre-Tribulation Rapture, too, until like the Bereans I searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so. I can talk forever about why and cite passage and passage but I won't deny you the freedom to make up your own mind. Good day.
