What About The Rapture?

[LindaR]

I’m going to burst everybody’s bubble, but I believe that Scriptures teach a pre-tribulation Rapture of the Church. The Great Tribulation deals with Israel, not with the church-age believers. This present dispensation of grace will end with the removal/Rapture of the church age believers from the earth. The Lord will then take up His plan for the nation of Israel. I believe that the tribulation is the fulfillment of the 70th week of Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27) …the “time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7).

The Church is promised salvation from wrath. (1 Thess. 9-10; 5:1-9; Romans 5:9; Rev. 3:10). We are presently living in the dispensation of grace (yes, I am also a dispensationalist). At the present time, God is withholding His anger, but the day approaches when He will take the seat of judgment. At that time, the “day of wrath” will be upon the all the Christ-rejecting world. (Psalm 110:5; Isaiah 13:6-13; Revelation 6:16-17).

The Church is a mystery unrevealed in the Old Testament (Ephesians 3:1-11).

The Church age believers are promised mansions in heaven (John 14:1-3). When the Lord Jesus Christ returns to the earth at the end of the Tribulation, He sets up His Messianic Kingdom.

Church age believers are a heavenly people with a heavenly hope (Ephesians 1; Philippians 3:20; Colossians 3:1-3).

The Holy Spirit is to be removed before the tribulation (2 Thess. 2:1-8). The Holy Spirit is the restrainer of sin (Genesis 6:3; Isaiah 59:19). The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to empower the Church for the Great Commission (Acts 2). He will remove the church age believers before the time of God’s wrath. This does not mean the Holy Spirit will not be present in the world at that time, for He is God and He is omnipresent. It means that He will not be present in the same sense as He is in this age.

The Rapture/translation of the Church age saints is said to be imminent (it could happen any moment) (1 Cor. 15:51-52). The Second Coming is preceded by specific signs (Matthew 24:33; Mark 13:29) …at that time “every eye will see Him”. (Revelation 1:7)

So GIT RIGHT OR GIT LEFT!

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The Motivation of the Pre-tribulation Rapture:

1. It comforts us in our earthly trials:

1 Thessalonians 4:18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

2. It causes us to be busy in the Lord's work:

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

3. It causes us to live obedient lives:

1 John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
1 John 3:3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

1 Thessalonians 5:4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
1 Thessalonians 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
1 Thessalonians 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
1 Thessalonians 5:7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

4. It causes us to separate from evil:

Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Titus 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

5. It causes us to avoid false teachers:

1 John 2:24 Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
1 John 2:25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
1 John 2:26 These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
1 John 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.