What About The Rapture?

[Strefanash]

I, too, distinguish tribulation from the Great Tribulation, and have never held that the Great Tribulation was the Last Judgement. Yet, agreeing with you in these distinctions I see no compelling reason here why I should repudiate the idea that the Church will go through the Great Tribulation. Indeed in Revelation is mentioned the great multitide of the saints that did go through the Great Tribulation. Why these should be a different group other than the Church is beyond me, other than a need to appeal to a theory which is apparently contradicted by the plain wording of scripture.

And what did Jesus say? Mat 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Why shorten these days if the elect were not on earth during the Great Tribulation? Again, I see no reason to invent a separate group, that of Tribulation saints. To refute my styance one must explain why there is a separate category of saints other than the church without assuming the truth of the pre trib rapture, without, INO committing the fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question: assuming as evidence what one is seeking to prove, thus arguing in a circle

To me the Rapture is not a removal of the saints before the trouble starts, it is a triumphant vindication of them who have been being martyred in their thousands (millions? maybe so) by the ravaging hordes of the Beast. The term "with a shout" to me iundicates that it is not a secret thing, but fully visible, and when we are resurrected before the very eyes of those who have been murdering us, their horror will be total, for a God who could raise dead saints visibly before the unbelievers would now be furious at them for killing the saints; and this God was now decending to wreak his terrible wrath on them