Friday, May 2, 2008

Answering AGAIN the Prewrath Rapture Guys, Part 1

I thought the PreWrath Rapture guys had been put out to pasture a long time ago! But I guess error has a way of continually re-surfacing again and again. What is the PreWrath Rapture view?

It is a convoluted view that says the church will go through part of the tribulation and be raptured before the wrath of Revelation 16:1-12. By doing this they put the church through part of the tribulation. They often use 1 Thessalonians 5:9 for their argument: "For God has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation (deliverance) through our Lord Jesus Christ." They argue that the church does go to heaven before that wrath of Revelation 16 and on.

They foolishly in their poor interpretation practices fail to note two things: First chapter 5 is about the entire tribulation, the Day of the Lord, that will come upon the world like a thief in the night (v. 2). Paul never says this entire period (seven years), or even part of this period, will fall upon church saints. In fact he writes in the following verses about "them," "they," the lost, who will be caught up in that terrible period (v. 3). But the "you," the church, is not in darkness that that day should overtake the saints (v. 4).

The PreWrath guys fail to note also that Paul is alluding to the wrath of God, "that day," that falls on the Jews after they have returned from around the world back to the Holy Land (Jer. 30). That same wrath of course also falls upon the lost world. The "birth pangs" in Jeremiah 30:6 are describing the tribulation as a whole, an entire period of wrath. Those birth pangs Paul speaks about here in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 are seen as a whole, the complete seven years of earth horror. Thus the church shall escape the whole period of the birth pangs (the entire period of wrath) not just the last half.

But the spiritually challenged PreWrath guys ignore or certainly dance around Revelation 6:12-17 where it is clearly stated that the wrath of God begins at the front end of the tribulation, even though the final outpouring of wrath is described by the Bowls of Wrath in Revelation 16.

At the first of the tribulation, in Revelation 6:16-17, the world cries out (not the church or the Christians crying out), "Hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the WRATH of the Lamb; for THE GREAT DAY OF THEIR WRATH "HAS ARRIVED" (Aorist Tense, it is already here at the beginning of the tribulation) and who is able to stand [up under it]."

Conclusion: Since the church does not go under any part of the tribulation it will be gone in the PRETRIBULATIONAL RAPTURE before Revelation 6! Remember people who come up with such silly views have an agenda at stake. They want the church to be "purged" by the pain of the tribulation or just flat out cannot stand the clear teaching of Pretribulational Rapturists! They want to argue just to argue! They work disparately hard to create another view in order to deny the obvious. They need to go to counseling!

Part 2 to follow: Will the church face the antichrist?

-- Dr. Mal Couch