Shalom, Do not be deceived. The Great Tribulation will cause terror, pain and death that Christians will not have to endure. In order to establish a true doctrine of the rapture of the Church, it is important to determine that the Church is a special body of saints founded on the Day of Pentacost and culminating at the Rapture. Failure to recognize this fact is one of the principal causes for a belief in posttributional interpretations.
You state 40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left....(Taken by who?)
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left....(Taken by who?)
Read closely.... I have watched you misuse this verse in Matthew 24:40-41 where one is taken and the other left, as the rapture of the Church. The context you use indicates that the one who is taken is taken in judgement, just like the people who perished outside the ark, as shown in the previous context. (Matthew 24:39) Also, according to Luke 17:37, those who are taken are killed, and vultures eat their bodies. This is exactly the opposite of the Rapture. Accordong to the correct pretributational doctrine, the one taken is the child of God and the one left is not saved. At the Second coming, the one who is taken will be unsaved, and the one who is left will be the saved who then enters the millenial kingdom.
As other scriptures are studied in relation to 2 Thessalonians 2, it is evident that the man of sin is the same person as the ruler of Daniel 7:8 who will conquer first three and then ten countries that form the reconstituted Roman empire. Since this will occur more than seven years before the second coming of Christ, because the seven year treaty follows (Dan. 9:27), a timetable is set up that makes a postribulational rapture impossible! Posttribulationalists try to get around this passage but they have yet to resolve it.
Regards, James |
