When will the rapture occur?

hat lady · Tadpole Joined: 30 Jun 2008 Posts: 24

When will the rapture occur?

Before the Great Tribulation or after.

Scriptures please.

God Bless
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Hi my name is hat lady and I like to do Bible Study Expository Sola Scriputra stlye. I am open to exploration of the scriputres.

GospelCompilation · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:24 am Post subject:

I'm sorry, I did an extensive search for the word "rapture" in my Bible and I couldn't find it. But, then again, I use the New King James Version... and I know there are a lot of other versions out there that use different words.

So, what Scripture verse did you find it in?

Joebob787 · Rattlesnake Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 435 Location: Nj

Gospelcompilation, Rapture" is derived from the Latin verb: 'rapere', of 1 Thess. 4:17—"we will be caught up," ['to carry off' - or 'catch up']).

1 Thessalonians 4: 16-17 -
"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."

I believe it will occur before the Tribulation/70th week of Daniel. The restrainer of sin must be pulled off the planet, The holy spirit is the restrainer, The holy spirit is in Believers, Thus we go with it. In order for the Man of Lawlessness or Antichrist to be unleashed, The holy spirit must stop restraining sin.
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Romans 1:16a I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes

hat lady · Tadpole Joined: 30 Jun 2008 Posts: 24

Are you really willing to say that there is no rapture simply because the word does not occur in the NT?

We all know that Paul speaks of this event what ever you choose to call it really doesn't matter, what ever you call it doesn't change his prophetic statements about what will happen in the future to the church;

I Corinthians 15:51, 52 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

I Thessalonians 4:15-17 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

We can know with certainty that both passages say the trumpet will sound and that means he is referring to the same event. Both things will happen, we will be changed and we will be caught up to meet Jesus in the air to forever be with Him. Are you saying what I call the rapture is not going to happen for some reason?

The other part of my question has what to do with when this is going to happen. I was asking this because you don't see any more metion of the church saints being on earth in Revelation past chapter 3. They don't appear again as being on earth until Jesus brings them with Him to do battle in Revelation chapter 19. So that part of the question remains.

God Bless
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Hi my name is hat lady and I like to do Bible Study Expository Sola Scriputra stlye. I am open to exploration of the scriputres.

FFT · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:07 pm Post subject:

Christianity is about the death and resurrection of Christ and the hope for that resurrection.

The rapture is about fear of death.
_________________
When Science was in its crib, Religion tried to strangle it. When Science was in its infancy, Religion tried to abuse it. Now that Science is grown up, Religion wants to be in its good graces.

Theology is philosophy/ethics for people who already know what conclusion they want to come to.

hat lady · Tadpole Joined: 30 Jun 2008 Posts: 24

HHHMMM,

Where to start?

Christianity is about the death and resurrection of Christ and the hope for that resurrection.

You said the following;

The rapture is about fear of death.
_________________
When Science was in its crib, Religion tried to strangle it. When Science was in its infancy, Religion tried to abuse it. Now that Science is grown up, Religion wants to be in its good graces.

Theology is philosophy/ethics for people who already know what conclusion they want to come to.

According to scripture the rapture is not about a fear of death, it is real, it will happen and is has to do with being changed into our eternal bodies and going up to meet Jesus in mid air to be with Him forever and applies to the living and the dead. So how could this be addressing a fear of death, since it clearly states that it applies to the living and the dead? Next question; are you saying you don't believe in the Bible and what it says about this subject?

Do you have any idea how many scientist who were the fathers of various branches of science decided to pursue areas of science because they read what the Bible had to say about varying subjects?

These scientists all began their search for answers through science as Bible believing Christians and they did not strangle science;
The Wright Brothers
Nicholas Copernicus
Sir Francis Bacon
Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Rene Descartes
Isaac Newton
Robert Doyle
Michael Farrady
Gregor Mendel
Willian Thomson kelvin
Max Plank
Frederick Sanger
John Dalton
Louis Victor de Broglie
Willard Libby
George Washington Carver

Where is your proof that religion abused science, when in fact science has abused those of certain religious communities to the point of death?

How is that religion is trying to get in the good graces of science which has thrown religion out the window as a consideration of any kind?

From your statement about theolgoy, I don't think you have clue what it realy is. Here is your statement;
Theology is philosophy/ethics for people who already know what conclusion they want to come to.

Ethics and philosophy can be derived from theology but are not in itself theology. You make them out to be the same exact thing and they are all three different, but perhaps can be related or derived from one another.

Ethics are a body of moral priniciples or values governing a culture or group.

Philosophy is the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.

Theology is the study of God, a legitmate branch of study within all of the other vast areas of study, such as science, history, art, philosophy, etc. Theology is governed by the rules of scientific analysis that apply to all of the other disciplines of knowledge.

In order for there to be a scientific study the following rules apply:

A.There must be a Subject of Study.
B.There must be a method of analysis to corroborate declarations of truth.
C.There must be validation of observable fact from another discipline for the observable facts found in one’s own discipline as a testament of its veracity to other disciplines.
D.There must be cohesiveness between the statements made about the subject matter so that the substance of the collected material is established as a specific body of information forming a cohesive sum total.

This comprises the scientific approach to doing theology and forms the basis for having a viable place next to the other disciplines for the following reasons:

A.Rules of Logic are applied to resolve problems as in the other disciplines.
B.Communication of the subject matter is articulated as a statement of action of the existing structure in order to be understood.
C.Methods of criticism from other disciplines, i.e., history and philosophy, are applied to the discipline of theology in order corroborate declarations of truth, such as form criticism, redaction criticism, social criticism, and rhetorical criticism.
D.Phenomena from other disciplines is included, providing substantive evidence for declarations of truth, to attest to the veracity of them to other disciplines, or provide a means of criticism from other disciplines.

You said; Theology is philosophy/ethics for people who already know what conclusion they want to come to.

Clearly you are mistaken that theology is for people who already know what conclusion they want to come to. That is not how theology is done at all.

I see another fallacy in what you wrote. It is that, assuming that you are a Christian, then you automatically already have some sort of theology. Another definition of what theology is is this;
Theology consists of the study of the statements of fact found in scripture of the truth to humanity, everything about God and His relationship to His creation, as revealed in the Holy Bible. All theology is composed of one or more doctrines from the Bible. Christian Doctrine is a set of declarations of belief that a Christian has about Christianity as statements; about who God is, His works in creation and human history, about who mankind is, and about our sinful relationship with God and His redemptive relationship with us.

If you are truly a Christian then you have at least some basic truths you believe in and these are doctrines such as, Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, Hell, Eternal Life, Salvation and so on. These are your personal declarations of belief about who God is and your personal relationship with God and together they form your personal theology.

It is impossible to say you are a Christian without admitting that you have a theology, it is an oxymoron to do so.

Science and religion do not have to be diametrically opposed to one another. Contrary to popular belief, there are scientists today like Dr. Kent Hovind who have compiled a tremendous amount of data showing that various elements of the Bible are scientifically true. He was able to produce evidence that many so called scientific data proving that the Bible is full of errors are in fact incorrect based on other scientific data which shows that a lot of these so called scientific data are theories which were never proved. Here is some hard data for you;

1) The moon used to be closer to the earth and if this happened millions and millions of years ago the tide would have been so high that the life the scientist say existed then could not have survived because the tidal pull of the moon would have been too great. The rate at which the moon is moving only supports about 6,000 to 8,000 years of movement from the earth starting at place at which the moon would not have been pulled to the earth.
2) If the earth is millions of years old the pressure of the oil against the surface of the earth would have cracked the earths crust by now and spread over the top of the earth.
3) The current Big Bang theory cannot be true because there are galaxies, moons and planets that are spinning in the wrong direction for that theory to be true, the Big Bang states that everything spun out with centrifugal force in one direction, but it has been proved that celestial bodies are spinning the wrong way, this finding goes against some of the laws of thermodynamics.
4) It was possible for creatures and man to live to very long ages, if not indefinitely, and to grow to huge heights as men and animals have been found to be in great dimensions in skeletal remains by virtue of a huge earth wide hyper-baric chamber which would filter out the harmful rays of the sun and prevent aging altogether.
5) Contrary to scientific speculation coal which is from dead plants formed not due to millions and millions of years but due to the flood damaging and killing the vast amount of plants and trees that were huge which populated every end of the earth.
6) There were no caveman ancestors of men, if anyone were to live for two hundred or more years their face bones would grow just as has been found in cromagnun and neanderthal because everyone's face bones grow at a very slow rate outwards.
7) The ice age is possible to have occurred shortly after the flood and not millions and millions of years ago, the arrow heads that were found in the ice may have come from tribes of humans following herds of animals and they might have made their weapons in a hurry as they moved from site to site rather than that they were primitive people who had not evolved.
8) There is no such thing as prehistoric life, only pre-flood life, everything was bigger due to the hyper-baric chamber that had not fallen to earth before the flood took place.
9) If the universe is millions and millions of years old then there should be a whole lot more supernova rings to support that theory but there aren't.
10) There were reports from scientists, missionaries and village people in the last century of dinosaur like creatures in and along the Amazon river which is largely uncharted in terms of wildlife and is 9 miles wide at its narrowest point.
11) The danger of evolution to society is the genocide of millions of people for racial and ethnic cleansing.
12) Radioactive carbon dating is not accurate because the carbon breaks down every 5, 730 years and then again in the next 5, 730 years and on and on turning back into regular nitrogen and the scientists measure the carbon in the air assuming that there is the same amount inside living beings without having ever measured it in living beings to be able to compare that to what should be found in ancient samples of things that once lived.
13) Paralax trigonometry is only able to measure things that are 100 light years away and scientists are only speculating that the stars and galaxies are billions and billions of light years away. They can't even figure out if light is a particle, a photon, or a wave and not having defined for sure what light is can't accurately measure it. Studies have shown that light can be stopped and that the speed of light has decreased over the last 150 years measuring it against the atomic clock and it is not constant as has been purported. The black hole theory states that light can be pulled in by gravity a theory that has not been proved. Therefore light cannot be an indication of the age of the universe.
14) A human footprint was found on top of a trilobite making the theory that these creatures existed millions of years before man obsolete.
15) Core samples of ice rings at Artica were found down to 10,000 feet supposedly representing annual rings, but a plane crashed there in 1935 and was found under the ice at 260 feet and there were many hundreds of rings formed in 48 years making ice dating obsolete.
16) Tree ring dating is not accurate because trees can form up to two rings a year and the oldest tree on earth is only 4,300 years old, which corresponds with the age of the flood.
17) 85% of the earth contains only three areas which have the geological strata of the supposed millions of years ages and the evidence does not support from geology that the earth is millions of years old based on so little evidence not supported by the rest of the earth which supposedly changed over and over all at the same time.

All in all I think you need to rethink your position on science, religion and ethics, philosophy and theology base on the evidence I have provided you. Just a thought. There are many other scientists today who believe in the Bible. There is a book by a scientist who set out to disprove the creation of the earth in seven (six) days. He wrote a book, I think it is called something like, Creation In Just Seven Days.

God Bless.
_________________
Hi my name is hat lady and I like to do Bible Study Expository Sola Scriputra stlye. I am open to exploration of the scriputres.

GospelCompilation · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:24 pm Post subject:

I apologize if I somehow offended you with my question, hat lady. That was not my intent. And thank you, Joebob, for explaining where the word "rapture" comes from.

FFT · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:55 pm Post subject:

FFT · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 4:27 pm Post subject:

I wasn't going to answer these because they were irrelevant to the thread, but I got bored so I did it anyway.

Joebob787 · Rattlesnake Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 435 Location: Nj

Shouldn't Earth of ran out of energy by if it is Billions of years old

While we are on the topic,

FFT, have you ever heard of the Scientific Laws of Information? If you haven't, I recommend you read up on them. They say all information must come from a sender. Creationist have one, Do evolutionist?

Also,
Did the heart,kidneys,lungs,brain, Stomach, and other internal organs all form at the same time? or at different times during the Evolutionary process?
_________________
Romans 1:16a I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes

hat lady · Tadpole Joined: 30 Jun 2008 Posts: 24

Oh my dear no, never offended at a difference in viewing things whether we consider each other wrong right or misinformed, there is plenty of love to go around! God forbid anyone in here would think that me quoting something or making an observation is taking offense, far from it!

I like that you are answering with scripture, I am enjoying that about you and your loevvely wife, thanks!

My wife has heard this before somewhere, but she can't recall. Of course, I don't know who would start such a rumor, but Revelation often speaks of God's people between chapters three and nineteen.

The idea that is going around some circles is that all the believers whom we now call the church, who did not reject Jesus before His second coming, get taken up, raptured up (doesn' t matter what we call it really) before the Great Tribulation. This leaves behind every unbeliever but removes the church from the earth.

The next part of this thing is that the blood of saints crying out at the altar and the multitude of saints in white before the altar of whom it is asked, where have you come from and the saints whose prayers are going up like inscence and the ones who have been martyered are the saints, not the raptured church, who get saved by the work of the angels and the 144,000 witnesses who all of them including the witnessess do not believe until the church proper has been removed.

The reason why this is possible is because the Holy Spirit gets removed from the earth and the church which is operating at present and forever by the power of the Holy Spirit is going to be removed from the earth. The unbelivers who get left will have the opportunity to believe the message of the 144,000 but the majority of then will be martyred and they will be the ones crying out how long will it be before the Lord will act. There is no evidence that that Great and Terrible Day of the Lord happens at the same time we go to meet Jesus in the air. Revelation paints a picture that the those who become believers will be the ones the two beasts will kill and destroy. The word saint is continually used by John but the word church is not used past chapter 3 to refer to believers at all. And the most of the times John uses the word it is referring to those who died in the Great Tribulation.

For example: Revelation 6:9 shows the martyrs crying out, "How long until You judge those who dwell on the earth?" The answer is in verse 11: "Until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would also be martyred, was completed."

The martyring of those who became believers after the church left due to the 144,000.

In Revelation 7:17, the question is asked, "The great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" The answer is in verse 3: "Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads."

The amount believers who became so after the church left have to finish coming to Jesus so the order is to wait until they have the seal because they will be protected.

Revelation 8:3-4 tells about an angel which stood at the golden altar of incense. "He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of the saints. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God."

These are the saints who died as a result of the two beasts.

In Revelation 9:4, the locusts were commanded only to harm "those who do not have the seal of God on their forehead," which implies that (at least, at that time) there were still saints on the earth who had the seal of God on their forehead.

The ones with the seal of God got that seal becasue they believed the message of the 144,000 and they are protected.

Revelation 10:3-12 relates a story about God's two witnesses, who prophecy to the world.

The two witnessed the eagle and the two angels, plus the 144,000 all preach to the whole world and very few take salvation, more will perish than become saved despite the fact that it will be a huge number that get saved.

Revelation 12:13-17 tells the story of (what we believe to be) the church. And it says, "the dragon was enraged with the woman and went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

This is not all about a future event, but symbolizes the whole persecution of the whole church through out history and includes a bit of narrative about Jesus actual birth.

And when the beast arises in Revelation 13:1-7, he "was given authority to make war for forty-two months [which is three and a half years on a Jewish calendar]. It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them."

The beast is making war with the saints who become saved who were the unbelievers who got left behind.

When the condemnation of those who receive the mark of the beast is announced by the third angel in Revelation 14:9-12, it says that "here is the perseverance of the saints: here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."

These saints who got saved are told to persevere.

At the pronouncement of Armageddon in Revelation 16:12-16, Jesus tells somebody, "Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame." Who would He say this to, unless He still had people on the earth at the commencement of Armageddon?

This is again refers to people who got saved after being left behind.

After the seventh bowl of God's wrath is poured on the earth, we see the judgment of the great harlot. And in Revelation 17:6, we see "the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."

This is the saints who believed from being preached to by the various groups that came, the eagle, the angels, the witness of both types.

When Babylon finally falls in Revelation 18:2-4, the angel cries out, "Come out of her, my people." So, God's people must still be in Babylon all the way to the very end, or there would be no reason to call them out.

The angel is telling those who came to belief to leave.

IN CONCLUSION

So, I'm not sure where the rumor originated, or why, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that saints will still be on the earth, way past the third chapter of Revelation!

Yes there are saints on the earth who came to belief after the rapture takes place. It is not a rumor, it is part of two legitamate theologies called Dispensationalism, and Pre-Millenialism.

I am open to all kinds of discussion about any subject at any time and respect differences in opinion, out look, theologies, what have you.

God Bless
_________________
Hi my name is hat lady and I like to do Bible Study Expository Sola Scriputra stlye. I am open to exploration of the scriputres.

GospelCompilation · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject:

Please forgive us, hat lady... but some of the responses you offered sound a little like something out of a science fiction novel. And we're not sure how you came to some of the conclusions you did, because we weren't able to find anything like what you've described in Scripture. We apologize if that sounds harsh.

TAKEN BEFORE CHRIST RETURNS?

So, if we understand you correctly, Do you mean to say that God's people will be "taken up" (or, raptured) before Christ returns? If that's correct, then How did you come to such a conclusion?

WHERE'S THE RAPTURE IN REVELATION?

If Christ's return is recorded in Revelation 19, then Where is the rapture explained in Revelation? Shouldn't it be at the end of Revelation 3, since that is the last time we hear about the church?

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Finally, Why is it important for us to believe that Christians will be raptured before the Great Tribulation? Does it have some significance?

And, What about our own witness to Jesus Christ in the last days? Wouldn't it be better if we remained during the Great Tribulation to tell unbelievers about Jesus?

Thank you in advance, hat lady.

Mattathias · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:09 pm Post subject: Re: When will the rapture occur?

hat lady · Tadpole Joined: 30 Jun 2008 Posts: 24

For the second time nothing you could say would offend me this is an open discussion Gospelcompilation:

TAKEN BEFORE CHRIST RETURNS?

So, if we understand you correctly, Do you mean to say that God's people will be "taken up" (or, raptured) before Christ returns? If that's correct, then How did you come to such a conclusion?

WHERE'S THE RAPTURE IN REVELATION?

If Christ's return is recorded in Revelation 19, then Where is the rapture explained in Revelation? Shouldn't it be at the end of Revelation 3, since that is the last time we hear about the church?

The fact is the time frame for the rapture from a pre tribulation, mid tribulation, or after tribulation cannot be proved either way. It just is not possible from scripture to tell when the rapture takes place exactly. We only have allussions to certain things being the case during the tribulation period one way or the other way.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Finally, Why is it important for us to believe that Christians will be raptured before the Great Tribulation? Does it have some significance?

Believing one way or the other way doesn't affect anyone's salvtion of course, we have to persevere through what ever God calls us to go through. It is not that it has to be important to be discussed does it? Not everything that we can study about faith and the Bible has to have a practical application other than that every part of the Bible and faith should be studied for it's own sake to worship God.

And, What about our own witness to Jesus Christ in the last days? Wouldn't it be better if we remained during the Great Tribulation to tell unbelievers about Jesus?

Better in what way? Character building? Great reward in heaven? We are definetely called to suffer the Bible says so. I remember that suffering builds character. I seem to remember Paul saying that he suffered to the point of even desparing of life and that he learned to suffer all things. What a great testimony.

But would it be better to suffer through the Great Tribulation and get martyred? That is up for discussion and I would say no one really wants to suffer.... Didn't Jesus say, Father if it is thou will, take this cup from Me? And then of course He went on to say but your will be done oh Lord.

Let me ask you... Do you really want to suffer because it would be better for you? I am assuming you meant that the rewards in heaven and the character building would be a good thing. I highly doubt anyone wants to suffer for real. A popular notion amongst the Jesus plussers that also believe you can lose your salvation is that people who believe in the rapture (for lack of a better word) before the great tribulation are very interested in any fantasy that means they will be escaping the reality of losing their life for Jesus. Not saying you do, cause I wouldn't know. I personally don't think that just because a person believes in a pre great tribulation rapture means that they aren't willing to suffer for Christ.

Well I am willing to listen to more, to correction even if there is any, all in love you know.
_________________
Hi my name is hat lady and I like to do Bible Study Expository Sola Scriputra stlye. I am open to exploration of the scriputres.

FFT · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:48 am Post subject: