Signs Of The Times - For The Rapture Or Second Coming?

If the so-called rapture occurs and Jesus Christ is to return with His Bride the Church after the so-called seven year tribulation period what is the point of signs? Of course if dispensationalist John Walvoord is correct perhaps there will need to be signs. He writes in Major Bible Prophecies , pages 283, 293, that the time lapse between “the Rapture” and the “Second Coming” will be more than seven years

Incidentally the passages from 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians describe the same event.

You also state that: "The Church does not conduct her affairs on earth by signs and wonders." I thought that Peter and Paul did a number of signs and wonders in the early Church? Is Scripture mistaken?

The Scripture reference to the Blessed Hope doesn’t sound much like a secret rapture to me:

Titus 2:13. Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

And as for the Jews oI believe about 97% are either atheist or agnostic so what would they be looking for?


May I remind folks, especially those who are Southern Baptist that the Southern Baptist Faith and Message, 1963, 2000 speaks of the Church as follows: The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. Doesn't that create a problem for those supposedly redeemed during the so-called tribulation period if the Church has been “snatched away” as some folks like to say? They are redeemed and, therefore, in the Church after it has gone!!!!

Well, somebody on this Forum has been talking about rapture2 so perhaps everything will pan out.:laugh:

 

Does it? I accept it, but can't wrap my mind around the fact the Creator has given His life for the creat-ed. That defies any human logic whatsoever.

 

I don't see how you can say this. How can there possibly anything worse than what has already happened to Christians since pentacost?

Have you studied the Inquisition?

 

Can we get an AMEN on that?

 

Matt 24:29 "But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened......(30) and then the Son of Man will appear in the sky.....(31)And He will send forth His angels with a Great Trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other."

1. The Son of Man (Jesus) comes again after the tribulation
2. The "elect" are gathered at that time, therefore, they lived through the tribulation

Matt. 24:42 "Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming...."

The "therefore" connects what came before in the discourse. This includes the "signs" of the return (24:1-14), the discription of the tribulation (15-28) the discription of the return (29-31) and the parable of the fig tree plus other "signs". (v. 32-41)

The instruction is to "be on the alert". Why? "for you do not know which day your Lord is coming". Why do you not know which day the Lord is coming...? Because the signs are intentionally ambiguous.

Being consistent with the Matt: 24 passage, I Thess. 4:16 "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 shall rise first....." I Thess. 5:1-2 " Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need for anythign to be written to you. (2) For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night"

The "day of the Lord" is the day of judgement, which is the day of the second coming. They clearly occur at the same time as the rapture.

peace to youraying:

 

Not from me Replacement theology is as false doctrine as any out there.

 

Well, maybe I just don't think right! :laugh:

I can't wrap my mind around God's goodness, but I understand why He did what He did. I could not save myself, so out of love He saved me. When I look at the Bible as a whole, all God does makes perfect sense.
Maybe I'm weird. NO COMMENTS!

 

Ya'll are posting too fast! I can't keep up!

It's not replacement theology. From the two (Israel/NT believers), God made one new man. The church has become part of Israel, not replaced her.

 

:thumbs:

peace to youraying:

 

As a gentile, we have been grafted in along with Israel, not grafted into Israel, but we are clearly separate groups of believers (Romans 9 - 11)

 

I agree. We are two groups, yet one. Does that make sense?

 

Matthew 24 states it will be worse than anything that has happened since pentacost, or after. This clearly has not come to pass yet, so it must be future.

 

...only in the pre trib, pre mill position :thumbs:

 

I can't keep up either. And I have to log off now too.:tear:

Later!

 

July 9, 2008 at 1:21 pm (Church)

Chuck Colson has some interesting and eye-opening figures on the holocaust of Christians in the twentieth century. The article itself is dated 2002.*The estimate is that 45,000,000 Christians have been martyred in the twentieth century. According to the same estimate, the total number of Christians martyred since the time of Christ is around 70,000,000.

I*want to point out a couple of things. Firstly, such numbers, as Colson points out, do not diminish the horror of the Holocaust in the least. However, Jews should not think that they are the only ones who have been persecuted in the twentieth century. Christians have lost more than 7 times as many lives as the Jews lost in the Holocaust. Not a fact that you will hear much about in the news (nor do I particularly want it to be reported. It is not as if Christians need to brag about being persecuted).

http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/on-the-holocaust-of-christians/

Of course the above does not include the 50 million babies murdered in this country alone.

 

Matthew 24, properly interpreted, speaks about both the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome and the Second Coming. For example Verses 15-22 have reference to the Christians in Jerusalem fleeing to a place called Pella, apparently after receiving a supernatural warning.

 

Huh?

True Israel and true Church = one new man in Christ. Christ is the Vine. We are both attached to Him.

I am apparently not pre-mil/pre-trib. I have learned this during this study of end times.

 

Precisely.

I think some interpret this whole passage as referring to the Church.

 

You are mistaken. canadyjd did not mention replacement theology, he simply spoke the truth [Read Ephesians, Chapter 2.] which I know hurts sometimes. Paul also clearly teaches in Romans 11 that believing Israel and believing Gentiles constitute the Church.