The Rapture

[Silvaqua]

Do you believe in it? Do you think that we'll be taken into heaven before the tribulation begins?

[batyashua]

No, actually, I don't. I haven't studied a whole lot on this though but here's a couple of reasons.
1.) A pre-trib rapture is not indicated in the Old Testament
2.) The Scriptures say in that in the Last Days many of the Saints will be killed.
And 3.) Let's face it, people, it just wouldn't make sense! 'Tribulation' is 'severe trial', and the End Times are meant to test are faith, are they not? But if we get taken up before it starts, what's the point of having a Tribulation? For God to show all the unbelievers that they were wrong and he was right? I don't think so.
Think of the parable of the ten virgins. It is a foreshadowing of the End Times.

[Silvaqua]

I concur.
God doesn't baby His people. He takes good care of them, but He also lets them grow and make their own choices. Besides, there are so many problems with the idea of Rapture. Would he take children too, since they're innocent? Then what if children are born after the Rapture? What if people turned to God after the Rapture? Would he take them too?

Does anyone remember the verse where the idea for Rapture came from? Cuz I had a point, but I lost it, because I can't find the verse...

[batyashua]

Um, it's somewhere in 2 Thessalonians (spelling?). It talks about us being taken up to the clouds or something...
Here's a bright idea! Why don't I grab a Bible and look it up!
1 Thessalonians 4: 17 The we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
Yep, that's the Scripture verse pro-trib rapture people give me. And dad just handed me a book called 'The Rapture Book' so I might read that to get a better idea of how exactly it came about. Just so I'm not completely in the dark.

[Silvaqua]

Ok, that's not the one I was thinking of... It's something about "two men walking in a field and one is taken."

[jars of clay]

lol, I personally think that, rapture, no rapture, doesn't matter so much as the knowledge that in the end, God wins. A lot of trouble has been caused by men trying to figure out Gods plans with their brainy theories and time charts, and really, knowing that God wins is enough even for me to be satisfied.

[Silvaqua]

Very true. I don't consider this to be an important topic, but "as iron sharpens iron..." It's good to hear scripture from a different perspective. You never know what you'll learn, and one should always challenge their own beliefs. Because if you can't defend them to yourself, how will you defend them to the world?

[batyashua]

One of the reasons I think that it actually is important is that in the End a lot of Christians are going to be expecting the Rapture to come; for them to be taken away before the Tribulation starts. So what will happen when they don't? I think a lot of people are going to lose faith.

[jars of clay]

if they are truly in christ then they will not trully fall away

[Silvaqua]

How can that be? When even little things cause us to wander? If God broke all of (what you thought were) his promises to you, would you stay faithful? Why is it that we believe whatever people say about God, without testing the spirits?

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
1 John 4:1

[jars of clay]

how does the story of the prodigal son go?

[Silvaqua]

Of course God will call us to himself if He wills. But how does that apply to what I'm talking about? The prodigal son didn't fall away due to unbelief, he went out and lived the crazy, sinful life he wanted to try out. It's not a sin to be ignorant. But perhaps it is wrong to choose to be.

[Silvaqua]

And I'm not trying to come down on you or anything, J.o.C--I wanted to make sure you knew that. It's just that I don't want to fall away from God and don't see how anybody could be happy-go-lucky at the thought that they might lose faith. Because...

[jars of clay]

please dont jump too far ahead, just answer my question

[Riley]

So, you guys don't believe we will be here for the Tribulation?

[Silvaqua]

Once a man had two sons. 12The younger son said to his father, "Give me my share of the property." So the father divided his property between his two sons.

13Not long after that, the younger son packed up everything he owned and left for a foreign country, where he wasted all his money in wild living. 14He had spent everything, when a bad famine spread through that whole land. Soon he had nothing to eat.

15He went to work for a man in that country, and the man sent him out to take care of his pigs. [a] 16He would have been glad to eat what the pigs were eating, [b] but no one gave him a thing. 17Finally, he came to his senses and said, "My father's workers have plenty to eat, and here I am, starving to death! 18I will go to my father and say to him, `Father, I have sinned against God in heaven and against you. 19I am no longer good enough to be called your son. Treat me like one of your workers.' "

20The younger son got up and started back to his father. But when he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt sorry for him. He ran to his son and hugged and kissed him.

21The son said, "Father, I have sinned against God in heaven and against you. I am no longer good enough to be called your son."

22But his father said to the servants, "Hurry and bring the best clothes and put them on him. Give him a ring for his finger and sandals [c] for his feet. 23Get the best calf and prepare it, so we can eat and celebrate. 24This son of mine was dead, but has now come back to life. He was lost and has now been found." And they began to celebrate. 25The older son had been out in the field. But when he came near the house, he heard the music and dancing. 26So he called one of the servants over and asked, "What's going on here?"

27The servant answered, "Your brother has come home safe and sound, and your father ordered us to kill the best calf." 28The older brother got so angry that he would not even go into the house.

His father came out and begged him to go in. 29But he said to his father, "For years I have worked for you like a slave and have always obeyed you. But you have never even given me a little goat, so that I could give a dinner for my friends. 30This other son of yours wasted your money on prostitutes. And now that he has come home, you ordered the best calf to be killed for a feast."

31His father replied, "My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32But we should be glad and celebrate! Your brother was dead, but he is now alive. He was lost and has now been found."

[Silvaqua]

No Riley, we're (batyashua and I) saying that we believe we will be here for the Tribulation because we don't believe that there will be a rapture until the very end. What do you think?

[Riley]

I am post-trib. So I believe we will go through the tribulation before we get "caught up in the sky."

[Gavan Johnson]

lol.. all I can say is.. either way.. we just have to be ready... we shouldn't expect it.... and we shouldn't fear it... all we can do is just be ready for whenever that time comes.. =)

[Versa]

The only thing I fear is not being able to finish my life before it ends... I have plans...

[iamhere4you]

Regardless...
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
As long as I'm saved, I'll live through whatever I must to to get to Him—with, in the end, a head or not.

[GKC]

I do not believe in the "Rapture" as an event distinct from the Second Coming.

[GKC]

And not related to the topic of the post, but since Silvaqua has this quote in her signature:

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
GK Chesterton

As a Chestertonian, I would just love to give the context :-)
___________________________________

My forthcoming work in five volumes, `The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,' is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful whether I shall live to finish it. Some overflowings from such a fountain of information may therefore be permitted to springle these pages. I cannot yet wholly explain the neglect to which I refer. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Virgil, if I remember right, refers to it several times, but with too much Roman restraint. He does not let himself go on cheese. The only other poet that I can think of just now who seems to have had some sensibility on the point was the nameless author of the nursery rhyme which says: `If all the trees were bread and cheese' - which is indeed a rich and gigantic vision of the higher gluttony. If all the trees were bread and cheese there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where I was living. Wild and wide woodlands would reel and fade before me as rapidly as they ran after Orpheus. Except Virgil and this anonymous rhymer, I can recall no verse about cheese. Yet it has every quality which we require in an exalted poetry. It is a short, strong word; it rhymes to `breeze' and `seas' (an essential point); that it is emphatic in sound is admitted even by the civilization of the modern cities. For their citizens, with no apparent intention except emphasis, will often say `Cheese it!' or even `Quite the cheese.' The substance itself is imaginative. It is ancient - sometimes in the individual case, always in the type and custom. It is simple, being directly derived from milk, which is one of the ancestral drinks, not lightly to be corrupted with soda-water. You know, I hope (though I myself have only just thought of it), that the four rivers of Eden were milk, water, wine, and ale. Aerated waters only appeared after the Fall...

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