Originally Posted by
1hole
A mid-trib rapture theory is held by many but I see no way it can be true because the rapture is going to be a sudden surprise without warning, right? Wrong Thus, anyone with a functional brain will understand the seven year tribulation is happening and, from that, it would be easy to know when a mid-trib rapture must be. We're told no one can know when the rapture will happen Who are you being told by? I guess I should have posted the very next 2 verses as well ...(Matthew 24 32-33) 32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. So Christ is saying just the opposite of what "you have been told" He is telling his disciples that when you see all these things know that it is near, even at the door... at the door (i.e., if you are are children of the light you will see it coming but if you are of the night... it will be a total surprise) 1Thessalonians 5: 4-5... 4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. 5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. so it follows that a known mid-trib (or a post trib) rapture can't be true! Book, Chapter and Verse please? Sorry but not really interested in your feelings
That idea is also popular but, again, it can't be true.
First, there is no reason to call the Rapture the second coming because there is no mention of Jesus coming to the ground. Instead, we will be caught up (i.e., "raptured") to join with him and we all go back to his Father's house for a "bride of Christ wedding" time, presumed to last for 7 years. Presumed by whom? If not, then the "wedding supper of the lamb" will have to be a sack lunch picnic (cute but not biblical) in the air before we return to earth; I have to laff at that idea! Laff, as in Scoff?
Second, in order for all of the clearly written end-times prophecies Book, Chapter and Verses please? to be fulfilled, the triumphant return of the King to earth must occur when all of the disasters we read about in Revelation are done, not half way through. When Jesus comes as the triumphant King riding on a white horse he will be accompanied by angels PLUS a great cloud of his witnesses (i. e., all of the resurrected and raptured believers at that time, but NOT "Jehovah Witnesses" as such). Returning believers will also be riding horses with Lord Jesus back down to the earth to begin the 1,000 year kingdom.
So, the Rapture of the Church (Bride of Christ) can occur at any moment (according to you... but Christ says otherwise please re-read Matthew 24 for clarity, he gives a long list of things that will happen first so the "it can happen at any moment thing" seems counterintuitive to his teaching and parable of the fig tree...his words not mine) but, humanly speaking, the "End of the World as we know it" is still very far into the future. Both the world wide burn and the Great White Throne judgements of the damned will have to follow at least the seven years of Tribulation AND the subsequent millennial Kingdom, probably a bit more.