7 Pretrib Problems and the Prewrath Rapture (Full Movie)

it's a story that most of us in the west know or think we know if you've spent any time in the christian faith you've probably seen the movies read the books or heard the sermons about a forthcoming supernatural event known as the rapture a time when millions of people will suddenly vanish from the earth just prior to the greatest apocalyptic event imaginable for christians this has become a message of hope and comfort but it's also been the cause of major disagreements and even after years of debate the church is still equally divided on the major questions about the rapture can it really occur at any moment or does the bible speak of certain prophetic and celestial events that must occur first will the church have to face its greatest enemy the antichrist before the rapture or will the rapture happen just before he comes on the scene join us as we go on a journey through the holy scriptures to review and answer the most critical aspects of the rapture debate this is seven pre-trib problems and the pre-wrath rapture [Music] over the years many different views about the timing of the rapture have been proposed but the rapture debate has been especially active in the last decade or so and as a result there have been some major shifts in the way that the scholars have been teaching them for example if you studied one of the more popular views pre-tribulationism 20 or 30 years ago you probably wouldn't even recognize what is being taught in the seminaries today part of the reason for these sometimes drastic changes in pre-tribulational theology has been a direct result of criticisms from scholars holding to the pre-wrath position on the rapture which has massively gained in popularity in the last 30 years overtaking the mid tribulation position for example by a significant amount but most of this debate has taken place among scholars in theological journals and in university lecture halls so it's not something the average christian engages with and even most pastors aren't aware of the intricate arguments that the theologians have been wrestling with the past few years in this documentary we interviewed many scholars theologians and pastors who hold the pre-wrath position on the rapture and ask them to help us determine the most critical aspects of the rapture debate we then distilled these arguments down to the seven pre-trib problems which we will present one by one before we present the first problem on our list we need to understand the basics of the main rapture timing positions most rapture views teach that the end times are played out over a period of seven years this seven year time frame is sometimes called the 70th week of daniel because of daniel 9 verses 24-27 where the seven year period is first introduced the disagreements primarily concern when the rapture happens and when the wrath of god known as the day of the lord begins in relationship to that seven year period pre-tribulationists believe the rapture can begin at any moment but whenever it does happen it will prove to be just before the seven year period begins and that the entire seven year period is the day of the lord mid-tribulationists believe the rapture occurs at the mid-point of the seven year period and the last half of the seventieth week is the day of the lord post-tribulationists believe the rapture occurs at the very end of the seven year period most post-tribbers believe that the day of the lord is a literal 24-hour day occurring at the very end of the seven years it should be said that some post-tribbers believe the day of the lord is longer specifically that it will start at the midpoint and continue to the end but that the church will be supernaturally protected through the wrath of god until the final day when the rapture will take place the pre-wrath view teaches that the rapture occurs at some unknown time after the midpoint they say that no one knows exactly when the rapture happens it could be weeks or could be years after the midpoint but that it will be after the midpoint they teach that on whatever day the rapture does occur the day of the lord's wrath will begin on that same day pre-rathers therefore believe that the church will face the persecution of the antichrist that begins at the midpoint of the seven year period but that persecution is said to be cut short with the rapture basically the idea is that on the very day that god's people are out of the way the wrath of god known as the day of the lord begins on the rest of the world i'll explain all the details and the reasonings behind most of these positions as we progress but there is one more term that really needs defining before we go any further recently it has become something of a tradition to refer to the entire seven-year period as the tribulation period this is unnecessarily confusing since there is a recognized theological term called the great tribulation and almost all biblical scholars regardless of their view on the rapture recognize that the great tribulation is specifically the time of the antichrist persecution which begins after the midpoint in other words in order to avoid confusion with the great tribulation we will refer to the seven year period as either the seven year period or the seventieth week of daniel in this film [Music] the first pre-trib problem on our list is called the precursor problem and in order to understand it we need to first talk a little about the so-called day of the lord the day of the lord is an old testament concept for when god shows up in history and finally in the end to judge his enemies and uh sometimes to vindicate or rescue his people it really means the time of god's wrath in an ultimate sense when god will pour out his judgment his vengeance on a wicked world scripture explicitly declares that the saints will not experience the eschatological wrath of god the wrath of god that is typically associated with what we call the day of the lord therefore the question in my opinion the really the only question uh is when does the wrath of god begin as mentioned earlier pre-tribulationists teach that the entire seven year period is the wrath of god and that the rapture will occur just before it begins importantly they also believe that the rapture is imminent meaning that it can happen at any moment and there are no prophetic events that must come before the rapture however there are at least four events explicitly stated to come before the day of the lord in scripture elijah will be sent before the day of the lord a rebellion or apostasy will occur the man of lawlessness will be revealed before the day of the lord also a very specific series of cosmic disturbances will be given as a sign before the day of the lord now this is a very big problem for pre-tribulational imminence because as pre-tribulational imminence is defined there are to be no precursors no necessary precursors before the coming of the day of the lord or the coming of the rapture but we have explicit declarations in the bible that we have several precursors that have to come before the great and terrible table lord pre-tribulational teachers admit themselves that if you can find one event that will occur before the rapture then it contradicts eminence theology and hence it contradicts pre-tribulational theology well definitely the fact that the the scriptures uh tell us that there are going to be precursors to the day of the lord is an argument against pre-tribulationism to clarify based on where pre-trib teachers have traditionally placed the rapture if these four biblically prophesied events occur before the day of the lord it means there are in fact events that must come before the rapture the very thing pre-tribbers say cannot occur we will discuss several of the precursors in other sections but i want to focus on one in particular here found in the book of joel the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the lord comes joel 2 31 many of the old testament prophets wrote about this time the day of the lord the time of god's wrath and almost every time you read about it in the old testament you're going to find it connected with something that i term cosmic disturbance something happens to the sun the moon and the stars isaiah 13 other passages in the old testament present these cosmic disturbances that will be signs that the day of the lord has arrived joe explicitly states it's going to happen before not during before the day of the lord this is so important because there are two prophecies in the new testament about when this particular celestial sign takes place the first in matthew makes it clear that the sun moon and star sign occurs immediately after the tribulation of those days and everyone agrees that those days in context is a reference to the persecution that begins directly after the abomination of desolation which theologians call the great tribulation so if you compare joel 2 verse 31 which says that this sign occurs before the day of the lord with the passage we just read in matthew that says the cosmic sign comes after the great tribulation which begins at the midpoint you have explicit evidence that the day of the lord is not seven years long but rather that it begins at some unknown point after the middle of the seventieth week we see this confirmed in revelation chapter 6 where it says that the celestial disturbance sign occurs at the so-called sixth seal and even most pre-tribulationists will agree that the sixth seal in revelation takes place after the midpoint of the seven year period we will talk more about revelation 6 and the seals in another section but for now let's see how pre-tribbers try to explain some of the things we have brought up so far surprisingly few pre-trib scholars have addressed the precursor problem at all but of the few that have they present three possible solutions dr richard mayhew a very accomplished and well-respected pre-tribulational scholar chose to simply agree that there were precursors to the day of the lord connected to the midpoint and that the day of the lord must therefore start after those precursors after the midpoint but i'm inclined to follow more along the lines of dr richard mayhew who argued that the uh typical uh long-term historical aspect or thinking regarding the beginning of the day of the lord probably needs to be rethought among pre-tribbers as you may have noticed this timeline of mayhews is pretty much exactly what the pre-wrathers teach with one very important exception mayhew places the rapture the same place that pre-tribbers always have just before the seven year period starts whereas pre-rathers place the rapture just before the day of the lord starts at some unknown point after the midpoint mayhew does this because he is still a pre-tribulationist and so he can't compromise on the idea of imminence therefore he can't allow these events to occur before the rapture as it would destroy the idea of an any moment rapture so while he allows for these events to occur before the day of the lord he moves the rapture well before the day of the lord so there are still no events that occur before it pre-rathers have come to call this method of dealing with the precursor problem the gap theory basically this theory places a significant gap of time between the rapture and the day of the lord in dr mayhew's view the gap is over three and a half years long but there are slightly different takes on the gap theory out there for example pre-tribulationists like arnold fruchtenbaum who recognize various aspects of the precursor problem but still want to maintain the traditional pre-trib view that the day of the lord is seven years long have to do something a little more radical they assert that the rapture happens at some undefined but significant amount of time before the seven year period even begins it has to be a fairly long gap to accommodate all four precursors though there has been no attempt to define exactly how long of a gap it will be both manifestations of the gap theory have the same fundamental problem which is that jesus teaches that the rapture and the beginning of the wrath of god are back-to-back events that occur on the same day and if that is true there can be no gap between the rapture and the day of the lord one of the reasons people on all sides of the debate have historically placed the rapture just prior to the day of the lord with no gap is because of jesus's teaching in the olivet discourse which says but concerning that day and hour no one knows not even the angels of heaven nor the son but the father only for as were the days of noah so will be the coming of the son of man for as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage until the day when noah entered the ark and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away so will be the coming of the son of man and in luke's account the parable of lot is added to this likewise just as it was in the days of lot they were eating and drinking buying and selling planting and building but on the day when lot went out from sodom fire and sulfur reigned from heaven and destroyed them all so will it be on the day when the son of man is revealed they are joined they are back to back and we see that pattern throughout scripture like with uh noah it was on the same day when noah entered the ark that the floods came furthermore uh with lot it was on the same day that he uh exited that the wrath came and fire came upon sodom really the rapture triggers the day of the lord because now it is time for retribution for vindication this idea that the righteous would be rescued on the same day that the day of the lord began is probably why the new testament writers consistently spoke of the day of the lord as good for believers but bad for everyone else it is the day we will receive our rewards and be with christ but it's also the day god's wrath will be poured out on the world this is why peter said we should look for and hasten the day of the lord it's why jesus said when we see the sign that the day of the lord is about to occur we should lift up our heads because our redemption draws nigh this idea that the rapture happens on the same day that the day of the lord's wrath begins is very conservative theology believed from the earliest days of the church it's actually still believed by the majority of pre-tribbers it is only those who have realized the implications of the precursor problem who have begun to seek out alternative theologies about the timing of the day of the lord in relationship to the rapture the third way pre-tribulationists have attempted to deal with the precursor problem is to claim that there are two days of the lord one that is seven years long and another 24-hour day of the lord associated with armageddon this theory allows them to have all the precursors take place before their new 24-hour day of the lord and because they place the rapture immediately prior to the beginning of the seven year long version of the day of the lord they can maintain pre-trib imminence that no prophesied events occur before the rapture there are a lot of problems with this argument but the main one is that as we have seen the celestial disturbance precursor which is said to occur before the day of the lord in joel 2 31 takes place at the sixth seal in revelation 6 verses 12 to 14. this is significant because even though there are some minor disagreements about the timing of the first few seals in relationship to the seven year period the sixth seal is almost universally believed to be after the midpoint so that means this theory would require a third day of the lord to be added to their list because the sixth seal is unquestionably after the beginning of the seven year period and at the very least five months before armageddon we know this because the fifth trumpet which is a part of the day of the lord is said to be five months long we will learn much more about the sixth seal and how it relates to the day of the lord in another section of this film but needless to say this third option isn't a very popular one among pre-tribbers in their defense the precursor problem doesn't leave pre-tribbers with many good options and so the most common way they deal with it is to avoid explaining these problems to their fellow pre-tribbers in the first place [Music] the second pre-trib problem is related to the olivet discourse which is the name for the teaching about the end times that jesus gave on the mount of olives recorded in matthew 24 mark 13 and luke 21 christians throughout the ages have believed this passage to be speaking of the signs leading up to the rapture in other words they believed that the signs that jesus tells his disciples about in the olivet discourse are signs that will happen before the rapture and that the rapture itself is pictured in matthew 24 30-31 which says then will appear in heaven the sign of the son of man and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other there are lots of reasons to believe that the rapture is being described in matthew 24 starting with the clear parallels between the events described in matthew 24 and the events described in other rapture passages such as first thessalonians 4 verses 16 and 17 which says for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of god and the dead in christ will rise first then we who are alive who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the lord in the air and so we will always be with the lord jesus description of his coming in matthew chapter 24 verses 29 through 31 parallels ideally paul's description of the rapture in first thessalonians chapter 4 verses 13 through 17. and paul confirms this through many linguistic connections in his first epistle to the thessalonians there are tons of parallels everything from you know the angels and the trumpet and uh the gathering of god's elect but also um you know the thief in the night imagery the drunkenness versus so sobriety imagery the problem with this for the pre-tribber is that if the rapture is in view in verses 30 and 31 it leads to the conclusion that there must be precursors or signs before the rapture because in context there are lots of signs that happen before the events in verses 30 and 31 for example a straightforward reading of this passage means that before the rapture can take place the following events will happen first a number of smaller signs jesus calls birth pains the abomination of desolation when the antichrist declares himself to be god in the temple at the midpoint a great persecution like none that has ever been seen in history a falling away or an apostasy from the faith and an ominous sign in the sun moon and stars followed immediately by the rapture as we have seen the idea of precursors before the rapture is unacceptable with pre-tribbers because it would mean that the rapture is not imminent in other words if the rapture is what is being referred to in verses 30 and 31 of matthew 24 it would mean that there are things that will happen first that the rapture can't occur at any moment and most significantly it would mean that the church will face the antichrist persecution before the rapture after the pre-trib view was proposed in the mid-1800s all these problems in the olivet discourse were immediately recognized and a new sort of anti-matthew 24 movement began at first they essentially taught people not to pay attention to this section of scripture at all they said it was only meant for those left behind such as jews or the so-called tribulation saints arguments for this would begin by saying things like matthew is a particularly jewish gospel and because of the jewish focus of the book of matthew this section was not meant for the church thankfully this particular line of argumentation has been mostly rejected in recent years even pre-tribulational scholars have come to realize its flaws for example they point out that matthew might be the most church-focused gospel of them all it's the only one that mentions the great commission and the section on church discipline in chapter 18. in fact matthew is the only gospel that uses the word church at all if you're going to make the argument that matthew chapter 24 is not for believers are you going to make the same argument two chapters later when jesus institutes the ordinance of the communion it's a it's a real problem for pre-tribulationists in that regard pre-tribulationists did come up with one interpretation of matthew 24 that seemed to stick in the mid-1800s they began to teach that verse 31 was not the rapture at all but some other event that occurred at the end of the seven-year period most often they said it referred to the battle of armageddon in revelation 19 where jesus descends to battle with the armies of the antichrist historically classical pre-tribers did not would not allow the the rapture to be put in the proximity of matthew 24 and 25 they argued that the rapture is nowhere to be seen there that any mention of a coming of christ in that passage has it refers to armageddon there are lots of problems with this view for instance many of the parallels that we see with the thessalonian letters and matthew 24 just don't apply to armageddon the events in matthew 24 verses 29 to 31 and the events at armageddon are fundamentally different in matthew there is a rescue of god's people from the earth to heaven but in armageddon jesus returns from heaven to destroy the wicked people on the earth but the biggest problem with the armageddon view and the one pre-trib scholars in the last few years have been scrambling to solve comes from the obvious contradictions this view creates with the second half of the olivet discourse so in the latter part of matthew 24 and matthew 25 we are introduced to many parables of jesus concerning the day and hour and readiness for his coming and from a pre-tribulational perspective this proves to be a problem in many different ways regardless of the way it's interpreted which are various to set the stage it's important to remember a basic outline of the olivet discourse the disciples ask jesus what the signs of his coming will be then jesus gives them a fairly large list of signs ending with the coming itself i.e the rapture in verses 30 and 31 from that point on after verse 31 and going all the way through chapter 25 jesus tells his disciples various parables about how important it is for them to watch for the signs of his return signs he just got done telling them about it is in this last section where pre-tribbers have so many problems to solve because when they changed the meaning of verses 30 and 31 from the rapture to armageddon they changed the meaning of these parables as well and these parables just don't make sense in verses 30 and 31 are anything but the rapture for example in one of these parables it says that no one knows the day or the hour of jesus is coming and while many laymen pre-tribbers will quote this verse in reference to the rapture they do this ignorantly the pre-trib scholars know that if they have changed verse 31 to be about armageddon then they must make this not knowing the day or the hour to be about armageddon after all according to them jesus wasn't talking about the rapture at any point in this chapter and in context whatever verses 30-31 are referring to is what the parables that follow them have to be about so they're stuck having to defend the idea that no one will know the day or the hour of armageddon the problem here is that we know from several other verses in scripture that the day armageddon occurs will be exactly 7 years and 30 days after the covenant is made by the antichrist and exactly 1290 days after the abomination of desolation at the midpoint in other words since it seems very likely people will at least know when the abomination of desolation at the midpoint occurs since jesus says people should flee when they see it all anyone would have to do is calculate the days from that event to arrive at the day armageddon will occur commentaries from pre-tribbers either don't mention this problem at all or admit it's a problem but offer no solutions john mcarthur is a good example of the latter in his commentary he says nevertheless even with all those indisputable signs and precisely designated periods the exact day and hour will not be known by any human beings not even tribulation believers in advance although the lord gives no reason for their not knowing david guzik says something similar in his commentary in this there is a dilemma how can the day of jesus's coming be both completely unknown and at the same time be known to the day according to daniel 12 11. another problem caused by interpreting verse 31 as anything other than the rapture is that twice in these parables jesus says that one will be taken and one will be left if this is talking about the rapture then it flows quite naturally from the gathering in the clouds in verse 31 and it makes perfect sense in context but because of the pre-tribulational teaching that verses 30 and 31 are about armageddon pre-tribbers must interpret this one being taken here as either armageddon or the sheep and goat judgment basically they must see this being taken as a bad thing for unsaved people they must interpret it as a wicked person being taken to be judged instead of a righteous person being taken to their eternal reward it's a full reversal from historical christianity on this point in defense of this they will point to the parable in the previous verses about noah in which jesus talked about how the flood came and took people away they say that since the word sometimes translated took in that passage was about being taken for judgment the flood came and took the unbelievers away that is how the word taken in verses 40 and 41 should be understood that the one was taken for judgment not rescue the truth is the greek actually precludes this from being a possibility two different words are actually being used and it the one taken is to receive to oneself to receive warmly in fact it's the same word jesus uses in the departing discourse in john which i will not leave you but i will as orphans but i will come again and i will receive you unto myself and if i go to make a place ready for you i will come again and take you pierre lovano take you to be with me so that where i am you may be also and you know the way where i am going so here jesus uses the term peer and lovano and guess what every pre-trib interpreter believes that john 14 this john 14 passage when jesus says i will take you to be with me it's referring to the rapture another argument for this one being taken being a reference to them being taken in the rapture and not being taken to judgment is that in the ten virgins parable a few verses later which is on the exact same subject which we know because it ends with the exact same warning watch because you do not know the day or the hour it is only the wise virgins that are taken not the foolish ones in other words the purpose of jesus's warning to watch because you don't know the day or the hour is so that you can be a part of those that are taken not left interpreting verse 31 as armageddon is also logically incompatible with the next parable in which jesus says the wicked people of the world will be carefree and unaware before his coming he says they will be marrying and being given in marriage and eating and drinking up until the very day of his coming this creates a huge problem since according to the pre-trib interpretation this would mean that the wicked are relatively carefree right up until the day of the battle of armageddon even though armageddon takes place at the very end of the seven year period after the trumpet and bowl judgments have been poured out to put this in context at this time every living thing in the sea will be dead all the fresh water in the world will be undrinkable the sun will be so hot that no one can bear it everyone will have been plagued with terrible sores and there will have been five solid months of torment from demonic scorpion-like beings directly from the pit of hell i could go on but i think it's safe to say people will have noticed that the wrath of god has started and that they would not be living care-free lives right up until the day the battle of armageddon begins there are precious few pre-trib commentaries that even attempt to justify this idea again the most common tactic is to not mention the problem at all but pre-tribulational scholars have recognized the various problems that interpreting verses 30 and 31 as armageddon has caused and in the last decade or so there have been two competing theories from them to answer their critics on these issues one from dr craig blazing of southwestern baptist theological seminary and one from dr john hart of moody bible institute while blazing's theory gained popularity from being featured in zondervan's three views on the rapture book it's a somewhat convoluted argument and in many ways it represents an entirely new way to teach pre-tribulationism as a result it seems to have had less acceptance among pre-tribulationists than heart's theory though it should be noted that in both cases these theories rely on the same underlying proof text but more on that later john hart wrote a paper in 2007 that simply agreed with the historical church and the pre-wrath rapture proponents that all of the parables after verse 36 are in fact talking about the rapture and not armageddon thus avoiding the various contradictions we have been talking about the unique thing about heart's view is that he maintains that the first part of the olivet discourse including verse 30 and 31 is still a reference to armageddon as pre-tribbers have taught since the 1800s so he is essentially saying the first half of the olivet discourse has nothing to do with the second half that jesus was teaching his followers about the signs leading up to armageddon until verse 35 and then for some reason he reversed the order of events and began to teach parables about the rapture in verse 36. both heart and blazing's theories rely on the argument that in verse 36 the greek phrase peri dei which is often translated now concerning represents a transition to an entirely new topic in other words they argue that this greek term gives them an excuse to decouple the first half of the olivet discourse from the second heart argues and blazing does the same that the transitional phrase in greek in verse 36 peride which means uh now concerning or something along those lines uh is intended to distinguish or to mark the the change from answering one question to the other however since parry day basically means the same thing that the english phrase now concerning does it can mean now concerning something entirely different but it can also mean now concerning another aspect of the thing that was just discussed it's used both ways multiple times in the new testament in matthew it doesn't necessarily mean that the author is going to a new entirely different subject rather it means that he may be discussing another aspect of the central focus at hand which is exactly what's happening in matthew 24. the parry day line in verse 36 starts off now concerning the day or the hour so this is about the specific timing of something heart wants us to believe this is the first line on a totally new subject but the problem is that this line is obviously a continuation of the question about the timing of the events begun in the parable of the fig tree just before this the parable of the fig tree teaches that the followers of christ should be able to determine the general time of his coming by the signs jesus just described in matthew 24 verses 4 to 31 and that his disciples could know his coming was near by looking for the signs in the same way that they could know summer is near by observing the leaves on a fig tree so with the fig tree parable jesus says that we will be able to know the general time but in the next line he says concerning or peridae the day or the hour i.e the specific time of my coming no one will know it is a qualification then because we do not know the exact day or hour so we know the season but we do not know the day or hour so these two things complement one another and they must be taken together another criticism of heart's view revolves around the term parusia which is translated as coming since these new views of heart and blazing separate matthew 24 beginning at verse 36 from the previous section it would mean the question the disciples asked about the parousia in verse 3 is different from the answers about the perusia given by jesus in verses 37 and 39 they have to say that what jesus refers to as the coming of the son of man is different from the coming of the son of man in matthew 36 to 41. that's very difficult to maintain exegetically there's no evidence within the text not even the transitional phrase peride that suggests he's shifting from one coming to some other coming this is clear because when the disciples ask the question they say what is the sign of your coming and jesus just uses that same language his parusia in both parts of the text he doesn't give any indication that he's switching topics the bottom line is that the old pre-trib view which has the parables at the end of the olivet discourse talking about armageddon instead of the rapture is a brand new argument with multiple contradictions and pre-tribbers who know know it but the supposed fixes for this major problem proposed in the last decade or so which revolve around the idea that the first and second halves of the olivet discourse have nothing to do with one another is an even worse argument and now hopefully some of you know it [Music] now concerning the coming of our lord jesus christ and are being gathered together to him we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the lord has come let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of god proclaiming himself to be god second thessalonians 2 verses 1 to 4 the most problematic passage for pre-tribulationists is 2nd thessalonians chapter 2. 2 thessalonians was written by the apostle paul in part to refute a false teaching circulating at the time that the thessalonians had missed the rapture and were in the day of the lord paul's message to the thessalonians was very simple he told them not to worry they had not missed the rapture and were therefore not in the day of the lord and so the way he disabuses the thessalonians from that notion is he says certain things have to happen first uh and those things were the apostasy and the revelation of the man of lawlessness that is the antichrist what we would call the antichrist there are two main reasons why this is a problem for the pre-tribulationists the first is that as we have seen pre-tribbers maintain that there are no events that must occur before the rapture and here paul blatantly says there are two events that must occur first the rebellion sometimes translated as apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness if paul had taught pre-tribulationism his simplest answer would be no the rapture hasn't occurred yet instead of no there are certain things that have to happen first and as soon as you say there are certain things that have to happen first you've undermined pre-tribulationism so pre-tribulationists have a very difficult time in my opinion uh making second thessalonians too fit with their their thinking second thessalonians 2 poses the greatest problem for the pre-trip position or certainly is one of the greatest problem passages for the pre-trip position because paul does exactly what the majority of pre-tribbers say um does not occur and that is he gives us a list a chronology of events specifically connected to the rapture we know that paul was teaching that these two events would occur before the day of the lord in part because he uses the specific greek word proton or protoss which is often translated first and is specifically used here to describe when these two events would take place in relationship to the day of the lord in the greek the greek is very specific it uses the term a protos and it means before or first so paul here is teaching explicitly that two events have to happen before the day of the lord yeah the fact that paul says these things must happen first is important he doesn't just say these things must happen but these must happen first the second problem for pre-tribulationists is that at least one of the precursors mentioned here the revealing of the man of lawlessness is an event that takes place at the midpoint of the seven year period and most significantly this revealing of the man of lawlessness which paul describes in saying he will set himself up in god's temple proclaiming himself to be god which places the revealing of the antichrist at the midpoint so the coming of our lord and our being gathered to him cannot occur until after the midpoint of the 70th week take a look at this chart detailing the views of five prominent pre-tribulationists about 2 thessalonians 2 and you get a sense that they have fundamentally different often mutually exclusive ways of explaining this section of scripture but despite this confusion there are some pre-trib arguments about 2nd thessalonians 2 that are more common than others for example the most common way that pre-tribulationists deal with this is to say that paul did not actually mean that these two events would happen before the day of the lord rather he meant that these two events will happen during or be features of the day of the lord for example in his commentary david guzik says of this problem paul will not describe events which must precede the rapture but events that are concrete evidence of the day of the lord they are saying that paul wasn't saying these two events would come before the day of the lord rather paul was just naming things that happen during the day of the lord despite this denial that paul meant these things would happen before the day of the lord being one of the most common ways pre-tribulationists deal with this problem pre-tribulationists never seem to explain why they feel it's okay to ignore the grammar of this passage such as the greek word proton which means that these two events must come before the day of the lord you can confirm this by looking at other places in the new testament where the same greek construction occurs the same conditional word aeon may paired with proton always means one thing comes before the other our law doesn't condem a man unless aeon may it first protan hears from him and learns what he is doing does it another example of the same construction is in mark 3 27 but no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property unless aeon may he first proton ties up the strong man then tate indeed the house can be plundered mark 3 verse 27 these two examples that share the same greek construction with 2 thessalonians 2 verse 3 confirm that the correct reading here is that before the day of the lord begins two events must happen first the rebellion and the revelation of the man of lawlessness so at the end of the day with all these interpretations the 800-pound gorilla is the word protos another popular way that pre-tribulationists try to deal with 2nd thessalonians 2 relates to the word rebellion sometimes translated as falling away or apostasy in verse 3 it is one of the two things that are supposed to happen before the day of the lord this is usually understood to mean a falling away from the faith that is christians apostatizing or leaving the faith of christianity recently some pre-tribulationists have put forward the idea that the word behind this word rebellion apostasia in the greek means the rapture the idea is that paul was teaching that the rapture would happen first and then the man of lawlessness would be revealed this is usually done to preserve the all-important pre-trib doctrine of imminence that no events can come before the rapture but in second thessalonians they come to this text they got real problem they know it's difficult they know it poses a great problem for their position and so what do they do they take a word apostasy say aha this word is referring to the rapture the falling away the taking away of the believers on the earth this interpretation has two serious problems the first is the complete lack of any evidence that the word apostasia can mean the rapture and the second is that such an interpretation would mean that paul is making a nonsensical and utterly useless point in this passage pre-tribulationists claim that the apostasia can mean the rapture because the word is sometimes translated in early english bibles like the tyndale and geneva bibles as the english word depart they would say that if the word can mean depart in english it might also be a reference to the rapture where believers will depart the earth the problem is that the word is never used that way when the early english bibles used the english word depart to define apostasia they meant it to be understood in a non-spatial sense as in he departed from the faith or he departed from sound doctrine the word is never used to describe physical departure as in he departed from his house or as in our case he departed from the earth it always means a non-physical departure such as for example a political rebellion or a an apostasy from the faith the word is used five other times in the bible and each time it's used in a political or religious sense never in a physical sense even if you expanded your search to include all of the secular writings in koine greek you wouldn't find the word used in a spatial or physical sense show me a historical reference where this word is used that way any writing any historical writings 200 years before the new testament 200 years after new testament in defense of this view some pre-tribbers will go so far as to committing the so-called root fallacy what they will do is say that the root for apostasia which is probably the greek word aphistomy can mean a physical departure this method of interpretation is universally rejected by greek scholars because it's not a reliable way to determine the definition of words to give you an example from english the root word for nice in latin actually means to be ignorant but no one thinks that the sentence john is nice has anything to do with john being ignorant bringing up the root of apostasia is a desperate attempt to defend a particularly bad theory the second reason this argument makes no sense is that if the word apostasia means the rapture then paul's argument to the thessalonians is essentially that the rapture can't happen until the rapture happens the fatal problem with this is paul says that these things happen before the coming of our lord and are being gathered to him which is the rapture and so it is illogical to say that the rapture must occur before the rapture occurs what it's doing is it's making paul say that well the rapture can't come before the rapture to their credit this apostasia is the same thing as the rapture theory is openly rejected by the vast majority of pre-trib scholars even their own scholars such as paul feinberg and john walvoord two of the most esteemed pre-tribulational scholars have completely rejected this interpretation uh they haven't even convinced all pre-tribulationists of this who argue that the apostasy in greek hay apostasia means the rapture by that paul means the rapture that's a very difficult case to make if not an impossible case to make some pre-tribulationists who don't want to play the kind of games with the text we just saw will actually agree that paul wrote that the apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness will occur first or before the day of the lord take for example john wolverd and john macarthur both men in their commentaries tell their readers that the two events the rebellion and the revealing of the antichrist would occur before the day of the lord which of course we agree with but for them it's a very odd thing to say since in other places they teach that the day of the lord is a seven year period which is immediately preceded by the rapture and since both men also agree that the revealing of the man of lawlessness in verse 3 is a reference to the abomination of desolation which happens at the midpoint they are essentially saying that something which they know happens at the midpoint occurs before the day of the lord the obvious result is that the day of the lord can't be the seven year model that they teach in other places the rapture must start sometime after the midpoint this massive contradiction is not brought up or explained in either of their commentaries astute viewers have already noticed another contradiction which is how can they teach that these two events occur before the day of the lord but not before the rapture since like most pre-tribulationists they teach that the day of the lord occurs immediately after the rapture with no significant gap between the rapture and the day of the lord in other words since neither walvard or macarthur are rapture gap theorists in their view if something is before the day of the lord it is necessarily before the rapture as well so why are they essentially teaching here what they certainly don't agree with in other teachings that there are events before the rapture it's not clear as i said they don't mention these serious contradictions in their commentaries this could be called the forgetful paul view because in their commentaries and sermons they will correctly teach that in verse 1 the words coming and gathering are in fact references to the rapture this is not a debate among pre-trib or pre-wrathless pre-tribs and pre-raptors agree that this reference the gathering to be with him in in second thessalonians chapter two verse one uh is the rapture but they will go through the rest of their commentaries talking about these two precursors to the day of the lord as if they are only precursors to the day of the lord as if they have nothing to do with the rapture it's as if paul forgot to talk about the rapture even though he said that was specifically what he was going to talk about in this section he says now regarding the arrival of our lord jesus christ and our being gathered to him let me just stop there well paul hasn't made any connections here he's just saying now i'm going to talk about this now isn't it sort of odd if he says now i'm going to talk about the rapture and the parousia and then he doesn't mention it ever again well he actually does he's um he's unpacking what it means the day of the lord pre-wrath solves this problem by understanding that these two events will occur before the rapture and before the day of the lord and that paul is using both concepts interchangeably here as he often does in the new testament pre-wrath also understands the revealing of the antichrist in verse 3 is a reference to the abomination of desolation at the midpoint of the seven year period they also see the falling away or rebellion in verse 3 as a reference to the falling away that jesus mentions in association with the abomination of desolation in matthew 24. in fact this clear and consistent connection between matthew 24 and 2nd thessalonians 2 is a really important point a fundamental problem of the way that pre-tribulational interpreters interpret the apostle paul is they don't recognize that paul is getting his teaching from jesus for example just look at the similarities in matthew 24 before the rapture in verse 31 what does jesus say must come first you guessed it a falling away and the abomination of desolation and it's only after those events occur that you can expect to see the sign of the impending day of the lord in verse 29 and the rapture in verses 30 and 31 just before it begins jesus's teaching on the end times is a perfect mirror to paul's in terms of the timing of events which is probably why paul said that he got this doctrine about the rapture quote from the lord how do we know that the apostle paul received his teachings from the olive discourse from jesus's olive discourse well we know this we know this because there are at least 30 parallels between paul's teaching in first and second thessalonians and between the olive discourses 30 cohesive links between their teachings it's not just pre-rathers that see the connection between first and second thessalonians and matthew 24. just check the margins of your favorite bible ever since cross references have been invented they have been linking these two passages it's only the pre-tribulationists who can't accept that these passages are parallel to one another if you're a pre-tribulationist just you know lay your presuppositions aside for a moment and just read second thessalonians two without your traditions and see what it says there are several passages in the book of revelation supporting the idea that the church will face the antichrist persecution just before the rapture and that both the rapture and the day of the lord will not begin until after the midpoint of the seven year period this is all of course contrary to the traditional pre-trib model which teaches that the rapture will occur before the seven year period begins in the book of revelation most of the events that take place in the book correspond to various stages of a symbolic scroll being opened for example there are seven seals on the scroll and each time a seal is removed a prophetic event takes place after all seven of the seals are removed seven angels with seven trumpets are introduced and one at a time each angel blows their trumpet and a new prophetic event takes place until finally seven angels with seven bowls of wrath appear and seven more events take place there are a variety of different viewpoints in pre-tribulation pre-tribulationism as to the exact timing of the events that correspond to these seals trumpets and bowls the main difference between pre-tribulationism and pre-wrath in this regard is that most pre-tribulationists believed that all the seals in revelation chapter 6 as well as the trumpets and bowls found in later chapters are events that take place during the day of the lord's wrath pre-wrathers believe the seven seals on the outside of this proverbial scroll are not the wrath of god but rather only the contents of the scroll represented in the book by the trumpets and bowls are the day of the lord's wrath and so these seven seals are preconditions that need to be met before the scroll is opened it is only after all seven seals are broken that the scroll can be opened and then the wrath of god unfolds and this is exactly what we see in the flow of revelation six through eight prerathers point out that the events that take place during the seals are mostly things that are the direct result of the antichrist evil workings not the result of god's wrath for example the first seal is the introduction of the antichrist as the writer on the white horse the second seal is about the wars that the antichrist will fight as he gains power then in the next two seals you have famines and people being killed in large numbers quote with the sword the fifth seal is an interesting one and this is where many pre-rathers begin their argument that these seals cannot be a part of god's wrath the martyrs that are depicted in the revelation at the fifth seal in my opinion is one of the strongest arguments for the pre-wrath position pre-tribulationists claim that the sills on the scroll the seven sealed scroll the seals are all of god's wrath but that's contradicted by the fifth sill in revelation 6 9 it says now when the lamb opened the fifth seal i saw under the altar the souls of those who had been violently killed because of the word of god and because of the testimony they had given they cried out with a loud voice how long sovereign master holy and true before you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood each of them was given a long white robe and they were told to rest for a little longer until the full number was reached of both their fellow servants and their brothers who were going to be killed just as they have been but they asked god when are you going to start your wrath on the people on the earth who are responsible for our death that is powerful in my opinion because to me that explicitly declares that the wrath of god that eschatological wrath has not begun how long o lord until you vindicate our blood on those who dwell on the earth in other words it hasn't been happening yet up to the fifth seal they're told wait a little while until the rest of your brethren are killed and then the sixth seal is open and the great day of god's wrath has arrived there are very few pre-trib responses to this issue but one example is from robert thomas who though he doesn't say it directly implies that what the martyrs were actually doing is crying out for god's wrath to finish in other words the martyrs are crying out for the end of god's wrath not for god's wrath to begin the problem of course is that the plain reading in both the greek and english of this phrase how long before you judge and avenge our blood means that no judgment of any kind has begun at that point this is reiterated in the next verse when god tells them to wait a little while longer until the full number of christian martyrs are killed both grammatically and contextually god has not begun his judgment on the wicked at this point which is probably why we found so few pre-trib commentators willing to try to explain this passage at all this causes another problem for pre-tribbers because if god's wrath has begun by this point as they say it would mean that these christian martyrs in the fifth seal had been going through god's wrath which contradicts the doctrine that christians will not go through the wrath of god derived from first thessalonians 5 9 and other places a doctrine that is agreed upon by all signs of this debate god promises that that believers will not have to experience the wrath of god the day of the lord's wrath and yet pre-tribulationists contradict themselves when they say that the fifth seal is god's wrath you can't have both pre-tribulationists try to get around this by calling these christians tribulation saints they define tribulation saints as people left behind in the rapture who become christians during the day of the lord well a common argument that i hear often is that oh well these they're these these believers they're not quote unquote part of the church uh they're they're quote-unquote tribulation saints and the they'll even go to the extent not all of them but some of them will actually say you know because they didn't accept christ before the rapture this is like a certain judgment on them i'm sorry that's absurd and it also again it contradicts what paul says in first thessalonians chapter five is that we are promised exemption from god's wrath some pre-tribulationists bill salus for one have proposed an entirely new theory which removes the fifth seal from the seventieth week altogether salus places the first five seals before the seven year period which avoids the fifth seal martyr problem but this model is almost unheard of in pre-trib circles while many pre-tribbers argue about where to put the first three seals and some pre-tribbers do in fact put the first three seals before the seven year period begins placing the fourth and fifth seals before the seven years is fairly radical because they have such strong ties to the midpoint of the seven year period but it does have the one benefit of keeping these fifth seal martyrs out of the wrath of god and thus avoiding this major contradiction the next bit of evidence to which pre-rather's point to show that the wrath of god has not begun during the seals is the celestial disturbance sign found in the next seal the sixth seal this is the sign which joel 2 verse 31 says will occur before the day of the lord so if this sign in the sun moon and stars in revelation 6 is the same one that joel talked about then the day of the lord cannot have begun by this point because this sign happens before the day of the lord begins we see evidence that this cosmic disturbance sign in revelation 6 is in fact the same one that announces the day of the lord's wrath because as a result of people seeing this sign in the heavens we see the following reaction then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains calling to the mountains and rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand revelation 6 verses 15-17 here again a plain reading shows that the people of the earth believe that the wrath of god is about to begin at the sixth seal the earth dwellers are diving into the rocks because it is now time for the day of recompense for the day of uh repaying the world for persecuting the people of god in an attempt to deal with this damning evidence that the seals cannot be the wrath of god pre-tribbers will typically argue about the tense form of the greek word for has come in revelation 6 17. many pre-tribbers say that since the phrase has come is in the greek errorist tense form it is in the past tense in this case they would prefer a translation such as the wrath of god has been occurring pre-tribulationists generally want to argue the day of the lord began with the first seal and so when people say the great day of god's wrath has arrived all they're doing is finally recognizing that they've been experiencing the great day of god's wrath a growing number of greek scholars strongly disagree with this idea pointing out that the reason any greek word is rendered in the past present or future tense is determined by the context not from greek tense form this can be seen by reviewing other instances in the bible including in revelation 19 verse 7 where the errorist indicative tense form is clearly not supposed to be translated in the past tense it says the wedding of the lamb has come which is obviously not supposed to be translated the wedding of the lamb has already come take the text at face value allow the text to speak the fact that the arrest is used more than 11 times in that sixth seal all of a sudden just the one occurrence of it though has such high and important significance seems to me to betray the very system you're trying to build also consider the actions of the people in this verse they are hiding themselves in the rocks because they saw the very same sign joel said would herald the wrath of god these people didn't hide themselves during the first five seals what has changed other than the celestial announcement that the wrath of god was about to begin another line of evidence for the pre-wrath position in revelation 6 comes from the recognition that the six seals line up perfectly with the teaching of christ during his olivet discourse revelation 6 is a revelation to a lot of people when you start to compare it to matthew chapter 24 of the olivet discourse and this is a very key part of pre-wrath rapturism is actually something that was key to me really coming into the position juxtaposing both the flow of matthew 24 and revelation chapter 6 shows a lot of parallels the opening of the seals is parallel to the elements of jesus's discussion in matthew 24. so uh the writer on the white horse corresponds to the false christs uh the writer on the red horse is war uh the black horse is famine the sickly horse is death and then there's martyrs the first three sills these are corresponded to jesus's beginning birth pains the fourth seal is correlated to the persecution of the antichrist great tribulation and the fifth seal is part of the great tribulation too but it's showing the result of the persecution and that is martyrdom that's why it's called the fifth seal martyrs in case there is any doubt we are on the right track the next thing mentioned after the persecution in matthew 24 is the celestial disturbances sign in the sun moon and stars which we now know means the day of the lord is about to begin we see this exact same sign in the sixth seal which all but confirms that this parallel between matthew and the seals in revelation 6 is correct in the book of revelation in exactly the right location as you're reading it sequentially you'll find a clear discussion of something happening to the sun the moon and the stars this is the clear identifier indicator that god's wrath is about to commence it is about to pour down on a wicked world now the reason why this is so key is because in both the olivet discourse and the book of revelation we have this sign occurring and that which occurs in the wake of this sign is an indication of deliverance it is immediately after the distress of those days that jesus appears in great power and glory and gathers his elect from the four winds what so few people realize is that you can see the rapture directly after the sun moon and star sign in revelation as well though there is a kind of interlude after the sign and before the wrath of god for example the very next thing we see is an angel saying do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our god on their foreheads then these angels go about sealing the 144 thousand to protect them from the wrath that is about to come you get this interlude in chapter 7 and the interlude is explicitly centered around protecting people from god's judgment and so it says be hold on before don't let any wind blow on the trees and things like that but before any of that happens we want you to seal the servants of god on their forehead directly after the 144 000 are sealed we see the result of the rapture from the viewpoint of heaven a great multitude that no one could count from every nation from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands revelation 7 verse 9 be we are given the final proof that the pre-wrath view of this timeline is correct a few verses later when the angel tells jon exactly who this group is these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb revelation 7 14 be remember the great tribulation is not a seven year period theologically speaking it is the persecution that begins just after the midpoint and extends until it is cut short by the rapture this phrase out of the great tribulation then confirms the pre-wrath timeline and it means that the day of the lord will not begin until after the sixth seal and that the rapture occurs at some point after the midpoint of the seventieth week of daniel and finally that the church will face the persecution of the antichrist before the rapture there's a depiction of the church's appearance in heaven apparently as a means of protecting them from god's wrath between the arrival of the great day of god's wrath and the actual execution of the great day of god's wrath that's a pre-wrath rapture regarding this multitude in heaven pre-tribbers would emphatically declare that this group is not the raptured church but rather the so-called tribulation saints but if you press them about why they must be tribulation saints and not the church they will answer with a classic circular argument they don't believe the church will be in the great tribulation so this group can't be the church there are as far as i know no other arguments for the existence of the tribulation saints view you may be wondering why pre-tribulationists believe that the seals in revelation 6 have to be a part of the day of the lord's wrath especially in light of all this evidence to the contrary do they have some proof text i'm not telling you about not really the most common defense pre-tribulationists offer is that the seals are the wrath of god because jesus opens them this argument comes from revelation chapter 5 verse 9 which says and they sang a new song saying worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for god from every tribe and language and people and nation they argue essentially that since jesus was the only one worthy to break the seals and open the scroll the seals as well as the scroll must be judgment since in other places in the bible jesus is said to be the only one worthy to judge the world the problem of course is that it doesn't logically follow that just because jesus is the only one worthy to break the seals and open the scroll that the seals on the scroll are judgment this verse in revelation 5 verse 9 would make just as much sense in the pre-wrath view in which the scroll's contents not the seals of the scroll are the actual judgment this is often the sole argument from pre-tribulationists to prove that the seals are the wrath of god and in my opinion it's rather weak especially when you compare it to the actual explicit biblical evidence we have seen here and that brings us to something we have referenced many times in this film but have yet to fully explain the pre-trib doctrine of imminence imminence is really a keystone issue for the pre-tribulational rapture well in the pre-tribulational theological sense of the term eminence means that there are no prophesied events that must happen before the rapture the rapture is signless it can happen at any moment right now and hence they consider the rapture imminent it's hard to overemphasize how important this idea of imminence is to the concept of the pre-tribulational rapture pre-tribbers often claim that imminency and pre-tribulationism are basically one in the same thing take for example this quote from one of the most prominent pre-tribulational scholars john wolvert for the most part scriptural evidence for imminence today is equivalent to proof of the pre-tribulation viewpoint for all practical purposes abandonment of the pre-tribulational return of christ is tantamount to abandonment of the hope of his imminent return the first thing that you should know about imminence is that it is a brand new doctrine it appears to have originated in the early 1800s with the so-called plymouth brethren and john darby and there is no sign of the belief in an imminent rapture before the antichrist arrives among any of the church fathers of the previous 1800 years before darby and it's not just pre-trib critics saying that even pre-tribulationists agree that it cannot be found in the writings of the early church take for example dr larry crutchfield an expert in church history and a pre-tribulationist he spent a huge amount of time looking for evidence of imminence in the early church writings and concluded his paper on the subject like this while there are in the writings of the early fathers seeds from which the doctrine of the pre-tribulational rapture could be developed it is difficult to find in them an unequivocal statement of the type of imminency usually believed in by pre-tribulationists we do not say that the early fathers were pre-tribulationists in the modern sense only that the seeds were indeed there earlier in the paper crutchfield said that what the early church did believe about the timing of the rapture should be termed something like imminent intra-tribulationism meaning that most of the church fathers believed that the rapture would only come after the antichrist was revealed and the persecution of christians began they believed the rapture would be imminent but only after the certain precursors occurred most notably the abomination of desolation at the midpoint this pre-tribulational expert on the church fathers therefore is essentially telling his readers that the early church was for all intents and purposes pre-wrath we will deal more with the early church in the last section of this film but for now we will go through all the ways pre-tribbers will try to prove imminence from the bible alone if you take all the verses that pre-tribulationists use to prove imminence a few patterns emerge so we have categorized each proof text in its own group the first group i will call waiting for verses this includes verses like titus 2 verse 13 which says waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great god and savior jesus christ or philippians 3 verse 20 which says but our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior the lord jesus christ you can see another example of this type of proof text in 1st corinthians 1 verse 7 but the basic idea is that believers should wait for and be expectant of christ's return there is no technical reason to believe that these verses are speaking of imminence in other words you can do a word study in greek with the terms for waiting for or await and you will find that these words do not mean that no events will occur before something or another takes place or that something could happen at any moment they mean pretty much what they mean in english that you are just waiting for something in the case of this waiting for group of proof texts a pre-tribulationist would say that if you are eagerly waiting for the rapture then the rapture must be able to happen at any moment but it should be obvious that that doesn't logically follow you can eagerly await all kinds of things that are not imminent you can eagerly await christmas but it doesn't mean christmas can occur at any moment you can eagerly await a wedding but it doesn't mean that the wedding will happen at any moment you can see a biblical example that imminence is not the logical conclusion of eagerly awaiting something in second peter 3 13 where it says but according to his promise we are waiting for pras new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells the apostle peter says that we are to watch for and to expect the new heavens and new earth but we know and even pre-tribulationists would admit there are certain prophesied events that have to happen before the new heavens and the new earth so if to watch means imminence that then they would have to admit that the new heavens and the new earth are imminent events which of course they would not admit what the bible is saying is that we should as christians look forward to wait for and eagerly anticipate all the wonderful things that god has in store for us including his return so we can begin our eternal life and be with him but to be expectant of something is obviously not the same thing as thinking it will happen at any moment the next group of proof texts for imminence could be called be good because jesus is returning this is probably the largest group of pre-trib proof texts for imminence which consists of verses like 1st john 2 verse 28 which says and now little children abide in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming or hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25 which says and let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day draw near there are a few more verses like this that are basically saying the same thing that christians should strive to live moral lives to do good works and that they should live those moral lives because jesus is returning the argument pre-tribbers would make here is that because the new testament writers are telling people to be morally blameless because of jesus's return it must mean that his return could happen at any moment without signs in other words according to pre-tribers the new testament writers were telling people that they should keep doing good because if they don't they could get caught doing something bad because jesus could return at any moment and surprise them while they were sinning pre-tribbers have taken this concept very seriously and have even developed a doctrine about sanctification which uses this idea as its base that is that the fear of being caught in the act of sinning from an imminent rapture keeps christians on the straight and narrow path pre-tribulational teacher john mcarthur claims that our very sanctification depends on imminence he says quote the hope of christ's imminent return is therefore the hinge on which a proper understanding of sanctification turns this position really does not accurately reflect how the scriptures declare we are to seek to live godly in christ jesus i live the christian life because i love god the fact that his son is coming for me is added benefit but not knowing when he's going to come does not demure my desire to live holy at all you better have more motivation than merely the fear that jesus is going to come back uh to lead a life of of um committed discipleship uh if that's your only reason for for uh for being committed to christ or submitting to his lordship then you've got a deficient view of discipleship the question is though is there a better explanation for why the bible says that christians should do good works because of christ's return the answer is resoundingly yes in fact these verses which pre-tribbers think are about imminence are really just a few more examples of one of the most prominent themes in the new testament which is that christians should live godly lives in light of the fact that they have been given eternal life let's turn back to ii peter 3 to show how this works since all these things are thus to be dissolved what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of god because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn but according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells therefore beloved since we are waiting for these be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish and at peace and count the patience of our lord as salvation just as our beloved brother paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him this verse shows us that the reason we are told to live godly lives is not because of an imminent rapture or anything at all to do with being surprised by something unexpected rather the point peter is making is that the new heavens and new earth are a picture of the eternal life that a believer is promised that is why we should live godly lives because of the joy of our inheritance because of the sureness of our resurrection to eternal life when you look at the other so-called proof texts in this group it becomes clear that the same theme here in ii peter is in view and that the only reason those verses even mention the rapture is because the rapture is the very picture of eternal life it's the moment believers become immortal but the point is exactly the same let me show you a few more verses where it says the same thing in the supposed imminence proof texts except the rapture is replaced with eternal life so we can be sure this is less about the event of the rapture but more about what the rapture represents i.e our eternal life for the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life and let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season we will reap if we do not give up galatians 6 verses 8 and 9 here paul says that reaping eternal life is a reason christians should not grow weary of doing good not the rapture not being scared of being caught by something sudden but because of something sure and wonderful i know some of you are thinking this is a little too legalistic for comfort are we to do good works to obtain eternal life well don't worry because in the next verse paul clears all that up it's found in one of the most famous passages in the bible 1st corinthians 15 58 therefore my beloved brothers be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the lord knowing that in the lord your labor is not in vain since this verse comes directly after paul was talking about the amazing gifts of immortality death where is your sting and all that we can see that he is saying here that christians do good works because eternal life is a sure thing it's real our good works are not in vain we will be rewarded on that day we will live eternally in the new heavens and new earth with jesus that is the blessed hope of christians in any case i hope you can at least agree that whatever these verses mean they are most certainly not giving us any information about whether or not there are prophesied events before the rapture hopefully you are starting to see how absurd that particular idea is the next group of proof texts for imminence is the easiest to dismiss for some reason these verses always appear in pre-trib lists of proof texts but all they prove is that christians will not go through the wrath of god which of course pre-wrath and many other viewpoints also teach one example from this group would be first thessalonians 5 verse 9 which says for god has not destined us for wrath but to obtain salvation through our lord jesus christ in a recent major theological paper that was supposed to be about proving the doctrine of imminence two of the six verses offered up in defense of eminence were these two verses which have literally nothing to do with imminence you can carefully read through the argumentation on these verses in that paper and see he doesn't even try to make an argument for imminence he is literally just using these verses to show that the church will not go through the wrath of god and i guess hoping his readers will believe that somehow proves imminence the next type of proof text for imminence is one of the strangest but also one of the more popular it could be called the rapture is a good thing proof text and it comes from john 14. let not your hearts be troubled believe in god believe also in me in my father's house are many rooms if it were not so would i have told you that i go to prepare a place for you and if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and will take you to myself that where i am you may be also and you know the way to where i'm going so you may be asking yourself where does this talk about the rapture coming at any moment or that there are no prophesied events that come before the rapture well don't worry you didn't see it because they derive imminence from this verse in a way that is less than obvious their argument has two premises number one that jesus implies that the rapture is a good thing when he says let not your hearts be troubled and number two that the rapture is in fact what jesus is talking about because he says i will come again and will take you to myself which is a reference to the rapture so far i am in total agreement with these premises the rapture will be good and this passage is about the rapture but the odd conclusion pre-tribulationists draw from these two points is that because the rapture is considered good by jesus it therefore can't have anything bad before it namely the persecution of the antichrist they insist that if christians were to go through some kind of persecution before the rapture then jesus would not have implied that they should not be troubled about it first of all the reason that jesus told them not to be troubled was not because they were worried about persecution just before the rapture he told them not to be troubled because of what they were talking about just before he said this simon peter said to him lord where are you going jesus answered him where i am going you cannot follow me now but you will follow afterward after jesus tells them what he does he then concludes it by saying and you know the way to where i am going so we know that the let not your hearts be troubled statement was concerning their fear that they would not know where he was going or how to follow him there to further illustrate how absurd the idea is that jesus was saying let not your hearts be troubled to assure his followers that they would not have to go through terrible persecution before the rapture consider that most of these very disciples would be tortured to death not many years after this in fact millions of christians have died in the past and will die because of persecution the fact that the rapture is a good thing is in no way promising that the events just before it will be without pain and more to the point this verse is not even in the same ballpark as a discussion about whether or not there will be prophesied events before the rapture contextually just in case you think we are cherry-picking bad arguments for imminence that paper i mentioned earlier opens up with this verse it is the headliner argument he has for imminence but all it really does is demonstrate how bankrupt the argument for eminence really is in modern pre-tribulationism the next group of proof texts are what i call nearness proof texts they are verses that speak of the rapture as being near or soon a prominent example is in philippians 4 5 which says let your reasonableness be known to everyone the lord is at hand and there are several others like this but the doctrine being expressed in each of them is that the lord's return is near and because it's been around 2000 years since the time these verses were written people are usually looking for a new definition of the word near or at hand and pre-tribbers choose to define it as imminent once again we need to point out that the underlying greek is of no help here the words being used don't have a technical meaning of imminence or that something will happen at any moment according to the lexicons they just mean that something is near let's look at one of the most famous passages supposedly about imminence to see if we can tell if james is talking about in any moment rapture be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the lord see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient about it until it receives the early and the late reigns you also be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the lord is at hand do not grumble against one another brothers so that you may not be judged behold the judge is standing at the door this verse from james is clearly parallel to jesus's teaching of the fig tree parable in matthew 24. we know this in part because of the word near and the idea that the judge is standing at the door both of which appear in the fig tree parable but most of all we know its derivative because it is the exact same teaching about the same issue the rapture in the fig tree parable jesus is saying that you will know that his return is near engus at the very door or gates thura because you will see certain signs namely the signs he just got done telling them about in the same way that you can tell summer is near by studying the leaves on a fig tree you will see the signs and know his return is near james is saying the same thing with his agricultural parallel that the harvest of fruit the rapture cannot occur until certain things happen first until it receives the early and late reigns and so they need to be patient and establish their hearts obviously the harvest or rapture is not supposed to be understood as imminent in this illustration as a number of things have to happen before crops can be harvested not the least of which is the early and latter rains and the actual growing of the crops even james telling his readers to be patient three times in this passage is the exact opposite thing to teach if what he meant was that the rapture could occur at any moment while it is true that the rapture being spoken of as being near is a difficult thing to understand in light of it having been two thousand years and counting since the prophecy was made i don't think it means we should go looking for a new definition of the word near i think we can take some instruction from this passage in second peter 3 which seems to suggest that any delay in events leading up to the rapture and the day of the lord is to allow for more to be saved before the judgment begins but do not overlook this one fact beloved that with the lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day the lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness but is patient toward you not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance second peter 3 verses 8 and 9 and that brings us to our final group of proof texts which is the thief in the ninth proof texts there are several instances in scripture in which the return of jesus is spoken of like a thief for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the lord will come like a thief in the night 1st thessalonians 5 verse 2. the idea is that if jesus's return is unexpected like a thief breaking into your house at night then it must be imminent interestingly this line of argumentation seems to have fallen out of popularity with pre-tribbers recently because if you follow the thief idea throughout the new testament it ironically ends up proving imminence wrong the reason for that is that all of these coming like a thief verses can be traced back to jesus who in this section of the olivet discourse was talking about the need for his followers to watch for the signs of his return he says watch therefore for you do not know what hour your lord is coming but know this that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into therefore you also must be ready for the son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect this is confirmed in spades all throughout the new testament where the idea of the thief is specifically about the importance of watching for the signs of the return of christ and that the lord's return like a thief is only for those unbelievers who do not know or care to watch for it let's take the very verse pre-tribbers use in 1st thessalonians 5 and put it back in context to show the utter uselessness of the thief idea to prove imminence now concerning the times and the seasons brothers you have no need to have anything written to you for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the lord will come like a thief in the night while people are saying there is peace and security then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape but you are not in darkness brothers for that day to surprise you like a thief for you are all children of light children of the day we are not of the night or of the darkness so then let us not sleep as others do but let us keep awake and be sober the thief motif is not talking about an imminent event what it is talking about is that when he does return it's going to happen suddenly that's different than the idea of imminence jesus's return will come as a thief but is going to come as a thief to unbelievers not believers so the return of christ will only be like a thief for unbelievers for them it will come suddenly and unexpectedly because they will not be watching for the signs of it and the very idea of watching for signs of the rapture means that there are prophesied events before the rapture if you tell me to watch then i've got to be watching for something all the disciples most of the early church millions of christians of all ages have been brutally tortured and killed for their faith it is something jesus over and over told us not only to expect but to rejoice in so i can't follow the logic that says that the rapture will prevent one small group of christians from persecution but not others whatever the blessed hope is it must be a blessed hope for all those martyrs of the past as well which is of course the resurrection to eternal life itself i believe that like the man behind the curtain in the wizard of oz simply revealing to pre-tribbers what most pre-tribulationists really teach about imminence is enough to understand that the concept of an imminent rapture is a totally new fraudulent doctrine that needs to be quickly abandoned for the good of the church [Music] one of the foundational arguments for the pre-tribulational rapture is concerning the relationship between national israel and the church it's based on daniel 9 verses 24 to 27 where we find the so-called 70 weeks prophecy this prophecy is where we get the concept of a future seven-year period in which the majority of the end times events take place this prophecy in daniel is about the future of israel the weeks as in the 70 weeks prophecy are understood to mean groups of seven years so 70 weeks would be 70 groups of 7 years which works out to 490 years in daniel these 70 weeks are divided with the first 69 weeks having been fulfilled in the past and the final week the final seven year period still awaiting fulfillment in the future and during the gap between the first 69 weeks and the final week there has been something like 2 000 years and counting this gap of time that we are currently in is commonly referred to as the church age most of the proponents of the various rapture positions we have mentioned in this film like pre-trib post-trib and pre-wrath all agree on the basics of this prophecy that there is a future seven year period in which the end times events will primarily play out and that the seven year period will culminate with god fulfilling his promises to national israel i think the scriptures are very clear that god uh has a future for israel and that that future is going to be uh culminated in the millennial reign of christ on earth after his return pre-tribulationists however have proposed a unique interpretation of this prophecy which supports their view of the rapture the theory is that god does not work with israel and the church at the same time they insist that a hard distinction must be made here that god has completely and totally paused his dealings with national israel during the church age pre-wrath takes a similar view with the difference being that pre-wrath teaches that god has only relatively postponed his dealings with israel during this church age not absolutely and that god can and has worked with both the church and israel during the church age and that he will continue to do so in the final seven year period the reason pre-tribbers are so insistent that god will absolutely not work with the church and israel at the same time is because they use that particular idea in one of their arguments for the pre-trib rapture which is that since the 70 weeks prophecy was made to israel and is about israel and since the time between those two sections of the 70 weeks is the church age they say that when the clock starts on this prophecy again it will be all about israel and so the church must be raptured before it begins they'll say that god doesn't work with israel and the church at the same time israel is going to be part of the seven year period therefore the church cannot be part of the seven year period the assumption is that god cannot deal with israel and the church at the same time and so since daniel's 70th week was part of god's dealing with israel the church must not be on earth when daniel 70th week begins let's start with their premise that because this 70 weeks prophecy was made to and concerning israel that the church will not have any part in its fulfillment one great way to show the complete inconsistency of pre-tribulational thinking here is by turning to jeremiah 31 verses 31-34 where we see a prophecy that in many ways is just like the 70 weeks prophecy for example it was explicitly given to israel and was concerning only israel i will make a new covenant with the house of israel and the house of judah and like the seventy weeks prophecy it was given at a time when the church didn't even exist but in this case nearly every christian agrees that this prophecy applies to the church as well as it is talking about the new covenant instituted by christ in which the spirit of god will dwell within the hearts of man and change them from the inside out before i show more evidence that this idea is wrong i would like you to notice that this critical doctrine among pre-tribulationists that god does not will not work with israel and the church at the same time has no actual proof text like other doctrines do it is merely an assumption among pre-tribulationists and worse it's an assumption that they routinely abandon when it suits them take for example the so-called tribulation saints idea whenever a pre-tribber reads in the bible about christians existing within the last seven year period which is a very frequent occurrence they call those people tribulation saints people of various nationalities left behind after the rapture who become christians well if god won't work with the church and israel at the same time how do they explain these tribulation saints are they not saved do they not have the holy spirit are the gentile believers among them not the church is god not working with them because he won't work with them and the jews at the same time to drive the nail in the coffin of this unbiblical doctrine that god won't work with israel and the church at the same time let me simply show you lots of places where the bible says god works with both groups in the past in the present and in the future in the past god worked with israel during the church age in ad70 before the death and resurrection of jesus during the old covenant dispensation a prophecy was given to israel concerning god judging israel with the temple's destruction jesus on a number of occasions he prophesied the judgment on israel when did that happen in 80 70. god is also working with both the church and israel at the same time in the present in at least two ways the first is that god is making israel jealous and saving a remnant of jews during the church age paul cites the following prophecy about god making israel jealous through extending his salvation to the gentiles but again i ask didn't israel understand first moses says i will make you jealous by those who are not a nation with a senseless nation i will provoke you to anger and isaiah is even bold enough to say i was found by those who did not seek me i became well known to those who did not ask for me paul responds to moses and isaiah's prophecies exclaiming god's faithfulness to his promise to israel i ask then they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall did they absolutely not but by their transgression salvation has come to the gentiles to make israel jealous for i do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery brothers and sisters so that you may not be conceited a partial hardening has happened to israel until the full number of the gentiles has come in god is using the salvation of gentiles as a means to provoke israel to come to salvation and he is in fact saving a remnant through those means at this time if we look at the last 2000 years plus god has been dealing with israel in the church at the same time the the church defined as the assembly of the lord of both jew and gentile god has the gospel going out and he is gathering the constituents of his kingdom and he has been doing that but israel is still his chosen nation still his people they are still under-disciplined there still is a remnant being saved the other way god is working with israel in the present age is by god re-gathering israel back to their homeland a key aspect to this would be the monumental event of the creation of the modern state of israel in 1948 god has been and continues to this day providentially regathering jews to their homeland israel the prophet ezekiel prophesied that this would happen in his dry bones prophecy in ezekiel 37 verses 1 to 14. in 1948 israel became a nation again it's fulfilled these are the dry bones of course the flesh the flesh part of the prophecy has not been fulfilled that's going to be the spiritual regeneration of israel that will happen at the end of the seven year period but the dry bones part of the ezekiel prophecy by the way ezekiel's prophecy was made to israel but is being fulfilled during the church age in the future this next one cuts to the very core of the matter since if you can show that god in the future works with both israel and the church specifically during the final seven year period you have refuted the very foundation of this odd doctrine and while there are many ways to show this there is one in particular that i like the best and it is found in revelation 12 which says but the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she is to be nourished for a time and times and half a time the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with the flood but the earth came to the help of the woman and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring on those who keep the commandments of god and hold to the testimony of jesus revelation 12 verses 12-17 here we have a picture of events squarely within the last seven year period and yet we read that after the dragon becomes furious at his inability to get to the representative of israel i.e the woman he then goes after the church i.e those that hold to the testimony of jesus both groups are obviously on earth at the same time and obviously during the final week of daniel because of the reference to the last three and a half years in verse 14 so it follows that god is in fact working with both groups at the same time in the end times as well god works with israel in the church at the same time in the past and in the present so it shouldn't be surprising that the church will also enter into with israel this future seven year period the antichrist is going to go after both groups not just israel but israel and the church during the great [Music] tribulation the last pre-trib problem that we will cover in this film concerns patristics which is a name for the study of the writings and beliefs of the early church the writings from the early church fathers date back to the first century and of course we should never take their writings as proof of one doctrine over another the bible is always the ultimate source for our doctrine but at the same time most if not all of the doctrines we hold today were taught at some point by the early church fathers at the very least these writings provide insight into what the earliest christians believed about certain subjects whether those beliefs were right or wrong so the big question is what did the early church believe about the timing of the rapture and in one sense the answer to that question is pretty simple every single early church father who taught on the relationship between the church and the antichrist believe that the church would face the antichrist before jesus returns the belief that christ was going to return after antichrist had done damage to the body that believers had suffered and had been under his uh rampage and that they would be set free from that by the appearing of christ in the sky that is the basic sequence and you'll see that in the writings of the fathers you'll see that in uh say the decay as we kind of look at their collected writings they believed in the truth that the church was going to encounter the antichrist in that the coming of christ was going to occur in the wake of their encountering of the antichrist it's not just pre-wrathers that think this either pre-trib scholars would by and large agree with what was just said i mentioned in the section of this film about eminence a paper written by a pre-tribulational early church expert named larry crutchfield in which he concluded that while he couldn't find any evidence of pre-tribulationism in the early church he did find what he called intra-tribulationism by which he meant people who believed they would be raptured out of the middle of the persecution of the antichrist which is essentially pre-wrath in another paper written more recently james stitzinger who is very much a pre-tribulationist agrees with crutchfield's conclusion when he wrote the early fathers largely held to a period of persecution that would be ongoing when the return of the lord takes place and most would see the church suffering through some portion of the tribulation period he further writes a type of imminent intratribulationism crutchfield or imminent post-tribulationism walvord with occasional pre-tribulational inferences was believed in this paper he quotes 15 church fathers which as we will see certainly do not help his case and then oddly concludes his paper by contradicting his opening statement when he says george ladd post-tribulationist is no longer credible when he writes we can find no trace of pre-tribulationism in the early church and no modern pre-tribulationist has successfully proved that this particular doctrine was held by any of the church fathers or students of the word before the 19th century so i'm going to go through these quotes he provided so i can show you his logic and by extension most pre-tribulational logic as it concerns the church fathers before we get started though i want to reiterate something that is crucially important as i said these pre-tribbers know and freely admit that the early church almost without exception believed that the rapture would occur after the antichrist showed up and began to persecute the church they also freely admit those church fathers that mentioned the seven year timeline in relationship to the rapture universally believed the rapture would take place in the last half of the three and a half year period so pre-tribbers know very well that they will never ever win an argument about the early church teaching pre-tribulationism in any kind of traditional way it's just far too obvious that the early church was anything but pre-tribulational so what they do is never mention to their congregations what the early church actually believed about the timing of the rapture and instead claimed that the early church believed in imminence you'll remember that is the idea that jesus could return at any moment so the thinking is if they can prove that the early church believed the rapture could come at any moment they will call that proof of pre-tribulationism even if the church father in question also taught the rapture would occur after the midpoint and after the persecution of the church by the antichrist which is the very opposite of pre-tribulationism and as absurd as that premise is they don't even manage to accomplish that much in stitzinger's paper 6 out of the 15 quotes from the early church can be placed into a category which could be called imaginary eminence proof texts this is where he quotes early church fathers who mention words that pre-tribbers have defined as meaning imminence but don't actually mean imminence for example a church father might mention the rapture is coming soon or that it is near or that it will be sudden or that we should watch for it on the one hand we could rehash what we talked about in the section on imminence which is that just because something is soon or near doesn't mean it is imminent a harvest of crops can be near but that doesn't mean the harvest will occur at any moment with no preceding signs another way to prove this wrong is by noticing that in most cases the same writers stitzinger says believed in imminency also teach in other places that lots of signs will come before the rapture in other words when a church father said that the rapture is at hand or near they clearly didn't mean it was imminent since they also said there would be lots of prophesied events before the rapture one of the best ways to illustrate this is with the didache the very first document outside of the new testament is called the dedicated and it was written roughly uh of the turn of the first century in his paper stetsinger says the following the final chapter of the didake provides one of the clearest and most comprehensive statements on imminency and then he quotes this line be watchful for your life let your lambs not be quenched and your loins not ungirded but be ye ready for ye know not the hour in which our lord cometh so the writer of the didache is simply telling his readers to be watchful and to be ready because they don't know the day or the hour of the rapture as we have seen in the pre-trib mind if you are watchful and ready for something it means that thing could occur at any moment and that such words in and of themselves are proof of imminence but if you read the full quote from the didake you will see that the writer goes on to name the various signs he wanted them to watch for signs he believed must come before the rapture by my count there are 18 events that the writer believed would need to come to pass before the rapture most notably the antichrist declaring himself to be the son of god and the persecution of christians that would follow that event so you can see the problem stitzinger tells his readers that the writers of the didache clearly and comprehensively taught the rapture could come at any moment just like he believes but all you have to do is read a few lines after this quote to find out that the writer actually believed there were multiple things that must happen before the rapture i.e the opposite of imminence this is by no means the only instance of a pre-tribulational scholar in a highly respected journal quoting church fathers out of context it's unfortunately incredibly common many have tried to look at some of the the quotes from some of the early church fathers and have tried to say well see it looks like their pre-tribulation pre-tribulational because they hold to imminence which is the idea that jesus christ can return at any moment there are no prophesied events that need to transpire before he returns and i would suggest to you strongly that the the early church fathers did not subscribe to an imminent rapture conversely many of them understood and made it clear in their writings that there would be a time of coming persecution before believers would be raptured the centerpiece of pre-tribulational church father quotes though is from pseudo-ephraim and i should mention that we have moved well beyond the early church at this point this particular quote was from the middle ages and it is almost certainly a forgery pseudo-ephraim thousands of dollars spent countless hours spent searching every historical record we can find for a reference or proof of the pre-trip position they come up with a document that's called pseudo ephraim pseudo means false so here is a writing ascribed to a man named ephraim that everybody knows he didn't write it and it supposedly is proof of a pre-trib rapture lots of writings written by somebody who wanted it to be more important than it really was so he puts the name of an important person on it in order to give it legitimacy we have lots of those writings but the fact that the pre-trip system would use one of those writing as a basis for the proof of their position to me is unconscionable but regardless of who wrote it this is the section they will usually quote all the saints and elect of god are gathered together before the tribulation which is to come and are taken to the lord in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins stitzinger says the following of pseudo-ephraim in general it describes the imminent rapture followed by three and a half years of great tribulation under the rule of antichrist followed by the coming of christ the defeat of antichrist and the eternal state let's talk about the before the tribulation quote first as we discussed at the beginning of this film the word tribulation has only recently been used to refer to the entire seven year period like the way modern pre-tribbers use it and if pseudoepherium did mean to refer to the entire seven-year period when he used this word tribulation it would be the earliest recorded instance of the word being used that way the greek word ethipsis or tribulation is used in many ways in the bible it can refer to the wrath of god general persecution or earthly worries it depends on the context so the question that stitzinger forgets to ask here is what does this writer mean when he uses the word tribulation what does the writer think we are going to escape by the rapture is it the wrath of god the persecution of the antichrist all of it the answer is not what pre-tribbers want it to be at all which is why they never quote the final paragraph of this letter which says and when the three and a half years have been completed the time of the antichrist through which he will have seduced the world will come the sign of the son of man and coming forward the lord shall appear with great power and much majesty and also even with all the powers of the heavens with the whole chorus of the saints with those who bear the sign of the holy cross upon their shoulders as the angelic trumpet precedes him which shall sound and declare arise o sleeping ones arise meet christ because his hour of judgment has come then christ shall come and the enemy shall be thrown into confusion and the lord shall destroy him by the spirit of his mouth now remember stitzinger said that this writer said that the rapture would be followed by three and a half years of rule under the antichrist but this shows that the writer believed that the rapture where the sleeping ones arise at the angelic trumpet sound would occur after the three and a half year period so that's either mid-trib pre-wrath or post-trib the only thing it really can't be is pre-trib when i looked at the document and studied it it seemed to me that it argued more for a matriarch a rapture or a rapture that was certainly not pre-tribulational it didn't seem to me to support the idea that there was going to be a rapture before the seventh week even started there are actually a couple of ways to check our facts here the first is this idea about being thrown into confusion here in this last paragraph this confusion is what happens after the rapture the author equates the judgment of the world and the wrath of god with confusion and if we go back up to the quote pre-tribbers always use we can see something interesting when it says all the saints and elect of god are gathered together before the tribulation which is to come and are taken to the lord in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins this confusion is what the writer said christians would escape by participating in the rapture so we have contextual proof that when the writer said the church would escape the tribulation he was using the word tribulation to describe the wrath or judgment of god upon those left behind we certainly know he wasn't talking about escaping the antichrist or persecution since he absolutely believed the church would face the antichrist before the rapture so once again the pre-tribs swing and miss when it comes to the church fathers another 5 of his 15 quotes in this paper are from about 1586 to 1795 there are quotes from pre-millennial historicists who believe in something called the pre-conflagration theory now on the one hand these quotes are irrelevant because they are all things that pre-wrathers believe too take for example this quote from peter giriu who died in 1713. christ would come in the air to rapture the saints and return to heaven before the battle of armageddon this quote may be a problem for some post-tribulationists but pre-wrathers like pre-tribbers believe that the rapture will happen well before armageddon that is the rapture happens and then armageddon happens later on so it's notable that stitzinger wastes a full five of his 15 quotes on something that is at best a rebuke of some post-tribulationist you might as well call these proof for the pre-wrath rapture if your only criteria is that the quote must be bad for post-tribulationists interestingly thomas ice of the pre-trib resource center wrote a paper which is effectively rebuking people like stitzinger who use quotes from pre-conflagrationalists and claim they are supporting pre-tribulationism because as ice who is obviously a pre-tribber notes mead's interval the pre-conflagration theory between the rapture and the second coming is likely only hours or days but not years as required by a pre-tribulational viewpoint the second peter 3 verse 10 conflagration is a final destruction of the heavens and earth in preparation for the millennium within mead system stitzinger never mentioned any of this in his paper in fact he points to one of these conflagration quotes from john gill in his conclusion as conclusive proof for a pre-darby belief in the pre-trib rapture which is utterly absurd the few quotes i haven't dealt with yet are pretty easily dismissed for example he quotes a cult leader in the 1300s and even the guy who originally published this particular quote admits that the writer actually believed that they were living in the last three and a half years of end time tribulation so whatever it is it's not pre-tribulationism in conclusion pre-tribbers know they can't find anything close to pre-tribulationism in the early church fathers the early church almost without exception taught that the rapture would take place at some unknown time after the antichrist arrived and began persecuting christians in other words if you had to pick a modern rapture position that best fit the early church it's obviously the pre-wrath position if you liked this film please consider sharing it with your friends and family it is by far the best way to help get the message out we are counting on the small percentage of you that understood and were impacted by this film to reach those that you feel need to hear this message this film is free on the web but you can buy physical copies at our website seven pre-trib sevenpretribproblems.com where we will provide free resources videos and much more content to learn about the pre-wrath rapture thanks for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: 7 Pretrib Problems

Views: 197,077

Rating: 4.5735674 out of 5

Keywords: The rapture, pretrib rapture, pretrib vs posttrib, pretrib vs prewrath, pretrib vs pre-wrath, prewrath rapture, post trib rapture, when will the rapture happen, biblical evidence for the rapture, seven pretrib problems, Prewrath movie, Prewrath Chris White, Prewrath film, prewrath rapture movie chris white

Id: xwXoMNpOhos

Length: 136min 12sec (8172 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/JLDChappy]

In the recent poll it shows there are a lot of pre-tribulation believers and also many that are unsure of their position altogether. This video covers some of the arguments, it probably won't persuade some but I have put this here for those who want to look into it.

[u/Additional_Freedom82]

I've listened to probably every good/decent/heretical... teacher under the sun for 40 years. Seeking the truth? Look up Rapture Bible studies by Andy Woods, there are at least 60 weeks worth just on rapture. Rightly dividing the word of truth is a treasure nowadays, be a Barean and give him a try. You'll thank Him later. :-) Peace, sisters and brothers, and love.

[u/thesonofGodsaves]

I highly recommend everyone reads this article and looks up all the referenced scripture passages as well:

https://www.endtime.com/blog/why-we-believe-in-a-post-tribulation-rapture/

[u/Shoddy_Bandicoot]

What about us mid tribers?

[u/CEMartin2]

Could it be there will be both pre- and post- raptures? Christians saved from the rapture, then those who needed to witness the rapture to come to their senses get saved, too?