I am back, thanks for the replies. I have read thigpens rapture trap and I do have olsens will Catholics be left behind. About a week ago I was having talking to someone about this topic and I needed info about the tribulation. thanks for the help!
I offer a humble apology for my suspicion. From time to time we get posters who treat this forum like fly fishermen - they cast out a challenge question and see if we bite.
I have Thigpen’s “The Rapture Trap” and Olsen’s “Will Catholics Be ‘Left Behind’” books myself. Thigpen’s is sweet and to-the-point - great for easy-to-understand responses that you can use when challenged. Olsen’s goes a lot more in depth and is heavily footnoted with supporting material.
I have a few very blunt practical arguments that usually shut down people who challenge me with end-times “will you be raptured” arguments.
- Revelation was written 2,000 years ago. For 2,000 years people have been looking at those end-times signs and matching them to events their own times. If you think the end-times signs are unique to our time, keep in mind that 2,000 years of people have thought the same thing, so get in line behind them.
- Jesus said He would come like a thief in the night, when all appears to be going well. If I am always prepared meet Jesus if I am hit and killed by a tractor-trailer on my way to and from work, I need not worry about whether I would qualify to be raptured.
Lk 12:20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
Lk 12:39-40 But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would have been awake and would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.
- How much time do you think remains before end-times precursor signs reach their crisis point and Jesus makes His appearance? I’m close to 50 years old. So as far as I’m personally concerned, it will probably be sometime in the next 50 years. For you it may be a little more or less. For some people it happened yesterday. Don’t you think that we should pay more attention to being prepared for our own “end times” than the world’s “end times”?
- The best trick the Devil ever performed was to convince people that he didn’t exist. The Devil’s second-best trick was to convince people that his evil was just an alternative life-style. If you convince yourself that the evil around you CAN’T be the end-times, because you haven’t been raptured yet, you’ll never recognize the anti-Christ who is in your midst right now.
In the last 10 years we’ve had global terrorism on a scale previously unimagined. We have radical religious groups hacking people to pieces and filming it for the world to see. We have teenagers posting homemade violent snuff-videos on YouTube. We have radical governments researching and building nuclear weapons to threaten their neighbors. If they succeed in their research, suicide bombers won’t care that the portable nukes they carry in their backpacks are leaking lethal amounts of radiation, so long as they live long enough to reach a crowded public place? Need I go on?
- In Revelation, the faithful church in Smyrna is specifically singled out with a message encouraging them to endure through the tribulation. If faithful Christians in Smyrna don’t escape tribulation, is there something special about modern Christians which makes them think that they will?
Rev 2:8 "And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life. I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death.’
- Jesus, in a private discourse, told his disciples that they would undergo terrible tribulation, and then told them they would be on earth to see the events in Daniel’s visions. Are we somehow more blessed and more faithful than the Apostles themselves, that we should be raptured away from the tribulation when they had to endure it?
Mt 24:3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “Take heed that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.
So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.”
- Something just occurred to me as I was typing this. If Daniel’s end-times visions were fulfilled in the lifetimes and events experienced by the Apostles, as the Gospel of Matthew tells us, isn’t it a little late for a pre-tribulation Rapture?
Hope this helps.