Hold on now ! Let’s study the long version of Matt. 24.
Catholics uses verses 15-21 to explain destruction of Jews & Temple in 70 AD. You want to have it both ways … to explain both the past & future End Time events.
And, in verse 34 … Christ says “This Generation will not pass until this prophesy has been fulfilled” ----- again 70 AD reference.
Yes, we say it explains past and future events.
Look @ 37-38 … (just as in the days of Noah, eating and drinking, making merry, scoffing at Noah) . Does this sound like folks who have just come thru 7 years of Great Tribulation ? NO WAY
You might be missing the point. Jesus changed from revealing general prophesies to concealing the precise time of judgment. The lesson from the flood is that the catastrophe was unexpected by those being destroyed. Just like the Jews behind the Temple walls were convinced God would save them. The Church saw the signs and got out.
What we need to do is read what the ECF’s said in their commentaries on Matt: 24 & Hebrews 11:4-7. Did Origen or Augustine every give us balanced, cogent explanations on these two texts? Show me where the ECF’s renounce Pre-Trib Rapture :yup:
Go ahead and make your case.
To argue that that the Bride of Christ will not be ‘kept from harm’ … is illogical. The Church will be raptured as was Enoch … and those remaining will be in dire straits. Look at how God spared the early Church in 70AD. The Christians got out of there ahead of time … and were spared the chaos & destruction.
Yes, the Church was spared destruction but it wasn’t spared tribulation at all. The Church had an exodus. This doesn’t equal rising to heaven at all.
"When you see the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, a person on the housetop must not go down to get things out of his house, a person in the field must not return to get his cloak. Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days. Pray that your flight not be in winter or on the sabbath, for at that time there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will be. And if those days had not been shortened, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect they will be shortened. (Mt 24:15-22)
Some clearly will come to faith during the End Time trials … and be saved. And, the unbelieving Jews will come to Christ during this period.
The Church is not removed from the face of the earth during this time. There was not one set of trumpets for Christians and another for Jews in the past, and there won’t be in the future. There is one set of trumpets for everyone. And if you examine Matthew’s allusions to the OT, God exacts his justice while saving his people. The gathering to save them from exile doesn’t happen first.
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Mt 24:29-31)
**This, then, shall be the expiation of Jacob’s guilt, this the whole fruit of the removal of his sin: He shall pulverize all the stones of the altars like pieces of chalk; no sacred poles or incense altars shall stand. For the fortified city shall be desolate, an abandoned pasture, a forsaken wilderness, where calves shall browse and lie. Its boughs shall be destroyed, its branches shall wither and be broken off, and women shall come to build a fire with them. This is not an understanding people; therefore their maker shall not spare them, nor shall he who formed them have mercy on them. On that day, The LORD shall beat out the grain between the Euphrates and the Wadi of Egypt, and you shall be gleaned one by one, O sons of Israel. On that day, A great trumpet shall blow, and the lost in the land of Assyria and the outcasts in the land of Egypt Shall come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain, in Jerusalem. (Isa 27:9-13)
As for you, for the blood of your covenant with me, I will bring forth your prisoners from the dungeon. In the return to the fortress of the waiting prisoners, This very day, I will return you double for your exile. For I will bend Judah as my bow, I will arm myself with Ephraim; I will arouse your sons, O Zion, (against your sons, O Yavan,) and I will use you as a warrior’s sword. The LORD shall appear over them, and his arrow shall shoot forth as lightning; The LORD God shall sound the trumpet, and come in a storm from the south. The LORD of hosts shall be a shield over them, they shall overcome sling stones and trample them underfoot; They shall drink blood like wine, till they are filled with it like libation bowls, like the corners of the altar. And the LORD, their God, shall save them on that day, his people, like a flock. For they are the jewels in a crown raised aloft over his land. For what wealth is theirs, and what beauty! grain that makes the youths flourish, and new wine, the maidens! (Zech9:11-17)**
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