Regarding the timing of the rapture...there are many arguments.  I like healthy arguments...and I have been engaged in one with another brother in the Lord who has helped me again re-examine the reasons I believe in a Pre-Wrath Rapture.

Many people do not even know what this means.  But if you are curious...this might shed some light on the Pre-Wrath rapture point of view...with supporting scriptures.

The following is an email response I recently wrote to this brother who is working as steel sharpening steel for me.

The Strong Watchman

Scripture requires us to take the whole counsel of God’s Word together.

I can even see that you are attempting to do so here.

To be clear…I DO NOT believe in what people call a “pre-trib” rapture.  Or Pre-7-years rapture; as they incorrectly define the “tribulation” as the entire 70^th week of Daniel.

So let’s dismiss that.

Scripture does not support a strict mid-trib or mid-7-year rapture either…because no man knows the day or the hour.   So we can dismiss that as well.

Neither does scripture support a post-7-year rapture for the same reason.  Because if it happened at the end of 7 years…we would know the day.  So we can dismiss rapture and the coming of the Lord at the end of the 7 years.

I believe scripture supports a Pre-Wrath rapture which I must expound upon through the following scriptures.

Now, the order of events at the appearance of Jesus coming on the clouds of heaven…gives us great insight into the order in which things happen.

Because God cuts the “great tribulation” short…the rapture happens sometime before the end of the 7 years…but after the mid-point of the 7 years.

We know this…because it is appointed unto the anti-christ (and his gentiles) to trample the holy city underfoot for 42 months…3.5 years. (Revelation 11:2) ( That would be the last 3.5 years.)

Regardless of the length of the tribulation Jesus comes at one singular point in time to:

· Gather his elect

· And to bring judgment on the unbelievers.

It is one and the same event.

Revelation 14:14-20  (The Two Reapings)

This scripture gives us the necessary requirements that Christ (the Son of Man) comes on the clouds of heaven…to establish it’s correspondence with Matthew 24:30-31 when Christ comes with the clouds of heaven.

It also gives us the reaping of the saints (first) and then the reaping of God’s wrath (second) to establish the order of events when Christ comes.

14And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. 15And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.16And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.  (This is the rapture)

17And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 18And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 19And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

NOTICE the order in which these events happened

1. Rapture

2. Wrath

Son of man implies Jesus Christ and the crown implies it is the King.  He is sitting on the white cloud.  He is ready to reap the earth.

The angel that comes out of the temple…cries with a loud voice (this is the shout of the archangel). 1 Thessalonains 4:16

16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

The reaping…referred to…in Revelation 14:15 (Above) is the same as the dead in Christ rising and then those who are still alive being gathered together to meet the Lord in the air.

Then we see another angel come out of the temple….(with a sickle)…and another angel from the alter, which has power over fire (fire represents judgment)

The reaping that follows is cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God…

This series of verses illustrates clearly that the saints are first removed…and then the wrath of God comes down as His angels begin to judge the earth with God’s wrath.

This also supports the angels with the trumpets…as the trumpet call of God, signaling the last trump at which the saints are collected….

the first trumpet the saints hear…represents the coming judgments of the seven trumpets which are blown by the angels.

The picture here is …the judgment of God begins with the trumpets in Revelation.

This is before the end of the 7 years.

We know this because one of the judgments the fifth trumpet….is the locusts who torment men upon the earth for 5 months.

The seventh trumpet signifies the end of the seven years.

The completion of God’s plan in the seventieth week will end when the seven years are over.

It is after the completion of this seven years (Revelation 11:15) signified by the seventh trumpet…when “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.”

Revelation 11:18 says “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come…” This is reference to the final bowls of wrath…which are the plagues yet to be poured out upon the earth.   (Revelation Chapter 15 and 16)

Notice after the final wrath of God….(Revelation 16:20) “…And every island fled away and the mountains were not found”

The mountains being not found…(or removed out of their places) corresponds to Revelation 6:14

12I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Also corresponding to Matthew 24:29-31 in a general sense…

29Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

INSERT THE TWO REAPINGS HERE….it is the same event.

What I am really trying to get at here…is the events we read about (depending on how we view them in our small brains – mine included) can either:

1. Lead us in circles…driving us mad to try and figure out why it says these different things in different places.  OR….

2. Show us that each description of the events is seen from a slightly different angle…and also shows us sometimes more detail…and sometimes less.

The time of the end …as described with less detail will not “order the events” in the same manner because it is lumping them together….

But as described with more detail…such as the two reapings…we can see from other word pictures that God has shown us how the events fit together.

The conclusion I have come to is that the Day of the Lord encompasses the rapture and the judgment beginning with the trumpets…which begin some time before the end of the 7 years…and ending with the consummation (final bowls of wrath from God’s angels) just after the 7 years are completed.  Daniel 9:27 “…and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (The bowls of wrath poured out “are” the consummation)

What many authors / scholars call the “Parousia” or coming of Christ is a series of events which encompass many days…and many details as the collective “Day of the Lord”.

Truly time will tell…but I have done my best to explain to you what I have gotten from the scriptures.

In this we agree…that there is only one coming of Christ….

Really the question we are bantering about…is WHEN in the layout of the 7 years…do these events happen.

When it becomes apparent that all of these events are encompassed within the entire “Day of the Lord” everything really begins to fall into place.

I believe scripture supports, as I have shown, that all of these events begin before the end of the 7 years when God cuts the “great tribulation” short…thus ending the persecution of the saints by anti-christ via rapture and then raining down His wrath through the trumpets and the bowls of wrath at the consummation.

God Bless you.