Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

Romans 5:9 – ⁹Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

Here is another verse to look at that suggests that we are to be saved from God’s wrath.  Previously we looked at 1 Thessalonians 1:10 and 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11.  Both of those verses were along the same lines so were up to three that specifically speak on being saved from God’s wrath.

Just a reminder; to see past rapture posts or other past posts of any kind, just go over to the category, archives, or previous recent posts and click on it. 

In Romans 5:9 it states that we are justified by his sacrifice.  In essence we are saved by His blood before the throne of God.  So it’s taking it one step further here.  It’s not stating a second time that we are saved for the same thing.  It’s going on to say “How much more” shall we be saved from God’s wrath also through Him!  Explanation point not question mark as we see in the scripture.

Some Post Tribbers believe the Church goes through the Tribulation to cleanse itself.  A certain worthiness endured.  However, the scripture above states we are not purified by our obedience or bravery in Christ.  We are purified by the Blood of Jesus.

Once again another scripture stating they we are not appointed but saved from God’s wrath.  For a recap, how soon into the Tribulation does it mention wrath?

Revelation 6:16-17 – ¹⁶They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! ¹⁷For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Once again Revelation Chapter 6 is when the Seal Judgments are getting under way.  It’s the first chapter in Revelation that even begins any kind of chaos or judgments.  So if were appointed not to suffer God’s wrath, I would say this scripture helps out the Pre-Trib rapture position.

Isaiah 26:19-21 – ¹⁹ But your dead will live; their bodies will rise.  You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy.  Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.  ²⁰ Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by.  ²¹ See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins.  The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer.

Here is a very interesting verse in the Old Testament from the prophet Isaiah.

Is it on the rapture?  Let’s read it more carefully and break it down.

In verse nineteen it certainly sounds like a rapture verse.  Your dead will live and their bodies will rise.  You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy.  The earth will give birth to their dead.

That reminds me of another verse we have went over a couple of times from Paul.

1 Corinthians 15:52-54 – ⁵²in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

There seems to be a pretty good parallel there.  Also in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 it talks about the dead rising first, concerning the rapture.

To me verse nineteen fits with others.  Let’s move onto verse twenty.

In Isaiah 26:20 it talks about enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you.  This could mean the Jewish people he is talking to could be hiding, possibly sealed, when the Lord displays His wrath.  However, a verse that also comes to mind is this one.

John 14:2-3 –  ²In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Does this indicate that we will go to be in our rooms, or mansions, as the KJV states?  Then after the wrath, we come down with God at the end of the Tribulation?  At the rapture you receive your resurrected body, so one could enjoy his new heavenly dwelling with a new body.

One other important thing I want to hit on concerning verses 19 and 20 before moving on.  In nineteen we start with the rising of the dead.  Why would God raise the dead for a new life in which they are shouting for joy and then have to shield or protect them during His wrath?  Wouldn’t it be easier to wait afterwards if they were not going to a place of safety?  So if the dead have risen and they shouting for joy, but this is not the rapture, they better hurry and find a door to go behind before God spills down His wrath.  They also better find a door to get behind because the Antichrist is trying to kill them too.  But, wait, weren’t they already dead?  How can they be killed again?  After they have been resurrected?  We know that can’t happen and it wouldn’t make sense that way.

What makes verses 19-21 appear to be an event that takes place during the end times?  Well, one is dead people rising, but they did that when Jesus resurrected also.  Two the Bible speaks about a time when God will pour out His wrath on all on mankind that lives on Earth.  Verse twenty-one hits on that very thing.

Isaiah 26:21 – ²¹ See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins.  The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer.

The flood had already passed and the next judgment in which God pours down His wrath on man concerning the whole earth is in the last days.  

I believe Isaiah 26:19-21 fits right in line with the Pre-Tribulation rapture theory.

There is a crown for those who love His appearing.  Why?  Because if you love the idea of Jesus coming back right now, you are probably trying to live for Him and are excited to see Him.  Worth Rewarding?  From what I read about my King and Savior, I would say yes. 

If you’re not excited about the Lord returning at any second and you’re not looking for Him at all, you’re probably not living for Him.  Start today making it your goal to live for Him every day so you can be rewarded and excited about standing in front of Him.

We are continuing on with the support scriptures of a pre-tribulation rapture.  This week is another scripture that indicates we are to be spared from God’s wrath.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 – ⁹For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We talked last week that the righteous will not be swept away with the wicked.  What makes you righteous?   By accepting Jesus Christ and his blood sacrifice on the cross.

Who is wicked?  We are all wicked, some more than others, but none-the-less all.  It’s not about what we can do to get back to God, but what God did through His Son.

So we see once again that those in Jesus Christ are not appointed to suffer wrath.

Some mid-tribbers will state that the last three and half years is when God pours out His wrath.  The first three and half years are just hardships.  What does the book of Revelation say?

Revelation 6:16 – ¹⁶They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!

So the sixth seal indicates that it is a part of the wrath of the Lamb!  Who is the Lamb that was slain?  Jesus.  Who do we read Jesus is in Revelation?

Revelation 1:7-8 –  ⁷Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.  ⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Revelation 1:17-18 – ¹⁷When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. ¹⁸I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

So the wrath of the Lamb is the wrath of God.  When is it mentioned?  Just the sixth seal into the Tribulation which is in chapter 6.  The tribulation doesn’t start until the 6^th chapter.  It also states that only the Lion from the Tribe of Judah and the Lamb that was slain was worthy to open up the scroll and begin the seal judgments.  The second, third, and fourth seals, are war, famine, and pestilence.  Would these be considered wraths from God?  Jesus is the only One who could open the seals and initiate them, so my guess is yes.  

How soon are the seal judgments released into the Tribulation?  Well we know that the Seal Judgments are the first of three sets of seven judgments each that are unleashed.  The second group of seven judgments is called the Trumpet Judgments.  The third set is the Bowl Judgments.

In Chapter 11 we have the Seventh Trumpet Judgment happening.  In Chapter 12 we have Satan being cast down after losing a battle in Heaven.  Why is this significant?  Because we know that Satan incarnates the Antichrist’s body after he is killed.  That is at the 3 and half year point.  So if the seventh trumpet judgment happens before that, it leaves only the Bowl Judgments left.

My whole point is that the 6^th Seal appears to happen within a year or two into the Tribulation.  The other point is I believe all the Seal Judgments are part of the wrath of God.

To recap both the scripture that started this post and the one in the previous posts:

1 Thessalonians 5:9 – ⁹For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 – ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

According to the scriptures from Paul we will not be here for the wrath that is to come, but are rescued by Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 – ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

If you haven’t read last week’s post yet, I invite you to do so now.  It’s probably about the 7^th post down if your reading it on the main page.  If you used the search engine and found this it’s probably the next one down.

We’re talking about how God takes out the righteous before pouring out His wrath.  The last post we saw this in the case of Noah.  This week we will concentrate on another case where this happens.

Genesis 18:20 –  ²⁰ Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous ²¹ that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me.  If not, I will know.”

The Lord is speaking to Abraham.  Two of the angels that were accompanying Him took off for Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham then began to ask the Lord in a long exchange of conversation found in Genesis 18:22-33.  To read this click on that scripture that is off colored and x out of it to come back to this screen.

Abraham asks the question in Genesis 18:23-25 – ²³ Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? ²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

How does the Lord answer?

Genesis 18: 26 – ²⁶ The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Once again the Lord will not sweep away the righteous with the wicked.  This conversation goes on and on until we get to only if ten are righteous will you destroy it?  God says even if there are ten, I will not destroy it.

As the story goes there was only one righteous in Lot and his family was to get out.  Lot pleaded with the angels to allow him and his family to make it to the next town instead of the mountains.  What did the angels say to Lot at this time?

Genesis 19:22 –²² But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” That is why the town was called Zoar.

The angels told Lot that they couldn’t destroy it until they were out of there.

Another case where God’s wrath is involved the righteous are saved out of it.  I won’t go into detail but the Egyptians suffered the 10 plagues and the Jews were spared from God’s wrath.  Later on when they chose not to trust God, that generation themselves suffered under God’s anger until they all died off besides Joshua and Caleb.

What makes anyone righteous today?

The Blood of Jesus Christ washing away our sins is what makes us righteous and whole again.                    

Next week we’ll stick with the being spared from the Lord’s wrath, while looking at a new scripture.

If you don’t want to suffer the Wrath of God and would rather have Him as your Father and Jesus as your King, please go over to the right column and click on “How To Accept Jesus As Savior” page.

We have been looking at the support scriptures for the pre-trib rapture scenario in the last few weeks.

To see the past posts concerning the rapture, just go over to the Categories section off to the right of the blog and click on the Rapture category.  It will start with the most recent and work its way down.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 – ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

I think it’s important to recognize the difference between persecution and God’s wrath.

We are told that we can expect persecution.  Jesus lets us know this.

John 15:20 – ²⁰Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.  If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

What is difference between persecution and God’s wrath?  The world and those listening to the evil one are persecuting God’s chosen people (Jews) and His Church (Christians).  God’s wrath comes from His anger against mankind when He gets fed up with the evil.

When has God shown His Wrath?       

The First full blown case came at the flood.

Genesis 6:11-13 – ¹¹ Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. ¹² God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. ¹³ So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

God’s Wrath was to wipeout mankind it had become so corrupt; however, there was one who was found righteous.

Genesis 6:9 – ⁹ This is the account of Noah.  Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

What did he do with Noah and his family?  He spared them from His wrath.

Genesis 7:1 – ¹ The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.

The righteous were spared and the evil perished under God’s wrath.

There is another case of where this happened and we will go over it next Monday or Tuesday.

I’m continuing my series for the support of the Pre-Trib rapture scenario.

A quick recap:

 The Church is completely mentioned throughout chapters 1-3 of Revelation and then not again after Revelation 4:1 when the Lord says “Come up here.” 

I also mentioned how the Lampstands, which is said to be the churches, are now lit in Revelelation 4:5.

Today lets look at the group just before the burning lamps in Revelation 4:4.

Revelation 4:4 – ⁴Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

It’s the first mention of the twenty four elders.  They weren’t mentioned in Revelation 1,which is when were introduced to the lampstands.

Who are the elders?  There are educated guesses out there, but we won’t know until we get there.  We do know that they are beings and they wear golden crowns.

If you remember I did a post a month or so ago that spoke of our new body.  At the rapture we receive a new body and I believe that is when we receive our rewards shortly after.  All humans that are saved and are raptured will go through this in the same time period.

So for the elders to have a body that can wear a crown and also have received a crown, tells me that rapture appears to have already happened.

So far we have talked about the Church being mentioned all through the first three chapters of Revelation.

Then we spoke about Revelation 4:1 when Jesus says, “Come up here” and the word church isn’t used again.

So let’s this week concentrate on those lampstands back in Revelation 1 again.

Revelation 1:20 –  ²⁰The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

The seven lampstands are the seven churches.

They are present in Chapter 1 with Jesus amongst them in verse 1:13. 

Revelation 1:13 – ¹³and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,”dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.

So the fact they are present in chapter 4 doesn’t make a big persuasion that the church is all the sudden present with the Lord in a rapture fashion.  There is something though that has changed.

Revelation 4:5 – ⁵ And out of the throne proceed lightnings and voices and thunders. And there was seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God;

The lamps are now burning before the throne.  Is this significant?  Before there are lampstands and they are not burning.  The lampstands do signify the church so something has changed. 

Since the church is not mentioned again after 4:1 it makes one look at the scriptures a little closer and I did notice the difference concerning the lamps and lampstands. 

Next week we’ll look at another group in Chapter 4.

Last week we talked about how the first three chapters of Revelation speak a lot about the church.  It talks about the sevens churches in chapters 2 &3.  In fact that’s the church is the only thing talked about in those two chapters.

Then Revelation chapter 4 comes into play.  The word church isn’t used again and yet we couldn’t get enough of it in the first three chapters.

Revelation 4:1 – ¹After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

Wow, what a verse.  It would be easy for one to say that John was getting a vision and now he’s in Heaven.  However, the words he used are familiar.  Let’s break them down.

The voice I had first heard speaking to me.  That was Jesus, or was it God?  Right on both.  That’s part of another series of posts, back to the rapture.

So Jesus is speaking to John.  What’s he saying?  First more importantly how’s he saying it?  He is speaking to me like a trumpet John says.  He uses the words, “Come up here…” 

Why is this so familiar?  Wait?

1 Thessolonians 4:16-17 – 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. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

The Lord Himself….check.  The trumpet call of God….check.  People going up to be with him ….check.

Not only is the church not mentioned again after Revelation 4:1, but what a great verse that appears to all the makings of a rapture verse.

Next week, lets get back to those Lampstands.

The first post I want to write on that I believe supports a Pre-Trib position is the Churches in Revelation Chapters 1-3.

In Revelation Chapter 1 Jesus was telling John to write on a scroll what he sees and send it to the Seven Churches.

Revelation 1:11 – ¹¹which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.”

Revelation 1:19-20 – ¹⁹“Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. ²⁰The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

So in chapter 1 Jesus is talking a lot above the churches and the spirit of the churches.

Chapters 2 & 3 speak on the seven churches.  That’s entirely what those chapters are about.

Chapter 4 comes along and John is up in the throne room and……no more church.

The church is talked about all in the first three chapters and then not again.

Anything else interesting about Chapter 4 since the church isn’t talked about again? 

Stay tuned for the next couple of weeks to come.

The rapture is basically broken down into three different time periods.

The Post-Tribulation theory which is the belief that Jesus comes back at the end of the seven year tribulation period.  The theory is also known as Post-Trib.  Those who believe in the Post Tribulation period are known as Post-Tribbers.

The Mid-Tribulation theory is the belief that Jesus comes back in the middle of the seven year tribulation period.  The theory is aslo known as Mid-Trib.  Those who believe in the Mid Tribulation period are known as Mid-Tribbers.

The Pre-Tribulation theory is the blief that Jesus comes back anytime before the Tribulation begins.  The theory is also known as Pre-Trib.  Those who believe in the Pre Tribulation period are known as Pre-Tribbers.

So all the theories use the Seven Year Tribulation period as its guide.  The Seven Year Tribulation is the contract signed between Israel and the Antichrist.

Daniel 9:27 – ²⁷ He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.

The theory I believe based on scripture that is correct is the Pre-Trib position.  I will spend many posts using one reason at a time on why I feel this best describes this time period.

I will write a post on the Mid-Trib theory that I myself acknowledge is a tough one.  However, I will also explain why I am still Pre-Trib even after quoting those scriptures.  

I will do my best to read up on the mid-trib and post trib theories so I can list them in upcoming posts.

Starting next week I will be running through the scriptures that I have been taught by my favorite teachers on why I believe in the Pre-Tribulation Theory.