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The Pre-tribulational
Rapture Theory
From: Rapture
Get Right or Get Left, and God’s Master Performance
by Hilton Sutton, p. 55; 65, 66.
If
you search for a single verse of Scripture which states specifically that
the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ and the catching up of the Church
is prior to the Tribulation, your search will be in vain. There is no
such verse. But by studying the whole of God’s Word (which you should
do), you will discover that the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ is
a certainty. The taking up of the Church to meet Him in the air is for
sure, and it very definitely comes before the Tribulation Period can begin.
…In
Revelation 1 we read that John, when in the Spirit, heard a Voice from
behind which sounded like a trumpet. He turned to discover Jesus, from
Whom the Voice had come.
In
Revelation 4:1 we read of a second encounter. Again John hears a Voice
which sounds like a trumpet. When it speaks, he is immediately in the
Spirit and in heaven at God’s throne.
Although
John was not taken bodily to heaven in the same manner described in Second
Corinthians 12:2, his spiritual experience began with the same event awaiting
all believers: a rapture. John’s experience parallels the Rapture of the
Church described by Paul in First Thessalonians 4:16,17.
…Notice
that John, according to Revelation 4:1, was looking or watching, and the
Voice which he heard commanded him, Come up here, and I will show
you things which must take place after this. The things he would
later witness could only take place after his arrival in heaven, again
showing wonderful agreement with Luke 21:36: ("Watch therefore,
and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things
that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son Man").
1 |
After
these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven,
and the first voice which I had
heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come
up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things." |
2 |
Immediately
I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven,
and One sitting on the throne. |
—Revelation 4:1,2 |
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