Matthew

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NASB	Matthew 25:13 "Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.
AMPLIFIED 2015 2015	Matthew 25:13 "Therefore, be on the alert [be prepared and ready], for you do not know the day nor the hour [when the Son of Man will come].

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Subject: will the world end soon

Bible Note: Edb, a lot of believers are pre-trib, as I was, but we must remember that God's word is infallible, there are no contradictions in it! That being the case, why does Jesus say that the tribulation will be shortened for the elect's sake? The church has always consisted of believers only, and believers will not suffer the wrath of God. So then as a result, the tribulation period of Matt. 24: in not the wrath of God.
Someone said, yea but the church is raptured before the tribulation and these are the tribulation saints. Even if that were true, which it is not, they are still saints of God, and His children and won't suffer His wrath: If they could then we have a contradiction of one of God's promises! Think back to what was ask of the Disciples when they knew that He was going away. They wanted to know when He would be coming back and what would be the signs precedes His coming, so they would know what to look for. The first thing that Jesus said in answer to their question was, take heed that no man deceive you. Now if the rapture takes place before all the tribulation takes place, why does he bother to give the warning?

Background

And why? Let me give you some background that may help you better understand why this controversy is still such a serious and emotional issue to many.

The pretribulation Rapture position first appeared as a significant theory sometime in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, depending on whom you credit it to, and it appeared at a time when all of Scripture was under attack by higher criticism. During the early years of the development of the pretribulation Rapture theory, new cults such as Mormonism, Christian Science, Unitarianism, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses began to appear, filling the void created by a growing disillusionment with orthodox Christianity. It is not clear who originally worked out the details of this new view of Christ's coming, but it has been generally attributed to Edward Irving, father of the Apostolic Catholic Church, circa 1825 (later accused as a heretic because of his low view of Christ), and it was later promoted by John Nelson Darby, one of the founding fathers of the Plymouth Brethren Church in Great Britain, circa 1830, and eventually picked up by Dr. C.I. Scofield during one of his visits to England. It was later taught in his church in Dallas, was popularized by his Scofield Study Bible in the early twentieth century, and became the exclusive position of Dallas Theological Seminary and the primary view taught at Moody Bible Institute for the better part of this century.

It should be noted, however, that Dr. Samuel P. Tregelles, the renowned conservative Greek scholar of the nineteenth century (the author of six separate works on translation), considered one of the founding fathers of the Plymouth Brethren Church, strongly disagreed with John Nelson Darby on the position when it first appeared in England. Dr. Tregelles believed in a face-value hermeneutic, and he knew the original languages like few others of his time. In his book The Hope of Christ's Second Coming (pp.74-82), first published in 1864, he denounced the pretribulation Rapture position as being sentimental and emotional and without a thread of biblical support. He stated boldly that the pretribulation “doctrine of the coming of Christ [is] not taught in the Word of God… This whole system stands in distinct contradiction of what the Scripture reveals” (p. 32). He was doubly concerned about this new view because it also promoted a new position that made the gospel of Matthew no longer applicable to the church, discarding the gospel into what he called “the Jewish wastepaper basket” (pp. 37-39). This info. Is from pages 192 – 194 of the Rapture Question answered plain and simple by Robert VanKampen 1997

I hope this will challenge your thinking! Yours in Christ, CDBJ

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Matthew