Jesus said: that we are to make disciples in all nations, and individually baptize these in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Does this prove His own belief in the Trinity of God?  

Then there is: Matthew 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  If you keep up with my posts then you  know what age Jesus is speaking of here.   But who were these disciples to teach and what?  They were to go to the Jew first and then to the Gentile – look it up.  They were to teach everything that they themselves were commanded. They did this in His Book. 

This spreading of the gospel is and was a huge task because of all of the various tribal languages, but it is now covering the earth and is nearing its completion even as it was told us through them.  So, the end must be near?  We hear a lot about this end.   There are those who say nothing must happen yet, before the Rapture.  But is that what Jesus has told His disciples to teach us?  And are the two signs emphasized by Paul telling us differently from what Jesus taught? What exactly must happen before we are to see this appointed end?   

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 

So Paul here says that the Day of the Lord will not come before these two things happen. So is the Day of the Lord when the age ends and when the Rapture occurs?  Here is the answer. 

Paul teaches about the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2, 4  “Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief;”.  So the Day of the Lord will come as a THEIF in the night for the world but not for us because we are not in darkness; we are actually looking for it when it comes. “It” this day is taught or has been by even pre -Trib scholars as the day that the Lord comes for His people. We will not be in darkness because we will have seen the two things:  a falling away from within the Faith and the man of sin revealed. Both of these were spoken of by the Lord in his Olivet discourse.  Paul also tells us in II Thess. that he had already told them this when he was with them. 

Jesus said we would see the Antichrist. : Matthew 24:15  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) (KJV)

He also said that men would become drawn away.  Matthew 24:11, 23 Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him. He also said: Matthew 24:5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.  

Jesus is emphasizing the results of false teaching in the last days. So what does that mean to us?  False teachers will teach something that is opposed to scriptures teaching. 

Some churches today teach that Homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle, but the question is this– is it taught that way in Scripture?  If the answer is no, then according to Jesus these are false prophets, because they are misleading many.  But you and I within the body are those to whom Jesus speaks about all this.  We believe the teachings of the disciples or else, we are misled.  So how is it that we can accept in the church many teachings that oppose the Scripture without even allowing for discussion or debate?  It’s all for the sake of unity we are told; and this even when Jesus told us not to be deceived in these last days?

So the next question would be similar. If some teach opposing views for this time of the end about which both Jesus and Paul are teaching in agreement; then wouldn’t it be true that those, who teach in opposition to Jesus and Paul, would be leading many astray if not at least open to discussing these things?  This question is not a trick question.  The answer would seem very important to every believer. In order for one to be capable of looking for Jesus return they would need to know what they (Jesus and Paul) were teaching.  Otherwise there can be no knowing times and seasons. 

Paul says that times and seasons are involved here.  Jesus is concerned over those who in His day did not understand their own times.  So the timing itself of Christ’s second coming is very important, and can only be discerned when one knows why it is near.  Yet the pre-Trib understanding of imminence is the one teaching that translates, into the fact, that the season can’t be known.  Their original message was: nothing to be looked for to indicate Jesus Coming in the Rapture.  Which really said that it was not really part of the second coming, if one really considered it.

But that did not matter to them, for the Rapture is His coming for us. And really the pre-Trib is all about us, His Church, exclusive of Israel.   Pre-Trib teaching has, since its inception in the mid-1800’s, taught an any moment (can’t know the day or hour) coming. The post-Trib teaching has always attached itself to the signs of the end.  

It is difficult for me to understand how one could know the times and seasons without the signs?  And that is an important point that Paul himself makes.  Pre-Trib teaches that there are no signs for the Rapture. That was their teaching even before ISRAEL came back to the land (a major sign) and was a nation.  This approach created contradiction that no one ever addressed.  Today the Biblical signs are ripening, although they are not yet fully ripe, or completed.  So now the Pre-Trib camp actually appears more legitimate, for today they are actually referring to the signs appearing as part of their teaching for the Lord’s imminent coming.  

But their change in that regard does not change the fact that The Lord could not have (in keeping with scripture) come back for us 150 years ago when they warned that it could happen “today”, as in their time.  They were then proclaiming that He could “at any moment” come.  

It could not have happened then and He will not come back tonight, because to do so He would violate His own Word, (whom He is: this Jesus the Christ, the Word of God). He told us when He would return, after the signs, and after the Tribulation.  Paul confirmed this teaching. And he told us that, in effect, no man who is “in Christ” will be resurrected after the Rapture.  For “the dead in Christ will rise first”.  Based on that scripture alone there can be no one else who can die in Christ after the Rapture.  And no one comes to the Father in any other way.  Paul makes this Rapture a part of the second coming as we read what he says in 1 Thessalonians 4.  Yet pre-Trib teachers overlook this fact even though no where else in Scripture are we told differently.  If there is a pre – Trib Rapture, Scripture must tell us such, and it does not.  It, the Rapture for them stands alone as the blessed hope. Yet for most Believers the resurrection is the blessed hope, for most of us will die.

Apostasy in 2 Thessalonians 2, is said to mean Rapture. So if you substitute Rapture for this word here is how it would read according to their stated doctrine. 

2 Thessalonians 2:1  Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (and our Rapture) our gathering together to Him, 2  that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord (which is the Tribulation’s day of wrath coming after the Church’s  Rapture) has come.  3  Let no one in any way deceive you, for [it will not come] (“it” being — the day of the Lord bringing the Rapture) unless the apostasy (understood to be Rapture) comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, (NASB)

The inserting of the Rapture here in these scriptures is based exactly as Pre-Trib teachers have believed and taught them.  So the Rapture must come, before the Rapture can come.  Makes total sense to them, but not to the Word itself.

Words are powerful, use them well. Not mine, not yours,  but only God’s truth matters.