I want each reader here to know that this post is answering this challenge that I take to be for me. So this message is for Mark, who a dispensationalist? I tried to put this on the comments, but it was too long, so I made it a post. I will put just this paragraph in his comment section with a link to this post.
Mark, I was raised under dispensationalist teaching. I have read the books. I attended Liberty University, for which I’m grateful. For their inability was as yours is: no answers to the conflict their teachings have with clear Scriptures teaching. Believe me for I wanted to prove right your thinking that we would miss this time, for most of my life (up until then), I had believed that Tribulation would immediately follow the Rapture. Think about what you are saying Mark. Who wins if the Pre-Trib rapture timing is wrong. The post-Trib rapture is no threat to the believer as you say that it is. There is not threat in having oil in your lamp. But, If there is no pre-Trib Rapture; then most Christians will be proven false prophets and many will cease to believe (and I know that you avoid the scriptures teaching that you can deny Christ after believing) but, those who do will be fulfilling Jesus own prophecy that many will fall away.
If the pre- Trib is true I lose nothing I am saved and I believe in Jesus as my savior. I’ll make the rapture if I’m still alive, but your faith will be greatly challenged if you are wrong. All that you have taught will be attacked by Satan as he comes after the offspring of the Woman. I have never stated that the Church has replaced Israel as you suggest that anyone does, who is not in your camp. The Church is Christs promise of a new covenant to and for Israel, one that we have also had offered us if we are willing to accept their Messiah as our own savior. We are no longer, then, outside looking in on Israel’s covenants and promises, but we are now part of Israel’s commonwealth. One new man as Paul teaches Eph 2; and part of Jesus one Flock with one shepherd over this flock as taught in John 10.
If you can actually prove that the wrath that Paul teaches that we will escape as he tells us in Eph 2, is not the lake of fire and Hells wrath; then i may want to believe you, but if the Tribulation is God’s wrath that we are promised to escape then based on what Paul teaches in Eph 2 concerning this wrath (that it is for every man outside of Christ); so it means that every non believer who ever lived will need to be resurrected to experience this wrath which we are promised to be kept from if it is the Tribulation. Jesus says no man cometh to the Father but by Him. So only in Christ will tribulation saints see the Resurrection which escapes this His wrath, and many (most during Tribulation) will die because of existing evil against God and His people; not because of God’s wrath (His wrath during tribulation is intended for Satan’s Antichrist and followers), and if Paul’s teaching on the Rapture is true; then these tribulation saints (in Christ) must be resurrected before anyone can be raptured. This is what scripture teaches. It doesn’t need me to explain. You just need to believe what scripture says.
And Yes, the Bible talks about dispensations, but the final dispensation for mortal mankind is the New Covenant Church, which is the only way for any man to come to the Father including present day Israel which is still lost, and including anyone else saved during the Tribulation. Paul tells us in Romans 11 that only a remnant of Jews continued in the olive tree, and you and I are unnatural branches grafted in with them. The early Church was all Jewish. Dispensationalists attempt to add a lot to or remove from the scriptures. You attempt to remove all of Israel from God’s natural Olive tree, and to remove them from their promised new covenant; but only unbelief was cut out before you were added to that tree, and you a gentile can only be cut out for your individual unbelief, which even now is occurring in many. God will trim the dead branches from this tree. It is called the apostasy by Paul and a falling away by Jesus.
Jesus’ final act will be to add back the purged and refined as purest gold (what remains of the Nation) Israel, as He tells us in Isa. 63. He begins His return and no man is with Him as He treads the winepress of His wrath alone (no man is with Him). Once you are raptured you will always be with Him Paul says in 1 Thess. 4. No bride with Him, for she still awaits His Rapturing of her. She (the bride) is not complete until Israel is added back see Isa 54 (Israel’s redeemer is her husband). At this time of rapture the earth is in total darkness as the sun and the moon are not giving their light. And every man will see Him.
Mark 13:24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, 25 AND THE STARS WILL BE FALLING from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. 26 “And then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN CLOUDS with great power and glory. (NASB2020).
This is why you will not know the day or the hour, for the days of tribulation are past when He will return. He comes to Israel as Armageddon is raging to save Israel to place them “in Christ”. They are finally added into their promised New Covenant, which brings the end to the final age of mankind. They join us (the unnatural branches) and the bride has finally made herself ready. All of this in Gods recorded order, as stated in Scripture: here a little there a little. Your problem is you have studied man’s writing and ignored what the word of God says. You are one new man in Israel, Gods olive tree (His New Covenant Church) who’s root and head is Christ, or you are not. You will not be Raptured until every one who dies during the Tribulation, who are dying both for and In Christ, are resurrected. Otherwise Scripture, not your books would be null and void.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. (NASB2020)
Study your Bible my brother, not Dispensationalists or dominion or reformed Theology and Eschatology.
And Consider Mark: Why do the churches of Revelation get a message telling them that they will learn from the great Tribulation when Jesus warns them in Rev. 2:22&23 concerning His bond-servants being led astray. And being thrown into great tribulation so that the churches plural (not the Church) she has not yet made herself ready as His bride, so she is in great Tribulation learning and being purged of her chaff as she is making herself ready. She comes out of great Tribulation a pure and spotless bride (a bride without spot or wrinkle).
Even your belief concerning the 7 churches, to be different church ages is a confusion and a contradiction to your belief that the Rapture has always been imminent (needing no signs). How can we know our time (not the day or the hour) of His second Coming without the signs that He gave us. Your dogma against His Word will only lose you crowns, it will not gain them my brother. Seven Church ages cannot occupy along side of imminence and still have truth being taught.
If you think that all your books will give you appropriate conflict resolution here; then I would love to hear it. But I do believe that I have heard it all already, and I urge you to not tell me that the verses that you and I must use to understand What is taught do not mean what they actually say. For example “apostasy” does not mean rapture. They are two distinctly different Greek words. And God’s Holy Spirit does know every language. He created them. His intent is not to confuse Believers, but to teach us.
