Two very major hurdles to this hypothesis are:
1. 10-15 days before Christ's second coming we see the wrath of God being poured out upon political and religious "Babylon" (the world systems under the control of the Antichrist). "She shall be utterly burned with fire" (Rev 18:8) because of "the wine of the wrath of her fornication" (Rev 18:3). There is not even a hint that anything wonderful and glorious is happening for the Church at this time. In fact the word "church is absent".
Its interesting that you use terms like 'very major.' Embellishing does not add credibility to your argument.
The word 'Church [εκκλησια]' is also absent from 1Pet, 2Pet, 1Jn, and 2Jn, but that does not indicate that the Church is or is not present. The word 'Rapture' is absent in Rev ch's 1-4 [actually all of Scripture], yet it is a real event that occurs at some point. So, the absence of a word is not an indication supporting you point of view.
2. 10-15 days before the second coming of Christ is the period of the seven last plagues -- the vials of the wrath of God (Rev 15-17). Once again there is absolutely no indication of anything happening connected with the Rapture.
That is why the LORD raptures the Church of the 1st day of that month, because His wrath is poured out upon the world between then and His entering Jerusalem some time between the 10th and 15th of that same month.
I maintain that God is able to keep His elect from the effects of His judgments in the Revelation. If a remnant of people enter into the Millennium, then God would have kept them from His judgments. Surely He can keep the Church from the same.
There is in fact many mentions [direct or indirect] of the Rapture in the Revelation. Most of them happen between the 6th and 7th of a series of judgments:
- after the 6th seal/before the 7th: earthquake, stars falling, "the heaven departed like a scroll being rolled up" (Rev 6:14)
- after the 6th trumpet/before the 7th trumpet: "Come up here. And they went up into the heaven in the cloud" (Rev 11:12).
- "So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped" (Rev 14:16 ESV).
- there are other verses that mention the rapture in the Rev., for which I have listsed in another thread.
We can take the Jewish feasts and work out elaborate hypotheses around them, but you will notice there there is no mention in Revelation of Jewish feasts in connection with the events outline in the 6th and 7th seal judgments. Therefore we are back to the pre-tribulation Rapture.
Are you insinuating that the 1st - 5th seal judgments occur when the Church is present on earth? If so, that statement contradicts your belief that only Rev ch's 1-4 regard the Church, the only chapters you say deal with the presence of the Church.
What amazes me is the lengths to which some Christians will go to avoid the fact of a pre-tribulation Rapture.
The same can be said about your position against the Rapture occurring 10-15 days before our LORD sets foot in Jerusalem.
thanks.
