Page 26 - Watchman- What of the Night
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rapture is anywhere hinted. They have ―kept the word of His patience, and He will

                   keep them from the hour of trial that shall come upon the whole world, to try them
                   that dwell on the earth,‖ Rev. 3:10. Mind you, it is the trial of the ―earthdwellers‖
                   from which the saints are to be kept, not from tribulation. But there is no rapture yet!
                     Much has been made of the Greek preposition ―ek‖─ from, out of, in the sentence,

                   ―I  will  keep  you  from  the  hour  of  trial  etc.,‖  and  rapture  has  been  triumphantly
                   declared on the basis of this verse. But it is another case of grasping at a straw to
                   prove an impossible case. The preposition ―ek‖ does not necessarily mean removal
                   from the scene, but means also protection from existing, environmental danger. Both

                   senses are clearly brought out in the prayer of Christ, the Great High Priest: ―I pray
                   not that thou shouldest take them of (ek) the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
                   from (ek) the evil one.‖    John 17:15.
                     The period of the outpouring of the seven bowls of wrath will certainly be brief,

                   else none of the sons of men would survive, and we are told that it will be for only ―a
                   little moment.‖ Possibly it is the 30-day period between the 1260 and the 1290 days of
                   Dan. 12:11.    The active reign of the Beast is 42 months (Rev. 13:5.)    We are told
                   that the two witnesses will give their witness for 1260 days supernaturally protected

                   from the Beast, while the saints suffer tribulation. The 1290 day period would allow
                   for the time of the outpouring of wrath, and the final 45 days up to the 1335 days
                   would allow for all the events pertaining to the bema-judgment, the marriage supper
                   of the lamb, the judgment of the nations and the setting up of Messiah‘s Kingdom.

                   These are suggestions and not assertions!
                     At any rate the heavenly manifestations will culminate in the appearance of the sign,
                   and in the actual coming of the Son of Man in the clouds with power and a great glory.
                   The tribes of earth shall mourn, ―and He shall send His angels with a great sound of a

                   trumpet, and they shall gather His elect from the four winds of heaven to the other.‖
                   THIS IS THE RAPTURE, and it will be at the very appearance of the Son of Man in
                   His coming. The dead and living will go to meet Him, clothed upon ―in the twinkling
                   of an eye‖ with bodies of glory. The raptured saints meet the Lord descending from

                   heaven and coming to earth, and will return with Him to earth in His glorious train.
                   The theorists have taught that they ―meet‖ the Lord and return with Him for a season
                   to the heaven lies. That would be rather the Lord meeting them than their meeting the
                   Lord.

                     It  all  heads  up  in  this  crisis  at  the  last  day.  With  this  understanding  the  whole
                   matter is vastly simplified, and the difficulties that have been made by the theorists in
                   their  attempt  to  establish  the  false,  split-stage,  three  coming  notion,  are  largely
                   dissolved  and  explained.  Though  no  view  is  without  some  difficulty  in  such  a

                   complexity of predicted events, we believe the godly reader that has followed us thus

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