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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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