Wrath against the body of Christ?

Then why oh why would he commit wrath against His Own Body?

Have you not read we are His Body? The Bride. The Church. His Body.

So drop your notion of the church going through the great tribulation.

We are leaving so very soon. Dont be asleep and not awaiting his return. Dont be looking around for the Antichrist to be your time clock and 3 1/2 more years or 7 years. Jesus didnt say look around He said LOOKUP.

Can you not see that the death and torture then and now of Christians are not at Gods hand?

Jesus loves His Body His Bride His Church and Jesus' is ready to bolt in and call us out.

Be ready brother and sisters. Dont be incredulous at His reurn. Be expecting it eagerly.

With much love to all of you!

Ehat you wrote is not biblical truth.

We will go through the tribulation of the seals and trumpets but will be raptured before the bowls of wrath are poored out.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 King James Version (KJV)
9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

1 Corinthians 15:52 King James Version (KJV)
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Unconverted Israel will go through the bowl judgments and will be saved in the end.

Linda I agree with you, but others may not be persuaded of the pre tribulation rapture. I find it's best not to start these threads because they only lead to dissension and arguments.

God bless you sister.

"Pre- and posttribulationists agree that a host of saints, consisting of both Jews and Gentiles, will be present on earth during the tribulation. Therefore, whatever problems pretribulationists may turn up regarding the presence of the Church in a period of divine wrath are their own problems, too; for whether or not the tribulational saints belong to the Church or to another group of redeemed people, they also have escaped God's anger by virtue of the blood of Christ, who underwent their judgment for them (Rev 7:14). Will Jewish and Gentile saints suffer God's wrath during the tribulation, according to pretribulationism? If not, neither would the Church have to suffer God's wrath during the tribulation. If so, arguments against the suffering of wrath by the Church apply equally to tribulational saints of other sorts."

"Or, if tribulational saints will receive shelter within the period of divine wrath, may not the same hold true if Christians enter that period, i.e., if Christians turn out to "be" saints of the tribulation? Romans 8:1 assures that there is no condemnation, or judgment, to them that are in Christ Jesus...does it not also include deliverance from that type of judgment...which is characterized by the pouring out of the vials of the wrath of God? But would not tribulational saints belonging to the Church nevertheless be in Christ? Would not His blood justify them (Rev 7:14!)? If not, how would they be saved? If so, why would they be in the tribulation, if the pretribulational line of reasoning is correct?"

"We can hardly answer that endurance of the tribulation constitutes a penalty for failure to believe in Christ prior to the tribulation. Such an explanation would merely side-step the problem of the way in which any person saved by the blood of Christ could be subject to divine wrath. Tribulational saints might and should be individually raptured immediately upon conversion in order to escape divine wrath if it is true that earthly presence during the tribulation will necessarily entail the endurance of divine wrath. Many will be saved during the tribulation who had no previous opportunity to believe. Some hold that "only" such people will be converted during the tribulation (II Thess 2:11-12). Are we to think that those saints will have to endure God's wrath because the Church failed to preach the Gospel to them before the tribulation - while the guilty Church goes scot-free?"

(From "The Church and the Tribulation" - by Robert Gundry - 1972)

IM glad the Church is not going through the great tribulation.

We in America get that luxury.

In Africa, they starve you, kill you, mame you, shut down your churches and treat you like animals.
In China they imprison you, beat you, starve you, tempt you to rat out other Christians to save yourself.
lots more places and lots more Christians didn't get that message. Since they aren't privy to the secret rapture and didn't know about the get-out-of-tribulation texts they have to die for their faith, die without food, clothing, arms, legs, eyes, face...all because Jesus must think we in America are his body and the rest of those 'other people' don't qualify for our Christian-package-deal.

It's not good for God's glory to allow an American to suffer, but those Africans, Chinese and plenty of others God must not take any one of them to account, why who cares if Sudanese Children are hacked to death for being Christian, naa...who cares burn them alive. But we in America should not suffer to drive less than a 2016 car.

Good thing the secret rapture is going to get me out of harms way, seriously how is God glorified in allowing me to drive an old car?

Im glad there's no way we americans could possibly suffer, otherwise God could be called an abuser.

All anecdotal, no scripture to refute a rapture just the testimony of millions who didn't seem to get the 'memo'.

Good one Marvin. Not to mention the hosts and hosts of believers killed and tortured in the worst ways imaginable and documented in Fox’s. No rapture for them!

It seems just as Seinfeld had the "soup nazi” who decided who got soup we have "rapture nazis” who decide who gets raptured.

The "Left Behind” books have blinded lots and lots of folks.

//Then why oh why would he commit wrath against His Own Body?//

Maybe it's a childhood complex because His Father committed wrath against Him by putting him on a cross for you and me.

Oh nutty, you got this wrong!!!

Todd, Marvin, no offense to you, but that's a strawman argument if I ever heard one. No pastor in his right mind would tell his congregation "you'll never suffer; God will rapture you out before that happens" like raptures happen every day. In fact, no theologian says that there will be raptures before anyone suffers. We are promised trials and suffering. The rapture is a one off event that happens prior to the tribulation.

Nigel I have no issue with the belief in a pre-trib rapture- I believed it for years and it may be what indeed happens.

What I find distatesful is the idea that we western Christians who have it made and have never been persecuted need to be rescued from torture and death when so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the ages have experienced very great tribulation indeed.

In other words, if Pre-trib is true it is not so us spolied western Christians don’t get our darling little knees scuffed up.

Nigel, you are forgetting the underlying premise of this sister's Pre-trib rapture argument. She is saying if Christ allows his body the church to go through the tribulation, he is committing violence against his body..just as a troubled person would cut, abuse his body or be suicidal.

Are you seeing this?

This kind of thinking, if it's consistent will reject the cross of Jesus as an act of violence on the Father's part, and take the blood and suffering out of Christianity..

We already see many churches who have gone down that path.

Hi Nigel: my argument was pure ad populum argument, it was not a logical assessment, it could not stand up when critiqued, nor could you use it to defeat even the worst argument for a pre-trib rapture.

My point is, pretribulatonalism focuses on getting the Church out before God's wrath falls on the world.
But God's wrath is already being and has been poured out in the world in various ways. One of the major faults of a pre-trib teaching is to dismiss any wrath or judgment from God as merely 'the devils work', but when we are all gone, then God will act.

This premise is false, yet pre-trib grounds it assumptions on this very premise. It's surrounded by scripture texts and with emotional or exhortative preaching, yet at the end of the day what I am hearing is God's not judging or pouring out wrath now, only later will it come.

It is true some eschatological events concerning the wrath of God have not yet been fulfilled, but that does not validate the aforementioned premise nor does it validate the doctrine itself.
This premise is exploited and used to sooth worried saints into believing their troubles will never go beyond the discomforts of a 'normal life'.
We are exhorted to 'look up', yet, do not saints in horrible persecutions 'look up'?

Brother Marvin, may I ask you a personal question?
Why do I find myself grabbing the dictionary every time you post something?
No offense, I was half kidding 😊

Hi Fifi: years ago a good brother in the Lord once told me "Marv, you need to gain a better vocabulary than the 6 words you use again and again, it will make for better preaching"

So, I took it to heart and try to add vocabulary.

now-a-days you just say "ok google" and get your definition. I had to look it up.

Well, Marvin

What will make for better preaching?

We should start a whole new thread for that question?
Don't you think that better preaching should aim at reaching your hearer'soul and mind. And since most people are iliterate in this age in which we live, in order to reach their mind you really need to use a language they understand. As for reaching their souls you only need the unction from above.

I find your posts so annointed and edifying, but sometimes long and heady.

If good preaching needed vocabulary, as this well meaning brother advised you, then poor Peter the fisherman couldn't have had a chance.

You and Katz(my favorite preacher) would make good friends in heaven.

In a very short assessment, the ungodly will suffer the wrath of God, the Church will suffer persecution from the ungodly. This simple premise is found through-out scripture. When the ungodly suffer in the final days due to the wrath of God, the Church will suffer by reason of the persecution initiated and controlled by the Beast.

The Church may endure both the harsh realities of God's wrath toward the wicked and endure the harsh realities of keeping the faith in the face or terrible persecution.

God's people have suffered along with the wicked, God's people have been spared even while the wicked perish, both of these scenarios will play out in various ways in the last days. There's one body, one Bride, One Chosen people and they are those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. It is these who are written in the Lambs book of Life and it is these that will overcome the beast, the false prophet and all the ungodliness present in the world.

A rapture makes a distinction between the bride and the 'tribulation saints' where there is none. The Rapture removes part of the body while yet declaring the remainder will suffer. All is relegated to a very short span of time and in that time various literal interpretations of Revelation must come into play. Yet, what is paramount in the Christian faith is absent in the teachings of the rapture. Bearing one anothers burdens...nope were getting out. Preaching the gospel to the lost...nope were getting out, demonstrating the love of God in the worst situations...nope were getting out.

All because we are not appointed to wrath. Yet the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness...even the homosexual being given over to his lusts is God's wrath and we feel it, read a news report and see that God's wrath is present and we are still here and must endure their lies, endure their political positioning, endure their plans to proselytize our children, endure their public displays of rebellion to God and Church. This is only one aspect of wrath in action and we are right in the middle of it.

The red scourge in China, the inquisition in Europe, the genocide in Africa...suffering in the body of Christ has never been predicated by the announcement of 'wrath upon the wicked', it was predicated upon the sinful nature of man "they will kill you and think they are doing God a service"

It is because of these things I refuse the rapture as a means to elude the Cross as Fifi said and give false hope of deliverance when the scriptures declare explicitly otherwise.

//nope we're getting out. //

I like that!
Not as spiritual advise but a style of speech.

//In a very short assessment,//

😂

Edited)

If I could I would forever eradicate this idea of "comfortable christianity" from peoples minds.

If you truly give your life to Jesus, you are not promised an easy path. In fact, you are promised rejection, persecution, trials, tests etc. If you want to live for Jesus, the devil will be as mad as a hornet; he will throw everything he's got at you.

I spend most days alone. I have no friends, no one I can confide in. I try my best to tell others about Jesus, but most times they laugh at me or throw it back in my face. I am gossiped about, ridiculed. Just recently someone called me a "crazy old man" at work (I'm 32! go figure); last week someone tried to get me fired for evangelizing at work. Sometimes it seems like satan floods my mind with depressing, discouraging thoughts. (But I'm not in prison being beaten so I guess it's not really suffering.)

But in spite of all that, Jesus is with me. I feel His presence; His incredible love has kept me alive.

I will confess that I still lean toward a belief that the Lord will gather His bride before the wrath of God is poured out upon the entire world. Of course, I would never declare that leaning to be a doctrinal truth.

I don't think that God will pour out His wrath upon the believers or unbelievers alike. If God saved Noah and Lot from the judgment of God pouring out around them, then I believe that the same will likely be the case with the Bride of Christ when God is pouring out the trumpet and bowl judgments upon the entire Earth.

That said...

I don't believe that Christians are free from suffering.
I don't believe that Christians are free from tribulation.
I don't believe that Christians are free from persecution.

I do believe that persecution of the Bride will increase exponentially as we approach the coming of the Lord.
I also believe that believers are persecuted terribly around the world for their faith in Christ Jesus.

However, I also have come to the point where I don't think that I will ever know with absolute certainty the manner by which the end with come.

In fact, I believe that the focus of the Church is wrong. The Church should not focused upon mapping out the end times with absolute declarations or timetables but in preparing believers to be ready -- ready to die or suffer for the cause of Christ -- at any time.

When pastors teach about the end times, I don't think that they should make doctrinal absolutes about it (other than those truths that are clear even to children who read the Word of God). Instead of teaching "no rapture" or "yes rapture," perhaps Biblical teachers should introduce various views by which some think that the end will come about.

The key, of course, is to be prepared and to never lose focus of Jesus Christ -- especially in the midst of trials and tribulations.

.