This thread need not (please!) become a place to debate eschatological views. I am simply looking for some proof-texts from the premillenial understanding of things that 'prove' a secret rapture.

Other than the 'thief in the night' passages (which are taken out of context) are there any more to which a premil might appeal?

Also, since I want to get this right, would the idea of a secret rapture be limited to dispensationalist thinkers or does it apply across the board to any type of premillenialist? I would assume the former...

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Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA

"What sort of pledge and how great is this of love towards us! Christ lives for us not for himself!"
John Calvin, Commentary on the Hebrews (7:25)

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and Revelation 4:1.

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Rev. Daniel R. Hyde
Pastor, Oceanside United Reformed Church, Carlsbad/Oceanside, California
Th.M. candidate, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

Thanks Danny.

I understand 1 Thessalonians 4:13ff. but how does one get a secret rapture out of Revelation 4:1?

As a former Dispensatioanlist one gets the Pre Trib Rapture out of Revelation 4:1 by makeing John an type of the church who is then "raptured" in verse one to the emrild throne chapters 6-19 are then made to be The Tribulation wich in dispensationalism The Church will not go through.

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Aaron
Independent Baptist
Holland MI

Some see it as an invitation to the church that effectively is the rapture... but I think this is a minority view - Walvoord denies this is tied to the rapture, for instance.

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Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://inprincipiodeus.solideogloria.com
http://puritanwisdom.blogspot.com

"As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low."
John Flavel in Keeping the Heart



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Do archangels shout along softly and toot their trumpets secretly? Maybe I don't understand "secret".

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Bryan
Deacon, PCA
Tampa, FL

Bryan:

I agree but again this thread is simply here to answer questions, not to debate the issue.

Would anyone like to take on my second question? i.e. the last paragraph of the first post

I believe the secret rapture is only part of dispensational theology, not premil in general. Sorry I don't have any proof (other than 23 years of living in fundamentalism!).

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Kim G
Non-denom church (holds to the WCF)
Zion Community Church, Greenville, SC

Teach me Your way, O LORD;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
Psalm 86:11

It's secret in the sense that only the church age believers will be raptured those left behind will have no idea what happened. This is where you have people saying that Antichrist will somehow delude people into thinking it was spontaneous human combustion, U.F.O.s, or residual radiation from nuclear weapons so on and so forth.

Well, OK. Maybe a graham-cracker-marshmallow-s'hmores-accident gone really, really badly, but U.F.O.s...

I think the deception of the Anti-Christ isn't a delusion about how people secretly disappeared but is instead the deception that he is the Christ and persuades everyone that is deceived to worship him as God.

(anecdotal note: This has been a secret hijacking of the thread and no one is noticing.)

My pretribulation friend quotes Luke 21:36. Watch ye therefore and pray always the ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:36) "Escape what?", he asks and answers "The tribulation!" meaning through the rapture.

See blog Millennial Dreams

Cordially,
Carol

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Carol
Plant City, Florida


That I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.
Philippians 3:8,9

http://gettingoffthenicenesstreadmill.blogspot.com/

Matthew 24:37-42
Luke 17:26-36

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
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It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry