29 Responses

1. This seems to be so obvious that it is difficult to grasp why many people seem to have trouble recognizing this essential truth.

2. Joel,
   Sad to say I see many that don’t think beyond what their church is telling them to think. Even when the teachings don’t seem to mesh the scriptures with the facts. Fear of some kind of retribution plagues them and prevents them from thinking “outside the box” of their church. They and the church leaders need to free themselves through prayer and information. The threat of Islam should be obvious now to all, church goers or not. Time to put 2 and 2 together.

3. Joel. This is extremely good news to hear. I love Marvin and honestly besides the change that God made in my heart at salvation I can say that Marvin’s book Pre Wrath rapture changed my walk with the Lord more than any other thing I have experienced in the last 20 years. I converted to the Pre-Wrath position in 94 and started talking with him at that time. I can tell you it was a 9.9 on the rector scale to learn that pre trib was wrong. I have stayed with a constant diet of prophecy from that time forward. About two years ago I took a two courses on end times with Charles Cooper (a Van Kempen convert to PRe Wrath) to try and fill in the gaps that just were not coming together for me in the book of Revelation. I left more confused and unsettled about the number of questions he was NOT able to answer. Then last December I stumbled onto your ministry. It was another 9.9 on the rector scale. I think that between you and Marvin most of the answers are there. I would encourage you to look strongly at the Pre-wrath position as you used the Post Trib position in your red DVD series although you did not personally teach it. I know to you this is not a huge issue because your attention is different and post trib and pre wrath are extremely close any way. God bless you for posting this. Marvin once told me I was the first person in America to have a daily radio program teaching the Pre Wrath position! That was amazing to me. I tell EVERYBODY I know about your ministry.. I just wrote a group yesterday and told them to get in touch with you. May God bless you and sustain you in all that you do. I can’t tell you how much your ministry has effected the direction the Lord is taking me at this very moment. I want to do everything I can to get the word out. Pray for me.. please when you have time.

4. Troy,

   Probably around 98′ or so, I read Van Campen’s books and was fully convinced. I read the shorter rapture book first. I think Cooper is also great teacher. But I have since come to struggle with the pre-wrath view that we are raptured prior to the actual return of Jesus, as Scripturally, these events seem so integrally linked. And so for now, I consider myself both pre-wrath and post-trib, thinking there may be a way to reconcile both views. But as I have said before, the difference is so minor. And pastorally, both views prepare believers for what is to come, which is really the most important thing in my view. I am hoping to be able to wrestle through this sometime a bit more extensively when I have more time. I’m also looking forward to Alan Kurschner’s forthcoming book that is to be released in a couple weeks. I’m sure this will be very helpful.

5. Joel; I agree with you about the issues you have mentioned about the Pre Wrath Rapture. To me the book of Revelation is “almost’ like the four Gospels. I see four different angles pointing to the same event. This keeps me from seeing it as strictly “chronological” as Cooper is teaching, I also have great respect for him. Honestly, I have had questions that I knew couldn’t be answered unless someone had already embraced the Pre-Wrath position and then begin to see the little problems and minor discrepancies like the obvious teaching that Jesus returns in Rev.19 where as the rapture was at 7:19. It appears the church is around towards the end of Revelation as post trib teaches but they seem to miss the distinction between the tribulation (2 Thes. 2:4) and the Wrath of God (Is. 2:11). I am glad you too see this tension so I can learn how to resolve this tension if it is even possible. Alan Kurschner’s book will be on my self as soon as I can buy it. After studying everything you have written with a microscope and combining that with the strengths of the Pre-wrath focusing on the Day of the Lord’s Wrath it is like “cream cheese on bagels” to me. When I studied and believed Pre-Trib I was never pointed to the Day of the Lord from the perspective of the Old Testament and only really studied chapters 2 and 3 in Revelation! Then when I came to a better understanding of the Day of the Lord it moved me from Revelation 4:1-2 to the Revelation 6:17. But honestly, I saw that was not quite far enough and I have been trying to move to Revelation 11:15 at the last trumpet for a long time. Where Pre-trib left me in the drive way and Pre-wrath got me to the front door. Pre-Wrath opened that door but only to the welcome mat! Your books allowed me to enter into the house and let me explore the various rooms (surrounding nations). Studying the Controversy of Zion and Jacob’s Trouble has convinced me to buy the house (God’ focus on Israel’s sin and salvation for His own glory). I think your teaching on Ez. 38 and Ez. 39 is also extremely convincing.. and shows us why we need to keep digging until ALL the contradictions are resolved if God in His mercy would allow it.

6. Joel

   Here is a video done by Johnny Cash back in 1990.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEyujOSEexM

7. Troy,

   I’m glad you mentioned Dalton Lifsey’s book. It is so essential on several levels. A classic.

8. Joel,

   Can you recommend any really good commentaries on the Old Testament?

9. Joel, I have a challenge: How many readers of your blog have heard of St. John Chrysostom? How many of them are aware of his commentaries of books & verses that are placed within the category of eschatology?

   Start there, and more light, than heat will be present.

10. David,

    Good question.

    Vernon,

    You would have to name a book specifically. I do have a link on my links bar to good christian commentaries that are reviewed according to their approach. (Conservative, futurist, etc)

11. Thanks Joel,

    What I would like specifically is an accurate order of the prophets from the first to the last and then read some commentaries on each one. You have really challenged me to learn more about prophecy and the end times. I was a believer in the Roman Antichrist paradigm. But it didn’t take long to see how utterly false that position is.

12. Vernon,

    THe difficulty is that every book is going to need a separate recommend. For Isaiah for instance, nothing meets Alec Motyer. But if you want a good general series, the Expositors Bible Commentary or the New American Bible Commentary series are both good conservative series.

13. Thanks Joel – that’s where I will start.

14. There is no trip to heaven in order to avoid judgment. The Rapture is a fantasy and has no basis in scripture. It typically stems from 2 mistaken concepts:

    #1. idea that we are ‘too good’ to receive the judgment that the rest of the world is going to receive on earth. We aren’t too good. We deserve tribulation, and the Messiah even said it: “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” John 16.

    #2. the idea that, within the community of God, there is a church and then there are Jews. That’s a falsehood. The truth is that there is one single body; the Ekklesia/Assembly/Church/קָהַל /qahal/Israel (see Numbers 16:3). Within that body, there are those who were born AND raised into the community, and then there are those who were foreigners who were “grafted into” the Assembly. God does not have different covenants between those in the Assembly from the tribe of Judah (the Jews) and those who were once Gentiles but have been adopted into a Hebrew (crossed over) nation. Accepting this will do much to cure the need to to fraudulently make the scriptures claim there will be a Jesus-chaufferred bus trip to heaven while the rest of the world burns via a contortion of scripture that requires a series of logical, mental, and linguistic gymnastics in order to make that theory possible.

    When the Messiah returns, we will be caught up in the “aera”/lifted off the ground and brought to meet Messiah. But Messiah is coming from heaven to earth, where he will take care of business and reign from Jerusalem…. he is not coming to pick us up and taxi us into heaven. That idea is nowhere in scripture.

    I think this entire Rapture theory is cancerous and is helping others to be ignorant to prophecy.

    Blessings.

15. Dirk,

    The Rapture is very clearly taught in Scripture, but not a Pre-Tribulational Rapture as you are speaking of. But I’m not sure who you are preaching to as no one here is arguing for the pre-tribulational rapture.

16. Hi Joel,

    Thanks for the blog post. That is interesting.

    Hi Dirk,

    I’d like to encourage you to consider a few places in Scripture where it is taught that God’s people will first go before the throne of the Father after the rapture. Incidentally, I am prewrath, not pretrib.

    You wrote:

    “When the Messiah returns, we will be caught up in the “aera”/lifted off the ground and brought to meet Messiah. But Messiah is coming from heaven to earth, where he will take care of business and reign from Jerusalem…. he is not coming to pick us up and taxi us into heaven. That idea is nowhere in scripture.”

    Dirk, I’d like to provide an excerpt from my forthcoming book _Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord_ that discusses this question:

    Where Do Believers Go after the Rapture?

    The last part of verse 17 climaxes with reassurance: “And so we will always be with the Lord.” Where will we spend eternity? In this passage, we are not told specifically. Paul’s purpose is to stress that we will be with the Lord. But he does tell us that we will meet him in the clouds. From the clouds, where is our destination? Where will believers go after they are united with Christ in the sky? Do they remain in the air? Do they go straight to heaven forever? Do they immediately descend to the earth? Or is there another answer?

    I believe we will be in fullness of fellowship and worship with our Lord eventually on earth. The locus of heaven will be the New Jerusalem, which will descend and establish itself on earth (see Revelation 21–22:5). But the question remains, where will the people of God dwell between the time of the rapture and the coalescing of the New Jerusalem on earth? There are four passages that give us the answer, revealing that the Lord will first escort his people temporarily to the heavenly abode (into the Father’s presence) before we later make our descent to our eternal home on earth. Paul wrote of this time in 2 Corinthians 4:13-14:

    But since we have the same spirit of faith as that shown in what has been written, “I believed; therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak. We do so because we know that the one who raised up Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and will bring us with you into his [Father’s] presence.

    Before his departure Jesus promised,

    “There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too.” (John 14:2–3)

    Finally, the book of Revelation says,

    Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes—who are they and where have they come from?” So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them.” (Rev. 7:13–15)

    There is a helpful fourth passage, although only implying that we are taken before the throne of the Father. Isaiah says,

    Your dead will come back to life; your corpses will rise up. Wake up and shout joyfully, you who live in the ground! For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits. Go, my people! Enter your inner rooms! Close your doors behind you! Hide for a little while, until his angry judgment is over! For look, the Lord is coming out of the place where he lives, to punish the sin of those who live on the earth.The earth will display the blood shed on it; it will no longer cover up its slain.” (Isa. 26:19–21)

    These passages picture the Lord escorting believers into the presence of the Father. The Lord then will mete out his eschatological wrath upon the ungodly on earth. But God’s people will not remain in heaven because the New Jerusalem will eventually descend to the earth for the millennium and eternity.

    I hope this helps, Dirk.

    Sincerely,

    Alan Kurschner

17. “The Rapture is very clearly taught in Scripture, but not a Pre-Tribulational Rapture as you are speaking of. ”

    I should have made myself clearer. I intend to convey that:

    1. there is no trip to heaven in the last days for God’s people who have yet to die but are lviing during the time of the end.
    2. We will be present throughout the entirety of the tribulation.
    3. the Rapture as pre-trib, mid-trib, and pre-wrath portary it, is a falsity.
    4. We will be brought to Messiah just as Philip was transported in Acts 8. That has nothing to do with the American concept of the rapture, though.

18. Dirk,

    You never did answer the question if you believe that Jesus is Yahveh or not.

19. “You never did answer the question if you believe that Jesus is Yahveh or not.”

    My apologies. I have a hectic schedule and neglected your question as result.

    To strictly answer the question, I would say that I ***don’t**** think the answer is “no.” I’m reticent to say yes, because I’m not sure that saying “Jesus is YHWH” is precise.

    You may have heard the story of Augustine, where he was contemplating the nature of God, and saw a boy attempting to carry water from the ocean and dump it into a hole in the sand. Augustine asks the boy what he is doing, and the boy replies that he is ‘putting the ocean in the hole.’ When Augustine says that’s impossible, the boy chastises him for attempting to fathom the infinite nature of God (and then allegedly disappears, as if he is a messenger of God).

    Keep that parable/fable in mind, I prefer not to define the things I think are unknowable/unrevealed. God is echad/one. There are not three separate Gods, and I don’t think the bible necessarily reveals God as three separate persons (God the father, God the Spirit, God the Son), but there is clearly God (YHWH) who is spirit (ruach) and who sends His spirit (whether in its entirety, or in portion, as a kind of appendage, or perhaps some other possibility) and there is the son of God (Jesus/Yahoshua) whose son is overflowing (his cup runneth over) with spirit at all times. And there is the Angel of the Lord, which repeatedly shows up (in the Garden he walks around, he visits Abram before investigating Sodom and Gomorrah, he might be Melekzadek who appeared to Abraham, he shows up in the burning bush to Moses, he shows up in front of Joshua as commander of the host of heaven, he appears in the furnace fire with Daniel’s companion, he appears in front, oe Balaam, Hagar, Gideon, etc.). The angel of the Lord appears to be Yahshua, but is called YHWH.

    I think Revelation 21 is helpful: “3 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. ”

    God (YHWH) is the light, the Lamb (Y’shua) is the lamp.

    I think another way of expressing this in metaphor, and with regard to what the boy tried to tell Augustine, is as follows: the Lord is like the ocean and that Jesus is like an overflowing cup of ocean water.

    I have major concerns with 3-personhood trinitarian doctrine. I don’t mean to say it is necessarily wrong, but I am concerned the explanation isn’t precise or even accurate, and risks understating or overstating the relationship between God and Jesus. I don’t believe there is enough information to say that Jesus is fully God, as the trinitarians claim. I’m not sure the term “fully” is applicable, either. I also don’t see in scripture any personhood for the Holy Spirit that is distinct from God YHWH (who IS Spirit per John 4 “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” If God is Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is Spirit, then there are 2 distinct sacred spirits running around, one of whom has no discernible distinct personhood).

    I also see that YHWH divorced his people for unfaithfulness, and there is no mention of a reconcilliation that complies with God’s own law UNLESS you take the marriage of the Lamb to mean that Yahshua, who was murdered and raised from the death, is YHWH reclaiming YHWH’s divorced bride (death of the husband being the only condition that would allow the disgraced bride of Israel to retake her husband). Yahshua somehow being YHWH is the only way I can think of to reconcile that problem.

    I see that trinitarians frequently call the trinity a mystery (in terms of logistics). I would agree that there is a mystery concerning the nature of God, like the kid on the beach suggested to Augustine. I’ve said all I’m comfortable saying with regard to the living God, His son, and the spirit.

20. “Where Do Believers Go after the Rapture? The last part of verse 17 climaxes with reassurance: “And so we will always be with the Lord.” Where will we spend eternity? In this passage, we are not told specifically. ”

    I think we are told specifically. Messiah returns to Jerusalem as follows:
    “29 “Immediately after the distress of those days (DIRK: the tribulation. CLEARLY not pre wrath)
    “‘the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;
    the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[b]
    30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven (DIRK: Messiah arrives AFTER tribulation). And then all the peoples of the earth[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.[d] 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect (DIRK: This is the gathering of the Assembly to meet Messiah ON EARTH) from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

    IN A NUTSHELL, Messiah shows up and the Gathering occurs. What next?

    “2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. 3 Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle. 4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south… 16 Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles…. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite[c] in the house of the Lord Almighty.”

    also

    “4 I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They[a] had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. ”

    Messiah gathers his people, raises the dead in testimony of Messiah, and rules from Jerusalem for 1,000 years. Thereafter, the Lord comes to live with His people forever in New Jerusalem: “21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ”

    “But the question remains, where will the people of God dwell between the time of the rapture and the coalescing of the New Jerusalem on earth? ”

    With Messiah for 1,000 years. See above.

    “These passages picture the Lord escorting believers into the presence of the Father.”

    God’s children will all make it into the presence of the Father: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.”

    In order to support a prewrath rapture, you must show more than simply being in the presence of God. You have to show that the timing of being in front of God occurs BEFORE the wrath. The problem is that none of the verses you cited accomplish that requisite.

    Specifically, you did not present any scripture that proves this pointL: “The Lord THEN (DIRK: emphasis added) will mete out his eschatological wrath upon the ungodly on earth. ”

    “But God’s people will not remain in heaven because the New Jerusalem will eventually descend to the earth for the millennium and eternity.”

    I maintain that they were never there in the first place. Messiah shows up at the END of tribulation, instantly calls his people (Gathered/ harpazo) and wars on the Beast. Thereafter, the Gathered and the dead in testimony reign with Messiah for 1,000 years, and eternity with YHWH thereafter.

    The text no more says that Messiah will come in and take believers to heaven than it says he will take unbelievers to heaven. Neither one is in scripture.

    Did our messiah avoid the wrath of god? Did Paul? Did John the Baptist? Did Steven? Does the testimony bearer being beheaded in Iran avoid tribulation and wrath of God?

    NO. “Ye shall have tribulation.” We are not so special that we can avoid persecution and execution by evil men and the princes of the air. We are promised life everlasting, and Revelation makes it clear that those who are called God’s people will be with YHWH in front of his throne.

21. Dirk, I have some questions to ask you in regards to your comments, “I have major concerns with 3-personhood trinitarian doctrine. I don’t mean to say it is necessarily wrong, but I am concerned the explanation isn’t precise or even accurate, and risks understating or overstating the relationship between God and Jesus. I don’t believe there is enough information to say that Jesus is fully God, as the trinitarians claim. I’m not sure the term “fully” is applicable, either. I also don’t see in scripture any personhood for the Holy Spirit that is distinct from God YHWH (who IS Spirit per John 4 “For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” If God is Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is Spirit, then there are 2 distinct sacred spirits running around, one of whom has no discernible distinct personhood).”

    When Jesus says that if we have seen him we have seen the Father, what does He mean by that?
    If Jesus had to be a perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins, how could he be perfect if he wasn’t God?
    How could Jesus know what men were thinking if he wasn’t God?
    Why did Jesus have to ascend to heaven before the Holy Spirit could come?
    Why did Jesus say, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”
    In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light.” God, Yahweh created the world. Right? Then in John 1, it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. “He” was with God in the beginning. HE is a pronoun for the Word (who was God and was with God). Sounds like two to me. Then, it says through “him” also a pronoun for the Word, all things were made. So, who made the light, God the Father, or the Word that further down in John 1 became flesh?
    Also, in John 17:20, as we read Jesus’ prayer for us to the Father, he is praying to God, yet he, was with God and the Word of God and created the world. So is he praying to himself? And he says, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me…I in them and you in me. Then, in verse 26 he says, I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. How can Jesus be in us if he isn’t God? How can the Holy Spirit be in us if He isn’t God.
    Acts 5:3-4 But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. Why should it matter if we lie to the Holy Spirit if He is not also God?
    John 16:13 – But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guid you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are ONE. When two people get married, God said they become ONE. How can two distinct people become ONE? The same way that God the Father, Son, and Spirit are one. How can Jesus be seated at the right hand of the Father if He isn’t a distinct person? How can Jesus be in heaven with the Father and Holy Spirit be here with us and in us and Father be in heaven on the throne, yet all three are ONE. They are one in unity. They are one God, yet three distinct persons of the Godhead. I am one with my husband, but I am distinct from him. So, are there 3 Gods? No, only one. He said there is only one God. He doesn’t lie. Yet the Word was with God and was God. So, how can that be? Jesus is sitting to the right of the Father, so they aren’t in the same chair, yet, they are one.
    Just trying to make you think about the Trinity some more. It’s not that difficult to understand, yet it is a strange concept to us. The Father, Son, and Spirit are so united that they don’t see themselves as apart from one another. They are one….And their oneness is so wonderful that they decided to create human beings to join with them in that oneness. It’s the whole reason we were created…to be one with God. Jesus prayed it! Look at John 15:24 where Jesus says, “…yet they have hated “both” me and my Father.

22. In my opinion, anyone who denies that Jesus is Yahweh is likely deeply deceived on multiple issues.

23. I lean to a post trib rapture.

    But the prophets from other nations that walk and talk to the Lord face to face and have thousands of churches under their ministry say that there will be a brides rapture for those who have made themselves ready.

    That means that the foolish virgins will go through the wrath. I have read a lot of near death stories where the Lord tells the people that a lot of christians are made ready through the dieing proccess. So the rapture would catch them before they had made themselves ready.

    Very few writers talk much about the fact that the Lords main way to protect the saints in the bible is on the earth. Such as Noah in a boat and the lady in rev. 12 in the wilderness. I am hearing a lot of teaching on the fact that the Lord is going to provide safe havens for his people through the hard times. these prophets (see above) preach about the friends of the bridegroom. These are people the Lord has chosen to protect the Jews and I assume foolish virgins through the wrath.

    Since the kingdom on the earth is a main theme in the bible I would assume that the tribulation and wrath will mainly kill off the unbelivers world wide. But it would require that there be a large population of foolish virgins to live through the wrath to populate the Lords kingdom.

    I believe we do not understand the reasons the Lord is allowing the tribulation and wrath or why He wants the kingdom on earth.

    Thanks Joel

24. I agree with both you & Marv. God pours out His wrath in the last 3 1/2 years after the antichrist breaks his covenant with Israel. I’ve known Marv for over 40 years since he baptized my husband (an ex-muslim) & officiated at our in 1973.
    Currently I am studying with Bible Study Fellowship which bgives all views. But while studying, it’s obvious that there is little merit to the pretrib view.

25. Once I read The Pre – Wrath Rapture of the Church, I became a firm believer in this perspective of the Tribulation period. That being said, I would stress the point that we as Christians can rest in the hope of the Rapture . . . but please, please, please do not become so caught up in it that you forget what the Church is here for! We are not here to sit back and rest on the fact that you’ve done and got forgiven . . . and you’re good with God and now lets get back to living life and everything that goes with being on earth. No . . . you are a new creature in Christ . . . old things are passed away . . . behold, all things are become new! The work is still to be done until the day of the Rapture . . . so stop looking for the Rapture (…if you are…) and be about Gods work for your life!!!

26. All this discussion I find to be very interesting. I’ve always thought of the Holy Trinity to like this; The Father, Son and Holy Spirit make up the Godhead. All 3 have one purpose but each hold different offices. The Father wants to glorify the Son, the Son wants to glorify the Father and the Holy Spirit wants to glorify the Father and the Son. What I think perhaps what can be a little misunderstood are the responsibilities of each office.

27. Joel appreciate your work – even more so since I’ve been going up to Irbil evangelizing among the Kurds there, as well as Soran. Apart from opportunities among the Christian refugees it has been amazing to bring the gospel to Muslim villages on the Nineveh plains as well. It is just such a privilege being in touch regularly with these brothers – even to discuss this topic. They are so in need of our spiritual support and also material aid.

    I don’t see a reference in the discussion to Prasch’s book Hapazo and the Intra-seal position. It is almost splitting hairs though around the opinions already discussed here on Marvin’s Pre Wrath position and Post Trib. I think it is a worthy book dealing with types of the rapture throughout Scripture.

    Once again thanks for the great contribution to this escatalogical discussion and the ministry along with Dalton in that part of our world.

28. After reading Roenthal’s book, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, in 2006, I became convinced that the Rapture will occur exactly when he says it will, just after the Seals and before the Trumpet and Bowl Judgements. In fact, I was so convinced that I’ve spent the past three years writing a series of fictional novels about the Rapture, the 70th Week of Daniel, and the Millennium, all from a “Pre-Wrath” perspective: https:thewrathbooks.com For 20 years, I made the mistake many Believers have made about the timing of the Rapture; I believed what my pastors told me without examining the evidence. Rosenthal is right! And just for the record, I ALSO believe the the anti-Christ will be from the Middle East, not from Europe.