That's clearly untrue. When a child is raised up in a familiy of JWs, they are taught to interpret the Bible by their spirit and by their method of interpretation. So when the child grows up and reads the Bible, they still get the interpretive methodology they were raised up with.
When you read 2 Thes 2 I'm sure you read into the teaching you've already been given on it. I'm sure that when you read Revelation, and read a Pretrib Rapture into John's being caught up to heaven that you got indirectly from Darby's teaching. It certainly is *not* in the Bible itself!
In fact you are following Darby indirectly. There is no other place from which Pretrib teaching came. It did not come from the Bible until Darby began to apply his method of interpretation. He began with the presupposition that Christians could not and should not experience the "Wrath of God."
Let me be transparent here. I never studied Darby. I don't know precisely how far today's Pretribbers have wandered from Darby's original teaching. But I do know the seeds of Pretrib were planted by Darby. Regardless of your ignorance about where you got your teaching, you did get Pretrib teaching indirectly from him.
The Apostle John warned his readers not to add to the book of Revelation. If the Pretrib Rapture is not taught there, it is wrong to add one there. Not only is it not there, but it's not anywhere in the Bible. The general resurrection of the Church takes place at the Coming of the Son of Man, which according to Dan 7 takes place at the destruction of Antichrist, the Man of Sin. That is when the saints are delivered from him, and it is explained as a resurrection in Dan 12.
More hocus pocus? Esoteric doctrines are more akin with gnosticism than with Christian doctrine. Subjective revelation is not how God's word operates. God "shouts things from the housetops--He doesn't whisper them to private covens.
I heard you the 1st time--no need to reiterate. Separating the Coming of Christ into two days is *not* what is being taught. We were warned *not* to accept any coming prior to the destruction of the Antichrist. These are false Christs and false prophets, or false 2nd Comings! Any movement claiming to be the realized Kingdom of God on earth today is a "false Christ."
Sorry, but that's exactly what 2 Thes 2 teaches. You can ignore it, debate it, but you have to answer God about it. It's His word--not mine. Either submit to His word, or fight a losing battle all your life. Many have out of sheer pride. They haven't been completely to the cross.
Don't you realize what a bind you've put yourself in? You said the entire Tribulation Period, including the persecution of the saints by the Antichrist is the Wrath of God. And yet you say its impossible for the saints to be there, experiencing the persecution of Antichrist. You're very confused!!
You conflate the Wrath of God directed against unbelievers for their eternal damnation with saints going through turmoil with those who are being judged. If I go through an earthquake in my city because God is judging my city for its ungodliness, and yet, I am not ungodly, then I'm only going through the trouble with those who are being judged. I am *not* being judged myself. That is exactly what the Prophet Jeremiah went through when Jerusalem collapsed during the judgment of Israel. And yet Jeremiah himself was *not* being judged. So you're 100% wrong, and your logic is faulty. You base your whole system on a fallacy. Worse, you refuse to even see it.
The "hour of trial" you may be referring to was an historical experience of one of the 7 churches John was writing to. It wasn't wrath for those in the city who were faithful, was it?
That "Great Tribulation" refers to the historical Jewish Diaspora, which has been going on since the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD! This Jewish tribulation is the worst judgment in Israel's history precisely because of its great duration of time! It has lasted for 2000 years! And it will be finally "cut short" at Christ's coming, just when it seems Israel will finally be destroyed.
If you think 3.5 years of Antichrist persecution is going to be hugely greater than the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, or the Christians burned as candles by the Romans, or those Christians thrown to the lions by the Romans, you're kidding yourself. Pain is pain, and vast numbers of Christians have died in history, and great natural disasters and diseases have happened, claiming millions of lives. Staliln caused the death, it is said, of 20 million people in the USSR during the 20 years he was in charge. And you say the endtime tribulations will be much worse? What--you think the suffering of people in the last days will be worse than what Jesus suffered on the cross?
No, you're looking at it all wrong. This isn't a comparison between how one death is worse than another death, nor is it even a comparison of numbers, though it is significant. The fact is, the entire NT age has been a tribulation for Christians. Jesus is coming back to bring it to an end. And he will come back to destroy Antichrist on the *last day!*
Well, you're engaging in false teaching yourself, because the Pretrib Rapture is *not* taught in the Bible. Darby taught it, his disciples taught it, and now you're teaching it. Shame on you!