I know that there will be a lot of Christians who do not agree with me on this subject. However, when one studies the Jewish Wedding Traditions and how the apply to Christ Calling Out His Bride to go to the Wedding of the Lamb, it becomes obvious that it will happen prior to the beginning of the Great Tribulation.
Because of false teachers like Harold Camping and many others who have misrepresented and even changed the meaning of the term, I do not even like to use the term Rapture. Instead I prefer to call it what it really is,
"The Calling Out of the Bride" for the Wedding of the Lamb, and I have found that most Conservative Evangelicals have pretty much the same beliefs about:
THE CALLING OUT OF THE BRIDE (THE CHURCH - The sum total of all true believers, OT and NT):
To fully understand the significance of expressions, such as: "I go to prepare a place for you", or "a thief in the night", or "with the voice of an archangel", or "only the Father knows", you have to know the Jewish Wedding traditions. I can highly recommend the booklet "A Christian Love Story" by Zola Levitt that may still be available at his website. Or it can be found on Amazon.com, in Kindle format for less than two dollars.
If a man was seeking a bride 2000 years ago, he had to first go to the father and make a contract or covenant with the father for what price he wanted for the bride. The Father's price to redeem the Bride the Church, was a Holy Blood Sacrifice;
1 Cor. 6:20.
The price for the Bride would be payable immediately after the bride accepted the proposal (if she accepted); the man would be invited to a family sitdown supper, where he would propose. The proposal was NEVER VERBAL. He would pour a cup of wine and set it down in front of the woman he wanted to be his Bride. If she took the cup and drank from it, she was accepting his proposal. Jesus on the night of the Last Supper poured the cup of wine and passed it to the Disciples the Foundation of the Church, choosing the Church as his intended Bride. The Disciples drank from the Cup accepting the Proposal of Jesus Christ to the Church;
Mat. 26:27.
Once she had taken the cup and drank from it, they immediately became known as Bride and Bridegroom for the entire betrothal period. Before the Bridegroom would leave the dwelling place of the Bride, he would stand and make a verbal announcement, "I go to prepare a place for you." YES, the very words of Jesus, come from the traditional Jewish Wedding Proposal;
John 14:2-3.
When the Bridegroom left the old dwelling place of the Bride, he would never set foot in it again until after the Wedding Ceremony in the new dwelling place. Jesus has left the old dwelling place of the Bride, Earth; and He will not set foot on it again until after the Marriage of the Lamb to the Church, which takes place in New City Jerusalem He is building for his Bride;
1 Th. 4:17,
Rev. 21:2,
Mat. 24:30.
ONLY his father could decide, "The new dwelling place is finished, go get your Bride." He would periodically come and inspect the progress and make the son add this and that until the new dwelling place met his father's standards, because the young man may be too anxious to go get his Bride and cut corners to get done quickly. So literally NO ONE but the father knew when the Wedding would be. Jesus said that very thing, in
Mark 13:32.
When the Bride would see signs that the new dwelling place was nearly finished, she would gather her wedding party at her place, and they all had to bring lamps with oil in them, because the traditional time for the Bridegroom to come and steal the Bride away was at night, usually around midnight. They would sleep over because they were not sure which night, just that it could be soon, and very soon. Hence the parable of Ten Virgins is telling a very familiar Wedding Story that every Jew would recognize, as their Wedding traditions;
Mat. 25:1-13,
1 Th. 5:2.
When the father finally told his son, "The new dwelling place is finished, go get your bride." The Bridegroom would quickly gather his Wedding party, choosing one of them to Shout and call the Bride out of her old dwelling place. They would stop just outside the old dwelling place, NOT setting foot in it, while the chosen one would Shout and call the bride out. Jesus has already chosen the Archangel to Shout and call us out of our old dwelling place, Earth;
1 Th. 4:16-18.
The entire wedding party, would all go back to the new dwelling place for the 7 day Wedding Ceremony. Most Evangelicals, believe that the One Week Wedding Ceremony, and the 70th Week of Daniel is the Same Week of Years. After the Ceremony, the entire Wedding party would return to the old dwelling place of the Bride for the Wedding Feast. Then for the first time since the Proposal the bridegroom sets foot in the Old Dwelling Place of the Bride.
What about the Old Testament Saints? I believe the Bride is the some total of all true believers of all time.
We NT saints are those who believe Jesus is the Messiah and received HIM as Lord.
The OT saints are those who believed Messiah would come and received HIM as Lord.
See it, it is the same faith, the Faith of Abraham.
Jeremiah 2:2 (NIV)
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2 [/SUP] "Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: "'I remember the devotion of your youth, how
as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown.
Isaiah 62:5 (ASV)
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5 [/SUP] For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee; and
as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
Ephesians 5:23 (HCSB)
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23 [/SUP] for the husband is the head of the wife as
Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body.
Matthew 9:15 (NKJV)
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15 [/SUP] And Jesus said to them,
"Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
2 Peter 3:3-4 (HCSB)
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3 [/SUP] First, be aware of this:
Scoffers will come in the last days to scoff, living according to their own desires,
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4 [/SUP] saying,
“Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.”
Matt 25:1 (NKJV)
1 "Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the Bridegroom.
The New Dwelling Place that HE promised build us in John 14:2, is the dwelling place every bridegroom built for his bride, in his father's house. And it will remain there, until after the Millennial Kingdom when it is lowered to the new earth still decorated from the like a bride from the Wedding of the Lamb that took place there. How do we get back and forth if we are to reign with him for that thousand years? It does not specifically say, but maybe that is why the story of Jacob's Ladder is in the Bible, to validate that those of us in our glorified bodies, that we will find that there is a way for us to reign as Priests (teachers of the children born in the KINGDOM to the 144,000 Jews), and still have our dwelling place in Heaven where our citizenship already is.
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