Hello Nikki84,
Please read this entire post and don't breeze over it. Go and actually look at the scriptures that I am providing. My purpose is to get you to understand what I have been teaching in these posts regarding this issue.
The reason that I said that is because, those who believe in the Lord's promise, i.e. that believer's are not appointed to suffer God's wrath and that because the Lord suffered it for us, are comforted in that blessed hope, which is the gathering of the church prior to God's time of wrath. But for those who believe that the Lord is going to allow his church to go through his time of wrath and then gather them afterwards, that would not be a blessed hope nor would it be a comfort and that because of the severity of the plagues of God's wrath that the inhabitants of the earth will be suffering during that time. How could a one who is in Christ be comforted knowing that they would first have to go through God's wrath before the Lord comes to gather them? Nor would going through God's wrath be a blessed hope. The blessed hope is the assurance that Believer's are not appointed to suffer God's wrath and that according to his promise, we will be gathered prior to that time period.
By your comment above, it tells me that you have no understanding of what God's wrath entails. If you did, your going through that time of wrath would certainly not be in any way shape or form be a blessed hope. I would suggest that you do an in-depth study of the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments. For if you have the gathering of the church taking place when the Lord returns to the earth to end the age, then the living church would have to go through the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments before they can be gathered. When you read each of those plagues of wrath, do so at face value. Here is a good example of what I am talking about:
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"The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.
3And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
5They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes.
6During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
7The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces.
8Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.
9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.
10They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
11They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).
12The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
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Above is the 5th trumpet/1st woe. That star is referred to as a "He" who is given the key to the Abyss, which would demonstrate that this star that falls from heaven to the earth is most certainly angel. He opens the Abyss and out of it comes demonic beings. We know that they are demonic beings because 1). they are coming up out of the Abyss and 2). verse 11 says that they have a king over them which is the angel of the Abyss, who is also that beast that comes up out of the Abyss. Notice in verse 4 they are told not to harm the grass, trees or plants, but only those people who do not have the seal of God in their foreheads. According to scripture, those who are sealed is referring to the 144,000 who were sealed in Rev.7. This means that the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel are the only ones who are protected from these demonic beings whose main purpose will be to torment the inhabitants of the earth with the stings like that of a scorpion. Consequently, that would also include the church if they were here during that time and that because according to scripture only the 144,000 are protected. This is just one reason as to why the church must be gathered prior to the on-set of God's wrath. Here's another example:
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"The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire.
9They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him."
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At the pouring of the 4th bowl judgment, God affects the sun so that it scorches the inhabitants of the earth with fire and sears them with intense heat. If the church was here during this time, they would also be exposed to the scorching and searing of the sun, which I would remind you is not being done by men, but by God. Now people who hold to a post-trib belief have said "the church is protected during the time of those plagues of wrath" but the fact is that this claim of their is pure conjecture, assumption on their part. For not only is the church not mentioned during these plagues of wrath, but there is also no mention of the inhabitants of the earth being protected from these plagues.
As I've said in many posts, the error that I see is the lack of understanding of the severity of the God's wrath. The population of the earth is going to be decimated and all human government dismantled due to the affects of the seals, trumpets and bowls judgments. The other error is people not understanding that the appearing of the Lord to gather the church and the Lord's return to the earth to end the age, are two separate events. Because of these two errors, you have mid and post-trib beliefs.
