This paper was referred to on the 3rd Session of The March of the Prophets Convocation.
Luke 21:34-35
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Matthew 24:38-39
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And KNEW NOT until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Matthew 24:43
But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the THIEF would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
2 Peter 3:10, 12
But the day of the Lord will come as a THIEF in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up … Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God , wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Revelation 16:12-17
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
Ezekiel 39:8
Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.
Note that the 7th trumpet is immediately followed by the same phenomena that follows the 7h bowl.
Revelation 11:19
And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
Revelation 16:17-1
And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. 18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
This is because both the 7th trumpet and the 7th bowl arrive at the same place, namely, the thief-like coming of the “great day of God Almighty.”
Joel 3:1-3, 13-16
For, behold, in those days, and in that time,
when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will also gather all nations,
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat,
and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel,
whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land …
13 Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision:
for the day of the LORD is NEAR in the valley of decision.
15 The sun and the moon shall be darkened,
and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
16 The LORD also shall roar out of Zion,
and utter his voice from Jerusalem;
and the heavens and the earth shall shake:
but the LORD will be the hope of his people,
and the strength of the children of Israel. Joel 3:13-16
Zephaniah 3:8
8 Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD,
until the day that I rise up to the prey:
for my determination is to gather the nations,
that I may assemble the kingdoms,
to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger:
for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.
Joel 1:15
15 Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand,
and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
Joel 2:1
Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain:
let all the inhabitants of the land tremble:
for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is near at hand;
Zephaniah 1:7, 14
7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord GOD:
for the day of the LORD is at hand:
for the LORD hath prepared a sacrifice,
he hath bid his guests.
14 The great day of the LORD is near,
it is near, and hasteth greatly,
even the voice of the day of the LORD:
Conclusion: For Peter and John, the thief-like Day of the Lord is synonymous with the day of God (2Pet 3:10, 12), also called, “the great day of God Almighty” in Rev 16:12-17). The DOL is NOT imminent until AFTER the nations have been gathered together to Armageddon (Rev 16:12-17). Even as late as the sixth bowl, Jesus announces that His THIEF-LIKE coming is yet future (Rev 16:15), clearly showing that His return is synonymous with the “great day of God Almighty”, which “day of God” Peter equates with the thief-like DOL (2Pet 3:10,12; Rev 16:14-17; Eze 38:9).
Note that the gathering of nations here is importantly distinguished from the earlier mid-week storming of the Land by the AC and his ten nation coalition. In contrast, this is the Armageddon gathering of the nations at the very end. A comparison of Dan 11:40-45 with Rev 16:12-17 will show that very late towards the end of the tribulation, the Antichrist, (who is now situated “between the seas and the glorious holy mountain”) is being rushed upon by an omni-directional convergence of world powers.
This gathering does not take place until AFTER the sixth bowl of wrath has been poured out. This brings us to the very end of the tribulation, and still, the DOL is only NEAR. It is not yet HERE. Furthermore, we see that both Jesus and Peter, citing Joel, show that the stellar darkness comes IMMEDIATELY AFTER the tribulation of those days, but BEFORE the DOL (Joel 2:30-31; 3:14-16; Mt 24:29; Acts 2:20).
Therefore, the thief-like day of the Lord is NOT an imminent, unsignaled event. Paul is very clear that the DOL cannot begin until AFTER the Antichrist has first been revealed, and until AFTER many are saying peace and safety (1Thes 5:5; 2Thes 2:3). As we have shown, the DOL does not come before, but follows the gathering of the multi-national armies of the earth to Armageddon. It also follows AFTER the darkening of the celestial bodies. Therefore, the DOL is anything but imminent. It is preceded by signs unmistakable to the believer, but completely dismissed and ignored by the unsuspecting world upon whom that day comes as a thief.
Conclusion: It is NOT an unsignaled, pretribulation rapture that comes as a thief; it is the POST-tribulational DOL that comes as a THIEF, not on the believing Bride of Christ, but on the unsuspecting world of the ungodly.
In order to protect the doctrine of imminence, (i.e., that Christ can come any moment to rapture the church, without forewarning of any specific sign), it is crucial to the defense of pretribulationism that the DOL be extended to include the whole of Daniel’s 70th week in its entirety. For this reason, later dispensationalists corrected the view of earlier pretrib scholars who originally placed the start of the DOL after the tribulation.
This correction was seen as necessary because the 70th week is marked by definite, recognizable signs that must happen first (Joel 3:2, 13-15; Zeph 3:8; Mal 4:5; Acts 2:19-20; 1Thes 5:3; 2Thes 2:3; Rev 16:12-17). But Paul had warned the Thessalonians to “watch and be sober”, lest they too should be overtaken by the thief-like arrival of the DOL (1Thes 5:2-4, 6).
The obvious presence of signs marking the onset of the 70th week, together with Paul’s warning to the Thessalonians to watch and be sober against the danger of unpreparedness, moved later pretrib scholars to relocate the DOL from the end of the tribulation to the start of the seven years. From this time forward, the DOL was assumed to start with the rapture.
This was the standard view until the 1973 publication of Robert H. Gundry’s, “The Church and the Tribulation”. To the chagrin of academic dispensational pretrib scholars, Gundry pointed out that the DOL could not immediately start with an any moment, unsignaled rapture, because Paul cleary said the DOL could not begin until AFTER the man of lawlessness had been revealed first (2Thes 2:3). It was a very simple observation, but due to Gundry’s high academic standing, he captured the attention of the scholarly community debating the rapture question in the seminaries. The academic journals were all abuzz with the newly considered difficulty. What to do? How to answer?
An emergency solution was proposed to which most pretribulationsists today agree. The solution proposed was to make a clearer distinction between the imminent rapture and the non-imminent, clearly signaled DOL. If the imminent, unsignaled, any moment rapture does not happen at the same time of the DOL, (as in the post-trib view of the rapture), Gundry’s argument that the rapture can no longer be held to start the DOL was now beyond reasonable dispute.
For those careful to defend the imminence of the rapture, it was clear that the DOL should be moved once more, this time somewhere AFTER the prior revelation of the man of lawlessness. Thus a new gap of some unknown duration was proposed to solve the problem. Nowadays, (at least to pre-tribulationists aware of the problem with the earlier view), the official position is that a hitherto unnoticed gap of time must be necessarily inferred to exist between the rapture and the start of the DOL. This is in order to give time for the man of lawlessness to be revealed FIRST, BEFORE the DOL can start.
It is a long and laborious discussion, but in order to have the church taken out of the world before the tribulation, dispensationalists must argue for two distinct peoples of God, namely, Israel and the church. This is why the church must be defined in a new way, as a formerly unknown mystery organism, unanticipated and un-foretold in the prophetic writings of the OT, an entirely new mystery to fit into the gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel, between Pentecost and the presumed pre-trib rapture of the church.
According to this new and novel view of the nature of the church, first introduced by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), blood bought, born again saints in the tribulation are not to be reckoned as part of the body of Christ. Even regenerate Jewish and gentile saints of the tribulation period are to be distinguished from the body and bride of Christ.
A consistent distinction between saint and saint, between those living before the rapture and those living after the rapture, is absolutely indispensable to maintaining the church’s absence in the tribulation. Contrary to the view of earlier pretribulationists, later dispensational scholars advocated to change the earlier view that OT saints would be raptured together with the church before the tribulation. But since the advent of Alexander Reese’s, “The Approaching Advent of Christ” (1937), dispensational scholars were moved to make another critical adjustment.
Reese’s argument was beyond dispute. Clearly, and unequivocally, the resurrection of the OT saints was after the tribulation (Job 19:25-26; Isa 25:7-8; 26:19, 21; Dan 12:1-2, 13), at the “last day” (Jn 6:39-40, 44). In other words, the resurrection of the OT saints, as well as the last group of saints yet to be martyred by the beast, are raised at the FIRST resurrection after the tribulation (Rev 6:10-11; 20:4).
This unavoidable acknowledgement compelled dispensational scholars to begin to teac that the righteous of the OT are NOT to be resurrected with the church. This means Abraham, Moses, and the prophets all remain “in the dust of the earth” for an additional seven years while the church attends the marriage supper in heaven. Then, with the “second phase” of His return to set up the millennial kingdom, Jesus will then raise the OT saints together with the tribulation martyrs at the “second phase” of the first (?) resurrection.
Whether or not it is recognized by the average believer in a pre-trib rapture, close lay students, as well as academic scholars are fully aware that maintaining this distinction is indispensable to the defense of a pre-trib removal of the church.
Since the 70th week is marked by definite signs that will be recognized by the saints living in “those days”, the church cannot enter upon any part of Daniel’s last week of years if the doctrine of imminence is to be maintained. Moreover, since the entire seven years is held to be synonymous with the day of the Lord, it is argued that all of the events of that period should be contemplated as a continuously sustained “day of wrath” (Zeph 1:15; Ro 2:5), having only to do with the nation of Israel in particular and the nations in general. Since the church is promised exemption from divine wrath (1Thes 1:10; 5:9), it is reasoned that the church cannot be present during any part of Daniel’s last week.
The persecuted “saints” depicted on the earth at that time (Dan 7:18, 21-22, 25, 27; 8:10; 11:33-35; 12:10; Rev 11:18; 13:7, 10: 14:12-13; 20:4) are believed to belong to a completely distinct and separate people of God, not to be confused with the body of Christ of this present, “church age”. They are often referred to as “tribulation saints” in order to maintain this distinction that has only existed since the time of its first known advocate, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882).
Has the church not welcomed into its ranks a very disarming Trojan Horse?
Next chart proposed:
Connecting the Resurrection, Last Trump, Day of the Lord, Zion’s Travail
The 3 ½ year (half week) unequaled tribulation is everywhere throughout the prophets compared to a woman in travail. We may call this time, “Jacob’s Trouble” or “Zion’s Travail”.
This brief period that comes suddenly and horrifyingly upon the unexpecting nation is not to be confused with the ultimate, post-tribulational, post-darkness DOL that brings us to the great and notable day of the Lord, the great day of God Almighty. As pointed out, this is a single day, the unique day and hour of Jesus’ return to destroy the AC with the Spirit of His mouth when He brings the final stroke of divine judgment on the world of the ungodly. In some significant distinction, the mid-week Antichrist invasion of Israel is spoken of as the onset of the DOL because it so shortly brings the finality of “that day”.
Here are some parallel passages that confirm this very short time that comes suddenly and leads directly into the Day of the Lord is compared to a woman in labor:
Isaiah 13:6-10
Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand;
it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint,
and every man’s heart shall melt:
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them;
they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth:
they shall be amazed one at another;
their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh,
cruel both with wrath and fierce anger,
to lay the land desolate:
and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light:
the sun shall be darkened in his going forth,
and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
5 For thus saith the LORD;
We have heard a voice of trembling,
of fear, and not of peace.
6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child?
wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail,
and all faces are turned into paleness?
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it:
it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;
but he shall be saved out of it. Jeremiah 30:5-7
We can see the undeniable connection. Jeremiah is obviously building on Isaiah’s earlier prophecy of the DOL. Although his prophecy was uniquely serviceable to his own contemporaries who were facing the impending destruction of Jerusalem, how can it be conceived that Jeremiah is speaking of anything less final than the ultimate DOL? And who better than Daniel to give us the authoritative interpretation and ultimate application of Jeremiah’s prophecy of Jacob’s trouble?
Daniel 12:1-2
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake …
We see the climactic end and new beginning in the following passages from Isaiah and his contemporary, Micah. Another contemporary to the north, Hosea will describe the same period as affliction and distress.
Isaiah 26:16-17, 19-21
LORD, in trouble have they visited thee,
they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery,
is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs;
so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.
19 Thy dead men shall live,
together with my dead body shall they arise.
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust:
for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
and the earth shall cast out the dead.
20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers,
and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
until the indignation be overpast.
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:
the earth also shall disclose her blood,
and shall no more cover her slain.
Here again we see the resurrection of the dead and the Lord’s final judgment of His enemies immediately following the birth pangs of Jacob’s trouble.
Isaiah 66:8-10
Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things?
Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day?
or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD:
shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.
10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her:
rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her:
Here is Israel’s post-travail / post-tribulational new birth as an all holy, all saved Jewish nation in analogy with the several scriptures that speak of their spiritual resurrection at the DOL.
Finally, we will mention Micah’s prophecy of the ascent to world dominion of the smitten Davidic ruler from Bethlehem. Here, as in Zech 12:10, we see the most profound intentional analogy to the reunion of Joseph with his estranged brethren, as the Messiah’s brethren return to Him AFTER Zion’s travail, after the long period of divine desertion (the hiding of God’s face), as we will also see in Hosea’s prophecy of the three days.
Micah 5:1-4
Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops:
He (God) hath laid siege against us: they (“His own”) shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.
2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah,
though thou be little among the thousands of Judah,
yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel;
whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
3 Therefore (for this cause) will he give them up,
until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth:
then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.
4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God;
and they shall abide: for now shall He (the smitten ruler from Bethlehem) be great unto the ends of the earth.
Hosea 5:15 – 6:2
I will go and return to My place,
till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face:
in their affliction they will seek me early.
1 Come, and let us return unto the LORD:
for he hath torn, and he will heal us;
he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days will he revive us:
in the third day (millennial day) He will raise us up,
and we shall live in His sight.
Note that the post-tribulational acknowledgement of the ancient offense is met with the everlasting deliverance of the great day.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-3
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
Whereas it may not be only Jews in the Land making this presumptuous declaration in the time just before the onset of the DOL, we take it as especially applying to the false sense of security that will prevail as result of the deadly covenant with death and hell (Isa 28:15, 18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; Dan 9:27; 11:23-24).
Now compare the travail passages and unequaled trouble passages with this most interesting passage from Joel’s description of the unequaled DOL. Observe the remarkably close parallel with Isa 13:6-10 and Jer 30:6-7 shown above. Without question, the same time is in view. Notice how the Land is Edenic for beauty before the locust-like invasion of the “northern army”, but with the ravaging invasion, the Land is turned into “a desolate wilderness”.
Joel 2:1-3, 6, 10-11
Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain:
let all the inhabitants of the land tremble:
for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
A day of darkness and of gloominess,
a day of clouds and of thick darkness,
as the morning spread upon the mountains:
a great people and a strong;
there hath not been ever the like,
neither shall be any more after it,
even to the years of many generations.
A fire devoureth before them;
and behind them a flame burneth:
the land is as the garden of Eden before them,
and behind them a desolate wilderness;
yea, and nothing shall escape them …
Before their face the people shall be much pained:
all faces shall gather blackness …
The earth shall quake before them;
the heavens shall tremble:
the sun and the moon shall be dark,
and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army:
for his camp is very great:
for he is strong that executeth his word:
for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible;
and who can abide it?
This doesn’t bode well for the completely irresponsible, entirely unscriptural statement that “the Land of Israel will be the safest place for Jews during the great tribulation”. (see this morning’s email answer to a question on the order of the return).
Lastly, we want to compare parallel verses aligning the resurrection of the righteous with Isaiah’s “great trumpet” (Isa 27:13), Paul’s “last trump” (1Cor 15:52), Jesus’ “great sound of a trumpet” (Mt 24:31), and Revelation’s “seventh trumpet” (Rev 10:7; 11:15). We do this in order to better assess where we want to stand on the question of the time and relationship of these trumpets, and whether there is more than one resurrection in view.
Isaiah 27:12-13
And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the LORD shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt,
and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the great trumpet shall be blown,
and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria,
and the outcasts in the land of Egypt,
and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
Note that this time and this return of the saved survivors of Israel returning by natural transport over the dried up waterways is recorded in Isa 11:10-12, 15-16 & Zech 10:10-11.
Matthew 24:29-31
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Matthew 24:29-31
Revelation 10:7
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
Revelation 11:15, 18-19
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. … And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
It is agreed by all that the above trumpets all have reference to a final trumpet that sounds at the end of the tribulation. All agree that there will be a resurrection at this time. Now we come to Paul’s two references to a trumpet. All agree that Paul’s reference to the “trump of God” in 1Thes 4:16
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
and the “last trump” in 1Cor 15:51-52
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
both refer to the same trumpet coinciding with the resurrection, but some believe this trumpet sounds seven years earlier than the trumpets of Isaiah, Jesus, and John’s Revelation. Let us now review the larger context of Paul’s reference to the last trump and see if it is possible, or likely that this last trump is different from the trumpets that sound at the resurrection of the saints at the end of the tribulation.
1 Corinthians 15:51-55
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, THEN shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Here Paul mentions in support two OT references that are clearly and undeniably POST-tribulational in their original context and intention. Is Paul repurposing these references, or is he showing the time that they will be fulfilled for “all who belong to Christ”? (1Cor 15:23, 52). Let’s look at the two passages he cites and see if they are fulfilled at the time of Isaiah’s, Jesus, and Revelation’s trumpets, or at an earlier trumpet that just happens to be called “last”.
Isaiah 25:6-8
And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people
a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees,
of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
7 And he will destroy in this mountain
the face of the covering cast over all people,
and the vail that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death in victory;
and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces;
and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth:
for the LORD hath spoken it.
Hosea 13:13-14
The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him …
I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death:
O death, I will be thy plagues;
O grave, I will be thy destruction:
repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
In both places the time is clear. Isaiah’s reference in particular is set in a context recognized as a distinct section called, “Isaiah’s little apocalypse”. This includes chapters 24-27, and all are in reference to the Day of the Lord, Israel’s final trouble and resurrection. It is therefore significant that here is where we find Isaiah’s reference to the great deliverance trumpet (Isa 27:13) connected to the post-tribulation salvation and return of Israel.
As mentioned, Job’s, Isaiah’s, Daniel’s, and the saved remnant of national Israel are all raised at the time of the trumpet that follows the tribulation. How then can we suppose that Paul’s last trumpet is NOT the time that this particular saying which is written is brought to pass? The last trump is the stated time of the fulfillment of these OT references to Israel’s resurrection “IMMEDIATELY AFTER” the tribulation, and should it not be the time of the church’s resurrection? We have shown the plain evidence that such a view leaves the OT righteous “in the dust of the earth” for an additional seven years after the taking up of the church. Such a view is awkward to say the least. You be the judge.
