Timing of the Tribulation

[graftedbranch]

I am a pre-tribber and believe the rapture of the church could be at any moment. But my question is "does the tribulation start immediately after the rapture?"
Or is it possible there is an undisclosed amount of time between the two events? ie. the way many of the disciples and members of the early church thought the Second Coming would be in their lifetime.
:scratch

Please provide scriptural reference to support your replies.
Thanks in advance for your help.


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[Hootmon]

I am a pre-tribber and believe the rapture of the church could be at any moment. But my question is "does the tribulation start immediately after the rapture?"
Or is it possible there is an undisclosed amount of time between the two events? The Rapture doesnt 'trigger' the Trib. The Trib is triggered by the signing of a 'peace treaty' by the AC.

So to answer your questions... There may or may not be a 'gap' between the Rapture and the beginning fo the Trib.

Personally, I suspect there will be a gap, but it cant be proven conclusively from Scripture.

[SetApart]

there was a period of time between God shutting up the doors of noah's ark and the rain beginning to fall...

can't recall how much time though....

[Compatriot G]

Gen 7:7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
Gen 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
Gen 7:9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
Gen 7:10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

[SetApart]

Gen 7:7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
Gen 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
Gen 7:9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
Gen 7:10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

very interesting (thanks for looking that up--i was running around last night i didnt get a chance to :))

so...at least according to this scenario (which is the comparison that God uses to describe the end of days) that the "great escape" took place 7 days prior to the onset of judgment. OR i wonder if it happened immediately because the it sounds like the rain started immediately if "it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth" meant that it took 7 days to flood after it started raining. in that case, it sounds IMMEDIATE...

thoughts?

[Hootmon]

The Noah timeline is fairly complex.

Gen 7:6 Noach was 600 years old when the water flooded the earth.
Gen 7:7 Noach went into the ark with his sons, his wife and his sons' wives, because of the floodwaters.

Gen 7:10 After seven days the water flooded the earth.
Gen 7:11 On the seventeenth day of the second month of the 600th year of Noach's life all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of the sky were opened.
Gen 7:12 It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.

Gen 7:17 The flood was forty days on the earth; the water grew higher and floated the ark, so that it was lifted up off the earth.

Gen 7:24 The water held power over the earth for 150 days.

Gen 8:3 and the water came back from completely covering the earth. It was after 150 days that the water went down.
Gen 8:4 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
Gen 8:5 The water kept going down until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen.

Gen 8:6 After forty days Noach opened the window of the ark which he had built;
Gen 8:7 and he sent out a raven, which flew back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.
Gen 8:8 Then he sent out a dove, to see if the water had gone from the surface of the ground.
Gen 8:9 But the dove found no place for her feet to rest, so she returned to him in the ark, because the water still covered the whole earth. He put out his hand, took her and brought her in to him in the ark.
Gen 8:10 He waited another seven days and again sent the dove out from the ark.
Gen 8:11 The dove came in to him in the evening, and there in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf, so Noach knew that the water had cleared from the earth.
Gen 8:12 He waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, and she didn't return to him any more.
Gen 8:13 By the first day of the first month of the 601st year the water had dried up from off the earth; so Noach removed the covering of the ark and looked; and, yes, the surface of the ground was dry.
Gen 8:14 It was on the twenty-seventh day of the second month that the earth was dry.

The entire timeline, from being sealed inthe Ark to Dry Land, stretched from Day 17 Month 2 Year 600 to Day 27 Month 2 Year 601, or slightly over one year.

How that applies to the Rapture/Trib I have no idea.

[Compatriot G]

The only correlation I can see in this is possibly a reference to the final week. Genesis 7:10 says that seven days after Noah and his family went into the ark, the Flood started. This might show a pre-trib rapture. I know there will be judgments during the final week, but the real show begins at the end of the seven years when Christ returns. Other than that, I don't know if you can make anything else out of it.

[Mike]

What about the fact that the Church won't be around when the AC is revealed, together with the fact that the AC needs to be revealed in order to close the deal on the peace treaty that starts the tribulation. Does that imply a period of time between the rapture and the start of the trib?

[SetApart]

The only correlation I can see in this is possibly a reference to the final week. Genesis 7:10 says that seven days after Noah and his family went into the ark, the Flood started. This might show a pre-trib rapture. I know there will be judgments during the final week, but the real show begins at the end of the seven years when Christ returns. Other than that, I don't know if you can make anything else out of it.

another feature about the comparison between end times and days of noah, is that noah escaped the wrath of his day---and God gave him PRECISE and incredibly detailed instructions on HOW to escape (read the passages about how he was instructed to build his ark, get the animals, etc)....

if we were to endure ANY of the tribulation, i would imagine that we would have PRECISE and incredibly detailed instruction on how to escape or endure the tribulation IF WE WERE MEANT TO BE HERE.

i think our escape is spelled out in 2 thessalonians!! i think the absence of instructions for enduring the tribulation speaks VERY favorably to a pre-trib rapture!

[CHRISTinCheryl]

I suspect, but cant prove, that there will most likely be a time-gap between the Rapture and Start of Tribulation,and the Confirming :rolleyes of a Covenant with Many for one week ( Daniel 9:27).... Ive heard some teachers say it could be weeks or many months between the two:idunno