So, where does the rapture occur in the book of Revelation?
Well, if you ask those who believe in a pre-trib rapture, they'll tell you that the rapture
occurs in Revelation 4-1.
Let me read it for you.
The Bible reads, after this I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven and the first
voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me which said, come up hither
and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.
Now, those who believe in the pre-trib rapture, they claim to interpret the Bible literally,
but yet they take a verse that's about one man being caught up to heaven to be shown
the events of the book of Revelation.
They say that's the rapture of every believer.
Now that's not a literal interpretation at all.
They say, well, but John symbolizes the church there.
Well, here's the problem with that.
They forgot to read verse 2.
The Bible says in verse 2, and immediately I was in the spirit and behold a throne was
set in heaven and one sat on the throne.
Right there John makes it clear that he was not bodily caught up into heaven in Revelation
4-1.
He was caught up in spirit.
He did not even physically go to heaven.
He was only caught up in spirit.
And so this has nothing to do with the rapture because the rapture is a bodily resurrection.
The Bible says the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air.
The Bible says we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment and twinkling
of an eye.
At the last trump the dead shall be raised incorruptible.
Look, it's a bodily resurrection of the dead in Christ and it's a physical changing of
our bodies in a moment and a twinkling of an eye.
The resurrection or the rapture is a bodily occurrence.
It's not some kind of a spiritual rapture.
We're not going to be raptured spiritually, we're going to be raptured bodily.
The dead in Christ will be caught up bodily.
And Revelation 4-1 is talking about being in the spirit.
This can't be talking about the rapture.
It's one guy.
It's being caught up in spirit.
And not only that, no trumpet sounds in this verse.
He said he heard a voice as it were of a trumpet.
He's saying as if it were a trumpet.
What he means by that is a loud voice.
He heard a voice that sounded like a trumpet.
But at the rapture it won't be a voice that sounds like a trumpet, it will be a trumpet.
Not a voice that sounds like a trumpet, but a real trumpet.
And so Revelation 4-1 is not the rapture at all.