I listened to a sermon on Revelation 8 by Steven Anderson, again. Pastor Anderson said something that jumped up and slapped me in the face. So, I went looking and found more things that slapped me in the face.
Anderson pointed out Matthew 24:29 does NOT say: Immediately after the Tribulation of those days God pours out his wrath upon the earth.
He pointed out Revelation 7:1-3 confirms this saying: After these things... After WHAT things? The things that will happen immediately after the Tribulation - Revelation 6:12-17. They echo Matthew 24.
Here are the things that will take place AFTER the Tribulation when the 6th seal is opened:
There will be a great earthquake.
The sun and moon are darkened.
The sun turns black as sackcloth of hair.
The moon turns red as blood.
The stars fall.
The heavens are shaken.
The heavens depart as a scroll.
The mountains and islands are moved.
The 144,000 are sealed.
The martyrs come out of Great Tribulation and appear at the foot of the throne.
The sign of the Son of man.
The dead in Christ rise first.
Those who are alive and remain are gathered.
The entire earth shall mourn.
The 7th seal is opened.
There is 30 minutes of silence in heaven.
The angel filling a censer w/ fire and casting it down to earth.
Voices/thunderings/lightnings/earthquake.
The 7 angels prepare to sound their trumpets.
Refer to the charts to see the corresponding verses that go with the events above.
It looks like, to me, that the things that happen immediately after the Tribulation and before God pours out his wrath could easily take place over a 5 day period. The Rapture itself may not take 5 days but, all of the events including the Rapture will take place over 5 days, I believe.
We know the Tribulation lasts 1260 days.
We know the Great Tribulation lasts 75 days.
We know God's Wrath lasts 1185 days.
And, we know the Temple will be cleansed in 30 days.
This totals 2550 days, 5 days short of 7 years or 2555 days.
I have only ever heard preachers suggest the Rapture takes a moment. It happens in the twinkling of an eye. It could be a SECRET Rapture. It will happen so fast that people will WONDER what happened. People could even MISS SEEING it. It could even happen today.
Lately, my thoughts have been that this kind of Rapture robs God of his Glory. That's what the devil really wants to do... rob God of his Glory... right?
And then one thing from Matthew 24:30 just 'hit' me, too. Matthew 24:30 says people will SEE his POWER and GREAT GLORY! There is no POWER and no GREAT GLORY in a secret Rapture. There is no POWER and no GREAT GLORY in a Rapture that happens so fast that people will even wonder if anything happened at all. The Rapture will not be a MYSTERY when it happens. Every body will know. Every eye shall see his POWER and GREAT GLORY... not 'just' GLORY but GREAT GLORY.
Do not minimize the Rapture... make the Rapture GLORIOUS! Paint a GLORIOUS picture.
These events will not take place in a few seconds or minutes or an hour or a few hours. We are talking about GREAT GLORY! GREAT... GLORY!
The sun and moon are going to be darkened... blackened as sack cloth of hair. Blackened? BY WHAT? By clouds? By horses? By angels? And what else? Ultimately, BELIEVERS. Can you imagine seeing hundreds of thousands of angels, horses and believers up in the clouds in a DARK sky? I can 'see' the entire SKY FILLED with beings, hundreds of thousand of beings. Oh. And, that's just going to take seconds? No. There is no POWER in that... there is no GREAT GLORY in that.
The stars are going to fall. People are going to see stars fall. Wait a minute. There are stars BIGGER than the earth. The stars are going to fall, travel hundreds of light-years in seconds and destroy the earth? No. The stars are angels 'falling' to earth and gathering up believers. One falls down. Two come back up. Another falls down. Two more come back up.
This is going to be a spectacle people are going to watch and marvel over until every believer has been gathered up. It will be glorious.
ALL of the tribes of earth will MOURN because they shall SEE EVERYTHING... the sun and moon darkened, the stars falling, the clouds, the horses, the dead in Christ gathered up first. And then... ROUND TWO! Those who are alive and remain will be gathered up, too.
Do you know where Jesus and the horses and the angels and the believers will be during this time? All they have to do is stay in ONE place between the sun and the earth and that will darken the sun and the moon. The earth will complete it's rotation in 24 hours. They just have to hang out up in the sky for a couple of days collecting believers, displaying God's POWER and GREAT GLORY. They can move from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere and then repeat the process again.
Preachers are AFRAID of painting a picture filled with THAT kind of GREAT GLORY. They are afraid of saying this GREAT & GLORIOUS event will last 5 DAYS. That's crazy. That's unimaginable. No preacher in his right mind would ever go against the common belief that ALL of these events take place in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
Is there GREAT GLORY in anything less?
When will this 5 day event take place? It will START with the Day of Atonement and END 5 days later with the Feast of Booths, I believe.
Can you imagine what the Pre-Trib preachers are going to go through when the 1st 4 seals are opened and 2 billion people die? Everybody is going to ask... is this it? Is it time for the Pre-Trib Rapture? Where is it? Why are we going through Tribulation if all of the preachers say we have a get out of Tribulation Free card to play?
Update: I don't think the stars falling from heaven are the angels. They could be though. I think the stars falling are the saints. There is no mention of the saints coming back with Jesus in the clouds until after the thousand year reign. Maybe the stars are the angels AND the saints. One day we'll find out for sure.