This is DAY TWENTY THREE of the daily devotional.

I am releasing a 50 day daily devotional about the end-times as revealed in Scripture. Along with the text, I will be providing a video where I cover the text of the day, and Hive account@verbal-d will be providing an audio version of it. That way, whether you want to read, watch, or listen, you'll be able to enjoy this study as you wish.

The plan is to release this devotional over the next 50 consecutive days, but life may "get in the way." We will do our best, but please be patient with me if I fall behind.

The SoundCloud Audio from Hive account@verbal-d

The YouTube Video from Hive account@papa-pepper

The Text I Originally Shared on the Hive account@narrowminded Account

DAY 23 - "OLIVET DISCOURSE" : ARMAGEDDON OR RAPTURE Part 2

As we prepare to compare, let’s review what is said of the “coming” spoken of in the “Olivet Discourse”.

“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. 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 24:30-31)

“And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.” (Mark 13:26-27)

In these “Olivet Discourse” passages we find the following information. Jesus appears in the clouds, and sends His angels with a great sound of a trumpet to gather His elect. Some will claim that the “elect” are the Jews of future Israel, but every other time “elect” is used to refer to humans in the New Testament, it is simply referring to believers (saints). When we compare this information with the “Battle of Armageddon” return characteristics from Zechariah, we notice a difference. Though Jesus was sitting upon the Mount of Olives when He gave the “Olivet Discourse,” He makes no mention of it at all, much less it splitting in half. He could have easily cited such as evidence that He was not yet returned in verses such as this, “And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:” (Mark 13:21). If Christ added, “For the Mount of Olives is not split” after “believe him not,” it would be exponentially more difficult for false Christs to deceive the people.

Additionally, no angels or trumpet are mentioned in Zechariah 14:3-5. Perhaps the most persuasive piece of evidence (besides Christ landing on the Mount of Olives and splitting it) would be that Zechariah states that He will come with “all the saints.” “All” is a very important number. There would be no need to gather any more unto Him, if they were already all with Him. When we compare the 1 Thessalonians “rapture passage” to the event described in the “Olivet Discourse”, what do we find? First, Christ is in the air in both passages, and believers are gathered together to Him. Also, we read of “a great sound of a trumpet” in the “Olivet Discourse” and “the trump of God” in 1 Thessalonians. Though only one angel is mentioned in the “rapture passage” (“with a shout, with the voice of the archangel”) and multiple angels (“then shall he send his angels”) in the “Olivet Discourse,” there is specific mention of angelic presence in each of these passages, which Zechariah does not mention.

You can look into this issue more for yourself, but based upon what I can determine thus far from Scripture, I am sure that you can reason why I believe that the coming mentioned in the “Olivet Discourse” appears to have much more in common with Christ’s rapture return than with His coming for the “Battle of Armageddon.”

Point #1: Similarities between the “coming” described in the “Olivet Discourse” and what we are told about Christ’s coming for the “Battle of Armageddon” do not seem to exist.

Point #2: Many similarities exist between the “rapture passage” in 1 Thessalonians and the coming described in the “Olivet Discourse”.

CLOSER

If anyone is really interested, I did post the entire volume through an alt account over a year ago. I did so as an experiment to see how hard it would be for a new user to get noticed on steemit, so I didn't let anyone know that I was doing it. You can click here to a post that has links to the entire 50 days of this devotional if you really want to read ahead. That information has always been available there since I first posted it. It is not the purpose of this series to just copy all of my previous work, but instead to transform it into some new outlets by releasing it in an audio and video format, to broaden the reach that this work has.

Again, though I will certainly never claim to know it all, I do believe that many are being lead astray by some popular beliefs. I hope that this project will be able to help many others understand the end-times more accurately. Thanks!

Just in case you are new to this series and wanted to check out the previous audio or videos, here are links to the posts from each day of this series.

Also - A special thanks to Hive account@allforthegood for helping design my cover image!

Until next time…

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GIF provided by Hive account@orelmely

50 DAYS TO UNDERSTANDING THE END-TIMES MORE ACCURATELY - DAY 23 - "OLIVET DISCOURSE" : ARMAGEDDON OR RAPTURE Part 2 - AUDIO & VIDEO