MIKE BICKLE APOCALYPSE & THE END TIMES, GOD TV: a theological proofreading note

Mike Bickle, discussing his rejection of the pre-trib rapture view on, I think, two talks on GOD TV repeated
umpteen times throughout December 2009, effectively runs around with the goal posts in his hands in terms
of his use of the word ark. In his first use of the word ark he uses it as a metaphor for GOING THROUGH the
tribulation; believers on earth are protected just like Noah & co were on the ark.

But in his second use of ARK he effectively uses it in the opposite sense, a pre-trib rapture. He speaks of the
Chinese experience whereby believers were expecting to be raptured but instead went through intense
persecution and martyrdom: 'If we get to the end times and there's no ark ... ' [people will get 'OFFENDED'].
This effectively implies the ark metaphor to mean pre-trib rapture, certainly for those disappointed Chinese;
otherwise what would people be getting offended at the absence of? Protection on earth throughout the
tribulation? Which is precisely what Mike previously used ARK to represent; if Mike meant that there is no
special protection on earth for believers in the tribulation, which the wider context of his GOD TV sessions on
the Apocalypse & the End Times shows he does not, then the very ark metaphor would be redundant in the
tribulation context; in fact Mike is quite emphatic that Revelation is bad news for the antichrist and
unbelievers, not for believers. But, getting back to the two and shifting uses of the ark metaphor, in reality the
pre-trib rapture is, in pre-trib thought and articles, paralleled not with the ark but with the assumption/rapture
of Enoch, which is thought to be a type or prequel of the rapture, as is also the case of Elijah.

So to switch from ark as protection on earth to ark as removal from earth is a confusion of categories.

Another issue is that Mike says he has pre-trib friends and he does not fall out with them because what
matters is that when 'we' go, however we go, 'we're all going together'. This does not necessarily follow at all
because the church of Philadelphia which is to be kept from the hour of trial coming on the whole earth
represents only one of the seven churches, ie the most faithful, like Enoch, and these churches can be taken
as types of the different churches throughout the church age until its consummation; this is certainly how
Chuck Missler sees it. Therefore Mike could be imposing a false dichotomy here. A pre-trib rapture might not
include all believers even from that point in time.

Matthew 24, which does not appear to be the same as 1 Thess 4 and 1 Cor 15, could be a gathering of
tribulation believers in the run-up to the Second Coming proper whereby the pre-trib Philadelphia-church
saints arrive with Christ. Another issue is the geographical focus, if any, of these texts: Israel or the whole
world? Clearly, in Mt 24 Jesus was prophesying the fall of Jerusalem in AD70 but the Son of Man did not
return on the clouds of heaven back then. So what is the extent or confines of the geographical locale in Mt
24 in terms of believers?

Many issues; Hal Lindsay points out that just like the Jews did not discern between the first and second
comings in OT prophecies of the Messiah, so too there could be a failure of Christians to see the Second
Coming as comprising stages. Does Mt 24 sound to you like it happens in the twinkling of an eye? I think
not. How can the sign of the Son of Man in the sky over which people will mourn be visible 'in those days'
over a mere split second of people's bodies being changed? Given that the Son of Man is supposed to come
at an hour that no one is expecting?