The following post is actually an email that i wrote to a friend last nite, becuase my friend believes the rapture and even the last trumpet is before the tribulation days. This contradicts the bible, and this is how i explained it to him... WHEN IS THE LAST TRUMPET? THE CONTEXT GIVES US THE ANSWER! 1 Corinthians 15 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “ O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The key word’s to note about v 54 is that death is “SWALLOWED UP”! There is only ONE time in scripture that DEATH is swallowed up, and Paul is actually quoting from Isaiah 25:8 where reveals that at the SAME time death is swallowed up, God wipes the tears from every eye, as we read: Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death forever, And the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the LORD has spoken. Now these same two events: 1. death being swallowed up and 2. God wiping the tears from every eye, are quoted in the book of revelations and the context they are written in in revelations, reveals that these events happen AFTER the tribulation days! Rev 21:4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death This is because Paul had already established in 1 Corinthians 15:26 that “the LAST enemy to be destroyed is death!” So, keeping v 26 in mind that the LAST enemy to be destroyed (or ‘swallowed up’ as v 54 puts it) is DEATH! Therefore, when in v 51 paul says the last trumpet sounds, and ‘death is swallowed up’, this is the FULFILMENT of both Isaiah 25:8 and 1 Cor 15:26! Therefore, the answer to the debate as to whether the “last trump” is before or after the tribulation days, is REVEALED by the context in which the last trumpet is mentioned – aka the context of the last trumpet reveals that as the last trumpet sounds, death is swallowed (no more!). The fact that the context shows when it sounds there is no more death, TOTALLY points to the fact that the last trumpet can only be AFTER the tribulation days (which is when the rest of the bible shows death is no more). In other words, when the last trumpet sounds, death is swallowed up – which means – there is NO MORE DEATH! Death is DEFEATED! SWALLOWED UP! FINISHED! So to say the “last trumpet” sounds BEFORE the tribulation days means you believe that death is swallowed up (aka no more death) from that time on - but we know this cant be true, because there is MUCH Death going on during the tribulation days – which means that last trump (and death being swallowed up aka no more death) HAS to be after, because the ONLY time in scripture that death is no more, and every tear is wiped, is AFTER the tribulation days, as revelation reveals. If that is not clear enough, this is as plain as I can put it: As paul says, death is the LAST enemy to be destroyed, then paul goes onto explain that death is destroyed at the last trumpet. Therefore to say that the ‘last trumpet’ is before the tribulation days (which pre tribbers do say) means that death would have to be destroyed before the tribulation days (because the last trumpet heralds the swallowing up of death!) But we know that death cant be defeated before the tribulation days, because death is the LAST enemy to be destroyed (and death reigns all through the tribulation days!), and if death was swallowed up / defeated before the tribulation days, then that contradicts because there is still the antichrist to be destroyed (which would mean death is NOT the last enemy, if in fact the last trumpet was before the tribulation). cheers phil