Does Christs promise in Revelation 3:10 to “keep from the hour of testing” indicate a pre-trib rapture?
In Rev.3:10, the Lord promises the Church in Philadelphia : “since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.” —-This scripture might conceivably indicate a pre-trib removal of the church if the Church in Philadelphia stood for the generation right before the beginning of the tribulation. —-However, if you take this portion of Scripture in its most straight-forward and normal (literal) way, then the Lord Jesus is talking to the local church in Philadelphia (Asia) in 96 A.D. In commenting about this passage, Dr. Wilbur M. Smith writes that the interpretation which says these seven churches (in Rev. chs. 2 & 3) represent seven successive periods of church history “will reveal confusion upon confusion.” (Wycliffe Bible Commentary “Revelation”, W.Smith, Moody Press). I agree. Those seven churches do not match the periods of the history of the Church very well.
