Does the 144,000 have something to do with jehova witnesses?What are your thoughtd on the anti Christ and Armageddon and or the rapture and what's the difference?
Let me just quickly address the rapture concept to illustrate my point. The Rapture would be the shortest explanation of the three you ask about. This is as brief as I can get and I am leaving a TON out. The Bible doesn't speak of a rapture the way it is traditionally viewed. The traditional view is that prior to the end of times, the faithful will ascend to heaven and be spared the ravages and catastrophes that God will inflict upon the Earth when the Son of Man comes who will defeat evil and establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. The problem is that there is no account in the Bible that says that. That traditional view is the result of the predictions of Jesus, Paul, and Revelation being jammed together to make one story.
Jesus predicted that the Son of Man would come and would bring judgement upon the Earth and usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth. But there was no predictions of world-wide disasters or wars or anything of that nature. In fact, according to Mark, it had already been accomplished by the mere presence of Jesus. There was no mass ascension of the faithful to heaven. So for Jesus, God's kingdom would be on Earth, the future of the faithful was on Earth, but there would be no mass ascension or world-wide disasters.
Paul predicted a mass ascension of the faithful (living and dead) to heaven before God punished the wicked on Earth. BUT, man's future was in heaven and not on Earth. For Paul, once the faithful ascended to heaven, the Earth became an afterthought and everyone would live in harmony with God in heaven. So according to Paul, there would be a mass ascension, there would be punishment on Earth for the wicked, but God's kingdom and the future of the faithful was in heaven and not on Earth.
Revelation predicts that there will be disasters and wars, God's kingdom will come to Earth in the form of new Jerusalem, but contrary to popular belief it does not predict a mass ascension. There is the suggestion of a limited ascension of 144,000 (and that's a LONG story), but not the mass ascension that Paul predicted. In Revelation, man's future is on Earth and not in heaven.
So what the church did was to take the Son of Man and judgement from Jesus, God's kingdom on Earth from Jesus and Revelation, the mass ascension from Paul, and the wars and devastation from Revelation and crammed them all together to create the concept of the Rapture. Unfortunately, none of those three sources describe it in the traditional way that we think of it today. Therefore, the traditional account of the Rapture is merely an attempt by the church to iron out contradictions between those sources by crushing them all together and creating their own story. In short, scripture does not support the traditional concept of a Rapture. This is very common, unfortunately, when distinguishing between religious dogma and actual scripture.