Archive for March, 2015
Perfect Timing! PreTrib Rapture Naysayer Proves His Own Alarming Myopia!
In one swell swoop, they combine two errors into one and believe they are correct. Is it any wonder they are so judgmental toward people who don’t believe as they do? They believe they and they alone have the truth. People who don’t see eye to eye with them on the return of Jesus, the Rapture, etc., can and do lose any salvation they may have had. They do not believe in eternal security and while this is not common for all PostTribbers, it seems to be an ever-present issue for many.
Because they believe they and they alone are correct, they have established this arrogance in that they believe they are obligated to castigate, denigrate, and condemn anyone who doesn’t agree with them. The PreTribber (like myself) is considered to be the most egregious individual of all because they believe I am fully deceived, unsaved, and deceiving those who are either saved (but in danger of losing their salvation) or on their way to possibly being saved and I’m (according to PostTribbers) are driving them off the path.
Does a Gap Exist Between 69th and 70th Weeks or Not?
Here’s the problem though. After Jesus died (and rose again), the city of Jerusalem and Temple were not destroyed until some 40 years later by the Romans (AD 70). If the second item above refers to the city of Jerusalem and the Temple physically being destroyed as we believe it does, then that event alone overshoots the whole thing by approximately 33 years! The third item above – there will be war and desolations until the end – also presents a problem. What does “until the end” mean? It clearly can only mean the end of man-led human history. In other words, the “end” is referring to Jesus’ 2nd coming. The old rabbinical sages believed there are only two ages. There is this age in which we live and the coming age of the Messiah.
Between the 69th and 70th SEVENS
That there is a “gap” of indeterminate amount of time between the 69th “week” and the 70th “week” is a problem for many. The folks who ignore or reject this idea do so because they think that people like me have simply and arbitrarily put an artificial “gap” between those “weeks” because we felt like, because that’s how we make things work. Not so. In fact, not even close.
No, the Tribulation Has Not Yet Begun, Period
As he prayed and even before he had concluded his prayer, the angelic messenger Gabriel came to him to explain some things to Daniel (cf. Daniel 9:20-23). Gabriel essentially told Daniel that yes, the 70 year captivity was nearly over and the Jewish people would be released from that captivity and allowed to return to Jerusalem. However – and Gabriel made this clear – that another form of captivity would affect the Jewish people, the state of Israel, and the Temple Mount for not 70 years, but 70 “sevens,” (that is the English word of the original word that was used in the text, though most translators translated the word not to “sevens” but to “weeks.”)
What Gabriel was saying was that there would be 70 sevens (or 70 groupings of seven) in which the Temple Mount would be trod underfoot and controlled by Gentiles. This became known as the “times of the Gentiles” and began with the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar.
Jesus Culture: Emotionally Charged and Sensory Driven
The reality is that the Bible never speaks of huge revivals happening the last days. It speaks of horrors that are difficult to imagine, persecution that is off the charts, yet in the midst of it, people will be saved. They won’t be saved because of Jesus Culture’s loud, sensory-driven (and manipulative) music either. They will be saved by the solid preaching of the truth – God’s Word – just as occurred with Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). There was no music, no lights, no fog machines. There was simply one man, empowered by God’s Holy Spirit to speak the truth (not platitudes) to people who desperately needed to hear it.
Rapture Will Impact the World as Will the Deluding Influence that Follows It
We think we have it bad now in the world? This pales in comparison to what life will be like in the future after the Church is Raptured and the deluding influence is sent by God so that people willfully embrace what is false. The aftermath of both events (Rapture and the delusion sent by God) will be so devastating and so pervasive throughout global society that people will actually wish for death because they believe that at least the horrors of this life will be over (cf. Revelation 9:6). Those who think that way of course have no understanding of who God is and the fact that He is everywhere at once. To go from this life to the next without Jesus means to lose every opportunity to see the truth regarding salvation.
Folks, is there any other reason you can think of that should cause us to increase our efforts to evangelize the lost? I can’t think of one. It is time for you to reach out to friends, neighbors, and even family to share with them the only information that can provide them with the possibility of receiving salvation.
Rapture, Increasing Lawlessness, and the Tribulation, Part 3
The Rapture is PreTrib in nature. It will happen prior to the beginning of the Tribulation. It needs to do so in order that lawlessness might become truly lawless. This will help pave the way in global society to receive the “man of sin” who will be the embodiment of lawlessness himself. It is not so much that the world itself will become more evil through malicious crimes and lack of concern for other humans. That will certainly be part of it. The lawlessness that Paul speaks of is the result of global society doing everything they can to rid themselves of the belief in God and His absolute truth.
As long as the true Church is in society, the Holy Spirit holds things in check, not allowing this world to become as lawless as it will be once the true Church is gone. Once the true Church is gone, so too, is a major avenue of influence that the Holy Spirit uses to literally keep Satan at bay. Lawlessness in the form of a society being thoroughly “anti-God” will become so emboldened leading up to the Tribulation (after the Rapture) that as Jesus said, “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will,” (Matthew 24:21).
Rapture, Increasing Lawlessness, and the Tribulation, Part 2
We know that what is happening in society right now is due to the growing apostasy/falling away from any and every law that even smacks of being from the God of the Bible. It will only worsen once the Church is gone, taken by God in the Rapture. This is reminiscent of God “taking” Noah and his family in the protective shelter of the Ark, as they floated above the earth on top of the water (since there was no mountain God could have placed them as occurred with the situation with Lot. While some argue that God kept Noah and his family safe during the flood (but not out of the flood), it’s a bit of a moot point since there was actually no place on earth God could have placed them where they would have been safe, given that the entire earth was covered with water, extending 15 meters beyond the tallest mountain according to the Genesis account.
Rapture, Increasing Lawlessness, and the Tribulation, Part 1
Besides the constant push toward evil that currently exists in global society, certain events highlighted in the Bible will play their part in allowing and advocating a greater advance of evil than would have occurred had those events not happened at all. Certainly one large, unmistakable event is the Rapture. Yet, too many people tend to think of the Rapture as merely an event in which millions of authentic Christians “escape” from this planet. That is certainly part of it; one side of the coin. However, the other part of the coin – as the result of the Rapture occurring – is represented by the things that occur in society because the Rapture has taken place. This cannot be stressed enough.
Any Connection Between Technocracy and the Rapture?
Think about how much debt America currently has. It’s well over $17 trillion. Some economists say it’s a lot more than that. Yet, the system using the dollar continues. How does that happen? Obviously, the economy of the United States is being artificially supported or it’s going to take even more debt to bring it all tumbling down. If the former, then America’s economy is being supported until the envisioned Technocracy can come to full term. If the latter, the proper tipping point has not been achieved yet. In either case, there will be some catalyst (from within or without) that will create just the right situation to bring America’s economy falling down.
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