Posts filed under ‘rapture’
Who or What is the Restrainer that Paul Speaks of? Part 2
Paul implies that the Thessalonian readers already knew who the restrainer was because Paul had already told them (“you know what restrains him”). With reference to evil – the lawless one, defined also as the “mystery of lawlessness” – that is defined with a personal pronoun as well. Evil resides in Satan. He is thoroughly evil and one day, he will have a “spiritual” son who will do his bidding. That son will be the Antichrist and he will be completely indwelt by Satan. In fact, this “indwelling” will mimic the way the Holy Spirit indwells each believer.
Who or What is the Restrainer that Paul Speaks of? Part 1
How does one come away from a verse like that and determine that it was not God Himself who restrained Satan? It can only be done through exceedingly poor and sloppy exegesis of His Word. God spoke a warning to Satan, telling him he could do anything he wanted to Job except touch him on his person. Later, we know that God modified this to allow Satan to do what he wanted with Job except take his life. Why did Satan obey? Because it was God who gave him his marching orders, not some impersonal barrier or “restraint” that has no mind or power of its own. The restraint was literally God’s Word, which is God Himself (John 1:1).
An Event That Will Shatter World Equilibrium
It is the Rapture that is expectantly waited on by the powers of darkness. They know that once it occurs, the Holy Spirit will no longer have the invisible Church through which to work, to convict the world of sin and to call them to righteousness. At that point, Satan and his minions will have far greater leeway to work. They will not hesitate to use every dark art to their advantage as they race toward the culmination of human history in Armageddon. Satan actually believes he has a chance of “besting” God, but we know that Satan (via Antichrist) will be destroyed by a word from the mouth of our returning Jesus, during His Second Advent (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
Meaning of “Day of the Lord” Part 2
It is important to understand first, that the “day of the Lord” (DOTL) often represents a span of time, not a singular day or one single event. We’ll look to Scripture in a moment to provide some examples. Note also that there are many different names for this period, depending upon the person called upon by the Lord to write a section of His Word. The phrase DOTL (or its equivalent) is used some 20 or so times in the Old Testament. Because of that, it is imperative to thoroughly research each usage to determine if/how they tie together.
Meaning of “Day of the Lord” Part 1
The “day of the Lord” is another one of those subjects that people like to discuss and even argue over. For some, it means a certain length of time when the Lord will do a specific work. In that case, while it culminates in the return of the Lord on a specific “day,” the phrase “day of the Lord” includes other events as well. For instance, some believe that the Tribulation period begins the “day of the Lord” because we can clearly see from the opening of the very first seal in Revelation 6 (which also coincides with the beginning of the Tribulation period; see also Daniel 9:27), that the Lamb (the Lord) is in full charge and He is pouring out His wrath as He opens each of those seals.
Christians Preparing for the Worst
The Tribulation will be a time of unparalleled evil and the persecution of Christians will be a daily experience throughout the entire globe, including America. God will use the 144,000 Jewish evangelists of Revelation 7 to be His messengers spreading the gospel far and wide. It is not coincidence that after the 144,000 are sealed, we read starting in Revelation 7:9 that there are multitudes of people became martyrs during the Tribulation.
Understanding Daniel Relies on Jude and Enoch? Really?
It is the same with Daniel 9. Gabriel is literally speaking about a total of 70 “sevens.” The word sevens is a determiner, but without knowing what it determines, we cannot know for certain what the total amount would be. But since the entirety of Daniel 9 is dealing with years, then that context gives us the information we need to know. Gabriel tells Daniel that 70 “sevens” (of years) will be applied to the Jewish people. Once we understand this, it is simply a matter of multiplying 70 (the length of time) times seven sets of years to equal 490. We know that the sevens is joined to years because of how perfectly the first 7 “sevens” (“weeks”) plus the 62 “sevens” (“weeks”) works out from the beginning point of Artaxerxes’ decree to rebuilt Jerusalem in 445 BC (cf. Nehemiah 2:1-8). If the first 69 “sevens of years” works out perfectly, then obviously the final or 70th “seven” is the same amount of time – one seven represented by one seven-year period. I’m amazed at many commentators change the length of this last week.
Dishonesty of a PostTribber Comes Home to Roost
The fact that he portrayed me as not having the ability and biblical knowledge to respond to him is deceitful. It is duplicitous. In effect, he is LYING to those who read his blog (if anyone reads it, that is). Since he would not allow my response, I chose to create an article out of it in the above linked article. For more information, I suggest reading that article before this one.
My goal in pointing this out is to simply show him for what he is – filled with deceit. Instead of allowing me to respond to him and allowing those who may come to his site to read it as well – he chose to not even give me that opportunity. Instead, deceitfully, he pretended as though I had never responded, which was not true.
I pray that the Lord will help him see his own duplicity. He will certainly be better off for it and the end result will be that the Lord will be glorified. It will be a win-win situation. Pray for him, will you?
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).
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