Posted on 02/16/2009 1:09:50 PM PST by TaraP
I know we have done quite a bit of specualtion here on who the Antichrist might be, however are we as *Believers* suppose to know who he is?
Isn't this what the Rapture of the Church all about.
We we know that the rapture must precede the tribulation, we know that the rapture is very near. You see, the antichrist cannot be revealed until the force holding him back is removed from the earth. After the church is removed from the earth, the antichrist will be able to begin his reign of terror.
2 Thess 2:7-8, For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the splendor of his coming.
After the letters to the seven churches, John is given the call to "come up hither." This would signify the rapture--the church being removed from the earth. Is this why the church is not mentioned again in the Book of Revelation?
Lastly- Is the next seal to be opened the 6th Seal? The Rapture of the Church and the Great Quake that will block out the Sun and turn the moon blood red.
Thoughts?
My Catholic mother in law is convinced that we are in a very dark time. The priest that did my bride and mine pre marriage stuff and a dear pastor friend of mine both said that persecution is coming (five years ago).
The spirit of Antichrist has been in the world since the Incarnation. And we are in a very dark time. The blood of million of innocent babies screams to heaven. We have become Canaan, and our culture worships Moloch in the guise of “choice”. God help us, but we are about the reap the whirlwind.
Some of our cohorts will be alive
And I don’t think we become MORE ignorant about such things in Heaven.
In any case, making Heaven our home is crucial.
Boy, are you a party pooper!
Agreed. The sudden rise and fame, and worship of Obama as a savior or messiah figure serves as a fantastic object lesson as to how easy it will be for the Anti-Christ to deceive the vast majority of the world... I too, often wondered how people would be stupid enough to fall for the Anti-Christ’s rhetoric, etc... I don’t wonder anymore. Add in false miracles and such that the Anti-Christ will apparently show the world and I can understand how EASY it will be for him to pull the wool over the eyes of ANYONE not FIRMLY rooted in Scripture, and anyone that doesn’t ALREADY have a personal relationship with God.
How dare you? This is not a question of peripheral doctrine. This heresy of the ‘rapture’ (non existent biblical term) is an evil cancer eating out the heart of the modern church. It must be withstood.
C’mon Quix. Read the site I posted. You need it. This is not a matter of interpretation any more than the Trinity.
“I have had this same, tired discussion with people on this forum so many times I can’t even count that high. “
I’m in the same boat except on the other side. Every time I get into these discussions I’m showed the “proof” texts regarding the rapture yet there is nothing in the text that gives timing. Why is that?
If there is no timing of the rapture in the passages then why do you claim its pre-trib?
If I can clearly show the similarities with the Second Coming which does have the timing indicated and these ‘rapture’ passages (and I can) why are they not the same? What makes them different?
Yes the Bible does talk about scoffers, but who is the scoffer here?
JB
Have read some stuff there.
Same old unconvincing same old.
Doesn’t strike me as all that Biblical.
Doesn’t strike me as all that logical.
Right. Not logical. Just straight Scripture. Please remove me from you ping list. I don’t need those of the ‘itching ears’ in my life.
Yes, and no.
Technically, nobody knows when Christ will return, except the Father, so it may also be asserted that even Satan himself doesn't know when He will return precisely.
With this strategically in place, it might also be argued that for every age since the Ascession, the Adversary has had to be prepared with an antichrist in the wings to seize an opportunity when it presents itself to him.
I agree that the pre-trib, pre-mil, eschatology is the most literally sound position to take. Even within that framework, there may be a number of different interpretations of the mechanics involved.
One such literal interpretation I've seen, which I believe is well founded, holds to the Rapture occurring first, with the Holy Spirit then also being removed from the indwelling of believers.
Believers still exist in the Great Tribulation and in the Millenium, perhaps as the Remnant from Israel who hadn't become believers in Christ until the Rapture.
I give value to the notion that the Holy Spirit no longer indwelling believers is a significant event and action of God which is consequent to something very heinous, but is still purely His volition because He does nothing that is good for nothingness. I suspect He removes Himself because believers with the Mark of the Beast will be distracted and interrupted from returning back into fellowship with Him when they sin, resulting in a Great Apostasy, that a mechanism will be made available to the Beast and the AntiChrist to counterfeit religious experience in the mind of even the believer if it were so possible. That heinous event would be the abomination causing desolation in the dwelling place of God, which in today's Age is the Church Age, or the human spirit of every believer.
There might also be a physical building in the future after the removal of God the Holy Spirit, which acts as the sacred building for the indwelling of God, in the Great Tribulation, which would also be consistent with Scripture, but I don't see how such a sacred building can happen until God ceases His administration of indwelling the believer in the Church Age.
I see how some Jewish religion might construct and conduct temple rituals, but I don't see how God Himself recognizes that as His Temple, until He makes Provision for it, and it appears to me that such a Provision isn't necessary until after the Church has been removed, because every believer today provided a Temple for the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, by His Provision, who provides the Temple for the indwelling of Christ in each believer.
I also suspect the Mark of the Beast is associated with those issues, even though explicitly the mark is given so that nobody may buy or sell without it. My intuition places the mark as more of a 2-way communication link, uniquely identifying the human, which is then used to counterfeit or interrupt our ability to return back into fellowship with God by repentance and confession.
I suspect the recent medical forays into neurology, stem cell research, genetics, and brain mapping with spiritual experience is closely linked to this agenda.
I also see this as consistent with how the Millenial Kingdom is described. In that place, believers have the Word of God written on their minds, there is no need for teaching one another the Word. It seems consistent with technological advances that we will soon hit the point of direct neurological mapping of information into our brains and our thinking.
Even with that happening, until humans are believers with volition placing faith in Him, we still will miss the mark. I suspect the Millennium is an Age to simply manifest that simple truth to a still rebellious heart, either by our own volition for independence from Him or our own arrogance, an age which still glorifies His Provision for us, while we tum His blessings into cursings by making eternal memorials of our refusal to remain in faith in Him in all things, performing as He has created us to perform from eternity past.
Consistent with OT typology, I suspect the Church is going to be gathered up, destroyed like the Holocaust, but possibly in the desert by a WMD, then caught up in the air with our Lord Christ Jesus, similar to Shadrack, Mishack, and Abendigo meeting Him in the fiery furnace, near that time comes a Gog Magog invasion into Northern Israel. A seven Year period of cleanup by Israel, then a signing of an agreement with the AntiChrist. A new temple worship established amongst Israel, then the Great Tribulation, then 3-1/2 years into it, the AntiChrist is revealed. It becomes intuitively obvious to Israel of her covenant with the AntiChrist, then the Remnant continues. The marriage feast continues in heaven with the saints receiving their crowns. Upon the Second Coming, Christ returns to receive His Throne of David for a Millennial Reign on Earth.
Every time Satan falls it is from a perfect environment, as in the initial fall from Heaven, the Fall from the Garden, the Fall to the Abyss and after the Millennium, the fall from the Kingdom of Christ on Earth.
I suspect that technologically, humanity will have reached an epoch at the beginning of the Tribulation very near identical to the Millennial Reign, except that we allow the Adversary to deceive us by not remaining in faith with Christ.
You’re right. Having been thru Clinton and now Obama it’s not a stretch at all.
Add to that it will most likely be that the AC comes out of a time of total upheaval and chaos with many already dead and the rest very desperate to survive. Poof! and along comes this guy with miracles and peace and all sorts of goodies backed up with grand oration and slick verbage. Who wouldn’t follow him?
I may comment on some other parts of your post a bit later, but right now, I saw this one...
You said — “Also remember that the Antichrist apparently receives some kind of wound that should kill him.”
Well..., that’s a “kingdom” that receives the wound and is miraculously resurrected, after seemingly being dead. That kingdom could very well be the Islamic Caliphate, that was destroyed as of World War 2, with the demise of the Turkish Empire.
That’s seven kingdoms that the Bible presents to us, which will have been and will be. And the Antichrist, he will be out of that and be the eighth.
However, keep in mind, that this is not going to be a strong kingdom, in that it is represented as the miry clay mixed with the iron, partly strong and partly brittle (in the “image” in Daniel, of the kingdoms).
So, although this kingdom will be resurrected, once again, it will not be of the same order as before.
The restoration of the Islamic Caliphate is exactly the aim and goal of the Islamic fundamentalists (those dedicated to the Islamic faith as true and faithful and real...).
The one who will be the antichrist, seems to fit the coming Islamic Mahdi.
I concur with your position regarding the seals. I see them more as the inheritance which has been predestined for Jesus Christ which will not be opened or unsealed until the elders declare their faith in Him. He has been placed to His right side until His enemies are made a footstool unto His feet.
You said — “Look you false prophet. There is NO ‘rapture’. Stop teaching children error or you will get a millstone hung round your neck and tossed into the sea.”
Well, I’ve had the tendency, in the past, to think that those who deny the Rapture, are on the very edge of heresy, themselves, and may even be at risk of their own salvation — but — I’ve refrained from calling them heretics... :-)
—
And then you said — “BEWARE! My next shot is to rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ and call you out as an anti-christ before the whole church. But I’ll give you a chance to see the error of your ways first.”
I’ve thought the very same thing about those anti-Rapturists, thinking that they should have that proverbial millstone hung around their neck, and never be seen again. But, once again, I’ve refrained “calling them out” in those terms and prefer to leave it up to God to take them from this earth...
—
I will have to give you this, though — you certainly are braver than the angel Michael was, when he disputed with Satan over the body of Moses... LOL...
Jude 1:9-11
9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
10 But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
Don’t be like one of the “brute beasts”...
Eschatology follows after the development of other basic doctrines in the believer's theology. Just take a look at any text in systematic theology, that's why eschatology and Prophecy is generally in the last chapters of those systematic theologies.
In the case of the Great Tribulation, the reason for the Great Tribulation is as a discipline for Israel having signed a covenant with the AntiChrist.
As in most cases of His actions, He is a God of the Living, not a God of the dead. Those who reject Him aren't pulling His chain. He is still in control.
There are some discernible descriptors of the Church Age, different than the Great Tribulation and the Millennium. Only the Church Age has an Indwelling of all three persons in the believer.
There is an event in Scripture of the body of believers being caught up in the air as a major Prophetical milestone. If you deny this rapture is identified with that event, still future, what to you make of the Scriptural reference?
I encourage you to persevere first, through faith in Him in all things and let Him guide each of us as He wills rather than by our independent volition separate from His Will.
SCRIPTURE IS GREAT, OF COURSE.
Folks who get emphatic when reasonable people can differ about Scriptural interpretation, are, imho, unwise.
Of course, I’ll remove you from the ping lists,
gost2;
You don’t seem to be on any UFO lists.
I’ve removed you from my copy of the END TIMES LIST.
Will remove you from Joya’s copy and MarySecretary will remove you from her list.
Cheers.
Quite plausible analysis and commentary, imho.
Thanks.
You said — “Technically, nobody knows when Christ will return, except the Father, so it may also be asserted that even Satan himself doesn’t know when He will return precisely.”
Well, that’s where I would disagree. I would say that it’s quite clear in the Bible that the people who see the one (who we’re calling the Antichrist and who sets up the abomination of desolation in the Temple) declaring himself to be god — that from that point forward, it’s 1,260 days until the arrival of Jesus Christ.
I would say that one can *count it down* exactly to the day of when Jesus Christ is returning to earth, from that marker.
I would say that there are other markers, too, but I pick that one, because Jesus mentioned Daniel and the abomination of desolation.
The part that we “don’t know when Jesus is coming” — is the coming for His bride, the church, to “snatch her away” (i.e., the Rapture). That’s the one that is unknown, in the timing.
The timing for the return of Jesus Christ to this earth, on the other hand, is counted down, very exactly and to the day and will be *known* without a doubt.
So, if you or anyone else sees the abomination of desolation in the Temple and the Antichrist declaring himself to be god — start counting 1,260 days....
Of course the Bible does not say that anywhere.
Personally, ghost2,
I believe it is extremely hideous to God The Father as well as Christ and Holy Spirit for Believers . . .
to strike a haughty, self-righteous, judgmental, indignant, punitive, smug, . . . . perspective
ABOUT ANYTHING IN SCRIPTURE THAT REASONABLE FOLKS CAN DISAGREE ABOUT.
The first and 2nd commandments and the Golden Rule are paragon.
The Virgin Birth, Resurrection, Ascension, that Christ came in the flesh . . . those are crucial.
A lot of other things are not crucial. And to pretend they are as justification for bloodying a brother has to grieve the heart of God.
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