Posted on 05/08/2020 4:37:58 PM PDT by pastorbillrandles
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:4-6)
The famous “Faith Chapter” in the book of Hebrews, begins with two Saints, Abel and Enoch as examples of faith which we are to imitate. Faith is the point, for faith is the only way to please God.
I once asked the LORD, ‘Why Faith? Why is that what you require?” I believe I received several answers in the form of scripture and impressions, from the LORD. God requires faith, because we simply cannot save ourselves. Only God can save our souls, no one can redeem themselves, therefore Faith is required, because faith glorifies God and not man.
Another reason for the requirement of faith that came to me, is that our problems began when we quit believing in the goodness of God. Adam and Eve were willing to entertain a false and degraded notion of God, that He was holding something back that would be good for the first couple. The Serpent bore false witness about the LORD, and they believed it.
The way back? It has to be faith. We must repent and believe again in the goodness of God.
The “hall of faith” begins with Abel and Enoch. One Saint who was murdered for his faith, and for bearing witness to God in a hostile world. There would be literally millions upon millions who would follow in his footsteps, being willing to let go of their life rather than deny the truth of God.
The other Saint, Enoch, was a man who lived in a kind of “end times scenario” living in the time leading up to the flood. It was a day of Apostasy, but Enoch walked with God, until God took Him home. He didn’t die , He was raptured. God took him home, to be with himself.
Faith was required of each of them.
I believe that we also live in an end-time. I have no doubt that Jesus is coming, and in our lifetime. What makes us unique is the re-emergence of the nation of Israel, in 1948, in fulfillment of the prophecies about the last of the last days. All of the prophets pre-supposed that there would be a national Israel, and a Jewish occupied city of Jerusalem, as well as a controversy over Judea, (The West bank) which would engulf the whole world.
The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:1-3)
Which brings us back to our two Saints at the beginning of Hebrews 11. One died, He was martyred for his witness to God. The other one did not die. He was Raptured. Both of these Saints lived by Faith and Pleased God.
I believe that this speaks to us in our generation.
No doubt. many of us will end up dying. Perhaps some of us will be given an opportunity to be martyred. We are Saints and love God, but all things being equal, unless the LORD returns, we will die, one way or another.
(Of course, Christians don’t really die, they “go to sleep”) but the real point is that Faith is the only way to please God.
But according to the scriptures, there is a unique end-times event, coming, as I hope I have pointed out in this series, called the Rapture, or “Our gathering together unto Him”, “the Episynagogue” and Jesus coming to “take us where (He)…is, unto himself”. The LORD is coming to snatch us off the earth with a swift and irresistable power”.
To participate in such an event is a rare honor among the countless Millions of Saints who believed in Jesus before us.
But whether we die, or are martyred, o whether we are raptured, the real point is that we must live our lives by Faith,which is the only way to please God.
This is why I do not enter into the countless discussions as to the timing of the Rapture. “Will The Rapture be pre- ,mid , or post Tribulation”?
Honesty, the only things I am sure about the Rapture at all are that it is:
* For God’s Saints only, and the prospect of it is a comfort.
* A Mystery revealed in the New Testament era.
* It occurs before the actual “Wrath ” of God.
* It involves the “dead in Christ” as well as “We who are alive, until the coming of the LORD”.
As far as I know, all else can only be speculation. God doesn’t want us to know the exact timing otherwise it would be clearer. I am glad there is a Rapture, and my prayer has always been that I be involved in it, while alive. But I cannot say with certainty what the timing of it is, so I don’t.
What counts is Faith in Jesus. Not dead works, but a living, vital, infectious faith. Let us have a faith which still moves us to confess and forsake our sins, to Love and seek God. To forgive and love our brothers, and a faith which moves us to share with others what God has shown to us. Is your faith alive? Do you have oil in your lamp? Are you current with God?
We Overcome the World by our faith. “This is the victory that overcometh the World…our faith”. We overcome the Spirit of antiChrist also, by our faith. So also we overcome the sins that so easily beset us, and the Coldness and soul deadening effect of this world, by our Faith.
Of course we want out of here, we can increasingly see that there is nothing in this World for we who believe, but rejection and opposition.I want Jesus to come, and Long for the Rapture. I am either going up in it, or I am gong to die, but one way or another we are leaving.
Either way, the point is Faith. So I will leave the timing of the Rapture to God, and just strive to be counted worthy to attain it, whether ded or alive.
Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:35)
This pandemic and other events we've seen for years we were warned would come and with those verses was stated ....”but the time is not yet”. Just as others have passed so to will this virus for it doesn't even qualify for the wrath Of God which will occur in the tribulation against the ungodly.
I'm really sorry y'all were "Left Behind". It's great up here. How's that Tribulation stuff working out for ya? There are rumors of some kind of pandemic or something.
Romans 2:16 “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel”. -Paul
THAT is my point
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You’ve lost me with this. What IS your point again?
Each camp doubles down on its own conformity model of consensus of whichever persuasion, complete with “proof texts” for all sides. Nobody need change into something nice because it's always the ignorant other guy who has it wrong and needs a good smiting because the master hasn't come back yet to settle disputes and after all, somebody has to “keep the faith.”.
Same type of settled mindset would reject the real Jesus for not removing his ballcap when coming through the door, because if anyone should be aware of head covering etiquette, it would be him.
There's building that place of heaven on earth, patterned after the heavenly abode, and then there's the place of outer darkness, where there is the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Everyone keeps busy with his preferred home construction project, his dream house.
For some odd reason, those who invested all of their time creating Thugopolis will be shocked, offended, and downright livid when they receive the keys to 123 Living Hell Dr. at the closing.
As if God couldn't wait to foul up His own living room.
Your typical behavior.
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Sorry!
Frustration? Once again, you don’t seem to understand.
Concerning these times of the pandemic, and the great tribulation to come, Jesus told us “In your patience possess ye your souls.”
It is the Irvingites and Darbyites of England back in the early 1800’s who were impatient and frustrated, so much so they conjured up a pretrib rapture with all its trimmings - which impatient and frustrated pretribs have followed ever since.
Notice the tribulational setting in Rev. 14, where it is said of the faithful, “Here is the patience of the saints.”
You’ve got it backwards, you see. It is pretribs that are frustrated and impatient.
So I ask you, how are YOU encouraging other believers to live godly in Christ Jesus?
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I do so primarily by attempting to live a Christ-like life myself, by complimenting others who are doing so and by chastising others who are not. And you?
If you substitute one’s own personal view for “a return to fundamental principles”, then yes, I agree with you. But then you yourself stumbled over the same block by your strong belief there will be no one raptured out of the coming Apocalypse - no?
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I don’t understand the point you’re making here, but I contend that one’s own personal view is only and always just that, no less and no more, and this is true despite the fact that many others may hold the same view.
Your frustration that others here are content with what they believe regarding the coming of Christ for His people is apparent.....so why should it bother you so as those posting are quite aware of what will occur in the tribulation for God has clearly revealed that to all?
>I realize pretribs are content with what they believe. I know, for I was once pretrib myself.
As to what “bothers” me: it bothers me just like other false doctrines bother me, and need to be called out for what they are...man made doctrines, or as in one of my posts here, the “private interpretatioons” of men.
will forget the one actual fundamental tenet of Christianity, to love each other,
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Wrong. The one fundamental tenet of Christianity is to know God, to Love Him, to serve Him, and to spend eternity with Him in Heaven.
There you go again.....I’ve made my point...and now you want to give a history lesson on top of your insistence people think and believe as you?????
However to your reference... Rev. 14, “Here is the patience of the saints.” ....Who do you think that verse was addressed to?
You referred to others as, "the Fundamentalists on this thread", and I just wanted to define the term and point out were I disagree with the term itself, assuming "a usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles". As often many religious movements or doctrines stretch the literal meaning of scripture completely out of focus.
Another thing I see many do, is to attempt to simply that which is complex. One issue often not taken into consideration is the uniqueness of "those in Christ". And how they differ from other people of God. The "rapture" is for those who are in Christ. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are separate entities in the strictest sense. Something else stretched beyond focus.
Isaiah 26:20 is a warning to others, not of Christ, but to those who are also God's people:
Come, my people, enter your chambers, And shut your doors behind you; Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, Until the indignation is past.
And verse 21...
For behold, the Lord [Christ] comes out of His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; The earth will also disclose her blood [to include those 1 billion aborted, IMO], And will no more cover her slain.
If you study scripture closely, you will see the above applicable in many areas of belief. Many fail to keep this distinction in mind, and that creates great discord and confusion.
The one [A] fundamental tenet of Christianity...
You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will remain—so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. This is My command to you: Love one another.
My point was the passage,”In your patience possess ye your souls” was from Luke 21, a parallel to Matt. 24 and Mark 13 referring to the tribulation. Lkewise the passage from Rev. 14, “THIS is the patience of the saints.”
The two passages referring to Christians who find themselves in the great tribulation - with no hint from Jesus of them being taken out previously in a pretrib rapture, by the way - needing patience.
The passage in Rev. 14 in effect saying, you know when Jesus said that about patience in Luke 21? well, HERE is the patience he was referring to: “HERE is the patience of the saints.”
I know, I know, you don’t think you will even be in that situation, but you will. (because there is no such thing as two second comings of Christ)
And when you find yourself there just remember what Jesus told you...if you don’t want to lose your soul, have patience.
.....”As to what “bothers” me: false doctrines bother me, and need to be called out for what they are...man made doctrines”......
Rapture Doctrine is based on scripture.....as written in Thessalonians 4:13–18, which teaches the doctrine of the rapture ...and The truth of it is Certain.
“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”..I Thessalonians 4:13–18
After Paul’s teaching on the rapture, the very next topic
beginning in 5:2 is the Day of the Lord, the day of His wrath at the second coming. The sequence of events favors the pre-tribulational view, which holds that the rapture is first, followed by the Tribulation in which God pours out His judgment on the unbelieving world, climaxed by Christ’s second coming.
Only the believer in the pre-tribulational rapture can really believe that Jesus could come at any moment. There aren’t any further signs given in Scripture to look for prior to the rapture. The signs in God’s Word regarding the end times are signs of Christ’s second coming, not signs of the rapture.
Additionally 1 Corinthians 15:52 tells us that this will
happen “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye.”
There is going to be a resurrection of the dead, then a rapture of the living. Living saints are going to receive new bodies as they are caught up to be with the Lord.
This is where I stand.
However what is important is that all Christians hold in common that Christ will ultimately return bodily, visibly, and gloriously to reign and rule with His resurrected and transformed saints forever and ever. The details of this great event will be made known in God’s own time.
“This is My command to you: Love one another. “
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Of course, complying with that command is one of the ways we serve Him. He did admonish us to keep the commandments.
......”if you don’t want to lose your soul”.....
Do you not understand the sealing of the Holy Spirit on the life of the believer saved? Jesus always remains faithful he cannot deny himself who lives in us..because he must be true to who he is....true to His word and His righteous character.
With all due respect, you are getting the cart before the horse. You don’t start with Paul, you start with Jesus in Matt. 24.
Jesus knows more about prophecy than anybody, he the greatest prophet that ever lived.
He knew he was about to go to the cross, and the church to be left in the hands of the apostles. He knew what would befall his church in the endtime, the apostles the “transcendent you” in his discourse, he thus gave all the signs for his church to look for right up to the “end.” And that “end” is in verses 29-31.
He said nothing about a pretrib rapture, only the one at the “end.”
Paul and every other NT writer, simply followed Jesus in Matt. 24. The additional second coming pretribs think they see in Paul’s writings, including the ones you mentioned, is simply the same post-trib coming he set forth in Matt. 24.
It’s that simple, really. It’s all done in one event.
With all due respect, sir, as long as you are pretrib, you are not sealed.
It’s not just a matter of “having the Spirit,” its a matter of whether you allow it to lead you into all truth (see John 16:13). Which you are NOT doing following the theories of men. If you want the truth on this, you follow a certain order: Jesus in Matt. 24 first, then Paul.
We’re just going to have to disagree on this topic of the rapture and tribulation. Again I have no indication from the Lord to prepare for the Tribulation rather to look for His coming....and His Promise to meet him ...”in the air”...just as is written.
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