Posted on 07/10/2020 10:06:26 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
“We absolutely SHOULD know the times and the seasons.”
You seem to have overlooked the scripture I posted:
Acts 1:7 (NKJV)
And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”
“The times: We are now in the beginning of the Seventh Millennium (the 21st Century) which indicates God’s rest - the time when Jesus Christ will bring rest to the earth as he reigns for 1000 years.”
While it may be attractive to adopt this as a paradigm, it is not something specifically or explicitly taught by scripture. If anyone had advocated this view during the lifetimes of the apostles, they would have been sharply rebuked as every generation of believers from then until now is instructed to eagerly await the return of Christ. They could not have known then, nor can we know with a certainty today that His return is imminent (could happen at any moment). There are signs that must be fulfilled prior to His return. Those who ignore these are not truly following His instruction to “watch”.
“The seasons: The world is quickly becoming very dark as all the elements of the tribulation are quickly being put into place. In the meantime, IMO God is ready to launch Luke 14:23 - his last in-gathering of souls to be rescued from the horror shortly to come.”
There will certainly be a very large ingathering of souls into the kingdom who are the last generation to respond to the Gospel before Christ’s return. I firmly believe this generation of believers are not ones who are raptured out prior to the Great Tribulation but are those who endure it and come out from it, as described in Revelation 6.
“IMO, this 21st Century - and again the beginning of the 7th Millennium - will not end until the church and Holy Spirit are taken out of the world, the horrific Seventieth Week of Daniel occurs, and Christ has set up his rule over the Earth in Jerusalem.”
There is no indication of the Holy Spirit being taken out of this world. Indeed, the coming of the Holy Spirit was prophesied in the Old Testament and especially applies to the Jewish people who turn back to God.
John 7:38 (NKJV)
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
Zechariah 12:10 (NKJV)
And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.
Acts 2:17-18 (NKJV)
“And it shall come to pass in the last days,” says God,
“That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy.”
Joel 2:28-32 (NKJV)
And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.
And also on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:
Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the Lord
Shall be saved.
For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance,
As the Lord has said,
Among the remnant whom the Lord calls.
Habakkuk 2:3, 4c, 14 (NKJV)
For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry...
But the just shall live by his faith...
For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 44:3 (NKJV)
For I will pour water on him who is thirsty,
And floods on the dry ground;
I will pour My Spirit on your descendants,
And My blessing on your offspring.
Matthew 24:14 (NKJV)
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Mark 16:15 (NKJV)
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
As I pointed out earlier, the Great Commission is connected with the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. Revelation 7 describes an uncountable multitude that “comes out of the Great Tribulation” and enters Heaven. Who are these followers of Christ and how do they get to Heaven? These are often described as “tribulation saints” but the question is whether they are part of the Church or some other group of believers. These believers can only have arrived in Heaven by one of two ways: death or rapture. There is no other way. The passage does not explicitly say which. However, this multitude of believers will inevitably have been converted either during the tribulation period or earlier because it is out of the Great Tribulation (see verse 14) from which they enter Heaven. How can a worldwide multitude be converted to become faithful followers of Christ, enduring the greatest persecution of Christ’s followers, and seeing through the greatest spiritual delusion in the history of mankind, without the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the earth?
No, the Great Commission will be fulfilled by the power and work of the Holy Spirit, then the End (Day of the Lord) will come.
Exactly what Luke 14:23 prophesies as the Lord sends out his unnamed servant (the Holy Spirit) in these last days.
Good list. Add one more -"You will be persecuted in ALL nations."
“Exactly what Luke 14:23 prophesies as the Lord sends out his unnamed servant (the Holy Spirit) in these last days.”
This does not fit with your earlier statements about the Holy Spirit and Church being taken out prior to the Great Tribulation:
“IMO, this 21st Century - and again the beginning of the 7th Millennium - will not end until the church and Holy Spirit are taken out of the world, the horrific Seventieth Week of Daniel occurs, and Christ has set up his rule over the Earth in Jerusalem.”
and
“Daniels’ seventieth week, the seven-year horrific tribulation, will begin the day Jesus takes his own out of here along with the Holy Spirit.”
How is the innumerable multitude in Revelation 6 brought to Christ, at a time of extreme persecution and strong delusion, without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit?
I think the answer is simple. The multitude there is the last generation of living believers of the Church. They are raptured out of the Great Tribulation. The Holy Spirit is NEVER taken out of this earth because God has always reserved witnesses for Himself who have the Holy Spirit living in them. This includes the 144,000 Jews who remain here during the time of God’s wrath and are supernaturally protected.
There is no Biblical support for the Holy Spirit ever being removed from the earth. The promise in the Old Testament of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel, and the availability of salvation for “whoever calls on the name of the Lord” is specifically in the context of the Day of the Lord.
Regardless, the most important thing is to believe the Gospel, be ready for Christ’s return, be working for His kingdom, and endure hardships in whatever form they come, so that whether we are among those who live to see Christ’s return or we are among those raised at that time, we will be useful in His service. We do not have to necessarily be in complete agreement about eschatology in order to labor together in the kingdom of God. In His time God will correct our errors, whatever they may be.
If you read Jesus’ prophetic parable in Luke 14 carefully, you’ll see the Lord is bringing souls in for his “great supper” which of course is a picture of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb which takes place AFTER the church is taken up BEFORE the tribulation.
God is a good and merciful God and, as I said, Luke 14:23 is about Him sweeping the world one last time BEFORE he takes his own and the unbelievably horrific tribulation takes place.
This IMO is about to take place and is what all these satanic attacks upon our country and the world are all about, just like what happened when Jesus was quietly born but all hell broke loose with all boys 2 and younger killed and at the time, no one knew why.
“If you read Jesus’ prophetic parable in Luke 14 carefully, you’ll see the Lord is bringing souls in for his ‘great supper’ which of course is a picture of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb which takes place AFTER the church is taken up BEFORE the tribulation.”
I believe this marriage supper takes place AFTER Daniel’s seventieth week:
Revelation 19:6-9 (NKJV)
And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.”
If there will be a large number of people saved in the end times, and we seem to agree on this, wouldn’t you also agree that this requires people preaching the Gospel and the Holy Spirit working through those people to bring conviction of sin and the enabling of faith?
Romans 10:14 (NKJV)
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
If the Church is raptured out at the beginning of Daniel’s seventieth week, who are the followers of Christ who are dying for Him even before God seals the 144,000 Jews?
Matthew 24:9 (NKJV)
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
Revelation 6:9 (NKJV)
When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
I challenge you to reconcile the timing and order of events presented in the Olivet Discourse with those presented in Revelation. I think you will find that the Day of the Lord FOLLOWS the Great Tribulation and the Rapture, and then Christ returns to earth AFTER the Day of the Lord to set up His kingdom. It is during the Day of the Lord that the trumpet and bowl judgments must occur. They are not found in the Olivet Discourse. (The Day of the Lord is also called The End in the Olivet Discourse and several other passages.)
I believe the second coming involves a time period that begins with the gathering of the elect (rapture) and ends with the gathering of the wicked (to remove them).
Matthew 24:30-31 (NKJV)
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Matthew 13:41-43 (NKJV)
The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
It won’t be but the Newish people think it will as they have missed their Messiah for now. It will be built as prophesied
Well we’re not on the same page.
God bless anyway.
All those you mention had a glimpse of something special. I do not think any of them truly understood Jesus as Messiah and what that meant until after His resurrection. It is something He had to reveal to them just as the Holy Spirit calls us and reveals the Truth of Jesus to us
We do not know the day or the hour but have been commanded to know the season
The Jews can, on their own, build a building and call it a temple. But rebuilding an official, God ordained temple was not prophesied.
God has ordained they will build another temple. It will not serve the purpose the Jews think it will, but it will serve Gods purpose in His plan to bring His chosen people back to faith
Yep it’s right there in Revelation chapter 11
“God has ordained they will build another temple.”
You can’t cite just one clear verse that backs that statement up. One would think that something as momentous as that would have at least one clear reference.
God has already brought his chosen back to faith, and it is believers in Jesus Christ.
“We do not know the day or the hour but have been commanded to know the season”
I keep hearing that claim, but I’ve cited scripture that says otherwise. I’m still waiting for the Biblical support for the counterclaim.
Acts 1:7 (NKJV)
And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”
What Bible passage supports the need for us to know the season of Christ’s return? If you are saying it is tied to the feasts, I can go along with that. But these are recurring events. They do not tell us when His return is going to be, but they might give us a clue as to when it is not going to be. In other words, if the rapture will occur on the feast of trumpets, we know approximately the day He might return in any given year, but we do not know if He is coming back in the present year or some future year unless specific signs are given in scripture and we actually see those signs so that we know His return is imminent.
My understanding is that every generation of believers has or has had the potential to be the final generation of believers who live to see the return of Christ, and therefore we must watch. I don’t see any basis to believe that the apostles or anyone they personally taught expected the return of the Lord to occur centuries into the future. Likewise, there is no Biblical basis to claim Christ MUST return in any of our lifetimes. However, there are signs for us to watch for. Without signs we can wait but we cannot watch.
Certainly the temple being rebuilt would be noteworthy in the context of Bible prophecy. But it will be the desecration of the yet-to-be-built temple that is specifically prophesied.
To me, this advocacy of “knowing the season” is just date-setting light. Every day is one day closer to Christ’s return. Claiming that we know His return is imminent (ready to happen at any moment) based on current events in unBiblical, unless it is based on specific signs of His return given to us in the scriptures.
Indeed. A third God ordained temple would contradict the entire book of Hebrews.
“Well we’re not on the same page.”
I would hope that relying on the Bible would be sufficient to get there. I certainly understand when people have busy schedules and cannot do the work required to resolve differences and come to an understanding. And if experience with online Biblical debates teaches me anything it is that strong differences of opinion are rarely settled through such debates. And that’s too bad.
The consequences of getting something like this wrong are too great to just “agree to disagree”. If I am wrong then I am in danger of misleading myself and others on a very important and practical Bible doctrine. However, the same applies to my detractors.
I am coming to believe that the pre-tribulation rapture position is going to become an instrumental tool of the Devil to cause many professing Christians to abandon their faith when they find they must face the persecution of the Antichrist. I have been taught the pre-trib view in almost ever church I’ve ever been a part of, and I don’t consider those who believe it to be false believers. But I do think they are in great danger from a false doctrine that is setting up Christians for disaster. It is very much like the prosperity Gospel that sets converts up for disillusionment when, instead of health, wealth, and happiness, they experience the promised tribulations, persecutions, and suffering that must accompany being a disciple of Christ.
Even when the good seed of the true Gospel is sown in the field of the world, only some of the seed bears fruit to salvation. But the enemy, Satan, also sows the bad seed of false Gospels. The tares that spring up not only bear no fruit to salvation, they interfere with the growth of the good seed. The same thing applies to erroneous teaching.
I believe if we cannot defend a doctrinal position Biblically we need to examine whether it is Biblical in the first place. The pre-trib view sounds great as a paradigm, but I’ve never seen any Bible teacher or preacher who could defend it exegetically. Like cults use the scripture to prop up false doctrines, the pre-trib view uses only proof texts and forces its paradigm on the passages to make it fit. This alone should make it very suspect.
“God bless anyway.”
Likewise.
Christ told us to learn the lesson of the fig tree (Israel) to understand the timing of the end times. When he wept over Jerusalem He called them out did not knowing the time of their visitation. By learning and understanding prophecy they should have known the time their Messiah would appear but missed it.. We are told that God does not treat us as servants keeping secrets from us but has shared His counsel with us. We are to search and u defer and prophecy and know what He has shared with us
“Christ told us to learn the lesson of the fig tree (Israel) to understand the timing of the end times.”
Matthew 24:32-42 (NKJV)
Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.
So, again, I’ve provided scripture that says specifically the times and seasons of Christ’s return are NOT for us to know. What we are supposed to do is watch, and this requires knowing the signs to watch for and that will precede His return. The lesson of the fig tree is to watch for the specific signs Jesus gave us in the Olivet discourse.
“When he wept over Jerusalem He called them out did not knowing the time of their visitation. By learning and understanding prophecy they should have known the time their Messiah would appear but missed it.”
True, but His first coming had to be at a specific time in order to fulfill Daniel 9. There were 70 sevens (or seven-year periods) and the clock started ticking when the command to restore Jerusalem was given.
Daniel 9:25 (NKJV)
Know therefore and understand,
That from the going forth of the command
To restore and build Jerusalem
Until Messiah the Prince,
There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
The street shall be built again, and the wall,
Even in troublesome times.
Other relevant passages include Ezra 1, 6, 7 and 2 Chronicles 36. Cyrus and Artaxerxes both issued commands related to the restoration of Jerusalem. These historical events alone should have led the Jews during the time of Christ’s earthly life to be looking for the Messiah, and this seems to be the case for many. Simeon and Anna in Luke 2 were among them. Modern Jews should wonder who is the Messiah if not Jesus, because if Jesus is not the Messiah, some other Messiah should have arrived at approximately the same time.
These scriptures pertaining to Daniel’s seventieth week are understood today as the basis for believing there is one single seven-year period required to fulfill God’s promises to Israel, but the clock is not ticking yet. Just like the first sixty-nine weeks did not begin until a specific event, the remaining seven-year period will not begin until the Antichrist authorizes a treaty to protect Israel for that time period.
Passages in the New Testament help us to interpret Daniel. We recognize that Christ will return bodily to the earth and set up His kingdom at the end of this seven-year period. So, once the clock is ticking we will be able to know the timing of that event within a narrow margin of error. However, this is a separate event from when the rapture will occur.
For both of these parts of the second coming we cannot know the times and seasons until we see the signs. And the signs have to be from the Bible, not ones we make up. It is significant that Israel became a nation in recent history, but this does not require the return of Christ by any certain date. It will be significant when the temple is rebuilt, but this also does not lock in any particular timeframe. We must look for signs from Daniel, the Olivet discourse, Revelation, 2 Thessalonians 2, or other scriptures.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.