Posted on 07/07/2007 7:48:37 PM PDT by tnarg
Mark it down as biblical truth: There is no pre-tribulation rapture.
However, untold thousands believe in the "secret rapture of the church" prior to the tribulation period. This is because untold thousands don't want to have to think of suffering through a tribulation time frame. The late Corrie ten Boom called this pre-trib rapture teaching the "American doctrine." Go figure.
The belief in a secret rapture of believers before the tribulation is also because of a best-seller, "The Late, Great Planet Earth," by Hal Lindsey which was set loose in the l960s. It has been a paperback aggressively pushed by practically every evangelical / fundamentalist engine going.
Theologians, videos, films and preachers bolster up this myth with their earnest preachings and teachings.
Yet this is nothing but a myth, accented as much by certain theologically conservative Protestant segments similar unto the Roman Catholic underlining of the immaculate conception of Mary. Nevertheless, if there is no biblical support for such a Mariology teaching, it is bogus. Likewise, the pre-tribulation rapture teaching is bogus.
The pre-trib rapture concept was manufactured in the 1800s in an 18 year old Plymouth Brethren girl's dream, told to her Pastor, John Darby, and then relayed to C. I. Scofield who bought into the dream as revealed truth. Scofield placed this pre-tribulation rapture notion as a footnote in his popular Bible, hence the spread of the myth.
However, just the opposite is biblical truth. In Matthew 24:29-3l, for instance, the rapture ("gathering together") is placed in the same time frame as the open second coming of Jesus Christ. And all of this is "after the tribulation" (verse 29). That is it in a nutshell!
Yet pre-tribulation rapturists sidestep this clear passage for more oblique passages. The latter are twisted and turned in order to fit into the "American doctrine." Yet such twisting is not sound exegesis. And for biblically-riveted evangelicals and fundamentalists to commit this drastic error is bordering on the horrific.
All other passages in Scripture relating to the "gathering together unto Him" must refer back to the literal time line provided by Jesus in Matthew 24.
One must not use a symbolic passage in the Book of Revelation or any other symbolically-based section of the Bible by which to draw a pre-tribulation rapture doctrine.
Further, one must not take words of the apostle Paul so as to insert them opportunistically into a conjured pre-tribulation string of Scripture references. Yet this has been done ad infinitum.
Instead, Jesus' literalism of Matthew 24 must be used as the benchmark for all other "gathering together" themes of Scripture.
One starts with literalism and moves into symbolism when seeking to understand Scripture; it is not the other way around.
During the 1970s and 1980s there was much written and preached about a pre-tribulation rapture. This has wound down some in the last decade or so. Why?
Today, with the world situation being what it is, there is not that much risk-taking in preaching dogmatically the pre-tribulation rapture. Why?
Is it because there are many who are beginning to question its validity? Is it because the world state is so uncertain that to go out on a limb with a false hope may ricochet?
One wonders, with world events progressively becoming more and more anti-Christian, why the pre-tribulation rapture persons are not celebrating each dawn as the day when Jesus may return to earth.
Such is not the phenomenon on a large scale. Furthermore, it may be because the next generation has not bought into this notion.
In any case, it is a myth, a legend of conservative Protestantism's own conjuring and has no base in the Holy Scriptures.
Yet these very Protestants are the ones who ardently point out the myths of Catholicism while holding to some of their own myths. Both segments of Christendom need to do some serious housecleaning of manufactured legends in order to return to the simple Bible truths; otherwise, the church suffers from severe lack of knowledge.
What is so frightening about holding to a pre-tribulation rapture? It is more than mere academic quibbling. Holding to such a notion is drastically weakening the church worldwide.
The church should be preparing for spiritual battle against the most evil forces arrayed by hell.
Instead, the church is languishing with a false hope. This is all orchestrated by the demonic powers in order to eventuate in a limp army of believers. And to see that through in this age of laxity in religion does not take much on the part of the dark powers. In addition, the apostate segment of religion is doing its fair share of blackening truth.
Does it take much intelligence to realize that there are awesomely wretched days yet ahead for the righteous remnant?
Those who are not strong will drop--fall away, as biblically predicted. They will be too numerous to contemplate. But for those who are truly into carrying the daily cross there will be nothing able to thwart their zeal for Christ.
Already the remnant is being strengthened by the Spirit of light. He is gathering His own together in the power of the resurrection and the might of the revealed Word. There numbers are few; but their ardor before the Father is lovingly honored.
Set your vision upon the difficulties yet to be. They are but the trials permitted by the coming Christ.
At the close of the tribulation period, then there will be the gathering together of the believers from the four corners of the earth. They will greet Jesus in the clouds as He descends through space, having left the right hand of the Father in heaven.
The gathering together ("rapture") and the second advent then will be realized as one and the same event occurring at the end of the tribulation time frame. Jesus' declaration in Matthew 24:29-3l states it clearly.
The wrath of God and the persecution of believers are two different things. There is persecution now but there will come a time of global intense persecution ....AND then the Lord Who will catch us up into the air with Him on His way down.....
Hebrews 12:1 tells us of a great cloud of witnesses = those already with Jesus who come down with Him when He catches us up with Him on the way down.
It is believed because it happened. It is history. They did not return to their homeland but were dispersed as God wished them to be.
Isa.14:1For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
Of course they "migrated to Europe and elsewhere".
The myth of the "Ten Lost Tribes" is the basis for "British- Israelism" and other colorful legends, but these stories have no real Biblical basis. They are based upon misconceptions derived from the misreading of various Bible passages.1
This expert is mistaken. It is not a myth and the Bible is laden with God telling us exactly how and why it happened. Please study it yourself and don't listen to "experts" only.
Anti-Semitism ....Accompanying some of the legends of the so-called "Ten Lost Tribes" are aspersions on the present State of Israel and the people being regathered in the Land. These various theories such as "British Israelism" are by their nature anti-Semitic because they deny the Jewish people their proper place in the plan of God. Let's remember that Genesis 12:3 has never been repealed!
That tag, "anti-Semitism", is used by those that are not willing to understand or are unable to understand and holds no validity at all. They try to stamp it with an evil name to discredit the truth. How would anyone be anti-Semitic when discussing the 12 tribes. How could it possible "deny the Jewish people their proper place".
2 Chronicles 13 The priests and Levites from all their districts throughout Israel sided with him. 14 The Levites even abandoned their pasturelands and property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the Lord. 15 And he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat and calf idols he had made. 16 Those from every tribe of Israel who set their hearts on seeking the Lord, the God of Israel, followed the Levites to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to the Lord, the God of their fathers.
All that God needs to do to "send you a strong delusion" is to simply stop working in your life and leave you to your own devices.
I don't believe that is what He is saying. I know you don't want to call it a test but essentially that is what it is. Perhaps He wants to see who read the letter He sent. We will all, if we are living, experience that "test". In a way it could be, as you said, "leaving us to our own devices", if those strong delusions are made up of man's own devices, man's own ideas, man's own traditions.
The belief in the rapture is simply our hope that we will not be present during the wrath that is to come. If we are here during that day of wrath, then we'll just have to deal with it. If we are taken up to the Marriage Supper before that happens, then I guess we'll just have to deal with that.
Much of what He tells us is to prepare us for the time of the end. We have work to do. Why would he be so explicit in instructing us if He was going to take us away? In the middle of those instructions, in Matthew 24, verse 13.But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. The end of what? The end of this age. He wants us to endure through that and if we are sealed with His Word we can do that, we will not be misled.
Baloney. I believe it. But not with every fiber of my being, that's for sure. By accusing those who believe it as believing in a lie, I would venture to guess that you believe in a post tribulation rapture "with every fiber or your being." Otherwise, you would not be claiming that pre-tribulationists are being deliberately deluded by God so that they can believe the lie.
Perhaps you don't believe like that but many do. They will not listen to anything but that. When I first tried to speak to my sister-in-law about why I didn't believe in rapture she just countered with, "but you need to hear my preacher". The first warning Jesus gave us when telling us about the end of the world was this, "And Jesus answered and said unto them, "Take heed that no man deceive you."(Matt.24:4)
What I believe, with every fiber of my being, is that Jesus will come again at His 2nd. Advent. I don't term that rapture.
"God tells us that those that believe the lie have pleasure in it"....Boy you are really taking that out of context. It is those who have pleasure in UNRIGHTEOUSNESS that will believe the lie in 2 Thess 2:10. Now as I said before, unless you are willing to say that everyone who believes in a pre-trib rapture "takes pleasure in unrighteousness", then I think you ought to stop using that verse to condemn us. It has nothing to do with eschatology. It has to do with soteriology.
I don't believe that is what the scripture tells us.
11Thess.2:12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Doesn't that verse mean that the unrighteousness that causes the damnation is that they believed the lie?
Get a grip Ping. This issue is not life or death.
It could mean spiritual death or spiritual life.
So, are you a believer in British Israelism?
Maybe your sister-in-law is heeding that advise, eh?
I don't believe that is what the scripture tells us.
Well, you're the expert, eh?
Doesn't that verse mean that the unrighteousness that causes the damnation is that they believed the lie?
No, it means that they believed the lie because they had pleasure in unrighteousness.
It could mean spiritual death or spiritual life.
What is the immediately following verse? Does it speak to the above piece from Matt 24:4?
Let’s see, clouds are groups of people; air is spirit; rising first means coming down; the restrainer of evil is Michael; and the one who comes according to the workings of Satan is Jesus. All of this truth in code to a brand new church that Paul had only a short time to establish and a Gentile one at that
It was not just written to them but to us, those of the end generation.
when all he has to do is use the usual meaning of words they would understand, like clouds mean clouds and air means air and we will rise to meet Jesus who is bringing the dead in Christ with Him to be united with their resurrection bodies. Now that is a heck of a lot clearer than the tortuous route of symbol.
The word "clouds" he used was his figure of speech for a group of people. As far as "air", I believe he did use it properly, as pneuma, or spirit but it was translated as air and it has been misunderstood to be atmosphere.
I believe he was clear in what he said, or at least as clear as Paul is in many of his writings. Even Peter told us that Paul is at times hard to understand.(2Peter 3:16)
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.
What Paul wrote has been interpreted incorrectly to mean rapture. If that idea had never been put forward would you, in a million years, have the idea of rapture pop into your head when reading 1Thess.4:?
Gentiles would have no knowledge of Michael, the prince of Israel. He is only mentioned twice in the Old Testament in Daniel 10. Why would baby Gentile Christians jump to the conclusion that “he that restrains” would be an angel when they have been taught that God, the Holy Spirit is present with them to lead, comfort and guide them unlike His operation during the time of Daniel? Is the Holy Spirit incapable of multi-tasking?
The question should be are we now capable of understanding that Michael is the one that restrains him, as God tells us?
How can you warn with such an uncertain sound?
I try to use only His scriptures as I know they are certain.
...Ping
Really?
And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. (Acts 1:9-11 KJV)
I don't have a name for it. I do believe the 10 lost tribes migrated over the Caucasus Mountains (caucasian), settled Europe and then on to England and America. They were the Saxons (Isaac's Sons), Celts, etc. I believe that.
Maybe your sister-in-law is heeding that advise, eh?
P Marlowe, I only read her the Olivet prophecies in which Christ tells us what to do. In other words, I read her the Words of God, not mine.
"I don't believe that is what the scripture tells us.".....Well, you're the expert, eh?
I don't think any of us are experts. We are all trying to understand. Some do seem to know more than others about His Word and those are the ones I try to learn from.
No, it means that they believed the lie because they had pleasure in unrighteousness.
We all may see it differently but to me the lie is their pleasure and if they choose to believe it they are unrighteous.
That same "cloud" he went up on is the one that took Ezekiel. There are many references to those "clouds" in the Bible but I don't believe that is what Paul meant. I believe he meant it as he used the word in Heb.12:1 - ...compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses...
Well, you're the expert.
I'm afraid I don't understand your question Xzins. Yes, I believe verse 5 does refer to those that deceive.
5.For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
They come "saying I am Christ", in His name, meaning - they come as Christians and they shall deceive many.
I understand that, and I was specifically referring to the Wrath of God that will be poured out on the earth during the Great Tribulation. If one believes that the Church will be raptured at the end of the Tribulation, or does not believe the rapture will occur at all, then one must accept that the Church will also suffer God's Wrath, since many of the judgments are world-wide in scope. There will also be persecution of believers during the tribulation, but my reading of Scripture seems to indicate that these will be those who become believers during the Tribulation.
If the verse says that they say, “I am Christ.” then that is an awful lot different than saying “I am a Christian.”
We can’t make the scriptures say what we want them to say. They say what they say.
Such hair-splitting doesn't seem to square well with this:
I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. (Luke 10:21)
And:
Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 18:3)
Jesus is telling us something we're prone to forgetting: the fundamental elements of the faith are things that are accessible even to children. Jesus came for the likes of those -- and the church should focus on those elements.
By contrast, "the wise" are those who try to complicate the faith so that only specialists can understand it -- they're the ones who focus on the arcane problems associated with "pre-tribulation rapturists," and the like.
Look at the number of words expended by Mr. Swank who, instead of teaching the Gospel, spends his time promoting this very narrow controversy. It's things like this that prompted James to note:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.... Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:1, 13-18)
Mr. Swank isn't the only teacher who's a problem here ... somebody else has been teaching the stuff he's arguing against.
But by singling out those naughty "pre-tribulation rapturists" in this us-vs.-them manner, Mr. Swank is, nevertheless, part of the problem.
Thank you Xzins, I see what you mean now.
I used to see the scripture that way too. Now I read it as being in His name, means they are saying they are CHRIST-men. I know that Satan comes saying he is Christ but the phrase here is "many shall come". Who would believe a whole mess of folks were Christ Himself? (that is, except for that man in Brazil saying he is Christ and he has lots of followers).....
I believe they "say what they say" too, but we all seem to see it in a different way. To me the answer to that is to take it as a whole. Throughout the Bible we are warned of false teachers and preachers and for that reason I understand this particular scripture the way I do.
You are absolutely correct. People from all of the Ten Northern Tribes resettled themselves in Judah. They assimilated and became known as Jews also.... as did Benjamin and Levi. The percentage of the total who did come to Judah is unknown....only those who set their hearts on seeking The Lord. The preponderant majority although remained in the north and this is testified to in scripture as well as secular history. The event you speak happened during the reign of Jeroboam and surely you must realize that this was long before the Assyrian exile.
[II Kings 17:22-23] Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day. And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. As I mentioned somewhere earlier The Books of the Kings and Chronicles were written sometime after the return from Babylon. This would have been at least two hundred years after the Assyrian exile.
[Josephus, Antiquities, Book XI, Chapter V, Paragraph 2], First century A.D. : And when these Jews had understood what piety the king had towards God, and what kindness he had for Esdras, they were all greatly pleased; nay, many of them took their effects with them, and came to Babylon, as very desirous of going down to Jerusalem; but then the entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country; wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers. The two tribes subject to the Romans of course were Judah and Benjamin....Levi, being a priestly tribe, was counted among Judah and Benjamin.
If you still want to say the Northern Ten Tribes are not lost to history (they weren't during the first century) you are not looking at the facts.
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