Your rejection of Christ and your taking pleasure in unrighteouness. When God sends a strong delusion that you might believe a lie, he has stopped knocking at the door of your heart. At that point your fate is sealed. You are going to hell, so you might as well be happy about it. 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.
If God said that He would send strong delusion so they should believe a lie then what lie is it?
that there is "pleasure" in unrighteousness. It is similar to when God hardened Pharoah's heart. Pharoah didn't want to let the Children of Israel go, so God made it easier for him to follow his own devices by hardening his heart.
Those that "have already totally rejected the truth" already belong to Satan. He wants Christians and will lie to get them.
And if God has given them over to Satan, then they will believe the lie, they will believe their delusions, they will reject the gospel.
All of this has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with whether or not you believe in a pre-tribulation rapture or no rapture at all. 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.
Tell you what, just sit next to a pre-tribber at the Marriage supper and they'll explain it to you then.
I am not willing to say that. I am willing to say they don't know it is a lie. ?
It is not a lie. It is a reasonable deduction regarding a mystery that is scripturally sound.
They believe it with every fiber of their being.
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.
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 do not mock or make fun of those that believe in rapture. I do try to tell them of my concerns.
While at the same time accusing us of having pleasure in unrighteousness. If your hermenutics are that bad in regard to II Thess 2:10, then I would have to question your hermenutics in regard to your ideas about the rapture.
Get a grip Ping. This issue is not life or death.
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.