The Not So Secret Rapture

reformed.org ^ | W. Fred Rice

[topcat54]

Evangelical book catalogs promote books such as Planet Earth: The Final Chapter, The Great Escape, and the Left Behind series. Bumper stickers warn us that the vehicle’s occupants may disappear at any moment. It is clear that there is a preoccupation with the idea of a secret rapture. Perhaps this has become more pronounced recently due to the expectation of a new millennium and the fears regarding potential Y2K problems. Perhaps psychologically people are especially receptive to the idea of an imminent, secret rapture at the present time. Additionally, many Christians are not aware that any other position relative to the second coming of Jesus Christ exists. Even in Reformed circles there are numerous people reading these books. Many of these people are unaware that this viewpoint conflicts with Scripture and Reformed Theology.

[Cronos]

It is important to know the roots of Calvinism and its bitterness.

What Calvinists always seem to forget is where their bitterness originates. What's seldom talked about by any follower of Calvin is that his father and brother both worked for the bishopric of Noyon in Picardy as a treasurer and lawyer.

Calvin's father, Gerard, was involved in some financial misdeeds and refused to provide the financial records to the Bishop of Noyon . Gerard was excommunicated for his misdeeds and later on so was his son Charles.

Gerard then made John Calvin leave his theological studies to become a French Lawyer, which is very apropos considering what John learned from his father. John's ever growing bitterness against the Church for the excommunication of his father and brother forced him to leave the Church altogether.

And now you know the roots of Calvinism and its bitterness.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

lolol. My favorite tourist. 8~)

[Cronos]

Now the OPC/PCA dreams of a police state like Geneva, where they attacked fellow Protestants as exemplified in

1. Belot, an Anabaptist was arrested for passing out tracts in Geneva and also accusing Calvin of excessive use of wine. With his books and tracts burned, he was banished from the city and told not to return on pain of hanging (J.L. Adams, The Radical Reformation, pp. 597-598).
2. Jacques Gruent was racked and then executed for calling Calvin a hypocrite
3. A man who publicly protested against the reformer's doctrine of predestination was flogged at all the crossways of the city and then expelled.
4. Calvin's Letter to the Marquis Paet, chamberlain to the King of Navarre, 1561. "Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels [Anabaptists and others], who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard."

post things like post things like "we see the inherent Satanism of Free-Will Arminianism" (accusing Methodists, Pentecostals, etc. who disagree with Calvin of preaching a gospel of Satan

And they will also state that "John Wesley preached Universal Infant Damnation for unbaptized infants -- which is unsurprising, because Wesley preached the Gospel of Satan" --> Calvinist'squoting this and attacking those who disagree with them

[Cronos]

A follower of Christ can ask any of the followers of Calvin

.
1. How, Oh Theological Wise One, are you the least bit AWARE that there EVEN IS a Bible apart from your EXPERIENCE of the wood pulp and ink &/or oral recording or recitation?

2. And what is this GREAT SHOCK that your unique, particular, personalEXPERIENCE of the wood pulp and ink has resulted in your own unique, particular personal PERSPECTIVE ON the Bible? Imagine that!

3. So, PLEASE, tell us something about The Bible that arises 100% apart from, having 100% nothing to do with your EXPERIENCE of the wood pulp and ink—or at least the words whether spoken, remembered or read! And, PLEASE share such pearls of wisdom WITHOUT giving us yet another EXPERIENCE!

4. What unmitigated balderdash. What hideous half-baked tripe.

PRAISE GOD, FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION,
THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB
IS VERY BIG ON DRAMATIC EXPERIENCES
OF HIMSELF.

First He wanted each of HIS CHILDREN TO EXPERIENCE HIM at the TENT OF MEETING.

THEN HE SENT HIMSELF in the Person of His only Begotten Son to restore the personal direct dialogue RELATIONSHIP EXPERIENCE with each individual.

And still the Calvinist Cliches are finding all manner of excuse to keep God at arm’s length—rather than even ‘merely’ trusting in God -- that is why they prefer to believe in their own little Brahmin caste;

What an insult to Holy Spirit and to THE ONE who sent HIM.

May God have mercy on such idiotic ignorant UNBiblical perspectives and creations of Calvin, Machen and the rest.

[Cronos]

The Calvinists demand CONTROL of everyone -- with their attacks on anyone denying their vision of a Robot-Master God who creates robots good and bad, programs them to good or evil and at the end of their lives the robot-Master says "ha! ha! you did the evil I programmed you to do, now burn in hell for all eternity"

THEIR VERY OWN quoted passages sometimes contain contradictions for their statements

THEN they have the idiotic cheek to suggest that Catholics/Orthodox/Lutherans/Pentecostals/Anglicans/Methodists etc. all must toe their TULIP line

Praise God for His faithfulness to insure HIS TRUTH reigns supreme REGARDLESS of the deceptions satan manages to layer over RELIGIOUS groups

[Cronos]

Some more examples of Calvin's police state that the hyper-Calvinist PCA/OPC combine dreams of someday creating

Sources quoted in Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, vol. 8:

• "The death penalty against heresy, idolatry and blasphemy and barbarous customs of torture were retained. Attendance at public worship was commanded on penalty of three sols. Watchmen were appointed to see that people went to church. The members of the Consistory visited every house once a year to examine the faith and morals of the family. Every unseemly word and act on the street was reported, and the offenders were cited before the Consistory to be either censured and warned, or to be handed over to the Council for severer punishment."

• Several women, among them the wife of Ami Perrin, the captain-general, were imprisoned for dancing.

• A man was banished from the city for three months because on hearing an ass bray, he said jestingly 'He prays a beautiful psalm.'

• A young man was punished because he gave his bride a book on housekeeping with the remark: 'This is the best Psalter.'

• Three men who laughed during a sermon were imprisoned for three days.

• Three children were punished because they remained outside of the church during the sermon to eat cakes.

• A man who swore by the 'body and blood of Christ' was fined and condemned to stand for an hour in the pillory on the public square.

• A child was whipped for calling his mother a thief and a she-devil.

• A girl was beheaded for striking her parents.

• A banker was executed for repeated adultery.

• A person named Chapuis was imprisoned for four days because he persisted in calling his child Claude (a Roman Catholic saint) instead of Abraham.

• Men and women were burnt to death for witchcraft. (See Pike, pp. 55,56).

From Other Sources:

• Belot, an Anabaptist was arrested for passing out tracts in Geneva and also accusing Calvin of excessive use of wine. With his books and tracts burned, he was banished from the city and told not to return on pain of hanging (J.L. Adams, The Radical Reformation, pp. 597-598).

• Martin Luther said of Calvin's actions in Geneva, "With a death sentence they solve all argumentation" (Juergan L. Neve, A History of Christian Thought, vol. I, p. 285).

• "About the month of January 1546, a member of the Little Council, Pierre Ameaux, asserted that Calvin was nothing but a wicked man - who was preaching false doctrine. Calvin felt that his authority as an interpreter of the Word of God was being attacked: he so completely identified his own ministry with the will of God that he considered Ameaux's words as an insult to the honour of Christ. The Magistrates offered to make the culprit beg Calvin's pardon on bended knees before the Council of the Two Hundred, but Calvin found this insufficient. On April 8, Ameaux was sentenced to walk all round the town, dressed only in a shirt, bareheaded and carrying a lighted torch in his hand, and after that to present himself before the tribunal and cry to God for mercy" (F. Wendel, Calvin, pp. 85, 86).

"Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" James 3:11.

[Cronos]

Some more examples of Calvin's police state that the hyper-Calvinist PCA/OPC combine dreams of someday creating

PERSECUTIONS AT CALVIN'S GENEVA

The Minutes Book of the Geneva City Council, 1541-59 (translated by Stefan Zweig, Erasmus: The Right to Heresy):

• "During the ravages of the pestilence in 1545 more than twenty men and women were burnt alive for witchcraft.

• From 1542 to 1546 fifty-eight judgements of death and seventy-six decrees of banishment were passed.

• During the years 1558 and 1559 the cases of various punishments for all sorts of offences amounted to four hundred and fourteen.

• One burgher smiled while attending a baptism: three days imprisonment.

• Another, tired out on a hot summer day, went to sleep during a sermon: prison.

• Some workingmen ate pastry at breakfast: three days on bread and water.

• Two burghers played skittles: prison.

• Two others diced for a quarter bottle of wine: prison.

• A blind fiddler played a dance: expelled from the city.

• Another praised Castellio's translation of the Bible: expelled from Geneva.

• A girl was caught skating, a widow threw herself on the grave of her husband, a burgher offered his neighbour a pinch of snuff during divine service: they were summoned before the Consistory, exhorted, and ordered to do penance.

• Some cheerful fellows at Epiphany stuck a bean into the cake: four-and-twenty hours on bread and water.

• A couple of peasants talked about business matters on coming out of church: prison.

• A man played cards: he was pilloried with the pack of cards hung around his neck.

• Another sang riotously in the street: was told 'they could go and sing elsewhere,' this meaning he was banished from the city.

• Two bargees had a brawl: executed.

• A man who publicly protested against the reformer's doctrine of predestination was flogged at all the crossways of the city and then expelled.

• A book printer who in his cups [columns] had railed at Calvin, was sentenced to have his tongue perforated with a red-hot iron before being expelled from the city.

• Jacques Gruent was racked and then executed for calling Calvin a hypocrite.

• Each offence, even the most paltry, was carefully entered in the record of the Consistory, so that the private life of every citizen could unfailingly be held up against him in evidence." (See Pike, pp. 61-63).

[Cronos]

The question one should ask the sad OPC/PCA droog is

Why are members of your cult so bitter and why do they not spend time promoting Jesus and less time damning His followers.

The answer, which they can't or won't give is because the bitterness of Calvin (who's dad was excommunicated for embezzling money from the church) has communicated to his followers.

[Cronos]

And even Baptists like David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, who wrote Calvin's Camel have realised the errors of Calvin, writing

Having read John Calvin's Institutes and having studied the writings of many Calvinists both ancient and contemporary, I am convinced that Calvin was guilty of straining at gnats and swallowing camels. To accept Calvinism (in any of its forms) is to deny the plain teaching of dozens of Scriptures....

I realize that a staunch Calvinist has an answer for everything. He can flee immediately into his stronghold of making clever and intricate man-made distinctions between electing grace and common grace, between degrees of the love of God, between desiderative vs. decretive will and antecedent hypothetical will, you name it

[MHGinTN]

Thanks, you’ve simplified my choices for future threads ... you have not a clue what your spittling. But keep the ‘faith’ sport, it is probably comforting to you.

[kosta50]

KOSTA50: “If you use the Bible as you guide, then it would be perfectly logical to believe in pink unicorns and Eastern Bunnies”

Which is like saying “If you use the word of God as your guide, you believe in pink unicorns.”

Except it's not the same as saying "God is like a pink unicorn". I don;t know what God is and therefore cannot likien diety to a pink unicorn.

As for the Bible, the subject was Bible stories. To me, the Bible was always something written by humans moved by their faith and devotion to God, and not something God wrote using someone's hands. That's not what inspiration means.

Neither does my former branch of Christianity claim teach the bible is a literal word of God or, even worse, the Word of God (i.e. Logos), as apparently some Protestants do. I made that perfectly clear on more than one occasion, and even posted Orthodox take on the scriptures with links to the sources.

To me, Bible stories appear as fantastic tales, and I never looked at them as factual but as stories with a moral and spiritual message, intended to edify the believer. Again, the Orthodox Church doesn't insist they are literal either, with few notable exceptions: Incarnation and Resurrection.

These two are included in the Nicene Symbol of Faith (aka the Creed), and are dogma. As a practicing Christian I did believe in the resurrection and Incarnation as literal and true events, because that's something I was taught as far back as I can remember.

Today, I simply don't know. Such things just don't happen in the real (observable) world, so doubt is not baseless.

[MHGinTN]

As an aside, dear sister in Christ, your posts remind me the TRUTH has no agenda, and is not dependent upon which sex delvers it. The first to know Our Lord was risen were the women so blessed. Thank you, Sister in Christ, for enriching us with your revelations in the spirit. Your edifications regale my flagging soul.

[kosta50]

Well he didn't do that, exactly, IIRC. Not quite. He merely indicated (in a 'way past post) that belief in God is indistinguishable from belief in pink unicorns

Thank you, bb. I appreciate your objectivity. As I said before, I don't know what is God, so it is impossible for me to equate God to pink unicorns.

As far as a belief in some axiomatic deity is concerned, it is no different to me than a belief in any other axiomatic man-made construct, the existence of which is by fiat. Hence, what stops you from believing in pink unicorns on Jupiter?

FWIW, I just figure our friend kosta is the classic snarling "dog in the manger": He can't eat the fodder; but he's determined to prevent all the other animals from eating it — even though their nourishment depends on it

That's implying motives, again, which you seem to do very much. Suffice it to say openly that I express my opinions at the expense of no one. Since you will agree that only God can give faith (because it's salvific), only God would be able to take it away. Therefore my opinions cannot stop anyone from receiving "spiritual nourishment."

On the other hand, if someone's opinions can make someone lose or find faith, then it is man, not God, who determines other man's salvation or perdition, which is not what Christians believe. Rather, they would say it is God's will. What do you say? Who determines if you should believe, God or man?

[Cronos]

Do note, dear metmom, Mark said If you read Paul as the central figure or conveyor of theology in Christianity, then you are a Christian heretic.

This is raising Paul above Christ as in reading only Paul's Epistles, not the Gospel on Sunday.

We Christians who believe in Christ as God hold Christ as quite higher (putting it mildly) than Paul

But leave this higher details aside -- would you like more examples from scripture that prove that Jesus Christ is God? It's true, you know, Jesus IS God, undeniably, undisputably.

[Cronos]

Metmom: Then who or what is the central figure or conveyor of Christian theology?

Ah -- see, now that's getting to the point -- Jesus Christ, our Lord, Savior and God is the central figure of Christian theology.

I know this concept of Jesus Christ as God, the Logos, part of the ONE Triune God, may be contrary to what some of the "elders", "prophets" whatever may tell, but they are wrong, utterly wrong.

Jesus Christ IS God, not a man, not a created being. All us Christians here (Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Orthodox, etc.) believe this -- you too can discover why we say Jesus Christ is Lord, Savior and God

[caww]

Since Free-Rebublic is a pro-God site....why are you here? Many of your posts are confusing...do you believe in the Christian God? ...or some other God or none at all...or don’t you care to know one way or another?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

To me, the Bible was always something written by humans moved by their faith and devotion to God, and not something God wrote using someone's hands. That's not what inspiration means.

"Inspired by God" doesn't mean God was a cheerleader for the writers of Scripture. It means the word of God was authored by God. Two thousand years of Christianity states that fact to be true.

As a practicing Christian I did believe in the resurrection and Incarnation as literal and true events, because that's something I was taught as far back as I can remember.

But that's something you say you don't believe now. Was your former church in error?

Such things just don't happen in the real (observable) world, so doubt is not baseless.

Hundreds of witnesses say otherwise.

Doubt is always an unruly companion of faith. It's impossible to eradicate it from our lives. Our faith is not perfect.

But that's all the more reason we need to return to the Scripture and rely on His promises.

"When we render to the word of God less honour than is due to it, there steals upon us, without our knowledge, a growing obstinacy, which brings along with it a contempt of the word of God, and makes us lose all reverence for it." -- Calvin, John II.275

[eyedigress]

kosta50 is the C.S. Newis of his time. Don’t let it bother you.

[caww]

Oh that’s what he is? He likes to dig that’s for sure, but for what?... he often makes no sense at all...might be he likes to hear himself? Hey I have no problem with people searching out the things of God...but I’m not convinced that’s what he’s doing.