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The Not So Secret Rapture
reformed.org ^ | W. Fred Rice

Posted on 01/14/2011 5:57:52 PM PST by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at reformed.org ...


TOPICS: Theology
KEYWORDS: crusades; endtimes; eschatology; rapture
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To: Quix

did you ask a question that i missed?


221 posted on 01/16/2011 6:49:32 PM PST by one Lord one faith one baptism
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To: Quix; CynicalBear; RnMomof7; ReformedBeckite; topcat54
Or perhaps they'll try and convince us that the sun, moon and stars have stopped shining because ALMIGHTY EVER FAITHFUL GOD HAS FORSAKEN HIS EVERLASTING PROMISES to the blood children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!

What if I let the Bible speak and see if the Spirit convicts you of your mockery?

Isaiah 13:9-10 Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger,
To lay the land desolate;
And He will destroy its sinners from it.
For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not give their light;
The sun will be darkened in its going forth,
And the moon will not cause its light to shine.

This was Isaiah speaking of the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. Let's try another from another familiar prophet:

Ezekeil 32:7-8 When I put out your light,
I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark;
I will cover the sun with a cloud,
And the moon shall not give her light.
All the bright lights of the heavens I will make dark over you,
And bring darkness upon your land,'
Says the Lord God.

Looks like God speaking through Ezekiel used the same sort of language for the destruction of Egypt. Lets try another familiar prophet... this time addressing your blasphemous comment directly:

Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
For what good is the day of the Lord to you?
It will be darkness, and not light (Amos 5:18)....
And it shall come to pass in that day," says the Lord God,
"That I will make the sun go down at noon,
And I will darken the earth in broad daylight; (Amos 8:9)

Amos is speaking here of God's Wrath poured out on "the blood children of Abraham, Issac and Jacob".

What I am suggesting here, is that while you willfully remain in your state of foolish ignorance, that you try to refrain from making an ass of yourself around those who obviously are a bit more familiar with Apocalyptic literature than you.

222 posted on 01/16/2011 6:54:09 PM PST by The Theophilus
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism

Perhaps I should have said . . .

empty RESPONSE.


223 posted on 01/16/2011 6:56:15 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: The Theophilus

Those straw dogs won’t hunt for fair-minded souls well read in Scripture.


224 posted on 01/16/2011 6:57:57 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism

Not necessarily conspiring TOGETHER

just both going to great expensive lengths to protect a core of their people, resources, archives etc from looming cataclysmic disasters that all upper level elites are quite aware of.

I hadn’t realized that the Vatican library had been closed for the first time in many hundreds of years . . . ostensibly for repairs on an unsafe building.

Purportedly the archives are in the process of being moved to a much safer location.


225 posted on 01/16/2011 7:00:11 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: The Theophilus; Amityschild; Brad's Gramma; Captain Beyond; Cvengr; DvdMom; firebrand; ...

BTW, I’m honored and humbled to continue to make a fool of myself in behalf of

A CONGRUENT UNDERSTANDING OF THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF SCRIPTURE.

It’s the REPLACEMENTARIANS et all who’ll be most awkwardly shuffling their feet . . . if they aren’t groveling with their faces to the floor in front of ALMIGHTY GOD for their rejection of the straightforward Scriptures regarding the END TIMES

and

of HIS EVERLASTING PROMISES TO THE CHILDREN OF JACOB.


226 posted on 01/16/2011 7:02:21 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: Vegasrugrat
Actually, the Bible is filled with the teaching of predestination/election. What Calvinism teaches is actually Double predestination

Really. You mention "Romans 8 & 9" but you missed:

Rom 9:22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction

Maybe you have a creative definition of "prepared for destruction" in the context of the Potter and Clay analogy

Maybe you missed the classic proof-text of the Double Predestination crowd:

1 Peter 2:8 They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.

Then we also have...

Jude 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have even our LORD speaking directly about the matter:

Matthew 23:31-34 "Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?

Salvation was not available to them says our LORD. That can only mean that they were appointed to Perdition.

227 posted on 01/16/2011 7:05:27 PM PST by The Theophilus
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To: Quix

you mean those 7 hills won’t protect them? the guy sounded like a wacko to me ( altough i do appreciate his military service )


228 posted on 01/16/2011 7:07:04 PM PST by one Lord one faith one baptism
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To: CynicalBear
Irenaeus tells us John wrote Revelation in the mid 90sAD which totally destroys the view of those that say all prophecy was fulfilled by 70AD

So who are you accusing of being a Full Preterist, or did you just overextend yourself by saying "all prophecy" and meant "most prophecy"?

FYI, Realized Millennialists put the Olivet Discourse as an immediate fulfillment in 70AD and we don't need an early dating of Revelation to maintain the claims. So you think you dinged the Full Preterists by claiming Irenaeus, as if that was your best argument; (there are much better arguments than that to support a late date) it doesn't leave Chiliasm in any of its forms as the last one standing.

229 posted on 01/16/2011 7:15:51 PM PST by The Theophilus
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism

I was baptized and raised Catholic. The Catholic church considered me a Catholic and to hear many talk, still does. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.

Jesus did NOT establish the Catholic church. It did not come into existence until the time of Constantine. History bears it out whatever delusion the Catholic church operates notwithstanding.

This business of claiming that everything up until that time was by default Catholic is a pretty poor excuse for a major league power grab.

Even supposing as a exercise in thought, that it might have been true, the corruption and immorality which has pervaded the Catholic church since its inception at the time of Constantine has effectively disqualified from being able to claim that title any longer.

In Revelation, when Jesus spoke to the seven churches, He warned them to straighten out or He’d remove their candle from its lampstand. He did that for churches for far less serious reason than the corruption and immorality that the Catholic church tolerates.

It is not exempt from that kind of discipline from Jesus, if they really were a true church. But considering the path they’ve taken, they wandered off that path millennia ago.


230 posted on 01/16/2011 7:24:08 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom
Honestly, I’ve never seen people get so hot and bothered over a doctrine which has less impact on one’s salvation than end times prophecy.

The problem is before you, but you aren't seeing it. John MacArthur holds the Dispensational view, and no one doubts his salvation. John Gerstner condemned Dispenationalism and no one doubts that he is with the LORD now too. So one's eschatology does not have an effect on one's salvation, but unfortunately, Premillennial Dysfunctionalism has displaced the Gospel as the primary focus on the nominal Christian's life. The Post-Mills here have otherwise summed up the practical errors of relying on that particularly aberrant form of Chiliasm too.

231 posted on 01/16/2011 7:25:16 PM PST by The Theophilus
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To: metmom

since you were raised “Catholic”, and presumably went to Mass, i have a question for you:

When you prayed “Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the Word, and i shall be healed”
Who was the “LORD” you prayed to?
Why weren’t you “worthy” to receive Him?
Did the “Lord” honor your faith and answr your prayer?
Did He heal you?

Thanks for your response.


232 posted on 01/16/2011 7:29:52 PM PST by one Lord one faith one baptism
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To: metmom

The Catholic Church isn’t claiming everything up until Constatine, the early Church Fathers up until Constantine identified themselves as Catholic, starting with St. Ignatius, a pupil of St. John. There was only One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church then. Denominations were invented in the 16th century. The seven “churches” in Revelation were not seven denominations!!


233 posted on 01/16/2011 7:34:38 PM PST by one Lord one faith one baptism
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To: The Theophilus

>> Irenaeus tells us John wrote Revelation in the mid 90sAD which totally destroys the view of those that say all prophecy was fulfilled by 70AD<<

My statement was >b>those that say all prophecy was fulfilled</b>. I didn’t designate full, partial or anything else. I do understand the differences between full Preterist and those who are not full Preterist and even the disagreements between the two groups which get rather convoluted.

I do realize that there are other arguments for the later date but the Irenaeus statement leaves no wiggle room that is believable. The late date does unravel the foundation of most Preterists.


234 posted on 01/16/2011 7:45:06 PM PST by CynicalBear
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To: metmom

INDEED TO THE MAX.


235 posted on 01/16/2011 7:49:50 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: The Theophilus

!NOPE!

NOT in my Christianity.


236 posted on 01/16/2011 7:50:48 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism
Photobucket

237 posted on 01/16/2011 7:51:38 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: CynicalBear

INDEED.


238 posted on 01/16/2011 7:52:19 PM PST by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism
The Catholic Church isn’t claiming everything up until Constatine,

Sure it is. Every Catholic on this board says that.

....the early Church Fathers up until Constantine identified themselves as Catholic,....

Show us where they use the term. Where is it found in Scripture?

There was only One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church then. Denominations were invented in the 16th century. The seven “churches” in Revelation were not seven denominations!!

The only true church is the real believers regardless of denomination. The Catholic church is not the true church.

239 posted on 01/16/2011 7:53:19 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: one Lord one faith one baptism

Total red herring.

Does not even deserve the electrons I used to reply to it.


240 posted on 01/16/2011 7:56:39 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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