Posted on 02/07/2014 6:11:36 AM PST by CynicalBear
As a thief veils his presence from those he wishes to steal from, so the Lord has veiled the doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation coming for His church. That may be construed by some as a loaded statement, for sure.
Of course, those who have put forth great effort in the study of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine may dispute its veiling. Indeed, for those who search out truth through the effort of study, and humble reliance upon the Holy Spirit, truth is unveiled.
It is of no mystery to the children of God that He requires us to study His Word.
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
It should also be of no mystery to God's children that He wants them to understand His doctrines.
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26).
God wants our spiritual fellowship with Him through the study of His Word. He stimulates and motivates us to study His Word, by veiling certain doctrines within His Word, so that in depth study is required to search them out for spiritual understanding.
However, those who are not His children are blinded to His doctrines.
“But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
If those who do not believe can be so blinded to the first, elementary doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, just imagine how blind some can be to a deeper doctrine such as that of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the church.
It’s very simple, if you refuse to believe in the truth, you will become blinded to it.
Of course there are many honest, born-again believers in Christ do not agree with the Pre-Trib doctrine. Those believers are not seeking to devour those of us who do. I have to seriously question the motivation of those who focus the majority of their “work for the Lord” in vitriolic attacks launched against the hearts of those who hold to the Pre-Trib Rapture doctrine. Such attacks are an attribute of Satan, not of Christ.
I believe that the Lord hid or veiled the doctrine of the Pre-Trib Rapture from the eyes of the wolves to protect His sheep from their hunger. If Satan knew exactly when the "Thief" would come to snatch away His sheep, he may very likely launch a mass extermination operation to kill them off before their Shepherd could come to rescue them.
Of course, we know that Satan will launch just such an operation of extermination against all who refuse to worship him, during the second half of the Tribulation (Revelation 13:7-8).
Jesus referred to His own coming for His sheep as when a thief comes at an unexpected hour.
“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:42-44).
The Shepherd will turn the tables on the wolf; He will come at an unexpected hour to snatch all of His sheep away from danger.
“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).
The following is a quote from an earlier article written by me about the Day of the Lord, with the addition of some editing:
The Day of the Lord arrives as a thief in the night but it does not end as a thief in the night. The “day” is more than just a 24-hour period of time. It is not the same amount of time as “the evening and the morning” referred to in the creation chronicle in the book of Genesis. A lot takes place during the “day” of the Lord.
“But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).
When heaven is opened in Revelation 19:11, everyone on earth will see Jesus. His return at the end of the Tribulation will not come as a thief in the night. The “day of the Lord” will begin as a thief in the night but it will not end as a thief in the night.
“Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire” (Revelation 19:11).
“All of 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” (Matthew 24:30).
The entire process of Christ’s coming at the end of the Tribulation will be very obvious to the world, unlike the process of a thief who does not want to announce his presence to those he wants to steal from. When Christ comes as a thief (before the Tribulation), He will only trumpet His Presence to His bride that He is “stealing” from the world. While Christ’s bride is caught up, the rest of the world will be caught-off-guard.
To believe in the doctrine of the Pre-Trib Rapture is to embrace the hope of its truth. And if there is one thing that Satan and his minions cannot stand, it is hope in Jesus. They engage in great effort to deceive us into believing that our hope is dangerous to ourselves. The Bible clearly teaches that only those who do not receive the love of the truth will be deceived.
“And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:10).
Our hope is of no danger to us; it is only dangerous to those who hate the truth. It shakes their faith, it rattles their nerves. They are in danger when our faith is strong.
The danger is to the arrogance of their egos. They have to be right to stay propped up on the pedestal of their pride. We have to be right in order to properly instruct our hearts and to comfort the hearts of our fellow believers. We have to stay motivated to go about the Lord’s work until He returns. We have to continue to love God, and to teach and to love one another in His name.
The hatred of hope in Christ was no doubt the motivation behind the false teachings that led the church at Thessalonica to be so greatly troubled in their collective spirit.
The same attacks are being launched within the church today, with back-breaking strength. Satan and his children cannot stand your comfort in Christ. Don’t let their arrows pierce your armor of hope. Take up your shield of faith.
“Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16).
After all, when we look at the near complete depravity of the world around us, what else can we hope for but the return of Jesus? There certainly isn’t any hope for the repentance of this world as a whole. The only hope that remains is for the repentance of a few, and for our escape.
If and when any of us as individuals, or all of us collectively, will or will not escape this tortuous place is up to God the Father only.
“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18).
I know not when my Lord may come, at night or noonday fair, nor if I’ll walk the vale with him, or meet him in the air. But I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day. “I know not why God’s wondrous grace.”
Percieved?
Visceral: characterized by or proceeding from instinct rather than intellect: a visceral reaction.
5.
characterized by or dealing with coarse or base emotions; earthy; crude: a visceral literary style.
Hate and Fear.
Perhaps you didn’t mean to personalize your angst. I don’t know.
Rolling out “visceral hate and fear of the subject” particularly in a religious context is pretty strong language don’t you think? Now I am NOT overly sensitive, and frankly don’t care what a stranger on the internet says to me. Your post does serve to illustrate my thesis: Where tribulation and rapture arguments are in play, Christians get really hysterical about things they cannot control or even understand.
But truly this is true on most of the Religion threads. I find the attitudes of most posters towards each other to be highly disappointing.
Well said.
That is a legitimate point of view. It however does not negate the legitimate views of a pre trib rapture. I also am intrigued by the reference to the Feast of Yom Teruah and all the other Jewish feasts. I will not however hold strictly to that time period.
I will say that bringing in the Jewish feasts etc brings in another level of prophetic insight that actually supports the view of the pre trib rapture of the church of this age of grace and the introduction of the last seven years of Daniel’s prophecy.
I do understand what you are saying and I’m with you there@!
They in no way support his eisegesis.
There is no secret pre-tribulation rapture in the Scriptures.
It is mentioned nowhere.
The burden of proof is on the claimant to demonstrate that the Scriptures clearly attest a pre-tribulation rapture.
His argument is that unless we read specific passages of Scripture against their context and against their meaning, we are "blind."
Let's take one example.
He harps on the Scriptural commonplace of "the unexpected hour."
Scripture says in several places that we will not know the hour of the parousia, that He will return at a time we will not be able to predict.
Your author abuses this clear teaching, by claiming, effectively, that what happens in that hour is that He whisks away the elect before the terrible phenomena of the Day begin.
But Scripture does not describe that hour in that way anywhere at all.
That's an external figment imposed on the text.
That is Darby's invention.
LOL Go figure ey? Actually, my contention with the “Hebrew rootss” crowd as well as the “Rood” followers is their lack of understanding of the New Testament covenant of grace and insistence of adherence to laws as a condition of salvation. They have not understood that the nation of Israel has seven years of the 490 prophesied in Daniel left so by design are replacement believers.
Please show me scriptures that show that those who are faithful followers of Christ and who put their trust in Him have ever or are told they will be subject to His wrath.
Scripture says “the day of the Lord” will come like a thief in the night. That is different and the context is different. Certainly different than saying the Lord is like a thief. Unfortunate word choice, and the writer implies He has the intent of a thief to steal from us. Do you believe that? I find the notion incredible in the extreme.
Revelation is obscure, hard to comprehend, to be sure. But if you seek you will find.
“Yeshua lived inside the Torah and spoke from Torah”
Yes, but being of the order of Melchizidek he spoke from its view point and not from the view point of the priestly orders of Aaron and the Levites. That is why, when he spoke from the Torah, he tore up the consciences of those who lived the Torah (even conforming to it with much technical perfection).
A prostitute should be stoned according to the Law, but that Law could only be executed by those who themselves were not in transgression of the Law. Christ could have killed the prostitute who was thrust before him as he was the living law and not in transgression of it, but he chose
to forgive and redeem that woman from the consequences of her being in transgression of the Torah. He was of Melchizidek...not of Aaron and Moses, being bound to a higher law of Love that offers grace to the sinbound, saving humans from hell and eternal destruction.
Being of Melchizidek, Christ was the one who sent the dream to Peter, of the unclean foods which repeated 3 times in which the voice said to Peter...”Rise and eat”...to which Peter replies “Not so for the food is unclean”...to which the Lord replies” That which I have made clean, let no man call unclean!”. At that point, Peter received visitors, servants from the centurion Cornelius... gentiles that never knew about feasts of trumpets, or jewish Holy days. Cornelius only knew about the fact that he cared about being righteous and of the deep longing in his heart for God.
Peter preached to him Jesus, the whole company were saved, the Holy Ghost fell upon them, they were baptized...and Peter, the Jew, realized for the first time that God was no respecter of persons; that in fact; Salvation had come not just to all Jewry, but to all men! God didn’t care about foods, feasts, circumcision, as he only cares to write his living Torah, the person of Jesus Christ, who was of the order of Melchizidek...not Aaron and Moses, into our living beings! The feasts are not put away, we are becoming what those feasts were supposed to commemorate!
As for not knowing the times of his coming, one could look at the feasts as an allusion. I’ll speak to what I think you might be saying. Christ already gave us a clue as to the timing of his coming, though not the exact(!) time of his coming. Christ spoke a time of rising disasters, wars as well as the moral conditions(like the days of Noah) that would be present at his coming. One could argue that since we see that Israel was made a nation and that there is a falling away of general morality and a rise of depraved lawlessness and blasphemous idealisms occurring, as well as talk of a new Babel like government that would unite the world...one could say the trumps have been blowing and now we await the move of God upon this world(but not knowing the exact(!) timing)!
I didn’t get that from the article at all. The connecting word was “veil” not “steal”.
Since the Father sends us the comforter in Jesus’ name to bring us to remember truth, there is no need to try with effort to learn the truth. Big mistake many people make!And of those effortful learning’s is twisting the scripture to twist the scriptures to believe that we will not have to live through the awful coming tribulation. If they had been showing Christians the pathway to real life, it would not matter what we have to suffer! Www.patriotoutreach.org has true prayer there...that is helping so many that the church has failed.
I liked his observation that if the time of the rescue of the church before the tribulation were known,
Satan would have an extermination program in place right before that.
"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Hebrews 12:6
Very well put!
No wrath there. Unless you view chastisement of children somehow to be wrath.
God does have purpose for everything He does whether we fully understand it or not doesn’t He.
And it’s all for our good, we’ve been guaranteed...
so, we don’t really need to know what He hasn’t revealed.
I think He pretty well knew that we didn’t need to know more than He revealed in scripture.
Effectively you are arguing that wrath is whatever you say it is, and if someone presents a Scripture text that undermines your argument, your strategy is to explain it away semantically.
So when Christ scourged the moneychangers in the Temple he did not do it out of anger?
Um…..No. I think the clear distinction made in scripture speaks for itself.
>>So when Christ scourged the moneychangers in the Temple he did not do it out of anger?<<
I suppose we are down to semantics now. God did say we are not destined to His wrath and I’ll just leave others to their interpretation of what that means for them.
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