After the Tribulation

[Ukulelemike]

I don't like Scofield, primarily because he promoted the Gap Theory, which I don't see as having any sort of biblical basis.  But that's a whole different kettle of fish.

 

 

Alan, I ask you to take it easy in your remarks of accusing another of being blind or anti-Semitic or conceited, et al. If you want to hash something out with him, do it privately-in the forums we seek to keep even our disagreements civil-you've been around long enough to know how quickly things can get out of hand.  Thank you.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Ukulelemike
Removed that which has been removed.

[Alan]

Ukulelemike,

In the interests of being more civil and gracious, and to prevent any personal ill-will, and to assure all on this forumt that I have no personal animosity towards Matthew24, I have struck out the offending references to Matthew24 being anti-Semitic, blind, or conceited, and will keep those thoughts private in order to prevent the current issue from getting out of hand.

Alan

[wretched]

The "big shot" is Steven Anderson who pastors Faithful Word Baptist Church ---->who has won 1000's to the Lord not only in the Phoenix area, but online as well. BTW, I wouldn't suggest a pretribber to take verses out of Matther 24, Luke 21, or Mark 13. Why? These are parallel passages that in 2 of them, directly say Jesus comes After the Tribulation. That is why pretribbers cling to 1 Thess. 4. Why? It doesn't mention the timing....but guess what? It sounds just like all of the other rapture passages in Matt, Mark, Luke, Rev6, Rev14. HE WILL COME IN THE CLOUDS, WITH POWER, AND GLORY< AND EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM. HOLLYWOOD IS WRONG!

If you take the bible literally it says, we will not know the day or hour, but it explicitly says we know the time and seasons. We aren't in darkness.

Well I gotta hand it to you, you do admit to be a follower of men at least. If he is your actual pastor, please say so. Sadly with this anderson fella he thinks he knows things noone else has thought of. Just another sign of a novice lifted with pride and I have seen the soulwinning you mention. That church is no where near 1000s big my young friend. I did a little research after this thread posted. I have seen this type repeated in many places

60 people out for 2 hours in a muslim neighborhood with only one baptized but supposedly 43 saved. That is not soulwinning friend. I see folks doing these quick presentations on porches with folks who are polite.  Somehow though not interested enough in their souls to even invite them in and actually take time with the Scriptures. These people just wanted them off their porches so pray the 123 prayer to get rid of them. After all, why not, they think of it as a rabbits foot, like it can't hurt to repeat after them!!! Like a lucky charm I want to try to get in good with all types of gods. That kind of witnessing is not Scriptural. Ask anderson how many faithful members of his church got saved like that - the answer will be zero; there is always more to the story than this quicky stuff. Does it happen with the quicky presentations and prayers (yes if the seed has been planted and watered enough) but rarely. And when it is a real conversion, those people will come to church and confess Him before men. I am not saying they will all grow the same or serve the same but they will confess Him before men.

Why not track how many got a chance to give the complete Gospel or track how many tracts were accepted when they didn't want to receive the complete Gospel. We are to plant the seeds and water planted seeds but God and Him only gives the increase. And when He does, we will bring the sheaves with us. Anderson and others like him want to give the increase themselves with these false conversion numbers. The real numbers are sitting in the pews at least for a little while.

I am not referring to folks who did confess Him with Baptism and then backslide, not at all the Bible tells us there will be many like this. What the Bible doesn't tell us is those who won't be Baptised are actually saved (not couldn't, not can't) but WON'T

Sure I can't see into mens hearts but I can read my Bible and It says that if he who will not confess Me before men him will I not confess before my Father. Those ain't conversions, those are just rabbit's feet for the lost. Reporting numbers at all costs does more harm than good. Another novice mistake.

If they want to grow in the Lord and truly serve Him, they will forget their pride in false numbers and stop condemning folks who will now tell the next soulwinner that they are already saved once again stopping their chance to hear the complete Gospel. It really makes me angry. Somewhere along the line these folks need to be honest with themselves and not sell it like snakeoil with wisdom of words making the Cross of none effect. There is a big difference between polite and convicted, how do we ignore this?

I know people all around this area who tell me all the time they are saved but these same people will not even tell their own children how to escape hell. Saved huh? like my redbone hounds are saved.

We must go and we must preach but not like this. Stop the nonsense and get busy, time is short.

[Standing Firm In Christ]

The "big shot" is Steven Anderson who pastors Faithful Word Baptist Church ---->who has won 1000's to the Lord not only in the Phoenix area, but online as well. BTW, I wouldn't suggest a pretribber to take verses out of Matther 24, Luke 21, or Mark 13. Why? These are parallel passages that in 2 of them, directly say Jesus comes After the Tribulation. That is why pretribbers cling to 1 Thess. 4. Why? It doesn't mention the timing....but guess what? It sounds just like all of the other rapture passages in Matt, Mark, Luke, Rev6, Rev14. HE WILL COME IN THE CLOUDS, WITH POWER, AND GLORY< AND EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM. HOLLYWOOD IS WRONG!

If you take the bible literally it says, we will not know the day or hour, but it explicitly says we know the time and seasons. We aren't in darkness.

"1,000's" implies two or more thousand.

Quite a remarkable amount of people.  Since you are so knowledgeable of the number of people that Anderson has "led to the Lord," how about providing proof of your claim?  Who are these "1,000's of people"? 

Seriously, I know you really do not have such knowledge, unless you are Anderson himself? 

However, given the hatred that I have heard from Anderson's sermons on more than one occasion, (remember his stating that he prays that Obama is killed?) I highly doubt Anderson has led anyone to the Lord at all.  He may have presented a false christ to people and people ate it up, but that he led them to the God of the Bible?  I highly doubt it. 

[TheSword]

There are a couple reasons I will respectfully disagree.

1: Different things are described as being taken, in different terms. 

2: the term "Ripe" in the two contexts are from two different Greek words, one of which can NOT refer to the grapes.

...

SO we have a REAPING of a RIPE, DRY product, BY Jesus Christ, with no word of what He does with it, THEN we have a GATHERING of the RIPE, FLOURISHING GRAPE VINE, (not very dry, I think), which is gathered by an angel, and then cast into the winepress of God's wrath, so clearly, these represent the lost.  Very clearly two different events, close in time, one after the other, but two different people, one reaps something dry, one gathers grapes from the vine.

This fits perfectly with they way I understand it to be: Jesus has just gathered his people, like wheat, (Matt 13), the so-called rapture, and the lost are represented by the grapes, which begins the falling of God's wrath. 

Mike,

First, thanks for the thoughtful and engaging response. After considering your argument and double-checking your facts in multiple linguistic sources, I have to recant the conclusion of my previous post and agree that there are two harvests/reapings in view here (yes, I am capable of accepting instructive correction after all ). Thanks for bringing that nugget to my attention.

However, I still do not see this passage as a clear and unequivocal description of the Rapture. There are 3 objections/problems I see...

1) There is nothing in the passage (that I currently see) to demand that the wheat being harvested is made up of pre-raptured believers as opposed to those saved in the Tribulation if there was a pre-tribulation Rapture.

2) I am not entirely convinced that the "one like unto the Son of man" in v. 14 is a specific reference to Jesus. This is partially because he takes direction to reap from an angel out of the temple (v.15), but Jesus takes command and direction from no one except God the Father. I understand that the same wording is used in Rev 1:13 to reference Jesus, but there it is accompanied by descriptive delimiters that echo Daniel's descript of God (Dan 7:9-10).  Additionally, while "Son of man" is a title given to Jesus, it is one that is intended to emphasize His humanity and is a title also given to prophets (Dan 8:17 and most of Ezekiel) as well to reference human lineage in general, often with a sense of limitation (Isa 51:12; Jer 49:18, 33, 50:40, 51:43; Heb 2:6). While the "Son of man" on a cloud may echo what we see in the Rapture as depicted 1 Thess 4, it also the common imagery used for the final Second Coming (Dan 7:13; Matt 24:30, 26:64; Mark 13:26, 14:62). Given that it is not unquestionably Jesus on the cloud and that if it was there is nothing to distinguish it from the Second Coming, I cannot yet view this as a definitive reference to the Rapture.

3) The imagery used here for harvesting wheat is dissimilar from the imagery used in the 1 Thess 4 description of the Rapture. In Rev 14:14-16, the wheat is cut down wholesale and gathered. Perhaps there is a separation of wheat from tares at this point (which is not specified and so must be read in), but the harvesting of wheat implies some type of death (cf. John 12:24 on the death of the harvested wheat). In contrast 1 Thess 4:13-18 depicts not death, but resurrection and immediate translation from one life into the next. The believers of the Rapture are not cut down and gathered, they are simply called up by Jesus to meet Him in the air.

Given these three reasons, I remain unconvinced that Rev 14:14-20 describes the Rapture.

Edited October 1, 2015 by TheSword
grammar

[Ukulelemike]

Mike,

First, thanks for the thoughtful and engaging response. After considering your argument and double-checking your facts in multiple linguistic sources, I have to recant the conclusion of my previous post and agree that there are two harvests/reapings in view here (yes, I am capable of accepting instructive correction after all ). Thanks for bringing that nugget to my attention.  Always remarkably important to be willing to receive something, but ONLY if it is to be pleasing to God over man. That was a difficulty I have dealt with. Thanks brother.

However, I still do not see this passage as a clear and unequivocal description of the Rapture. There are 3 objections/problems I see...

1) There is nothing in the passage (that I currently see) to demand that the wheat being harvested is made up of pre-raptured believers as opposed to those saved in the Tribulation if there was a pre-tribulation Rapture.  I get that. However, why, then, don't we see any clear reference to the rapture of the church-age saints, as I would think it would be at least as important to the narrative as a second-half, as it were, rapture of the tribulation saints.

2) I am not entirely convinced that the "one like unto the Son of man" in v. 14 is a specific reference to Jesus. This is partially because he takes direction to reap from an angel out of the temple (v.15), but Jesus takes command and direction from no one except God the Father. I understand that the same wording is used in Rev 1:13 to reference Jesus, but there it is accompanied by descriptive delimiters that echo Daniel's descript of God (Dan 7:9-10).  Additionally, while "Son of man" is a title given to Jesus, it is one that is intended to emphasize His humanity and is a title also given to prophets (Dan 8:17 and most of Ezekiel) as well to reference human lineage in general, often with a sense of limitation (Isa 51:12; Jer 49:18, 33, 50:40, 51:43; Heb 2:6). While the "Son of man" on a cloud may echo what we see in the Rapture as depicted 1 Thess 4, it also the common imagery used for the final Second Coming (Dan 7:13; Matt 24:30, 26:64; Mark 13:26, 14:62). Given that it is not unquestionably Jesus on the cloud and that if it was there is nothing to distinguish it from the Second Coming, I cannot yet view this as a definitive reference to the Rapture. Okay. I wondered this myself, why Jesus would take direction from an angel. But IS He taking direction from an angel? The angel isn't the instructor, but as the term 'angel' implies, he is the messenger. If you recall, Jesus said that, concerning the times and seasons, even the Son of man didn't know the time, only the Father. If this is so, then we could rightly assume that, even gone to glory, and still being in a position of Son to the Father, he still would not have that knowledge, (for the sake of the order as Son). As such, the angel, coming with direction from the Father in the Temple, is passing on that information directly from the Father. And yes, I know its very possible that Jesus would already have that information, but remember, even in Heaven., he is STILL the Son of man, as much as the Son of God and the Lamb of God. 

As for the title, I agree it MIGHT refer to someone else, but, especially as you point out, it is the same exact wording in Rev 1:13, to whom else might "Son of man' refer? This imagery can't be referring to the final second coming, because He doesn't go anywhere. he just reaps. 

3) The imagery used here for harvesting wheat is dissimilar from the imagery used in the 1 Thess 4 description of the Rapture. In Rev 14:14-16, the wheat is cut down wholesale and gathered. Perhaps there is a separation of wheat from tares at this point (which is not specified and so must be read in), but the harvesting of wheat implies some type of death (cf. John 12:24 on the death of the harvested wheat). In contrast 1 Thess 4:13-18 depicts not death, but resurrection and immediate translation from one life into the next. The believers of the Rapture are not cut down and gathered, they are simply called up by Jesus to meet Him in the air.  However, look at how the imagery DOES fit 1Thes 4: Jesus in the clouds, after the last trump, (seventh trumpet having been recently blown), and the voice of an angel having sounded. Was it an archangel who shouted from the temple to the one like unto the Sin of man on the cloud? The Bible doesn't specifically say, but there is no reason to believe it wasn't. especially when considering he is an angel carrying vital information to the Son of man, the Son of God, (if so be that he is), then it would make sense it was an archangel. last trumpet, gathered to Christ in the clouds, voice of an (arch)angel. Sounds pretty close to me. And really, when wheat is considered, being brown and dried up, it is pretty much already dead. I suspect when Christ returns, IF it is at the end of the Tribulation, a-there won't be too many of us left, and, b-we will be worn down and tired out, pretty dried up from the war the beast will make against us. ("We who are alive and remain" sounds like there may not be too many.)

Given these three reasons, I remain unconvinced that Rev 14:14-20 describes the Rapture.

Anyways, it's not my intention to fight, understand. I don't see this as such a huge issue it needs to be fought over. However, since we are having a nice and respectful conversation on it, I do enjoy that. So thanks for the exercise. I don't expect to change your mind, and since I am coming from a position where I WAS there, so far I haven't heard too many arguments that I wasn't persuaded away from. But I also leave room to know that I am FAR from perfect in my knowledge, and personally, if things come down in our lifetimes, I'd much prefer to be wrong if it meant missing the whole mess.

[Matthew24]

9I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

22Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father:

For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 7Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God:

43Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

By your standards, the KJV and Jesus are antisemitic.

I would love to see all Jews saved from their false religion.

All other accusations, and prove this, or prove that, is garbage. Prove it to yourself that I am wrong. Scofield was a criminal and liar. I don't have time to look up all of the information just to hear you question it the source. Prove Anderson hasn't saved 2000 people. Prove Scofield Preference Bible is a great bible. (I am not going to sit on here and fight like a bunch of 7 year old girls) If you disagree, fine, tell me why. To get on here and tell me I'm blind, and I'm only following Anderson is junk. Like I don't look at what the bible says, just blindly follow a man. It took me about 5 seconds to find DOZENS of sources that question Scofield's character and motives. Thank ye

 

[TheSword]

Anyways, it's not my intention to fight, understand. I don't see this as such a huge issue it needs to be fought over. However, since we are having a nice and respectful conversation on it, I do enjoy that. So thanks for the exercise. I don't expect to change your mind, and since I am coming from a position where I WAS there, so far I haven't heard too many arguments that I wasn't persuaded away from. But I also leave room to know that I am FAR from perfect in my knowledge, and personally, if things come down in our lifetimes, I'd much prefer to be wrong if it meant missing the whole mess.

Same here, I do enjoy the discussion. Although, I think we've strayed from the topic. To continue, perhaps it should be moved to its own thread or debate forum. I don't like derailing a thread and splitting into to topics. It makes things hard to follow.

I once read a book from Zondervan's Counterpoints series called The Rapture: Pretribulation, Prewrath, or Posttribulation that was a fascinating reading. Each author gives arguments for their position and are responded to by the other two in turn. The issue is such that there is a lot of wiggle room in interpretation, and I think that's probably intentional. Prophecy is always much clearer looking back on its fulfillment than it is trying to discern it beforehand. I imagine when it happens we'll all look back with amazement at how we missed the obvious. For my part, the only one I've completely ruled out is the post-trib position as indicated in the paper I sent you a while back. I haven't seen enough to completely rule out pre-wrath, though I do still strongly lean pre-trib because it makes so much more sense to me in the grand scheme of things.

[OLD fashioned preacher]

9I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

22Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father:

For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 7Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God:

43Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

By your standards, the KJV and Jesus are antisemitic.

I would love to see all Jews saved from their false religion.

All other accusations, and prove this, or prove that, is garbage. Prove it to yourself that I am wrong. Scofield was a criminal and liar. I don't have time to look up all of the information just to hear you question it the source. Prove Anderson hasn't saved 2000 people. Prove Scofield Preference Bible is a great bible. (I am not going to sit on here and fight like a bunch of 7 year old girls) If you disagree, fine, tell me why. To get on here and tell me I'm blind, and I'm only following Anderson is junk. Like I don't look at what the bible says, just blindly follow a man. It took me about 5 seconds to find DOZENS of sources that question Scofield's character and motives. Thank ye

 

Whoa there --- Alan was asked by a moderator to rein it in. He acquiesced.

That does NOT leave the floor open for you to pummel. If you want to prove that you have more maturity than a 7 year old girl then you will ALSO tone it down!

Edited October 1, 2015 by OLD fashioned preacher

[Critical Mass]

It seems to me that the Jews are always at the heart of all these battles over eschatology and dispensationalism. Whether they are still the people of God or whether they have been replaced by the church. Also, who are the Jews or Israel of God? What about Ashkenazi Jews? Are they real Jews? Is the church now the Israel of God? What passages in relation to the Jews are to be taken literally or will be fulfilled literally and which are to be or have already been fulfilled in type or spiritually. That is really the heart of the issue. A man's prejudices and attitude towards Jews (Hebrews, Israelites, or whatever you call them) will effect his theology on the matter, IMO. 

Edited November 1, 2015 by Critical Mass
punctuation error