200O years ago people were waiting for the promised Messiah, who has come, who have risen and who will come again.
I believe this was the belief of the early church followers as well, and the soon coming of the Lord proved to be the catalyst that drove the early church to spread the gospel with an urgency. Jesus too warns us in Mathew 24: 37-39 that the tribulation period was going to come and overtake the world like the floods that came during the time of Noah. Jesus then gives us a picture of the rapture in Mathew 24:40-42 about two people being in the field and at the mill and one will be taken and the other left. This tells us that the rapture which Paul again mentions in I Thessalonians 4:16-18 will be for a select few and its a prelude to the tribulation. Hence I believe as the early church fathers believed that Jesus is coming soon to take away his bride the church before the tribulation .
Jesus will make his presence known to the world during the tribulation when he comes and destroys the anti Christ and his armies and sets up the millenium Kingdom for a thousand years.
It is during the millenial reign of Christ that the prophecies of the old testament prophets will come true who spoke about Jesus coming to sit on the throne of David and reign from Jerusalem
The book of Revelation 20:4-6 tells us that Jesus will come again to the earth together with the saints who were raptured and rule the earth for a thousand years. It will an unprecedented era like never before, where peace and righteouness reigns and and the lion and the lamb dwell together, it will be a reflection of the garden of Eden.
So i do agree with the position of the assemblies of God.
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Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteWow, back to Church and Last Things. Anyway, I need yo know your opinion on the AG churches today. I realized that many churches do not really preach on the urgency to response to Christ's return, could it be that maybe 'internally' some may have actually shifted their stand on this tenet's of faith?
Hi
ReplyDeletedo you think the church is still urgent and fervent in this aspect of eschatology?
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteIf one holds to pre-trib, but it doesn't happen (as in post-trib happen instead), will he be ready to suffer the tribulation, since he wasn't expecting it but rather was expecting to be raptured?
Yay this Blog is active again... in some sense...
ReplyDeleteI would like to broaden Freddie's question to the church at large. Many churches just don't talk about the end and its impending arrival. Why is that?
Oh and one more Comment,
ReplyDeleteHow we gonna reverse the trend wihtout sounding too doomsday saddistic cult that is going to kill everyone to make the prophecy happen....
haha! what a way to phrase is Lionel.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, yes. when the church starts stressing on the eschatology, people view it as apocalyptic and negative. Some view it as a cult that mainly focuses on doomsday. this is thanks to some fanatics who go to one extreme in the doctrine of eschatology. how would you strike the balance?
The NEWEST Pretrib Calendar
ReplyDeleteHal (serial polygamist) Lindsey and other pretrib-rapture-trafficking and Mayan-Calendar-hugging hucksters deserve the following message: "2012 may be YOUR latest date. It isn't MAYAN!" Actually, if it weren't for the 179-year-old, fringe-British-invented, American-merchandised pretribulation rapture bunco scheme, Hal might still be piloting a tugboat on the Mississippi, roly-poly Thomas Ice (Tim LaHaye's No. 1 strong-arm enforcer) might still be in his tiny folding-chair church which shares its firewall with a Texas saloon, Jack Van Impe might still be a jazz band musician, Tim LaHaye might still be titillating California matrons with his "Christian" sex manual, Grant Jeffrey might still be taking care of figures up in Canada, Chuck Missler might still be in mysterious hush-hush stuff that rocket scientists don't dare talk about, John Hagee might be making - and eating - world-record pizzas, and Jimmy ("Bye You" Rapture) Swaggart might still be flying on a Ferriday flatbed! To read more details about the eschatological British import that leading British scholarship never adopted - the import that's created some American multi-millionaires - Google "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" (note LaHaye's hypocrisy under "1992"), "Hal Lindsey's Many Divorces," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)" and "Thomas Ice (Hired Gun)," "LaHaye's Temperament," "Wily Jeffrey," "Chuck Missler - Copyist," "Open Letter to Todd Strandberg" and "The Rapture Index (Mad Theology)," "X-Raying Margaret," "Humbug Huebner," "Thieves' Marketing," "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal," "The Unoriginal John Darby," "Pretrib Hypocrisy," "The Real Manuel Lacunza," "Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism," "America's Pretrib Rapture Traffickers," "Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts," "Dolcino? Duh!" and "Scholars Weigh My Research." Most of the above is written by journalist/historian Dave MacPherson who has focused on long-hidden pretrib rapture history for 35+ years. No one else has focused on it for 35 months or even 35 weeks. MacPherson has been a frequent radio talk show guest and he states that all of his royalties have always gone to a nonprofit group and not to any individual. His No. 1 book on all this is "The Rapture Plot" (see Armageddon Books online, etc.). The amazing thing is how long it has taken the mainstream media to finally notice and expose this unbelievably groundless yet extremely lucrative theological hoax!