New website!

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Is Europe doomed?

Pamela Geller attempts once again to scare the world in the Washington Times. But is anyone listening?

Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by President Obama, nailed the coffin shut on national sovereignty in Europe. The people of Europe fought it, but were overwhelmed by their political elites and the lack of American leadership in this age of our rather Marxist, collectivist U.S. president.

Come Jan. 1, 2010, a disastrous and suicidal pact called the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Europe/Mediterranean) goes into effect with little fanfare or examination. It boggles the mind that such a consequential and seismic cultural shift could be mandated and put into play without so much as a murmur from the mainstream media.

Read it all here.

Faithfulness will be required

Check out this article on PrewrathRapture.com in which Gary Vaterlaus explores what the Early Church believed about the end times. Here’s a sample:

O unreasoning men! understanding not what has been proved by all these passages, that two advents of Christ have been announced: the one, in which He is set forth as suffering, inglorious, dishonored, and crucified; but the other, in which He shall come from heaven with glory, when the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against the Most High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on the earth against us the Christians, who, having learned the true worship of God from the law, and the word which went forth from Jerusalem by means of the apostles of Jesus, have fled for safety to the God of Jacob and God of Israel;

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho [150-165]

When is the Day of the Lord?

This post began as a reply to Wes’s comment but quickly became too long. In the comments, Wes says,

Mr. Duck has provided compelling proofs of the rapture being pre-trib. Others may disagree with the rapture or the church’s removal from the earth prior to tribulation. In order to understand the book of Revelations it is necessary to know that it is not written chronologically, it is in someways a back and forth. To put it in layman’s terms, remember the old Star Wars movies then came the new ones that basically gave us the story of how it all began. If a writer in the period of the world war was asked to write about the war, how can he write about all the events that are taking place in various locations? The literary practice would facilitate contemporaneous writings, the text would appear paragraph following paragraphs, this does not necessarily mean that the events are sequential does it?

The next important factor is understanding what the terms used means, e.g. the ‘Day of Lord’ is commonly associated great tribulation in fact this day is the entire tribulation period. The day of the Lord starts at the rapture of the church, continues through the day of the Antichrist, Christ on the judgment seat and ends at the end of the millennial reign. If you don’t get this right, then responses such as what was posted would be evident.

In grace,

Wes

Wes, I appreciate your kindly tone.

I agree that there are a number of different scenes in the Book of Revelation, but I don’t see that this necessarily has any bearing on the rapture question.

Your second point is truly critical and I believe that pretribulationists have misapprehended the significance of the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord and the Tribulation are not identical. Jesus says the Tribulation begins at the midpoint of the 70th Week of Daniel. For then shall be great tribulation…

Certainly, to say that the Day of the Lord comprises a period of 1,007 years is probably necessary to your cause but cannot be substantiated from Scripture. We are not shown this concept anywhere in the Word of God – in fact, a truly literal reading of the Day of the Lord concept will demonstrate that the rapture is prewrath, and cannot be imminent in the sense that pre-trib teaches. A few points:

1. For example, God says He will send Elijah before the coming of the great and terrible Day of the Lord. If you are correct, then the next event on the prophetic calendar is not the Rapture but the coming of Elijah.
2. Then again, the Word teaches us that the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before that Day. You can find this in Isaiah, Joel, and Revelation – to name just three!
3. We are also told the Day will not come first unless the great falling away occurs and the Man of Sin is revealed. The Thessalonians were afraid they were in the Day of the Lord and Paul assures them this is not the case. I think you would agree with me on that but notice how many things must occur beforehand!
4. In 2 Peter 3 we should not assert that the Day of the Lord cataclysm Peter is discussing is the end of the Millennium.  For how could that fire come, as he says, like a thief in the night?
5. Another overlooked facet is the correspondence between Jesus’ summary of the last days (Matthew 24) and the seals of Revelation. Lay them side by side and see that the 6th seal events (the cosmic signs), described in so many places, come before the Day of the Lord. Significantly, it is after these events that we are gathered to the Lord from the four winds. This is the Rapture, and it happens at an unknown time after the Abomination of Desolation. Notice that Jesus said these signs occur immediately after the tribulation of those days.

While no system is perfect, only the prewrath system can make sense of the passages above. Pretribulationists must learn to differentiate between the terms Jesus and the prophets used: beginning of sorrows, great tribulation, Day of the Lord.

Of course, if they did that, they would no longer be pretribulationists!

How strong are arguments for a pre-trib rapture?

We’ve added a new article, Pre-Trib Proofs?,  in response to an article at RaptureReady.com entitled “36 Pre-Trib Rapture Texts.”

Many people don’t realize that pre-trib arguments are arguments from silence. Many other arguments put forward by pre-trib believers do, indeed, disprove the post-trib position but do not necessarily prove that pre-trib is true.

You can read Pre-Trib Proofs? here: http://comingofchrist.wordpress.com/pre-trib-proofs/ or you can access it through the main navigation.

Praying for His coming

Dave Wilkerson asks today,

When was the last time you prayed, “Lord Jesus, come quickly, come soon”? Personally, I can’t remember praying this prayer. I never knew I could hasten Christ’s coming by allowing the Spirit to pray this prayer through me. Yet Peter gives us proof of this incredible truth: “Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:12). In Greek, the phrase “hasting…the coming of (that) day” means “to speed up, to urge on.” Peter says our expectant prayers are hastening, speeding up, urging the Father to send back his Son quickly.

Read the rest here.

Netanyahu seeks to derail plan to divide Jerusalem

What’s at stake:

Sweden’s initiative calls for the division of Jerusalem and the recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. The 27 European foreign ministers are to discuss a draft of the proposal, which is expected to be published on Tuesday. The draft proposal also reportedly hints that the European Union would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence.

The nations of the earth continue to fight about the “Final Status” of Jerusalem. While we still have voice to say this we will say it: no less an authority than the God of Israel said that He has the last word on the Final Status of Jerusalem:

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:2-3)

Surely that day is drawing near.

The sloppiness of saying “it’s all going to pan out”

Many a speaker has finessed his way through – or avoided completely – an adult discussion of the Rapture by saying, “Well, I’m Pan-Trib… that means I believe it’s all going to pan out.”  This usually induces chuckles and a few amens.

I thought this was sloppy and cutesy even when I was an ardent pretribulationist. Would the Bible really be so, well, fuzzy, on such important matters? And should we so blithely give up thinking about and interacting with others about the timing of the Rapture simply because people disagree on it?

Alan Kurschner at PrewrathRapture.com thinks not:

Just because believers disagree on this issue it does not necessarily follow that we cannot be certain… Paul wrote a second epistle to the Thessalonians clarifying and unpacking his eschatological teaching of the Lord’s Coming. Paul did not write back and say, “It’s OK to be uncertain about these matters, so continue in your confusion.” Paul intends for believers to grasp these truths.

Well said, and I look forward to a series he’s beginning in which he will be interacting with a pastor’s critique of the prewrath position.

Third Temple to be built in March?

There has been some discussion in Israel over the last couple of days about the possibility of the Third Temple being built in March, 2010. There isn’t any outward evidence of that, but there has been excitement nonetheless due to a supposed prediction of the famous 18th century rabbi, Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman, better known to Jews as the Vilna Gaon, that is, the Genius of Gaon.

Possibly one of the greatest minds who ever lived, the Vilna Gaon is said to have predicted that the Third Temple would be rebuilt when a famous Israeli synagogue would be completed after having been twice destroyed.

The secular Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz notes:

If the 18th-century rabbinic authority the Vilna Gaon was right, on March 16, 2010, construction will begin on the third Temple. His projection states that the auspicious day will coincide with the third completion of the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter.

The great day is at hand: On March 15, the reconstructed Hurva Synagogue, considered the most important house of prayer in Jerusalem will be rededicated. It was last destroyed in the War of Independence.

Time will tell.

Will Obama plan give control of Temple Mount to Muslims?

Citing a Saudi newspaper, Israeli news site Arutz Sheva reports that President Obama’s Middle East peace plan will give control of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem to a Palestinian Authority state by 2011.

A reporter for the Saudi newspaper received the information from Hassan Harisha, the Second Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Authority Parliament. Harisha told him that the U.S. has handed over a draft of the peace proposal to the PA and other Arabs for their perusal.

The plan also calls for Judea and Samaria to be demilitarized and for its airspace to remain under Israel control. Israeli-Palestinian Authority security coordination would be strengthened, and the Palestinian Authority state would not be allowed to strike military treaties with other countries in the region.