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We are in the end-times, but where?

Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by ReformedBaptist, Apr 13, 2009.

  1. ReformedBaptist

    ReformedBaptist Well-Known Member

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    I agree that we are and have been at the end of the age (end-times) since Christ came, died, and rose again from the dead.

    But where are we now? I hope to hear from people of the various end-time views, whether futurists, historicist, preterist, et.

    Thanks.
     
  2. Martin Luther

    Martin Luther New Member

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    We are months maybe years away from the start of the first 3 & 1/2 year tribulation. Soon many Christians will die for their faith.
     
  3. Tom Bryant

    Tom Bryant Well-Known Member

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    Closer than we were when Jesus ascended. If Paul thought he would be raptured (we who are alive and remain...1 Thess. 4:17) I doubt I could fix where we are either.
     
  4. Palatka51

    Palatka51 New Member

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    I agree with Martin. However, I would say that we are on the threshold of that coming event.
     
  5. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    Not sure about this, but if so we won't have to worry about it since God's wrath is not reserved for us. We will be out of here prior to the first 3.5 years.
     
  6. Martin Luther

    Martin Luther New Member

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    Gods wrath is only on those who take the mark or worship the beast and his image.



    Revelation 6:11
    And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.


    Daniel 7:25
    And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
     
  7. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    God's wrath is against all those who have rejected Him, the saints that come out of the great tribulation are who Rev. 6:11 is in reference to. Why would the Church need to go throught the Great Tribulation since God's wrath was poured out on Christ at the cross?
     
  8. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

    Eph 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

    Col 3:6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

    1Th 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

    1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
     
  9. ReformedBaptist

    ReformedBaptist Well-Known Member

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    Must be mostly futurists commenting or reading the thread..or both.
     
  10. Tom Butler

    Tom Butler New Member

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    In late 1960s and early 1970s events in Israel and Hal Lindsey's book Late, Great Planet Earth, sparked a broad interest in the end times. It seems that prophecy conferences sprang up on every corner, all dispensing dispensationalism. It was a common these that the writers and speakers just "had this feeling" that the rapture was imminent. Some couldn't resist and even started hinting at dates; others fixed a year (88 Reasons Why Jesus will Return in 1988).

    In some circles, one's eschatology became a test of fellowship. Non-Dispys were just plain liberal, and their salvation claim was suspect.

    That was 40 years ago.
     
  11. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Of all the schools of thought the moderate dispensational view is most convincing to me.

    All systems of eschatology have problems IMO. Moderate dispensationalism seems to me have the least.

    You can see in the "RC Sproul and Eschatology" thread that Grasshopper and I are debating the "soon" coming of Christ from the preterist vs dispensational point of view.

    However IMO the debate has been reduced to a cycle of redundancy and of not much further value in my estimation.

    Personally I don't prefer to be labeled as I have gone back and forth in my thinking over my 40 plus years as a Christian. Currently I am a moderate "dispensationalist".

    Moderate because of some off the radical hyper-dispensationalist.

    Some of you may have been around long enough to have remembered the BB member who said only the Pauline epistles were for the Church and he insisited that "mid-trib" was the only biblical position possible and that 3 and 1/2 years was NOT mid-trib.

    Anyway it ended badly because he raked everyone over the coals who did not agree with him.


    As to "where" we are, we can't tell IMO.

    Mark 13:32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.​

    Acts 1:16
    6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
    7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

    Since I have been "dispensational" I have modified parts of my over-all view.​

    e.g. The importance of 1947 - 1948 when Israel was "reborn" as a nation.
    Actually it was always there whether men included it on their maps or not.​

    The Scripture gives the potential boundaries to Abraham and then under the reign of Solomon a more detailed outline.​

    Many of the Church Fathers mention Israel in a contemporary way while it was absent from the maps of men.​

    HankD​
     
  12. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Active Member
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    We have been at the end of what Age?


    My view, the end times/end of the age the NT writers were living in ended in AD70.
     
    #12 Grasshopper, Apr 13, 2009
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 13, 2009
  13. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Hi Grasshopper, out of curiosity, do you call this age (post AD70 - end/times end) the times of the gentiles, the church age or the age of grace, etc ?

    Thanks
    HankD
     
  14. Jedi Knight

    Jedi Knight Well-Known Member
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    "88 Reasons Why Jesus will Return in 1988" I remember...I WAS SAVED THAT YEAR! :thumbs: But could you imagine we could have FRONT ROW TICKETS to His appearing? And people who watched "Touched by an Angel" might find themselves"Torched by an Angel"! In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Thessalonians 1:8
     
  15. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Active Member
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    We meet again, and so "soon".:laugh:

    The age we currently live in is the New Covenant Age/Messianic Age/Church Age/Age of Grace as opposed to the Mosaic Age the NT writers lived in.
     
  16. historyb

    historyb New Member

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    Right were we need to be
     
  17. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    Amazing Grasshopper, I agree with all those terms.

    HankD
     
  18. Pilgrimer

    Pilgrimer Member

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    I believe we are well into the final great soul harvest of the Gospel before the end of the world. Christianity is exploding in areas of the world where the Gospel was previously banned, and where once some 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and America, today 60 percent live in the developing world. More than two out of three evangelical Christians now live in Asia, Africa, and South America. Compare the numbers: Today in Europe there are 560 million Christians and America has 260 million. But most of those are Christian in name only, that is, they are not practicing Christians. In comparison, there are 480 million Christians in South America, 313 million in Asia, and 360 million in Africa. The vast majority of these are practicing Christians. There are more churchgoing Presbyterians in Ghana than in Scotland!

    Less than 100 years ago fewer than 10 percent of Africa was Christian. Today it is 50 percent, with some 350 million Christians. Uganda alone has nearly 20 million and it's projected to reach 50 million by the middle of this century. Some African congregations have grown so large that they can't build churches big enough to hold them. While Western preachers implore people to attend services, some African preachers ask their members to limit their attendance to every second or third Sunday to give others a chance to hear the message.

    Central and South America is seeing explosive growth in Pentecostalism. Brazil, for example, has over 50 million evangelical Protestants. But Catholicism too is experiencing a resurgence. Where Brazil had 50 million Catholics in 1950, today they number 120 million.

    Even in China, despite the restrictions against Christianity imposed by the Chinese government, it is estimated that there are 100 million Christians in underground churches and it is estimated that at it's present growth rate, in a few decades China will become the largest Christian country in the world. In Korea, where Christians already outnumber Buddhists, there are numerous mega-churches with more than 10,000 members, and the Yoido Full Gospel Church has an astounding 750,000 members. The Catholic Church in the Philippines has surged to 60 million members and is projected to reach 120 million by the middle of this century.

    Western Christianity has become less and less relevant in the past 50 years, and with another decade or two Korea will surpass America as the nation which sends out the most missionaries into the world. The major centers of Christianity today are no longer Geneva, Rome, Paris, or London, but Buenos Aires, Manila, Kinshasa, and Addis Ababa, leading some observers to note that "The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning," wrote Philip Jenkins.

    I believe what we are seeing with the remarkable explosion of converts to Christianity around the world, is the final, great harvest of souls before the end of the world.

    The end of this age will begin with the loosing of that ancient foe, the Prince of Darkness, and we will see a spiritual version of the Roman advance on the nation of Israel and the encompassing and siege of the Holy City. But this contest will end very differently . . . God will rain down fire from heaven and devour them. And the Lord will return, not in the humility of his first coming, when he came to seek and to save, but he will return in glory, to judge and to reward. The heavens and the earth will melt before his presence. And we too, who have our names written in the Book of Life, we will pass through that fire, but rather than destroy us as it will the wicked, that fire will serve to cleanse and purify us of the corruption that our bodies have been subject to since the fall of our first parents. In that day we will receive a crown of life, and the pangs of death will be loosed, and there will be no more pain, or sickness, or weeping . . . but our God will dwell with us, in the new heaven and earth, in the New Jerusalem.

    In Christ,
    Pilgrimer
     
  19. OldRegular

    OldRegular Well-Known Member

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    I thought that all Christians were to be taken out [raptured] before the start of the great tribulation.
     
  20. historyb

    historyb New Member

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    assuming that all is suppose to be future :)
     
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