The Restrainer of 2 Thessalonians

On which part of my post?

That the Great Tribulation is God's Wrath?

The Bride will not be recipients of God's Wrath during the GT?

Or that evil will be unrestrained during the GT?

Or that God has a plan for the ages?

Or something else? Which point do you want to discuss? I may consider jumping back in if this discussion eliminates gnat straining, lol. :type:

 

HP: I love it! That’s the spirit! :thumbsup:

This is an important issue, not only for ourselves but the well being of our children, neighbors, countrymen, and last but not least, Israel.

First on the wrath. I do not need to remind you of the fate of the children of God in times past, from the disciples to the present, millions have been and as we speak, are being tortured and killed for their faith. If we were to ask the persecuted Church in Africa, China, or many Mid Eastern countries, if they are enduring tribulation of the most severe kind, I believe they would overwhelmingly say they are. Tribulation has been the lot of the Church for ages. Why should it be so strange that the Church would undergo at least the first half of the tribulation. As I read Matt 24, I find no pre tribulational rapture mentioned there at all. If you do, share with the list where Jesus refers to any such thing. Is it not perfectly reasonable to separate the first half of the tribulation with the last half, the last half alone as being the time period of the wrath of God? No one will be saved during the wrath of God, for they all failed to repent according to Scripture.

Now for the consequences of ones beliefs. If I am wrong it will not matter. We will all just get whisked up in the twinkling of an eye and it will be over. If you are wrong, I cannot help but believe that your faith will run thin and your mind confused to how or why your Loving God would allow you to suffer so. You will be as lost as a goose in a snowstorm concerning what in the world has gone wrong. Possibly your first reaction might be at the outset of tribulation is that you have missed the rapture or worse yet that you were never or are not saved! You know you have gone astray when the antichrist shall be revealed and they want you to stand still to take the mark in your forehead or in your hand in order to survive. What are you going to do if that time arrives? Will you have the faith to obey God or will your faith be so weakened at that point that you have no heart to stand? Once you take that mark you are eternally damned. What about those in your care? What sound advice will you have for them, seeing your whole system of thought you once were so certain of merely dissipated into meaningless lost hopes? Are not these honest possibilities IF you are wrong?

Just how sure are you about your ideas now? Are you willing to bet any and all preparations made to endure the tribulation (first 3.5 years) if you are called on to go through it? Will you look back with regret and wonder what if you had believed differently and had prepared with the Lord’s help for not only yourself but others around you or in your care? Just asking. What if you are wrong Sister? Selah.

 

HP, you have jumped to a lot of conclusions about me. But believe what you will.

As to the general spirit of your post, let me leave these thoughts with you. We are not in the Great Tribulation now and cannot imagine what it will be like, but sufficient to say, it will be like nothing the world has ever known.

Do you know that over 250 million Christians will be persecuted and murdered in 2009?

250 million - think about that. I cannot imagine 250 million, can you?

Are they going through tribulation? Yes. As I type this, some of our fellow Christian Brothers and Sisters are going through great persecution. Let me be blunt without being too graphic:

Some are brought before firing squads and shot to death in strategic places so as not to damage the internal organs that their captives will sell on the black markets, organs like eyes and kidneys and lungs, that the very wealthy and their agents will procure to prolong their own lives.

Some, according to information I've read, are fully alive and being eviscerated while alive. Some are being beheaded. Some are being hacked into pieces feeling every sharp blow before they will die from hemorrhaging. Some are being beheaded, feeling the saws or swards sawing back and forth as their blood gushes forth from their bodies. Some are watching as their children or their wives are tied between automobiles and then are torn asunder. Some are being crucified. Some are stuffed into tires and then they are dowsed with gasoline and then lit afire. Women and boys and girls are being raped and then their body parts, sexual organs, etc., are cut off, and they bleed to death. Other unspeakable atrocities are being commited as I type these horrible words--to not 1, not 2, but 250 million Christians - to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ across the globe and all of this is going on while the Holy Spirit is in the Earth Restraining Evil. Is it tribulation? Yes. We don't experience this tribulation as we sit in our comfortable homes in nations where religious freedom and liberty are our heritage. I pray we will not have to experience these things, but perhaps one day, those of us in the West will partake the sufferings of our fellow Christians in other nations.

Is it the Great Tribulation? No. The GT has not yet come. To be honest, I cannot fathom the evil that lurks in the imaginations of evil people. Atrocities committed on other nations and other people for any reason, let alone because one professes Jesus Christ is Lord or that one has been born a Jew.

The bottom line, no matter what our eschatological beliefs, is if the time comes that any one of us must suffer at the hands of evil, I can only pray and believe that the Holy Spirit will give us strength to endure whatever befalls us.

We can sit and be smug and believe we are above denying Jesus Christ no matter what. But that is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Will we be so smug in our comforts and comfortable debates over non-issues on discussion forums that we know beyond a doubt that we can be crucified or beheaded or raped if it is required without denying Jesus Christ? Or will we deny him?

Will we give up all - as millions have done before us, from Stephen and Peter and those who suffered in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, our ancestors who lived through starvation and persecution to find freedom to worship, or those 250 million Saints of God who will suffer torture and persecution and possibly death in 2009 - people we will likely never hear about. But God knows each one by name.

Will we suffer if we are called to deny Jesus Christ? It matters not whether it is now or during the GT.

I still don't belive the Bride will go thru God's Wrath in the GT based on reasons I have given in previous posts (Noah, etc.) The Bride will not suffer God's Wrath.

Jesus Christ, the Propitiation for our Sins (the Bride):

That is all I have to say. Bye, now. [/end] :flower:

 

HP: That sounds horrifying to me, as a matter of fact I do not see in reality what could be done to the flesh that could be more wicked and heinous than those things. If God allows that to be done now to believers, and you say emphatically we are not in the tribulation, then what gives you the right to claim God would not allow His children to go through at least half of the tribulation, i.e., the portion BEFORE God Himself pours out HIS wrath? If God, as you seem to claim, will not allow His people to suffer the evils of the tribulation,(again 1rst half before God pours out His wrath) but allows His children now to suffer those unmentionable evils upon Christians we are witnessing now and have witnessed ever since the beginning, He is the greatest respecter of persons imaginable. What limits God from allowing us to suffer the evils in the first half of the tribulation that He obviously allows and has allowed on His people from the inception of Christianity?

Let me answer my own question.: The false notion that the whole tribulational period is denoted as the ‘wrath of God’ when that is not possible to establish from Scripture whatsoever. It is falsely believed because the total tribulational period is thought to be the wrath of God, and due to the fact that Christians are not appointed to wrath, that we will not be here during any of the tribulation. That is as false as it is unscriptural and will prove to be the utter chaos of the church when they find themselves in the midst of that which they believed no Christian would endure.

 

Because the 'wrath of God' isn't bad things that happen which the world inflicts but God who pours his wrath out against the world. ie.. the flood. Sure there most likely persecution of Noah who preached for 120 years of a flood yet to come. (Though that is not necessarily to be compared with the atrocites commited to day). The Wrath of God is not what the world does to us God's judgment being brought upon the itself in a manifested and global way.

An absolutely and varifiably false statement. If it can't be found in scripture whatsoever then what are those things with chapters and verses they use to establish their view. Other than pure speculatory bias it can not be faithfully nor truthfully said. In fact the same 'allagation' can be said of your view HP.

I would suggest learning some more about another view before you go making anymore presumptive claims that have no bearing on what those others 'actaully' understand and believe the scriptures state.

Secondly, you seem to have a low view of God's people. Whether they are right or wrong during 'that' time (IF it is possible) His children will endure and maintain the faith as the Spirit of God strengthens and emboldens them to proclaim all the more.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Heavenly Pilgrim
HP: That sounds horrifying to me, as a matter of fact I do not see in reality what could be done to the flesh that could be more wicked and heinous than those things. If God allows that to be done now to believers, and you say emphatically we are not in the tribulation, then what gives you the right to claim God would not allow His children to go through at least half of the tribulation, i.e., the portion BEFORE God Himself pours out HIS wrath?

HP: You are preaching to the choir on this point. When God pours out His wrath, all left will be destroyed. None will repent. “As in the days of Noah.” Once God removes His all His people, the rest will all perish.


Quote:
HP: Let me answer my own question.: The false notion that the whole tribulational period is denoted as the ‘wrath of God’ when that is not possible to establish from Scripture whatsoever.

HP: It is not any more of an allegation than a pre-tribulational rapture is. A pre-tribulational rapture is indeed an absolutely false allegation without the least bit of solid Biblical evidence to support it.
There seems to be a bit of disagreement here. I know full well who has the safer position, and it is not those holding to a pre-trib position.
Quote:
HP:it is falsely believed because the total tribulational period is thought to be the wrath of God, and due to the fact that Christians are not appointed to wrath, that we will not be here during any of the tribulation. That is as false as it is unscriptural and will prove to be the utter chaos of the church when they find themselves in the midst of that which they believed no Christian would endure

HP: Great advice. Help me out here Allan. Are you suggesting that those who believe in a pre-trib position do not believe that the complete tribulational period is to be considered as the ‘wrath of God?’ Have you ever heard one believing in a pre-trb rature state that we will not go through the tribulation because God has not appointed us to wrath? If not, you have lived a very sheltered life indeed.

Why the objections I have heard claiming such all my life that parrot that sentiment always coming from the pre-trib position?? Enlighten the list as to what the ‘wrath of God ‘ depicts. Is it the tribulational period the wrath of God? Give us one scriptural reason that would eliminate the possibility of believers going through at least the first half of the tribulation.

HP: God has a bleak view of the fate of some believers in the end times. “1Ti 4:1 ¶ Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;” Lu 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” That is a bleak picture of some believers indeed and a bleak picture over all of the faith of the church as a whole.

 

I have a question about the 144,000 of Revelation 7. The passage describes 12,000 from the tribes of Israel who were sealed in their foreheads.

Somebody--Hal Lindsey maybe--described them as "flaming Jewish evangelists."

Two questions actually. How were they sealed? The only sealing in the New Testament that I know about is that done by the Holy Spirit. Yet, the HS has gone with the saints to heaven, according to Dispy teaching.

Two, how do we know that they were Jewish evangelists? The Revelation says they were servants, but that's all.

Not asking to argue. There may be scripture which answers my question, I just don't know where it is.

Thanks.

 

Another couple of questions, please.

The twelve tribes listed in Revelation 7 include Manasseh but not Dan. And It includes Manasseh, not his brother Ephraim. How come?

 

I'm just addressing the issue of them being sealed by the Holy Spirit. I already addressed this point on several threads but here goes again:

The HS is omnipresent. If believers are removed, the HS is still present but He is not working through people the way He is now, which makes a big difference. These people saved during the Tribulation will be sealed with the HS through faith.

 

HP: How are we sealed now as believers? How does the way we are sealed and the way those saved in the tribulation are sealed differ?

 

I believe that the work of the Holy Spirit in the GT will be the same as it was in OT times. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer CONTINUOUSLY is unique to the Church Age, and will always be unique to the Church. It is what makes us the Body of Christ, His Bride. The Holy Spirit moved and empowered individuals in the OT at different times but He did not dwell in them. This is what makes the Church distinctly the Church.

Isn't the 7 year Tribulation also the last 7 years of 490 years of judgment on Israel? The judgement as prophecied in Daniel 9? It is at the beginning of the Tribulation that Israel will accept the false prince... the Antichrist... as their messiah. From what I understand the Tribulation is God's wrath poured out on the world, and it is also the tool that He will use to bring the nation of Israel to repentance.

 

Well, that makes sense. The only reason I raise the question is that when I was first taught pre-trib, the prevailing view was that, with the Holy Spirit absent from the earth, no Gentile could be saved, and Jews were saved some other way.

Is your view widespread among Dispies today? It wasn't 40 years ago?

 

I'm not sure if this view is widespread or not among Dispies - I haven't had that much discussion on this aspect with others except here on the BB. However, other Dispies here on the BB agreed with this.

I never heard the view that Jews were saved another way during the Tribulation. Of course, I've only been a believer since the very end of 1990 and am not that familiar with all this stuff. I've delved into areas other than endtimes except recently when I've started to study it a bit more.

 

It was never entirely clear to me how Jews were saved during the tribulation. But it was not through the regenerating work of the HS, since he was gone.

In this thread, however, you and some others deny that the HS does not regenerate during the tribulation. I'm assuming that this means both Jews and Gentiles may be saved during that time.

My memory is not clear, but one view years ago was that not even Jews would be saved until the end of the tribulation, when Christ returned. They will believe on "the one whom they have pierced" when they seem him, and be saved.

It certainly seems to me that the dispy view is a fluid, evolving eschatology.

 

As far as I understand it, the Jews will be saved at the mid point of the Tribulation.

We know that Gentiles will be saved during the Tribulation because both living Jews and living Gentiles will go into the Millennial Kingdom where the Lord will rule and reign. It says in Isaiah and Ezekiel that the living Gentile nations will go up into Jerusalem to worship the Lord in the Millennial Temple, where the Jewish priests are once again ministers before the Lord.

 

Well, I don't think any endtime view is ironclad and unchanging. I don't think God lays out the details that clearly for a reason - we are incapable of understanding such immense things in the future, imo. So there will always be disagreement.

I do believe both Jews and Gentiles will be saved during that time but have not studied it enough to take a position yet, assuming I ever will. I have also heard the view you refer to above, about seeing Jesus and believing on Him "whom they have pierced." But other passages in the NT indicate that when Jesus returns, it will be too late to believe then. I tend to go with that.

 

144,000

The Holy Spirit will be present (because the Holy Spirit is omni-present), but only in capacity of convicting the lost of that time to salvation. Not as we know it during the Church age. How do we know this? A person can not be saved outside of the call and conviction of the Holy Spirit, and there will be salvation during the Great Tribulation.

And how do we know that the 144,000 are Jewish? They are sealed directly out of the 12 tribes of Israel by the cal and conviction of the Holy Spirit to their true Massiah. The tribes are named, possitively identifying them as Israelite.