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Objections To The Rapture (Part 3)

Objection : 1Thessalonians is deploying a metaphor in which the people leave the city to greet the king & escort him into the city. They do this in a time of great judgment & travail on the Earth.   Reply : It’s hard to see how this is refutes the concept at issue.  According to your own logic, the people leave the city.   They escort the king to his rightful home, the city.  At its core, that’s precisely what the rapture entails. From the perspective of Christ Himself, it’s the Ascension all over again, but this time, He enters the plane of the Earth, returns home to the Earth itself, & moves the seat of His power directly to the Earth from its location above.  Objection : In Matthew 24, Christ refers to people marrying & being given in marriage being swept away in the judgment whereas Noah & his people survived in the ark. Reply :  In Genesis, the difference between Noah & his people & those killed is the ark.   Everyone w...

Tackling Tradition 64: Revelation 22: 6 - 9

  And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.” 7  “And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” 8  I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, 9  but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”  ( Revelation 22:6–9 , ESV) Many people read this as a lesson not to worship angels, & they are most certainly right about that.  That says, there is more going on here than that.    Throughout the Book of Revelation, angels appear as non-angelic humanity & animal kind’s fellow image bearers who participate in the investigation & ju...

Revelation 21 - 22

  Revelation 21-22 English Standard Version The New Heaven and the New Earth 21  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.   2  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.   3  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place [ a ]  of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, [ b ]  and God himself will be with them as their God. [ c ]   4  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5  And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are tru...

Revelation 20

20  Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2  And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3  and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. 4  Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5  The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. 6  Blessed and holy is the o...

Tackling Tradition 63: False Gospels & Itching Ears

2 Timothy 4:3  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, Alie Beth Stuckey (& many others) seem terribly tone deaf these days. In the linked YouTube short, Alie targets progressive clergy & prosperity preachers & calls them purveyors of false gospels.  It’s as if she is completely tone deaf to the fact that she believes that the human image (its anatomy, physiology, &/or psychology) properly warrants human sexual ethics ——> which the polar opposite of what Romans 1:18 - 32 teaches and is at the root of multiple destructive theological errors that lead to societal collapse.  What does the Bible actually teach about homosexuality?   According to its own grammar & syntax, this is what it has to say:  Leviticus 18: Shema/Prologue (Lev. 18:1 - 5) General & Specific Prohibitions (Lev.18: 6 -23)  Document Clause,...

Tackling Tradition 62: Yeshua’s Birthday (John 1:14)

  Some critics of the Bible don’t believe Mark & John have anything to say about Yeshua’s birth,  In point of fact, they do. Mark & John most certainly share the same author, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2  As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3  the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight,’ ”  ( Mark 1:1–3 , ESV) And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.  ( John 1:14 , ESV) John Mark is telling us that Yeshua was born in either September(ish) or the incarnation took place about that time, in which case He was born in the Spring of the following year.  O LORD, Hear our prayer(s)!