I don’t know if my generation will be the ones who enter into Daniel’s 70th week. It is very hard to believe that I won’t see that in my life time but that’s not up to me. I specifically remember hearing some discussions about in the time of Jacob’s trouble […]
Questions on Revelation 3:10
Question 1 In vs. 10 Jesus states that He will keep them from the hour of temptation which will come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the Earth. My question is what is the hour of temptation? Revelation 3:10 Because you have kept the word of […]
Contrasting Views on Israel and the Church
What’s your view on John MacArthur’s teaching on Israel? We share MacArthur’s pre-millennial futurism and therefore agree on Israel’s corporate, national calling and election, and millennial destiny. We agree that a remnant of penitent survivors of the great tribulation will be ‘‘born’ into holy, millennial nationhood ‘in one day’ (Isa […]
The Blind Servant
Isaiah 43 and Deut. 32:8. (Isaiah 43:1, 2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14-15, 16, 17-18, 19, 20, 21-22, 23, 24, 25-26, 27-28) I am reeling under what you just sent, Gary. That is indeed a remarkable and revealing pairing of scripture portions, and then the reminder of […]
Millennial Safety
Are there many scriptures you can think of regarding Israel lying down in millennial safety with no one to abuse them again? When we read the below verses, we see that peace in the Land, and the ability to hold the Land, depends on fulfilling the Law. Given what the […]
Further Thoughts on Divine Right to the Land
God gave Abraham and his descendants the Land as an everlasting possession. He did this when Abraham was in a deep sleep, to show the unilateral and therefore, unconditional nature of the promise. Yet even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dwelt as strangers in a Land that they never possessed, but […]
Israel Regathered in Unbelief
One of the clearest passages presupposing the return as partial, in unbelief and prior to the full and repentant return at the DOL is
Ezekiel 38:8
After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
Noice this is before the invasion by the last hostile aggressor, the Antichrist of whom, not one but “ALL” the prophets spoke, so this is clearly the Antichrist and incarnation of Satan anticipated by the Assyrian, the Chaldean, Antiochus, and all the great proto-types of the final man of lawlessness, the little horn, beast, etc.
The Purview of the Everlasting Covenant
We aim in the upcoming course to show the relationship between the old and new covenants and to investigate what had and what hasn’t changed. There is both continuity and discontinuity. Actually, your question is one of the more difficult questions of theology. On one level, nothing could be plainer […]
The High Cost of Following the Lamb Wheresoever He Goes
The price to follow Jesus is still the same, everything! The kingdom of God is an all or nothing proposition. There is no middle ground. Only when the kingdom and the person of its King and His cross has no rival in the heart can anything count for anything in terms of eternity. Where this unbending standard is compromised, persecution might be avoided, but the church will no longer be the entity that Paul calls “the pillar and ground of the truth.” So what is the church? Where is the church? Before it is the somewhat mixed visible assembly of the elect children of God with all who gather to hear the Word and the kingdom call to radical discipleship, the essence of the church is the indwelling Christ, the divine nature in those who fellowship in that nature and labor to bring its light to the nations.
Before it’s greater conquest of the kingdoms of this world, the kingdom is first and foremost where Jesus sits as King on the throne of the heart. When the heart is fully possessed by the High King of Heaven, there is the kingdom of God in its mightiest display of sovereign power. Part of the “mystery of the kingdom” in its present hidden form is that it is no less powerful in its present working as it will be in the day when it will fill all of redeemed creation. Until then, with the exception of certain occasional demonstrations of outward power, the kingdom in its present working must appear to the world as weak and contemptible. This, since at its center is the scandal of the cross, not just as a historic event of redemptive necessity, but in its character as a cruciform way of life where the kingdom is not only entered once, but continually ‘being’ entered.
Not only when the kingdom began to be preached by John and Jesus, but no less since, “the violent take it by force” (Mt 11:12). Or, as in Luke’s version, “every man presses into it” (Lk 16:16). It cannot be otherwise! The straight gate of the kingdom that only few will ever enter will not swing open to casual interest (Mt 7:13). It requires a violence of desperation to enter at all cost (Mk 9:47), and none can presume to have entered if its value and priceless beauty has not far exceeded and eclipsed all else (Mt 13:45-46). The kingdom can brook no rival in the heart. It is all or nothing, and the fruits of the life of the kingdom will demonstrate this radical singleness of eye and heart in the life of it’s true heirs (Mt 6:22-23).
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A Costly Neglect
I realize I’ve said as much many times before, but feel this needs more urgently to be stressed now than ever. By its nature, my calling and part in the Body has exposed me, far more than I could wish, to the inner workings of many strong and compelling lies that powerfully oppose and threaten the church’s readiness to escape the unparalleled deception that Jesus said would both precede and accompany the unequaled tribulation.
Even now, throughout the far greater part of professing Christendom, the tribulation without parallel or equal is believed to be past. The tribulation has come and gone with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. A fast-growing (two related words like this become one hyphenated adjective) community called ‘preterist’ believes that Jesus’ promised return “immediately after the tribulation of those days” has also come and gone, some stoutly affirming that the resurrection is also past. This, since Dan 12:1-2 so unequivocally connects the resurrection to the unequaled tribulation.
A less popular but still thriving view, particularly among Adventist groups, is the so-called ‘historicist’ view of Revelation. This view sees the ‘great tribulation’, not as a brief period of time at the the end, but as stretching out to include either all or most of the inter-advent period. Many historic premillennialists (an accepted prefix – no need for a hyphen) view the half week (the 3 1/2 years of Daniel and Revelation) (delete comma – parentheses function as commas) as beginning with the ascension, basing their view on Rev. 12’s imagery of the catching up of the man-child, followed immediately in vision by the great tribulation.
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