… If we understand this birth and ascent to have a particular application to the events that begin the unequaled tribulation, then it follows that this intends a perfecting of the church’s faith in preparation for the final conflict. It is not a change of spatial location, but a deeper apprehension and appropriation of the gospel. It is a revelatory event that comes at the end of a travail that has broken the power of self-reliance in the church in analogy to the removal of Jacob’s strength at the end of his travail (Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7). The ‘rapture’ of the man child signifies the church’s advance triumph over the veil that obscures the gospel from Israel and the nations (Isa 25:7; 2Cor 3:16). This is true of the church of all time, but it will be profoundly apprehended at the end of the travail that precipitates the final tribulation. …
Israel’s Salvation Will Not Come By “Natural” Sight
… But for ‘the escaped of Israel’, it is the ‘Spirit of grace and supplication’ unto repentance, because they see Him in the sense of 2Cor 3:16-18 unto transformation. It is like Paul when he said, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal His Son in me, …” ( Gal 1:15-16). It comes by a sudden divine arrest at a pre-set time. “Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come (Ps 102:13). It’s on a fixed divine schedule (see Dan 8:19; 11:27, 29, 35-36). It is what the old English divines called “distinguishing grace.” Still, such a divine act is no less sovereign because it comes at the end of a divinely arranged process (compare Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7). Significantly, it comes at the end of Jacob’s strength, just as it comes at the end of ours. Therefore, we see that Jewish hearts are prepared for this divinely pre-determined event, and the church has a crucial part and role in that preparation as witness (see Dan 11:33), just as I believe that Stephen’s testimony and martyrdom had a preparatory influence for the predestined event of Paul’s revelation of Christ on Damascus road. …
The Rapture: If and When?
… So we fully affirm that a rapture will occur, but not as it is being taught. Those that teach that the rapture is BEFORE the tribulation (called the “pre-tribulational view. ‘Pre’ means before) see it as escape and exemption from the last persecution, which they confuse with the wrath of God, and point out that believers are not ‘appointed to wrath’ (1Thes 5:9). There is, of course, a clear distinction between tribulation and divine wrath. There is a clear distinction throughout the book of Revelation between the saints endure the wrath of man and those that are called ‘earth dwellers’ that experience the wrath of God. Manifestly, there are many saints in the tribulation period that are not “appointed to wrath,” but this exemption does not require physical removal from the scene (Lk 21:18; Rev 7:3; 12:6). …
The Falling Stars
[…] So the phenomena associated with the sixth seal takes us to the day of the Lord, which is at the end of the tribulation, whereas the activity of Dan 8:10 starts at the beginning and continues through the tribulation. It is not incorrect to see the relation of the casting down of the stars as a physical sign that the proud powers of the air are now being dethroned, but I would not let the language concerning the displacement of the stars hinder from understanding the passage to refer to physical phenomena as it will “appear” from our perspective. I think what we are seeing in these references are the visual effects of an all out nuclear war. There are many passages that more than suggest that this is taking place when the Lord returns to “destroy those that are destroying the earth” […]
Crucial Timing of the Day of the Lord
[…] Note that Jesus places the stellar upheaval and eclipse immediately AFTER the tribulation, whereas Joel’s prophecy shows this as happening BEFORE the great and notable ‘day of the Lord’. How then can the day of the Lord be held to include the tribulation if the darkness that comes BEFORE the day of the Lord is said by Jesus to come ‘immediately AFTER’ the tribulation? It simply cannot be done; scripture doesn’t permit it. But it must be done if pre-tribulationism is to survive. […]
Preterism
[…] If ever there was an interpretation getting away with exegetical ‘murder’, it’s certainly preterism. They are forced to separate what God has joined. For example, it is exegetically impossible to separate the day of the Lord from the destruction of Jerusalem. The day of the Lord is the hope of Israel in the OT and the church’s hope of Christ’s return in the new. Orthodox preterists rightly recognize the NT’s references to the day of the Lord as still pertaining to the church’s ‘blessed hope’ of Christ’s return, but inconsistently deny its relation to the tribulation and Jerusalem for entirely dogmatic reasons. To do this, they must deny that the post-tribulational return of Christ described in the synoptics (MT 24; Mk 13; Lk 21) is connected with the church’s hope of Christ return, which, of course, the NT itself unambiguously identifies with the still future day of the Lord […]
The Little Horn, the Beast, Gog and Anti-Christ
[…] Yes, the ‘prince that shall come’ is indeed the ‘little horn’ that comes out of the fourth beast of Dan 7. But the same ‘litte horn’ (and I must insist that he is indeed the same on solid exegetical evidence) comes “no less” out of a division of the third kingdom (see 8:9). So I think it is a mistake to overly emphasize the ‘territorial’ aspects of the successive beast kingdoms, but to see rather the more generic, ‘organic’ nature of their relation. Notice that the kingdoms are not represented as ceasing to exist, but each lives on in its successor, so that at the end, all are destroyed at once as all existing at once. That’s what the language of the passages seem to represent. The kingdoms are viewed as unit, the beast-like kingdom of man. They are distinguished and identified according to their impingement on fate and fortunes of Israel as usurpers of the theocratic kingdom of David (Dan 2:44). I see them in a more ‘organic’ relation to the doctrine of the principalities and powers in chapter ten, the real ‘powers’ behind the kingdoms of this present evil age, and their defeat as the real issue of Israel’s restoration. But even on territorial grounds, Rome certainly included most of the eastern Arab lands that could produce a figure that could marshal the Islamic world against Israel. So I see Titus and the 70AD destruction of the temple and city as only a pre-typical fulfillment of a yet future destruction of city and sanctuary by the actual contemporary people of the Antichrist. […]
Jacob’s Trouble
[…] After establishing Jacob’s trouble as synonymous with a future Antichrist time of unequaled great tribulation, it would be helpful to trace the background of the concept in the larger history and goal of the covenant. This is key to showing its future significance, particularly as it relates to Israel. (The significance of Jacob’s trouble for the church has more particularly to do with the final victory of the remnant over Satan (Dan 11:32-35 with 12:1 and Rev 12:12). Of course the history of the concept of Jacob’s trouble begins with the crisis that Jacob faced upon his learning of the approach of Esau with four hundred armed men. This is the crisis of ultimate weakness that prepared Jacob for his desperate wrestling with the angel of the Lord’s presence at the ford of Jabbok. For Jacob, this was the ultimate, divinely appointed crisis that brought about the new priestly brokenness that would now distinguish the true “Israel” (one that has ‘power with God’) to be a priestly blessing to all peoples (Zech 8:23). […]
The Time of the Resurrection of Millennial Saints
[…] Leave it to me to write some pretty ambiguous things on the fly like that. I should be more careful to read over what I write before releasing it. No, I’m at no variance at all with Bickle or Art or any other “historic” premill (as distinguished from the pre-tribulational pre mill) on the time of the rapture and resurrection of the church at the ‘last trumpet’. I share that view exactly. I am also at one with all premillennialists that recognize that there will be millennial saints in their natural bodies after Christ’s return. Israel receives the grace of repentance and the pouring out of the Spirit AT the point of Christ’s return (the ‘day of the Lord’ Isa 27:13; 59:21; 66:8; Ezek 39:22-29; Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; 24:29; Acts 2:20; 3:21; 1Thes 5:4). This is the same time that the living church is translated into glorified immortality (compare 1Cor 15:50-54 with Isa 25:8; 27:13). In other words, the same age transitioning, revelational event that translates and raptures us at the time of His appearing, becomes a transforming revelation of mercy to the surviving remnant of Israel. That’s why they go apart to mourn, while we take our place with Christ and the rest of the “spirits of just men made perfect” in positions of rule. However, I believe that like the angels, the perfected spirits of the glorified redeemed are unseen to the natural eyes of the inhabitants of the millennial earth. That’s my view, as this alone makes sense of any literal reading of many things that scripture shows to be happening at the same time. […]
True Prophetic Authority
[…] The exercise of true prophetic authority assumes a depth of priestly identification. Thus it is that only one that has been processed through tribulation to become priestly (reflected in a brokenness of identification with human weakness) can be entrusted with true prophetic authority, which is far more than accurate preaching or even accurate prediction. Such authority comes by being “in touch” with God as God, which puts one in touch with man as man. This is why the prophets of the OT and the apostles of the NT were not only faithful to ” root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down …” But also to build, and to plant. The first four belongs to the office of the law, and the last two belongs to the ministry of the gospel. A true gospel in balance with the whole counsel of God is hard to come by, just as true apostles and prophets are hard to come by. It seems to me that our only safe hope to recognize and distinguish the true from the false, is to deeply and truly know the Lord. This means we are personally exercised in the laws and patterns of His ways in our own lives. Otherwise, even our estimation and evaluation of what would count as “fruits” will be just as faulty as our knowledge of God. So, once again, the burden is on the priesthood of every believer. […]
