Do you think those who believed the May 21st rapture learned anything, and might now really get into God's Word for theirselves, and start watching the real signs He gave?
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Do you think those who believed the May 21st rapture learned anything, and might now really get into God's Word for theirselves, and start watching the real signs He gave?
I just hope they decide it's time to follow Jesus, not another man....
Do you think those who believed the May 21st rapture learned anything, and might now really get into God's Word for theirselves, and start watching the real signs He gave?
The problem in logic isn't the signs, it's the seasons.
Mr. Camping focused all his limited brain power on analyzing the signs and their apparent placement in an erroneous sequence of events. When anyone begins to study the basic prophecies of Daniel, Ezekiel, Jesus and the book of Revelation they immediately discover a problem with chronology.
It's written that way for a reason.
Man is lord of nature, but God is lord of history. Somewhere it says that Jesus is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. That means He directs the unfolding of history - NOT MANKIND.
Our King of Kings once said that the specific chronology of His second coming was hidden knowledge. When He was asked a specific question about dates and times, He gave a real specific answer. No proverbs, no metaphors, no fancy word pictures just a straight answer. That's why the prophecies are written like that.
We are encouraged, however, to watch the seasons. Everyone seems to feel that the season is near and most will tell you that it isn't quite yet. It certainly won't be this year or this season.
Soon, though. Even Mr. Camping, if he's still around, will be surprised.
That was another little item Jesus told us about.
Surprise.
...Our King of Kings once said that the specific chronology of His second coming was hidden knowledge. ...
In everything that I have read, Christians are missing the big opportunity. Campings false teaching was accompanied by his 100 million dollar ad campaign that had people everywhere talking about it.
We need to seize opportunities like this to be faithful witnesses. It is not every day that we have an open door like this where the world starts the conversation. We need to be prepared to jump in and direct them toward Christ.
From my readings of verses concerning the rapture I will infer that this mainstream belief most likely originated out of interpretations of the following 2 verses:
Matthew 24:40 "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left."
1 Thessalonians 4:17 "17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
If we look at the first verse in context we will be able to quickly see that it is not referring to the rapture, but to something very different. The point of confusion is the word "taken", let's see what Jesus meant by "taken". Backtracking 3 verses "37But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39And knew not until the flood came, and TOOK them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Therefore we need not guess for the meaning of the verb to take, Jesus gave us the meaning, he used it in verse 39 to describe being destroyed, being "taken by the grim reaper" if you will, by the flood. In the same way, the Great Tribulation will be such that two men will be the the field working, one will just fall dead (probably out of fatigue) and the other is left to clean up the corpse.
The NEW ZION is the new Ark! Going to Zion IS the rapture! It is where the returned Jesus himself will be!
Where is this new Zion? lets agree that it is not in the Middle East, because clearly here God says it will be a place to flee to during the Great tribulation and the Middle East will be a place to free away from during that time. Revelations 12: "14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach"
During the Apostle John's time, when he wrote these words, Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa have all been discovered, are all on the map, the only place that's not on the map, the place that can rightfully be called the wilderness, is the Americas. This is further supported by the part of the verse that says the woman [the real Christians] will be "given wings of a great eagle", the cover picture of an American passport is "a great eagle"! Also the United States is the country right now with the greatest porportion of Christians, the Americans will not allow the mark of the beast to be instituted in their country. It will mostly affect Europe, Asia, and Africa.
So then how is this Zion going to come about?
Revelations 21: "2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, PREPARED AS A BRIDE beautifully dressed for her husband."
Who is the Husband in this case? I hope we can all agree that this means the returned Jesus Christ. It says clearly that this HOly City must be "PREPARED",but by whom? Well definitely not by Jesus physically beacuse he is the husband. In the Jewish tradition preparation of the wedding feast is the responsibility of the bride and her family, so here's the answer--Christians would have to prepare it. Ofcourse we're talking about Christians who have become fully matured and one with the spirit so that everything that comes out of the work of their hands comes out of "heaven" (the meaning of heaven per our discussion above). THe work will be inspired by God, but it will physically be done by Christians.
Not only do some Christians have to prepare Zion, Christian churches need to prepare other methods of supporting its members for when the time comes when the Mark of the Beast is instututed and they cannot buy or sell (because Zion alone, at least initially, will not be able to support 2 billion people). This can be in the form of buying land and planting crops, making clothes, miking cows, making honey, and other business work.
Jesus actually explained very plainly that this needs to be done. Matthew 24 verse 45 and onwards: "whosoever is the faithful and wise servant whom the lord put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food AT THE PROPER TIME? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns." The faithful and wise servant are the elders of the church. Jesus before that described how horrid the tribulation will be, and then he said he put some servants in charge of making this tribulation less painful for his christians.
What happens when these leaders of the church fail to provide for their members for the tribulation? I think Jesus explained that very plainly too.
"48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."