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Golf Cart Mafia Capo Famiglia Posts: 4743 **8/10/12 3:35 pm**

The end of the age at the cross was the beginning of the church age that concludes with the age of man. We are approaching the end of the church age quickly. As far as the shaking of the empire it took approximately from 500 to 1400 more years depending on which empire. Jesus changed the world but that is not the end of the age since he as I stated started and new age. You mention killing God that is true however man did not kill God, for one he voluntarily gave the Ghost he was not murdered. Next he was resurrected and still lives. God gave a timeline, 7 days and the bible says a thousand years is a day to God, well 4000 years to Jesus,2000 to now, give or take then 1000 year reign of Christ. We are very close to the end of this age, getting ready for the age of man where the bride will go and meet the bridegroom in the twinkling of a eye in the air for 7 years then we rule for 1000 years with Jesus, Then the Judgement. That is my belief and what I see the scripture showing.

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3063 **8/10/12 5:11 pm**

Golf Cart Mafia Underboss Posts: 3944 **8/10/12 5:18 pm**

During a study I did of Heaven, it quickly became clear that we believe the return of Christ to earth is the beginning of eternity. Eternity being defined as timeless, or without time, or time irrelevant. (I see no requirement that it even be sequential.)

But the clock keeps running during the reign of Christ. Some people live long OT length lives, while others die much sooner. Yes, births happen, and deaths happen during that time. Death is a reality for both the righteous and the wicked during the millennium.

And Armageddon is not the final battle, nor is Satan the final enemy.

And Heaven doesn't have streets of gold, New Jerusalem does. And that is after the millennium. We lump too much stuff together, and for what it's worth, some of the descriptions are just a man trying to describe the indescribable.

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **8/10/12 6:09 pm**

Golf Cart Mafia Underboss Posts: 3944 **8/10/12 7:28 pm**

Link, I was not clear in that first sentence. I should have said we mistakenly think of the return of Christ to earth as the beginning of eternity.

The discussion had been about the upcoming end of the Church age, which is how I understand it as well. In many of our minds, the 'next thing' is Heaven and eternity. But the millennium is next, and is unique in many ways to other eras, but it is not the final state.

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 5431 **8/11/12 4:52 pm**

I have felt that a pre-wrath view is the best view if indeed we are going to be translated and the dead in Christ are going to be raised before Jesus' feet touch the Mount of Olives.

If that is not the case, then perhaps a post-trib view without the Dominion theology flavor would be second best.

Of course, from the viewpoint of wanting to escape suffering in this world and possibly avoid having to face death, the pre-trib view wins hands down.
_________________
Randy Johnson, Pastor
Ickesburg Church of God
85 Tuscarora Path
Ickesburg, Pennsylvania

I never will stop believing in the Rapture

Hey, DOC Posts: 71 **8/11/12 5:40 pm**

Because of the following reasons:

1. Matthew 24 is a cycle that is repeated. The first portion of the Chapter, He is dealing with the Jews specifically, but then half-way through it He starts the dialogue over again (Note Revelation not Revelations) is like this. For example in Revelation 12 we read a synopsis of the war in Heaven with the Dragon and in Revelation 11 about the beast and then the beast doesn't actually appear to Revelation 13. The Apostle Paul did the same in 1 Thessalonians.
Let me give you an example
Matthew 24:29-31 (KJV)29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

And Then
Matthew 24:37-41 (KJV)37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

2. Paul's use of the language "wrath" refers to the Tribulation period. But note what Paul says about it.
Romans 1:18 (KJV) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Romans 5:9 (KJV) Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Ephesians 5:6 (KJV) Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
1 Thessalonians 1:10 (KJV) And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

3. Revelation 4:1 and Revelation 5:11

4. The Post or Mid Trib position destroys the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ. If you are Post or Mid you pretty much know the day or the hour, and the Bible is clear that we don't.
Matthew 24:36 (KJV) But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Mark 13:32-33 (KJV)32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. 33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
_________________
Looking for the Blessed Hope!- Titus 2:13
Bill Coble, D.Min.
Facebook: facebook.com/apocalypticbill
Twitter: @billforjc

Acts-celerater Posts: 975 **8/11/12 8:27 pm**

There are two different ways to escape the wrath of God -

1. To be removed from it by being translated before it happens.

2. To be shielded by God while it is going on around you.

The pattern of Scripture that I have found most compelling is #2.

Beginning with Noah. Noah was shielded from the waters of the flood while it was going on. I've always heard it preached that Noah's Ark was a type of being in Christ. If this is true, then it is possible that we could still be in this world at the time the wrath of God is poured out but be shielded from the effects of it by God's power.

Israel in Egypt. During the plagues the Israelites in Goshen were shielded but they still were in Egypt until after the plague of the deaths of the firstborn, and it was only by having the blood applied that they were shielded from the angel of death. If Egypt is a type of the world, and Moses was a type of Christ (which he seemed to indicate in Deuteronomy) then it would make sense that Christ would shield his own people while pouring out the wrath of God on the world.

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1453 **8/13/12 11:05 am**

Acts-celerater Posts: 975 **8/13/12 11:58 am**

Golf Cart Mafia Capo Famiglia Posts: 4743 **8/13/12 1:12 pm**

Stay if you want, I'm out of here

Acts-dicted Posts: 7766 **8/13/12 5:28 pm**

Just please feed my cat and tell any of my family who might show up to get saved and to remember what I always told them.

Thanks.
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www.spiritwatch.org

Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? Galatians 4:16

These are trying times. Everyone's trying something and getting caught. The Church Lady, 1987

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 5431 **8/14/12 7:18 am**

I find it interesting that Paul wrote to a group of people: "We do not write anything that you cannot read or understand" and yet here we are 2000 years later with people insisting we can't just take what Scripture says at face value but first we have to study ancient history and culture in order to understand that it doesn't mean what it says. Ingenious.
_________________
Randy Johnson, Pastor
Ickesburg Church of God
85 Tuscarora Path
Ickesburg, Pennsylvania

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1458 **8/14/12 8:57 am**

I'm not sure how it will work out, but am sure it will. However, I think that we strain the scripture when we make the seven days of creation a model for seven thousand years. Scripture doesn't say that a with the Lord is a thousand years, it says that it is like a thousand. My thought is that time with God is different than it is with us, that for Him, time goes buy as quickly.

I'm not questioning the nearness of the Lords return, just how we seem to measure things. It also appears to me that there is a mixture of events that actually happened in Jerusalem and things hat are to come in prophetic passages in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13. So how do we reconcile pat and future prophetic events?

A Few Thoughts

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3063 **8/14/12 9:33 am**

Major, I appreciate your last response. I hope you do not consider me one of those that just take Wright as the gospel! I do post what he says a lot- mainly because he says what I think better than I could. But I do disagree with him often.

I am working through all this right now. I appreciate ApocalypticBill's response. It gave me some things to think about.

My main struggle, right now, is appropriating Jesus' answer in Matthew 24. Matthew 24-25 is the answer to a specific question, and that question is not about the second return! So everything we read after that is the answer to that question.

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

The destruction of the temple would have been an apocalyptic event; and, for first century Jews, might have served as a marker that Yahweh had finally come to be their shepherd and king as promised. Jesus' disciples considered Jesus to be the Messiah, so he would be the initiator of this "new age." When the disciples heard Jesus talk about the destruction of the temple, they would have taken that to be part of the end of the old age.

Jesus clearly sees the destruction of the temple as the end of an age, as well as part of his particular vocation. When riding into Jerusalem for the last time, the Pharisees urge Jesus to tell the crowd to stop singing "Hosanna," which was a Psalm reserved for Messiah. Jesus, speaking prophetically, declares that if they didn't say it the rocks would cry it out. Here, I believe, Jesus is talking about the stones of the temple which will fall. Their fall will testify that he was indeed Messiah!

Habakkuk 2:11
The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.

So the question in Matthew 24 is one about the fall of the temple and the sign that Jesus was the Messiah. (Remember, the Jews seeks a sign.) Even Jesus' brothers urge him, in John 11, to go up to Jerusalem and show a sign that would establish him as Messiah.

When the disciples ask "What will be the sign of your coming?" they weren't talking about the second coming! How could they be? They didn't even know he was going to leave. They didn't know he was going to die. They didn't even know there was going to be a supposed "church age." Their question was about Jesus' particular vocation as the Jewish Messiah.

His answers, then, are to that question- What will be the sign that you are Messiah and that you ending the age of temple worship and inaugurating the peaceful reign of Yahweh.

And it appears, that Jesus sees two events as one and the same, namely: the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, AND a great gathering of the elect at another climactic moment in the world's history.

Of these events, Jesus says that sufficient evidence will be given to that generation. For Jesus, who is not bound by time or space, it does seems that he speaks about two events as if they were the same event. For him, and for us, both events (those of the 1st century, and those that don't seemed to have occurred yet) are to be seen as God's redemptive work in Jesus; vindicating him as Messiah.

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1453 **8/14/12 10:49 am**

Golf Cart Mafia Underboss Posts: 3944 **8/14/12 11:02 am**

Great post Daniel. You have shown new light on Matt 24 for me.

It is often difficult to read a text bearing in mind we know things the listeners did not yet know. I have wondered why the rich young ruler didn't ask Jesus, "What cross?"

I will now re-read Matt 24, and use it in in the future in the light you have used.

BB