Jesus was speaking, not just to Jews, but to those who follow Him — His disciples.
They asked Jesus, “What shall be
the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world?” (Mat 24:3).
Jesus is coming again. This
question was about his last coming at the end of the world.
Jesus was speaking of the time
when Satan will be bound for one-thousand years and He would rule the world for
that millennium, to wit:
And I (John) saw thrones, and they
sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which
had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark
upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ
a thousand years. (Rev 20:4)
This event is called the ‘second coming
of Christ.’ We are assured that after that, “The rest of the dead lived not
again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection”
(Rev 20:5).
There is a question concerning the
first resurrection. The real ‘first resurrection’ was before the writing of the
Revelation of John. The prior resurrection was when the dead saints in
Christ arose with Christ, “And came out of the graves after His resurrection,
and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many” (Mat 27:53). That
resurrection came before John saw into the future. The first resurrection comes
after the Great Tribulation. The subsequent resurrection comes, according to
John, after the millennial reign of Jesus.
How many times does Jesus appear, or
come to the world? He has already come once, then died and was resurrected.
That was His first time coming.
Paul wrote that Jesus would come a
second time; for what? Unto salvation. To save those who belonged to Him:
“Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that
look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation”
(Heb 9:28). The second coming of Christ points toward His life as the first
coming.
Just when is the second coming of Christ?
I would not have you to
be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not,
even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain
unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. (1 Thes 4:13:15)
The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then 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. (1 Thes 4:16-17)
The rapture of Christians, both
dead and alive, when John wrote it about 90 AD or so, was the second coming,
and the first resurrection.
Theologians call the ‘second
coming of Christ, the ‘millennial reign of Jesus.’ If that is the case, then
what is the coming of Christ at the rapture? After all He did come
again, did He not?
In a moment of honesty, I am not
the final authority about when the rapture of Christians occurs. Theologians
recognize three alternatives: (1) pre-tribulation, (2) mid-tribulation, or (3)
post tribulation.
The eternal security of Calvinism
— the preservation of the saints — depends on the rapture to be pre-tribulation
to coincide their doctrine.
Eternal security comes from several verses in the wisdom literature:
O love the Lord, all you
His saints: for the Lord preserves the faithful. (Psalm
31:23)
The Lord loves judgment
and forsakes not His saints; they are preserved forever: but the seed of the
wicked shall be cut off. (Psalm 37:28)
You that love the Lord,
hate evil: He preserves the souls of his saints; He delivers them out of the
hand of the wicked. (Psalm 97:10)
He keeps the paths of
judgment and preserves the way of His saints. (Prov
2:8)
‘Preserves’ are fruits that are
sealed. Saints are the ‘fruits,’ and the seal is by God. “Who (God) has also
sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts (2 Cor 1:22).
If any preserve is sealed
properly, the fruit should last quite some time. When God seals, the fruit is
meant to be sealed until the end.
Like any fruit that is not perfect,
the seal can be broken from within… speaking to Christians at Corinth, Paul
wrote, “Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven leavens
the whole lump?” (1 Cor 5:6). If a little leaven is within the sealed vessel, it
leavens the whole. Leavening is corruption; it changes what is good inside to make
it unpalatable. Oftentimes the vessel may explode, or the seal blows out. God
seals but godly saints can still perish if their fruits go bad.
We should never accept a doctrine
just because it conforms to the doctines of the individuals or groups. A
pre-tribulation rapture does conform to Calvinism’s fifth point — preservation
of the saints. It makes sense to them that if they are preserved, then their ‘vessels’
(souls) would be removed from the hazards.
However, true preservation is
preserved despite the hazards. Preservation would be during tribulations,
or even during great tribulation.
For the Christian who had
fornicated, Paul wrote his judgment, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus” (1 Cor 5:5).
Just when is salvation? Many have
been told time and again that you are saved. That has been repeated so
much, along with security, that repetition has made it true to you.
Where should a disciple of Jesus go
to find the time of salvation? To the Word of God; “That the spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor 5:5).
Salvation is of the spirit within
the souls of Christians. Fornication is a bad work but that does not condemn a
Christian. Only a lack of faith in Christ condemns. A Christian can still
fornicate, repent, and still be saved. Nobody can be unsaved. That process
is irrational since ‘salvation,’ according to scripture, is in the day of the
Lord Jesus, when He comes again.
When Jesus comes again is at the
rapture (1 Thes 4:16-17).
That is His real second coming, but perhaps it might coincide with the millennial
reign of Jesus that theologians call the ‘second coming of Christ.’
Unknown is when great tribulation
arrives. It may be now or much later. However, the time of the second coming of
Christ at the rapture is unknown as well. How can “The Great Tribulation’ be
recognized? “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of
the Son of man” (Luke 17:26).
What happened in the days of
Noah? It began with tribulations (Gen 6) when mankind got so evil that they were
willing to change their humanity to fornicate with devils from another realm
(Gen 6:4). The sacred Books of Adam and Eve even mentioned drunkenness
and pedophilia.
Noah, who had found grace (Gen
6:8) lived in a time of tribulation. Then when the storm came, Noah survived
even greater tribulation even though He had found grace from God. God had put
onto his flesh a ‘life preserver;’ Noah, according to the Book of Jasher,
put on the Garment of Adam (Gen 3:21) to make it through the Great Tribulation
of the deluge.
Although he had found grace, Noah
suffered tribulations while building the ark in the form of mockery and ridicule,
and great tribulation from the turbulent waters. Of course, the flood was a prototypical
event revealing the end of time, but it would have similar events.
Of course, soon after Noah was
safe, he sinned again in several ways: (1) him becoming the ‘husbandman’ rather
than God and (2) him drinking of the vine until he was drunk. According to Jasher,
Ham stole the Garment of Adam while Noah was naked, and Noah lost his safety. Of
course, he was not damned because Jesus had yet to be crucified for his iniquity.
However, because both Noah and
Ham sinned, Canaan was cursed. As such, the generations of Canaan were damned (Gen
9:28) because of the sin of his father. It was the original sin all over again
and it was through genetics.
Without a question, the coming of
the Lord in the sky for those both dead and living saints should be the ‘first
resurrection” and comes after the Great Tribulation and before the millennial
reign of Christ.
John wrote that the first
resurrection was with the coming of Christ for His millennial reign. If that
event is the second coming, then the writers of scripture, failed to
count His birth at the first coming just as they failed to count the resurrection
of Christ nor the rapture as the first resurrection.
The point herein is that the sequence
of events is fairly clear in the Bible but what they are called and what we
call them is much less clear. As such, I take precaution; although my hope is
that the rapture of Christians comes before the tribulation (‘pre-tribulation’),
I must be prepared for the worst case, the ‘post tribulation’ rapture. We all
will be part of the post-millennial rapture for judgment.
On the other hand, God has grace!
The tribulations common to the first 3-1/2 years are much like the goings on
this moment. Tribulations have been common since the time of Christ, Paul
wrote, “I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation” (2 Cor 7:4).
The tribulations in the days of
Noah were genetic. The genes of mankind were fouled again with miscegenation
between men and angels.
Things were to come that were as
in the days of Noah. Recently, beginning with the waning of the Christian Era
(Pisces), genetics can now change the very identity — the genetics — of mankind
through simply cutting out natural DNA, and replacing it with synthetic. We
indeed are now the ‘gods’ and we can design an unnatural being.
I believe that is the ultimate sin,
and perhaps now is salvation nearer than when we first believed (Rom 13:11).
That one verse proves that salvation is not when we first believe, but
sometimes after that; it is either at death or the rapture whichever comes
first. For most of us, including the saints of past, salvation was at their
demise, hence as Paul wrote, “For me to live is Christ; and to die gain’ (Phil
1:21). Death is salvation from the world and the reward for those in Christ. It
is then that the soul is saved to an eternal existence in Paradise.
Not to be funny, but to be saved
already you must be dead already! However, Christians are not saved but safe
from the wiles of the devil whose device is such... “as a roaring lion, walk
about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 6:8). To avoid death by deception,
Paul wrote to Peter that a Christian must remain ‘sober and vigilant.’
What would be the Devil devouring
a Christian? Great Tribulation, or at least tribulation!
The end of days indicates that
Christians will not be raptured before the Great Tribulation, the second 3-1/2
years of the Tribulation period. Christians can hope for a rapture soon, but should
act as if they must undergo great tribulation to never succumb to the wiles of
the Devil themselves — the Antichrist (some man or being with Satan in him.)
Maybe the Antichrist will not
even be totally human as we think of humans. Because of the Tree of Knowledge,
that tree would be his strength. Myself, I believe that the Antichrist will be
some synthetic person, maybe even a female, whose knowledge base contains the
knowledge of both good and evil in the world.
I believe that knowledge base has
already been created, and the creator of it has already shared that knowledge,
to wit: (Wikipedia; ‘DNA Data Storage’):
In June 2019, scientists reported
that all 16 GB of text from the English Wikipedia had been encoded into
synthetic DNA. In 2021, scientists reported that a custom DNA data writer had
been developed that was capable of writing data into DNA at 18 Mbps.
The question is in whom or what will
that synthetic DNA be written? And for what purposes? Perhaps to create an
image in the manner of the Serpent; perhaps an Antichrist with the knowledge of
both good and evil in a tree-like structure, one subject in Wiki hyperlinked to
the next to form branches of a tree.
Have we already been prepared for the tribulation to come? Has the material already been prepared for making a new, synthetic being? I submit that it may have already been done!
He Jiankui, the Chinese
researcher who stunned the world last year by announcing he had helped produce
genetically edited babies, has been found guilty of conducting "illegal
medical practices" and sentenced to 3 years in prison.
A court in Shenzhen
found that He and two collaborators forged ethical review documents and misled
doctors into unknowingly implanting gene-edited embryos into two women,
according to Xinhua, China's state-run press agency. One mother gave birth to
twin girls in November 2018; it has not been made clear when the third baby was
born. The court ruled that the three defendants had deliberately violated
national regulations on biomedical research and medical ethics, and rashly
applied gene-editing technology to human reproductive medicine.
Could 2019 be the beginning of
the Tribulation period? Is it coincidental that the ‘Great Reset’ coincides with
synthetic humans and the Age of Lucifer?
Indeed, many ‘coincidences’ may
make one truth!
If we are already in the beginning
of tribulation, why are Christians still here? Why have we not been raptured?
Is the pre-tribulation rapture a deceptive ploy on the part of the Antichrist
to make Christians think that they are already saved and secure from the
wiles of the Devil?
Note that Matthew wrote of the ‘beginning
of sorrows,’ and names the global evidence of it (Mat 24:1-8). “Then shall they
deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and you shall be hated of
all nations for my name's sake… But he that shall endure unto the end, the same
shall be saved” (Mat 24:9, 13).
That is the time of salvation, not
when you first believe! “Then shall be great tribulation, such as was
not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Mat
24:21).
Jesus broke the end-of-time into
eras: (1) the beginning of sorrows, (2) tribulation, and (3) great tribulation.
He was speaking to His disciples — Christians — and warning them of things to
come; things which they must endure to the end.
How much clearer could Jesus have
been. He ended the discourse with what theologians call the ‘rapture:”
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: 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. 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. (Mat 24:29:31)
Hence, after the time of sorrows, after
tribulation, and after the great tribulation; Christians who endure all
those things shall be saved. ‘The elect’ are not those who precede or enter
the tribulation but those who endure it.
Of course, I am not the final
authority, and I must admit that if there is a first resurrection, then
perhaps there is a second one which I fail to understand. Will Jesus
come twice to save the elect, one before the great tribulation and again after
it? I just do not know! However, as I write a second time, we must hope
for a pre-tribulation rapture, but be ready (sober and vigilant) to
endure all that the Devil may plan for us.
Some theologians define two
resurrections: (1) before the great tribulation, and (2) another resurrection after
the millennial reign of Jesus. Perhaps that is true, or maybe it is our hope!
However, John wrote that the resurrection
at the end is the “first resurrection’ and that is after great tribulation.
With that said, perhaps the second resurrection is judgment day when everyone
will be resurrected from all ages for Jesus to reveal to them why their
judgment, and both the damned and the saved will go to their places.
Perhaps you may now understand why
so many disagree with the chain of events. We just are not to know the plans
and futures that God has for us or then we would wait for the last minute for
conversion.
picture credit: Pixabay
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