PRE-TRIB

eschatologist,

The words of the Lord Jesus recorded at Matthew 24 is in answer to His disciple's question,"And what shall be the sign of Thy coming,and the end of the age"(Mt.24:3).

Earlier the Lord Jesus had revealed what would happen at "the end of the age" in the parable of the "tares of the field":

"He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are the angels.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father"(Mt.13:37-43).

Here we can see that the events that will happen at "the end of the age" involves the whole world.If you are correct that all the things in Matthew 24 have already happened,how do you explain the fact that judgment has not yet come upon all the world?

In His grace,--Jerry

 

Hmmm lets take a small example -- your Jeremiah 4:13 where you claim it is "so hard to tell if it is literal or symbolic so we must all be soooo confused"...

"Behold He goes up LIKE clouds. He chariots are LIKE the whirlwind and His horses swifter than the Eagles"...

Are you really going to camp on that being soooo hard for us to understand??

Are you really going to say that our confusion on Jeremiah 4:13 is great "at all"??? Or "so great that we can't believe Christ when He says He will come in the clouds of heaven and every eye shall see Him"???

You need to do more work on your "confusing Bible" story to give it some merit. It just isn't that hard to "understand" that the prophets visions of God could be awesome and "True" and at times even beyond words -- and certainly not "limited" to just one local conflict.

Notice that in Jeremiah 4 God pulls in the final and utlimate end of the entire planet under judgment "I looked and behold the earth - and it was formless and void. And to the heavens and b behold they had no light. ... I looked and behold there was NO MAN". Jer 4:23-25. This is a literal depiction of the literal earth - that is literally devastated after the literal 2nd coming and during the literal 1000 years.

"Literally"

In Christ,

Bob

In Christ,

Bob

 

Hi Bob,

Not to interrupt your discussion here, but I have a few questions.

Your point on Jeremiah 4:23-25 about it being a total destruction. How do you read the next several verses?

Jer 4:26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place [was] a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, [and] by his fierce anger.
Jer 4:27 For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.
Jer 4:28 For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken [it], I have purposed [it], and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.
Jer 4:29 The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city [shall be] forsaken, and not a man dwell therein.

The verse you quoted said that Jeremiah beheld NO MAN. Yet in verse 27 he says that God will not make "a full end". If everyone on the earth at that time dies, what do these words mean? What would a full end look like? Why does Jeremiah state two more times that it will not be a full end? (Jer 5:10,18)

Then in verse 29, he says the people will flee into the thickets and climb on the rocks. Every city will be forsaken and not a man dwell therein. Do you attach any significance to this verse?

Thanks for the feedback,

Ed

 

Jerry did a better job of expressing the point I was trying to make, by writing out the pertinent section of Matt.24. There is no way v.40-43 have been fulfilled. Even though that was the end of AN age, still, even this new era of grace is still apart of "this present evil age", as sin is rampant. The two ages make up a larger age, of sin after the Fall. Christ may have "put away sin" by forgiving us, saving us from it's power and penalty, (and that's believers only; not counting the unconverted world) still, sin is not completely "put away" to the extents described regarding the Kingdom: i.e. it is completely cast out and non-existant. ("all things that offend...cast into furnace of fire"). that is what I meant by "judgement".

But if you're claiming that the return of Christ was really in the heirarchy of the Church, (and particularly a certain leadership office) and this was not true, then quite literally, this was a "false Christ" (and of course, any Kingdom of a false Christ would be implicated as well), and thus falls definitely into the category of what Christ was warning us against. As for the "figurative-literal" argument, Bob added an important perspective on that. The words of Christ are definitely literal, and we are to take scriptures literally unless we are told it is figurative, and a similar earlier term or statement being figurative does not necessarily prove that it is figurative this time.

 

Ed - it is the same as when we see Satan described in the OT using pagan Kings as models but then assign attributes that can not possibly apply to the kings. Isaiah 14 and the King of Babylon vs Lucifer comes to mind (read it in the KJV or NKJV for the gist of that connection).

In Rev 20 the first resurrection happens at the start of the 1000 years and the 2nd -- at the end of the 1000 years. Because of that - you do not have a "complete end" until the end of the 1000 years when all the wicked who have ever lived have been raised and then cast into the Lake of Fire.

In Rev 19 at the 2nd coming event we are told that "the rest are killed" by the sword that comes from Christ. So all is desolate as we see described in a number of places in the Bible. Where there is no light, the hills move back and forth, dead bodies all across the planet with no one to bury them, all cities in ruins and "no mankind".

In Christ,

Bob