1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Featured A Doctrine for Cowards

Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by Protestant, Apr 26, 2014.

Top Posters
Page 1 of 3
  1. Protestant

    Protestant Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 6, 2013
    Messages:
    1,300
    Likes Received:
    159
    Scripture warns that certain people will never enter New Jerusalem:

    But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. [NKJV]

    For years the only group of reprobate which had me perplexed were those called ‘cowards.’

    It wasn’t until I seriously investigated Church history that I began to discern a pattern:

    For centuries upon centuries true Christians were often placed in the extremely 'uncomfortable' position of either standing strong for the Lord and His eternal truths, resulting in loss of property, loss of freedom and loss of life, or capitulating to the demands of the enemy by renouncing their faith for that of their enemy.

    Guess which the majority chose?

    And guess which group is seen in Heaven?

    When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held…..Then a white robe was given to each of them….

    After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands…..

    These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

    Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

    Not one coward is seen in Heaven.

    Not one capitulating coward who escaped tribulation.

    All the saints seen in Heaven ultimately stayed faithful to their Lord despite the very real threat of persecution and death.

    This they did by the grace of God and the power of His might.

    They were the called, the chosen out and the faithful.

    They, like Paul, would rather die than take the coward’s way out.

    Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

    Today’s professing Christians have miraculously discovered an ‘escape clause’ in the Scriptures.

    They, unlike 2,000 years of Spirit-born Christianity before them, have discovered a ‘legal loophole’ which saves them from tribulation.

    It is called ‘The Pre-Tribulation Secret Rapture of the Church.’

    It is, in reality, a doctrine for cowards.

    Scripture unequivocally declares that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God.

    Jesus solemnly prays against a pre-Trib Rapture: I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

    ‘The Pre-Tribulation Secret Rapture of the Church’ is a lie.

    In truth, there are no cowardly Christians in Heaven who escaped Tribulation.
     
    #1 Protestant, Apr 26, 2014
  2. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2000
    Messages:
    37,982
    Likes Received:
    137
    So give us your testimony. How much blood have you spilt for the Lord Jesus Christ? What kind of persecution have you faced? Tell us how you have been martyred for his sake? This is what you have been writing about.
    How do you consider your ownself worthy to enter the kingdom?
     
    #2 DHK, Apr 26, 2014
  3. prophet

    prophet Active Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    May 8, 2010
    Messages:
    1,037
    Likes Received:
    2
    They will shed my blood one day, if I live to see the Tribulation.
     
    #3 prophet, Apr 26, 2014
  4. OldRegular

    OldRegular Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2004
    Messages:
    22,678
    Likes Received:
    64
    A New Century of Martyrs: Anti-Christian Intolerance

     
    #4 OldRegular, Apr 26, 2014
  5. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2005
    Messages:
    20,080
    Likes Received:
    3,491
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Context, context, context. The "cowardly" are those who through fear did not "overcome" by the blood of the Lamb.

    Their fear of fleshly consequences kept them from coming to and trusting in Christ for eternal life.
     
    #5 TCassidy, Apr 26, 2014
  6. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2000
    Messages:
    37,982
    Likes Received:
    137
    The KJV is still better here:

    Revelation 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

    Fearful stands in opposition to "overcomer".
    1 John 5:4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
     
    #6 DHK, Apr 26, 2014
  7. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2005
    Messages:
    19,715
    Likes Received:
    585
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Most English translations use a form of the word coward.

    Why would the word 'fearful' alone stand in opposition to overcomer?
     
    #7 Rippon, Apr 27, 2014
  8. pinoybaptist

    pinoybaptist Active Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2002
    Messages:
    8,136
    Likes Received:
    3
    Faith:
    Baptist
    so since you are speaking of heaven, I presume you mean the eternal heaven in the eternity in which the eternal God dwells, which Scripture says is attained only BY THE MERIT OF JESUS CHRIST'S WORK for and in behalf of His people.
    On this board, I've seen people declare salvation (eternal) to be by grace PLUS AND MINUS NOTHING.
    Which to them means the sinner's faith is added already along with his faithfulness, all lumped up into one roll called grace.
    Now, YOU, also want to add BRAVERY.
    My, my, the Savior must be scratching His head up in His throne, and telling the angels to prepare a special place for you for discovering what He hid from others.
    That not only, and solely, is His blood the agency by which His people are to make their robes white, it is also THEIR blood added into the mix.
    My goodness.
    Don't you see at all that redemption and salvation IS NOT ABOUT YOU, WHAT MAKES YOU TICK, AND ALL THAT NARCISSISTIC JIVE YOU JUST SPOUTED AND PASSED ON AS THEOLOGY ?
     
    #8 pinoybaptist, Apr 27, 2014
  9. pinoybaptist

    pinoybaptist Active Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2002
    Messages:
    8,136
    Likes Received:
    3
    Faith:
    Baptist
    It's easy to talk bravery and willingness to lay one's life down for the sake of the Lord from behind a computer in the comfort of one's home, or office, in a land where no one persecutes you to death for simply being a Christian, and where you're free to start your own religion and cast your net into the sea of gullible people, like Jim Jones did.
    I'd like to see you ACTUALLY go out to, say, SAUDI ARABIA, with a Bible openly in your suitcase, and if for some reason you do get past their customs and Muttawas (religious police) to go and start an underground believers' meeting like some do.
    Talk is cheap.
    While I do not believe in missions, as interpreted today, I have respect for people like one member on this board who went to Japan at a time when the culture there was strange to him and the land was hostile to foreign 'devils' and Christians were tiny, tiny, tiny minority.
    In my own country, one guy I know, 5'0" tall, and decidedly hunchback, with pronounced nearsightedness, followed his conviction that he was being called by the Lord to start a ministry smack in the middle of a district where the majority were Muslims just a few doors down from a mosque.
    I don't know if he is still there, but, there is courage.
    Does our member who is in Japan, and this dwarf of a hunchback, think it is their own innate courage that gave them give their all to their Savior ?
    I doubt it, very highly.
     
    #9 pinoybaptist, Apr 27, 2014
  10. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2000
    Messages:
    37,982
    Likes Received:
    137
    Fear of committing themselves to Christ; fear of being saved; fear of the consequences of salvation, etc.

    God has not given us (believers) the spirit of fear but of love, and of power, and of a sound mind.

    Whosoever is born of God overcomes the world. Those that are saved and live by faith are overcomers in opposition to those who are the unbelievers and fearful.
    One must remember that all the characteristics in Rev.21:8 describe the unsaved, not the saved. I also looked at a number of translations. They are split about half and half. IOW there are about half that use fearful.
     
    #10 DHK, Apr 27, 2014
  11. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jul 28, 2009
    Messages:
    20,511
    Likes Received:
    3,047
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Wow, I guess that clinches it for these two:

    And after these things Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away his body. And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Jn 19:38,39
     
    #11 kyredneck, Apr 27, 2014
  12. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2000
    Messages:
    37,982
    Likes Received:
    137
    What are you talking about. As far as I know they are already in heaven.
    Look at the context. The Millennial Kingdom has taken place and come to an end. Satan made an uprising and is now in the Lake of Fire where the Beast and the False Prophet are. In Rev.20:11-15 the Great White Throne Judgement has taken place where all the unsaved has been judged. There are no unbelievers left.
    Now it is speaking of the New Jerusalem.
    God reaffirms that in spite of what has just taken place at the Great White Throne, these kind of people, which describe unbelievers will never enter in.

    Nicodemus was not "fearful" in the sense he was afraid to trust Christ. He did trust Christ. That is why he was at the cross, taking the body of Christ, at the tomb, helping to put his body in the grave. That was a dangerous place for him, particularly for him (having been a member of the Sanhedrin), and now taking part in the burial of the body of Christ. It took a great amount of courage to do what he did.
     
    #12 DHK, Apr 27, 2014
  13. OldRegular

    OldRegular Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2004
    Messages:
    22,678
    Likes Received:
    64
    One thing I know, God will bring all His "chosen ones" to salvation in Jesus Christ, period!
     
    #13 OldRegular, Apr 27, 2014
  14. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2012
    Messages:
    52,624
    Likes Received:
    2,742
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Interesting that prophet wants to have the Cowards refer to Christians, yet all of the others named are the unsaved!

    Think the point here is that cowards will be brought to life by the trials of life, that they are those who were never among us and with us, as the Bible makes it quite clear that the Lord Himself shall bring us thru our trials, as jesus Himself stated that in that hour of trial and testing, the Holy spirit within us shall empower and enable us to overcome,,,

    Stephen, I am sure, did not see himself as just getting killed off without any fear or any emotions, but in that time, God granted him His peace and power to stay faithful unto death!
     
    #14 Yeshua1, Apr 28, 2014
  15. just-want-peace

    just-want-peace Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 3, 2002
    Messages:
    7,727
    Likes Received:
    873
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Totally agree; I believe it will be anything BUT secret!!:applause:
     
    #15 just-want-peace, Apr 28, 2014
  16. Gerhard Ebersoehn

    Gerhard Ebersoehn Active Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2004
    Messages:
    9,025
    Likes Received:
    8
    Faith:
    Non Baptist Christian
    Amen!

    "God knows who are his."
     
    #16 Gerhard Ebersoehn, Apr 29, 2014
  17. SolaSaint

    SolaSaint Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2009
    Messages:
    2,834
    Likes Received:
    29
    I'm wondering where the originator of this post is at? I hope you are reading some of the awesome replies here and you come back and repent of what you have claimed. I don't know if you have faced any persecution but I surely hope I have courage if ever confronted by the enemy trying to take my life. Sir---it is very dangerous to call someone a coward when you have no idea what they are being exposed to. I will eagerly await your reply. :thumbs:
     
    #17 SolaSaint, Apr 29, 2014
  18. Protestant

    Protestant Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 6, 2013
    Messages:
    1,300
    Likes Received:
    159
    Excellent answer!
     
    #18 Protestant, Apr 30, 2014
  19. Protestant

    Protestant Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 6, 2013
    Messages:
    1,300
    Likes Received:
    159
    The Leaven of the Secret Rapture

    Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy……And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

    The very purpose of the recently invented ‘Pre-Tribulation Secret Rapture of the Church’ doctrine is to give the ignorant and naïve (false) assurance that they, out of all the millions of previously persecuted, tortured and murdered Christians, will ultimately be exempt from fighting the good fight of faith against Antichrist and his forces.

    I would be the hypocrite had I remained silent when the leaven of the Secret Rapture theory was being promulgated as Gospel truth.

    Anyone who has studied the history of eschatology knows that the Secret Rapture theory was unknown in the professing Church until the 19th century.

    And for good reason.

    There is no scriptural or historical warrant to believe such a fiction.

    The Scripture quoted above is yet another proof that Jesus has never suggested that a certain ‘privileged and favored’ group of elitest Christians living 7 years before the end of the Age will be taken out of the world, thus avoiding trials, troubles and tribulations to come which may very well lead to their death.

    Instead, Jesus admonishes His disciples to hold fast their faith in the face of death because killing the body is but a small thing compared to spending eternity in Hell.

    Jesus then reiterates the importance of being His faithful witness.

    Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: but he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.

    Those cowards who deny Jesus due to fear of men will be denied by Jesus at the Judgment.

    To those cowards Jesus will say, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
     
    #19 Protestant, Apr 30, 2014
  20. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2000
    Messages:
    37,982
    Likes Received:
    137

    This entire post is a total non sequitor in reference to the rapture, where it is in reference to the Great Tribulation, (pre, mid, post), if it is, etc. It is totally irrelevant, and has nothing to do with the rapture whatsoever.

    It does have to do with persecution however.
    The basic premise of the Bible in reference to Christian living is:
    "All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."
    That has nothing to do with end times, eschatology, etc., nothing at all.
    Believers throughout all ages have suffered, suffer today and will continue to suffer. That has nothing to do with the Great Tribulation to come, nothing to do with the Rapture, nothing to do with anything eschatological whatsoever.

    Please don't confuse your daily walk and those things associated with it, to things pertaining to the end times.
     
    #20 DHK, Apr 30, 2014
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)
Page 1 of 3
Loading...