Benjamin: //Sorry, but my Bible says, “Let no man deceive you
by any means: for that day shall not come,
except there come a falling away first,
and that man of sin be revealed,
the son of perdition;”//
Interesting, but uninformative.
That was the same verse i was using.
I explained what it it said.
Your repeating the verse indicates to me you did not
agree with my understanding of the verse.
But you have failed to delineate the way you understand
this verse to be. So by your inaction you
yield the point to me (which not the way I like it, I'm
just reporting the way it is counted by most people).
You see Bro. DeafPosttrib, with whom I've discussed eschatology
for three years on this BB (Baptist Board) venue alone, believes
that 'man of sin be revealed' means when the Antichrist goes into
the temple and declares himself to God. (which I think happens
at mid-trib) Or maybe some other
a-mill pretrib believes that, it is hard to keep up with these matters
without a scoresheet
Anyway, I believe that the Tribulation Period, when the 'man of sin'
is actiave on the earth is the 70th Week of Daniel 9. So i believe
that the revelation of the 'man of sin' will be when he completes a 7-year
peace treaty for Yisrael.
Probably about 8 years ago I read from non-pretribs that
"It is strange that the Disciple John wrote all of Revelation
without ever mentioning the 'Rapture' or even aluding to it."
Well, seems like a good argument, John was supposted to have written
the definative Prophesy for the future of the New Testament saints.
(Minority opinion: some full preterists say that the book of
Revelation was a history book; other preterists say that the
96AD book called 'Revelation' was written prior to the destruction
of the temple in 70AD by then General Titus (later Emperor Titus)
of the Roman Empire.) Well, Holy Spirit, if you want me to keep
believing pretrib, show me. Revelation does teach the pretribulation
rapture of the Church Age saints. It is by
TYPE. In Revelation 4:1
John is called to heaven
in the same manner in which those saints
who are in the pretribulation rapture are called.
Probably 4 years ago I rad from non-pretribs that: "It is strange, if
the pretribulation rapture is so 'right' how come Jesus didn't mention
it?
Sounds like a good argument, Jesus is God, isn't He? Jesus knew
if God was going to He have a 'pretribulation rapture'. So why didn't
He mention it. My answer - Jesus mentiones the Pretribulation rapture.
Now recall the pretribulation rapture is yet to happen some 1,965 years
(nearly 2,000 years) later, so the Lord couldn't get His followers
(whom tradition says all were martyered saved for John who died of
old age iTwelve years ago my pastor came to this community (i'd been
a member of the 20 years when he came). He studies the scripture a lot
and probably can say half the New Testament from Memory. Anyway, he
was telling me about various retorical devices, different literary
methods. One such literary method is the polysyndeton: the repeated
'and' (repeated 'kai' in Greek). When i was a kid in grammer school
my grammer teacher said "And you ain't never supposed to start
no sendence with the word 'and' " (tee hee, just kiddin' she talked
good grammer as well as writing it).
But then you read the first chapter of Genesis and you see verse
after verse, sentence after sentence starting with 'and'. Likewise
in the 24th chapter of Matthew. These are examples of the polysyndeton
'and'. (BTW, Greek 'kai' can be translated 'but' when showing contrast
instead of equality, 'kai' can be translated 'then' when showing
things that happen over time, other translations are also used.)
The Holy Spirit turned me to Matthew 24:3. Here IMO (in my opinion)
the disciples asked Jesus three questions. I believe that the rest
of Chapter 24 of Matthew is the answer of these three questions
IN THE ORDER ASKED (not the answer in which they will happen).
Chapter 25 of Matthew contains supporting parables and the end
of Matthew 25 is the description of the Judgement of the sheep
and goat nations that will determine which non-Israeli
nations shall go into the pysical/earthly Millinnial Kingdom of Christ.
So, Yes - Jesus does give us the good news about the pretribulation
rapture of the Church Age (Age of the Gentiles) saints at the end
of this current age - right in the Mount Olivet Discourse (MOD).
The 'and's (Greek 'kai's) are used to delineate the outline of the
24th chapter of Matthew. (The parallel MOD passages in Mark, and Luke can
be related to the outline in Matthew).