fbcberlin,Originally Posted by fbcberlin@mchsi.com
I will send you another reply after I watch your video you sent me. You seem coy. Coy people don't have answers because they are confused. Why do you feel like it is a debate rather than a discussion of points of evidence? Are you not secure enough in your belief that it is in jeopardy from what I share? Now pay close attention to my response about your comments about partial rapture so you can see the truth of your mistaken assumptions. I can answer all the issues stirring in your heart or that you keep covered up as the Lord has equipped me with the ability to do so.
You object that rapture is part of redemption, that since redemption is according to grace, rapture cannot be based on the concept of worthiness. In reply, it needs to be pointed out that while the act of changing (see 1 Cor. 15.51-52) is indeed according to grace, the act of being taken (rapture) is according to works. All Christians are saved and have eternal life (they are kept) which can never be lost (John 10.28), but not all Christians are ready to be received at the first rapture. There is a distinction made in the Bible between wheat and tares, some say, but no difference made between wheat and wheat; consequently, all wheat must be raptured. In reply, it should be noted that the times of ripening for wheat are not the same. Thus there are the firstfruits and the later harvest. T. Austin Sparks said in relation to the first rapture according to readiness, "There are advanced parties and harbingers in every sphere."
Some argue that according to I Thessalonians 4.15, the living “shall in no wise precede them who are fallen asleep” -The dead are resurrected at the seventh trumpet; and so timewise, rapture occurs after the Tribulation. Now if there is a first rapture, it will have to take place before the resurrection of the dead. But since this verse distinctly says “shall in no wise,” how then can rapture take place twice? Let me say in reply that it is most precious and significant to find in both verse 15 and verse 17 the qualifying clauses “we that are alive, that are left” - Now to be alive is obviously to be left on earth; why, then, is there this apparent unnecessary repetition? Because it implies that there are people who though alive yet have already gone ahead (that is, raptured) and therefore are no longer left on earth. Would Paul enlist himself among this class of people who are alive and are left? Not at all. He uses the word “we” only because he is speaking at that moment of writing, and the proof of this is that since Paul no longer lives today, he cannot be numbered among those who are left on earth. Our summary conclusion to all this is that the third school of interpretation seems to be the correct one - that is to say, that one group of believers will be raptured before the Tribulation while another group of believers will go through the Tribulation and be raptured afterwards.
Matt. 24.40-42 reads, "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two [women shall be] grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."
Who is told to watch? Believers, because non-believers can watch all they want and it won't help one iota. Whose Lord? The Lord of believers so it is speaking to Christians in which some will be left and some will be taken and others left. The "taken" are those at the start of the Tribulation. The consequence of a Christian not being watchful is not being taken ahead of time. To be taken should be the normal condition of a Christian but too many Christians are lying on a bed of fornication, teaching falsely and not keeping the conduct of Matt. 5-7.
Luke 21.36 reads, "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man."
If you don't pray always and watch, you won't be accounted worthy to escape the Tribulation, so you will not be taken to stand before the Son of Man (Rev. 7.9) at the start of the Tribulation as you were not yet ready to be received. It is very carnal to assume you are already ready so there is nothing more you need to do.
Rev. 3.10 reads, if "thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth."
The condition for escaping the hour of trial of the Tribulation at the end of this age is to keep the word of His patience. Only Christians are in the running for this race, including Laodiceans, because only Christians are saved. Do all Christians keep the word of His patience? Of course not. So the consequence is outlined.
Everyone in the Church body of Christ is saved included the Laodiceans, but they are not hot or cold, just lukewarm. They are the last church period at the time we are in today. When the first rapture takes place they would not be raptured alive. Paul distinguishes between carnal and spiritual Christians, but you don't. Why is that? You are typically what is called antinomian.
The book of Revelation is the easiest book in the Bible to read. The warning given to the 7 churches are to overcome and if they do not, they will not only not be raptured at the first rapture (if they are alive at that time), but they will not receive the reward of returning with Christ to reign over the nations for 1000 years.
Because you accuse the Church Laodicean body of Christ of not being saved and thus not Christians, the Holy Spirit has told me because you are like Satan accusing the brethren day and night (Rev. 12.10) that you are not a Christian, and therefore, you are going to Hell. Unless you repent of your attack on the Laodicean church believers, there is no reason a Christian should consider you a brother in Christ.
Pray on this as I pray for you.
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