Eternal life resides in Jesus and in Him alone. No one else! This is true now and will also be the case after Jesus removes His true church from the earth.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
What do people need the most? The answer remains the same as it’s always been: A clear understanding of the Gospel. By this I mean that people need Jesus, not the one that so many today create in their mind but but the One revealed on the pages of Scripture.
The opposition to Jesus’ future reign on earth remains intense. Although premillennialism grew dramatically during the twentieth century, many Bible-believing teachers and pastors have reverted to Augustine’s platonic view of reality that denies biblical teaching regarding the millennium.
What has caused this reversal in recent decades? I believe the roots of today’s passionate opposition to premillennialism lie in Satan’s continuing hatred of anything to do with Jesus’ future reign.
Early in the twentieth century, belief in the Rapture became a mainstay at Bible-believing churches in America and throughout the world. Unfortunately, much has changed during the past twenty-five years. The word “Rapture” has become taboo in many churches, even in those that claim to believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture.
The word that’s translated “perilous,” or “difficult” in some translations, is Chalepos. This term denotes the last days as “dangerous” and “hard to bear.” In Matthew 8:28, it depicts the fierceness of the two men possessed by demons. The text says that they were “so fierce that no one could pass that way.”
Such are the dangerous times in which we live, and they will grow increasingly treacherous leading up to and during the seven-year Tribulation.
The phrase “wicked deception” in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 recently caught my attention. Although these verses speak to what will take place after the Rapture, deceit abounds throughout our world. I believe it’s one of several things currently illuminating the path leading to the unveiling of the antichrist.
Life in the eternal state will undoubtedly be spectacular,. Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven does an excellent job of expanding our imaginations regarding what life might be like on the new earth and in the New Jerusalem. We have much to look forward to when the words of Revelation 21-22 ring true throughout the earth and universe.
If such is the case, does it matter what I believe about the millennial reign of Jesus? Absolutely!
Perhaps the most telling indicator today of the rapidly approaching tribulation is the fast-rising world government that the Bible says will dominate the world during the tribulation period. The globalists openly discuss their plans for world domination, yet so many believers, as well as their pastors, remain unaware of the sinister agenda of these elite power brokers.
Do you see it? Are you ready for the Lord’s appearing?
However, many pastors today insist that prophetic texts that refer to the restoration of a kingdom for Israel, the tribulation, and Jesus’ future reign are allegory, symbolical of another reality. This discrediting of the words of the Bible, however, is like a loose thread on a knit sweater. If one pulls at it long enough, it unravels the entire sweater.
The purpose of this two-part series on the pretribulation Rapture is to reassure fellow believers that the New Testament indeed places the Lord’s appearing for us before the start of the seven-year tribulation.
We live in a day when deception reigns all around us and fear characterizes most people in our world. The media and Big Tech censor truth as never before in America making it very difficult to discover the reality behind the fake news that confronts us every day.
As a child, I loved AWANA and grew up with its motto verse hanging on the wall of my bedroom. It read, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15, KJV).
The Greek word for “rightly dividing” literally means to “cut straight” with the implication of interpreting Scripture accurately.
So what’s the big deal in regarding apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 as a physical departure rather than spiritual apostasy? It adds considerable support for belief in a pretribulation rapture, one that occurs before this period of God’s wrath upon the earth.
It confirms that Jesus must come for His church before the world knows the identity of the antichrist, which we know occurs at the beginning of tribulation, if not before.
