nonbelieverforums said:
Matthew24:34 ,, Can I ask what denomination of church you attend? Like you are Christian right ? As you have formally asked Christ in to your life as your personal savior ? Do you believe that Christ died on the cross, for your sins, his resurrection?
2.
If there is no biblical Antichrist what is your view on the return of Christ. I guess there is no tribulation. Are we just raptured ? Does he just he just return? Yes I know no one knows when but how ?
You know I was thinking last night about your views. Lets say for example a world leader arose out of the E.U. He ultimately asked people to accept a mark or an rfid chip implant or they would be unable to buy or sell. This of course like everything in endtimes (my views not yours) came in the name of peace and security. So if I understand correctly, you would gladly accept this mark as you would be convinced there is no biblical Antichrist. What would your response to that be ?? Would you accept this mark knowing that if you didn't you would not be able to buy or sell? I ask you to please tell me what would you do if you were faced with this exact scenario? According to you there are no future signs or warnings. So no matter how much modern day events seem to match the events of Revelation you should have no worries.
Christians who have the future view I guess you call it ? Would not accept this mark as they have been properly educated and warned from scripture that this is the mark of the beast. But you would?
You said there was a list or group of people that take the same views as you, do you have a list or site url. This thread has been very helpful for me. I speak at churches and I have my own site. I like to know every possible view that I could be confronted with.
Dear NBF: What is it about anything I have said that causes you to question my salvation? This is what it always comes down to with futurists. If people disagree with them on these matters, they begin to doubt whether the person holding opposing views is actually a believers. Why do you do that?
But I will answer you. I have known my Lord Jesus Christ for nearly 40 years! I was saved at a Billy Graham Crusade, eventually attended Appalachian Bible College, and went on to attend and graduate from Grace Theological Seminary! For well over twenty years, I was a futurist--a dispensationalist. When I began to actually study the Bible for myself, I saw the glaring abuse of the Scriptures and found that I was believing, not in the doctrines of the Bible, but a system devised by men! I no longer could redefine or ignore clear time statements that dispensationalists twist to their own ends. I could no longer manipulate the true meaning of the expression "this generation" as it came from the very lips of our Lord! It has taken me many years to arrive at the conclusions I hold today--but they are my conclusions--conclusions ascertained through my own diligent, in-depth, consistent study of God's Word. I believe that most of my dispensational friends are believers--I do not question their salvation, but they feel free to question mine! It is unfair, but it is what it is. Some no longer are my friends. They have labeled me an heretic and a reprobate. So be it.
I attend a Reformed Baptist church, but there is quite a mixture of beliefs regarding eschatology ranging from full-blown dispensationalism to full preterism. There are at this time very few actual preterist churches. Most preterists are scattered throughout the many conservative denominations. That is, however, changing as preterist churches spring up.
Leading full preterists include but are not limited to Don Preston, John L. Bray, John Noe, Edward Stevens, Ian Harding, Kurt M. Simmons, Dr. Kelly Nelson Birks, and William Bell. Partial Preterists include: Gary DeMar, Kenneth Gentry, David Chilton, Arthur M. Ogden. All you have to do is google "preterism" and you find many of the websites.
NBF: I believe that Jesus returned to those first-century disciples just as He promised them He would. When I read John 14, I do not associate the "yous" there directly and first of all to myself or to any of our day. Those very disciples were troubled, NBF. Why? He, with whom they had spent years in close relationship and by whom they had personally been discipled, was leaving them. Jesus saw their hearts and knew what troubled them. It was those disciples only whom Jesus walked and lived with while here on earth and it was those disciples only whom He was leaving. That is the context. But what do most today do with that passage? They teach that WE are not to be troubled and that He went away to prepare a place for US before He comes back to receive US unto Himself. But is that what the passages says, NBF? When were we troubled by His leaving us? Never. Clearly, Jesus told those very disciples not to be troubled by His leaving THEM. He was going away to first of all prepare a place for THEM (and by extension all saints since that time) and He was going to come again to receive those very same disciples unto Himself! And He did.
Again, did not Jesus tell the Twelve before He sent them out to the lost sheep of Israel that THEY would not finish going through the cities of Israel before He came (Mat. 10:23)? Did he not tell His disciples that some of them would not die before they saw Him COMING in His kingdom (Mat. 16:28)? Furthermore, Jesus used the expression "this generation" some twenty times in the NT. If you look them up, you will discover that He always, without exception, used it to refer to His contemporaries. Always! That is exactly how He used it in Matthew 23 when He told those Jews guilty of all the righteous blood shed on the earth that all the things He told them would come upon THEIR generation ("this generation"). While most futurists accept that clear meaning in Matthew 23, they give the expression a different meaning in Matthew 24! Why? Because they must in order to uphold their eschatological system.
In chapter 26 is the account of the inquisition of Jesus by Caiaphas, the high priest, and the Sanhedrin. When Caiaphas, hearing Jesus' claim to deity, tore his garments in horror and disbelief, Jesus looked right at Him and justified Himself with these words--"Hereafter, YOU will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and COMING on the clouds of heaven" (verse 64). Those very leaders of the Sanhedrin of that first-century, pre-A. D. 70 world were to see Him! This was a personal rebuke by Jesus against those very leaders standing before Him accusing Him of blasphemy!
Paul, writing his second letter to the Thessalonians, told them that they themselves would be given rest from those who persecuted them AT HIS APPEARING. In other words, while they were yet alive, Christ was to come and rescue them! Furthermore, Paul announced that those very ones who were then troubling them would be personally troubled with the same trouble AT HIS APPEARING. And they were indeed troubled in the Jewish Wars with Rome and ultimately in the seize of Jerusalem! In the lifetime of those very Jews who were persecuting those very Thessalonians--those very Jews who were guilty of all the righteous blood shed upon the earth and those very Jews Jesus warned His disciples about--Christ would come to judge them for that guilt!
In the very first and last chapters of the Revelation the time frame is clearly given. John was shown those things which were to "shortly" take place because the time was then "near" (Rev. 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10). The angel told John to NOT seal up the words of the prophecy because the time was "near." This is the opposite of what was told to Daniel. He was told TO seal up the words of the prophecy because the time was far off!
These passages and others cannot be ignored and the time words found within them cannot rightly be swept away by some unjustified, desperate appeal to 2 Peter 3:8. They say what they say. The Church stumbles over them because of the preconceived ideas she has been fed by those who teach and preach. Christians cannot see a first-century coming of Christ because they have been conditioned to view it in a way that will never permit them to "see" it. IF Jesus was to come and literally stand upon the Mount of Olives and split it in two for the whole world to see, then, of course, it did not happen. IF when He came there were to be literally upheavals in the heavens and earth and the earth itself was to be literally burned up, then, of course, it did not happen. But not every eye of every person who has ever lived was to see His coming. In the context of the "every eye" we see "the tribes of the LAND" and "even those who pierced Him" (Rev. 1:7). Every does not always mean "every" all inclusively. In fact, it rarely means that in many contexts. For example, if my child attends a youth group meeting, comes home, and I ask him, "who was there?" he might readily say "everyone was there." Did he mean everyone throughout the whole world who has ever or will ever live? Of course not. The context restricted the extent of the "every." That is the case in Revelation 1:7--a verse that has been abused and misunderstood for many years. Every eye of that generation "saw," in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the coming of Israel's God in judgment! Josephus relates that Titus himself acknowledged as much.
Also, the upheavals in the heavens and on the earth spoken of in Matthew 24 must be viewed as apocalyptic, figurative, judgment language--language that was characteristically used by the OT prophets to describe God's coming in judgment. Taking these verses literally has led to the necessity of dispensationalists to deal dishonestly with Jesus' statement in Matthew 24:34. IF those upheavals were to happen physically and literally, Jesus certainly could not have meant His contemporaries in His expression "this generation." How should we deal with this? We should look at the plain words spoken by our Lord and accept them in the sense in which He always used them and reassess our understanding of the things that don't seem to fit! That is the only honest approach!
I will not take the time now, but the concepts of the Resurrection and the Judgment, are also misrepresented by dispensationalism and, this accounts for much of the Church still looking for their fulfillment in the future.
Sincerely, Matthew24:34
