Christianity After the Rapture

@fmf said
I just wonder who your audience is here. You claim certain things about books and certain writers and certain Christians and yet when asked about them you seem to suggest that what you said ~ or more particularly, questions about what you said ~ are somehow off-base. You appear to me ~ with assertions about Christians "clamouring" for certain books you approve of ~ to be merely p ...[text shortened]... and of groupism here rather than "the inner life of a Christian". Just my penny's worth, that's all.

@fmf said
As a matter of interest, if the punishment is destruction, and it is permanent, if the annihilation is irreversible, if that were to be what is real, would the term "eternal punishment" still be applicable and the metaphors still work?

@secondson said
It appears you have about a penny's worth of imagination too. Except when it comes to finding fault and making pointless criticisms and inferred innuendos.

@secondson said
"Eternal life" isn't a metaphor. It means what it says.

Even if you don't believe it.

@SecondSon

I think my dogmatism may play a role in my reticence to examine a deeper look into some of the things you've said. That and I'm a slow learner.

I'm meditating on them and considering the whole picture now. It could take some time to fully embrace those things that are new to me.

differentiation between the first rapture and a subsequent rapture, is a tough one to see. I have only and always thought there was just the one, which took me years to understand was pre-millennial.

What verse do you know of the supports the idea of a rapture after the start of the tribulation period, and when in that period does it occur?

Because the Lord Himself, with the cry of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with a trumpet of God, will descend ..."

Behold, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at THE LAST TRUMPET, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." (1 Cor. 15:51-52)

After the first rapture before the start of the great tribulation (or possibly right at its start), God will use certain world governments to destroy Christianity as a worldly religion.

Again. God who hates the degradation of the church into Christiandom and an ANITY, will indirectly use the government of Antichrist to destroy it. Antichrist cannot destroy the faith or the Christians totally. And he canot destroy the church. But the mixture of the Christian / Politics union he can destroy to the ground.

I would not like to be here to witness this. I would rather see it from above.

Since Antichrist must exalt himself about every object of worship and every god, to proclaim worship of himself, HOW can he permit Christianity to still flourish ?

At the start of the last three and one half years of this age, the Antichrist and his empire as far as it extends will destroy monotheistic worship.

This is one reason why it is so hard for me to imagine the Antichrist as a Moslem. Though some adopt this idea, I cannot see it because Antichrist will tolerate no God, neither Yahweh, Allah, or Jehovah or Jesus Christ.

So I cannot as of yet imagine the coming Antichrist as some Moslem figure with its strongly monotheistic belief.

Who needs evidence in Scripture of Antichrist destroying Christianity ?
It is mostly in Revelation 17, and some in 18..

Signs pointing to Antichrist destroying corrupted Christianity.

And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters. (Rev. 17:1)

" ... I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters.

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and they who dwell on the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." (REv. 17:1b,2)

@fmf said
I didn't mention "eternal life" in the post you were 'responding' to. I mentioned "eternal punishment" and I asked you about metaphors.

@sonship said
@SecondSon

I think my dogmatism may play a role in my reticence to examine a deeper look into some of the things you've said. That and I'm a slow learner.

What we learned in are formative years as Christians stays with us for a long time. And this contains many things which we should not discard.

Sometimes we have to consider more some traditional t ...[text shortened]... God answered.
He was faithful. I have not always been faithful. But He was faithful and still is.

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and they who dwell on the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

And he carried me away in spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and gilded with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the unclean things of her forniucation; ..." (Rev. 17:2-4)

And upon her forehead a name was written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of the Prostitutes and the Abominations of the earth. (v.5)

@secondson said
Matthew 25:46
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

The point is there's nothing metaphorical about a single word in that verse.

I don't think you asked me about metaphors. I think you told me. Now I'm telling you.

@secondson said
That's a silly thing to say. You're dead wrong about Matthew. You act as though because the passage uses metaphors that it isn't about anything real.

It's as if you think eternal life is a metaphor for some undefinable ethereal reality in some fantasy la la land.

Eternal punishment and eternal life are real words about real things. Face it!

@sonship said

What verse do you know of the supports the idea of a rapture after the start of the tribulation period, and when in that period does it occur?

First Thessalonians 4:16-17 and First Corinthians 15:50-53 are good for starters.

Since 1 Thess. 4:16-17 is public, noisy, loudly announced.

[quote] Because the Lord Himself, with the ...[text shortened]... cur at the close of that great tribulation time.

Send me a PM if some further books could help.

@divegeester said
Take it to the younglings at your church