From time to time, I post something that quickens things within me that I find myself returning to them later and eating from them more as God leads me into deeper and more liberating truths of his nature, this is one of those things. Someone posted this on another forum and my response follows . . .
*We will meet the Lord in the air and be with him forever (with him forever, not in the clouds forever). And as when the Lord himself put a 2000 year pause between Isaiah 61:1-62a and the rest of that verse:
Isaiah 61:1-2 (KJV)
1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
We had better pay closer attentioin to where he places other pauses in history and where he does not.*
My Response:
Or . . .pay closer attention to where men put pauses that perhaps God didn’t?? I have a few questions that I’d like to ask. One . … did the angels lie to those standing in earshot of what they were proclaiming immediately following the ascension of Jesus? “Just as YOU saw him go, YOU shall see him return . . .” We grew up beleiving that they were referring to a time 2,000 years later . . .why? “If” it were to be 2000 years later, why did the angels tell “them” that “they’d” see Jesus return to them? How did they see him go? Was he flesh? Was he spirit? What form were they referring to? Because “if” we’re to believe it’s for 2,000 years later, then it would also mean they “didn’t” return to “them” who were standing there.
Another favorite that I now can’t understand why it is used as a platform . . .As it was in the days of Noah … . we’re to believe that we’re being raptured just as . . .just as what? Noah wasn’t raptured, he was protected, but he wasn’t raptured. He didn’t leave this world, he merely floated around on it. But who was really removed and who really remained? Was it not the “ungodly” that were removed? Was it not “Noah” that then remained? How is it that we’ve embraced it to mean the church is being raptured?
The biggest one for me though is the prophecy that Daniel received and the same prophecy that John received. The language is the same, the symbolism is the same . . .Jesus even referred to Daniel’s prophecy in Matthew 24, another passage that is said to be directly connected between Daniel’s revelation and John’s revelation. Yet the angel that was with Daniel told him to seal it up because it wasn’t for “his time”. Then about 600 years later, John comes along, receives a more detailed, but still the same prophecy as what Daniel had but John is told by the angel to do just the opposite of what Daniel was told to do. John was specifically told to leave his book open for the time was “at hand” which literally means . . .it had already started.
How can we expect it to be “yet to come” 2000 years later . . .or longer, no one knows for sure . . .when John was told to leave the book open because it had already started . . .but with Daniel he was to seal it up. Another interesting thing for John’s side of it … .the first thing he sees is the seven “seals” and no one worthy could be found to break the seal … . John cries, is comforted and enlightened that one “is” found worthy and what’s he see next? He doesn’t see the lion of Judah . . .he sees a “lamb as though it had been slain”. Well . . .we know obviously “who” the lamb is . . .but what no one seems to also see is that the fact that the lamb HAD JUST BEEN SLAIN is also showing the WHEN THESE THINGS TAKE PLACE . . .it wasn’t 2,000 years later … .it was when Jesus was slain, as a lamb that had gone to slaughter, which was 2000 years ago.
I used to be one that embraced traditional understanding of many of revelational prophecies. I taught the book of Revelation even, and embraced everything I taught, even though it wasn’t something I received personally, but instead it was something I was taught to teach, I still embraced it nonetheless . . .but through the transition in my relationship with the Father, perspectives changed. The emphasis seemed to return to the author and finisher, the creator rather than creation. It was no longer about God destroying men, it was about God destroying “man” in men. It was no longer a book of death, doom and gloom, but instead it became a book of revolution, that led to reformation, that ended in restoration.
but it raised so many other questions about what I thought love was. Such as, how could Love, which casts out all fear, turn around and use fear as a motivation to get people to respond to falling in love? How could I be in love with someone that I was deathly afraid of? I heard a Evangelical pastor state on national TV about 4 months ago or so that the biggest reason he became a Christian was because he was scared to death of going to hell . . .really? “That’s” what falling in love with Jesus is all about?
God wants us to forgive one another . . .to love those who hate us . . .sooooooo . …what? So he can turn around and send them all to eternal hell forever? Is “that” how love works? You punch me in the face, I’m to turn the other cheek which shows God’s nature . . .which in turn he then will take that person and burn them for eternity in hell. Or . . .God loves me so much that he sent Jesus to die for me, his only son. He’d go to the end of the earth to save me because he loves me so much . . .but . . .
It’s like when I first got married . . .I finally found “the one” that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. So I approach her and I start whispering love-nothings in her ear. I tell her how deeply in love I am with her, how I can’t get her out of my mind, nor do I want to. How I can’t wait to begin spending my life doting on her, waiting on her hand and foot and my love for her can only grow stronger . . . but . . .should there come a time when she rejects my love, I also have built a dungeon in the basement where I’m going to chain her up and force her to live in the cold, dark, wet cellar where only the rats feel at home. Just how quick do you think she’s going to be looking for an exit?
Yet the church just shrugs at that and says something deep like . . .“God’s ways aren’t our ways . . .” Which is exactly my point. “Our” way of thinking is judgment is destruction . … But God’s true judgment is not the destruction of “us”. His judgment is the carnality “in” us. “That’s” what he sets his wrath against, his fire destroys, his breath consumes . . .its’ all for the purpose of restoration, not destruction. Religion has twisted love into such a contorted mess that we actually believe that eternal hell is an expression of love. That’s just so sad.