All Doves:
A question was asked by John at the 'Omega Shock Letter' on Monday, July 28th, and it has been picked up and re-posted by the "Pre-Wrath-Rapture-Babble" site and in their way of twisting the Scriptures fail to realize certain basics. They even made sure it got posted at the top of their favorite SDA sources.
First, John's quoted question:
"How can you have a pre-tribulation rapture, if the RESURRECTION must happen just prior to the Rapture."
The wag at the "Pre-Wrath-Rapture-Babble" site quotes 1st Thessalonians 4:16-17 and Luke 21:12-19 and attempts to make a case, that in essence the two [Luke & John] contradict each other concerning the Rapture. This attempt here is just another example of a "straw man's" argument to shoot down the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. The wag constantly says you can understand the Bible by letting the Holy Spirit be your guide. You don't need theologians or academics to educate you according to the wag's logic. Give me a break. I could expose this fallacy from now till hell freezes over. I will not let this pass without an educated response.
Then explain to me why the Holy Spirit has not spoke to the wags at the "Pre-Wrath-Rapture-Babble" site of something as simple and basic as understanding what questions need to be asked for the Holy Spirit to answer.
This is easily understood if you just use basic skills of journalism, asking who, what, when, where, and why. Actually, this is so basic that it is part of high school writing classes.
There are at least a minimum of ten things that need to be ascertained or determined when looking at any book of the Bible. I am not going to list them here. I'll share those in my series of posts on Hermeneutics (understanding the Bible). John from the 'Omega Shock Letter', has yet to learn the basics of understanding the Bible.
Since they. at the "Pre-Wrath-Rapture-Bable" site. regularly come to this site, and instead of looking for arguments to nit pick, I invite them to take time, open their minds and learn something about the wonders of God's Word. Not everything is "plain and clear as day" even when it is in English. The Bible is like a fine diamond, its truths are not all found in the written surface text. The Hebrew sages recognize there to be at least four levels of understanding, and not all are evident at first reading. Steven Wohlberg, their revered human guru on the Bible, is obviously an example of why they tell their readers they don't need theologians and scholars to teach you the Bible, and in that point I would most likely concur. He is deluded, deceived, and brainwashed as well.
You can't possibly expect Luke and Paul to be writing the exact same message and expect them to be in agreement like witnesses at an auto accident, on every aspect and event or detail. If that were the case, there would be no reason for us to trust two different stories, by two different authors, that were mere mirror images of one another. One is a Gospel account of events, either observed or recorded from first hand accounts, of those present. The other is an Epistle or a pastoral letter to an early Christian church, in this case the church at Thessaloniki, in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey.
To re-post the Omega Shock Letter post from yesterday, July 28th, is just another example of how the "deceived and deluded" so quickly re-posted what was really a quest by John to learn the truth, packaged in an attack mode on something that he simply does not understood. While the wags at the "Pre-Wrath-Rapture-Babble" site thought they were offering scholarly proof to their readers that the Pre-Tribulation Rapture is a lie; they merely revealed their ignorance, their Biblical illiteracy, and their disingenuous arrogance to lead people to believe they know the Bible better than people like myself.
John, author of the 'Omega Shock Letter' was stating his opinion, devoid of any real Biblical substance, expertise, knowledge, or understanding, based upon what appears to be a series of disjointed writings and statements, in this case from the Gospel of Luke and Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. His letter offered only troubling and unanswered questions for him to be answered rather than to be posted as substantive evidence or truth for consumption. You can read the Bible for years but unless you have the keys that open it up one will be frustrated to no end. It becomes obvious that those deceived are more interested in deceiving others than they are about seeking objective Truth!
Grace and truth to all,
God bless,
Pastor Bob