To provide you a sketch of the religious mindset of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and many Iranian Shiites, click here.
Michael Newnham at his Phoenix Preacher Study Hall has posted several brief articles on the Seven Churches of Revelation. I find them exegetically instructive and devotional.
One of the pivotal reasons why many ex-pretribulationists have come to embrace the prewrath position is because they have discovered for themselves that the nature and purpose of the Great Tribulation will be a persecution against believers.
It has been assumed by pretribulationism that the “Great Tribulation” is God’s wrath. Given that Jesus in Matthew 24 clearly states that the object of persecution during the Great Tribulation are believers, and that this persecution is orchestrated not by God, but by an Antichrist figure, it has made many people rethink their pretrib tradition.
The prewrath position teaches that before Christ comes back to resurrect the dead in Christ and rapture those alive, the Antichrist will unleash his persecution against the church. This, Jesus calls a “great tribulation.”
Then we learn that the Great Tribulation against believers is “cut short” (for the sake of believers) by the Coming of Christ to deliver the righteous (resurrection and rapture).
This will then be followed with the Day of the Lord’s wrath against the ungodly.
So, it is imperative for us to recognize two distinct periods of time:
The Great Tribulation: Antichrist’s wrath against believers.
The Day of the Lord: God’s wrath against unbelievers.
The following article by Charles Cooper is a critique of Pastor Chuck Smith’s rapture position.
Cooper starts by saying,
Pastor Smith
The following brief clip is a “pretribulational rapture” drama put on by a church gathering. First, view this short clip, then I will comment on it.
Where does one even start with such misguided theology?
The video begins with the pastor preaching from–you guessed it–Matthew 24, a Biblical passage that pretrib teachers insist do not apply to the church, yet they cite parts of it as if they do.
What do we find the pastor teaching to his audience?
He reads, “Jesus Christ is coming back for his church.” Then he cites Matthew 24:42 which says, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”
Let me just stop for a moment and note that the text that he is reading comes just after Jesus’ teaching that believers will be persecuted by an Antichrist figure. Jesus says that this must come before his Coming.
Does the pastor note this? No. Does he explain and trace Jesus’ discourse up to verse 42, the passage he is teaching on? No. Does the pastor take Jesus’ warning and warn his own flock of a coming persecution? No.
It is as if pretrib teachers want the convenience of preaching the “exhortation” passages of Jesus, but these passages cannot have any meaning outside of Jesus’ teaching of believers being persecuted during the great tribulation.
The pastor continues to say that “Jesus Christ could come this month, or he might come next week, or he could even come [*RAPTURE*].”
Here is my question to the pastor: Given the Matthew 24 text that you are citing, and given that Jesus says that his return will be preceded by signs and events including the great tribulation of persecution of believers, how is it that Christ can come back at any moment?
To top this all off, at the very end of the video the Bible text Matthew 24:27 flashes on the screen, “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
What is wrong with citing that text in light of the theology of the video?
The glory of the Son which will come like lightning is the sign of his Coming for those believers who are being persecuted. Did you see any believers being persecuted at the hands of Antichrist in the video? Nope.
What we saw were believers gathered freely in a public building under no persecution. Does the church scene in the video convey a “great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now