I've had a good two weeks off. Now on Friday I go back to work. It is a teacher's workday with no students at school so it's like easing back in and it won't be a shock to the system. (Like Monday will be)
I was concerned with how tired and how sick I was the day after vacation began. I slept a lot the first week. I slept an obscene amount of sleep at night and also during the day in naps. I never fully got rid of the bronchitis, I still cough quite a bit, especially at night before bed and upon waking up. But I do feel lots better and the second week I stopped with the naps and just slept the regular 7.5 hours at night. I'm regulated again. Or as The Dog Whisperer says, 'I'm balanced.'
I made a really good pasta e fagiole I'd enjoyed for several days straight. Yesterday I made salmon patties and today to go along with that I"ll make another soup, this time collard greens and butter beans. I like soup. I think it is culinarily under-rated.
The cold weather finally arrived. It seems funny that just less than a week ago I had the windows open and it was in the upper 60s and low 70s, and the sunflower in the pot by my front door was blooming. Now it is in the teens. Hence, the soup!
Wednesday is my weekly grocery shopping expedition so today I will go out. Yes, out. Emerge from my tiny apartment to where there is fresh air and trees and...shudder...other people. But I'll brave it and as always, find that it will be a pleasant experience. And after all, I have to get used to other people at some point when this two week seclusion in my hermitage ends, because Monday there will be 600 big and little people to get used to again.
But the good thing is that after all that I'll do out and about today, which always does me good anyway, I'll be back IN. Yay for IN!
6 comments:
Hi Elizabeth,
Thank you for visiting my blog. I really mean that. Just because we disagree on one point doesn't mean all that much to me, because I know none of us have all the answers, but we know the ONE who does. :)
"soup ... culinarily underrated" lol good one. I'm loving soup right now.
I do have a couple of questions about pretrib, if you don't want to answer them, that's fine too:
1. Can you show me from writings prior to Darby and Margaret MacDonald where a preacher clearly preached pretrib rapture?
2. Do you believe that the saints who were persecuted and martyred during various times in history, such as during Nero's reign, were subjected to the wrath of God?
I ask the second question because you clearly state that you think if God makes the Church go through the Great Tribulation it is because they are receiving the wrath of God. The wrath of God is something that is eternal punishment, and the suffering we can have on this earth, no matter how intense, is temporary, not eternal. So the wrath of God is not any tribulation on this earth, but for those who are not in Christ Jesus it certainly can BEGIN there.
Take care, and thanks again for your thoughtful comments (even though I disagree)
<3
Hi Susan,
Thanks for visiting. I appreciate the opportunity to answer your questions, with scriptures, but I have to return to work today so my reply will be tonight. Thanks again and "see" you then.
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Hi Susan
I’m so glad I can answer your questions. Some of the answers stem back to the original comment I made on your blog, Daniel 9:24.
Reading that verse and indeed the entire chapter, (and 3,8 &11 for good measure) will give you and any reader an overview of what the tribulation is and why it will happen. Admittedly, the Daniel 9 chapter, one that many biblical scholars think is the most important prophetic verse in the bible, is difficult to understand. It usually takes years and a lot of reading the parallel passages to come to even rudimentary understanding of its complexities and how it is the hinge of all end time prophecy. That’s why I don‘t think you have thoroughly appreciated the prophetic overview that Daniel 9 gives us because you dismissed it without referring to it from just yesterday. Nor have you referred back to the many other scriptures I offered about what the last 7 years is about. We must debate from scripture. If you “disagree” it is incumbent on all of us to reason together through the Word as to why and where you feel the interpretations I gave you are wrong. To disagree just because you disagree grieves the Spirit, because it speaks OF Him but not THROUGH Him in the Word.
Daniel 9:24 tells us what the Tribulation IS and to whom it will happen. Revelation 6-19 tells WHAT will happen. (Matthew 24 and many Old testament chapters and parts of chapters also speak to the Tribulation such as Isaiah 17, Obadiah, the other chapters in Daniel I mentioned, Jeremiah, etc).
Speaking of Jeremiah, let’s stop calling it the Tribulation. There are many names for the last 7 years on earth and they all describe e the time better. Jesus said in Matthew 24:21 in one of the translations that they will be given over to great tribulation. The word in Greek is thlibo, and it means “persecution, affliction, distress, tribulation.” Source here http://concordances.org/greek/2347.htm
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If you look at this page at all the different translations of that verse where the word tribulation is used, you see that it is speaking of a time of distress, anguish, persecution, etc.
http://concordances.org/greek/2347.htm
The actual 7-year period does have a name, and it is not the casual one that we in the church use, it is actually “The time of Jacob’s Trouble” (Jeremiah 30:6-7) indicating to us in the church the Lord’s intent with His people. It is also known as The Day, The Day of Wrath, the “day of [the Lord’s] vengeance” “The day of the Lord’s burning anger” but mostly it’s referred to as The Day of the Lord.
The Time of Jacob’s Trouble indicates that the Lord will enact his long-ago promises to judge the Jews for their adultery and idolatry against Him. He set a decree (Nehemiah’s decree) where the Jews have a set time to repent and during that time God will be doing certain things too. The decree establishes the time as 490 years. (Dan 9:25). 7 years short of the finishing of that decree He will stop His dealings with the Jews, the Messiah comes And then is killed ((will be cut off and have nothing Dan 9:26). When Messiah comes, He partially hardens the Jews’s hearts, (Rom 11:25) and spends time building His church. He has a set number in mind for the amount of people He wants in His church (Romans 11:25) and when that number is reached, we are raptured. After that, Acts 15:16-18 literally says, “After this I will return, and rebuild David’s fallen tent, Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, 17that the remnant of men may seek the Lord,”
and all the Gentiles who bear my name,”
The church won’t be here. The Tribulation is a specific time set aside for the LORD to finish the decree He’d made against the Jews. Not that the entire world won’t be affected, it is judgment time after all. And because we are cleansed from our sins, and I am saying this to you for the third time, and because our sins have been forgotten, we are not part of the wrath. If you want to know what the wrath is, it is described in Daniel 9:24. We as the Bride are not appointed to wrath, (1 Thess 5:9) we will be saved from it. “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!” (Romans 5:9) He is not going to sling brimstone at His Bride. He is going to finish the decree of that set time by judging for 7 years.
The church believers have always suffered trials, tribulations. These are because satan is god of this world (1 Cor 4:4) and he hates us. But the wrath of God against adulterous Israel and unbelieving nations is NOT the same as the regular persecutions satan has inflicted. The Church is not exempted from persecution in general, only that which is part of the End Times judgments.
Hope this helps
"He has a set number in mind for the amount of people He wants in His church (Romans 11:25)..."
For brevity's sake I will focus on this particular that you mention
That verse in Romans does indeed mention that there is a "fulness of the Gentiles be come in", but it seems that you and I disagree on what that means. If you take a look at Revelation it says:
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Rev 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
So there is a time frame that involves the completion by a certain number of people, they are tortured and killed for their faith.
I agree that many will be removed prior to the time called "time of Jacobs trouble", but it will be through death whether it is accidental, old age, health reasons, etc, and the saints whether Jewish or Gentile that remain during the antichrist's reign, many will be martyred for their faith...and when the fulness of the martyred number be come in, that is when Jesus will put an end to all of the nonsense on earth, and then He will come at the blowing of the 7th trumpet, as given in the book of Revelation.
It's interesting that there is a distinction made between Jew and Gentile believers, I personally see believers whether Jewish or not all in the "chosen" or "elect" (same word in Bible, one for OT one for NT) all being the remnant. Many Gentile believers will be martyred during the GT or time of Jacob's trouble, and it will be a witness to the Jews who still have not accepted Jesus as Messiah. When the full number of those martyred be come in, then Jesus will reveal Himself to the unbelieving Jews.
I do not believe there is a "secret rapture" because God does things consistently and it is for our, and the Jewish nonbelievers, instruction. He states clearly that when He comes and when people meet Him in the air, every eye will see Him. You have to "read into the text" to make it come up with a secret taking away...although those who die in Jesus are taken away to be with Him, and at the present we do not actually see that with our physical eyes, so that portion I could agree would pertain to that.
Hey, good talking with you.
Take care,
Susan
You did not remember what I said in the first comment on your blog, that the rapture and the Second Coming are two DIFFERENT events. Instead, you combine them: "He states clearly that when He comes and when people meet Him in the air, every eye will see Him."
The rapture- we go UP to Him. The SC, we come DOWN with him.
Your statement shows a misunderstanding of the two events, and a combination of two separate verses. Oy, my achin' head.
It is good to be dogmatic, IF you actually read and understand the verses. Dogmatism in the face if failure to accurately quote the verses on which you make your stance is just plain bad exegesis. Sorry.
here are the verses to which you refer:
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."
Rev 1:7: Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen."
Matthew 24:30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory."
In one event, there is joy and encouragement, in the other, wailing and mourning.
There is absolutely no reading into any text to clearly see that the rapture is a valid doctrine and that it will occur prior to the Tribulation, because we are not appointed to wrath, because we will not be punished for sin and because our sins have been forgotten, and because it is the time of Jacob's trouble. Those are just a few of the verses that state it. For you to continue to maintain your stance however, you have to *dispense* with many verses.
It seems that you wish to avoid the meaning of the verse offered and retain a belief that you will go through punishment and hell on earth. So be it, for your own reasons, you throw away the glorious encouragement Paul said is our removal from earth prior to judgment and wrath. You will be pleasantly surprised.
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