Even as a baby, and then as a teenager in my very early teens, when I began my life long journey with the Lord and then started to read the Scriptures the very first thing that crossed my mind was that right on the Day of the Lord the Christians would be taken up into Heaven on that very same day. I could not see anything then, nor can I see anything now that even comes close to suggesting that there is going to be a pre, or post event when it came to a pre-wrath day of deliverance of Christians from the earth.
As that is the case, then what is an old man like me to believe after having now read the scriptures for decades and decades? I am to take the word of God at its literal meaning. Or, am I to take the word of what some men have to day when it comes to the return of the Lord. I am sure that the answer to that would be as plain as the nose on ones face. L AM GOING TO TAKE THE SCRIPTURES AS BEING CORRECT AND NOT THE WORD OF MEN. Does that seem to be fair enough?
If I am wrong and there is anything at all like a rapture of the church, then that also makes the word of God wrong. If the Scriptures are wrong about the timing for Christians to be taken, then there would also be a very strong possibility that the scriptures are wrong when it comes to other matters as well. Including Gods plan of salvation of the entirety of mankind. However the scriptures are not wrong. If the word of God teaches a pre-wrath deliverance, (I hate to use that word Rapture it is simply because it is not found anywhere in the Bible) then there will be a pre-wrath deliverance. Which of course then makes Gods plan of salvation also 100% correct.
The seventy weeks of Daniel, was a message delivered to Daniel from God, through the angel Gabriel. The message contained a blueprint for world events, revolving around Daniel’s people, the Jews, and his holy city, Jerusalem. In Daniel 9:24, Gabriel informs Daniel with the completion of the 490-years on his people and city (70 Weeks), the Messianic Age [will have begun. However, before the Messianic Age, Messiah the prince will be killed or “Cut-off”. According to the qualifiers, specified by Gabriel, the Messiah is cut off on Passover, 33 A.D. This corresponds with the close of 69 weeks (69x7) or 483 years. From the command of the King of Persia, Artexerxes, who gave word to Nehemiah (Neh. 2:8) to rebuild the walls and gates of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25), to The killing of Messiah the prince, was 69 weeks or 483-years. In Daniel 9:26, Gabriel informs Daniel after the Messiah the prince is killed the Temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed by a group of people, descendants of the prince who is to come. The people who came were the Romans, linking the future prince or ruler to the Roman Empire.
The 69th week closes with Messiah the prince being cut off, but the 70 weeks are not yet complete. The killing of the Messiah, stopped the prophetic clock, before it was completed. There is one week or seven-year period remaining. This seven-year period begins with the confirming of a covenant with many regarding a future Jewish Temple. The 70th Week of Daniel’s 70 weeks is a seven-year period, which begins with the agreement between the prince who is to come and Israel allowing the Jewish Temple to be rebuilt. Be blessed
WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.
