Showing posts with label Book of Revelation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book of Revelation. Show all posts

2012-10-07

Only through FAITH can you be taken by RAPTURE



Christianity is a belief that is based on faith and believes that God is the Creator.

So, the authors of the Bible used faith as the main topic in the Bible for many times to remind the believers that they should always keep and use their faith, so as to have a right relationship with God; to be called righteousness in front of God; and to have various blessings promised by God.


Romans 10:9; 
Romans 5:1;John 3:18

If we wish to be pleased by God, we need to have the faith so as to fulfill the conditions of the promises of God’s Words. Taking actions can prove that you have faith.


Hebrew 11:1-2; 
Mark 11:24

Moreover, in the end of days, the Book of Revelation predicted the time that the wrath of God will be descended to punish the people on earth. All Christians will be caught up to heaven first and be with God; they don’t need to experience the great disasters.

For those who can be caught up to heaven, other than the basic criterion that they should be the Christians, they also need to be watchful, to believe that God will come at any time in this sinful generation. As
sons of the day, they will not be judged as the people on earth, but indeed they will be saved by faith and to escape from God’s wrath.

1 Thessalonians
5:1-2, 8-0

The first one talked about the rapture before the disaster mentioned above. They believe that all the Christians and the Christians who are watchful will be caught up to heaven and escape from God’s wrath. 
The third one is the rapture after the disasters. Basically, they believe that no one can escape from God’s wrath and judgment. All the people will experience the great disasters together. For those who do not die in the disasters, they can enter the Kingdom of God in the Millennium prepared by God.

Zechariah 14
:16

Indeed, Pastor Wind have mentioned in the previous sermons that people will be caught up to heaven before the rapture, in the middle of the rapture and after the rapture.


Revelation 12:5


There are also people who will be caught up to heaven in the middle of the disasters. Just like the parable of the Ten Virgins that Jesus mentioned, for those virgins who are sleeping, some of them have prepare the oil, some of them are not. For those clever one who have prepared the oil, although they will experience the disasters for a short period of time when the disasters happened, they can be caught up to heaven later.


For those foolish virgins who do not prepare oil, they will suffer in the disasters.

Indeed, when will you choose for the rapture? Is it in the middle of the disasters, after the disasters or you will be a watchful Christians, who believe that you will be caught up to heaven before the disasters and escape from God’s wrath?

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

Hebrew 11:6:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

1.Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
2.This is what the ancients were commended for.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

1.Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you,
2.for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
8. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
9. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are three teachings about the rapture in the present theology.

The second one is the rapture in the middle of the disaster. They believe that those believers need to experience the great disasters with the people on earth together for a period of time. For those who pass various tests in the disasters and still keep loving God, they will be caught up to heaven by God. They believe this because there are verses in the Bible talked about the rapture in the middle of the disasters. One of the examples is the 144,000 people.
  
Revelation 7: 4, 13-14
4. Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.
13. Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes--who are they, and where did they come from?"
14.  answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

But, the time for the rapture is decided by our faith and the level of our faith.

The Book of Zechariah mentioned that there are people who will be caught up to heaven before the rapture. And the criterion is that they should become the Christians who will never sleep in their belief and to be watchful for the coming of God.

1 Thessalonians 4:17
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

2012-07-09

"The Red Dragon" in the Book of Revelation

"The Red Dragon" in the Book of Revelation 

 



Genesis 3:14-15 
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Genesis in the Bible records that Eve was tempted in the Garden of Eden by the serpent and ate the fruit of the only tree forbidden to eat by God—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God did not only punish Adam and Eve but also the serpent, that is Satan.

God also foretold that in the future the offspring of the serpent and that of the woman will be enemy to each other. The offspring of the woman will crush the serpent’s head and in turn it will strike his heel. Who are the offspring of the woman and that of the serpent?

In fact, the offspring of the woman refers to Jesus and his Church, because Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born by virgin Mary. Therefore, Jesus did not have a biological father. God described Jesus and his Church as the offspring of the woman.

But who is the offspring of the serpent? In fact, written as early as in Genesis 6, since Satan’s fallen angels are the serpent, the serpent’s offspring is created by the serpent breeding with women.

God sent the great flood to destroy all humans on earth in order to stop Satan’s and its angels from contaminating the bloodline of human. Only the righteous Noah and his family of 8 people were spared to keep the human lineage pure.

Genesis 6:1-4
1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

However, Satan never stops the plan of polluting the human lineage. After the great flood, the bible continues to record the existence of the serpent’s offspring. They were the occupants of Canaan in Joshua’s time; in David’s time, David also hit a few giants to death, i.e. Rephaim, including the famous giant Goliath.
Up to Revelation in the New Testament, this offspring of the serpent has grown up and become the red dragon in Revelation. And they can sweep away a third of stars in heaven, i.e. the downfall of the faith of church leaders who will lead a big group of Christian to follow the serpent’s offspring.

Revelation 12:3-4
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.
4 His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.

The red dragon in Revelation 12 does not only refer to the event of the serpent’s offspring but also a specific time, just like the woman in the beginning of the same Chapter is also referring to a particular time. From past to present, the image of this woman is used to refer to a set time, that is the time of the annual rise of the sun with Virgo, i.e. the Feast of Trumpets every year, or even the Feast of Trumpets on 29 September 2011. Therefore, the concept of “The InterstellarBook of Revelation” must be used to understand Revelation completely

Revelation 12:1
A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

Revelation 12 not only uses the red dragon to describe Satan in the end times, planning to defeat the church and Christians through causing a third of Christian leaders to sin, but also the specific time and star configuration in the sky when this event happens. This heavenly sign is historically recorded by ancient civilizations and prophecies, including the Bible, ancient Egyptians and Sumerians, prophet Mother Shipton and Nostradamus. The sign is the red-dragon-like physical appearance of Planet X in the sky which visited the earth 3600 years ago and will visit the earth again in 2012.
As the woman described in Revelation 12, her appearance represents the beginning of travail. And the time the red dragon appears is also the time when Planet X appears in the sky and also the time when Satan will cause a third of church leaders originally qualified for rapture to sin and turn them into the serpent’s offspring.

However, Chapter 12 also mentions the third role at the same time, that is the child born by the woman and caught up at birth who will also rule all the nations with an iron scepter.
In the end times, will you choose to become this caught up child? Or stay behind to become the rest of this woman’s children to experience the 7-year tribulation?
Or you choose to ignore the end times and scoff at those prepared for Christ’s coming, and in the end, tragically become the serpent’s offspring and receive the beast’s mark with people in the world of 7-year tribulation?

Revelation 13:16-18
16 He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead,
17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
18 This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.