Awaken Bible Prophecy Update 1-24-24 – Preterist Pretensions

A friend sent me a link to an online message from about three months ago in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 atrocity of Hamas terrorists attacking Israel.  She was a little confused by this pastor’s message and asked if I could comment on it.  I had a pretty strong impression right off the bat by the title of the message that I’d find it problematic; as I listened and took five pages of notes, that sense was more than confirmed.  In fact, what this man said really fired me up in righteous anger.  As a result, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass to outline some of what was said and convey the dangers of this mode of thinking.

At the outset, my friend was rightly confused because of the mixed messages that were projected.  The title of the pastor’s sermon was: National Israel is NOT God’s People.  (FYI – This full message was subsequently removed after I listened to it but then re-posted, but this excerpt was also posted.). Yeah, that title was enough to make me suspicious.  The perplexing part is that this message came from the Berean Bible Church.  Given the name of the source, you might think the pastor would preach the entire Word of God.  As you’ll see shortly, that is shockingly not the case.  In fact, the people attending that church should be ashamed to be associated with it, since – again, as you’ll see – it does not preach and teach the entire Word of God.

In this Prophecy Update I’ll go over what the pastor said, why he’s wrong despite how self-assured he was, and discuss why it’s so hard to find common ground in the Christian community when our eschatological, i.e. our end-times, beliefs vary so widely.  Christ wants His church to be unified, but can that even happen this side of eternity?  I wonder, and frankly. . . I doubt it.

Transcript:

A friend sent me a link to an online message from about three months ago in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 atrocity of Hamas terrorists attacking Israel.  She was a little confused by this pastor’s message and asked if I could comment on it.  I had a pretty strong impression right off the bat by the title of the message that I’d find it problematic; as I listened and took five pages of notes, that sense was more than confirmed.  In fact, what this man said really fired me up in righteous anger.  As a result, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass to outline some of what was said and convey the dangers of this mode of thinking.

At the outset, my friend was rightly confused because of the mixed messages that were projected.  The title of the pastor’s sermon was: National Israel is NOT God’s People.  (FYI – This full message was subsequently removed after I listened to it but then re-posted, but this excerpt was also posted.). Yeah, that title was enough to make me suspicious.  The perplexing part is that this message came from the Berean Bible Church.  Given the name of the source, you might think the pastor would preach the entire Word of God.  As you’ll see shortly, that is shockingly not the case.  In fact, the people attending that church should be ashamed to be associated with it, since – again, as you’ll see – it does not preach and teach the entire Word of God.

In this Prophecy Update I’ll go over what the pastor said, why he’s wrong despite how self-assured he was, and discuss why it’s so hard to find common ground in the Christian community when our eschatological, i.e. our end-times, beliefs vary so widely.  Christ wants His church to be unified, but can that even happen this side of eternity?  I wonder, and frankly. . . I doubt it.

We’ll get right to all this momentarily, but first let’s pray and read a Word from God.

<PRAY>

Scripture:

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Preterist Pretensions

• To begin, we first need to put some definitions on the table
• Preterism – from GotQuestions.org we have the following:

According to preterism, all prophecy in the Bible is really history. The preterist interpretation of Scripture regards the book of Revelation as a symbolic picture of first-century conflicts, not a description of what will occur in the end times. The term preterism comes from the Latin praeter, meaning “past.” Thus, preterism is the view that the biblical prophecies concerning the “end times” have already been fulfilled—in the past. Preterism is directly opposed to futurism, which sees the end-times prophecies as having a still-future fulfillment.

Preterism denies the future prophetic quality of the book of Revelation. The preterist movement essentially teaches that all the end-times prophecies of the New Testament were fulfilled in AD 70 when the Romans attacked and destroyed Jerusalem. Preterism teaches that every event normally associated with the end times—Christ’s second coming, the tribulation, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment—has already happened. (In the case of the final judgment, it still is in the process of being fulfilled.) Jesus’ return to earth was a “spiritual” return, not a physical one.

• There are two types of preterism: full and partial
• The difference is that partial preterists believe some Biblical prophecies are still awaiting fulfillment
• We’re dealing today with full preterism – that, as noted, all Biblical prophecy was fulfilled by the end of the 1^st Century
• This link to a website called fullpreterism.com provides more in-depth information on the overall theology

• Pretensions – (referring to the title of my Update) from Merriam-Webster we have this definition:
  • #1 – an allegation of doubtful value
• com gives us this:
  • #2 – a false or unsupportable quality
• Bottom line is that a pretension is a belief that can’t be substantiated
• In the plural, there are multiple opinions in this regard

Covenant Theology – once more we’ll get a definition from GotQuestions.org:

Covenant Theology isn’t so much a “theology” in the sense of a systematic set of doctrine as it is a framework for interpreting Scripture. It is usually contrasted with another interpretative framework for Scripture called “Dispensational Theology” or “Dispensationalism.” Dispensationalism is currently the most popular scriptural interpretative method in American evangelicalism, and has been so from the latter half of the 19th century. Covenant Theology, however, remains the majority report for Protestantism since the time of the Reformation, and it is the system favored by those of a more Reformed or Calvinistic persuasion.

Some have accused covenant theologians of teaching what is called “Replacement Theology” (i.e., the Church replaces Israel). Such accusations are likely based on the fact that Covenant Theology teaches that the Church is Israel and Israel is the Church and its denial of any future plan for Israel.

Accordingly, some have (reasonably) concluded that Covenant Theology takes the position that the church has either replaced or superseded ethnic Israel. Promises in the Bible made to ethnic Israel—people connected by blood to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—covenant theologians consider as metaphorically fulfilled in the Church, as “Israel” and the Church are all one “people of God,” a group that may or may not include people of Jewish ancestry, depending on the context. Unlike dispensationalists, covenant theologians deny any connection between ethnic Israel and the current or future land of Israel: “The entitlement of any one ethnic or religious group to territory in the Middle East called the ’Holy Land’ cannot be supported by Scripture.“

• For the record, I believe in Dispensationalism
• In fact, as a result of hearing the message that I’m discussing today expounded by the pastor of the Berean Bible Church, I would go so far as to radically say that Covenant Theology without a Dispensational perspective is a false doctrine and is not in alignment with the entire Word of God

False doctrine – Got Questions.org give us this understanding:

Doctrine is “a set of ideas or beliefs that are taught or believed to be true.” Biblical doctrine refers to teachings that align with the revealed Word of God, the Bible. False doctrine is any idea that adds to, takes away from, contradicts, or nullifies the doctrine given in God’s Word. 

Zionism – GotQuestions.org tells us that:

Zionism, simply a political movement at its inception, has today become more of an ideology than anything else. Zionism is an international movement for the return of the Jewish people to Zion, the land of Israel, while exercising the right to retain authority of government over the state of Israel, which was promised to them in the Hebrew Scriptures. The roots for Zionism lie in Genesis chapters 12 and 15, in which God makes a covenant with Abraham promising him that his descendants would inherit the land between Egypt and the Euphrates River.

• My position is that anyone who reads God’s Word and believes in what it literally says, should be a Zionist
• That doesn’t mean we agree with every decision Israel makes, but that is irrelevant
• We are standing with God in His love and choice of Israel as His Chosen People in the Promised Land
• Anyone who opposes Israel in this respect is standing with the world in Satan’s unholy efforts to destroy what God loves
• Having set the stage with these various definitions, let’s now consider what Pastor David Curtis of Berean Bible Church had to say regarding National Israel is NOT God’s People
• I’ll pretty much go through my notes that follow his message
• What I suggest if this raises your ire as much as it did mine, that you listen to what the man says, compare it with the entire Word of God, and come to your own conclusions – don’t just take my word for it that the position he outlines is – in its essence – heresy
• Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, this particular message has been removed from YouTube
• I’m sure, however, that you can glean what this man stands for by listening to other selected messages of his
• Curtis starts out by saying that preterism destroys the false doctrine of Zionism
• In his view, Zionism is bad theology and destructive
• If you’re someone like me who believes in Zionism, i.e. the right of Israel to return to the land promised by God, and who believes that ultimately God will redeem His people the Jews, you can see where we’ve got problems right off the bat
• As I’ll discuss later, how do we come to common ground with such varying understandings of God’s Word and His promises?
• Curtis encourages his flock to use the social media platform Gab
• I’ll just tell you – and you can verify for yourself – that Andrew Torba, who is the main guy behind Gab – is likely a preterist
• He is certainly anti-Israel and more than likely believes in Replacement Theology, i.e. the church is the new Israel
• Do you really want to frequent and support a platform that is wholly at odds with what you believe?
• To Curtis’ way of thinking, Israel is actually a favored nation in the world right now
• Granted that this message was given prior to the worldwide outburst of antisemitism and pro-Hamas support, but I doubt that has changed his mind
• To his way of thinking, Mossad is the power behind all bad events that have happened in the world and in the US
  • Mossad was behind 9/11 as the driving force (not our own government)
  • Jewish bankers rule the world and are in charge of all key global elite positions
• One might even suppose that Pastor Curtis is a supporter of the idea outlined in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion – the virulently anti-Jewish screed that I reviewed in the Prophecy Update titled Antichrist’s Handbook – The Manual of the Global Cabal
• I can’t prove what I said about what Curtis may or may not believe in respect to The Protocols, so it’s supposition only; however, as we’ll see later, there is a related belief that he holds that is equally as disgusting
• The bottom line for Pastor Curtis is that – are you ready for it? – Jews of today have no connection to the Jews of old and to ancient Israel
• He quotes statistics written in a book by a friend of his that there is only 3% of the DNA of Jews today that has any connection to the Jews of ancient Israel
• He says “there is no Jewish race today”
• The thinking behind this is that because the Jews were scattered throughout the world, and because all their genealogical records were destroyed, the idea of real Jews having come back to Israel and regathered as a nation is a fallacy
• Curtis spends a lot of time in his message quoting New Testament verses about circumcision and what the Apostle Paul states regarding who is the real circumcision
  • Obviously, it is the church of Jesus Christ, and the Jews have no part in that or any future plans of God unless they believe in Christ as Savior
• In one large sense, he’s absolutely right
• He points out the problem with John Hagee – which is truly a problem – being that Hagee is a huge supporter of Israel, but does not believe that the Jews have to come to faith in Jesus
• Most people aren’t aware of this with John Hagee, but Curtis is correct in his assessment
• Hagee believes that Jews, being Jews alone, is enough to gain their entrance into God’s eternal kingdom
• Wrong and double wrong!
• Jews need their Jewish Messiah as Savior so as to be born-again as much as any Gentile
• The issue with Pastor Curtis in this regard is that he lumps everyone who believes in Zionism into the same bucket as John Hagee
• Again, I’ll just take the stand right here that Hagee is incorrect
• Christians cannot stop in their thinking about Israel by only supporting their claim to the land without also praying for their ultimate redemption, which is clearly promised in Scripture
• Once more, in all this discussion, Curtis makes the claim that National Israel is done and has no further use or promises in God’s kingdom
• The church is now the true Israel of God
• His discussion touches on Dispensationalism versus Covenant Theology
• He doesn’t believe that God has worked in different eras in different ways as Dispensationalism outlines
• As such, he doesn’t believe in the Church Age, whereby God’s dealing with Israel effectively stopped (i.e. like “a stopped clock”) for 2,000 years while the church came into being
• In like manner, he doesn’t see that God will return to dealing with Israel once the church is removed in the pre-Tribulation Rapture
• He didn’t address the Rapture issue, but that’s the implication
• There is no Rapture in his view. . .
• Since there is no Church Age to be completed. . .
• Just as there is no Israel of worth for God to come back and deal with
• As a result, Pastor Curtis effectively negates the promises of God
• Thus, instead of understanding that there are two people and two covenants: Israel and the church, he sees only the one and final covenant of the church only
• This is why I previously said that Covenant Theology which elevates Replacement Theology is a false doctrine
• But here’s what Curtis misses completely by seemingly avoiding any reference to OT Scriptures:
• God has promised to redeem Israel
• You simply cannot rewrite the OT and make it say what you want it to – this is known as eisegesis, i.e. the interpretation of a passage based on a subjective, non-analytical reading
• Do you get that?
• It’s a subjective understanding of a passage based on you reading into God’s Word what you want it to mean
• Here is Jeremiah 30:2-9 from the NKJV:

² “Thus speaks the Lord God of Israel, saying: ‘Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you. ³ For behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will bring back from captivity My people Israel and Judah,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.’ ”

⁴ Now these are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah.

⁵ “For thus says the Lord:

‘We have heard a voice of trembling,
Of fear, and not of peace.
⁶ Ask now, and see,
Whether a man is ever in labor with child?
So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins
Like a woman in labor,
And all faces turned pale?
⁷ Alas! For that day is great,
So that none is like it;
And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble,
But he shall be saved out of it.

⁸ ‘For it shall come to pass in that day,’
Says the Lord of hosts,
‘That I will break his yoke from your neck,
And will burst your bonds;
Foreigners shall no more enslave them.
⁹ But they shall serve the Lord their God,
And David their king,
Whom I will raise up for them.

• When we read that, what does it literally say?
• God will redeem Israel
• He will require them to go through a terrible time known as Jacob’s Trouble that is so great there has never been and never will be a period on earth similar to it
• But after that, His people will serve the Lord their God
• In any reasonable interpretation, can you apply this promise to the church?
• Who are “my people Israel and Judah”?
• Who is David their king?
• Who was Jacob and to whom does God refer when He speaks of the time of Jacob’s Trouble?
• Do you see how ludicrous and literally blasphemous it is to make the interpretation anything but what it literally says?
• But this is what our preterist friends do with their Covenant Theology beliefs
• Let’s touch on a few more eye-opening aspects of this shockingly false understanding of God’s Word
• Curtis quotes from one of his sources in saying that Jews are really descendants of Turks coming from Eastern Europe
• They are the Khazars from that area who came and populated Israel
• In reality, many Jews fled to that region in the diaspora as well as elsewhere
• That’s part of the miracle of the regathering of the Jews – real Jews – into the nation of Israel after so many years as not a people
• Again, I discussed this aspect of dispersion in my aforementioned Prophecy Update on Antichrist’s Handbook
• Essentially, Curtis places more trust in his friend’s research than in the Word of God
• So, I have a question:
  • Since the only people of God are those who trust in Christ, and since God no longer has anything to do going forward with Israel and the Jews, who is it that Jesus is speaking to and how do His Words come to pass where He says in Matthew 23:39:

“For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

• I’ll tell you
• Jesus prefaces this with His lament in Matthew 23:37-38:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.

• Jesus is speaking to the Jews – to the scribes, the Pharisees, the crowd, and His disciples (Matthew 23:1-2)
• It is these Jews whose house will be made desolate, yet they will see Jesus again when they acknowledge Him as Savior and Lord
• Somebody can twist this all he wants, but the fact of the matter is that Jesus is not saying this to the church and prophesying its future, He is foretelling what will happen with the Jewish people in Israel
• I previously spoke about this dynamic about the church supposedly being the recipient of all the promises for Israel. . .
• If the church is the entity that receives all the good promises, shouldn’t the church also receive all the bad things promised to Israel?
• Why does the church selectively get just the one and not the other?
• Going on in this message by Pastor Curtis, this is where I got really irritated
• He thinks that when the Jews came back to the land of Israel and eventually became a nation (as foretold by the prophet in Isaiah 66:8 BTW), that they stole Arab property
• This reflects absolute ignorance on his part as to what happened in the immediate aftermath of that momentous day of May 14, 1948
• On May 15 the surrounding Arab/Muslim nations declared war on Israel and tried to destroy her in what became known as Israel’s War of Independence
• The very few Arabs who were living in Israel were told by the leaders of the Arab nations to leave their homes so that it they would be safe while Israel was in the process of being destroyed
• They were told that following the victory and eradication of the Jews, they would be able to return, claim their old homes, and much more
• Obviously, that didn’t happen
• Obviously also, the rules of war seemingly didn’t – and don’t – apply to Israel
• To the victor belong the spoils with every other nation
• No so with Israel
• She won the war but she was supposed to return the hard-won land back to the losers – those who attacked her, BTW!
• This is the premise behind the meme of the poor, put-upon Palestinian refugees
• A really good fictional account of this story is the book The Haj by Leon Uris – highly recommended just to gain an understanding of what the Arab thinking looked like during those years
• The Arab refugees ended up this way because of “Zionist oppression in Palestine”
• To these people, it is and always has been Palestine rather than Israel
• Actual history means nothing to them
• There never was a Palestinian people
• It’s a complete myth and fabrication
• But hey, if you hate Israel, you’ll believe what you want to believe
• Curtis, however, believes that Palestinians are more Jewish than the Jews
• You see, in his mind, the Palestinians are the semitic peoples, whereas the Jews are basically Eastern European
• What’s terribly sad in all this is the world thinks this way
• When the church of Jesus Christ adopts the ways and thinking of the world as its guiding light, can it any longer be considered a true church of God?
• If the world hates the Jews, and the church hates them right along with the world, what is that church but simply an extension of the world?
• Another quote from our esteemed Pastor Curtis:
• “Israel is the #1 sponsor of terrorism”
• You’ll recall that following the October 7 atrocities I called out Mike Adams with his Natural News website and Stew Peters, among others, for their condemnation of Israel and lack of blame for Hamas
• Although I largely agree with their conservative views and commentary, I’ve taken the position that I will not frequent their websites because of how anti-Israel they are
• This is the same reasoning I mentioned earlier about Andrew Torba’s Gab social media site
• I’m not giving them my eyeballs and my clicks
• Here’s what is really a stupid quote from Pastor Curtis – forgive me for framing it this way, but here it is:
• “Christian Zionism is blasphemy”
• Thus, Christians have no theological stake in Israel’s future redemption and those of us who believe this will happen makes us anti-God
• I’ve got news for you, Pastor Curtis
• You’re going to be unpleasantly surprised by the Lord at some point
• More quotes:
• “The church is Israel”
• Here’s a good one:
• “Jews are antichrist – God’s enemies”
• I’d simply remind the good pastor that we ALL are enemies of God prior to salvation where we become His children and His friend
• It’s sad that he doesn’t place any stock in God’s promise that the remnant of Israel will become just as us – although only after Great Tribulation
• Let me refresh his memory or alert him for the first time what Zechariah 13:8-9 says:

In the whole land, declares the Lord,
    two thirds shall be cut off and perish,
    and one third shall be left alive.
And I will put this third into the fire,
    and refine them as one refines silver,
    and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
    and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
    and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”

• Oh, and in what land does this occur?
• What peoples suffer greatly such that 2/3 of them are cut off and die?
• Is this a promise for the church, Pastor Curtis?
• I thought we were already redeemed by the blood of Christ and have already called upon His name for salvation
• Maybe I’m just confused and don’t have my theology correct
• BTW – I thought it was quite telling when Curtis referred to Hamas among the Palestinians and about their conflict with Israel
• It’s not hard to see where his real sympathies lie
• He spoke about how Hamas must fight only with pipes made into bombs that they tore up from the plumbing in Gaza
• You know – the plumbing paid for by our taxpayer dollars so as to bring basic services to the people of Gaza – but which Hamas appropriated for its own evil ends
• Well, you know how it is with freedom fighters. . .
• They have to use every means at their disposal
• His implication in this was along the lines of “Poor Hamas. They have so little to resist that terrible occupying force of Israel that has subjected them to genocide in the open-air prison of Gaza.”
• You think I’m kidding – listen to the man
• At this point, I think we should be putting the title of “Pastor” for David Curtis in quotations
• Want to know something else he said?
• “I don’t know what I believe any more about the Holocaust.”
• Yes, he questions whether or not the Holocaust is true and not something made up by the make-believe Jews
• Where does this end?
• It doesn’t
• Regarding the pictures that have come out of Israel from the Hamas attack on October 7, he claims they are from two years ago
• In fact, the October 7 massacre was actually a false flag event
• He said next what I’m going to tell you – I am not making this up one bit. . .
• As to the killing, i.e. all the deaths of innocent Israelis, and the raping of women. . .
• Curtis says that they are “all lies”
• Do you want this man and his theology to be your trusted source for the Christian faith?
• We’ll ask that even more with the next and last item
• Finally, I’ve got the cherry on top of this ice cream sundae
• When I began a little earlier, I quoted 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which I’ll repeat:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

• Keep that in mind
• At the end of his message, Curtis took questions from his in-person congregation
• He also took online questions
• Someone asked him about the 144,000 Jewish Evangelists noted in Revelation 7:4, which says:

And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

• It then goes on to list the fact that these Jews are called from every tribe of Israel – 12,000 from each
• Think about that in relation to what we’ve said this man believes
• Who are these 144,000 people?
• Where do they really come from?
• Obviously, they can’t be Jews – right?
• That would cause a real theological issue with our esteemed pastor
• . . want to know how he handled it?
• Hold on – this is precious. . .
• And I’m not making this up. . .
• He said that he can’t answer the question
• He has no idea because. . . (wait for it) – he doesn’t read or study the book of Revelation
• Does anyone hear any pins drop?
• You should
• See, since he believes all Bible prophecy was concluded prior to the end of the 1^st Century, he views Revelation as a work of history and not future prophecy
• Preterists like him believe that John wrote Revelation in about 65 AD prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD
• Thus, what’s the point of reading any historical narrative in the Bible?
• To that end, what’s the point of reading any of the Old Testament?
• We can adopt the strategy that Andy Stanley – son of Charles Stanley, BTW – says to his megachurch congregation: “Christians should unhitch from the Old Testament”
• Dispensationalists, in contrast to preterists, believe John wrote Revelation in about 95 AD, and it deals with future prophetic events
• To this end I wonder how Curtis views 2 Timothy 3:16-17 whereby all Scripture is God-breathed and of value?
• This man doesn’t read all of the Bible
• It’s of no use to him
• He reads only what fits his preterist narrative
• This is where Replacement Theology arises
• This is also where a-millennialism and post-Tribulation Rapture interpretations arise
• If these people aren’t discounting the 1/3 of the Bible that deals with prophecy – much of it future, they are making God’s Word symbolic, i.e. allegorical, rather than the literal Word that it is unless we’re told otherwise in the Word itself
• I asked at the beginning of this Commentary how in the world we can have unity in the church when our theological differences are so vast?
• I mean it
• Yes, presumably we can agree on the narrow understanding of salvation by the blood of Christ alone, but where do we go from there?
• If we venture into any areas of discussion outside of that one fact, we’re toast when it comes to common agreement
• We’re so far apart in our view of Scripture, it’s simply astounding to me
• We can’t agree on the Rapture, the Tribulation, when Christ will return, how God loves Israel and redeems her people – none of these things and probably much more
• The one thing that any and all of us should want is to be on God’s side
• I’ve always said that not a single Bible teacher is going to get everything right
• But the reality is that we do have sides – very strongly held views
• I ask and can’t answer: Why has God allowed such huge schisms of understanding His Word?
• There is only one true meaning or interpretation, although there are lots of applications
• But I don’t think we just talking applications here – we’re in an interpretive divide that cannot be bridged this side of eternity
• BTW – Jan Markell tends to agree that how a church deals with Israel may be the next big church divider
• Ultimately, we have to stick with what God has shown us through His Holy Spirit in interpreting His Word
• We have to trust Him that He will never leave us, nor forsake us
• In other words, we have to believe that what He has promised – as we understand it with true Biblical exegesis – where the Word speaks for itself. . .
• That God will make good on that Word
• And what does He say?
• We are not subject to the wrath to come
• That He will keep us from the hour of trial that will come over the entire earth
• Thus, that Biblical prophecy has a future fulfillment
• Because of that and these promises, God will soon remove us from this alien place that we might rest in our heavenly home with our beloved bridegroom, Jesus Christ
• To dismiss this – to not believe it – is to refuse to believe in our promised Blessed Hope – the pre-Tribulation Rapture of Christ’s true church
• It is in this alone that we can be encouraged in these difficult times just as the Apostle Paul declared