end times
 

I have ask this before but does anyone here believe like I do that the church will go though the full tribulation period?

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Yes, I believe it as well. And I think a whole lot of other people will soon believe it too!

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I don't and I think a whole lot of other people will soon believe it too! :crazywalls

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you might believe if you lived in a third world country...

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Absolutely yes, I do believe that as well.

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Why's that?

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well, it would seem in 3rd world countries we are no so entrapped by goods and things...

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our money is worth nothing...many of our people are hungry...
It is just a different world...

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I have ask this before but does anyone here believe like I do that the church will go though the full tribulation period?


Yes, I do now. My husband showed me using the book of Matthew. I was mad for days.

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i believe church will go through the tribulation

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i was in a wonderful all night prayer meeting last night and one of our pastors spoke about things the church would go through. Since it is open in our work to express our feelings I would have thought this certain pastor would have been looking for a rapture any minute...to say the least I sat spellbound listening to him as he told our people to grow closer to God...

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Sister,

I grew up thinking that I would be spared from living through the tribulation period; however, my thinking was changed the more I studied the Word and prayed.

May God help us win many souls before and during the tribulation.

CB1

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Well for me, I've been to seven third world countries and it hasn't changed me mind.

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For the life of me I just wish we would all suddenly leave but can not see that in the scriptures...

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Yeshua warned us not to be deceived

Immediately after the tribulation of those days........Matt 24

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Seek and you shall find!

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I used to believe that we, the church, would be spared. But now, I don't.

This topic can go in conjuction with the other topic about floods and fires and the punishment of God.

While I still believe that all these disasters are NOT ALL punishments from God, but rather tests for the big one. The big one, meaning, the catalist that will usher us into the tribulation.


...& now I will go and maybe add to my thoughts on the other topic....

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Seek what is convenient and you shall find anything ye wisheth. yay

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I don´t think the church will be caried to the skies on her flowery bed of ease...

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In fact the only thing I can think of that would get God´s people together is what His word teaches. It is a proven fact that in tribulation christians don´t fuss and fight over what color a card is and who wears the same color shirt...
lol...whether we like it or not as a whole America sleeps and the world rushes to eternity and if their is any fight in some it is mostly against their blood washed brother and not against our common enemy.
And no I am not down on America. Their are many good precious christians there but I am talking in general terms.
Some decribed the sleeping church like this:
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...y/ladysh28.jpg

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Welllllllllll, there is obviously a truth in what you have stated, but scripture tells us that those who seek will find, those who knock, it is opened for them and so forth.

Most of the time people study the Bible based upon their theology and trying to prove their theology instead of finding out what God says. In this case you are right, you will find support of what you wish and live as a biblical fool.

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You know what, I absolutely agree with you on this. According to the Bible there is going to be an unleashing of hell prior to the return of Christ, BUT and that's a big BUT there will also be an unleashing of heaven.

You are not going to fall into the glory of God. If one is not trusting God now, they certainly won't trust God in the times to come. And unfortunately most Christians don't trust God. That's why they are always begging for money, in turmoil about oil prices, move by every bad report instead of being a Psalms 112 person who is fixed trusting in the Lord.

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The Bible talks about a glorious church being caught in the air to meet Jesus. If you do a study on the glory you will find that it is synonymous with the Presence of God. You cannot have the glory of God without having God present.

Therefore, the more of God that is present the more glory is manifested. By definition a glorious church is a church where the presence of God is powerfully manifested.

Bring that into an end time theology. I remember as a youth watching videos about how the church was hiding from the beast, trying to find food, hoping to stay alive while believing for the return of Christ. Don't sound glorious to me.

The glory of God manifested in the ministry of death that was fading away when the three Hebrew children walked into a fiery furnace and didn't even get the smell of smoke on them. When the Red Sea split and the Israelites walked on dry ground, or when Daniel slept while the lions mouths were held shut.

The Bible says that it is going to be like in the days of Noah and in the days of Sodom. There was much partying going on. People taking their ease, satisfying their flesh and so forth. A glorious church is going to be one who denies the desires of the world to live righteously and call sin, sin while allowing the manifest Presence of God to come forth.

Then like a thief in the night Jesus is going to come calling for His church and when it is taken away, that which held the enemy back will be unleashed and all of hell is going to come forth.

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I hope you don´t think because I send out letters begging for funds to reach Brazil and help the people that I do not trust Him..I feel like I do...however if you had say today for example...as soon as I got up 2 preachers were asking could I help them this month pay the rent on their buildings as they are without a job...another preacher wrote and ask me to help him in his area they were going hungry and he is very sick, 11 people passed through my office asking for rice, a mother with a baby one year old and another one born last week has no food in her home and her husband left her...another couple came and ask me to buy medicine for their coughing babies... the mecanics call me for mone to fix the church van and bus... the tire place calls me to let me know the bill is due...my office workers bring a stack of building material bills into my office...another person comes to ask me for a Bible...and on and on...On the mission field the needs are many...
WE know a whole lot about suffering and doing without...however few Americans that I know could stand under this daily pressure...

I hope you are right but if we do go throgh the tribulation many will face it unprepared...

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There are several issues that you bring up. First of all my comments were not directed at you. I too do a lot of missionary work (although I do not live in a foreign land). There is one issue of letting people know the needs of your ministry. I don't have a problem with that. There is another issue of "if you don't give I am going to have to come home, go off TV, stop evangelizing and so on." This is not faith, but begging. Unfortunately, too many missionaries have become welfare recipients than faith giants.

The fact is, if God has called us into a ministry then what we need to accomplish the ministry has already been made available. God placed it in my heart to have an International Pastor's Conference. In it I was to bring Pastors to a central location and then take care of them while they were there. I brought Pastors from 8 countries to Bangkok Thailand paid for all the costs of food, housing, and transportation. My church at the time was about 35 with around 15 being retired. God directed - God funded!

I have a saying that I have found to be very true..."What God orders He pays for, what we order we pay for." Too many times we order things, even good things, but God didn't tell us to and we struggle pulling it off.

I guess there is truth in that, BUT for those who have really sold out are willing to stand for Christ to death. I think the only people that would be unprepared are those who have trouble trusting God in the first place.

I am a true pre-tribber, but I am committed to the end. Therefore, if I am wrong it doesn't matter because all that means is that there is more time to do what God has called us to do.

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'CORRIE TEN BOOM AND THE RAPTURE'.
- (This is from a letter Corrie wrote in 1974)

"The world is deathly ill. It is dying. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers.
Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world. And because of our presence here, things will change.

My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving Jews. Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia, Poland and Belgium were herded into a room built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two representatives of Heaven in that room.

We may have been the Lord's only representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there, things changed. Jesus said, "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We too, are to be overcomers – bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled with darkness and hate.

Sometimes I get frightened as I read the Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you, though, if you too are afraid, that I have just read the last pages. I can now come to shouting "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" for I have found where it is written that Jesus said,

"He that overcometh shall inherit all things:
and I will be His God,
and he shall be My son."
This is the future and hope of this world. Not that the world will survive – but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a dying world.
Betsy and I, in the concentration camp, prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick.
"Yes, the Lord will heal me,", Betsy said with confidence.
She died the next day and I could not understand it. They laid her thin body on the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that day.

It was hard for me to understand, to believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy's death, today I am traveling all over the world telling people about Jesus.

There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.

In China, the Christians were told, "Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated – raptured." Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,


"We have failed.
We should have made the people strong for persecution,
rather than telling them Jesus would come first.
Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution,
how to stand when the tribulation comes,
– to stand and not faint."
I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it.
We are next.
Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation." Then I write it down and learn it by heart.

When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today." But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy.

"If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;
for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you;
on their part evil is spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified."
(I Peter 3:14)
I found myself saying, "Hallelujah!
Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!"
In America, the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation", but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation.

Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the district were being systematically murdered.

The fourth day I was to speak in a little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear and tension. All during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking, "Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the next one?"

The room was hot and stuffy with insects that came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked bulbs over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my childhood.

"When I was a little girl, " I said, "I went to my father and said,
"Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."
"Tell me," said Father,
"When you take a train trip to Amsterdam,
when do I give you the money for the ticket?
Three weeks before?"

"No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."

"That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength.
Our Father in Heaven knows when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ.
He will supply all you need – just in time…"

My African friends were nodding and smiling.
Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began singing,

" In the sweet, by and by,
we shall meet on that beautiful shore."
Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed.
I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago.
But I must tell you something. I was so happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people, for unlike many of their leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered that Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained faithful to the end, He would give a crown of life.

How can we get ready for the persecution?

First we need to feed on the Word of God, digest it, make it a part of our being. This will mean disciplined Bible study each day as we not only memorize long passages of scripture, but put the principles to work in our lives.

Next we need to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Not just the Jesus of yesterday, the Jesus of History,
but the life-changing Jesus of today who is still alive
and sitting at the right hand of God.

We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is no optional command of the Bible, it is absolutely necessary. Those earthly disciples could never have stood up under the persecution of the Jews and Romans had they not waited for Pentecost. Each of us needs our own personal Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to stand in the tribulation without it.

In the coming persecution we must be ready to help each other and encourage each other.
But we must not wait until the tribulation comes before starting.
The fruit of the Spirit should be the dominant force of every Christian's life.

Many are fearful of the coming tribulation, they want to run. I, too, am a little bit afraid when I think that after all my eighty years, including the horrible Nazi concentration camp, that I might have to go through the tribulation also.
But then I read the Bible and I am glad.

When I am weak, then I shall be strong, the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who will not forsake you. For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not once has He ever left me, or let me down.

"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him", (Job 13:15)
for I know that to all who overcome,
He shall give the crown of life.
Hallelujah!"
- Corrie Ten Boom - 1974

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The church already went through the great trib without being raptured first. It was great trib in Judaea since Jesus said only those in Judaea must flee due to great trib.

...for the record.

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No

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yes..

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Assume for a second that you were wrong and a pre-trib theology was correct. Then consider the scripture that refer to, "according to your faith so be it." I've often wondered if a person could miss a pre-trib rapture because their faith took them through it.

I am sure most would say ridiculous, but it is an interesting thought if you assign a lot of power to faith.

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But faith does not over ride the plan and will of God. Paul showed the end time plan for the second coming:

1: Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
2: That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
3: Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4: Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
5: Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

2 Thess. 2:1-5

Our faith agrees with the word/will of God.

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Most Christians have no idea how great that tribulation was, the church has gone thru other tribulations since that time as well. As, Sis. Alvear has posted, and in China, anyone read "The Heavenly Man"? The book is about great tribulation in China over the past 30-40 years as well as currently.