yeshuasavedme
Senior Veteran
Imblessed said:Ok,
Say the rapture happens--Jesus gathers up all christian, dead and alive, and changes them and takes them to heaven.
who's left on the earth?
non-christians, right
So the angels come and do the harvest(separating the wheat from the tares)----but, wouldn't the fact that there are no christians left on earth negate that? Isn't that what the harvest is?
how do people get saved if the Holy Spirit is to be taken out of the way(I've heard people say the rapture HAS to occur for this reason) Isn't it the work of the Holy Spirit that saves?
I'm throwing things out off the top of my head here....Sorry if they don't make sense, and if I'm really messing things up tell me.
Yeshuasavedme,
you mention those left on earth for the thousand years, and you mention the angels coming to do the harvest(wheat/tares) during the 7 year tribulation(I think that's when you said it would happen)---how does that work?
I'm glad you asked too!
The Gentile Church is taken just as Enoch was; but only those who are truly walking with the LORD, as Enoch was, will be taken.
Sad to say, but much of the professing Church is not walking with the LORD but with the world.
You cannot tell the difference from the Church and the world by the lives they live or what comes out of their mouths or what they give their time to, or their personal testimony; for who knows and meditates and lives the Word of God? -not so many: every commandment is broken by the movies that they watch, and one cannot fellowship with devils and the LORD at the same time. We are not 'under the law' as Israel was, which was types and shadows, but the law is 'in the heart' of every Believer when they are truly born again, and what is in the heart comes out of the mouth.
many who profess to be Christians have never truly been born again and begun their walk with the LORD; so don't expect masses of the professing Church to be taken.
I believe that the two eyewitnesses, Elijah and Moses, appear in the streets of Jerusalem immediately and begin preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified -as the eyewitnesses that they are, since the mount of transfiguration- to the nation of Israel.
The final AC is revealed about as soon as they begin preaching, for there is always a man being groomed for the position -IMO- by the evil one, as the spirit of AC has been in the world from New Testament times; but the final man of sin cannot be revealed until the 'restrainer' is 'taken out of the way'.
The true Church that is cleansed and prays is the temple of God on earth, since the day of Pentecost.
When the Church is gone, the indwelling Presence of glory will be gone, and the Holy Spirit, Himself will still be here, just as He has always been and will be, but the Presence of his glory indwelling who came to dwell in the temple of Jerusalem, left it in Ezekiel 11, and later came to dwell in the temple of the born again redeemed souls on Pentecost will be gone.
The entire world will not be much different from what it is now, except the birth pangs of the earth, for the deliverance, will become more marked than ever as the first seven years of the Day of the LORD begin to draw on.
Who will notice that there are those who truly walked with the LORD and that they are gone? -in our western nations, anyway.
Babies and children who have not come to the age of accountability who are of unbelievers will not be gone, for they are not 'clean' as those are who have at least one believing parent. -So how many will be gone and who will notice, anyway?
We'll be a little blurb on web logs, and the world will go on as it is, but the two eyewitnesses in Jerusalem who preach in sackcloth will turn the hearts of many back to the 'fathers' -of the nation of Israel, and not of the western, Grecian church, BTW.
Churches will be almost as full as they are now -IMO- for only those who are living lives of holiness -not legalism, but true holiness- will be taken.
So who'll be left? -much of the world. Just as it was in the days of Noah.
But unbelieving Israel will have their hearts convicted and many will come to the LORD under hard times. At the mid trib, the two eyewitnesses are killed and resurrected, the final AC places his image that speaks in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and demands to be worshipped on the mount that the LORD has chosen to rule the earth from. Those who come to believe in Jesus in Jerusalem flee the AC so as not to be killed for not worshipping him and are fed and cared for in the wilderness; but there are Jews all over the world, still, who will not be in Jerusalem -until they are gathered by angels at the end of the seven years, and brought back to the wilderness, themselves, as Ezekiel 20:33-44 shows us.
During the seven years the judgment of God upon an unbelieving world is severe, and during the last half of the seven years the wrath of God is poured out upon the kingdom of the beast without restraint, and one third of mankind dies through the plagues, pestilences, wars, famines, and persecutions by the time the end comes.
When the LORD gathers the entire population of Jews back to the wilderness, I think that only one tenth of them survive from that gathered bunch, to enter the millennial reign.
But just before the gathering of the Jews from all the world, the armies of the AC were/will be destroyed, and there were/will be at least 200 million of them +, who gather/ed to surround Jerusalem and are destroyed by the LORD at His coming.
After all that, the goats are gathered and sent into the lake of fire -without needing resurrected bodies, for they never leave their bodies, at His return.
So: those who are the Blessed of the LORD and enter into the kingdom of God on earth are few and precious -but still, many times more than the 8 souls who came off the Ark and populated the earth after the flood.
There will be a great population explosion during the reign of Peace, and many souls will become born again, who are born then -Israel will be the nation that teaches about the Person and work of the Firstborn, who will rule in Person, in glory, over all the earth. Ezekiel chapters 40 on, show the role of Israel in the thousand years.
Remember: Only 8 came off the ark, many, many more will enter the kingdom on earth to populate it for the thousand years.
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