[...] The disciples that asked this question of Jesus on the eve of the Ascension were either not present when He gave the prophecy from the Mount of Olives, or they had forgotten His words. Only days before, Jesus had taught the disciples that “the end” would be preceded by an unequaled tribulation signaled by the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel (Mt 24:15-16, 21). But first, the gospel must be preached to all nations before the end can come (Mt 24:14).

At the time the disciples asked the question of Acts 1:6, the mystery of Christ’s twofold coming to Israel had not been revealed (Acts 3:18-21; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12). They didn’t know that the risen Jesus was about to ascend to the right hand of God and there remain until His return (Acts 3:21). Even on those occasions when the disciples had heard the Lord speak of ‘going away,’ it was never imagined that this would be by way of death and resurrection and subsequent ascension.

To understand the dilemma, we must remember that the great puzzle for first century Israel was how the messianic redemption could be accomplished BEFORE and apart from Israel’s national deliverance [...]

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If we are correct in our interpretation, then the temple mount issue is decisive for the fulfillment of scripture. The unequaled tribulation that ends in Christ’s return cannot begin until a sacrifice is removed and the abomination placed in the temple of God at Jerusalem (Dan 8:11; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:4), [...]

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[This statement is added to an earlier article of the same title] I have just read another article of urgency warning of an imminent war, which I do not doubt, but what concerns me is that attached to this ever present, and now even probable possibility, is the expectation that this will set in motion [...]

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Hello Reggie: As for the destruction of those who take the mark of the beast. What is your scriptural basis that they will be physically killed upon the return of Jesus? I will come to your more specific question, but first I would like to ask what many ask. “If all who are not saved [...]

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The rapture debate has raised the question of whether the references to a trumpet that sounds after the tribulation (Mt 24:31; Rev 10:7; 11:15) should be identified with, or distinguished from Paul’s ‘last trump’ (1Cor 15:52; 1Thes 4:16)? Where we locate the day of the Lord will be decisive for this question. Consider the following [...]

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Reggie talks briefly about Revelation 3:10, Pre-Trib’s “best verse.” [ Part 1 | Part 2 ]

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But as I have said before: Even if it is insisted that “kept from the hour” should be interpreted as physical exemption, the word “hour” in Revelation is never used of the entire tribulation, but most particularly of the day of God almighty at its end (compare Rev 16:14-16 w/ Rev 18:10). A number of [...]

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Reggie, good morning… See attached. I stumbled on to this piece: The First Resurrection by Tregelles. I’m almost certain that you know of it but I was thinking that it may be a good article to post on the new website. Bro. Phil Thanks, Phil. Excellent suggestion. I’ve always wished for a forum for apologetics [...]

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[...] In considering judgment on nations and particular localities, we should remember the pattern we observe in scripture. However righteous and set apart, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel were required to taste the bitterness of exile along with the rest of the apostate nation. Therefore, though the end of an individual may be quite different in the ‘long run’, he or she may well be required to suffer in the judgements that descend on a nation whose iniquity has come to full. That is the pattern we see in Israel’s exile, and I can’t see where it would be too different in a world where the church is called to be a ‘diaspora’ people, scattered throughout the earth as a witness people. Why, even the church’s sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s table are suitably quite portable. We are a pilgrim people, in every place, and often on the move.

The church is called to be a light in a dark world. What part of the world does not lie in wickedness? Where does one go to hide their loved ones from the judgment that hovers over a cursed land? If we flee from certain levels of societal debauchery that seems to especially concentrated in some cities or nations more than others, we might well be fleeing to a worse place where God has marked a perhaps more hidden but just as hateful kind of pride. [...]

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[...] The great tribulation is not called ‘unequaled’ simply because of some unprecedented degree of human suffering. Though the ‘scale’ of human suffering will indeed be without precedent during the last tribulation, what individuals might face personally cannot be worse than what others of our brethren have faced throughout history without a rapture. The the final tribulation is said to be without equal because it extends to all the natural order. So, of course, human suffering will be co-extensive with the upheaval of a creation that has come to its greatest time of travail.

Therefore, it is not the ‘degree’ of personal suffering that makes this tribulation exceptional from all others, but its ‘scale’ of impact on the world of nature. So I ask: Do we detect a certain selfishness, or subtle presumption of moral superiority in the modern church’s expectation of exemption from a last repeat of the same kind of persecution that their ‘fellow servants and their brethren’ have faced in every age (see Rev 6:11)? I must say that such a doctrine sounds suspiciously accommodating of a soft and untested church that has embraced the cross only in theory as a historical fact in Jesus’ experience, and not as the invariable pattern of the very ‘way’ of God in the experience of every believer before and after Christ (but see Act 14:22). [...]

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