Waking Jonah

Dr. Future and Will Grigg discuss the religious right and militarism…

[Part 4 of a 5-part series]

Show: Future Quake
Full Podcast: Show 295 1-6-2012 Future Quake – Seventh Annual Future Quake “Predictions” Show
Date: 1/6/12
Hosts: Dr. Future & Tom Bionic
Guest: Will Grigg
Notes: The Values Voter Summit for the religious right–to get the Christian vote in the straw poll; Ron Paul was the only candidate of any of them that opened up their Bible, and talked from the Bible; He talked about the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule; That element of the conservative Christian demographic in America that calls itself the Christian right is completely wedded to militarism (as indissolubly wedded to militarism as was the positivist Christian church–the so-called positive Christian German church of the 1920′s–that later on added Mein Kampf to the cannon, and put Mein Kampf in a place of honor that had once been reserved for the family Bible); The Bonhoeffer biography “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy“, by Eric Metaxas

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

William Grigg

Will Grigg from Pro Libertate blog discusses Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the American evangelical church, Ron Paul, and the Golden Rule…

[Part 3 of a 5-part series]

Show: Future Quake
Full Podcast: Show 295 1-6-2012 Future Quake – Seventh Annual Future Quake “Predictions” Show
Date: 1/6/12
Hosts: Dr. Future & Tom Bionic
Guest: Will Grigg
Notes: Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Bonhoeffer’s letter to a friend: “If you are aboard a train that’s heading the wrong direction, simply switching seats isn’t going to do you any good”; He pointed out that they were unmistakably and irrecoverably on the hot rails to hell, in terms of what the German church was doing; The same thing is happening with the American evangelical church… which is more defined by what they’re taught to hate, than by what we are commanded to do, which is to love; That’s the one thing that betokens our discipleship–the one thing that He said would designate Christians as different from the world is our capacity to love–not merely to love each other, but to love whoever God happens to put in our path; The thing about Ron Paul’s movement that makes it so inexplicable and dangerous to the establishment is that he has the courage to insist that the Golden Rule applies in all spheres of life, especially with respect to what the government does

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

William Grigg

Will Grigg from Pro Libertate blog discusses the Golden Rule and Dietrich Bonhoeffer…

[Part 2 of a 5-part series]

Show: Future Quake
Full Podcast: Show 295 1-6-2012 Future Quake – Seventh Annual Future Quake “Predictions” Show
Date: 1/6/12
Hosts: Dr. Future & Tom Bionic
Guest: Will Grigg
Notes: Another thing that is very, very disturbing is the sense that there is a severability clause somewhere in the Sermon on the Mount…; Your “neighbor” is whoever God happens to put in your path–that’s the answer that was given in the parable; Jesus chose as an example a Samaritan (an infidel–a nonbeliever) to illustrate the godly principle that your “neighbor” is whoever God happens to put in your path; That’s something which has been repudiated by that same cohort of a church that embraces torture… because obviously you cannot torture your neighbor… if you’re bound by the Golden Rule, you cannot inflict torture on somebody, because obviously you would not want torture to be inflicted upon yourself; Another illustration of where we might be going is the situation in Germany as described in Eric Metaxas’ book on Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy“; “Positive Christianity”–the state-focused, cultural Christianity of Germany in the early 20th Century; As early as 1933, Bonhoeffer knew that he was eventually going to be killed by this regime that he saw rising, which eventually killed him in 1945

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

William Grigg

Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN compares the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of God…

[Part 5 of an ongoing series...]

Ministry: Woodland Hills Church
Full Podcast: Taking America Back for God?
Date: 4/18/04
Speaker: Greg Boyd
Notes: The Constantinian revolution… when the church adopted the slogan that we still have with us today: “The church militant and triumphant”; For the first four centuries, the church grew by people imitating Jesus–literally; They were persecuted, they were put to death; The word “martyr” means “witness”, but it became synonymous with one who dies for their faith, because that’s the main way that they witnessed; In the 4th Century, the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity; Now Christians for the first time began to taste the possibility of having the power of the sword; Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 AD… in 381 Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and the first “infidel” was put to death in 382; What follows are centuries of some of the most barbaric bloodshed the world has ever seen… heretics were routinely put to death, unbelievers routinely put to death, the Inquisition, the Crusades, Muslims; Whole towns were slaughtered because they disagreed with the official teaching of the Holy Catholic Church of Constantine; But it continued on with the Protestant Reformation–there was no improvement there whatsoever; We’ve got to see the demonic irony in all of this… in the name of the One who taught us to turn the other cheek, the church cut off people’s heads; In the name of the One who taught us to love our enemies–to lay down our life for our enemies–the church burned enemies alive; In the name of the One who forbid taking up the sword, the church swung the sword, and swung it hard–we’ve got to see the insanity of this

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Greg Boyd

Concluding this series on the Prewrath rapture with some final comments by Charles Cooper from the Prewrath Resource Institute…

[Part 27 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: Charles Cooper Interview – Prewrath Rapture
Date: 2/2/11
Host: Chris White
Guest: Charles Cooper
Notes: You can hide one person on this earth, but you can’t hide millions… we are talking about millions and millions of believers; It would be a whole lot harder to hide one million people than it is to hide one person; The purpose of the book, “Fight, Flight, or Faith: How to Survive the Great Tribulation“, was to show that during this time there are going to be lots of people killed for their faith; The book of Revelation tells us that a significant number of them will be beheaded; We’re told this is going to happen… God already knows who’s going to be beheaded–this is something He is allowing; Revelation 6 says there are a significant number of individuals who end up under the throne of God in heaven, waiting for Him to avenge their death on the earth; Reading the book of Revelation, it is unmistakably clear that God already knows–in fact, intends–for a particular number of people to be killed in relationship to this period; Dying doesn’t seem to be the issue of concern with God–what seems to be of paramount importance is our faithfulness… whether we, in the face of intense persecution, can stand our ground by faith, and trust Him that what He is allowing is exactly what He wants for our lives; The purpose of the book is to call you to develop some faith muscles–it is better to prepare now; The same faith that would deliver you during the great tribulation, is the same faith that can deliver you now; “By faith” living is what believers have always been called to–the Word of God is explicit, “the righteous shall live by faith“–not your guns, not how well you hide, but by faith; Faith does not mean your stupid, faith is not pacifism… faith is trusting God to give you clear directions about what you should or should not do, at the moment you walk into crises

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run interviews Charles Cooper from the Prewrath Resource Institute about the timing of the rapture…

[Part 26 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: Charles Cooper Interview – Prewrath Rapture
Date: 2/2/11
Host: Chris White
Guest: Charles Cooper
Notes: The Prewrath position states that the church will go through the persecution of Antichrist, which is before and distinct from the wrath of God; “Fight, Flight, or Faith: How to Survive the Great Tribulation“, by Charles Cooper; Argument to those who insist that God would ordain it–and that we should be preparing for–an intense guerilla war in response to the persecution of Antichrist; That is a dangerous philosophy to take… that God actually would want us to arm ourselves with all the weaponry that we can have at our disposal and that we are to slaughter, kill, and do everything we can to the wicked when they come to harass us because of our followership of Christ; That is not a New Testament model; We don’t see the New Testament champions of our faith–Peter, James, John, the apostle Paul–responding that way to Rome and the persecution that they suffered; Paul, Peter, James–these pillars of the New Testament–were all martyred; Thousands of believers were cast into the colosseums, fed to the lions, etc., who did it with a smile to honor their privilege of suffering with Christ; People need to understand how intense and how unique that period is; Think of all the scenarios of people who simply will not be able to go hide somewhere; The logistics of it simply just don’t bear out

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run interviews Charles Cooper from the Prewrath Resource Institute about the timing of the rapture…

[Part 25 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: Charles Cooper Interview – Prewrath Rapture
Date: 2/2/11
Host: Chris White
Guest: Charles Cooper
Notes: The greatest danger for people that hold a pretribulational view of the rapture is: The possibility of a significant number of believers being caught off-guard, or caught unawares, and perhaps the disappointment of what they believed, may lead some of them to panic, abandon the faith, try to engage in conduct that perhaps will put them in compromising situations, etc.; It may lead unnecessarily to the death of millions of people because they were unprepared spiritually–they didn’t develop the faith muscles necessary to resist the unparalleled persecution that the New Testament associates with the period that immediately precedes Christ’s return; The issue really revolves around people learning how to live by faith under any condition, such that if our generation is called upon to be that final generation, that millions and millions of true followers of Jesus Christ will not suffer death needlessly simply because they didn’t have the muscles necessary to stand by faith in the face of intense persecution; This is a problem that is probably uniquely Western; The churches of Europe, Africa, and Asia would have very little of a significant change in their life if we went into that final period–they know how to endure under intense persecution; The church in the West–and particularly the American church–is so weak when it comes to persecution that thousands and thousands would die needlessly simply because they don’t know what to do, because they never anticipated being here; Christians panicked and went to pieces after 9/11 and were not able to stand in the confidence and the quietness of their faith, simply because they never thought it would happen; Rather than going into denial and self-preservation, etc., we need to do as Christ instructed for His believers to do, which is to stand by faith and trusting in the sovereign will of God–that God has it under control, that He has His people in His hand, and that nothing can touch us that He does not allow by His own sovereign election

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run explains the Prewrath rapture perspective…

[Part 24 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

[*To get the most out of this teaching, please see the full video presentation by clicking on the link below.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: The Prewrath Rapture – The Rapture Puzzle Solved with Matthew 24
Date: 4/2/11
Host: Chris White
Notes: A visual idea of what the Prewrath view is stating; The rapture takes place at an unknown time after the midpoint… it could be hours, or it could be years; The great tribulation is the time period between the abomination of desolation–which occurs at the midpoint–(this includes the 4th, 5th, and 6th seals of Revelation) and it is cut short by the rapture, which begins the Day of the Lord and God’s wrath, which is the 7th seal in Revelation, in which the scroll is finally open and the wrath begins; It is evident that God’s wrath is poured out after the Day of the Lord begins, but it is the wrath of Satan that takes place before the Day of the Lord; The Bible teaches that we will suffer persecution, but it also teaches that we will not suffer God’s wrath; Many Americans are not going to be ready for the persecutions of this type, and many will fall away, just as Jesus predicted; Jesus makes it absolutely clear that the reason that they will fall away is because of the persecution that they were unprepared for, in conjunction with the false prophets who offer a way out of the persecution by a type of religious compromise; The biggest struggle that this view has is people not understanding what exactly it teaches; Additional resources: Books – “The Rapture Question Answered Plain and Simple“, by Robert Van Kampen, and “God’s Elect and the Great Tribulation“, by Charles Cooper; Websites – PrewrathRapture.com, PreWrathMinistries.org

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run explains the Prewrath rapture perspective…

[Part 23 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

[*To get the most out of this teaching, please see the full video presentation by clicking on the link below.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: The Prewrath Rapture – The Rapture Puzzle Solved with Matthew 24
Date: 4/2/11
Host: Chris White
Notes: A few verses later, in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul talks about this enigmatic “restrainer”; He talks to the Thessalonians like it’s old news; Paul may have gotten his understanding of the identity and purpose for the restrainer from Matthew 24; 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 5-8; The pretribulational view teaches that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit, and that He will be removed with the church at the rapture; There is a scriptural problem here, though… the logic of the restrainer being the Holy Spirit and being removed at the rapture is an impossibility; The scriptural order is: 1) the restrainer is taken out of the way, 2) the Antichrist is revealed, 3) the church is raptured; The answer to the question of who the restrainer is lies in the book of Daniel, in a parallel verse to Matthew 24:15-22; Daniel 12:1; Zechariah 13; It actually appears that Michael stops restraining at the abomination of desolation; Daniel 7:25; Revelation 12:7-10, 12-14; Jude 1:9

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run explains the Prewrath rapture perspective…

[Part 22 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

[*To get the most out of this teaching, please see the full video presentation by clicking on the link below.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: The Prewrath Rapture – The Rapture Puzzle Solved with Matthew 24
Date: 4/2/11
Host: Chris White
Notes: The parousia is a multi-staged event, so the rapture is theologically inseparable from the Day of the Lord, as it is the very first event in the Lord’s parousia; Paul is speaking about the rapture as well as the Day of the Lord; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4; The “falling away”, or “apostasia” in the Greek–the term is only used one other time in the New Testament, in Acts 21:21, where the word “forsake” is the word “apostasia“; In the Septuagint, it’s used five times in the Old Testament (Josh 22:22; 2 Chr 29:19, 33:19; 1 Mac 2:15; Jer 2:19), and every time it means “apostasy” or “rebellion” in a religious or political sense… never in a spacial or physical sense

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run explains the Prewrath rapture perspective…

[Part 21 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

[*To get the most out of this teaching, please see the full video presentation by clicking on the link below.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: The Prewrath Rapture – The Rapture Puzzle Solved with Matthew 24
Date: 4/2/11
Host: Chris White
Notes: 2 Thessalonians 2:3; Paul reminds them that a “falling away” must happen first; This word is used exclusively in the Bible as a falling away of faith; The Greek word is “apostasia“; Matthew 24:9-12; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4; This is a clear refutation of the pillars of pretribulationalism–namely, that there are no events that need to happen before the rapture; It would also mean that the Antichrist must be revealed before the rapture; That word “coming”, or “parousia“, is the same word used in 1 Thess. 4, when Paul is definitely talking about the rapture; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10; Paul’s theology was that the rapture and the Day of The Lord were logically inseparable, back-to-back events; This verse only makes sense if you know that Paul considers the rapture happening on the very day that the Day of the Lord begins; The subject in verse 1–the rapture–never changes; When Paul says the “day of Christ” and “that day”, He’s talking about the “parousia”, which starts with the rapture

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run explains the Prewrath rapture perspective…

[Part 20 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

image source

[*To get the most out of this teaching, please see the full video presentation by clicking on the link below.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: The Prewrath Rapture – The Rapture Puzzle Solved with Matthew 24
Date: 4/2/11
Host: Chris White
Notes: Matthew 24′s relevance to the church; Beside the book of Revelation, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians are the most prophetic books in the New Testament; Just like Revelation Chapter 6, the Thessalonian letters make the same Prewrath case in the same sequence as Matthew 24; Primarily what Paul taught the Thessalonians in regard to the rapture amounts to a Bible study of Matthew 24; This shouldn’t be a surprise because Paul tells us that his teaching on the end times came from the Lord in 1 Thess. 4:15; Connection between these classic rapture passages and our Lord’s plain and simple teaching; 20 parallels in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians and Matthew 24, put together by Alan Kurschner; These parallels are not supposed to exist if Matthew 24 is not for the church; These two passages are talking about the exact same events, and in the exact same sequence; 2 Thessalonians 2 is by far the most difficult passage for a pretribulationalist; 2 Thess. 2:1-4; Paul says that neither the falling away, nor the Antichrist revealing himself in the temple had happened, and so therefore the rapture could not have happened yet either; Paul is essentially reminding them of the Bible study he gave them of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24); He is about to remind them of what events need to happen before the “gathering together”; This exact same phrase in English–”gathering together”–and the Greek–”episynagōgē“–are used by Jesus in Matthew 24 to refer to the rapture; Paul says, “Don’t you remember that before the “gathering together”, Jesus told us that the abomination of desolation that Daniel spoke of must happen”, (which if you look it up in Daniel–as Jesus instructed them to do–you will see that this is when the man of sin sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God); So Paul says, “You haven’t seen that happen yet, have you? Well then, that’s a sign that the “gathering together” hasn’t happened either.”

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run explains the Prewrath rapture perspective…

[Part 19 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

[*To get the most out of this teaching, please see the full video presentation by clicking on the link below.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: The Prewrath Rapture – The Rapture Puzzle Solved with Matthew 24
Date: 4/2/11
Host: Chris White
Notes: We’ve already seen how the rapture in Matthew 24:31 compares to all the other rapture passages, as well as how much it doesn’t compare to the Armageddon passages that pretribulationalists say that it refers to; This view causes some major problems with the text in Matthew 24; Jews are not hated because of the name of Christ; The word “elect” is never used in the New Testament to refer to Jews; Matthew 24:15-20; “your flight” is happening either way–just because these two verses mention Judea and the sabbath, it does not mean that this chapter is for Jews… they’re only speaking of the events concerning a very important event called the “abomination of desolation”

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio

Chris White from Nowhere to Run explains the Prewrath rapture perspective…

[Part 18 of a 27-Part series. Click here for Part 1.]

[*To get the most out of this teaching, please see the full video presentation by clicking on the link below.]

Show: Nowhere to Run
Full Video: The Prewrath Rapture – The Rapture Puzzle Solved with Matthew 24
Date: 4/2/11
Host: Chris White
Notes: The sign has been given warning the world of God’s impending wrath, the righteous are now raptured and safe in heaven, and now the Day of the Lord–the wrath on the wicked–should begin; Revelation 8:1-7; Silence in heaven; We see the contrast here… while the six seals were bad–wars and famines, persecutions–it pales in comparison to just Day 1 of the wrath of God, in which a third of the trees are burned up and all the green grass is burned up; There’s enough evidence to convict that these two passages (Matthew 24:37-39 and Revelation 8:1-7) are parallel to one another; Matthew 24 is for the church; Matthew 16:18; Matthew 18:15-20; Matthew 24:31,36

Play audio in browser:

Download

Download audio