Partial Rapture And Dispensational Punishment

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

... the key to eternal/everlasting life is to believe, not to be able to say that at some prior point in time that you believed. In other words, when the critical time comes, do you believe, or is it something you no longer subscribe to even though you believed in the past. It seems that this still allows for the assurance of salvation. If I do believe, then I am assured of salvation. If I do not believe, even though I can argue that I once believed, at this point I do not and therefore cannot be assured of salvation.

I like this consideration, especially the first sentence. "But when the Lord comes, will he find faith?" Faith is today. "Now is the hour of salvation." There's no other hour, really.

But my faith is different, today. I no longer believe a lot that was pressed on me once. (Much of it I don't disbelieve, either. There simply isn't definitive clarity. But I reject the pressure.)

But what mainly comes to mind, on this forum, is that some have come forward and said that even after years of immersion in LC "church life", up to and including FTTA, that they no longer believe in Jesus Christ. This suggests that they realise and reject what was a manufactured experience and a manipulated decision. And even as a professing Christian, I can't argue with that.

The partial rapture, the thousand-year interregnum of bliss or torment, the NJ and who are the "nations" (of whom WL taught that they live forever but don't have eternal life [???])... all this has been subject to discussion and conjecture, some of it perhaps well-founded. But the truth to me is that God loved me and sent his Son, and today is an opportunity waiting.

John 3:8 "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." I believe that we actually can hear, according to John 3:8. There's a reason so many acclaimed Jesus as Messiah! They could hear! (Cf John 4, esp v 34) But there's a lot that we still cannot tell, according to the same verse. So a bit of deference, circumspection and reticence is in order.

"The LORD who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion." ~Psa 134

One may conceptualise this blessing variously, according to one's culturally-aligned perspective. But if I believe that there's something there, then I'll respond, in that same singular faith that motivated them of old. "Seek, and ye shall find."