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Old 12-27-2009, 12:02 AM   #15
Faithwalker012
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Re: Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

Thank you for your input Truly.

I'm going to see if I can more or less finish up with my points here tonight. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. We'll see.

You know, I mentioned that God really can't use someone who is hoping to fly out of here, to flee before the battle actually starts. I have a lot of credit to give and a lot of respect and love for Arnold Murray and the Shepherd's Chapel teachings and ministry. Not only did he help show me a lot of truths in the bible, he taught me how to look for them myself. Now, he uses a series of verses from Ezekiel as kind of God's view of this rapture theory. The more I mull it over in my own head, the more I don't know for sure that we can say it's God speaking out against the rapture, per se. But I think it does work in the sense that it kind of applies to that mindset, that way of thinking. I'll go ahead and bring your attention to the verses and then you can reason it out for yourself.

This comes from the book of Ezekiel, Chapter 13. Now, the whole chapter is God speaking out against false prophets. Now, it is interesting that the first 16 verses deal more or less with false prophets and that from verse 17 kind of til the end it deals with false prophetesses(women). Now, this is nothing against women because certainly after 16 verses dealing with incorrect, false male prophets and what they say, both sexes are kind of dealt with here. It is interesting that again, when talking about women, you had this woman, or girl in Margaret MacDonald with this vision. Now again, can we say that it directly addresses this? Well, I'll leave it up to you to decide. But there are definitely reasons there in what's said to go down that road, so to speak.

Starting with verse 17...

Ezekiel 13:17 Likewise, thou son of man, set they face against the daughters of thy People, which prophesy out of their own heart, and prophesy thou against them,
13:18 And say,Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will we hunt the souls of My People, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?
What this is saying basically, is going back first to verse 17, that should be obvious. You have these women, again nothing against women, it's just it is addressing women here, who claim to have a vision or prophecy from God, when it is something they either dreamed up, or perhaps came from some other negative spirit. But in verse 18, it's very interesting what is truly being discussed. This sewing pillows to all armholes refers to trying to sew pillows or coverings over the outstretched hands and arms of God Himself. If you want to see a comparison, check out Isaiah 52:10 where it says the Lord has made bare his Holy Arm to the eyes of all the nations,and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. God Himself made His arm bare so that everyone could see it and see and partake of salvation, so you don't want to sew coverings over that bare arm, made bare by God Himself. You don't want to try to cover up God's salvation and His plan. As it stands, you can't anyway, and we'll even see that in these verses. But you certainly don't even want to try. He doesn't look kindly upon that. The Hebrew word for pillows is actually ksathoth, from kasah, which means to conceal or hide. So you have God with his arm outstretched bare offering salvation, and these "prophetesses" are trying to conceal it. What do you suppose He thinks of that? These kerchiefs on the head, what's on your head or on your face? Your eyes, naturally. So they're covering up or trying to cover up God's bare saving arms with pillows to hide them, and they're putting kerchiefs on the heads of the people to cover their eyes so they can't see! Again, do you think God will stand for that. Stature refers to important people, like the rulers of Jerusalem. But let me just throw this out there, what about preachers? Do you think preachers/supposed bible teachers, shepherds if you will, are important and of a high stature to God? Really you might say they are of higher stature to God, because rulers come and go, and for that matter so do preachers. But preachers are supposed to be feeding people spiritually and helping win souls to God's kingdom. Again, just throwing this out here, who was one of the first people who supposedly bought in to this "rapture vision" of Margaret MacDonald? It was a preacher in John Darby, and he spread that idea quickly through the churches. And this last statement is kind of one of God almost mocking these prophetesses asking if they can save the souls that they ensnare when they hunt them. Naturally, they can't save souls or give eternal life to souls. Only God can.

13:19 And will ye pollute Me among My People for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live by your lying to My People that hear your lies?

This is getting pretty serious here because it's accusing them ultimately of selling people out and really probably even worse selling God out since they claim it's God given prophecy for a little bit of barely, a few pieces of bread, a little money or notoriety, gaining a few followers, and giving false teaching that would cause a person who buys into it to ultimately go to hell. Once again too, they can't give life or promise eternal life, or can't keep that promise, especially to those who don't truly follow God.

13:20 Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.
Now, again, isn't it interesting that we're talking about souls flying here. What's that song, or how's it go, "I'll fly away, I'll meet Jesus in the sky?" Now, again, does it specifically refer to the rapture? Well, once again you can decide for yourself. But it is worth mentioning too going back to 1st Thessalonians 4 where it says we meet the Lord in the air, the word air is not "sky" in the Greek, but rather refers to the spiritual or breath of life body. I'll try to go back there again.
13:21 Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver My People out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

Now again, I don't know that we can say this specifically refers to the rapture, but I think we can see some similarities. Certainly Margaret MacDonald had her vision over 2000 years after this time. But, as I said we do have types and kind of repeats that occur again many years after the verse or verses were written. I mean, even today you still have people who would claim to have visions from God and a personal message from God. While that may or may not be the case, you certainly should never just take a person's word for it without checking them out in God's Word. If a person claims that they received a new vision or personal vision from God on how the end would be or when it's coming, and how and when He's coming, you can almost be 100% positive in all likelihood that they are either out and out lying, or deceived. Because He told us all that already in His Word. I guess too that this would really be my whole point. How many of you, how many of us at some point in our lives can say if we're honest, "I believe that those verses in 1st Thessalonians 4 are describing the rapture because every pastor and evangelist I've heard from say that is the case. I can. I'll admit, I heard or read commentary that said 1st Thess 4:16-18 is describing the rapture, and then I opened up my bible, read it, and thought, yep that's clearly talking about the rapture. But what I was failing to do was first of all, pick up the proper subject, and secondly reason it out in my head taking not only those verses but the whole of the Word into account. I was only going as far as to accept the "common theory" and like almost every other rapture believer, making scripture fit into the context of that preconceived notion, rather than checking out or even really knowing how to check out whether the notion and theory was biblically correct.

I'm actually not quite done yet. I want to touch on the trumps, the change into our spiritual bodies at the moment Christ returns, and then that should pretty much wrap it up.

Jason
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