The Prophetic Years website gets emails that have questions that often address issues that are not addressed on my website and blog or would not be easy to find if I had addressed these issues somewhere. I have selected five such emails below. I did edit them where appropriate so the senders could remain anonymous and for grammatical and subject clarity.<\/p>\n
Question:<\/strong><\/p>\n I’ll try to be brief: Thanks for you website.\u00a0 I only wish I had more time to spend in it.\u00a0 It is hard to find trustworthy information and good study material these days. In II Peter Chapt. 3.\u00a0 the coming judgment of the God on the earth.\u00a0\u00a0 Is it safe to say that that particular judgment is after the Rapture and the Thousand year reign?<\/p>\n One more thing, we have had a couple of folk leave our church because the Pastor and I will not teach the “how of the resurrected body”, we believe and teach the resurrection, but for me I cannot teach the “how God is gonna do it”. Don’ s answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n II Peter chapter 3 is difficult to place in prophecy. The first part of the chapter is obviously talking about what people are saying before the Lord’s coming for His Church. However, verse 10 through the rest of the chapter seems to be talking about after the thousand-year reign. Or that part of the passage actually could have a lessor and greater fulfillment in the renewal of the atmosphere and earth at the end of this age and the renewal of the heaven and earth after the thousand-year reign and final rebellion.<\/p>\n One thing for sure is that we should not dogmatically build doctrine on just one difficult passage that on the surface seems to both support and contradict other positions.<\/p>\n Those that are going to leave fellowship over minor non-essential issues of doctrine probably would have found some other reason to do so anyway. As a teacher you must teach your understandings of the scriptures. If you just preach what people want to hear you fail being a teacher.<\/p>\n We will receive a new physical body. The Bible is clear that we shall be like Jesus. Jesus rose His body from the grave and He has substance and form and even ate food. Caterpillars seem to die but they become butterflies, so is it so great a mystery that human bodies are just the first stage of what we were designed to become at the resurrection?<\/p>\n Jesus compared our human body to a seed. The seed does not look anything like what it will become until it is put in ground and God raises it up. Another way of looking at it, is our soul is software that runs on a hardware platform called the body. Now it runs on a limited defective earthly platform that soon breaks down and decays but in the resurrection our soul will run on a perfect incorruptible platform that lives on forever. By the way, when the Bible talks about resurrection it is always talking about resurrection in a physical body.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Question:<\/strong><\/p>\n I have been reading from your site and I will read some more. You say that Jesus was 100% God,do you mean that Jesus was God or God the Son or something else….Do you believe in keeping the Sabbath day etc……….<\/p>\n Don’s answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n Jesus was 100 percent God and 100 percent man. YHWH\/Jesus is the only express Image of the Father (Heb 1:3). The Father is Spirit and He transcends creation and no one in creation can know the Father except through the Son. It is not like the Father had a Son, the Son always existed as the express Image of God and all things in creation were created through Him by Him and for Him (Eph 3:9, Col 1:16). The Son is one with the Father. It is also the reason no other image of God is acceptable to God, He already has a visible Image and that is His Son. In my opinion, the Begotten Son is the one and only visible Image of God that His creation can see. The Son perfectly reflects the Father’s glory so we see the Father’s glory through the Son.<\/p>\n Therefore, the Son eternally existed with the Father as the Image of God and is the very same being that revealed Himself to Israel before His incarnation as a human. God became human to save the human race from their sins after Adam’s sin brought the human race sin, death, and separation from God. Sin has now been paid for by the Lamb of God and all those that trust in God’s righteousness to save mankind through His risen God\/Man Messiah will be saved. These are born into His spiritual body as a new creation and they also will take on the God\/Man nature of Jesus at the first resurrection.<\/p>\n Those in Jesus are to die daily to their own sinful works and do works of faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. Allowing God to do His works through those in the spiritual body of Christ is the true fulfillment of believers being in the Sabbath rest. Christians are told not to keep days or to look down on those brothers with lesser understanding that do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Question:<\/strong><\/p>\n I have a quick question about Christians being able to see evil spirits.\u00a0 I had a Christian friend tell me that their family had a “visitor.”\u00a0 I asked what she meant and she said that they see an evil spirit from time to time in their home.\u00a0 I asked her what she believed she saw.\u00a0 She said it’s like a black shadow of quick movement.\u00a0 I asked her if that was really possible, and she said yes, because the Bible speaks of discerning spirits.\u00a0 I told her that this is not what I believed the scripture to mean. It was not about seeing the spirit.\u00a0 I told her all of the examples I could think of and have run across doing some research were instances of evil spirits entering and leaving people\/animals not actually seeing some sort of shadowy figure.<\/p>\n Could you offer more insight into this?\u00a0 After asking several Christians to point out an example or teaching in the Bible none was given to me, however, many people had related having similar experiences.\u00a0 I’m seeking clarification to see if this is something actually supported by scripture. Don’s answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n There is nothing in the Bible about seeing evil spirits. Disembodied demonic spirits are invisible spirits that seek to possess living beings to control.<\/p>\n Why do people claim these things? They are looking for them and they set up expectations that brings about hysteria in themselves and others. It is popular in Pentecostalism and spiritualism.<\/p>\n Mentalists make a living out of making people see things that are not there. Suggestion and implanted autosuggestion can play tricks on the mind. It has nothing to do with discerning of spirits. That was a gift of the Holy Spirit that helped keep the Church from being deceived by evil spirits before the Cannon of scripture was available to the Church to judge doctrine and practices that are not of God.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Question:<\/strong><\/p>\n I began studying eschatology, doctrine, apostasy in earnest about 16 months ago. Spending lots of time reading comments on articles and blogs on these topics, I have been bothered by a couple of things. Bottom line, when I read comments from believers who have other areas of their doctrine correct, yet hold to amill or replacement theology and are so dogmatic about it, I just cannot imagine them in\u00a0 heaven with me.** They don’t believe in the rapture, so why would they want to be part of it? What will their reaction be? Why do some of us “see” it and others don’t who seem like real believers?<\/p>\n **I am not implying a belief in partial rapture. The whole bride will go in the rapture!<\/p>\n Would appreciate your thoughts.<\/p>\n Don’s answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. True believers agree with the essential doctrines for faith and practice, but the churches have seen dimly on points in eschatology for various reasons. All orthodox believers believe in a literal second coming of Jesus but how they handle the prophetic scriptures differs according to their belief about Israel. Most in mainline churches do not believe in a literal future Israel, so for these, all prophetic scriptures is now about the spiritual Church.<\/p>\n Those that believe that everything is now about the Church and that God is done with Israel obviously had to make passages that spoke of a literal restoration of a natural Israel to be allegory or about something spiritual in the Church.<\/p>\n Basically, there is the Preterist view that all the prophecies about the end times took place in 70 AD. There is the Historicist view that the prophecies are playing out all through Church history. There is the Idealist view that makes prophecy allegory about a spiritual battle between good and evil and then you have the Futurist view that believes that unfilled prophecy will be fulfilled in a literal sense as they believe a common sense reading of the author requires.<\/p>\n Keep in mind, that for most of church history the common people never had access to the scriptures so people just believed what theologians and the clergy told them. That is still true in most mainline churches. People in these churches generally do not read the Bible for themselves.<\/p>\n With the printing press, the Bible became accessible to all, and some people read it for themselves using common sense interpretations. They saw that a lot of what the mostly amillennial theologians were saying were far-fetched interpretations. Even whole denominations could not agree on the meanings of the allegories. From the clear teaching in the scriptures there simply was no reason to believe that the future prophetic scriptures would not be fulfilled as written just as previous Bible prophecies were literally fulfilled as written.\u00a0 So new theologies came about that taught if the interpretation of the prophecies made common sense using common sense rules of grammar that fit the context of what the rest of the passage said, people should not be searching for some allegorical or mystical spiritual meaning.<\/p>\n It all now comes down to how one handles the scriptures. Those that take prophetic scripture in the grammatical historical context hermeneutic, take what is said at face value. The others are still interpreting scripture through passed down theologies and erroneous replacement or super-secession theologies about Israel that cannot be supported by any common sense interpretation of the scriptures. If people use normal commonsense rules of language to interpret Bible prophecy, it makes sense to anyone that read it and believes what the author said. If teachers use their theology to reinterpret what the author said, it only makes sense to those that buy into their conjecture.<\/p>\n It is very difficult to make those blinded by preconceived theologies to see truth. It is not a failing of the Holy Spirit to lead men to the truth, it is the failing of men to study the truth given to show themselves approved. Also, end time doctrine was not critical for the Church to know since most future prophecy is about Israel and takes place after the Rapture of the Church. Unfortunately, Replacement Theology did lead to persecution of the Jews, but I hardly think that real Christians carried that out. Today, I think it is more important for the Church to know that time is short because it is short. Jesus will be coming for His Church very soon now.<\/p>\n 2. The apostasy has been ongoing since Paul departed and is ever increasing in what is called Christendom. Those speaking about a departure from the faith in the end times were talking about those identifying with Christendom as a whole but departing from the foundations of the faith that were set in the New Testament. We see that taking place today in a big way. Many of the biggest denominations, churches and the most popular “Christian” leaders\u00a0 are teaching a different gospel then the one clearly given in scripture. They are apostate.<\/p>\n They were not once believers that became Apostate, because if they had believed salvation doctrine to start with they would not have departed from it. These have a low view of scripture. They simply do not really believe that the Bible is uniquely the inerrant word of God, even if they confess to their followers such a belief. Some of these just think the Bible is a work of men. Others will add other “holy books” and some will claim to have received new revelation that they will claim is just as inspired as what the scriptures say. Probably more than half of the new evangelicals are in these camps. They are apostate.<\/p>\n True Christians do not depart from the faith because those elected to be saved were predestined before the foundations of the world to hear, believe, and receive Christ. Those given to Jesus hear the Word, believe, and are saved. Jesus loses none given to Him. However, the sad fact is that most in our modern churches are not true Christians.<\/p>\n 3. There are a lot of people who think they are Christians because they belong to some denomination or church or are a church leader. In fact, they are the vast majority within “Christendom”. Many, think that because they once were pressured into saying some confession of faith that they are saved. Man is only saved by hearing the words of God, turning from their own sinful efforts to save themselves and instead trusting in the Messiah that God sent to take away their sins so they can be reconciled to God and receive His Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n Having said that, some true Christians are misled by others or have strange views on eschatology because they have mental disorders. Some are paranoid loonies and some have delusions of grandeur. The real question is why so many “Christians” hang on every word of the mentally deranged? A prime example is the New Apostolic Reformation cult at IHOP with Rick Joiner, Mike Bickle and the rest of the third wave signs and wonders Dominion Theology mental case leaders and another example is the Word of Faith speak it into existence clone leaders.<\/p>\n I hope that clarifies things a bit,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Question:<\/strong><\/p>\n Have you considered the upcoming astrological events and cycles based on the NASA website where it is posted the solar and lunar eclipse catalogs?\u00a0 NASA has catalogs of these events for that cover 5 millennia and there will be some interesting astrological events beginning to occur starting in 2014 thru 2015.<\/p>\n NASA is projecting the 8th Lunar Eclipse Tetrad to occur in the previous 2 millennia.\u00a0 These consecutive total lunar eclipses have occurred most recently during 1967\/68, 1949\/50 and 1492.\u00a0 The next projected Tetrad will not occur again in another 500 years.\u00a0 Of course with the Jewish calendar revolving on lunar cycles these “blood moons” will fall on Passover 4\/15\/2013, Tabernacles 10\/08\/2014, Passover 4\/4\/2015 and Tabernacles 9\/28\/2015.\u00a0 What’s quite interesting is that two solar eclipse will be occurring during this cycle.\u00a0 Rosh Hoshana 3\/20\/2015 and a total solar eclipse on Feast of Trumpets 9\/13\/2105.<\/p>\n Recently I had an opportunity to speak with a Jewish Rabbi, here in Las Vegas, and he answered some questions about Sabbatical\/Shemita years and Jubilee\/Yovel years.\u00a0 In the fall of 2014 thru 2015, 5775 of the Jewish calendar, will be a Shemita year.\u00a0 And if all the tribes were gathered in Israel, this Shemita would be their 7th Shemita year since 1967 and 2015-2016\/5776 would be a Jubilee year for Judaism.\u00a0 Furthermore, this Jubilee\/Yovel would be the 70th Yovel to occur since 1415 BC which is the approximate time that Israel entered into the promised land.\u00a0 I find it interesting that a Jubilee year occurred in 1967, the year Israel recovered Jerusalem and the previous Tetrad of Lunar Eclipses and though 1917 wasn’t a Tetrad Cycle, it was a Jubilee year and the year the England issued the Balfour declaration that indicated England would support the foundation of a Jewish state and the year Ottomans lost Palestine during World War 1.<\/p>\n In regards to your previous posts on the web, have you ever considered a connection with these upcoming dates?\u00a0 How would they fit in with end times eschatology?\u00a0 The Rabbi mentioned off-hand that some observant Jews believe that the appearance of Meshiach Ben David will appear with the advent of this Yovel.<\/p>\n Thank your for you attention to this email.<\/p>\n Don’s Answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n I wish I had a dollar for every-time someone told me about these blood moons and coming Jubilees.<\/p>\n The 2014 and 2015 events might have some significance to some event in Israel but these natural reoccurring blood moons are certainly not what Joel and Jesus were talking about. Keep in mind that also the sun will be turned dark, the seas will be roaring, and people will be hiding in holes in the ground for fear of what they see coming on the earth. If what is spoken about is a natural event, it could be nothing less than a great comet causing these things or a Pole shift. The heavens will be shaken. This is not talking about eclipses but that is what these so-called blood moons are.<\/p>\n As for Jubilees, people are all over the map on the dates of future Jubilees – there is no common agreement, just Google it for yourself.<\/p>\n I simply do not think that Rabbi’s have any inside knowledge of end time events. The Jews are still blinded. They rejected their Messiah and continually prove that they cannot save themselves. I am sure if you talked to this Rabbi he would think that God will now fight for Israel. However, scripture says the Jews will flee to the mountains from the Beast and two-thirds in Israel will be killed in the still coming time of Jacob’s trouble.<\/p>\n I just do not see the last seven years for Israel playing out this decade. Keep in mind, that some people have seen the end coming in their own decade since at least 1948 and they all came up with what they thought were reasonable explanations why they thought it would happen in their decade. They were all wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Prophetic Years website gets emails that have questions that often address issues that are not addressed on my website and blog or would not be easy to find if I had addressed these issues somewhere. I have selected five such emails below. I did edit them where appropriate so the senders could remain anonymous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,38,5,88,45],"tags":[171,342,53,352,320,167,57,58,125,85,317,51,132,150,130,54,52],"class_list":["post-6137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostasy","category-bible-prophecy-teachers","category-church-movements","category-discernment","category-the-church","tag-amillennialism","tag-apostasy","tag-bible-prophecy","tag-discernment","tag-dominion-theology","tag-food-for-thought","tag-heresy","tag-movements","tag-new-apostolic-reformation","tag-new-spirituality","tag-perspectives","tag-postmodern","tag-prosperity-gospel","tag-teaching","tag-theology","tag-trends","tag-word-of-faith"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pawsE-1AZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepropheticyears.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI’ve been studying and teaching\u00a0 a small church adult class in II Peter 2 about false prophets and teachers, needless to say, there are so many forms of false prophets today. It is easy to pick out some of them and others are a bit more difficult to recognize, and those would be the most dangerous.\u00a0 Some of your articles have been helpful.<\/p>\n
\nThey have trouble with the term “new body”, but the descriptions I read in the Bible, certainly are gonna be “new To Me.\u00a0 And I also believe as John said, that when he shall appear we shall be like him.\u00a0 Is that enough or should we try to determine the “how God is gonna do this”?\u00a0 Those that left have effected two families and caused some young folk to stop coming as well.<\/p>\n
\nThank you for your time,<\/p>\n
\n1.\u00a0 If the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to lead us in to all truth and teach us the Word, how come so many sincere believers (who have other aspects of doctrine correct) disagree on end times? For that matter, why so many disagreements on other doctrines?\u00a0 I believe, through study, He led me to understand pretrib, premil dispensational view and I just cannot see how anyone can figure otherwise?!
\n2.\u00a0 When Paul describes the falling away apostasy, is he inferring actual believers are some of those? Because that doesn’t seem possible to me.<\/p>\n