70th Week Study
Examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so. Acts 17:11b


Read my doctrinal statement

This website is dedicated to all those who have been taught Bible prophecy but have never thoroughly studied the Scriptures themselves to see what is unquestionably true and what is only assumed. Those who only look at the verses that a Bible teacher refers to can be easily led astray. It is my hope and prayer that this website will convince many of the need to diligently study Bible prophecy directly from the Scriptures. I pray that they will not only begin to diligently study the Scripture, but that they will allow what they see to remake the way they think.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (NASB, Rom. 12:2)
The way we think affects the way we act or at least it should. Too often we are being taught to divorce doctrine from daily life. May we allow the Scriptures to dictate the way we think and act. Although I put forward and defend a particular interpretation, my ultimate goal is not to convince you of every detail of my interpretation, but rather to convince you to re-evaluate what you believe in the light of Scripture. I also hope to encourage you to live out your doctrine in your everyday life.

The doctrine of the rapture brings much hope to believers in Christ. This doctrine gives us confidence that fellow Christians who have already died will one day live again and spend eternity with us in God’s presence. It also gives us confidence that if we are following God we will not have to endure God’s wrath against the followers of anti-Christ. These are truly blessed truths that give us hope. However there are those who use the rapture doctrine as a cloak of protection while living uncommitted lives. The rapture does not give us a free pass!
17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (NASB, I Pe. 4:17)
God will judge Christians first! There is no free pass. Just because we are no longer headed for the lake of fire does not mean there are not serious consequences for sin. God’s judgment of believers is disciplinary not punitive, but it is still judgment!
19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent (NASB, Rev. 3:19).
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.” 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons (NASB, Heb. 12:6-8).
Don’t be deceived. The rapture is not an insurance policy. The church will be disciplined severely for it’s lukewarmness. Difficult days are ahead for the Church. Seek God with all your heart and He will help you, but if you think you can live an uncommitted life and escape God’s judgment, you have been deceived!

One day when I was still attending Dallas Bible college, the pastor of my church and I were painting the weather beaten youth building. While we were painting, the pastor asked me a question. “If you knew the rapture was going to occur tomorrow, what would you be doing today?” I thought about it a minute and answered honestly. “I don’t know what I would be doing, but I certainly would not be painting the youth building.” He was surprised by my answer, but it made perfect sense. Why paint a building that is going to be abandoned the next day? If I knew I was going to die the next day, painting the church building would still be profitable because others would still enjoy the fruits of my labor. However, if the Church were raptured the next day, the church building would be abandoned. This was when I realized that the imminent rapture doctrine was not something we could base our daily lives on. However, I had been told that there was no other reasonable alternative, so I just took it by faith.
Then in the year two thousand, a Godly and scholarly friend of mine began questioning whether the pre-trib rapture doctrine was actually Biblical. Encouraged by my own doubts and his questions, I began to read and re-read prophetic Scripture passages and also to pray that God would give me understanding. After a lot of Scripture reading, I began making sequence charts of events described in a single passage and then comparing them with other passages. All the time I was continuing to ask God to give me insight. I carefully compared events that appeared to overlap. On closer analysis, many of those events proved to be distinct events. However, my close analysis of each passage began to reveal certain sequential clues. Although it took about five years to come up with my current time line, it took much less time to see that the time line I had been taught was not consistent with Scripture. I began to realize that the pre-trib view was far from the only credible view. Even before I had heard about the prewrath view, I had come to believe that the rapture was sometime between the middle and the end of Daniel’s 70th week. As a result of the similarities, someone gave me a copy of Rosenthal’s book, The Prewrath Rapture of the Church. While I do not agree with everything in the book, it was encouraging to see that others were seeing some of the same issues that I was seeing.

However the question still arises, how do I dare question the pre-trib doctrine which is so widely held in the church today? How could so many people be wrong about something? To answer this, just look at history. For many years very few dared to question the teachings of the Catholic Church even though those same teachings are widely rejected today. Going back a little farther in history, the scribes and pharisees did not believe Jesus was the Messiah even though He fulfilled a host of prophecies which they knew very well. It is clear that majority opinion does not necessarily constitute correct doctrine. We cannot assume a doctrine is Biblical just because it is widely accepted, even if it is widely accepted among the scholars of the day. The scholars of today risk their jobs and reputations if they consider other views. This has a tremendous blinding effect. Furthermore, busy schedules keep many repeating what they have been taught rather than making a thorough evaluation themselves. We must study the Scriptures for ourselves (Acts 17:11). In doing so, we must be very careful. We must not teach any doctrine until we verify that it is consistent with the whole of Scripture. There is no excuse for careless Bible study. At the same time we must be willing to reject popular teaching if we have done our homework and found the teaching to conflict with Scripture.

The next question that comes up is, does it really matter when we think the rapture will take place? The answer is an emphatic, Yes. I see several potential dangers with the pre-trib view.

-The pre-trib view sets up expectations which, if wrong, will cause great disillusionment, and will open people up to being deceived during the tribulation period. Many people have been led to believe that a pre-trib rapture is a promise of the Bible. When a promise is broken, we begin to question all the promises given by the same source. If the rapture does not occur pre-trib, people will be sitting ducks for those who question the authority of Scripture. We are repeatedly warned about being deceived during the end times (Matt. 24:4-5, 11, 24; Mark 13:6, 21-23; II Thes. 2:3). We must be very sure before we say the Bible promises something. It is a very dangerous thing to say the Bible promises something that it does not promise.

-The logical result of an imminent rapture view is that people will hope for imminent rescue from their troubles. This type of hope might feel good in the moment, but it doesn't last and it may keep us from taking the proper steps to stand strong through our troubles. Now I am not saying that all pre-tribers have this problem, but I have seen people who do. The problem is that the imminent rapture doctrine lends itself to this type of false hope.

- It is virtually impossible to be watchful for an any moment event. We are commanded to be watchful (Matt. 24:42-43; 25:13; Mk. 13:33-37; Lk. 12:37; 21:36; I Thess. 5:4-6).

- If we assume that we will be raptured before any other prophesied events occur, we are tempted to ignore prophecy which is a large portion of the Scriptures. Indeed many Bible teachers today are ignoring Bible prophecy and encouraging other to do the same. Prophecy is part of Scripture. We ignore it at our own peril (Rev. 1:3, 7, 11, 17-19; 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22)!

Because of these dangers, I finally decided that studying prophecy for myself was not enough. Even though some will take offense, I must do what I can to help others understand prophecy. Current events are a constant reminder that the time is short. Don't get caught by surprise! Study the Scriptures diligently without ignoring any topics.


We Are Commanded to Take Prophecy to Heart
'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' (NASB, Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 29, 3:6, 13, 22)
Note that these verses do not say, “Hear what the Spirit says to your church.” The entire book of Revelation was addressed to all seven churches (Rev. 1:4). All believers are told to hear the entire message.
There is a Blessing Associated with Taking Prophecy to Heart
Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near. (Rev. 1:3)
You cannot heed a message that you do not understand. Understanding Bible prophecy takes more than a once in a lifetime read through. It takes study.
So That We Will Not be Easily Shaken or Deceived
That you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. (II Thes. 2:2-3)
In this case, the Thessalonians were shaken and deceived by a counterfeit message. Satan is still the father of lies, he still sends counterfeit messages. The Thessalonians received this counterfeit message from “reputable” sources (see vs. 2). Even “reputable” sources can be wrong. The Scriptures are the one thing we have that are always correct. Will you believe the counterfeit message or are you well grounded in the truth of Scripture?

I do not believe the rapture could happen at any moment. There are many reasons I do not believe in an any moment rapture. One reason is, if I tried to apply that belief to everyday life, life would become almost impossible to live. Stop to think about it, if the rapture will happen at any moment, we are wasting precious time and money painting our house, changing the oil in our car or anything else which has little immediate value. Talk about being shaken from our composure! If we understood the ramifications of an any moment rapture, it would shake us as it did the Thessalonians in II Thessalonians 3:11. Don’t be easily shaken, study the Scriptures!
So That We Will Know When Christ’s Return is Near
Even so you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. (Matt. 24:33)
Jesus said these words to the disciples, the first Christians. They never saw the things described, but some generation of Christians will see them. I believe it is our generation. Matthew goes on to say that no one except God the Father knows the day and hour (Matt. 24:36). Verse thirty-three is telling us that even though we will not know the day, we should know when the time is approaching. If we do not know the prophecies, we will not even know when Christ’s return is near. We may even think that His return is imminent long before it is.

Misinterpretations of prophecy come from three main issues; preconceived ideas that are not Scriptural, insufficient study and a poor understanding of the nature of Scripture. Of these three, perhaps the most insidious problem is a poor understanding of the nature of Scripture. Scripture is God’s Word. As such, it is without error because God cannot lie or make mistakes. This means we must compare Scripture with Scripture because there can be no true contradictions in Scripture. However the Scripture is given to us through the vehicle of normal human language. As such, there are variations of style and perspective. A failure to fully appreciate the use of normal human language has led to two extremes.
The first extreme is allegorical interpretation. Allegorical interpretation is heavily dependant on the imagination of the reader. Much has already been written against this type of interpretation so I will only add my voice to theirs. Despite the fact that most people reject the idea of allegorical interpretation, many still practice it. Be on the alert, don’t accept allegorical interpretations.
The second extreme is the use of strict rules of interpretation. Those who take this extreme, interpret Scripture in a very mechanical manner. The output of computer generated translations should be enough to convince anyone that understanding language is more than just a mechanical process. The important thing is to discover what the author was trying to communicate. This cannot be done effectively with a list of mechanical rules. To illustrate this further consider a mother talking to her three year old and a university professor talking to his students. The mother may say “grass is green.” No one would think twice about the mother’s statement. It is obviously true and accurate. However, if a university professor were to make the same statement, many would be quick to challenge his statement. The mother was making a general statement and we all understand that without consulting a rule book. The professor on the other hand must qualify general statements or they will be interpreted as absolute statements. The mother and the professor are extreme examples but there is a whole range of more subtle issues that we use on a daily basis to interpret what people mean by what they say.
Bible teachers have used various rules in an honorable but misguided attempt to stay true to the Scriptures. For example, some Bible teachers are quick to reject metaphors unless their meaning is specifically identified in the Scripture. Usually people who take this view apply it selectively because it quickly becomes absurd when applied consistently. Consider Revelation 6:13.
and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. (Rev. 6:13)
The verse plainly say that many stars hit the earth. Even the most literal minded teachers understand these “stars” as figurative. Even one actual star hitting the earth would completely destroy the earth. Yet these stars are not interpreted for us in any other verse. If we are to understand the passage, we must interpret it in the same way we interpret natural language. From a natural language perspective, we quickly conclude that these stars are actually meteors. In our attempt to avoid allegory, we must not reject natural language features such as metaphors. Consider an example from every day English. I might say, “I am so hungry, I could eat a horse.” There is no grammatical marker which identifies this as a metaphor, yet virtually all native English speakers will understand it immediately. I can even invent a new metaphor and expect people to understand me. For example, I can say, “I am so hungry, I could eat an elephant.” Even though you have probably never heard this expression, you will immediately recognize it as a metaphor meaning I am extremely hungry. Attempts to make human language into a set of wooden rules have not yielded reliable results. How many times have you heard the term “wooden rules?” Even though you almost never hear this expression, you did not have any trouble understanding what I meant. We must always seek to understand what the author is seeking to communicate. This means interpreting specific passages in the light of the immediate context as well as the broader context. No formula or set of rules can substitute for this principle!
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All Scripture quotations are from:

New American Standard Bible ., electronic edition. (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1986; Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996).






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