Biblical Support for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

No. Nostradamus is vague and ambiguous, and the signs I listed are sharp and objective. You obviously aren't to be taken seriously.

But you are missing the point. I don't have a date in mind at all, just the fact that if Francis is the Antichrist of the end times, since he's an old man it can't be far off. There is no date involved at all. The whole thing could come together at any moment, the disappearance of Christians most likely being the first event. I'm just saying the time in which it could happen, IF Francis is the Antichrist of the Tribulation, is limited to a fairly short period of years.
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I didn't say my *predictions* are sharp and objective, what I said is that the signs i observed are sharp and objective: an exact time, an exact calculation, not ambiguous like Nostradamus' supposed prophecies.However, they are not signs from scripture, they are signs I personally observed and that means they can't be relied on the way a scriptural prophecy could be. And even then although we know the prophecy is true sometimes we are not given information that would lead to exact timing.The generation of Jews in Judea when Christ was born had an exact calculation from the book of Daniel to tell them their Messiah was at the very door and yet they missed Him. Lack of faith. Anna and Simeon, two people who spent all their time in the temple praying knew because they were listening to God, but the rest had no faith. Even the disciples were unsure. But that's scriptural prophecy, that's not a nobody's observations such as mine are.There is an amazing exactness to the scripturally given timing of the Tribulation period, though, exact and often repeated, as if God wants those struggling through that time not to lose hope but to be able to know that rescue is coming and they can count the days. Even if they are in pain, even if they are without food and water, even if they can't breathe because of the smoke, even if they are terrified of the demon hordes running amok. They can look to the scripture and pray and count and count and pray.All I continue to say for my own observation is that IF Francis is the Antichrist of the Tribulation, THEN it must be very close because he is an old man. But the premise may be wrong you see. In that case I find it hard to explain such interesting signs that marked his election to the papacy if he's not the Antichrist. A big waste of amazing exactness and pregnant implications. Nothing in God's world is accidental you see, it all has SOME kind of meaning even when we can't recognize it, but in this case the signs are SO precise. Interesting at the very least. I would think anyone could affirm that. Wait and see.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It must be that Revelation pauses to give hope by showing His people at work to preach the gospel through the worst period of time possible on planet Earth. There will be many who take hope from that, although there will also be many, possibly many more, who despise it and even kill the messengers.So in Revelation Seven we have a pause before the Seventh Seal is opened in which we are shown the 144.000 Jewish men sealed for the work of preaching as the world is coming down around them. We even get to see in the same chapter a great multitude who believe the gospel, though they died for their belief, in heaven praising God.So now in Chapter Eleven before the Seventh Trumpet is blown, which will release the last seven plagues onto the Earth, we are shown Two Witnesses who preach the gospel in Jerusalem through the entire last three and a half years of the Tribulation period. We are told that they are hated and then eventually killed by people who celebrate their death, people who find the gospel offensive. But others must believe them and join the martyrs, or just manage to escape death before Jesus comes back. An amazing time. I'm sure I could not have the physical stamina to survive even the mildest part of it.

Amazing how the obvious can be denied.

The attack on the doves could be dismissed as coincidence of course, but that both of them were attacked the moment they left the Vatican window by two different birds is really rather amazing. The doves were to symbolize peace, a sort of prayer for peace in the world, and the crow and the seagull immediately attacked them as if to say "nope, no peace, you don't get to have your peace, we'll kill your peace." Not really much wiggle room in the interpretation it seems to me.What I meant was that the facts themselves are clear and objective. That is they are precise and they are real and they are not vague or ambiguous. As for what they mean well thirteen is not a happy number in scripture, it is associated with Judas Iscariot for instance. And scoffing at the calculation of the 666 can only reflect an unthinking automatic dismissal because it's clear as a bell how it is derived and what it means.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh come on. I'm sure the Popes release doves from that window from time to time and it was a SEAGULL as well as a crow that IMMEDIATELY attacked them. Highly symbolic it seems to me. But clever clever people cdan always invent something to pretend they know what really happened. However, there are always going to be what are called proximate causes, natural reasons something happens perhaps. It's still symbolism.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I didn't use the bird example as anything other than a footnote, so of course you make the big deal out of that. But what I consider to be signs are the calculation of the 666 and the date and time of Francis' election. Oh and the lightning hitting St. Peter's when Ratzinger left has a portentous feel to it. The birds just came along to confirm things.

I hope at least you find it entertaining.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about? MacArthur is explaining a particular book of the Bible. A book I doubt you've even read, and certainly don't understand in the slightest anyway.

Which is of course a laughable evasion.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh nonsense. The attack by the birds was also an objective fact, and being objective facts is all I claimed for them all, in contrast with Nostradamus' vague and ambiguous stuff. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You would make "subjective" any interpretation of anything, which makes the word meaningless. An interpretation of a book of the Bible is subjective, but there has to be a correct interpretation nevertheless. Same with anything symbolic, or anything that must be interpreted. You accomplish nothing by calling it "subjective." And the interpretations I've put on all these events aren't at all squishy either, there just aren't any other ways to interpret these things, except of course to pretend they aren't symbolic at all, which would be the choice of most here I suppose.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

For me this has become my own personal study of the Book of Revelation so there may be no point in continuing it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Listening to MacArthur on Revelation 13 where a great beast comes up out of the sea with seven heads and ten horns, which he identifies as the Antichrist, but also the Emprie of the Antichrist with which he is closely aligned, comparing this beast to the Antichrist images in Daniel. The beast has characteristics of all the separate beasts in Daniel's visions, being "like a leopard" which was Greece in Daniel's image, with feet like a bear (Daniel's Medo-Persia image) and a mouth like a lion, the lion representing Babylon in Daniel. So this final Kingdom which is ruled by Antichrist, who has the same characteristics, combines all the qualities of the Gentile nations that have gone before into one. MacArthur thinks its seven heads represent the sequence of all the former empires Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, the Roman Empire, plus the revived Roman Empire which will have worldwide dominion and contain qualities of all former empires.I still hold to the interpretation that a Pope will be the final Antichrist, though I'm one of very very few with this idea. MacArthur seems to have the familiar idea that this personality hasn't yet emerged onto the world stage but is waiting in the wings, someone relatively unknown with some political power but so far in the shadows. But in my view the revived Roman Empire is really the RCC which has a worldwide reach anyway, and was regarded by the Protestant Reformers as the continuation of the Roman Empire since the Pope was a political leader as well as the antichrist religions figure. There couldn't be any more close alignment of the Antichrist with his "kingdom" than the Pope with the RCC. I think the signs I listed for Francis do identify him as fitting the role. He's very old though so it's hard to see how he could be a world political leader for long. But he's popular and opinionated and why not?Especially if he's empowered by Satahn. MacArthur does point out that Satan is behind the Antichrist in the Revelation images, and will probably possess the man himself, as he says was the case with Hitler. I've wondered about that myself. Hitler had a very odd style in some of his speeches. MacArthur thinks it was Satan speaking through him.The other alternative that's a possibility is that the Pope will be the "false prophet" who promotes the Antichrist, as the Pope in Hitler's day did with Hitler. But it's the Pope who is identified by the 666 attached to the title that identifies him as occupying the place of the Son of God.Well, I don't think it's very far off. What that means I can't say, could be few years or could be sooner.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.