Thought That I Would Start Over

So when is the Church going to be raptured?  Sick and tired of the subject?  Don't be; it's more than important.  In the midst of this ever-increasing violent and duplicitous world the Church awaits a blow that she is not prepared to take  -  or so it seems to me.  The violent side of this blow will drive a remnant of the man-made church into appeasement;  the duplicitous side will draw out a remnant unto an apostasy.  Eternal lives are the fruit of such a sifting.  It's important.

I attend a men's bible study.  We have decided to tackle the Book of Revelation.  Next week we will be addressing (hopefully exegeting) verse seven of the first chapter. 

"Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all of the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.  Even so, Amen"

Now when I first read this verse in preparation for the class the thought came to my mind that there is no indication of a secret coming here. Then, I stopped and thought that I would put my mind in neutral and that I would determine to "start all over".  So, I made a covenant with God:  With all of the integrity that resides within me I will exegete every passage that I can that deals with such matters from this day forward and will do so in such a manner that I will "listen" to what those who disagree with my position have to say as a result of their exegesis.  Similarly I will invite the men to do the same.  Let's spend the rest of our days allowing the Word of God to say what it wants to say without our eisegetically distorting its meaning.

It may be becoming somewhat obvious as you read this article that my tendency is to believe that the Church may very well go through this awful period of time.  As dark as this world is becoming I have never wanted to be wrong more than right now.  Hopefully I will be posting much on this subject in the coming days. 

The invitation is open to all of us to examine ourselves and our eschatological positions.  Let the other guy take his best shot at us.  It's important.