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Douglas L. Gains wrote:

Hi, guys —

Why does the Pope say that there:

Will be No End-Times/Revelation and no Second Coming

when the Catholic Bible says:

No One Knows the Day or Hour

36 But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

Matthew 24:36

It appears that the Pope is telling us he knows that the Lord won't come. This is an example of the Pope putting himself above the clear words of the Scriptures.

  • Why?

Also, we are told to comfort one another with the Word of God as follows:

The Comfort of Christ's Coming

13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

The reign of Christ could be in seven years after the Church is caught up to be with the Lord.

  • Then Christ will rule on the Earth for a thousand years, from Jerusalem, not the Vatican.
  • Then in a short time at the end of Christ's reign, Satan will be loosed and he and his armies totally defeated by Christ.
  • Then will come the end when there is a New Heaven and Earth with evil banished forever.

Only those who have received the Lord's free gift of salvation will inhabit the New Heaven and Earth. Those who think they earn it by faith and good works won't make it so:

How about the Pope sharing the Word of God instead of his revelation that there will be:

  • no End Time Revelation and
  • no Second coming?

The Pope needs to put himself under what Scripture says and not come up with that which contradicts God's Word.

  • Why doesn't he do that?

I'd like an answer from him.

Thank you,

Douglas L. Gains

  { Why doesn't the Pope submit to the Scriptures and believe in the End Times and Second Coming? }

John replied:

Hi Douglas,

Thanks for your question. Let me see if I can clarify this issue for you. I'm going to address the Second Coming.

Every Catholic, Including the Pope recites the Nicene Creed at every Sunday at Mass.

The Creed starts out by saying:

I believe . . . and contains the following about Christ:

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His Kingdom will have no end.

So the notion that the Pope or the Church deny the Second Coming is simply nonsense. In fact, we have just entered the season of Advent, in which we prepare spiritually for Christmas, recalling His First Coming while also reading Scriptures related to His Second Coming during the Liturgy or Mass.

The Church doesn't get into setting times and dates as others do.

The Church does reject the nonsense about a Pre-Tribulation Rapture and a literal 1,000 year period and it does so because it is not based on a correct understanding the Scriptures and is basically a heresy invented, on or about 1850, by John Nelson Darby who devised a heretical system of understanding the Scriptures known as Dispensationalism.

The heresy is based on lifting a bunch of Scripture passages out of context. For instance, you quote 1 Thessalonians 4. Yes., the Lord is coming back and when He returns the faithful departed shall rise first and those who are still alive will be caught up with Him, or as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians,

Our Final Victory

50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed — 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1 Corinthians 15:50-52

That's the Second Coming. That said, let's look at some other texts. In the Gospel of John, right before Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, He speaks to one of Lazarus's sisters and tells her that Lazarus will rise. She responds, Yes Lord, I know he will rise [at the Resurrection of Dead, on the Last Day]. So we know that the Resurrection of the Dead will happen on the Last Day at the Second Coming.

St. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4, that this catching up of the living believers will happen just after the Resurrection of Dead which St. John tells us will be on the Last Day at the Second Coming — 7 years earlier but on the Last Day.

Now let's look at another text the Dispensationalists use and abuse from Luke 17 to prove their crazy Rapture Theory:

34 I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. 35 Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. 36 Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”

Luke 17:34-36

The Dispensationalists say, you see that's the Rapture. The man taken is raptured and brought to Heaven while the other guy, the non-believer, is Left Behind while modern day clowns write all kinds of books about it, make movies using Left Behind as the title, making a ton of money selling heresy to Christians.

So let's look at the whole context of the Scriptures in particular the very next verse:

And they answered and said unto Him: Where Lord? And He said unto them: Where the body is, there the vultures will be gathered together.

Luke 17:37

  • Now does that sound like the one that is taken is being raptured up to Heaven?

It sounds to me like He's being judged and condemned!, not raptured and brought up to Heaven.

Now read Matthew Chapter 24. Jesus in his End Times discourse, admonishes people to look for certain things including something called the abomination which causes desolation (Matthew 24:15)  — something Daniel also prophesied (Daniel 9) and we see happen a couple hundred years before Christ . . . during the Maccabean Period . . . under the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes. We also see it happen around 66 A.D. or 67 A.D. prior to the destruction of the Temple. So Jesus could have been speaking about what happened in 66 A.D. or 67 A.D. and it may happen again — we don't know.

What we do know is that He is telling believers to keep watch for it before the Second Coming. So if Jesus is telling believers to watch for it, it must mean the believers will still be on earth during the time period before His Second Coming. They ain't gonna avoid the Tribulation via a Rapture and the word rapture appears no where in Scriptures.

Now let's talk about this seven-year period. They get that from Daniel 9 when he prophesied about the weeks as being 7-year periods. He talks about all these different weeks and time periods before the last week of seven years which come after the Messiah being cut off from the Land of Living and before the Second Coming, during which the Anti-Christ [would/will] reign.

First, the term used for Second Coming is the Greek word Parousia. It literally means arrival or appearance and is used as a military term to indicate the Second Coming of a General that brings judgement.

What would happen is a General would conquer a city and establish a rule of Law. He would leave, warning them to follow the Law. If, when he returned, the inhabitants had broken the Law, He would destroy the city. And this is exactly what happened circa 70 A.D. Now, looking back to the words of Jesus in Matthew 24, He says,

this generation will not pass away before my coming.

Matthew 24:34

Well, a generation is roughly 40 years and 70 A.D. is about 40 years after Christ's Resurrection and Ascension. In 70 A.D. there was a Parousia and judgement was brought down on Jerusalem.

The Church, which had been part of Israel — the Nazarene Sect — in Gestation in the Womb of Israel is the New Jerusalem as described in Revelation. (One has to understand that the number 40 is a number used in the Scriptures to represent the time period of gestation in womb . . . it takes roughly 40 months from conception for child to be born.)

So for the initial 40 years, the Church was incubating as part of Israel in womb, but Israel Herself, did not follow the Law; she did not accept Christ, hence the Parousia . . . the Judgement . . . which culminated with the destruction of the Temple.

If you read the Roman Historian Tacitus, you'll read about the 7-year period prior to 70 A.D. The signs, wonders, and all the events he describes are very much a fulfillment of what is written in Revelation which the Church Fathers almost all believed was written before 70 A.D. It's only the modern scholars that have proposed it was written after that date . . . circa 90 A.D. and the persecution of the Early Church came from the Jews and the Temple Priests, not from Romans, so again, if you read Tacitus' Historical accounts, you'll read about that and, of course, you can read about the Jews persecuting Christians right in the book of Acts written by Luke.

So the vast majority of early Christian writers, and I'm talking about very early — before the Bible was even canonized — understood the 1,000 years in Revelation as the Church Age, not a literal 1,000 years and when reading Revelation, we have to first understand it is an allegorical book. Secondly and most importantly, it's a book that describes the Divine Liturgy, Worship, and Spiritual Combat that takes place as God is worshiped. A historical read, is actually the story of Salvation History, from beginning to end, so it's not just book that predicts the future. In fact, it is counted among the Apocalyptic books, not the Prophetic books, and there is a difference. While it contains prophecy, it reveals . . . it takes away the veil:

  • between Heaven and Earth
  • between the physical and spiritual realm

. . . the word Apocalypse means to remove the veil.

Now returning to the 7-year period, it's already happened once between 63 A.D. and 70 A.D. The battle in the valley of Megido or Armageddon already took place during that time period.

  • Will it happen again?

We don't know. We can only speculate. We do know that there will be a last great persecution before the Second Coming and Resurrection of Faithful Departed. Whether or not, and how, that includes Israel is again speculation.

We do take St. Paul's word in Romans 9, 10, and 11 seriously. We know we are in the Church Age. There will come a day that God once again begins to focus on Jews as the day of Gentiles will be fulfilled. In fact the Catechism of the Catholic Church, states clearly that the Second Coming is suspended in time, awaiting Israel's return to the Lord and entrance into the Kingdom.

The glorious advent of Christ, the hope of Israel

674 The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel", for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus. (Romans 11:20-26; cf. Matthew 23:39) St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." (Acts 3:19-21) St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" (Romans 11:15) The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles", (Romans 11:12, 25; cf. Luke 21:24) will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all". (Ephesians 4:13; 1 Corinthians 15:28)

Specifically, what that means, how it will happen, and especially when it will happen, is simply speculation.

Remember this however. The True Temple of the Holy Spirit is the Body of the believer and the Church. Every time the New Testament talks about the Temple of the Holy Spirit, it's a reference to believers, or the Body of Christ — which is the Church. So an argument can be made that the Temple in Jerusalem won't be rebuilt. I'm not convinced of that and Catholics are free to hold various view points. There are some things that are simply Mysteries so people can speculate and propose various theological opinions within certain parameters.

The one thing we do know is that we should live as if the Second Coming is going to happen in the next instant. We are called:

  • to share the Gospel
  • to live the gospel, and
  • worship the Lord

but the idea that the Pope or that the Catholic Church denies the Second Coming is nonsense. Up until recently, a common prayer that all Catholics said after the Consecration of Communion was:

  • Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.

Recently we eliminated that particular prayer and instead now pray either:

  • Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus come in Glory
    or
  • When we Eat this bread or drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus until you come in Glory.

I hope this helps answer your questions. I would also recommend you pick up the Audio Teaching by Scott Hahn on the Book of Revelation. He does an excellent job of explaining the Catholic understanding of Revelation.

Under His Mercy,

John DiMascio

Douglas replied:

Hi John,

Thank you for answering the question and showing that the Roman Catholic Church does believe Christ is coming again. I wonder what the Pope meant when he said there would be no:

  • End Times
  • Revelation, or
  • Second Coming.
  • Was he saying that it can't be known or can't happen the year he said it would?

The Scriptures reveal His Second Coming (for His Church) could be anytime. While Mary said the Resurrection would be on the last day, the book of Daniel and John's Gospel clarified that there are two resurrections:

  • the first of true believers and
  • the second a thousand years later at the Great White Throne.

Notice I said a thousand years later because that is what your Bible says in Revelation 20. The Last Day for the believer is when he dies and is resurrected first, in Spirit, and then later in the body. Our being absent from the body and present with the Lord is the clear teaching of the Scriptures. The Spirits of just men are already made perfect in Heaven. (Hebrews 12:22-23)

When you and I stand before God and give an account, I will say I believed that there is 1,000 years between resurrections because it is obviously not a metaphor. Then you and the Pope can say the thousand years didn't mean what it says or that it already happened. You will say Revelation was apocryphal so the book didn't literally mean what it said.

  • Who will be right?
  • What does the Pope mean about wanting a world government body?

The anti-Christ and false prophet want that. They command everyone to worship themselves and Satan, the dragon.

  • When, in the history of the world, has anyone since Christ sat in the Temple of God in Jerusalem and demanded worship and put to death those who would not comply?

Never!

  • When have two witnesses ever preached for 3½ years with no one being able to kill them until the beast comes out of the bottomless pit and is allowed to kill them while people from all over the world see their bodies lying in the street then suddenly rise up into Heaven?

It's never happened yet. . . but it will.

To say that all the events of Revelation have already happened except Christ's return totally denies John's words when he is told:

Write therefore what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later.

Revelation 1:19

Both what he has seen and what is now are in Revelation 1-3. What will take place later can be found in Revelation 4 to the End of Revelation.

While I believe there are some true followers of Christ in the (R.C.) Roman Catholic Church, it is clear that the Church is riddled with all kinds of teaching that are not based upon the Douay Bible and some of it is heresy. There are no denominations in the Bible:

  • no Roman Catholic Church
  • no Baptists
  • no Methodists
  • and so on.

What denominates us is knowing Christ as our Savior and being members of the True Church made up of all true believers, whether in a denomination, or not, which is composed of all born-again believers. To say the R.C. Church is the only True Church is completely non-biblical. The Holy Spirit puts us in the True Church. If He doesn't, then we are not born-again or a true believer.

One heresy the R.C. Church teaches is that a person is born again when baptized as a baby while the Scripture say:

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

1 John 5:1

A baby cannot believe yet and all believers in the Douay Bible were old enough to understand what they were doing. Fifty-nine years ago, I experienced the new birth when I was 20 years old and Christ has totally changed my life. A chaplain in the Air Force told my mom,

"He has had a deep religious experience. It will all pass away in a little while."

It has been 59 years and hasn't passed away yet because if Christ begins the work of salvation in you, He finishes it. I was baptized, immersed in water, showing:

  • my death and burial, going under the water, and
  • my resurrection coming up out of the water, through Christ.

Not one baby is shown being baptized in the New Testament.

  • Isn't it un-Biblical for the R.C. Church to be the richest or one of the richest organizations on earth?
  • Isn't it non-Biblical to take titles as leaders in the R.C. Church do to exalting themselves, using titles like Cardinal, Curate, Pope, Vicar of Christ, and many more?

Bible believers were called:

  • saints
  • elders
  • servants
  • followers of Christ
  • brothers, and
  • sisters.

When someone bowed to Peter, he told him to get up because he was just a man.

Why doesn't the Pope and priests act like Peter in Acts 10:25 as follows:

25 As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I myself am also a man.”

Acts 10:25-26

Peter said to the crippled man, "Silver or gold I have none but such as I have I give to you. Rise up and walk." And he did!

Acts 3:6-8

The Pope can't say, Silver and gold have I none because he and the Church have plenty of silver and gold. Nor can the Pope say today to a crippled man, Rise up and walk and have it happen.

  • Is it true that the R.C. Church teaches that a person is saved by faith and good works?

If so, that is a total contradiction of Ephesians 3:8-10. Salvation is a gift and it shows itself being real by good works — but any work a believer does — that good is Christ doing it in him and through him. Anyone who thinks they can earn salvation has not experienced Jesus' salvation. If you could earn salvation by faith plus good works then it is not a gift. Good works are a part of the gift of salvation.

Saying there is no millennium but that we are in the millennium now, and saying a thousand years mentioned 6 times in Revelation doesn't mean a thousand years is what is total nonsense.

Long before Darby came on the scene, we had the Bible tell us about the Church being caught up and ruling with Christ for a thousand years and then forever. We need to go back past the so-called Fathers of the Church and look to what the Savior and the Scriptures say long before they came on the scene.

No one has ever given me a reasonable answer to what a thousand years means — if it doesn't mean a thousand years. St. Paul said to check out his teaching and make sure it is based on God's truth.

  • Why doesn't the R.C. Church say that?
  • What intelligent answer can you give for a thousand years not meaning a thousand years?

Don't argue:

  • A thousand years is as a day to the Lord and a day as a thousand years or
  • that it is an apocryphal book because apocryphal books like Daniel and Revelation use both metaphors and literal truth.

The key is knowing the difference between what is metaphorical truth and what is literal truth. If Reverend says Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, it obviously doesn't mean he is a lion. It means he is the Powerful One who came from Judah. According to the rules of grammar, the number 1,000 is not a metaphor and Reverend itself tells us that the book is to be read and taken to heart and that it promises a blessing 7-fold times.

  • If we can't understand it how can we be blessed?

And it doesn't say only the Roman Catholic Church knows what it means. It is for all Born-again believers. Just because some Early Church Fathers said something, doesn't make it true if it disagrees with the Apostle's Teachings. The Catholic Church has hundreds of traditions that are suppose to be holy, like:

  • doing the Sign of the Cross when someone dies
  • bowing and kissing people's feet, and
  • tipping your hat when you go past a church.

I read these on a Catholic web site. There are hundreds more, almost none of which are in the Bible, nor do they make us holy. By One Offering alone has God perfected forever those who are holy. That Offering is the Lord Jesus Christ. On Christ, The Solid Rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. Christ is The True Rock. All other rocks are shamrocks.

  • So where do you stand personally, on God's Word or on a denomination?
  • Have you ever experienced the new birth of which Jesus speaks in John 3 and of which John speaks in his letters?

I hope so. If not, you cannot enter or see the kingdom of God until you are born-again. The new birth transformed many R.C. Church members who sought to reform the Church and were put to death by the R.C. Church for their beliefs.

Thanks to the Lord, many survived and enlightened us about the truth of the Bible being for all believers to understand and not just for a so-called clergy (a non-biblical name).

Thanks for your time and for answering one of my questions.

A bond servant of Christ,

Douglas

  • P.S. You are right. The word rapture does not appear in the Scripture but being caught up to be with Christ will be a joyous rapture of the heart.
  • P.S. 2 The word pope does not appear in the Scriptures either, nor do the words:
    • Eucharist
    • Last Rites
    • Vicar of Christ
    • nor hundreds of other R.C. words. : )

John replied:

Douglas,

First of all, I never said any book was apocryphal which means just the opposite of Apocalyptic.

  • Apocryphal means hidden or secret.
  • Apocalyptic means revealed.

Secondly, based on a private e-mail Mike send me, from you, with an article titled:

Vatican: No End of Times and No Second Coming!

half the things you are attributing to the Pope are either out right falsehoods or distortions.

Thirdly, when I stand before God I can tell Him with confidence:

I trusted in your Word and the Church you established in your Word. I chose to believe the theological opinions of the earliest Church fathers, who were actually in the Church you established . . . over the theological musings of a guy who, although a Christian, wasn't in the visible Church You established, and who inventing these theories and interpretations some 1,800 years after the Bible was completed and after You had established your Church on St. Peter.

Finally, I'm not hear to waste my time arguing with you. I answered your doctrinal question. That's what I do.

I spent 6 years as Protestant Evangelical Minister. It was my study of Sacred Scripture, early Church History, and the Holy Spirit that led me to leave the pulpit to become a lay Catholic.

I've spent years in Bible School. I don't need you to tell me what Scriptures says. I can read it myself in the original Greek and Hebrew.

If you could read the Greek, you know the word Eucharist appears many times in the New Testament. It means Thanksgiving. The Eucharist is a Thanksgiving Offering or Sacrifice of Praise . . . the One Sacrifice of Calvary made present.

In the Hebrew, it is Todah . . . and indeed from the Cross, Jesus quotes the Todah or Thanksgiving Psalm when He says,

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me. (Psalm 22)

Nor do I need you to evangelize me although I always accept prayer from anyone.

I wish you well.

God Bless,

John

Douglas replied:

John,

I agree with most everything you said except your interpretation of Revelation.

If Christ is reigning now, it is surely a sorry reign with massive differences between it and the simple truth of Revelation. He may be reigning in our hearts now but He sure isn't reigning over the whole world with a Rod of Iron as Psalm 2 says He will.

Check out Psalm 2 and ask yourself if its prophecies ever happened. When He truly reigns, His enemies will be defeated and there will be worldwide peace for a thousand years. Those are the words Scripture stated long before:

  • the R.C. Church
  • the Church Fathers, or
  • Darby

came on the scene. I prefer God's Inspired Word above man's man-made distortions.

Thanks for responding. You are the first Catholic that has ever taken the time to respond to what I asked.

A simple follower of the Savior,

Douglas

John replied:

Douglas,

First of all you're straining on a gnat. No one is going to be saved because of their eschatological views otherwise, I would really be concerned for your soul.

Catholics believe we are saved by Grace alone not by faith alone. Faith is actually a work . . . think about it. Faith is a work of the mind to submit and accept things as true and, in fact, faith is not faith at all, if it's just a mental agreement to a proposition. Romans 3:28 says we're justified by faith apart from works of the Law. It doesn't say we are justified by faith alone and James tells us, it's not faith alone (James 2:24) . . . it's Grace Alone . . . a free gift!

Yes, we absolutely agree but faith works. If faith doesn't work, it isn't faith.

13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)

As for the Scriptures, you are interpreting them in a vacuum. The Church Fathers, are the very people that preserved and canonized Sacred Scripture. Yes, the Bible was written in the first century but we didn't get a canon of Scripture officially until 382 A.D. at the Council of Rome. Then 10 years later, the Councils of Hippo and Carthage repeated the same list of books in the Bible but a Church-wide Council didn't finally put it's stamp of approval on the Bible until 787 A.D. at the Second Council of Nicæa.

Even going with the earliest possible date of 382 A.D., the Church was up and functioning for close to 400 years without a Bible as we know it and the guys whose opinion you discount, are the guys who preserved it and the guys who eventually came together to decide:

  • that there were four Gospels
  • that the Epistle of Barnabas was good reading, but not Scripture,
  • that:
    • the Gospel of Thomas
    • the Gospel Joseph of Arimathæa
    • the Gospel of Pilate
    • the Gospel of Judas, and
    • the Apocalypse of Peter

    were Gnostic heresies.

With respect to the nonsense certain people attribute to the Pope, these are people with an agenda. The liberal media want and expect the Church to change Her Teaching on abortion and homosexual acts or unions. That won't and can't happen but the Pope did say we ought to try changing the tone when we talk about these people or to these people.

  • Why?

Because it's kind of hard to have dialogue with people, and lead them Christ, if you start the conversation by saying,

  • You really suck. Now would you like to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior?

On the other hand, we have people that have an axe to grind with the Church. They sell a lot of books and make a lot of money condemning the Church, calling Her the Whore of Babylon. They know better. They have discussed these matters and debated Catholic apologists. They know what the Church really teaches but it doesn't suit their narrative. It won't help them sell books; it will cut into their profits. I'm talking about guys like:

  • Hank Hanegraaff
  • Dave Hunt
  • and so on.

I know some these guys personally. I've worked counter-cult conferences with them when I was a Minister. I've talked shop with these guys.

They're frauds.

For that reason, they jump on every opportunity to twist what the Pope says. One day, it's about the Pope and one world government because maybe the Pope said something nice about the (UN) United Nations — even though the Vatican refuses to join the UN — it merely sends an observer.

Maybe the Pope says something nice about the World Council of Churches, but again we aren't part of the World Council of Churches but we send an observer in the hopes of being able to dialogue for the purpose of evangelization. Nevertheless, we can't be part of it, because we don't recognize the fact that there can be no more than one Church.

Other Christians are, for better or worse in some imperfect way, part of us . . . even if they deny it. Protestants are nothing more than Protesting Catholics. They will do anything they can to twist or fit their narrative in order to sell books.

Douglas, I can tell you why people won't take the time to answer your questions. It's the way you ask them in a accusatory tone. You're basically telling us we suck and we're going to Hell and then expect us to waste our time answering your questions.

It's like the reporter that asked the politician:

  • "So sir, when did you stop beating up your wife?"

Or guy that stands up at a public meeting and, rather than making a statement for which he'd be ruled out of order, gets up and asks:

  • "To the honorable Chair of the Committee, would I be out of order if I asked you if it's true that your mother is a prostitute?"

You're not asking a question, your making a statement with your question. You're giving every indication that they already think you know the answer and your making an accusation in the form of a question so answering you would be fruitless.

Whether or not you realize that's what you doing, that's the way it comes across.

Now I happen to have a few years of Pastoral experience and biblical study behind me. I've also been on your side of the fence not that I ever thought negatively of Catholics. I just didn't agree the Church's doctrines because I didn't understand them or I thought they were something other than what they are. I also used believe in a literal Millennium although I never bought the pre-tribulation Rapture nonsense so I felt moved by the Holy Spirit to answer your question and I did.

One last point regarding the number of resurrections of dead. You said there would be two:

  1. One at the Rapture and
  2. One on the Last Day

For the sake of argument, let's assume that's true. It's not, but let's assume it. According to that theory, the faithful departed in Christ shall rise at the Rapture and the non-believers will be raised on the Last Day after the millennium to be judged before their final damnation. Either that or they believe that the second resurrection will happen right after the Tribulation and before the Millennium . . . a different flavor of the same basic heresy.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks to Martha, not Mary (Lazarus's) sister. Look at the text carefully in John 11:

"Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever you will ask of God, God will give it to you. Jesus said unto her, Your brother shall rise again. Martha said unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

John 11:21-25

This text definitely tells us that the resurrection of the faithful departed is on the Last Day and if there are two resurrections, as you say, (and again that's twisted Dispensationalism, seeing you are misinterpreting texts), when Martha says Lazarus, her brother, will be raised on the last day, if that's the second resurrection, then Martha is counting Lazarus among the damned, not of the just or of the believers.

There is no doubt Jesus makes it clear that Lazarus is a believer by His own statement. Notice He doesn't say to her:

No Martha your wrong dear. Lazarus is a believer. He won't be raised on the last day with damned. He will be raised with righteous, 7 seven years before I really come back and establish a Millennial Kingdom on Earth — that will only last for 1,000 years because, for no apparent reason, I want to give Satan another opportunity to mess with people who I have already saved then . . . at the end of the 1,000 years . . .
I will send him, his minions, and the heathen into the Lake of Fire.

So unless you're willing to tell me that Martha was counting Lazarus among the non-believers and that Jesus, a Rabbi, which means Teacher, didn't bother to correct her about when the Resurrection of Just would be, you're theory just went flying out the window.

God Bless you Brother and I would appreciate your prayers.

Please stay in touch.

John

Douglas replied:

Dear AskACatholic Team,

I have received clarity on what the Catholic Church believes about the thousand year Reign of Christ and while I do not believe it is the present Rule of Christ during the Church Age, John has given me clarity about what he and the R.C. Church believes.

Though we don't agree, I'm grateful for our interaction.

Thank you!

Douglas

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