Bible Question Emails and Ted’s Responses

Numerous people have emailed me with questions pertaining to topics about which I have written in my Bible Commentaries.  You can click on any of the questions below to see my responses to them.

Rapture

• Is the Pre-tribulation view of the Rapture the correct view?

• How can believers go into the final seven years, if God has not appointed them to wrath?

• Can you give me a logical, sequential order of the Pre-wrath Rapture, and also explain why this negates the possibility of a Pre-tribulation Rapture?

• Is it possible that Jesus' parable about the ten virgins could indicate that there will be a Mid-tribulation Rapture?

• How can the Rapture be anything but Pre-trib, if it comes as a "thief in the night"?

• Do you feel that the Pre-tribulation view is the prevalent view of those who believe in a Rapture?

• How can you say that Matthew 24:30,31 is a description of the Rapture, when it is a picture of Jesus' second coming back to earth?

• Do you believe that the Rapture is near? When do you think the tribulation will begin?

• If the "day and the hour" of Jesus' coming are unknown, how can we know when it will happen?

• Who is the so-called "restrainer" who is holding back the "man of lawlessnes" and who will be "taken out of the way"?

• Why are the "last trumpet" and the "seventh trumpet" not the same trumpet?

• Why do you believe that the Rapture will take place a year before the end of the 70th Week?

• Does the Rapture view that people accept affect the way they live or have a bearing on their salvation?

• What if there is no Rapture and everybody has to go through the tribulation?

• Is it possible that there will be multiple Rapture events?

• Are the "mansions" Jesus is preparing for us actual buildings in which we will dwell while in heaven?

Revelation

• Doesn't God's wrath occur throughout the entire 70th Week period?

• Why do you believe that the majority of God's wrath will be poured out over the final year of the 70th Week and that the rapture will occur before that?

• Don't all of the seals and trumpet judgments have to take place prior to the middle of the 70th Week, and what causes you to think that some of the seals already have been opened?

• Are the 1,260 days mentioned in Revelation a reference to the first half or to the second half of the 70th Week?

• Are the Sixth Seal events at the very end of the 70th Week?

• Can the cosmic signs of the Sixth Seal be described by solar and lunar eclipses in 2014 or 2015?

• When does the period known as the "Day of the Lord" occur?

• Why do you believe that there will be a literal millennial period, of 1,000 years, after Jesus returns?

• Why has God planned a Millennium of Jesus' reign, rather than have Jesus make a new heavens and earth immediately when He returns?

• Why are Dan and Ephraim not listed in the 144,000 of Revelation 7:4-8?

• Who is the "woman" described in Revelation 12:1-6?

• Could "Babylon the Great," described in Revelation, be the United States?

European Neighbourhood Policy
and Daniel 9:27

• Could the European Neighbourhood Policy be the prophesied 70th Week agreement?

• Is the European Neighbourhood Policy a confirmation of a previous covenant?

• How can the European Neighbourhood Policy be the Daniel 9:27 covenant, if the latter is a "peace treaty"?

• According to the peace treaty at the beginning of the 70th Week, won't Israel still be at peace when the Antichrist walks into the temple after 3½ years?

• How can you say that the 70th Week has begun when the Rapture hasn't occurred yet, nor have you been able to identify the Antichrist?

• If the European Neighbourhood Policy is the Daniel 9:27 covenant, is there anything significant on the Jewish calendar, 3½ years later, that could be a time when sacrifices and offerings could be made to cease in the Jewish temple?

• Do the dates of any Jewish feasts or holy days in the future fit into your hypothesis that the European Neighbourhood Policy is the seven-year agreement of Daniel 9:27?

• How can the ENP be the prophesied covenant if the 70th Week will last 2,520 days, yet seven solar years is over a month longer than that?

• Is peace in the Middle East the primary purpose of the Barcelona Process and the European Neighborhood Policy? Could the Mediterranean Union, rather than the ENP, could be the fulfillment of the Daniel 9:27 prophecy?

• If the ENP is the prophesied agreement of Daniel 9:27, why do there seem to be so few who understand and support this view?

End-Times

• Is it possible that the 70th Week already has begun?

• If we have entered the 70th Week, do you see any special significance to the year 2012?

• Does Islam hold the belief that Jesus will return again?

• When will God's covenant with Abraham be fulfilled, and how do we know that it is Israel who will receive the promised land?

• Do you think that forcing Israel to comply with a newly formed Palestinian "state" would be the equivalent of the Bible's "nations turning their backs on Israel"?

• What could cause the apostasy of 2 Thessalonians 2:3?

• Is "the Assyrian," mentioned by Isaiah and Micah, the Antichrist?

• Will the Antichrist be Jewish? Are there any Bible references showing his nationality?

• How do you know that the "abomination that causes desolation," to which Jesus referred in Matthew 24:15, will pertain to the third temple?

• The seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 already has happened, so how can you say it has anything to do with the end-of-the-age prophecies of Matthew 24?

• How do you know that Daniel's 70 weeks did not end in 33 A.D.?

• How can Moses be one of the two witnesses if he died long ago?

• How does Jesus' use of "generation" in Matthew 24:34 fit into end-time prophecy?

• Are the harvests described by Jesus in Matthew 13:24-30,36-46, and by John in Revelation 14:14-20, depictions of the same end-time harvest?

Final Battles
Winepress of Gog/Magog vs. Battle of Armageddon

• When does the Gog/Magog battle, described in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, occur?

• When do the events of Ezekiel chapters 35-39 take place?

• Can you contrast the Winepress of Gog/Magog with the Battle of Armageddon?

• How do you know that Gog and the Antichrist will not be the same person?

• When will the Gog/Magog battle begin, and when will Israel be living in safety?

• Is Ezekiel 39:17-29 descriptive of what happens during and after the battle of Armageddon?

• What are the 30-day and 45-day periods following the end of the 70th Week?

Creation

• Didn't death in this world and decay in the universe begin when Eve and Adam sinned?

• How could death, decay, and imperfection possibly have been present on a perfect earth, prior to the disobedience and transgression of Adam and Eve?

• If the days of creation were 24 hours long, how is it possible that so many events took place on the sixth creation day?

• How will the appearance of the earth during the Millennium, and its appearance after the Millennium, be different?

• Could the fact that Jacob, Isaac's second-born, received the blessing of his first-born twin, Esau, foreshadow a greater purpose or principle that God had in mind?

Good Thursday
and Other Fulfillments by Jesus

• What if Jesus rose on Saturday night rather than on Sunday, in which case He would have been crucified on Wednesday rather than on Thursday or Friday?

• Wasn't Jesus in His tomb three full days and three full nights?

• How do you know that Jesus, the Messiah, entered Jerusalem on a Sunday and not on some other day of the week?

• How is it that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish Spring and Fall feasts and holy days?

• Why did Jesus celebrate the Passover seder one night early?

• Should the weekly Sabbath observance be for 24 hours or only during daylight hours?

Was Jesus God?

• If Jesus was God, why did He say the Father was greater than He and knew things He didn't?

• How can you say that Jesus was God when the Bible clearly indicates that Jesus and God are two separate beings?

• If Jesus advocated baptism, then how can it not be essential for salvation?

• Why do you use the NIV, rather than the KJV, for the Bible references in all of your commentaries? Isn't the NIV negligent in showing whom Jesus really was?

Who Is God?

• How can God be One and Three at the same time?

• Why did God create all of this the way He did it?

• What was the main point of Jesus' suffering and sacrifice? What was in it for God?

• Who is responsible for evil? Does God know what He is going to do before He does it?

• Which do you feel is true: God's predestination or our free will?

• Is it possible that all people ultimately could be reconciled back to God?

• Why did God ask Satan if he had considered His servant, Job? And did Satan choose to obey God in not killing Job?

• What do you think the thorn in Paul's side was?

• Do believers go to heaven when we die, or what happens?

• When does judgment happen, and how can anyone enter heaven without being judged first?

• Are the "birth pains" spoken of by Jesus the same as the "labor pains" described by Paul?

• Are Jesus and Lucifer the "morning stars" in Job 38:7?