Happy Chinese New Year

For fun this year, since I didn't really get into Christmas until after it was over due to lack of snow, I decided we were going to celebrate SOMETHING in January... which is often an overlooked month except for our New Year... which is more often celebrated on Dec 31, and not so much in January. Looking at the calendar, I noticed the Chinese New Year was occuring on the 23rd of the month! How neat! So, for fun, we decided to look it up, and discovered a few interesting things.

Food on Chinese New Years eve is very important! The foods you eat either resemble, or their names are similar to things pertaining to riches and long life. Dumplings are apparently a big thing, as are long noodles, long beans (both due to the belief of having a long life... so don't cut your noodles), fish (I know I read why, but I cannot remember at the moment), and lots of sweets and such. I decided we'd make a meal for our supper just for our family and celebrate with that.

So, we made chicken stir fry (we were out of fish... sigh) with noodles instead of rice, and I made dumplings... first time ever! It was suprisingly not too difficult, and since I didn't have a number of the regular ingrediants for the filling, I just made my own. I made a total of 12... as that was all the dough I made (although I think I made them too thick as the dough should have made 20... and I had a lot of leftover filling). It took a few dumplings to get the folds to look nice, but none opened up in the boiling water, and they were all eaten by my family. I think I'd like to attempt these again. Perhaps later today I'll make more dough and use the rest of the filling (that is a lot of chopping... I read that using a food processor makes the filling too fine and gummy, and it doesn't have the correct texture, so I hand minced it all).

For dessert I whipped up a batch of almond cookies. I looked up Chinese desserts for the New Year, and this was the only one I had all the ingrediants to. I just did a half batch, of 15 cookies, and they were a hit as well! Mmmm... almond...

For breakfast this morning (the official New Year using the lunar calendar), we had dragon fruit and tea marbled eggs. The dragon fruit we picked because it is now the year of the dragon. The tea marbled eggs I came across during my search for Chinese New Year recipes, and it looked interesting, with ingredients I normally have, so I made them! It was easy, too! And M loved them (Bram doesn't like hardboiled eggs). They had a nice flavor to them.

Don't these look tasty? I loved the effect of the marbling on the eggs! I soaked them for overnight, but I didn't have black tea, which would have made the eggs darker yet. I just used... blackcurrant tea, hahaha. It has 'black' in it... :P

Lastly, I made some red money envelopes for each of the kids. I didn't have looney's or tooney's or anything, so they got 4 pennies each. I know... cheap... but I'm actually giving them each $1.12... or any one thing they want from Dollarama. I also found out how to write their names in Chinese symbols (well, my daughter's isn't exactly right as they didn't have any name or word like her name), so I wrote them in sparkly gell glue on the backs of the cards, and used a Mickey sticker to close it for Bram, and a Hello Kitty sticker for M.

I will have to post the recipes later on in my cookbook... I will probably try them again. Although, next thing I want to celebrate is Valentine's Day... and I think I may be doing another '14 days of Valentine's'... :) Just because I can... and it's fun... :)

Putting HIM First

I just posted about the tribulation here, and this post has a little something to do with it. But not about it directly. No, this as about God's placement in our lives.

A few nights ago, while reading Luke 17, I had a brief vision. Here are the verses...

The Coming of the Kingdom of God20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”[c]22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” [36] [e]37 “Where, Lord?” they asked.He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”

The thing that got me was "Remember Lot's Wife!" and I had a quick momentary wondering of what would happen if we would dare to 'look back' at the farm in that moment. I realized that the farm itself, while my home now, is not that important to me in the end, and instead, I got this little 'dream'.

I was at home. I heard a trumpet and looked up, and there was Jesus, in the clouds, his arms open, people everywhere, and my heart soared! I was just about to raise my arms to come to him when I thought of my children and my husband. I stopped, turned my head to look for them, and when I turned back, He was gone. I missed him. I cried... and in all honesty I tear up just remembering it.

Now, I'm not saying that God would not allow us to look for our families. He knows they are important to us. What I am saying is... God spoke to ME in this. He may have a different message for you, but for me the message was clear. "Am I more important than these?" He told me that He loves my husband and children much more than I ever could... and He loves me more than anything. I need to remember that. I cannot be like Lot's wife. I cannot turn back for ANYTHING. Not that God would turn me to salt if I did, but that's not my point right now. Jesus said not to be like Lot's wife. HE is first. "Oh, wait God, I just need to quickly grab something..." doesn't happen if HE is your EVERYTHING. It doesn't happen if you trust him for everything. It... just... doesn't. I need to make sure I put Him before everything in my life, make him first... all else will follow. It's that simple... or hard... depending on how you look at it.

I cannot be in control of my children's or my husband's or any of my loved ones decision to accept Christ. I cannot control their placement of God in their lives. All I can do is pray for them, and put Him first in my own. I am in control of myself, and only myself.

And I must make the decision to put God FIRST.

This whole thing reminded me very strongly of a dream I had years ago. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had one miscarriage scare... which sparked a series of miscarriage dreams. I lost our first child only months earlier, and so, this was all very frightening for me. I felt very strongly that God told me we would not lose this one... and so in every dream, as I was dreaming I would pray, 'but Lord, you told me I wouldn't lose this one, so I cannot be having a miscarriage', even though all the signs and everyone around me in the dream was saying otherwise... I would cry, and then I would hear God say "Don't worry, *my name*, this is only a dream. You are not losing your baby." and I would wake up and all would be fine.

One day, during my devotions, I'm not sure what I read, but while I was praying I felt very strongly that God was asking me "Am I more important than all of these". "What do you mean, Lord?" "Am I more important than all of these?" I became agitated... what if this meant losing everything... my husband, my baby, my home, my family... what would come of me? He asked me again "Am I more important to you than all of these things" and it was then that I had the overwhelming sense that he didn't want to take things away from me, He wanted me to know and discover... if I had nothing that I have now, would I still love Him? And you know what? I did. I realized that if I kept everything I had, but didn't have Him, I would be very upset. I would hate it. But even if everything I had was taken from me... as long as He didn't leave me, I would be ok in the end. I cried... I don't want to lose anybody that I have in this world... but I felt peace.

I never had another miscarriage dream again.

I believe this little vision was a reminder of that night so many years ago. A reminder that I need to make sure that He is above all else in my life. I can love and enjoy all the wonderful gifts He has given me, in fact He would want me to enjoy those things, but I can't make them more important than the one who gave them to me. I need to keep perspective. And that perspective is that without God, I could have everything, and yet have nothing. HE needs to be the forefront of my life, and I need to be reminded of that every day.

Pre-trib or Post-trib?

Lately my husband and I have been reading the new testament, and a lot of striking verses have come to my attention. I've been given short visions that may not be of what will happen, but seem to be a teaching moment from God to me myself. I've read the word over and over, and have changed my beliefs on the rapture as a result. And I feel very strongly, the need to divulge some of this information to anyone else who is searching for their own answers to this question...

Pre-trib or Post-trib?

Ok... where to begin... I suppose it is best to begin in the beginning, and so, that is what I will do.

Our church has a little 'ceremony' they did years ago (I can't remember, but I think they still do) for those children who were 'graduating' from grade 2 to grade 3. The children would line up at the front of the church and receive their very first Bible. I remember being very excited! A Bible of my very own! I poured over it, not understanding very much, but loving that I had my own Bible, and I could read it whenever I wanted. (I still remember very carefully and lovingly turning each extremely thin page, looking at the gold along the edges as if it was real, and worth more than anything else I owned... which... it was). I don't know how many years it was before I heard about the book of Revelation. I decided to read it. I think I was about 10. It bothered me to no end. The imagery... especially of the winepress... it haunts me to this day, and I still have a hard time reading that specific part of the passage.

I remember running down the stairs to where my dad was sitting at the table. I still remember he had a cup of coffee. And I asked him... "Dad, will we be here when this happens?" showing him the Book of Revelations. His face got very serious, and he asked me something. "Does the Bible say that God loves us?"... well obviously yes... "I don't believe that God would let those people whom He loves have to go through things as terrible as that. I don't believe that we will be here. There are verses in the New Testament that say we will be raptured, we will meet Jesus in the air (he was talking of 1 Corinthian 15:52), and we will be with him forever. I think that Jesus will appear to those of us who are His before what the Revelations says will happen. I don't think we will be here."

I remember feeling much calmer because of that. But I didn't feel at peace. There was always something I'd read elsewhere in the Bible that made me uneasy, and I'd justify it away with "but dad said that since God loves us, He wouldn't put us through that." and then ignore portions of what I was reading, or explain it away in other things... making my own interpretation of it. And I hated it. I was not happy. I didn't like it, and I was not growing.

But I WAS growing. I was discovering something... looking at the Word, seeing things that didn't match what I was taught... my soil was being worked... ready for the planting that would happen years later.

I did read Revelation over the years... a few times. I never felt comfortable with it. I didn't like the book. If we weren't going to be here for all this, why is this book even IN the Bible to begin with? If it's for the people left behind, but God has been removed from the earth, what on earth would this book do? It would do nothing! How useless! This book is almost completely useless. I couldn't grow... I couldn't understand... my heart and my mind were not in tune with whatever the Word was saying, and it was driving me nuts.

A few years ago, a local church was doing a set of sermons on the very topic I had been avoiding for the last many years... Revelation. At least, that was how I saw it. My husband very much wanted to go listen to one or two of these sermons, and I did NOT want to. 'What's the point' I would tell him. 'It doesn't mean anything to us who believe, as we won't even be here when it all happens.' I don't think I truly believed that...

We went to one anyway... after much prodding by my husband. And I was ready to hear the same things I'd heard over and over again...

... but I didn't.

The Bible was laid bare, and the preacher started by summing up what had been stated in earlier sermons... that they believed the pre-trib rapture was a misconception, and that the Bible supports a post-trib rapture. He then went on to prove it with MANY passages of Scripture... the very passages I had been having trouble understanding for YEARS... the very passages I was explaining away.

And my heart soared.

I must say, it still sounds silly to me to feel such freedom, such relief, after hearing that all those terrible things that will happen in Revelation could very well happen within my own lifetime... and that I could very well be here for them, or even be martyred for my faith... but it was. I felt free. I felt happy... excited even. Finally, after all these years, things were making sense! The word was new again. I've read the entire Bible a few times since then, and God has opened things up to me that I would have never understood if I still had the same views as before. More of Jesus words make sense, more of the old testament seems to fit, they no longer seem like just stories to me, but like there is a reason for the stories, as though God made those things happen for future generations to see who He is, and how He works, and that no, He doesn't change, He is the same, but now we have Jesus who stands as the mediator between us and God, who will make us clean before Him, so we can be in His presence...

But God is the Same. This is important. The Old Testament stories... they are important to the understanding of the rapture, of the end of the world, of the book of Revelation, and even of Jesus own teachings. The character of God has not and will not change.

God did not remove his people from the slavery of Egypt until he had finished all the plagues on the Egyptians... his plagues did not affect his people... it would have been the Egyptians treatment of the people due to the plagues that was terrible for them... but the people stayed right there, in Egypt, until PHAROAH had enough and let them leave... until after the death of many firstborn people in the land, even Pharoah's own son.

Noah was here when the earth was riddled in sin. The people were so bad that God destroyed them all with a flood. He loved Noah and his family, and told him to build an ark. If Noah hadn't believed God, he wouldn't have survived either, but because he believed, he did exactly as God said, built the ark, put up with the ridicule of the people, and persisted. The animals came of God's doing, they entered the ark, and God shut the door, and THEN the world was flooded, and the people were drowned... that very same day.

Sodom and Gomorrah. The people were full of sin. God wished to destroy them, and because the only family that was still upright was Lot and his household, God warned him to get out, and NOT LOOK BACK. That very minute. That very night. The angels said he had to DO something. He wasn't magically going to be removed from the impending doom, but he was given his choice... go or die. And so they did. They left, and his wife looked back and turned to salt. (More on this later... man, my heart and mind are so very full right now, my fingers can hardly keep up).

Here... Revelation 18...

4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
“‘Come out of her, my people,’[b] so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; 5 for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. 6 Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Pour her a double portion from her own cup. 7 Give her as much torment and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, ‘I sit enthroned as queen. I am not a widow;[c] I will never mourn.’ 8 Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her."

I'm seeing a parallel here.

How many stories are there where the people underwent hardship that none of us could imagine, and God was with them, and he destroyed their adversaries after all the terrible things that happened... not before, but AFTER. How many terrible things is the church across the ocean undergoing right now? We hear so many stories of the martyrs and almost martyrs, of imprisonment and danger, and yet we believe that we will be spared the terrible martyrdom of the end of the days of the world? Why are we given specific warnings for all these things if it isn't for us to know about for some reason? God would not be warning us if he is going to magically rapture us before all that will happen. He never has... not in all the old testament.

My husband and I are currently reading through Luke, and there is so much that is being opened up to me again and again through the words of Christ in this book. A few days ago we read Luke 17. The verses that stand out to me are these...

The Coming of the Kingdom of God
20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”[c]
22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” [36] [e]

37 “Where, Lord?” they asked.

He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”

I have lots to say on this passage, I will have to come back to it later, but the thing that struck me was how Jesus was telling his diciples that the world would be continuing like it always had been, and then Jesus would come. And the end would be here. The stories he specifically talks about show how everyone died THAT VERY DAY after the people of God left. He says it will be like the days of Noah. Noah had to prepare for the flood. He built an ark. He followed what God told him to do. He wasn't magically removed before he built the ark. He didn't go into the ark and stay there for a year before the world flooded. No... the door was shut, and the waters came. The people kept on living, oblivious to the fact that their world was about to end, even though Noah knew that the world would flood because God told him so. The people probably thought he and his family were lunatics, building a giant boat in the middle of the land... it was a joke. Yeah right. Would never happen. So they continued to live the way they always had, unbelieving, as Noah prepared. I think it will be the same in the end. Those who are in Christ will see that the antichrist has been revealed, and will RUN FOR THEIR LIVES from this man, and the city he is in. He will do terrible things to the people of God on this earth, and THEN, Jesus will come, at the sound of the last trumpet, flash across the sky like lightening, and everyone who remains on earth will go to him. The rest of the world, up until that point, will be living as though the end of the world is not nigh. Everything is as normal. Nothing strange has happened. If we were raptured before the antichrist was revealed (as a certain book series describes), wouldn't it make people wonder what on earth happened? Literally? People disappeared! Come on, that would not be like the situation with Noah, or with Lot. Nobody could even take notice that they had disappeared before they were swept away in God's wrath. God's people are gone/safe and YOUR DOOM HAS COME! That very day. It was that way for the people of Noah's time, for Sodom and Gomorrah... just as Jesus said.

I had another discussion with my dad recently about this very topic. I have one verse that, to me, proves that we will be leaving at the end of the tribulation. I couldn't remember the reference at the time, but I have it now, and I want anyone who wonders to look it up for themselves. I want the Bible to tell us the truth. I don't want to just believe what someone else has said because 'they did the work, and they said so'. That is not the way to find truth. I don't want preconcieved perceptions of what will happen to cloud my reasoning (which it probably will anyway). I want the Bible to tell me. I want to see the Bible EXACTLY for what it is.

1 Cor 15:51-53

51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

This verse is brought up whenever the rapture is talked about, and I have to wonder why a certain part of it is always ignored. "At the last trumpet". The LAST trumpet. What other mention of trumpets is there, except in Revelation, where the last of the seven seals holds the seven trumpets? The LAST trumpet. We will be changed! Clothed with immortality! And that verse makes no sense if we are to be taken before the tribulation... 1 Thess 4:16 says "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first." If the dead will rise first, how can we, who are alive, be taken before the last trumpet, and then the dead at the last trumpet. The dead will rise first, and those who are alive will also come at the trumpet call of God... at the LAST TRUMPET.

I just don't know how much clearer you can get then that. Unless I am somehow mistaken in what is being said here, but like I said before... I want truth. Give it to me in black and white. Please.

I apologize to anyone I may make angry. I don't mean to offend or put you down in any way... I am honestly trying to find the answers, and the answer I was given so many years ago... it just doesn't cut it for me. To me, I've discovered that God is not a 'feel good' God. We've boxed Him in, we've taken away His power by putting restrictions on Him, but I believe He has so much He is trying to reveal to us... so much that we just aren't getting because of our longing for a 'feel good' talk, or for things that people have told us that are not necessarily the Word itself.

Because I'm searching for the truth, I had to look up something that is brought up every time this topic comes up. I've been told that the Holy Spirit will be removed from the earth before the AntiChrist will appear. I've asked so many times what verses say that, because I really want to know. Well, a conversation yesturday yielded results... I searched them out on the web (I love Google) and came up with a number of sites, all yielding the exact same verse.

2Thess 2:5-9 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining (Witholdeth), that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness (iniquity) is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.’

Never in this verse does it directly say that the Holy Spirit will be removed from the world. That is an interpretation that people have given it. If Paul was talking about the Holy Spirit, would he not have said so directly, as he has in all his other letters regarding anything speaking about the Holy Spirit? I wonder if we are not reading this wrong... that the thing restrained is not the lawlessness, but the MYSTERY of lawlessness. If that is what is being restrained, would the Holy Spirit be the one restraining it? Wouldn't that mean the 'he' written about would actually be restraining the truth? The Holy Spirit would not restrain the truth from us. He was given to us to reveal the truth. In fact, this verse, if it is talking about removing the Holy Spirit from the earth, then the sentence reads that that would happen before the lawless one is revealed, which contradicts the paragraph above it...

2 Thessalonians 2
1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness[a] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

These verses right here tell me that we cannot fall prey to others telling us the day of the Lord has already come. The MAN OF LAWLESSNESS, which is the antichrist, will be revealed BEFORE the day comes. Look at Matthew 24:4 onward. I will point out specifics since it is a long passage. The entire passage is warning about the persecution the people of God will undergo in those end times. Wars and rumors of wars... really.. read it! Verse 15-25...

"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes
desolation' spoken of through the prophet Daniel - let the reader understand -
then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the
roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in
the field go back to take his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days
for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not
take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great
distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now-and never to be
equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive,
but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if
anyone says to you, 'look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not
believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform
great signs and mirricles ro decieve even the elect - if that were
possible. See, I have told you ahead of time."

Ok, so why is Jesus warning us if we are gone? The antichrist is revealed, and the people are to RUN FOR THEIR LIVES! Don't look back, dreadful for nursing mothers (I've been one, and it's hard enough living a normal life with being pregnant or nursing, never mind being on the run. I don't think this means God will take away all believers and babies at this time, I think it means exactly what it says... it will be terrible for nursing moms and pregnant women). Pray that it doesn't take place in winter... how hard would it be to run for your life in winter? Really. Jesus is letting us know ahead of time. The antichrist will come. When you recognize it, RUN! Save your life! Why would he say that if we are to be taken already? The antichrist is a part of the tribulation (aka great trial or suffering), as talked about in Daniel and Revelation. So... we cannot be gone! Christ will not come 'again again'. He will come once more for all. He will come in glory and majesty. He will come with a shout, with the last trumpet call of God, and He will take all that are His in His march against The beast and the Antichrist, and they will be destroyed by the breath of His mouth and sent to their doom, and we will reign with Him on the earth for 1000 yrs! (and then the revelation goes on about Satan's re-release from imprisonment to sway the nations and one final battle where he is also sent to the lake of fire with all who do not have their name in the book of life.. but I digress)...

Huzzah!

That is what I believe. That is what I have read. That is what the Bible has told me in plain words, no holding back. That is my experience with the beliefs of BOTH pre and post trib rapture, and this is my stance. If the Bible were to prove me wrong, then it will prove me wrong, but so far, as it has been my experience, the Bible has proven my previous belief wrong, and has opened up so much more since I stopped believing that we are going before all the terrible persecutions that the tribulation will bring... and I believe that this has been revealed to me as truth... from my experience... because once I believed, I was 'set free'...

Completely... free...

And the Word has not been the same. It has opened up in so many new ways, and I have been so blessed in the reading and studying of the Word. So, I leave you with this verse, as you discover truth for yourself, as you read the Word yourself, and not take my word for it, but discover it on your own...

John 8:32 "And then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Let's be free! Let's not take others words as truth, and lay the Bible bare, and look for the truth that God has sent us. Please. God is waiting. Seek and you will find. But, you have to SEEK.

Note: I will continue to seek, as there is still much in the Bible that I do not completely understand... specifically on Daniel and Revelation regarding the last hour. More specifically, regarding the whole 7 year theory, which I cannot find spoken of specifically, but is instead coming out as interpretations, once again, by some very smart people, but they are interpretations, and I don't want to believe them fully until God reveals to me that it is indeed 7 years he talks of (Daniel speaks of time, times and half a time which is regarded as 3.5 years... and then there is mention of a 'seven' and something happening halfway through the 'seven', with the antichrist... and it is all very confusing for me and beyond the scope of what I am willing to discuss at this time. When God reveals to me what he wants me to see there specifically, I will understand, and I will probably talk about it. The 7 year theory does sound like a plausible one from the things others have said, and from what I've read in Daniel, but I am not going to believe it as 'truth' or as 'scriptural' because, from my readings, the bible has never said 'the tribulation will last 7 years' explicitly. If you can prove it to me, please do!).

Ok... I've gone on long enough.