All His Saints?

God chose and commissioned Paul to be the apostle of the Gentiles:

Rom 11:13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

That is one of the basic teachings of ‘mid-Acts-ers.’ However, we will see that they are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. "My brethren, these things ought not so to be." ‘Mid-Acts-ers’ wrest the scriptures (2 Pet 3:15-16) .... even those scriptures that PAUL wrote.

1 Thess 3:13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

‘Mid-Acts-ers’ do not believe that. They say that the ONLY saints that will return with Christ when He comes .... are those who were saved during the dispensation of grace, by "Paul’s" gospel. Thus, they SEPARATE the SAINTS into different groups of saints, when the Bible makes no such division (Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor 10:17, 12:13, 20; Eph 2:16, 3:6, 4:4; Col 3:15).

Old testament prophecies said that all the LORD’s saints will judge the people:

Psa 149:4-9 For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.
5 Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them (the saints) sing aloud upon their beds.
6 Let the high praises of God be in their (the saints’) mouth, and a twoedged sword in their (the saints’) hand;
7 To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;
8 To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron;
9 To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.

Paul taught the same truth:

1 Cor 6:2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you (the saints), are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

When the LORD said "all His saints" .... He meant "ALL" His saints.
• He meant it then .... through Moses:

Deut 33:3 Yea, he loved the people; all his saints are in thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words.

When the LORD said "all His saints" .... He meant "ALL" His saints.
• He meant it .... through Zechariah:

Zech 14:3-9 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. (Hey, 'mid-Acts-ers': WHICH 'all the saints' would these saints be? Are they 'all the saints' meaning 'ONLY Israel's kingdom program saints' .... or are they really ALL the saints? To 'mid-Acts-ers' 'ALL the saints' means 'PART' of the saints. They assign 'which part' of the saints, according to which 'program' they designate each 'part' of the saints to be in.)
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD (Eph 4:5), and his name one.

When the LORD said "all His saints" .... He meant "ALL" His saints.
• He meant it .... through Paul:

1 Thess 3:13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

When the LORD comes .... He will bring 'ALL' His saints with Him.
I believe that, do you?

"We ought to obey God rather than men."
.

The Pauline Pattern for Prayer?

This week I heard a ‘mid-Acts’ preacher teaching saints to follow "Paul’s proper pattern for prayer." He read 1 Tim 2:3-6.

1 Tim 2:3-6 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

It was typical of a ‘mid-Acts-er’ to stop short of a ‘Pauline’ verse he didn’t want (vs.8):

1 Tim 2:7-8 Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.
8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.

During my nearly 30 years of deception by ‘mid-Acts’ doctrine, I never saw even one so-called ‘grace believer’ follow Paul’s instruction of lifting up holy hands in prayer.

Though our heavenly Father bids us to bring every care to Him in prayer .... ‘mid-Acts-ers’ believe it is a waste of time because they say, "God’s not doing ‘that’ (whatever ‘that’ may be) today."

They sure don’t listen to Peter:

1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

.... and neither do they listen to ‘their own apostle Paul’:

Phil 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

We have a record of one of Paul’s requests .... but ‘mid-Acts-ers’ would never use Paul for a pattern in a prayer about going on a trip:

Rom 1:9-10 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;
10 Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

Philemon prayed for Paul to come and visit him:

Phile 1:22 But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you.

Oh, no! Could any of these ‘Pauline’ examples be considered prayer for ‘traveling mercies’?

When Clouds Were Angels?

Some years ago, I heard a ‘mid-Acts’ preacher say that the clouds in 1 Thess 4:17 are actually angels.

1 Thess 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

There is NO reason to SWITCH the natural meaning of ‘clouds’ .... especially when the verse also says we will meet ‘in the air’ (which is where ‘clouds’ are).

The normal meaning of words should always be used, unless it is obviously an illustration. For example, Jesus said He was ‘the door’ (John 10:9).

The preacher who traded clouds for angels oddly supported his theory from the epistle to the Hebrews, which is on the outside of Paul’s 13 epistles, and is thereby really ‘off limits’ for application according to ‘mid-Acts’ doctrine. But he nevertheless used it to prop up his exchange of words:

Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

We can look into the sky to understand that a cloud can completely envelop an object. Heb 12:1 specifically defines ‘what kind of cloud’ it was. It was, not a cloud ‘in the air’ (as 1 Thess 4:17 expressed) .... but it was a cloud ‘of witnesses’ that surrounds us. The witnesses are the ‘heroes of faith’ of whom the world was not worthy, many of whose names are listed in the context of the previous chapter, Hebrews 11.

The preacher was later questioned about his word-swap (that clouds in 1 Thess 4:17 are angels) in a private room among a small assembly of conference attendees. After some ‘lively’ evening discussion where he stuck by his foolish claim, the next morning laughable comments were flying.

"What a clear day! There’s not an angel in the sky!"

"I heard tomorrow’s weather forcast. The sky will fill with dark angels, and we expect rain."

"The cafeteria will be serving cloud-food cake after lunch."

He believed without a verse, as he has been taught without a verse, that saints who have been saved during the dispensation of grace will have an angelic escort into heaven. So in his message, he turned clouds into angels.

Clouds are not angels.

A Waiting Room in Heaven?

When Israel sees the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, they will have to flee to the mountains for God’s protection (Matt 24:15-16, Mark 13:14). This will happen in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy. Paul also prophesied of this same time (2 Thess 2:3-4), as did John in the Revelation:

Rev 12:6-9 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. (1,260 days = 43 months = 3-1/2 years .... the half-way point of the full 7 years)
Notice that the context places the casting out of the Devil and his angels from heaven, also in the middle of Daniel’s 70th week:
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Satan will persecute Israel as she flies to the wilderness for provision for a time, and times, and half a time (Rev 12:13-14).

‘Mid-Acts-ers’ wrongly teach that saints who were saved by Paul’s ‘unique gospel’ will be raptured ‘outta here’ to go to heaven (several years before the midst of the week) .... where they will promptly go before the judgment seat of Christ to get their ASSIGNMENTS for ruling in heaven (no scripture for that).

Anyone who believes such heresy must figure
that heaven has a WAITING room ....
where the ‘dispensation of grace’ saints will have to WAIT for YEARS ....
before they can FILL the POSITIONS they were assigned ....
because the Devil and his angels won’t be cast out until ‘mid-week’.

Two Different Things?

2 Tim 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead
at his appearing and his kingdom;

This past weekend, I listened to a preacher say,
"If the quick and the dead are two different things ....
and they are ....
then so are "His appearing (the rapture) and His kingdom (the second coming)."

Well, now, with that illogical reasoning, I wonder ....

Would he group the quick and the dead together, and have them judged at His appearing .... and then 'nothing' happen at His kingdom? Why even mention His kingdom, if 'nothing' in the verse has anything to do with it, since he believes it is an entirely separate event that will occur 7+ years later?

Or would he group the 1st thing of the 1st section, with the 1st thing of the 2nd section .... and then group the 2nd thing of the 1st section, with the 2nd thing of the 2nd section? So then, the quick would be judged at His appearing .... and the dead would be judged at His kingdom?

Or would he use BOTH things in the 1st section with EACH of the things in the 2nd section? So then, the quick and the dead will both be judged at His appearing .... and then quick and the dead will both be judged at His kingdom?

This question presents two problems. Here are the two scenarios:

If the quick and the dead will both be judged at His appearing ....
will the SAME quick and the dead be judged AGAIN at His kingdom?

---- OR ----

If the quick and the dead will both be judged at His appearing ....
will it be a DIFFERENT group of the quick and the dead judged at His kingdom?

I understand that the "quick" are those that are alive,
and the dead are obviously those who have died.

I also understand that 'when' Christ appears .... He will set up His kingdom. That's more than I can say for the preacher I heard. He is a typical 'mid-Acts-er' who divides nearly everything .... making 'when' He appears 7+ years earlier, than 'when' He comes and sets up His kingdom.

1 Tim 6:14-15 That thou keep this commandment without spot (Eph 5:27, 2 Pet 3:14),
unrebukeable (the same Greek word is also translated "blameless"),
until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:
15 Which in his times he shall shew,
who is the blessed and only Potentate,
the King of kings, and Lord of lords;

'When' He appears is 'when' He will show Himself as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as Rev 17:14, 19:16.

1 Cor 15:23-24 But every man in his own order:
Christ the firstfruits;
afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
24 Then cometh the end,
when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father;
when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

'When' He comes .... He will 'appear' .... He will 'judge' .... and set up His kingdom .... at the end.