Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, Jesus answered them, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There!' for behold,
The kingdom of God is in the midst of you."
Kingdom of God is Here
ABOUT ME
I was born in a Syrian Orthodox Christian Family. As I grew up, I never heard anything about salvation, other than some Church fathers, Liturgical stuffs & Traditions.
I accepted Jesus as my saviour when I was 14 years old while I was attending in a Pentecostal Church.
I told my friends about Jesus, His dying on the cross and rising from the dead for our sins, and about His imminent return to rapture His Church (believers).
I firmly believed I was living in the "last days" of grace period. I thought one day, very soon I was going to be taken together with other believers from the earth to the sky when Jesus appear in the clouds. And all of my non-Christian friends would be left behind to experience a time of the tribulation under the one-world government of the Antichrist.
I believed that, during the reign of Anti-Christ, he would torment and kill all who refuse to bow down to him. Hence, I wanted to be raptured before "the Great Tribulation". (Not only me, majority of the Christian believers were/are thinking the same.)
At the end of the Anti Christ's 7-year reign, I believed, Christ would physically step on the earth and set up His 1000-year reign in Jerusalem with the Jews. And, satan would be bound for 1000 years. Then at the end of the 1,000 year reign of Christ, satan was going to be allowed back for a short time. Then God would completely destroy him. Finally, there would be a final judgement & those who did not believe in Jesus would be thrown into the lake of fire, the rest will be with God forever.
BUT, all these views began to change as I studied the Bible analytically. I began to understand the importance of "Audience Relevance" & "Grammar" used in the Bible.
I do not claim that I got a special revelation from God or 'The Lord talked to me last night'.
People who say "The Lord talked to me" "I got a new revelation" etc. are just saying it to induce fear into people. They actually want to convince their listeners that what they are saying is true.
You do not need "another revelation". What you require is to read the Bible analytically (Take your own time) and apply the correct exegesis.
Do your own research in the Bible & the world history instead of inhaling everything your priest / bishop / pastor says.
What Changed me......
I asked many questions such as
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who will go to heaven / hell?,
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which christian denomination is the correct one?,
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when is the rapture going to be?,
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is the anti-Christ is already in this world?.
But I received conflicting answers from different theologians.
Then I started to study the Bible more by myself. Surprisingly, I found out that what I had been believing did not match with what I read in the Bible.
As I began to understand the Bible more, I started to understand my own salvation.
I had previously believed that
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I needed to do certain stuffs in order to be saved
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I needed to do certain things to keep my salvation (to remain saved).
To my joy, I discovered that I had been saved by His grace, in the invisible working of His Spirit, through faith.
What I really needed was the awareness of my position.
Nothing I had ever said or done or prayed or thought had caused or contributed to myself becoming a saved person. I found that Christ was my righteousness. Any good work that I had done in Him was His work in me to beautify Himself.
I found that our God is sovereign in every sense of the word, not just limited to Jews & Christians.
Our faith is of Him, we are one with Him, and He is our Father.
Then I have realised that "Dispensationalism" is indeed in error. It interprets the symbolic words as literal & literal things as symbolic. It also teaches a separate salvation for the 21st century Jews.
Their primary emphasis on the figurative terms in inappropriate places shows failures in their understanding of Scriptural grammar and language used.
The grammatical fault come into view as they ignore the normal use of expressive figurative language in the Scriptures.
This has led me to accept Fulfilled Eschatology. You may visit the "Blog" session of this site. Together we learn.
~ In Christ, Basil Jose