There can be no escaping the fact of Peter’s warning, which we have been looking into. It is a somewhat dire warning against the twisting of Paul’s teachings concerning prophetic Scripture. Yet the warning is basically ignored today, and still, there is this destruction attached to what Peter is telling us concerning the twisting of Paul’s teaching? Just what is occurring here?
I suggest to you and I believe that I can prove that it is not God who will destroy or bring this destruction upon the one who is wrong in proclaiming end time distortion, which can lead one to this destruction.
The actual effects of this destruction will come at a time specific to the stated events; yet, somehow one’s thinking is twisted concerning these events. It then is most likely that this false belief surrounding what is taught through Paul will lead to what is the prophesied falling away, and thus the destruction of the many is self inflected. They will fall having relied upon a falsehood.
It is the teacher himself, who fails to hear what Scripture says, and so twists it to, what results in the misleading of others concerning these truths of Paul’s. It is the teacher who will be judged by his or her own teachings against this word. It is these, who will condemn themselves and others, who have believed their every word to this falling away in confusion, which can lead to unbelief.
For by his action or non action he will be judged just as we all will be. But the teacher who fails will be judged more harshly. This is Scripture’s truth, with which we are dealing. Certainly the one who does not understand the meaning in all this, is very likely a candidate to be a twister of Paul’s teachings themself. This is the irony presented with Peter’s subject, and it goes a long way toward the revealing of those, who actually do this twisting of Paul’s truth.
But, we need to work our way deeper into Paul’s letters in order to understand what he himself has said about the end of this age, which might imply a patient God, and not an always has been imminent return. For an Imminence to be taught by The Holy Spirit in light of what has been a 2000 year delay, would imply an impulsive God who doesn’t know when He is coming. But He does know. The twisting could even imply a confusing god, who gives us nothing to look for before Jesus comes. Yet one who insists that we look for His coming for us, and in the midst He wants us to be content with this our lot —wherein we have nothing for which we are to look. But we knowing that Israel at the same time is very confused in their unbelief. Yet also that they are the people supposedly given the signs of Christ’s coming a second time. These the Jews who themselves have refused to listen to Him on everything else concerning His Son’s salvation are oblivious to these signs.
So we are to believe that they, who are blinded and in unbelief are to be given signs and are to be looking for signs, which they will refuse to see until long after these signs have occurred. They will not recognize Jesus as their Messiah until after they have been purged by the very sign events themselves. It is these which will bring about that refining in them
Yet, for us believers we are to believe these are signs that really have no meaning to us for His imminent return. How then is it that Paul says that we will see them ? We are seeing them.
Is it the confusion itself that will allow destruction to come to those who twist His message? And will that confusion override God’s truth through Paul just when it is most needed?
So what if none of this that Dispensational teachers tell us is the truth, but instead the Truth is before us and discoverable? How can one, in fact, twist a truth that has not been revealed?
In Philippians Paul says:
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (KJV)
It is our faith and obedience to Christ that allows Him to carry out in us a work that is in accord with the freewill that He has granted to us. Is that not what he says here?
Philippians 1:10 That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; (KJV)
Paul is telling us that the day of Jesus Christ is coming, but in the interim there is a work to be done by Christ in us requiring our cooperation. So we engage in that change, which must be performed by God In cooperation with us.
We must ask: does what Paul teaches during his own time in history really imply an imminent expectation for Christ’s return? What about Paul personally, does he seem to be expectant of an imminent second coming? A rapture focused appearing of Christ while he himself is yet alive? — that answer is No, for later in this same chapter in Philippians he is contemplating his own physical death. So look at what he says in chapter 3:
Philippians 3:11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (KJV)
So, he “by any means” is committed to attaining to his resurrection and not to his potential Rapture. This fact means nothing to the one, who believes Paul to be the teacher proclaiming an imminent return, which they say proves a separate Rapture. One which is not at the same Coming as His Coming back to earth.
This statement by Paul almost demands that we recognize the lack of his own perpetuation of the imminence doctrine concerning the coming of the day of Christ of which he here speaks; yet this too is ignored.
So the context and progression of Paul’s writings becomes very important in the discovery of the truth that Paul presents. It is easy to twist truth that is hidden. But if Paul’s Rapture teaching was so clearly attached to another separate coming, which is not the second coming; and if that is so clearly evident to our Teachers today; and if one’s blessed hope is to be attached only to that separate Rapture event, and not to Christ’s coming back to this earth; then how could Paul have abandoned it as his blessed hope and replaced it with resurrection?
Most dispensational Christian teachers imply that this day of Christ is the time of the Rapture and that it is taught by Paul to be imminent. That the teaching by Paul is meant to imply imminence based upon his writings, and that this is what he (Paul) was looking for, and what we should be looking for. That it is taught us as the very next event on Gods calendar. This is their main point. This is and always has been the Dispensationalist teaching since their inception in the mid 1800’s. They since that time had always taught that there was nothing more to be done in the way of prophetic events before the day of Christ’s coming in the Rapture event. Many still teach that the day of Christ is a different day than the day of the Lord and His coming to earth, and the difference in the two is imminence. But does imminence really make their case?
So these men truly believe that the next event is Rapture, that both Paul in his day and the entire church beyond his day should have been and should now be looking toward that one event. And that that fact is proven by Paul’s own teachings and beliefs. You must decide these things. Will not believing their view bring about your destruction? Even they say that all those in Christ no matter what your belief will go up in this Rapture. So how can not believing in a separate Rapture lead to one’s destruction?