Acts20.com

I would challenge them to explore what the Word says...

On the following subjects:Rapture? When based on Scripture, not just tradition handed down in messages.Marriage supper of the lamb?What will we be doing during the Great Tribulation.What will our existence be like during the Thousand year reign? What will we be doing back on earth?While Satan is loosed for a season, what will our existence be like?And finally, what will the new heaven and earth be like? What will our purpose be?You see, a lot of people,think that when we die, we go to heaven for all eternity. But does the Word teach this truthfully? If not, why do we continue to foster this erroneous idea?Okay, let's hear your thoughts and ideas

Rev. 20, 21 and 22, if they are taken in a straightforward manner, indicate that the New Jerusalem will come down from Heaven to rest upon the New Earth, and there will be our eternal abode. So in the final analysis, it’s not so much about us going to Heaven as us going there temporarily after death, and all coming back to earth for the thousand-year reign described in Rev. 20, and then finally, after the last, short Satanic rebellion, the New Heaven and New Jerusalem coming down to the New Earth, the city where there will be no night, where the Lamb is the light.My comments come from a premillenialist perspective. Amillenialists and postmillenialists will interpret these chapters differently and generally more symbolically.

Good topic.There are many passages that show that we are supposed to be looking forward to the resurrection of our bodies but a lot of preaching reinforces or promoted the folk Christian idea of eternal disembodied bliss in heaven.If I were to teach on this I might focus on return of Christ and resurrection verses more than the chronology of Revelation. In the space of about a year and a half, I visited a Roman Catholic funeral, a Pentecostal funeral, and a Baptist funeral and paid attention to references to heaven and resurrection.After all Paul wrote not to grieve as them that have no hope He said to comfort one another with words he wrote about the resurrection and second coming.I had never been to an RCC service before. The liturgy constantly referred to the resurrection of the dead. Those prayers for the dead I had been warned about in a tract were prayers asking God to raise the deceased from the dead. There was reference to asking Mary to interceed. And the priest made a comment about us having an angel looking down on us, referring to the deceased. Afterward, during a time of socializing I asked the priest if the RCC taught that angels were the deceased or a different type of creation. He agreed with the latter.My thinking on this is that those who teach the word should carefully dispell misconceptions and not enforce them, like the idea of the dead being angels or our final state being as spirits in heaven.The Pentecostal funeral--a Filippono one with ulogies. I heard many references to dying and going to heaven and no references to the resurrection. Same with the Baptist funeral which was just a preacher talking