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Welcome to the March 2009 edition of Strong Tower Publishing's e-newsletter.

From Jehovah's Witness to Prewrath Christian

It is so encouraging to see the pre-wrath teaching growing. For years, I struggled with the pre-trib position. My struggle was due to being forced into a minority view among pre-tribbers, then being forced to admit that even my minority view was based on a false idea.

You see, I once was a Jehovah's Witness and believed I had “the truth.” One day, I was sitting in the living room of another Jehovah's Witness and he said, “Of course, the Bible isn't really for us, you know. It's really for the remnant.” He meant the remainder of the 144,000 “anointed” class of Jehovah's Witnesses who alone have the heavenly hope-the Bible isn't really for us, “the great crowd.”

I hadn't thought of that up until that time, but it really disturbed me. He even repeated the same statement a few weeks later, so there was no misunderstanding! Although I didn't know it at the time, this taught me a lesson I have never forgotten.

Satan will try any method to take the scriptures from us. I became a Christian in 1985, resigning from the Watchtower Society, and became very prophecy minded. Soon, I got steeped in, yes-you guessed it-the pre-trib rapture teaching. Wow! This is great! I thought. The scriptures all come together (or so I thought). I committed the Sermon on the Mount to memory and seized on the verses in Matthew 24 and 25 (i.e., 24:36,40,42 and 25:13) and I assumed these taught imminence.

But because the contexts speak of signs plus the 1260 days from Revelation, I knew the day of Christ's return would be known, so I took the “double application” line. Sadly, this placed me in a minority position among pre-tribbers, but what really troubled me was the fact that nearly everyone I spoke to on this, as well as the books I read by leading authors like Walvoord, LaHaye, Pentecost, and so on, all explained away my “imminence” passages! If any verses teach imminence, these passages do, but the strongest verses were explained away by pre-tribbers themselves!. Also, being told that Matthew 24-25 is “not for us” was just like being back in the Watchtower Society! It's the same demon wearing a different suit!

Once I grasped the truth that my 'imminence' passages perfectly fit the pre-wrath position-i.e., we don't know the day or hour, but the signs give us the time frame-all my problems vanished because those passages also rule out the mid- and post-trib positions.

When Jesus was asked the signs of His coming, he said this very first thing. He said, “Take heed that no man deceive you . . . “ (verse 4). Now if anyone comes along and says, “This isn't for us,” if language has any meaning, it must be blatantly obvious that this teacher is a deceiver-maybe unintentionally, but nevertheless a deceiver!

If a man said he was a Buddhist but the teachings of Buddha didn't apply to him, I'd think, How can he call himself a Buddhist then? Yet people call themselves Christians but don't believe the teachings of Christ apply to them!

Keep up the good work.

Witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses: Giving Insight Into Matthew 24

My husband and I have both been blessed with the opportunity to develop friendships with Jehovah's Witnesses, so the letter from the former Jehovah's Witness reader was particularly timely. As we have dug into the scriptures (and the Watchtower Society's "translation, in particular, I had an opportunity to gain some unexpected insight into Matthew 24.

One of the foundational scriptures for the prewrath view is Matthew 24:30-31, in which Jesus says, "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other" (NIV).

Prewrathers tend to focus on the events described in this verse, especially as they relate to Revelation 6:12-13, the sixth seal. However, after dialoging in depth with my Jehovah's Witness friend, what jumped out at me was not the events described here, but the larger claim.

Throughout scripture, there is a special relationship between God and the clouds, especially as it pertains to His coming in judgment (for a terrific analysis of this subject, see Charles Cooper's God's Elect and the Great Tribulation.) There are a number of descriptions of God's coming in judgment upon the ancient nations, as classically seen in Isaiah 19:1 and Daniel 7:13:

Isaiah 19:1:

An oracle concerning Egypt:
       See, the LORD rides on a swift cloud
       and is coming to Egypt.
       The idols of Egypt tremble before him,
       and the hearts of the Egyptians melt within them.

Daniel 7:13:

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven."

Likewise, in Matthew 24:30-31, Jesus associates Himself as the one who comes on the clouds of heaven-establishing His divinity. Critically for Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus associates himself, not just with the divine Messiah of Daniel 7, but also with with One God - the one the Witnesses call "Jehovah" - in Isaiah 19:1 and similar passages.

Thus, just as Jesus does in the famous "I AM" passages, in Matthew 24:30-31, Jesus is once again equating Himself with Jehovah God, the One God, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth. This is something I had missed for years, so for this insight, I give my Jehovah's Witness friends a "tip of the hat" in thanks!

For a terrific resource in engaging in polite and respectful dialog with Jehovah's Witnesses, I highly recommend Ron Rhodes' Reasoning From the Scriptures With Jehovah's Witnesses. (We do appreciate readers ordering through our Amazon Associates links, since Strong Tower Publishing will then get a small commission on each sale. See "Reader Selections" sidebar for the link.)

What Are Readers Reading?

Every month, Strong Tower Publishing lists all of the theological books ordered through our Amazon Associates links on the website. Ordering through these links provides Strong Tower Publishing with a small commission on each sale, supporting our ministry. It also exposes us to new books and new topics we might not otherwise have known about. Although Strong Tower Publishing receives a list of all titles ordered through the links, we have no idea who is ordering what.

Last month's top seller: The Rapture Question Answered: Plain and Simple, Robert Van Kampen

February 2009 reader selections:

All Books Ordered:

Antichrist: Islam's Awaited Messiah, Joel Richardson
Becoming a True Spiritual Community: A Profound Vision of What the Church Can Be, Larry Crabb
Before God's Wrath: The Bible's Answer to the Timing of the Rapture, Revised and Expanded Edition, H. L. Nigro
Connecting: Healing Ourselves and Our Relationships, Larry Crabb
Rapture Question Answered, The: Plain and Simple, Robert Van Kampen
Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah's Witnesses, Ron Rhodes
Recommendation 666: The Rise of the Beast From the Sea, Herb Peters
Revelation Unsealed, Don Salerno
Shattered Dreams: God's Unexpected Pathway to Joy, Larry Crabb

Remember, if you want to look into one of these books, please click through one of our Amazon.com purchase links (such as from our main titles page). This supports our website at no cost to you!

Responses to Reader Questions: A Fresh Look at the Parable of the 10 Virgins

Q: I have really enjoyed reading your book "Before God's Wrath" and I truly believe that it accurately reflects what the Bible teaches. I struggle a bit still with your application of the parable of the 10 virgins on page 19 where you state that "there are many morals to this parable" and that "they have given up hope for His coming". While I agree that they "all slumbered" may support this, I am not satisfied that this is the central idea being portrayed by this parable.

I have searched quite a bit for an interpretation that makes sense to me but have not found one. What does the 'oil' represent? The text seems to imply to me that the foolish virgins did not bring "enough" oil, not that it was the "wrong-kind" of oil.

Secondly, regarding the analysis of Rev. 3:10 on page 106-107, I wonder if the phrase "those who dwell upon the earth" holds the key to the best understanding of this verse. This phrase is mentioned at least 9 times in the book of Revelation and seems to always refer to the unregenerate - those who live entirely "under the sun" (Eccl). Could this verse be saying that the faithful believer will simply be kept from a testing that the Lord
will pour out on the ungodly (i.e. the trumpet judgments?).

If you have time, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

A: It's entirely possible that the oil does not represent anything. Rather, the point of the parable may simply be the personal responsibility to be prepared, without any other hidden meaning. One of the rules of parables is that they are intended to illustrate a point, not to have every detail dissected. When we try to go beyond the point of the parable to draw parallels to details that were not intended to be dissected, we can come up with false interpretations.

One thing that's interesting about this parable that I rarely hear anyone talk about (well, I've never heard anyone talk about it) is that the bridegroom never showed up out of the blue. There was a timeframe in which they bridegroom came. I'm drawing a blank - was it at the end of a year? In any case, it wasn't at any time. He stayed away for a known period, give or take depending on his schedule, then returned at the end for his bride. The virgins may not have known the exact moment of his arrival, but they knew within an approximate time.

Thus, there was no excuse for their lack of preparation - none at all. Based on the calendar, the virgins should have known to get ready. Yet, many of them did not.

If this is the case, then the point of the parable is not just lack of preparedness. It's also callousness. Then there is the hypocrisy of thinking that they could just "borrow" oil - faith, spiritual maturity, whatever it might be - at the time of his arrival. Thus, it's not only being unprepared, but it's a deep disrespect to the character of God and His will for our lives.

It's entirely possible - in fact, I think it's highly probable - that the meaning of the parable lies along these lines and "oil" has no hidden meaning other than its use as part of the illustration.

On the issue of earth dwellers, you may want to check out the article on earth dwellers on The Millennialist website. Mo Dardinger has an article on this topic you might find interesting.

In Times of Persecution and Crisis, Do YOU Know Your Spiritual Identity?

There are many today who believe we are years, if not months, away from seeing the rise of the Antichrist. If true, and the church is going to endure the end-times persecution of ultimate evil as prewrath holds, then there will be nothing more important during this time than knowing who we are in Christ.

When it comes to knowing your spiritual identity, Strong Tower Publishing highly recommends Spiritual Identity, by Larry Silver. Spiritual Identity is a highly readable, deeply relevant, and biblically solid look - not on how we see ourselves as Christians, but as how God sees us.

This identity may be surprising to many people who are taught from their earliest years that we are worthless, sinful creatures deserving of nothing but judgment. In contrast, Silver describes how once we take on the mantle of Christ, God sees us as holy, priests, kings, His ambassadors, and much more, a view that will be critical in helping believers stay firm, encouraged, and effective during times of crisis.

Edited by H. L. Nigro, Spiritual Identity is highly readable without sacrificing spiritual depth or scriptural support. It is a tremendous book that ought to be standard reading for all believers regardless of their level of spiritual maturity.