Within the next few weeks, Strong Tower Publishing will be offering a new prewrath title, The Parable of the Fig Tree, by Pastor Ryan Habbena of Signet Ring Ministries in Minneapolis, MN. This book will focus tightly on the parable of the fig tree found in the Olivet Discourse and its implications not just for end-times theology, but for believers' lives today. This title is now in the layout stages, so look for its release in the next issue (or check the Strong Tower Publishing website).

Table of Contents

1. The Parable of the Fig Tree: Discerning the Signs of Christ's Return
2. Command From the King: Is the Parable for Me to Learn and Apply?
3. The Beginning Buds: Understanding the Initial Signs of Christ's Return
4. Tribulation Pains: Understanding the Final Campaign Against God's Elect
5. The Abomination of Desolation: Understanding the Sign That Reveals the Antichrist
6. Like Lightning: Hearing Christ's Instructions for This Unparalleled Time
7. Preparing the Skies for the Son: Understanding the Sign That Heralds the Return of Jesus Christ
8. The Great Gathering of God's Elect: Understanding the Timing of the Rapture
9. The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord: Understanding What We Are Delivered From
10. What About Imminence? Answering the Question, "Could Christ Come at Any Moment?"
11. "This Generation Will Not Pass Away Until . . ." : The Olivet Discourse and the Salvation of Israel
12. A Word of Comfort: Taking Solace in Our Sovereign Lord
13. Watch and Pray: Putting the Parable Into Practice
14. A Call to Arms: Becoming Battle Ready for the "Evil Day"

Reflections From the Mount of Olives

Responses to Reader Questions

Q: Hello. I'm pretty much convinced that the prewrath position is true. However, this evening I'm bothered by two problems that puzzle me. Maybe you can clarify these points for me.

1. If the dead in Christ are resurrected at the time of the rapture (Revelation 7), why does John refer to the resurrection of the martyred saints in Revelation 19 as the first resurrection? Shouldn't this—at the very least—be the second resurrection?

2. How do you reconcile the fact that the seal judgments (sword, famine, wild beasts) of Revelation 6 (initiated by Jesus' opening of the seals) are not God's wrath but identical judgments are sent on Israel by God in Ezekiel 14:21?

Thanks for your help.

A: I think the issue of Ezekiel 14 is answered by the fact that God's judgment and God's wrath are different. God judges and disciplines His children, but that's not the same thing as bringing His fiery wrath against them. After all, even Peter wrote, "The time has come for judgment to start in the house of God."

God has always disciplined His people in order to bring them to repentance. God's wrath seems to be reserved for the unrepentant sinners who not only have not repented, but will not repent. Wrath is therefore destructive judgment, not to bring to repentance, but to utterly destroy. The judgments described in Ezekiel seem to be of the former type — judgments designed to bring to repentance and, ultimately, to restore, not wrath to utterly destroy.

The first resurrection in Revelation 20 is answered in different ways by different prewrathers. There are some who believe that we are witnessing a resurrection here. Others, including me, see this as a description of those who are sitting.

I see this as a phrase describing those on the thrones. They are the first resurrection, not that the resurrection is occurring at that time. This whole sequence is very abstract, so I think it's hard to force it into an overly strict time sequence. Others will, of course, disagree. But what's important to me here is, no matter which position you hold, this is a difficult passage. It doesn't work for pretrib, prewrath, or posttrib (or even non-premillennial positions) well. It's just a tough passage, so it's not one that really helps or hurts in determining one's rapture view.

Q: Hello. I just read through your list of suggested videos to watch and couldn’t believe the disgusting stuff you not only don’t warn against, but encourage people to watch. I know it’s not easy to find clean viewing, that’s obviously what brought me to your site, but come on, read your Bible before recommending people watch trash (people having sex, children being abused, gutter language…) and call it entertainment.

A: I'm sorry you feel that way about the movie reviews. If you're looking for movies that have absolutely nothing offensive in them — no sin whatsoever — I can see why you'd feel that way.

We don't live in a sinless world, and unless you are watching movies produced by Christian production companies, I don't think you'll find movies that are completely clean and without any offense against God.

Whether or not a believer feels comfortable watching even the "cleanest" movies according to secular standards is a matter of conscience (1 Corinthians 8). What I take from this section of scripture is that if even the cleanest movies offend your conscience, then you should not watch them. If you can watch them without approving of the sin, and even if that sin offends you (as it should) you feel that the act of watching them, itself, is not offensive to God, then you have liberty and should not judge whether someone else watches or does not watch (illustrated by whether one eats or does not eat meat sacrificed to idols).

The entire chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians is a tough chapter for believers today. It's so easy to become judgmental and point the finger at other believers who make different choices, but look at what Paul was talking about — eating meat sacrificed to idols. There could be nothing more offensive to God than sacrificing to idols. Yet, Paul writes that if one can eat the meat with a clean conscience (for the meat itself is nothing), then it is clean to you. If you cannot eat the meat with a clean conscience, then it is sin. We can apply that principle to so many things in our lives today.

I wish there were no sin in the world — believe me, I do —but we don't live in that world yet. As for the line I and other reviewers draw for "recommended" movies, it revolves around whether or not the movie endorses the sin, glorifies it, and the level of unnecessary saturation. If the movie does not glorify the sin, if it does not endorse the sin, and if the movie doesn't unnecessarily saturate with sin for sensational effect, then it falls within the lines of approval for us.

Not everyone agrees, and whether or not one agrees or disagrees, I believe, has a lot to do with how one feels about 1 Corinthians 8.

Thank you for your feedback.

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