100% Bible Based Teaching
Provides in Depth teaching from the Word of God
Clear distinction between worldly and Christian music
Aim to fulfill the great commission as commanded by Jesus
Seeking to find answers to your faith based questions from God’s Word
The Rapture is for saints, not sinners
Or, the Tribulation is for sinners, not saints!
The purpose for the Tribulation cannot be ignored. It was always intended to be a time of judgement, a time of cleansing for the whole earth, particularly for God’s people Israel. The end-times will usher in Israel’s time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30) which will bring Israel face-to-face with extreme affliction and annihilation. Israel will be terminal, with only one pathway out of it all: repentance and a return to God as His people. Likewise, the rest of the world will also be faced with a critical decision: Repent before the Lord God or be condemned for eternity. By the end of the coming 7-year Tribulation period, all who enter that period will have chosen one way or the other. Those of Israel who repent before God will be declared saved; those who don’t repent will be destroyed (Zechariah 13:8-9) Note the sheep and goats judgement of Matthew 25:31-46 – The world will either side with Israel and her God (the sheep) and be granted eternal life, or reject Israel and her God (the goats) and be condemned forever.
Once the Church (with all the righteous redeemed) departs (when God takes them home in the Rapture), the 7-year period yet remaining to Israel will begin; it has been called the great Tribulation. Joel 2:31 calls it the great and the terrible day of the Lord. “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.” It will end with Armageddon and the return of Christ their Messiah. When Israel sinned in rejecting their Messiah 2000 years ago, the Church took their place. But Israel has a 7-year period yet remaining on their timeline (Daniel 9:24-25). The Church age will be over and their ministry handed back to Israel for just 7 years before the end.
All those who enter this 7-year Tribulation period will have just 7 years or less to decide whether to repent or to be condemned. During this 7-year period, God will bring the most extreme tribulation and affliction ever. Such judgement on the world will be designed to force people to decide one way or the other. And it will be all over by the end of that 7-year end-times Tribulation period.
Those who are already saved and sanctified through faith in Jesus Christ before then will not enter the Tribulation. There will be no need for them to be cleansed because they have already been declared righteous. God will snatch them away from this world and off to heaven. All the righteous will be taken out of this world, and then salvation will return to Israel (Romans 11:25-27). It will be Israel’s final opportunity to repent before God; those who repent will be saved; those who do not repent will be condemned. Only those of Israel who are saved will be declared Israel; the rest will be rejected by God just as they rejected His mercy.
So, if you are not taken away to heaven in the Rapture before the Tribulation begins, then God has declared you to be unrighteous and will use the Tribulation to turn you back to Him in repentance. No-one who is righteous will enter the Tribulation! Like Noah who was taken away in the ark before judgement fell, the righteous of this world will be taken away before God’s judgement falls upon the unrighteous remaining.
Those who teach that the Church will go through the Tribulation will find out that if they remain here after the Rapture, then they were not righteous and therefore must repent or be condemned. Calvinists teach that they have replaced Israel as God’s people and will not have to hand back the ministry to Israel. In doing so calvinists must accept that if they are now “Israel” (as they claim), or even if they are in authority over Israel, the affliction for iniquity will be real and savage. If they enter the Tribulation, then God has declared them the unrighteous who must repent of their sins. All who enter the Tribulation will have been declared unrighteous, including Israel, and the world with all its false religions and heresies. If calvinists wish to be “Israel”, then they must be treated as having the iniquity of Israel!
Calvinists and any others who believe they will go through the Tribulation (including all those who believe the Rapture will be at the end of the Tribulation) have to understand the purpose of the Tribulation, which is to purge the unrighteous of iniquity. Because the goal of the Tribulation is to purge of sin, then it is impossible to justify believing that the Rapture is at the end of the Tribulation. The extreme affliction can have only one purpose. Those who are righteous do not require purging from sin and therefore do not need to suffer affliction to purge them. It is Israel and the world who must be purged or condemned. The righteous will leave before the Tribulation commences!
Jeremiah 30:7-9 – 7Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. 8For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: 9But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.
Zechariah 13:8-9 – 8And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. 9And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
Matthew 24:21-22 – 21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.
My call from God to Christian schools (Part 6)
The govt VRQA were so opposed to anything biblical that it was hard to see how River City Christian College (RCCC), Echuca, was going to get out of the no-creation dilemma. One thing is clear: if the previous principal had been still running the school, it would never have remained open by the start of 2009. I had set up all relevant policies, and had avoided a legal disaster over the underhand funding set in place when I had arrived as principal at RCCC. The requirements listed by the Registered Schools Board a few years before (and never implemented) were now largely dealt with. But the creation issue remained a big headache. The VRQA were certain that they would shut us down on this issue alone. In fact, in March 2009 they gave us an ultimatum: remove the creation component of your science curriculum and we may consider permitting your continuing registration as a school.
In November 2008 the school board chair and I had attended a meeting with the VRQA in Melbourne. There was a lot of disagreement between them and us over the one single issue: creation content in our science course. So I asked the VRQA chair: If, then, you do not accept our science curriculum, which school’s curriculum would you accept? She said: The science curriculum of Waverley Christian College. So when I returned to RCCC the next day, I made contact with Waverley Christian College to ask them if they would make their science curriculum available for us to look at. They agreed. We also arranged for our science teacher to go to Waverley for a week in February 2009 to see how it worked in practice. It looked workable, and it did happen to accept some creation content. (I wondered if the VRQA actually knew this?) Plans were made to implement the Waverley curriculum as soon as possible in 2009. Meanwhile, before we could set up the Waverley science curriculum, the VRQA sent us an ultimatum: to drop creation from our curriculum or be closed down in 30 days. We told them that we were still in the process of implementing an alternative curriculum. They then came to re-assess us in Term 2 and, upon noting that we still had a creation component in our science curriculum, informed us that they would refuse our re-registration to operate as a school in Victoria. I then informed them that the science curriculum we were now using was the Waverley College curriculum as recommended by the VRQA Chair in November 2008. That actually stopped them in their tracks and they said that they would check this out and get back to me. When they did get back, we had passed the assessment and had been granted provisional registration to operate. It was clear that we had won this round.
That necessary certificate that gave the school legal right to operate as a school was missing when I started at RCCC. No-one seemed to know what it was, and no-one recalled seeing such a document. Then (in maybe late 2008) one of the board members said he’d been given (by the previous principal) a box of papers to be burnt or otherwise disposed of. He’d stored this cardboard box under his house. He now brought it in to see if there were any documents there that we might need. And that necessary certificate permitting our operation as a school was in that box. Fortunately, in spite of the previous principal’s efforts to get rid of it, we were able to frame it and hang it on the office wall. We were now legally permitted to operate a school on that site! In fact, it is clear that if the previous principal had stayed on longer, the school most likely would not have survived. He apparently didn’t have much idea of running a school properly and should never have been appointed principal in the first place. (I suppose they were desperate for someone to employ!) I had the experience of many school reviews in previous schools and knew a lot about what was required to pass an assessment. I had set about doing what was needed from the time I started at RCCC and in my three years managed to bring the school back from disaster. But it came at a cost to my health; I needed a break to recover from my stress-related health problems. And the school enrolment numbers did not slide any further while I was there, in spite of no longer being able to count Yr 11&12 students in the figures.
While there we had the opportunity to have a new science building built using a govt grant for such buildings. Some on the school board wanted a local builder to build it, rather than accepting the builder the govt had chosen for the task. A school meeting was held and by a narrow margin it was decided that the govt-approved builder should do it. However, I was constantly harassed and pestered by the board chairman, even in my own time, including a holiday break. I would get phone calls over and over to get me to change my mind. Then the board chairman started harassing the woman who had made the application in the first place. It was never expected that her application would get us something but when it did the school board wanted to control it (even though the school board had rejected putting in the application in the first place). The board chairman harassment was so intense that, due to my stress problems, I was not able to withstand, and I signed the request to use a local builder. The project was delayed for a few weeks while this was considered, and then we were told that by then the last half dozen building grants had been cancelled due to funds running out. We missed out because of that harassment! I often think what the school could have had if only the board chair hadn’t bullied me into submission. Still, he has to wear that, not me!
I was desperately wanting a break to recuperate and in the last few months of 2009 I took a few afternoons off due to my stress levels. I notified the board that I would resign at the end of 2009. I would have liked to have stayed longer but needed some time off to regain my health. I think if they’d wanted me to continue, then perhaps a paid sabbatical might have worked, or at least my house rent paid. I couldn’t afford to pay money on rental when not working, so I’d have to move away from Echuca.
In June 2011 the RCCC council chairman contacted me requesting that I consider taking a secondary teaching position for 2012. I refused on the basis that (a) I would need rental once again, (b) my wife would have to stay home this time, and (c) they should have kept me on while I was still living there. I didn’t need the funds anyway. Once I left Echuca, I was never coming back!
If only the school board had recognised my stress levels and had acted to offer support while I was working so hard to save their school from closure. I remember going to a school board meeting in early 2009 and telling them that I had assessed my effectiveness as principal and was not performing as well as I should be now because of my stress levels. Unbelievably the general mood seemed to be that if I thought I need to improve, then I should try harder. I don’t think they understood at all!
This was the last teaching job I’d take on. God didn’t open any more doors after that, and I had ample funds to permit me to just stay at home, and consider that my retirement began for me at the age of 60. We have made many acquaintances over the years at Benalla, Alice Springs and Echuca, and keep some communications going even now. God has been good to us; we lack for nothing in spite of no longer having our farm which was the price we had to pay for my teaching ministry. There’s always a cost in ministry. If there is no cost, then there’s probably no victory either. I am satisfied that every cost involved with all my travels has been worth it. I have followed where God has called and do not regret my teaching ministry in spite of leaving much comfort and financial ease behind.
Finally, it was an “all or nothing” desire that led me to go into ministry. I reasoned that if God couldn’t have all of me, then I would always be compromising in having to choose those things of the world I would accept rather than condemn. I didn’t want one foot in the world and the other in ministry. It had to be all or nothing!