I would like to know why Jesus was dead for three days and not one or five. Is there a symbolic reason for three days?

In Revelation 3:10 Jesus promises the Philadelphia church that He will keep them from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. I use this as one of my pre-trib rapture evidences of the church being spared from the judging wrath of God. However since it is not the last church to be addressed, how does Laodicea fit in? Is Laodicea the apostate church? Yet it reads like they can be saved also, so how can they come after the church that is spared? Or are the two church types overlapping at the same time?

Regarding the Royal Family, when I look at 1 Pet. 2:9 I first have to remind myself that Peter addressed this letter to Jews because in his salutation he addresses it to the pilgrims of the Dispersion/exiles of the Dispersion/aliens scattered/God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered. When he states in 2:9 that you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God isn’t he talking about the children of Israel and not the Church? Wouldn’t it be the children of Israel that is the Royal Family?

In Isaiah 17, after Damascus becomes a ruinous heap, vs. 4 and on speaks of the glory of Jacob waning and the land becoming lean, etc. Is this past or do you think Israel will once again have agricultural lack? And in Psalm 83–scholars say it is yet future. Indeed it sure could be. Do you think any of the ancient past wars, 1948, 1974, or 1967 would have fit that picture as well? Or is it just future?

Who do you suppose will hear the command, the voice, and the trumpet call which are all described in I Thessalonians 4:16 “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” Will it be the dead in Christ only, all believers (dead or alive) or everyone on earth that will hear these things? Thanks so much for your insight!

I get myself confused trying to decipher where Jesus will be during the Millennium. I understand that the New Jerusalem is a “satellite” where we the church will reside. Will what we now know as the current Jerusalem still exist on the earth? I tend to think it will based on Zech. 8:4-5. From your article on sacrifices during the Millennium, I believe there will exist a temple on earth where the sacrifices occur. So, will Jesus reside on the earth? But we read that a New Jerusalem is a light source for the earth. Is this Light Source God (Shekinah Glory) since Jesus is on the earth?

In your article “2012…End of the World?” you stated, “Earth’s land mass has been pushed apart to form the current continents and islands, the Earth’s orbit has been extended by 5 1/4 days, and its axis tilted by 23.44 degrees. All this and more will have to be fixed in order for Earth to once again be the paradise it was created to be.” A journalist on a secular news video stated today that the earthquake in Chile, “moved so much mass on the planet that government scientists estimate it moved the earth off it’s axis by about three inches; shortened the day by a few millionths of a second; and raised the ground level of one island by six feet.”

I understand that earthquakes like these are part of the “birth pangs”, but do you also see this as God restoring the planet to its original form? Or do you see this happening more during Daniel’s 70th week and the Great Tribulation judgments?

Reading “Is Only God Immortal?” today and I have a hard time understanding how our soul is eternal already and the eternity of life in hell. If God grants us eternal life through a belief in Christ’s gift to us, then it would be safe to say we don’t have it yet, or before our belief. Reading John 3:36 seems to say to me that you will either have life, or not have life. Wouldn’t an eternal life in hell still be a life? Could Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 have meant that the fire is eternal, the destruction is eternal, not the time some spend there?

Who are the saints judging in Rev. 20:4 and concerning what things?

Thank you for your ministry. I was wanting to know if the number of the gentiles have to be a number only God knows then how do you explain saying the rapture will be in 2011? I am referring this to the 483 years from the time Suleiman ordered Jerusalem’s walls rebuilt and the second coming. In seeing God’s plan so precise to numbers, if we have free will how does he get the number of the Gentiles being saved in this time frame of 483 years?