My question is about “Faith Churches”. I attend a church like this and the way things are taught you would think we all should be rich, full of health and walking on easy street. It sounds great but if it was as easy as they say you wouldn’t be able to keep people out of churches.

They give these great sounding prophecies about how great everything is going to be (in my state or this country) and it never seems to come to pass. To be honest it makes me mad anymore hearing the prophecies because I don’t have faith that what they are saying will happen, and they are always asking for money. Again, if all I had to do was give so and so 10% and I’d be getting 100X back you couldn’t keep people from giving.

I was wondering your thoughts on this kind of teaching?

My question is about the destination of the Jews that have been blinded since the Crucifixion. Romans 11:25 speaks of this blindness. What verses can you refer me to that explains the destination of those Jews that die while still in their blindness to Jesus being the Messiah? What is the ultimate destination for the blinded unbelieving Jews since the Crucifixion and when will they be judged?

I’m kind of confused and more than a little scared and am hoping maybe you can help. What lays ahead for American Christians? Many claim we’re going to face some really horrifying times here in our own country before we’re raptured out. Others claim we’ll be raptured out. Many churches are silent on this issue. I tend to feel that before we are raptured we may very well see the fall of America, and suffer the horrors that go with that. If true how do we prepare, what might we expect to go through, and how might God use us during that time?

I was watching a televangelist, and he says that he believes all the blacksliders will not go in the rapture and the ones that are sitting back and not doing serving the Lord or doing his will. Is this true?

I listened to a respected Bible/prophecy teacher tell the audience how Christians will be judged at the Bema seat for careless words. How he arrived at that conclusion mystifies me–all of our sins/careless words/hurtful behavior were judged at the cross. I understand that Jesus will judge our “Good Works;” not our behavior. I shook my head. He is absolutely wrong.How can a man well versed in the Bible come up with this?? Have I missed something?

I’ve heard discussions where it was stated that the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8, was most likely dragged there naked. Would that have been likely in 1st century AD? I imagine that modesty would have ruled and at least a sheet placed over her, not necessarily for her sake, but for women and children that may be out and about. Also, I find it interesting that so writings and talks state that this is Mary of Magdalene, when there is no evidence of this in the Bible. But what about the 7 demons. Any ideas on that statement?

I had a question about a comment you made in one of your commentaries. You said, “Not all of Israel rebelled, only parts. For 20 years after the cross, the Church was mostly composed of Jewish believers.” I’m well aware that there were Jewish believers, I’m also aware that it was prophesied that they would reject the Messiah. I guess what I’m not all that clear on is how that played out historically. Did the majority of the Jewish population (except for the leaders) embrace Christianity? Why or why not? When, where and why did the Jewish people start to fade away and how does that affect the Jewish people today?

My younger brother is local church Pastor. But he is an avowed post-tribulationist. No matter how much I try to share with him, that the scriptures clearly teach a pre-tribulation rapture, it does no good. He gets very angry and aggressive. It seems like I am coming up against a Pharisaical spirit.

But my question is this. If someone is so doggedly determined that the church will go through the tribulation, do you think that that person might endanger their own escape, even if they belong to the Lord? I am just observing what happened to Lot’s wife, who was clearly looking for the destruction, and not towards the escape, and suffered as a result, even though she escaped the city, but not to safety.

How does Romans 2:6-16 jive with being saved by faith alone?

I have a question regarding some numbers in the book of Revelation. Firstly, in Chapter 4, where the 24 elders are believed to represent the raptured church, what’s the significance of the number 24? Why wouldn’t we be inclined to take this number literally, as you previously suggested for the two groups of 144,000 which appear in chapters 7 & 14?

Which brings me to my next question: if one of the groups are Jews, and the other represents the raptured Church, does that mean that 144,000 is the pre-determined number of Christians who will be saved & raptured before the Great Tribulation? In which case, aren’t there a lot more Christians in the world than that today? Does this mean that only a select portion of the Church will be taken in the rapture? I have read in a study Bible, that this 144,000 probably represents a group of believers who have remained in a ‘purposeful celibate state of separation unto God’, (hence the mention that they ‘have not defiled themselves with women’)…what does this mean? Is the 144,000 even referring to the Church at all or am I missing something? Please help! I believe in the rapture of the Church but this is really confusing to me…