Dr. Couch, my church never teaches about the end times. The pastor says he believes in Bible prophecy but never reveals to us scripturally the doctrines of the coming rapture of the church or the tribulation. What should I do?
ANSWER: I would leave that church. I am finding that many pastors are lulling the people to sleep. They want to give only the positive. They need to discuss the issue with the Lord. HE is the One who gave us the revelations of what is yet to come. One pastor said recently "I don't want to give all that prophetic teaching, the doom and gloom, to my congregation. I want to give them only hope!" The backdrop of hope is the truth about what is going to happen that is bad. But too, all prophecy is not doom and gloom. It is about the blessed hope, the return of Christ for the church, and the blessedness of the kingdom following the end of the tribulation.
There are dozens if not hundreds of verses our people need to hear about God's future judgment upon the world in the tribulation. The tribulation is about His wrath upon a disobedient world. Isaiah writes in 13:11-13:
Thanks for asking.
Dr. Mal Couch
ANSWER: I would leave that church. I am finding that many pastors are lulling the people to sleep. They want to give only the positive. They need to discuss the issue with the Lord. HE is the One who gave us the revelations of what is yet to come. One pastor said recently "I don't want to give all that prophetic teaching, the doom and gloom, to my congregation. I want to give them only hope!" The backdrop of hope is the truth about what is going to happen that is bad. But too, all prophecy is not doom and gloom. It is about the blessed hope, the return of Christ for the church, and the blessedness of the kingdom following the end of the tribulation.
There are dozens if not hundreds of verses our people need to hear about God's future judgment upon the world in the tribulation. The tribulation is about His wrath upon a disobedient world. Isaiah writes in 13:11-13:
I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. … Therefore I shall make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken from its place at the fury of the Lord of hosts in the day of His burning anger.And in 26:21:
For behold, the Lord is sure to come out from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.What could get more plain as is in Jeremiah 25:30-32?
"Therefore you shall prophecy against them all these words and you shall say to them, The Lord will roar from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation; He will roar mightily against His fold (even the Jews). He will shout like those who tread the grapes, against all the inhabitations of the earth.On these terrible verses in Jeremiah 25 Unger writes:
" A clamor has come to the end of the earth, because the Lord has a controversy with the nations. He is entering into judgment with all flesh; as for the wicked, He has given them to the sword," declares the Lord.
Thus says the Lord of host, "Behold, evil is going forth from nation to nations, and a great storm is being stirred up from the remotest parts of the earth."
God is pictured as a judge. He has a controversy with the nations and pleads with all flesh, slaying the wicked with the sword. … The coming great tribulation is prophetically unfolded as a great whirlwind raised up from the remotest parts of the earth with evil spreading worldwide. The frightful carnage is pictured extending from one end of the earth to the other.
Thanks for asking.
Dr. Mal Couch
