Non-believers are the ones who face the wrath of God as described in Revelation as indicated by key words and phrases that only relate to unbelievers, but believers are on earth while it takes place. Remember Revelation is spoken symbolically in a way only those who have spiritual ears (the regenerated believer) can understand (he who hath an ear let him hear).

There appears to have been times when it would have been politically unwise for them to have done so. They evidently trusted that their friends would be able to discern their essential meaning, and that their enemies would not be able to do so. (Morris, Apocalyptic, 38)

It would have been very unwise for John to so identify the church with the future destruction of the kingdoms of the world that the world could easily discern it from his apocalypse. The Revelation was written to comfort God’s people, not provide ammunition for their destruction. We have seen what the enemies of God will do with a little information detrimental to their future (Matt 2:1-12, 16-23).

The fact that the term church does not appear in Revelation 4-19 does not mean that the entity itself is not represented in these critical chapters. All would agree that the reference to wife in Revelation 19:7 designates the church. Revelation 20:4 records, “Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them.” This group must contain at least a portion of the church given the Lord’s promise in Revelation 2:26b-27 and 3:21 that overcomers will reign with Him during His physical temporal kingdom on earth (Matt 19:27-30).

There are at least nine different references to the church in Revelation 4-19:

1. Every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 5:9c
2. A kingdom and priest, 5:10
3. Fifth seal martyrs, 6:9
4. A multitude, 7:9; 19:5-6
5. Bond-servants, 11:18; 19:2, 5
6. Our brethren, 12:10
7. The rest of her children, 12:17
8. Saints, 13:7, 10; 14:12; 18:20, 24
9. Wife, 19:7

Each of these designations will be defended as we confront them in context. Please see relevant chapter and verse.”

The absence of word “church” does not meant the absence of God’s people.

We should study and understand Scripture by the various genres it was written in. What genre is Revelation written in? It is written in apocolyptic language, which means it is written in symbols. In addition to the fact that Revelation is apocolyptic, an exegetical study of Revelation 1:1 (as done by G.K. Beale) will provide all the evidence you need to understand that the Greek “samainw” translated make known indicates that Revelation is revealed to John through symbolic communication. Is Christ literally a Lamb or is that symbollic? Is Satan literally a dragon?

You are missing the point of Revelation when you take away the symbols, and read into it the falsely so-called “literal” interpretation of the futurist and dispensationalist.

Christians are the temple of God correct? The temple of God is mentioned in Revelation 11:1. And please don’t tell me this is a physical temple, because Christ made it clear that the temple would be left desolate not that it would be rebuilt (Matthew 23:38 cf. Daniel 9:26). Besides biblical logic, says there is no need for a physical building to be the temple since it was a symbol of the true temple of God, i.e. Christ and the church.

There is a significance to the absence of the term ekklesia, but it is certainly not that the church is absent in the events of Revelation. Ekklesia is mentioned several times with different city names, while in the portions of Revelation without ekklesia their is but one city name “Babylon”. The point of this is that there were certain messages that were given to certain churches (this is not to say we cannot learn from these messages), but then John was given a symbolic message to the church as a whole.

Regarding Daniel 9:24-27, demonstrate to me the biblical logic you used to place the necessary gap between the 69th and 70th week? This is the crux to your whole teaching of dispensationalsim. From all I have read on this, there is absolutely no justification in that passage for any gap. All the things promised to occur in this prophecy were fulfilled in the time of Christ by Christ, i.e. to finish the transgression of Israel; to put an end to sin; to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet; to anoint a most holy place.

Note: I do believe there are dispensations in the Bible, but I do not believe dispensationalism. I believe there are two dispensations or ages. The Old Tesatment Age (age of symbols and types) and the New Testament Age (age of prophecy fulfillment, some in inaugurated form now and some in finalized form already). Dispensation comes form the Greek word for economy. From my studies economy basically comes down to organization of one’s household. So all a dispenstion is is how God organizes or arranges his household. I’ll expand more later.

Grace and peace to you. May the Spirit lead you to understanding preterism and biblical truth more and more as you grow in Christ.

In general, a man’s pride gets in the way of many theologians from honestly testing their own belief systems. Ignorance breeds pride and pride breeds further ignorance. In my on case, my ignorance about what the rapture teaching really involved caused me to be mislead for most of my chrisitan life on that issue and many others. I thought I knew the Bible, and thus had no need to test this system or any other teaching that I was brought up in (my pride). Once, I finally listened to the Spirit, which was telling me to question the rapture, I began to study Scripture passionately and thus understand not just the fallacies with that theology, but the great truths of scripture on this matter and many others. I was humbled by what I learned, because I didn’t know how wrong I was.

Please give specifics about the issues you have with Spurgeon’s theology. And how did you test his theology against scripture?