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What I find humorous about this type of thinking is that after such horrific things in the past such as the Atlantic slave trade ( 20 million or so slaves ), nuclear war on Japan, Gods own church torturing and killing people in his name , various genocides throughout history, the Holocaust , etc, that what really gets these types worked up into an End Times frenzy is non marital sexual activity and homosexuals .
Really ? Creating 20 million slaves in the good old USA in the Bible Belt and killing 6 million Jews didn’t do it, but gay guys getting to live together legally is the sign the world is coming to an end ?
The human mind has a marvelous talent for finding patterns and connections. It saved our ancestors' bacon every day. That subtle movement in the tall grasses, the call of a nearby bird, are they part of a pattern that includes a leopard that is stalking me? The wise bushman will back away, even if he's uncertain that the leopard is really there. Sometimes we find patterns and connections that aren't there, but that's just the way it goes when you have a human mind.
That is what you are doing - - seeing patterns and connections that aren't there. The way I know that is because people in every generation between John of Patmos' and Tim LaHaye have applied the images in Revelations to the things and events of their own time.
John's visions were about his time. Not Tertullian's, not Luthers, and not ours. The unholy monster was the hated Roman Empire, and the beast was Nero Caesar. The exploding mountain was the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, and so forth.
I suggest some scholarly reading on the subject of Revelations. Don't limit it to authors that will support your views. Take a clean look, and you'll find a pattern that makes more sense.
There seems to be an extreme reluctance to apply any actual modern knowledge and understanding to interpret the scriptures. Apparently, our primitive ancient ancestors had a magically inerrant and infallible understanding of God that does not permit any private understanding. (It even says so in the scriptures somewhere!)
Several times I’ve used the word “uncanny” to describe how the New Testament description of the End Times matches what we see happening today.
Jesus and the NT authors might have been expected to describe a steady forward march of Christianity until all the world was a Gospel-believing, Spirit-filled utopia. In fact, they described exactly the opposite.
I hate when people string Bible verses, so I won’t beat this to death. The following snippets from the NT serve to make my point about the state of Christianity in the End Times:
False Christs and false prophets will arise and will provide great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
In the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.
I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
You get the point: In the End Times, the Gospel will be perverted beyond recognition. People will have a form of godliness but none of its power. They will accumulate teachers who tell them what they want to hear, who cater to their lusts.
How can anyone be so lacking in discernment that he or she fails to see this is what is happening all around us? How can anyone with the slightest modicum of discernment fail to connect the dots?
The Gospel has been twisted into a feel-good message of “tolerance” for everyone and everything that completely guts it of any notion of God’s justice, human sin and God’s judgment. As we see on these forums every day, it’s a message so toothless it isn’t even challenging to atheists!
Those who present the actual Gospel message, on the other hand, are attacked by the promoters of these alternative Christianities and atheists alike! They are dinosaurs, out of touch with modern “enlightened” thinking.
Every one of these alternative Christianities distorts the Gospel message in ways that rob it of its truth, of its saving power. They uniformly make a mockery of the actual Gospel. 50% of the Gospel is no Gospel at all.
I have only one explanation: I believe supernatural evil has been unleashed to an unprecedented degree and a veil of delusion has descended over mankind. We see it not only in the perversion of the Gospel but in the almost wholesale collapse of Judeo-Christian morality in an astonishingly short time. Consistent with my increasing turn toward Calvinism, I suspect God may simply have abandoned the unsaved to their own lusts and their twisted notions of the Gospel. I believe we are solidly in the End Times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
Sure is starting to look that way, isn't it?
I believe it began a long time ago with extreme fundamentalists, not something that is just now happening.
The human mind has a marvelous talent for finding patterns and connections. It saved our ancestors' bacon every day. That subtle movement in the tall grasses, the call of a nearby bird, are they part of a pattern that includes a leopard that is stalking me? The wise bushman will back away, even if he's uncertain that the leopard is really there. Sometimes we find patterns and connections that aren't there, but that's just the way it goes when you have a human mind.
That is what you are doing - - seeing patterns and connections that aren't there. The way I know that is because people in every generation between John of Patmos' and Tim LaHaye have applied the images in Revelations to the things and events of their own time.
John's visions were about his time. Not Tertullian's, not Luthers, and not ours. The unholy monster was the hated Roman Empire, and the beast was Nero Caesar. The exploding mountain was the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, and so forth.
I suggest some scholarly reading on the subject of Revelations. Don't limit it to authors that will support your views. Take a clean look, and you'll find a pattern that makes more sense.
First of all, the name of the book is Revelation, not Revelations. Secondly, if Revelation was about visions regarding John's time then that would mean that we have already gone though the Millennium and are now in the new heavens and new earth and everyone has been resurrected which is ridiculous.
And I know the various scholarly positions regarding Revelation.
First of all, the name of the book is Revelation, not Revelations. Secondly, if Revelation was about visions regarding John's time then that would mean that we have already gone though the Millennium and are now in the new heavens and new earth and everyone has been resurrected which is ridiculous.
And I know the various scholarly positions regarding Revelation.
Pardon me, I sometimes use the colloquial "Revelations". I was being too casual. Should I have said "The Apocalypse of John"? Anyway, it could hardly make slightest difference because you understood what I meant.
You say it's ridiculous that The Apocalypse was about John's time. Let me qualify again something I said too casually. I meant, roughly, "in the generation of John". John described things that already existed in his time - those unholy monsters of Rome - and predicted their downfall at Armageddon in Israel, roughly in John's time. That didn't happen. Which is one reason to question the canonization of The Apocalypse at Nicaea, and why many of the delegates opposed it. Those who did NOT oppose it felt that The Apocalypse was about events in their present time. You can read the examples they gave!
Last edited by Arizona Humphrey; 11-03-2021 at 04:24 PM..
Pardon me, I sometimes use the colloquial "Revelations". I was being too casual. Should I have said "The Apocalypse of John"? Anyway, it could hardly make slightest difference because you understood what I meant.
You say it's ridiculous that The Apocalypse was about John's time. Let me qualify again something I said too casually. I meant, roughly, "in the generation of John". John described things that already existed in his time - those unholy monsters of Rome - and predicted their downfall at Armageddon in Israel, roughly in John's time. That didn't happen. Which is one reason to question the canonization of The Apocalypse at Nicaea, and why many of the delegates opposed it.
You are assuming that John was talking about Rome. But as I said, Revelation also talks about the new heavens and new earth. If the preteristic view of Revelation were correct then we should already be in the new heavens and new earth, but we aren't. Nor has Armageddon taken place as yet.
You are assuming that John was talking about Rome. But as I said, Revelation also talks about the new heavens and new earth. If the preteristic view of Revelation were correct then we should already be in the new heavens and new earth, but we aren't. Nor has Armageddon taken place as yet.
John predicted a new golden age of peace and prosperity, and I look for it to come, too. John was right that this event was coming, I think, but wrong about under what circumstances it would come.
The monster of Rome fell at the hands of early medieval Germanic tribes, not at the hands of a host from Heaven.
John predicted a new golden age of peace and prosperity, and I look for it to come, too. John was right that this event was coming, I think, but wrong about under what circumstances it would come.
The monster of Rome fell at the hands of early medieval Germanic tribes, not at the hands of a host from Heaven.
Again, you are making an assumption that John wrote about the downfall of Rome. But the Tribulation of which Revelation speaks is not about Rome's downfall.
First of all, the name of the book is Revelation, not Revelations. Secondly, if Revelation was about visions regarding John's time then that would mean that we have already gone though the Millennium and are now in the new heavens and new earth and everyone has been resurrected which is ridiculous.
And I know the various scholarly positions regarding Revelation.
You arent immortal, you arent a Jew, You arent Israel and you are not counted amongst the tribes of Israel who make up the 144,000, you havnt learned or even tried to become a priest of the religion of Messiah.
You are in a 7 year covenant that you dont even know about, and this covenant begins a 42 month cycle where you begin as Elijah walking in the land of Ephraim.
At the middle of that 7 year covenant AFTER you have seen the abomination of desolation within yourself and you come to the middle of your covenant after 42 months, you die as the Gentile you were and you become born again through maturing in the meat YOU LACK AND HAVE NONE OF, you would now have 3 and a half years remaining drom Rosh Hashanah to Shemini Atzeret
You had seen and realized that YOU are the temple, and that THE ABOMINATION is within you from the day you were born, that the old Adam was with you all the time and you called him the holy spirit but you need a new Adam.You need a new head, and thus ALL THE SAINTS MUST GET BEHEADED.
Since you will never see the abomination, you will never cone to the end of your first 42 months because you will never go all the way to death in being a Gentile to be added to the tribes of Israel because you wont walk through the gates that are named for the 12.
Every one of those 144,000 all began as Gentiles who were as dead men wrapped in 7 linens of death while each of those seals came off, and ya know what happens when the 6th seal comes off?
A scary thing.
Each one of those 144,000 became priests and all were born again according to the birth detailed in Revelation 12, and to each one were the promises given that the father gave to Jesus.
" HE SHALL RULE ALL THE NATIONS."
Each one of those 144,000 Gentiles became priests becauae they offered the offerings demanded by Hesus to become priests.
Each one of them were beheaded because of the fact of their head was the fallen Adam, and they obtained a freedom through the acknowledgment that an abomination was within themselves and their spirits were vomitted out like reptiles so that the kings of the east may come.
Kings of the east are peopke who spent their entire lives studying the law, priests.
What does the holy spirit come to do? Sons of God are sent to people, Jesus doesnt come to every person, others are sent in his name.
What do these others come to do in Jesus name?
They come teaching the law and the prophets.
Revelation 12 ~ WHAT TAKES PLACE WHEN A PERSON IS BORN AGAIN
The War in Heaven
7And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, 8And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. 9And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 10And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. 11And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. 12Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
The Dragon Persecutes the Woman
13And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. 14And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 15And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. 16And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 17And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
, you arent a Jew, You arent Israel and you are not counted amongst the tribes of Israel who make up the 144,000, you havnt learned or even tried to become a priest of the religion of Messiah.
And thank God for that.
And weren't you told by the moderators to stop talking about Judaism on this forum. This is the Christianity forum.
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