The End Times

[Snouter]

Christ, I can't believe anyone today tries to twist the insanity and primitive, plagiarized mythology and secret society conspiracy concepts of the "Bible" that have crippled mankind for centuries and made worshiping their captures as "chosen" as something of future destiny. That is lazy and ignorant and more importantly, delusional. At this point in history, if anyone believes the Bible as being prophetic, I really hope you seek psychological counseling to determine what the real underlining issue is.

 

[JohnPrewett]

Christ, I can't believe anyone today tries to twist the insanity and primitive, plagiarized mythology and secret society conspiracy concepts of the "Bible" that have crippled mankind for centuries and made worshiping their captures as "chosen" as something of future destiny. That is lazy and ignorant and more importantly, delusional. At this point in history, if anyone believes the Bible as being prophetic, I really hope you seek psychological counseling to determine what the real underlining issue is.

I can hardly believe there are still people as blind as you who can't see the Bible end time shaping up in plain view of the whole world.

 

[hobelim]

Christ, I can't believe anyone today tries to twist the insanity and primitive, plagiarized mythology and secret society conspiracy concepts of the "Bible" that have crippled mankind for centuries and made worshiping their captures as "chosen" as something of future destiny. That is lazy and ignorant and more importantly, delusional. At this point in history, if anyone believes the Bible as being prophetic, I really hope you seek psychological counseling to determine what the real underlining issue is.

I don't know about that. Jesus said he came to bring a sword. Probably sounded like laughable hubris. Jeremiah 25:15 identifies the sword as a curse under the appearance of a cup of wine. (When they drink it they will vomit and go mad). Revelation 19:15 confirms that the sword, a curse, comes out of the mouth of Jesus and was deliberately and openly intended to smite the nations. Its been written down in plain sight for more than a thousand years for anyone who looks to see.

Each nation,one by one, who drank the curse in a cup of wine from Jesus immediately went completely mad for centuries. People who claim to be saved and claim to be inspired by a holy ghost start gibbering and squeaking and making animal grunts and noises like they are completely insane. Isn't that what you are complaining about?

What was foretold in the Bible corresponds perfectly with the actual bloody history of the nations.

You do know that the NT was written by people who witnessed the destruction of their country, and the slaughter, enslavement, and exile of hundreds of thousands of their friends,families, and neighbors.. I'm thinking that maybe Jesus didn't speak in riddles, instruct his disciples to 'baptize' the nations, and then got executed because God loved the Roman world so much.

How is it in this day and age, even in this country where people are free to take it or leave it, some otherwise decent and intelligent people read the Bible, drink the wine, and then start gibbering about an invisible devil, the fires of hell, and the end of the world as if they had a sudden psychotic break with reality? Many grown educated people even get on their knees, worship a cookie, and then start praying to a figment of their imagination for favors. .And no one even has a gun to their head...


And some people dismiss the Bible as superstitious nonsense of primitive people, as intelligent as we think we are. lol....

Imagine that!

 

[peach174]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

Because Israel was not a nation again until 1948 and the gospel had not been taught to the whole world.
We are in it right now.
It won't end until Jesus returns.

 

[ninja007]

Preterism: Examined & Refuted

 

[BreezeWood]

.
you are all wrong, the only ending possible where there will be survivors is when the Triumph of Good vs Evil is concluded in the positive by the Judgement of the Almighty and those remaining are allowed to live. no book required, the spoken religion of Antiquity.

 

[kjw47]

34,000 religions claim to be Christian--- One is.

Not one single Christian denomination, including yours, follows divine law in the way that Jesus taught people to understand the figurative language used and comply with the demands of its hidden subjects. Not one denomination, including yours, even has an inkling that that is the substance of what Jesus taught and the disciples believed was the only way to comply with the law that leads to the fulfillment of the promise of eternal life, here and now on earth..

Don't take it too hard. Nobody's perfect. The fact that Jesus ascended into Heaven implies that he too first descended into hell, the realm of the dead..

There. Now you can stop perpetuating the one and only true christian religion garbage that you are peddling.

Be real. You are just as inebriated on vats of Jesus juice as any other denomination.

How are you ever going to rise from the dead if you won't stop pretending that you aren't dead?

Its not like the shit in your diaper doesn't stink to high heaven... sheesh.

Jesus himself promised to appoint his faithful and discreet slave( real teachers on earth) here in these last days, and truth would become abundant( Dan 12:4) it has-- So he is with one denomination. The one that is different from the rest and no part of this world.

 

[kjw47]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

I don't believe it is the PAST, (well at least not all of it) and believe it is the future.... Christ returns and there is a second coming of Christ, and He returns during absolute chaos and turmoil, the Great Tribulation....

Except that it is the past. Every book of the Bible - every single one, without exception - was written in the Jewish Age. Even those written after the Temple burned down - Revelation, Hebrews, the epistles of John, the Gospel of John - were penned as Israel crumbled though remained viable as a nation, and even as a state (or a province of Rome). The end of the age that the Scriptures speak of is the end of the Jewish Age. Not the Christian Age.

Christ's prediction of the future is fulfilled. He has come, and so has his kingdom. No one would see the the arrival of his kingdom, as he predicts in Luke's Gospel, and no one would know the day or the hour that he would come, as he also predicts. He and his church were just here. People looked around and noticed they were just here.

The wars and earthquakes occurred in Jesus' generation, as he predicted they would (apparently, there was an earthquake in Jerusalem during the Jewish Wars, and maybe even one at Masada). These wars, ending with the Bar Kokhba Revolt, may not have resulted in the number of casualties as, say, WWII or the American Civil War did, but the casualty rate was tremendous. The Zealots were a militant, blood-thirsty lot who refused to surrender. The Idumeans were, too. But more than the casualty rate, the Jewish Wars marked the the end of the Jewish Age and heralded the beginning of the Christian Age. They marked the most significant, consequential upheaval in civilization that the world has ever known.

When Jesus died on the Cross on that first Good Friday, he started a revolution in which kings and kingdoms would bow down to him. That is Church Age. The Church, as Daniel and Paul say, is here forever.

Can you please tell us when Christ returned to rule as King for 1000 years and Satan was bound?

Why did Paul warn it wouldn't come until after an apostasy? Why did Peter say Christ wouldn't return until the restitution of all thing? Why did Paul foresee a future time, one he called the dispensation of the fulness of times when all things were gathered into one? Something that wasn't possible until modern communication and transportation was available?

When were the tribes of Israel gathered? When did the Angel John saw in revelation come carrying the Gospel to the people?

When did the city of Zion descend from heaven?

When did the two prophets preach and protect Jerusalem only to be murdered and rise again?

The apostasy came= the religion that came out of Rome and all its branches.( 2Thess 2:3)
Jesus received his crown here at Rev 6--that occurred in 1914.
Israel has been cut off( Matt 23:37-39) they outright refuse to do verse 39 for over 1900 years now. Spiritual Israel is now Gods chosen.

 

[norwegen]

Chapter 20 doesn't mention a bodily return of Christ, either. ............

You're just a non-believer that hates the plain truth.
You're only distinction is an unusual and awesome ability to pretend ignorance and pretend to misunderstand.


" I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and the authority to judge was given to them.
And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness of Jesus and for the word of God.
They had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.
They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
Revelation 20:4

You’re quoting part of John’s vision of heaven, not of the earth.

Are you going to show me a passage that says Jesus is coming in body? I have posted passages that indicate he is coming everywhere. Still waiting on you.

 

[norwegen]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

I don't believe it is the PAST, (well at least not all of it) and believe it is the future.... Christ returns and there is a second coming of Christ, and He returns during absolute chaos and turmoil, the Great Tribulation....

Except that it is the past. Every book of the Bible - every single one, without exception - was written in the Jewish Age. Even those written after the Temple burned down - Revelation, Hebrews, the epistles of John, the Gospel of John - were penned as Israel crumbled though remained viable as a nation, and even as a state (or a province of Rome). The end of the age that the Scriptures speak of is the end of the Jewish Age. Not the Christian Age.

Christ's prediction of the future is fulfilled. He has come, and so has his kingdom. No one would see the the arrival of his kingdom, as he predicts in Luke's Gospel, and no one would know the day or the hour that he would come, as he also predicts. He and his church were just here. People looked around and noticed they were just here.

The wars and earthquakes occurred in Jesus' generation, as he predicted they would (apparently, there was an earthquake in Jerusalem during the Jewish Wars, and maybe even one at Masada). These wars, ending with the Bar Kokhba Revolt, may not have resulted in the number of casualties as, say, WWII or the American Civil War did, but the casualty rate was tremendous. The Zealots were a militant, blood-thirsty lot who refused to surrender. The Idumeans were, too. But more than the casualty rate, the Jewish Wars marked the the end of the Jewish Age and heralded the beginning of the Christian Age. They marked the most significant, consequential upheaval in civilization that the world has ever known.

When Jesus died on the Cross on that first Good Friday, he started a revolution in which kings and kingdoms would bow down to him. That is Church Age. The Church, as Daniel and Paul say, is here forever.

Can you please tell us when Christ returned to rule as King for 1000 years and Satan was bound?

Why did Paul warn it wouldn't come until after an apostasy? Why did Peter say Christ wouldn't return until the restitution of all thing? Why did Paul foresee a future time, one he called the dispensation of the fulness of times when all things were gathered into one? Something that wasn't possible until modern communication and transportation was available?

When were the tribes of Israel gathered? When did the Angel John saw in revelation come carrying the Gospel to the people?

When did the city of Zion descend from heaven?

When did the two prophets preach and protect Jerusalem only to be murdered and rise again?

I know Christ is here; when I sing songs and hymns about Jesus being our king, I believe it. How can I know when he came? He said no one would know the day or the hour of his coming.

Are you not following?

 

[norwegen]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

Because Israel was not a nation again until 1948 and the gospel had not been taught to the whole world.
We are in it right now.
It won't end until Jesus returns.

Israel was a nation in those days. 1948 is irrelevant.

And the Gospel was everywhere. Even while still being written (Col 1:23). Christianity was spreading in the first century very rapidly.

 

[peach174]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

Because Israel was not a nation again until 1948 and the gospel had not been taught to the whole world.
We are in it right now.
It won't end until Jesus returns.

Israel was a nation in those days. 1948 is irrelevant.

And the Gospel was everywhere. Even while still being written (Col 1:23). Christianity was spreading in the first century very rapidly.

The last time Israel was a nation was 586 B.C.
The gospel did not reach the whole world until radio, tv and native christians reached out to their fellow isolated natives, like in the amazon in the 1970's.
Now both has been fullfilled.
The Bible says when these two important things have been fulfilled, know that Jesus is returning.

 

[norwegen]

We're 21st-century centric. America-centric. It's human nature, I suppose. History begins with us. We may read about it, but we don't experience it. And we forget it.

What was the world like before the Cross? We read about it all through the Old Testament – what God asks of His people and what He actually gets from them. He asks for their devotion and gets apostasy. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 say that God’s people are blessed for obedience and cursed for disobedience. “’You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God,’” says Leviticus. “The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways,” says Deuteronomy. “And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.”

God wants worship. He wants fellowship with His creation. That is why He created. And He wants a mighty people who can deliver that kind of relationship. Idolaters shall not access the tree of life.

His creation begins to worship graven images, the idols of others, and gives Him anything but devotion. They acquire a knowledge of good and evil; that is, of everything (merism is a literary device not unknown to Hebrew writers), even things apart from God, and they insist on gravitating toward those things, toward idolatry and an existence of exile, oppression, and enslavement. Long ago, their forbears had tasted the fruit of that sin that would banish them from God’s fellowship, and over time, they, willingly or not, have virtually made it an art form. And so they live as a conquered minority, almost always in exile, always enslaved and oppressed, assimilating to foreign cultures and answering to their pagan overlords, worshiping birds and reptiles, golden calves and the gods of their oppressors’ making. The Israelites in Shittim bowed down to Baal of Peor, for example, many of them willingly, as Numbers implies in chapter 25. They mingled with the Midianites and yoked themselves to that man-made god.

The Babylonian subjugation of the Kingdom of Israel and then of the Kingdom of Judah in the 500s BC and the long train of abuses after that from the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greeks, and the Romans is common knowledge. But even long before that, such as with the Egyptians and Assyrians, the people of God were exiles. They abandoned God, their tree of life.

They knew the living God, but seldom made Him their priority in worship. As Paul says to the Roman Christians, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (1:23).

That was the ancient world, the pagan world, the world before Christ. Even among God’s faithful, idol worship was more the rule than the exception. They revered not the Creator but the creature. Images of kings and animals lived rent-free in their heads. The creature had power over them. And conspicuously absent from their sphere of worship was the cross. Crucifixion had a long history among the ancients, though by the end of the last century BC, it was a rather young tradition in the Roman world. It was a form of execution reserved for slaves and rebels, a slow, painful, ghastly way to die, and a thorough whipping or thrashing beforehand to discourage resistance or flight only worsened the condition of the accused. Seneca describes crucifixion as a long, drawn-out affair in which the victim would be “wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, letting out his life drop by drop . . . fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumors on chest and shoulders, and drawing the breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony.”

Imagine the Appian Way in Europe, a stretch of road spanning 132 miles, from Rome to Capua, lined with some 6,000 crosses, to each one nailed one of Spartacus’ men, a slave who rebelled against Rome. 6,000 bodies – skeletons – in that nebulous region between living and dying, writhing in pain, struggling to breathe, pecked at by birds, crawling with bugs, with seldom a loved one to attempt to rescue them while citizens walked by and tried not to look at them for the awful sight that it was. And days later, when finally dead, many would continue to hang and rot, removed and tossed to the ground only when their executioners needed a cross on which to nail another rebel.

Crucifixion was a public spectacle that made a statement: “Rome is in charge.” But it was a public spectacle seldom spoken of in polite society, it was so horrifying to witness, let alone to recall. When the Romans introduced crucifixion to Jerusalem, it was so shameful a practice that they planted their crosses outside the city walls on a hill they called Golgotha, “The Place of the Skull.” And on that hill, Jesus, as the Apostle Paul describes, was obedient to death, “even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

The pagan world – a world in which totem poles were the norm and crucifixion was not discussed. It must have been for many – especially slaves and rebels – a world of dreadful paranoia and fear. Even governors and statesmen who could not promptly deliver on a king’s orders could find themselves in the direst of predicaments. It was a brutal, barbaric, dog-eat-dog world in which militant nations ripped open pregnant women in the lands they invaded to prevent child birth (see Hosea 13:16 and Amos 1:13) and leaders of states peopled by a multitude of ethnicities demonstrated their authority and entertained themselves by throwing prisoners in arenas to be torn apart by wild animals. It was a world of pantheons and superstition, and, for all intents and purposes, without a living God.

But look around now. All over the world. Every hemisphere. Every continent. And note the number of totem poles on display. And compare that to the frequency with which images of the Cross appear. On church steeples, in cemeteries, embroidered in our clothing and dangling from our ears in our jewelry, tattooed on our skin, engraved on Bible covers and on stonework and metalwork, displayed prominently as art. In popular culture, images of the Cross appear in music videos and movies. Even among unbelievers, it can inspire some measure of awe; it’s a little bit mysterious and intimidating, maybe even, to the most apprehensive, a little bit dangerous. It inspires even them. The Cross surrounds us. It is embedded in Western culture and indeed in cultures all around the world. What McDonalds wouldn’t give for its Golden Arches to be so universally recognized.

In the world, carved images of lizards and raptors have given way to images of the Cross, and along with that change of scenery, the world was transformed. Through the Cross, believers are once again worshipping the Creator God. Not when they pray five times a day facing a particular city, or after they've made pilgrimages to a temple or tabernacle, but always. And through the Cross, they are also transforming civilization.

More than any other faith, more than any government or corporation, more than any other organization at all, Christianity has improved the standard of living and quality of life for untold regions and cultures.

In its humanitarian output – schools, hospitals, shelters, soup kitchens – the church within which Jesus Christ is the cornerstone put into practical terms the manifestations of love and compassion that have been unmatched by any other organization or institution before or since. Christians turn out for famine and disaster relief. They counsel addicts and unwed pregnant women, and they aid and comfort the sick, powerless, jobless, and exploited. In every city and in virtually every small town and hamlet in the world (or certainly in the West), a Christian church or organization has hosted an outreach ministry of some kind.

Christianity enkindles the dispirited heart and animates the pedestrian imagination. It has inspired the proliferation of art, literature, music, and architecture as well as a culture of privilege, prosperity, free enterprise, and a work ethic that has built in the West civilizations of unprecedented welfare, equality, and family cohesion. Christianity has been a catalyst for tremendous progress that has improved the quality of life around the world.

Indeed, Christianity and Western culture are so intertwined that they cannot be separated. Elsewhere in the world, it is also very much ingrained. Why has the church made such an impact in the world, one might ask. Because it has more resources? More will? A longer history? Does simply having more of something enable its transformational powers? Or, in addition to its numbers, does it also have some thing that is different?

When Jesus was crucified, a revolution began. At first, no one knew what to make of the crucifixion. What they expected from it lay in a sort of limbo, especially in the first three days, before his resurrection. And even after the resurrection, they tried to make sense of the implications as they quibbled with one another, prayed for direction, and organized ragtag congregations largely on what they had heard, for the New testament was not yet canonized, and indeed for most of the first century was still in production. But they had the Holy Spirit, the power of forgiveness, the power of transformation.

 

[norwegen]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

Because Israel was not a nation again until 1948 and the gospel had not been taught to the whole world.
We are in it right now.
It won't end until Jesus returns.

Israel was a nation in those days. 1948 is irrelevant.

And the Gospel was everywhere. Even while still being written (Col 1:23). Christianity was spreading in the first century very rapidly.

The last time Israel was a nation was 586 B.C.
The gospel did not reach the whole world until radio, tv and native christians reached out to their fellow isolated natives, like in the amazon in the 1970's.
Now both has been fullfilled.
The Bible says when these two important things have been fulfilled, know that Jesus is returning.

Okay, we'll keep waiting.

 

[norwegen]

In my experience, so many Christians speculate on the Book of Revelation and the coming of Christ, and their speculation typically devolves into some abstract discussion of sea monsters and dragons, of the Soviet Union, China, and the Catholic Church, and even of such organizations as Proctor & Gamble after bar coding of consumer products had come into popular usage. Many of these wild ideas, of course, had no basis in Scripture, and some of them would need an adjustment from time to time to remain relevant. For example, the Soviet Union is no longer a part of the devil’s plan to retain control of the earth, but Russia, in the minds of a few, very well still could be.

Just as disturbing to me as speculation was the idea that a futuristic eschatology was a foreign eschatology. After John Nelson Darby and C.I. Scofield and their contemporaries developed their dispensationalist hypotheses in the nineteenth century, futurism, in its several iterations, began to sweep through the Christian community as if it were itself a revelation. Once upon a time, Dispensationalism and other flavors of futurism were fringe movements, even as far back as the second century, and they were considered heretical in some cases. Historical Premillennialism, for example, was declared a heresy at the Council of Ephesus in 431. But that was then; this is now; a kinder, gentler evangelical community. And after acceptance in mainstream Christianity, futurism would continue to grow in Christendom and even help shape popular culture.

Following the latter part of the twentieth century, when Hal Lindsey published his books The Late Great Planet Earth and The 1980’s: Countdown to Armageddon and Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins began publishing their Left Behind series, the idea of a coming apocalypse captured the imaginations not only of Christians but of others as well. These authors, among others, have managed to sensationalize a foreign theology.

One inspiration for Left Behind was a song by Larry Norman called I Wish We’d All been Ready, published in 1972 on the Only Visiting This Planet album. One of the verses reads thus:

A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head he's gone
I wish we’d all been ready
Two men walking up a hill
One disappears and one’s left standing still
I wish we’d all been ready​

As enjoyable as Larry Norman’s music is to listen to, it may not be scripturally sound. At least, not this song. And when LaHaye and Jenkins capitalize on Norman’s lyric, they, too, disseminate a false theology. The Left Behind books say that the righteous are taken away, or raptured, as futurists like to say, and the wicked are left behind, as if the earth is the less desirable destination. Jesus, however, says the opposite. Not to repeat this point, but note his wording in Matthew 24:37-41:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.​

In illustrating his point, Jesus references Noah, who was righteous in his day. When the rains came and flooded the land, the wicked were swept away and the righteous were left, not the other way around, as LaHaye and Jenkins say. And no one was left behind; they were just left. Not only does Jesus not use the phrase left behind, he also stands opposite popular culture. The earth is good, as God says in Genesis. It is where He intends to fellowship with His creation, for His dwelling place is with man (Rev. 21:3). The wicked got too pervasive, and they were the ones who were taken away. The righteous are the ones who remain to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:3-10).

 

[JakeStarkey]

Live as Christ would have you live today.

 

[hobelim]

34,000 religions claim to be Christian--- One is.

Not one single Christian denomination, including yours, follows divine law in the way that Jesus taught people to understand the figurative language used and comply with the demands of its hidden subjects. Not one denomination, including yours, even has an inkling that that is the substance of what Jesus taught and the disciples believed was the only way to comply with the law that leads to the fulfillment of the promise of eternal life, here and now on earth..

Don't take it too hard. Nobody's perfect. The fact that Jesus ascended into Heaven implies that he too first descended into hell, the realm of the dead..

There. Now you can stop perpetuating the one and only true christian religion garbage that you are peddling.

Be real. You are just as inebriated on vats of Jesus juice as any other denomination.

How are you ever going to rise from the dead if you won't stop pretending that you aren't dead?

Its not like the shit in your diaper doesn't stink to high heaven... sheesh.

Jesus himself promised to appoint his faithful and discreet slave( real teachers on earth) here in these last days, and truth would become abundant( Dan 12:4) it has-- So he is with one denomination. The one that is different from the rest and no part of this world.

Maybe Jesus did promise to appoint teachers in the last days when he would come as a thief in the night but he would have to be here to do that and first reveal the truth to them.

Until that time the best your church or any other church could do is guess. Your guess that the earth will be destroyed and recreated literally or that Jesus appointed 144,000 Jehovah witnesses to teach in the last days (even though he hasn't appeared yet or taught them anything) isn't really any better than any other nonsensical prediction or unsubstantiated assertion made in the dark.

The test would be which church if any would recognize his voice from among all the noise and chaos created by the cacophony of false teaching from the legions of false teachers and false messiahs whenever he does show up..

The way I see it, so far, unbelievers and sinners are in the only church busy doing the work that Jesus commanded his followers to do, by rejecting all that is false, superstitious, or irrational in preference for a truth based experience of life that is in more perfect harmony with actual reality.


Remember?

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

 

[Avatar4321]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

I don't believe it is the PAST, (well at least not all of it) and believe it is the future.... Christ returns and there is a second coming of Christ, and He returns during absolute chaos and turmoil, the Great Tribulation....

Except that it is the past. Every book of the Bible - every single one, without exception - was written in the Jewish Age. Even those written after the Temple burned down - Revelation, Hebrews, the epistles of John, the Gospel of John - were penned as Israel crumbled though remained viable as a nation, and even as a state (or a province of Rome). The end of the age that the Scriptures speak of is the end of the Jewish Age. Not the Christian Age.

Christ's prediction of the future is fulfilled. He has come, and so has his kingdom. No one would see the the arrival of his kingdom, as he predicts in Luke's Gospel, and no one would know the day or the hour that he would come, as he also predicts. He and his church were just here. People looked around and noticed they were just here.

The wars and earthquakes occurred in Jesus' generation, as he predicted they would (apparently, there was an earthquake in Jerusalem during the Jewish Wars, and maybe even one at Masada). These wars, ending with the Bar Kokhba Revolt, may not have resulted in the number of casualties as, say, WWII or the American Civil War did, but the casualty rate was tremendous. The Zealots were a militant, blood-thirsty lot who refused to surrender. The Idumeans were, too. But more than the casualty rate, the Jewish Wars marked the the end of the Jewish Age and heralded the beginning of the Christian Age. They marked the most significant, consequential upheaval in civilization that the world has ever known.

When Jesus died on the Cross on that first Good Friday, he started a revolution in which kings and kingdoms would bow down to him. That is Church Age. The Church, as Daniel and Paul say, is here forever.

Can you please tell us when Christ returned to rule as King for 1000 years and Satan was bound?

Why did Paul warn it wouldn't come until after an apostasy? Why did Peter say Christ wouldn't return until the restitution of all thing? Why did Paul foresee a future time, one he called the dispensation of the fulness of times when all things were gathered into one? Something that wasn't possible until modern communication and transportation was available?

When were the tribes of Israel gathered? When did the Angel John saw in revelation come carrying the Gospel to the people?

When did the city of Zion descend from heaven?

When did the two prophets preach and protect Jerusalem only to be murdered and rise again?

I know Christ is here; when I sing songs and hymns about Jesus being our king, I believe it. How can I know when he came? He said no one would know the day or the hour of his coming.

Are you not following?

You realize that when He comes, everyone is going to know, right?

 

[norwegen]

I haven't attended Bible study lately. The study of Revelation we embarked on has gone one direction - toward futurism, and dissent is frowned on.

The way I read the Scriptures, the end times have passed and the era of peace, prosperity, and happiness is here. The kingdom of heaven is here.

Daniel says that when the last foreign ruler subjugates Israel, God will establish His kingdom on the earth (2:44). While Israel was subject to Rome, its last foreign ruler, Paul says that the Church is here to stay (Eph. 3:21).

And there we have it. Christianity is the kingdom of heaven on the earth. The wars and earthquakes that Jesus warned his generation of in the Olivet discourse occurred during the Roman-Jewish Wars, after which Israel finally and fully lost all viability as a state. After the failed Bar Kokhba Revolt in AD 132, the Jewish Age had come to an end, and the Christian Age, like a fig tree in springtime sprouting green shoots, waiting for summer, ready to blossom, would begin.

I'm aware that most Christians believe that the end of the age that the Bible tells us of refers to the end of the current age, and I don't understand why. Might someone enlighten me? Has the Apocalypse come and gone? Why or why not?

I don't believe it is the PAST, (well at least not all of it) and believe it is the future.... Christ returns and there is a second coming of Christ, and He returns during absolute chaos and turmoil, the Great Tribulation....

Except that it is the past. Every book of the Bible - every single one, without exception - was written in the Jewish Age. Even those written after the Temple burned down - Revelation, Hebrews, the epistles of John, the Gospel of John - were penned as Israel crumbled though remained viable as a nation, and even as a state (or a province of Rome). The end of the age that the Scriptures speak of is the end of the Jewish Age. Not the Christian Age.

Christ's prediction of the future is fulfilled. He has come, and so has his kingdom. No one would see the the arrival of his kingdom, as he predicts in Luke's Gospel, and no one would know the day or the hour that he would come, as he also predicts. He and his church were just here. People looked around and noticed they were just here.

The wars and earthquakes occurred in Jesus' generation, as he predicted they would (apparently, there was an earthquake in Jerusalem during the Jewish Wars, and maybe even one at Masada). These wars, ending with the Bar Kokhba Revolt, may not have resulted in the number of casualties as, say, WWII or the American Civil War did, but the casualty rate was tremendous. The Zealots were a militant, blood-thirsty lot who refused to surrender. The Idumeans were, too. But more than the casualty rate, the Jewish Wars marked the the end of the Jewish Age and heralded the beginning of the Christian Age. They marked the most significant, consequential upheaval in civilization that the world has ever known.

When Jesus died on the Cross on that first Good Friday, he started a revolution in which kings and kingdoms would bow down to him. That is Church Age. The Church, as Daniel and Paul say, is here forever.

Can you please tell us when Christ returned to rule as King for 1000 years and Satan was bound?

Why did Paul warn it wouldn't come until after an apostasy? Why did Peter say Christ wouldn't return until the restitution of all thing? Why did Paul foresee a future time, one he called the dispensation of the fulness of times when all things were gathered into one? Something that wasn't possible until modern communication and transportation was available?

When were the tribes of Israel gathered? When did the Angel John saw in revelation come carrying the Gospel to the people?

When did the city of Zion descend from heaven?

When did the two prophets preach and protect Jerusalem only to be murdered and rise again?

I know Christ is here; when I sing songs and hymns about Jesus being our king, I believe it. How can I know when he came? He said no one would know the day or the hour of his coming.

Are you not following?

You realize that when He comes, everyone is going to know, right?

I suppose, in a futurist view.

I know that Jesus says about his coming, no one knows the day or the hour. He also says that no one will see the arrival of his kingdom.

That describes the church. It describes Christianity. No one saw it coming; we just noticed it here, in the midst of us.

 

[hobelim]

The wicked got too pervasive, and they were the ones who were taken away. The righteous are the ones who remain to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:3-10).

You have it backwards. Those who remain faithful to the false religions that have all but destroyed the ability of human beings to be rational will inherit nothing.

Whether a person is taken up or left behind everyone will still have to coexist.

The difference between the old world and the new world is just that the tides will be reversed... The first will be last and the last will be first which means that religious deceivers like stars in the sky who support deceitful politicians who like immovable mountains have screwed up life for billions of people for thousands of years with impunity will no longer be thought of as holy or enlightened, they will be condemned in the eyes of the whole world as the lowest forms of human life on earth, just as it is in heaven.

Then the righteous who have suffered for thousands of years as pariahs for their refusal to be assimilated by religious insanity will rise like the morning sun of a new day to inherit the earth.


This is how the stars will fall from their lofty places the mountains will crumble into the sea and the valleys will be lifted up.

Social upheaval and permanent change, not cosmic catastrophe..