Hello,
Good morning brother, and welcome to the forum!
Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, but I felt I needed to address a post in the other forum, and wanted to be able to better devote myself to your post.
Thanks for sharing your understanding of the scriptures.
Thanks, but it was Ellis Skolfield that introduced me to the traditional historicist approach to bible prophecy through which Jews and Christians understand Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled, and up until a couple hundred years ago the church and reformers understood New Testament prophecy was fulfilled.
I never even considered what you have put forth until I stumbled across your posts on another forum.
I wish I there was a way for me to adequately express my gratitude for your Berean spirited open eyes, and the encouragement you have given me. There is only perhaps one Christian in a thousand that has your eyes. As you can see from that forum, it's easy for me to feel like a voice crying in the wilderness, but as you can also see from my posting history in there that nobody has brought any substantive argument against what I have put in there. Some so simply and irrefutable true, that the truth falls in the street,
like in this thread that none of those poor folks dared to post on.
And in spite of my taunting member after member, by pointing out that not a single futurist had yet stepped up to offer a substantive response to how they
square Darby's eschatology with the Gospel, it still remains without response.
For I have always been taught the futurists interpretation of scripture where a future temple is made, a future antichrist declares himself God in the future temple, a future revived roman empire, a future millenium.
I drank the kool-aid too. From one of the best peddlers of Darby's doctrine in the business, Jack Van Impe who has sold it on TV since the 1950s. By sold it I don't mean I put him in the league of all the TV heretics who are selling Jesus for prophet, because Jack and Rexella live in a modest house and live a modest lifestyle, and I believe him to be a great man of God. Just falsely indoctrinated.
I have to say that the futurist interpretation made less and less sense to me as I read my Bible more and more and studied what the patriarchs of our faith taught about our faith.
That's what happened to me. I got stronger and stronger in it, and determined to memorize all that Jack taught, but when I started teaching it through a website online I kept running into more questions than I could find answers to. Like if millions upon millions of people disappear in a moment all around the world, and planes fall from the sky with no pilots, and cars run into trees with no drivers, wouldn't the rest of the world then learn in short order that they had exactly 7 years in which to repent?
When I read your argument for the Dome of the Rock being the abomination of desolation then I could not have agreed more since the world will be hard pressed to create something ever more abominable and desolate than what Islam has done to the Temple mount and Southwest Asia over its history.
Hermeneutically I think
the "beast" of Revelation 13 makes a bit stronger case
as an introduction to the eschatology to help someone change contexts. It might help folks see how short their current understanding comes from that hermeneutically sound approach.
Seriously, how can anyone argue against that?
The power of indoctrination, that has blinded the "church" to Islam, and thus they don't even understand that 1/4 of mankind is commanded to conquer the other 3/4 of mankind and subjugate all people to denying the Son of God and rejecting His crucifixion and shed blood as articles of their faith the the false prophet Muhammad.
But that requires people who study history and who are open to interpret scriptures based on new information which many are too weak in faith to do.
This even as they believe we are living in (some believe not yet living in) what Daniel called the "time of the end" and thus the book of Daniel was sealed until the time of the end, yet their eschatology comes from the pen of an early 19th century individual.
So what you have performed in your website and efforts to enlighten people deserves a big kudos.
Thanks so much. It is a work in progress that has been the result of youtube and forum chats while trying and testing this eschatology. The place in which I was most challenged, by preterists, is the Olivet Discourse, which Ellis doesn't pay much attention to, since the restoration of Jews to their land should throw that doctrine right out the window. But I was compelled to
work it out as best I could within the historicist context. It seems to be composed of several separate parts.
Just FYI, I lived in Saudi Arabia for two years being deployed with the U.S. military there and my wife worked there as an expatriot nurse. I traveled all over that country and really respected many of the muslims I interacted with.
It is such a tragedy, and there are likely a lot more closet Christians than folks might expect. My heart broke for this poor soul:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL4upLajJScBut they have been deceived by a false prophet and anyone who denies the son of God is an antichrist. For them to put a mosque on the Temple Mount which denies his Son is the ultimate blasphemy on this earth. Then to have killed and persecuted both Jews and Christians in that region for well over a thousand years .........
For forum read-only participants, as in the massacre of the three Jewish tribes of Medina including the Banu Qurayza:
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2364.0........ is certainly part of the tribulation spoken by the Master and his apostles. I know when I went to "church" at a friend's house I carried my Bible in a brown paper sack in order to avoid being harassed. Also, we were not allowed to wear any religious symbols on our person like a cross. And of course, there is no religious freedom there for anyone especially their own people.
Indeed.
By the way, you might have noticed that our forum "rules" don't have to read like a software agreement. The only rule that we had to impose, and not until after the first couple of years of having no rules whatsoever (imposed as a result of followers of Muhammad coming in here and copy and pasting but being unable to defend what they were posting) is that folks that decide to engage in exchange in this forum, have enough respect for the person they are chatting with, to offer a response to replies. It can be as simple as "I don't know", but a response is required. Imagine if folks weren't allowed to duck and dodge in the other forum, but had to reply. If you think about it, you might be able to imagine that would work as the only rule in the other forum we have recently posted in! Learning that bad language, name calling, etc. is a reflection on the person engaging in such conduct, rather than the object of their childishness, so in this forum they become quickly convicted of their behavior.
Again, welcome to the forum bro!
