A little about me. I come from a mixed background of competing doctrines, baptist, pentecostal and lately I was studying under a group of dispensationalism...ultradispensationals almost but not to the extent of Bullinger...although very close.
One thing that I had difficulty is that they teach that our purpose of this dispensation is to be prepared as sons to repossess the heavenly places (2nd heaven which is corrupt). I am so uneducated about the scriptures. I am though very absorbed in studying. I can read several books from the Bible in a day. I know that some people think you should studying intensely verse by verse, but I want the feel of the whole matter. Often times people can be so absorbed in an area of the scriptures that their viewpoint becomes skewed about the whole matter.
Like those that wander around parroting John Darby's 19th century
interpretation, of the
figurative language of Daniel's Old Testament prophetic dream, who are then caught flat-footed, when confronted by the
literal language of
literal verses in
literal passages of the New Testament that are not open to interpretation.
http://www.christianeschatology.com/futurism_dispensationalism.htm#futurism_vs_gospelI realize I need the whole of the matter to be able to make distinctions and get to the truth of the matter.
I realized that something is up when one verse that stuck out to me and wouldn't let me go is when Paul says that we will forever be with the Lord at the last trump. I can't quote scriptures easily but I don't forget easily what I read. this verse I cling to. I desire to forever be with the Lord. I felt that DOG was making this out to be a spiritual thing rather than a literal thing. How could I forever be with the Lord if I was in the heavenly places and Jesus was on earth ruling with Israel? As selfish as it maybe, I just want to be with the Lord.
Of course, I fell upon historicism on accident really. But is anything ever an accident? DOG group I study with says that God is not interacting at this time except through His Word and educated sons and daughters.
They mean educated by John Nelson Darby. What they mean is, "Well unless you have been indoctrinated into the whole inverted pyramid of pile-on presumption, then you just can't understand why it contradicts the Gospel so much!"
They sound more like nicolaitians that want to usurp the headship of Jesus Christ. Another good book, this one regarding authority in the church is "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola.
Everything is just random chance. I can't see this. I tried too, but I can't.
Indeed! You can't understand that "God is not interacting at this time" any more than about 39% of the 6 million Muslims in Africa that come to Christ every year, through a dream, vision, or being spoken to directly by Jesus Christ!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0RjfJblqEwA good read on the subject is "Miraculous Movements". You don't have to listen to but a few Muslim testimonies to know that just as scripture says, a person doesn't have to be carped at by "educated sons and daughters", when all a person has to do is:
Mat 7:7
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.http://www.muslimjourneytohope.com/watch.phpI really try to give every view a chance. But truth is truth.
And since Jesus
IS truth, the only way we can best serve Him is to seek out and follow the truth.
"God is truth, so how well a person serves the Lord is not dependent on how artfully he can defend his doctrines, but on his willingness to seek out and follow the truth." - Ellis Skolfield.
I will question something until I get to the bottom of it, and right now I am so intensely looking for the truth.
They say that God has his prophetic program on hold.
Perhaps it is the same crowd that back in 1988 were saying "Jesus is coming in 1988".
I know that people say you shouldn't look at the stars and such but that is how I found who the true God was. I was reading books by EW Bullinger last year particularly The Witnesses of the Stars. I wouldn't have been so persuaded except of what I saw in the sky last year with Comet Ison. It went through a third of the constellations before coming to judgement at the scales and then it was obliterated by the sun in the heart of scorpio which is in the heart of milky way which in ancient times was worshiped as a snake. Comet Ison was a rare comet that gave off a rare red glow. From Feb where it was first seen by earthly telescopes until its death, it was crowned by ten crescent moons and seven wandering stars. It met its death on the first day of Hannukah as it was blown to bits by the Sun. Scriptures from Isaiah and Revelation stood out to me. It may sound crazy, but you can't argue with the basic facts and the coincidences.
A few months later, I was researching out the whole blood moon theories. I went back before Christ in my research. While most blood moons could not point to anything conclusive due to lack of historical record, 168 BC was the only one that could indeed be found incredibly significant. The lunar eclipses played a huge part in the historical events related to the abmonational sacrifice, an important battles and such. It was unusually rare due to the fact that all four lunar eclipses could be seen in Israel. This doesn't happen very much. Most lunar eclipse are seen in a variety of places for example most of the lunar eclipses of the current tetrad will only be seen in the Americas.
Anyway I had no idea about the historical events surrounding Hannukah until I had researched the matter of tetrads. I knew there was some significance of this particular time of 168 BC. I had placed it in the back of my mind to consider again. As I studied with my DOG group, I was unsatisfied with their dismissiveness of historical events. I wasn't saying that I knew something but it seemed there was something important in these events especially since Jesus celebrated Hannukah.
Did you read "The Harbinger" by Johnathan Cahn? I did a little take off on it, trying to make an interactive experience for the reader, since throughout reading The Harbinger I wished I had been the lead character that stumbled onto answers to riddles. I wished that the book had been longer because I was disappointed when it ended. when the fun stopped. So I designed the site to take over from there for others that wished there was more. The site may go days without a pageload, and then someone will nail about forty consecutive pages. Then another day with nothing and then the next another 40 pages......
http://www.beyondtheharbinger.com/ Well, I can't remember exactly what we were studying in particular that led me to desiring to know more about the knowledge of tree and evil but I came across a site that did a very interesting study on the matter. They had huge section on the study of Daniel and Revelation and I was struck by their conclusion on there being no 7 year tribulation. If I were being honest, I never did see the seven year tributlation from the verses out of Daniel.
Neither do we any more.
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/great_tribulation.htmYou suppose this Sudanese saint believes that great tribulation is something that isn't going to happen until some future someday?
I just thought I would one day study it out and see it for myself. I did a few studies but I felt that they were treating the passage as a dual one, one talking about Jesus as the Messiah and also talking about antichrist. This treating of the scriptures seemed peculiar to me and now I see how wrong it is.
the website went on to demonstrate a very interesting historicist view, and I was quite persuaded. of course they hadn't concluded the 2500 years as time, times and half a time. I had a random thought about it knowing that a day can be a 1000 years in God's eyes, so I plugged it into google and found beholdthebeast.com . I was totally blown away by the calculations, and I had to do my own calulating and then I read the whole pdf on the matter on christianescatology.com.
The main purpose in following up with the ChristianEschatology.com website, is because years ago in Christian forums I used to often get the "well he is just some lone kooky nutjob" attack on the messenger, Ellis Skolfield, in their effort to run and hide from the actual content of the post. So the purpose in the site was to drive home the point that by simply considering this traditional approach to Bible prophecy, they can feel comfortable that rather than straying off the reservation, they are actually straying back onto it in the process. They are taking a
uniform approach to
all Bible prophecy as did the church for the first 1800 years, including those great men of God of the Reformation.
yes, I am lucky to have too much time on my hands. I have been reading Paul's epistles so that I can then compare it to all of what I will read in Hebrews through Jude. I should have done this before jumping into the DOG study group, but I did learn alot from them that I know to be true like justification and sancification and all that Jesus did and has provided for me. I just think they succumbed to vain imaginations when it comes to future events.
I believe there is good reason for avoiding future-predicting, and it isn't like some great men of God didn't warn us about it:
Matthew Henry: "Those things of God which are now dark and obscure will hereafter be made clear, and easy to be understood. Truth is the daughter of time.
Scripture prophecies will be expounded by the accomplishment of them; therefore they are given, and for that explication they are reserved. Therefore they are told us before, that, when they do come to pass, we may believe."
Isaac Newton: "
The folly of interpreters has been to foretell times and things by this prophecy [Revelation], as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own providence, not the interpreters', be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence."
http://www.christianeschatology.com/historicism.htm#reformers_time_of_endI read Isaiah 47-66 last night and started Jeremiah because honestly I am trying to see what exactly is happening and going to happen next with Israel.
I am full of questions but so much is on my mind that I think it will take a few days for me to articulate what it is that I am confused about. My questions have probably been answered already so I will be looking around to find them before posting. If I asked a question that has already been answered, I apologize. Its probably that I didn't see it or I feel that it didn't make a necessary distinction that I need to know to fnd out the truth of the matter. Thanks for all your patience with me.
I'm fully confident that if you begin by reading The False Prophet, it will bless you as much as it has everybody else that I have ever come across that has read it, and in an organized fashion will help get you up to speed with the content of this forum and those websites:
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/the_false_prophet.htm
