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Actually, my readings on the topic tend to be overwhelmingly the Bible.

This has been true since Jr High.

I find the other books rather tedius and full of speculations. Sometimes that's interesting to a point but usually anoyingly full of man's opinions.

I prefer to take Scripture at face value and see how God confirms it. That alone is pretty amazing.

I find that God has appeared to bend over backwards making very explicit enormous numbers of verses predicting very literal future events, factors etc in very measureable, tangible terms. It is as though He went to great pains to throw a long list of Scriptures in the face of the ideas you postulate.

Given how literal a long list of prophecies have ALREADY been fulfilled from Christ's life, death, resurrection etc. on . . . I have every confidence that He will continue to fulfill HIS word far more literally than many of a certain mind-set would dare imagine in their wildest fantacies.

I suppose God could have done it any number of ways. But HE SEEMS TO HAVE A FASCINATION OR HOBBY OR HABIT of doing it literally.

He takes great pains to predict things literally almost in specific petty terms that appear to not be worth that much detail in some of the areas and factors. THEN, HE DELIGHTS in fulfilling such incredible predictions amazingly to the tiniest detail--LITERALLY.

I'm sorry you haven't been paying enough attention to history and Biblical prophecies before to have realized that.

THIS is an excerpt from the full posting on the PROPHETIC SIGNS THREAD AT post #1,301 on this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1274030/posts?page=1301#1301

December 21, 2004

"Another SIGN TODAY FOR ISRAEL AND ALL ISRAEL'S DESCENDENTS!"

by Steve Shultz

THE ELIJAH LIST

[snip]

God loves signs!

He loves signs (and wonders) so much that He not only talks about them a lot -- but He DOES them a lot.

Just get out your Bible concordance and look up the words "signs," "wonders," or "signs and wonders."

Let's just say there are a LOT of references, yes?

God has eternity to think up and create new signs and wonders...and yet, with the millions of signs we see all the time, those signs are but a few of the sum total of the signs and wonders He has made or we have yet to see.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE

Personally, since we just hit WINTER today (some call it Winter Solstice), December 21, 2004, in the Northern Hemisphere (and Summer in the Southern Hemisphere), we just entered into the fulfillment of yet another one of what I believe to be one of God's FAVORITE SIGNS.

God waited only four full days into creation to create this sign:

Genesis 1:14-16

14 "And God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.' And it was so.

16 God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." (NIV)

Now, since the sun became responsible for our seasons, God then connects the Sun and its seasons with Israel itself (and you and and I can grab hold of this assurance as well, and these promises -- just as they were given to Israel and ALL his relatives)...

Jeremiah 31:35-37

35 "This is what the LORD says, HE who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the LORD Almighty is his name: 36

"ONLY
IF
these decrees
vanish
from my sight,"
declares
the LORD,"
will

the descendants
[BLOOD DESCENDANTS]
of Israel
[NATION, FOLKS!]

ever cease
to be
a nation
[THAT WORD
"NATION" AGAIN!]
before me."

[QX: Of course, as Scriptures indicate, fools tend to ignore and/or disbelieve The God of Truth and His Scriptures.] 37 This is what the LORD says:

"'Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,'

declares the LORD." (NIV)

Go figure!

GOD WILL NOT REJECT ISRAEL OR HIS DESCENDANTS

God made the seasons from Creation onward...and yet He used those same seasons to be a sign that He would not, indeed He chose by His will, that He COULD not reject Israel from being a nation before HIM, nor could He or would He reject ALL of Israel's descendents -- even though HE knew of the evil Israel and His descendents had done.

[added centering emphasis Qx added]

Actually, my readings on the topic tend to be overwhelmingly the Bible.
This has been true since Jr High.
I find the other books rather tedius and full of speculations. Sometimes that's interesting to a point but usually anoyingly full of man's opinions.
I prefer to take Scripture at face value and see how God confirms it. That alone is pretty amazing.
I find that God has appeared to bend over backwards making very explicit enormous numbers of verses predicting very literal future events, factors etc in very measureable, tangible terms. It is as though He went to great pains to throw a long list of Scriptures in the face of the ideas you postulate.
Given how literal a long list of prophecies have ALREADY been fulfilled from Christ's life, death, resurrection etc. on . . . I have every confidence that He will continue to fulfill HIS word far more literally than many of a certain mind-set would dare imagine in their wildest fantacies.
I suppose God could have done it any number of ways. But HE SEEMS TO HAVE A FASCINATION OR HOBBY OR HABIT of doing it literally.
He takes great pains to predict things literally almost in specific petty terms that appear to not be worth that much detail in some of the areas and factors. THEN, HE DELIGHTS in fulfilling such incredible predictions amazingly to the tiniest detail--LITERALLY.

I'm sorry you haven't been paying enough attention to history and Biblical prophecies before to have realized that.

Well Mr. Literal, it's going to be awfully interesting to see how He's gonna fulfill what you say on an earth that doesn't exist. ;)

2 Peter 3:

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!

Yep! It's gonna be awfully interesting to see how He destroys the earth and then reigns on it. :D

P.S. The Bible is the only resource I used to formulate my positions on this. I began the effort back in the late 80s arduously, earlier than that 'less arduously', and came to my final conclusions only several years ago.