Posted on 10/09/2001 9:19:31 AM PDT by FresnoDA
The "seven year trib" heresy is based by dispensationalists on the "seventy week" of Daniel's prophecy. They proclaim that there is a "gap" or "parenthesis" between week 69 and 70. The 70th week was "postponed" until God can deal with Israel as a nation again. They misread "prince" to be an "antichrist." But Christ was the prince of peace. It was He who finished the transgression, made an end to sin, made reconciliation for inquity, brought in everlasting righteousness, sealed up vision and prophecy and was anointed the Most Holy.(see Daniel 9:24) The prophecy is also the only Old Testament prophecy that tells exactly when Christ will die - in the middle of the 70th week. No wonder Christ said many times, "My time has not yet come." In the middle of the 70th week, Christ was cut off and in His death He brought an end to sacrifice and offering because He had become the sacrifice and offering for His people!!!! Oh, it saddens my heart to have a passage so Christ centered as Daniel 9 is, put off on some "antichrist." Friends, we are talking about our redemption here. So dear friend, my point is this, if the 70th week of Daniel's prophecy is about Christ then it has nothing whatsoever to do with a "tribulation" period because that time is already passed.
Now the phrase "great tribulation" appears in Matthew 24:21 but the context places it in the time of "Jacob's trouble" that happens to the Jews in A.D 70 when Titus and the Roman army sacked Jerusalem.
Everyone refers to the "last days" or "in the last days." Well, if you read your New Testament carefully, the apostles considered themselves in the "last days." (See Peter's address on the day of Pentecost. also see Hebrews 1:1-3) Chirst, in His first advent, ushered in the "last days." The "last days" will continue until His second advent. We are only looking for the "last day." The final "escaton" is you would. Christians are told not to look for "signs" but to look for the Blessed Hope - the glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior. Times are no worse now than they were during the first century. Every generation has to proclaim the gospel. No generation is immune from sufffering. Some have suffered more than others.
Are we any nearer to the second coming than the first century Christians? Of course we are. Are we living in the time when Christ will return? Who knows? Only the Father knows. And I am willing to labor until He returns. I want to be found faithful when He returns.
I don't see the need for an interpretive authority. If the words of Christ or his apostles need further interpretation, why don't the words of the Pope? Perhaps we need someone to interpret the Pope. And then someone to interpret the interpreter.
With regard to the Catholic Pope, that seems to be a big hangup for most Protestants. However, the only real difference between Catholics and Protestants in that regard is that Catholics have one Pope and Protestants have thousands.
Protestants are supposed to have none, though some Protestants behave as if a particular person were.
Catholics have one guy who under very strict circumstances can declare infallibly that the Holy Spirit has spoken. Protestants have tens of thousands of guys who without restriction can and do declare that the Holy Spirit has spoken.
I do not claim to speak for the Holy Spirit, and I denounce anyone who does. I believe the Holy Spirit speaks for itself. This does not mean that teaching is impossible, however. But the authority of that teaching is maturity, and admits fallibility.
By the by, my screen name here has its roots in the work of a Catholic author by the name of G.K. Chesterton. So don't suppose that I'm attacking Catholicism wholesale. He was a great writer, thinker, and Christian.
Yes, but idiots, posing as prophets, running around trying to insist they know the times and seasons that God has NOT given them to know... MUST be mocked and rejected. In the context of those who insist on imposing the old testament on the new... I guess we should remind them that the penalty for prophesying in God's name something that does NOT actually happen, was death by stoning... False prophets had a hard way to go...
LOTS of folks who LOVE Jesus, don't buy into the weirdness that IS fundamentalist whackism...
"If you don't believe it my way... you MUST be in need of salvation" they scream. They demand to be heard. I will grant them they have a right to speak... but NO RIGHT TO BE HEARD... as they are idiots.
They feign folks need to "let Jesus into our hearts", while they manuever their fears to "let them into our wallets and add to their fund raising lists." Shame on them.
Jesus does not need these nutcases in order to speak to the kingdom of men's hearts... a kingdom that these nutjobs are denied access to, by God.
Anybody who claims to "know the end times" is pretty much the same in my book as the ones who said the same thing last millenia... false prophets. God keeps these things on a "need to know" basis... and at this time we apparently don't "need to know."
These MAY be the end times. These may not be. Constantly reinterpreting the Bible with revised hermeneutics to fit today's current events, cheapens the scripture, destroys the faith of sincere Christians who are duped time after time, and overthrows the sense of trust we should have in our ordained Christian leadership.
I think it is likely that along with reviewing "tax exempt" statuses of 501c3 orgs... we may need to start reviewing the "credentials" of the religious crackpots who prophecy in the name of a "Holy GOD" what usually turns out to be nothing but spectacular and inflamatory lies, for the purpose of raising funds and building kingdoms for selfish men, instead of God.
God is looking for hearts... not whacko religious extremists that take the whole of life out of context for the sake of building their own kingdom...
...and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Anyway, when did Christ or his followers destroy Jerusalem and the Temple? When did Christ confirm a 7-year covenant? Cause the cessation of the sacrifices with "abominations [that] make it desolate"?
Looks like you oversimplified Daniel 9:24ff.
This refers to Titus and his Roman army that beseiged the city of Jerusalem. The desolation mentioned can be found in Matthew 24:15 with further info added in Luke 21:20.
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
This refers to Christ. The pronoun he must refer back to the Messiah the Prince not to the people of the prince because in His death Christ caused the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Though the Jews continued to sacrifice God did not accept them because they ignored to only acceptable sacrifice - Jesus Christ. He confirmed the covenant with His people. Remember the scripture that said that He came unto His own but His own received Him not. And the gospel was first offered to the Jews and then the Gentiles. Paul often accentuated this point - first to the Jew and then the Gentile. But when the day of grace was over for the Jews the gospel went forth in it's fulness to the Gentiles.
Call it what you will kind sir, but the Scriptures teach it. Paul goes to great lengths in Ephesians 2 and 3 to make known the mystery that now through the Chruch there is one body, joined from Jew and Gentile, to make known the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Paul also stated in Romans 2:29 that a true Jew was one who had the circumcision of the Spirit in the heart not one who was circumcised in the flesh.
You need to study the "continuity" and "discontinuity" between the Old and New Testaments. The old has passed away and the new has come. The whole book of Hebrews deals with this issue. Open and read my friend.
That doesn't work. Christ did not cause sacrifices to cease from abominations. The "he" does not refer to "Messiah the Prince," nor even to the people of the prince, but the 2nd prince. The one referred to immediately before. The Messiah is not the antecedant of the sentance, but rather the prince over the people.
Right about now, the Taliban are painting...
ROMANI ITE DOMUM...all over their cave walls.
Mark W.
Hmmm, the 70th seven was, and is not, and yet is. Time, times, half; 7, 62, half; number, weigh, divide...
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