Posted on 12/16/2008 9:33:18 AM PST by TaraP
The Scriptures speak more than once, that no-one knows when Jesus will return only the Father. Mark 13:32 No one knows when that day or hour will come-not the angels in heaven, not the Son, but only the Father.
Matthew 24:36 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone
ACTS 1:7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
I know many Christians all over the world are trying to pin down a date when Jesus might return, especially in these perilous times we all are living in....
My question is: Do we as believers have the power to bring fourth Jesus Christ by praying for his return consistently?
Or is GOD waiting on the Jewish people to call on him? Blessed Is He Who Comes In The Name of the Lord Matthew 21:1-11 Zechariah’s prophesy of hope extends from chapter 9 through 14. In chapter 9, verses 9-10, Zechariah speaks of the Zion’s King coming to his people –
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”[c] “Hosanna[d] in the highest!”
Do you think the Father is waiting on us? rather than us waiting on him to return to earth?
Well where we at then, Heaven or Hell???
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The FATHER . . . His will, priorities, wisdom.
period.
imho.
Though Scripture mentions WHEN those who should be saved—their number being completed.
You said — “I don’t think there is to many more people left, who have not heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.....”
Well..., that may seem to be true in the U.S. (but even here, I question that...). Aside from the U.S. there are definitely a *lot* of people who haven’t heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
For one example, you could start with the 1.2 billion Muslims. Perhaps take off about 10 or 20 % of them and what is left is probably those who haven’t heard of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel and as salvation of the world.
In the Muslim world, they have heard of “a Jesus” — who is a prophet, of which Mohammed is the greatest prophet of them all...
That’s just the Muslims. There are lots of others out there who haven’t heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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During the Tribulation, there will be an angel who will *finally* give the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire world — as, what you might call, a last and final effort.
I think that to a great extent there is a difference of interpretation.
Few people are aware that Jews and Christians have a very different idea of the flow of history.
Jews view history as cyclical, like a sine wave, in which when times are bad, people renew their faith and good practices, and this behavior in turn brings about good times; and when times are good, people fall from their faith, which automatically brings their downfall and misery.
Christians view history more like a sawtooth wave, in which, left to their own devices, people go bad; then when things are very rotten, a patriarch or prophet comes and uplifts the faithful to a much higher spiritual plateau, from which they again slowly descend.
However, while Christians have the idea that things will become absolutely awful, concluding with the second coming, using the Jewish view of history, the second coming may be much like the first coming.
The meager tools of memory, and history, having lost their meaning over time, little or no real connection remains, just vague notions of what was done 2000 or so years ago. Aramaic, Greek, Latin, then English, not just a linguistic, but cultural divide.
That is, Jesus come again to find that nobody has ever really heard of the real Jesus, the memory lost in the vastness of time. All sorts of strange interpretations and expectations, though. So Jesus would have to begin anew, not from where he left off, but from where he began last time.
What else could be expected from rather dim mortals, 60 or more generations removed from the reality? Noah wasn’t even dead before his great grandson began building the Tower of Babel.
Even in Christian lands, there are an enormous number of people who are so convinced of the righteousness of their beliefs about Jesus, that it doesn’t matter to them how grotesque their views have become over time. Were Jesus to return, they would likely miss him entirely, and at best see him as a heretic. Certainly hold him and everything he stood for in contempt.
Though if his return was like his first visit, perhaps we will finally learn what he did all those unaccounted for years, lost to history. Maybe learn what he has to say, not just what a handful of others say he said.
IIRC,
The Gospel could be to every last people group/language within 12 years.
You said — The Bible says “until the full nuber of gentiles have come into the church.”
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And there we have the winning answer...
Jesus will return when He wants to. Not when we say so.
Jesus will return when He wants to. Not when we say so.
Of course he will...However he is not in heaven eating a tuna sandwich saying hmmm... I think I will go back to earth today...
Something will trigger his return..I was just saying maybe he is leaving that determination to *Us*
You said — “Tell me the month and the year and I’ll have some time to get things straightened out in my life.”
Can’t do that, but we’re in the “season” of his coming right now. So, this is the particular time in the history of the last (almost) two thousand years, where the actual time of Jesus Christ’s return is upon us. We just can’t say exactly when. We can say that it’s the present time period, as Israel will not be uprooted, again, according to the Bible. And the way things are going now, with Israel and the Arabs, in a “human sense” — Israel won’t be able to hold out too much longer against the Arabs and their desire to eliminate Israel.
Since God won’t let that happen and since Israel won’t be uprooted from the land again — this means that the closer that the Arabs come to their “final solution” for the Jews, the closer it is to Jesus coming back...
So, it’s right around the corner — maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next year...
You said — “The Gospel must first be preached to all nations.”
It will be during the Tribulation. Revelation tells us about the angel that gives the Gospel to the entire world...
You said — “No. God has set the timetable. The time for return was already set before any of us existed, and only God the Father knows it. Because He knows the future before it happens, as God is not constrained in time as we are, the whole premise of ‘waiting’ isn’t quite the same thing.”
Yep! It’s already “pinned down” to the exact second, as to when it will happen — no matter what we will do — *because* God already knows exactly what each one of us is going to do, before we even know it ourselves...
It’s already determined. It’s just that we don’t know it — but God does.
You said — “I’m going out on a limb and guessing that Jesus himself will be making that determination.”
Jesus (the Son) says it’s God, the Father, who will tell the Son when it’s time to return...
It’s the example of the bride-groom being told by the Father, when the dwelling place that he’s preparing for his wife is done. When the Father says that it’s done, then it’s time for the bride-groom to come back and “pick up” his wife. The bride-groom does not make that determination himself...
Since the church is the “bride of Christ” — Christ awaits the Father’s determination as to when He can “pick up” His bride (i.e., “the church”). That’s called “the Rapture.” And He comes to take His bride back to the dwelling place that He has made for her. She is sequestered for 7 days (a “type” for the seven years of Tribulation)...
The following is one account of Jewish marriage customs, which forms our “type” for the church as the Bride of Christ...
Jewish Marriage Customs
Those who live in the modern western world do not catch the full significance of Jesus’ promise. This is due to the fact that in His promise Jesus was drawing an analogy from Jewish marriage customs in biblical times. Since this is so, those marriage customs must be examined if one is to grasp the significance of the promise.
The first major step in a Jewish marriage was betrothal. Betrothal involved the establishment of a marriage covenant. By Jesus’ time it was usual for such a covenant to be established as the result of the prospective bridegroom taking the initiative. The prospective bridegroom would travel from his father’s house to the home of the prospective bride. There he would negotiate with the father of the young woman to determine the price (mohar) that he must pay to purchase his bride. Once the bridegroom paid the purchase price, the marriage covenant was thereby established, and the young man and woman were regarded to be husband and wife. From that moment on the bride was declared to be consecrated or sanctified, set apart exclusively for her bridegroom. As a symbol of the covenant relationship that had been established, the groom and bride would drink from a cup of wine over which a betrothal benediction had been pronounced.
After the marriage covenant had been established, the groom would leave the home of the bride and return to his father’s house. There he would remain separate from his bride for a period of twelve months. This period of separation afforded the bride time to gather her trousseau and to prepare for married life. The groom occupied himself with the preparation of living accommodations in his father’s house to which he could bring his bride.
At the end of the period of separation the groom would come to take his bride to live with him. The taking of the bride usually took place at night. The groom, best man and other male escorts would leave the groom’s father’s house and conduct a torch light procession to the home of the bride. Although the bride was expecting her groom to come for her, she did not know the exact time of his coming. As a result the groom’s arrival would be preceded by a shout. This shout would forewarn the bride to be prepared for the coming of the groom.
After the groom received his bride together with her female attendants, the enlarged wedding party would return from the bride’s home to the groom’s father’s house. Upon arrival there the wedding party would find that the wedding guests had assembled already.
Shortly after arrival the bride and groom would be escorted by the other members of the wedding party to the bridal chamber (huppah). Prior to entering the chamber the bride remained veiled so that no one could see her face. While the groomsmen and bridesmaids would wait outside, the bride and groom would enter the bridal chamber alone. There in the privacy of that place they would enter into physical union for the first time, thereby consummating the marriage that had been covenanted earlier.
After the marriage was consummated, the groom would announce the consummation to the other members of the wedding party waiting outside the chamber (John 3:29). These people would pass on the news of the marital union to the wedding guests. Upon receiving this good news the wedding guests would feast and make merry for the next seven days.
During the seven days of the wedding festivities, which were sometimes called “the seven days of the huppah,” the bride remained hidden in the bridal chamber. At the conclusion of these seven days the groom would bring his bride out of the bridal chamber, now with her veil removed, so that all could see who his bride was.
If you understand this from the Jews, then you’ll understand a lot about the Church as the Bride of Christ and how that works out...
You said — “I’ve always wondered how the MSM would report the second coming of Christ.”
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Ummmm..., probably will say some aliens came in space ships and hauled off a lot of people on this earth. And then they’ll say that we have to get ready for a big battle with these aliens, because they’ll probably try to return again and “take over” our world... LOL...
You said — “Is this even physically possible, given the worldwide birth rate?”
Yes, it’s possible when you have an angel circling the globe, giving everyone the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
You said — “And with so many many thousand of Jews who do not recognize the Messiah from there Torah and have been presented a Jesus they do not recognize due to persecution over thousand of years, what determines there conversion?”
All are “converted” the same way as any other — in the way that the Apostle Paul said that God counted Abraham righteous (in Romans). In that way, we all come to the righteousness of God, whether it’s before the time of Christ (i.e., “His birth” that is... on earth) or after He came to this world (which is our situation, now).
As the Apostle Paul said — “all Israel shall be saved” when it’s the “time of the end” when Jesus comes again. Whomever is left (of Israel) at that time, will see the coming Christ, as He is returning and they (i.e., “all Israel” at that time) will be saved, because at that instant, they all recognize Him as the Messiah.
Possibly. It’s found in Matt 24:14. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
The issue to figure out is what the phrase “then the end will come” means.
Right after vs 14, Jesus talks about the abomination of desolation which will most likely take place in the middle of the 7 year tribulation. It is not known if those 2 verses are chronological in order, which would mean that “the end” wouldn’t come for another 3.5 years.
We will likely find out soon.
9”Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15”So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’[b] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.
What you mean "we," pale face?
And how, exactly do you know that our presence in this earth is a matter of total irrelevance, total impotence, and total uselessness? We may as well fold our hands and walk away from the table. No point being in the game, because God Himself has already told us that our efforts are pointless.
12 spies went into Canaan. 10 came back as cheerleaders for the other team.
Caleb and Joshua saw opportunities for God to magnify His faithfulness, keep His promises, and demonstrate His power.
God was not on the side of the "majority report." In fact, those who demoralized and discouraged and undermined God's people suffered immediate judgment. Those who heeded the cowardly spies got to spend the next 40 years walking in circles in the desert.
Is the goal of your "ministry" to make your fellow Christians as useless as you feel yourself to be? Do you really think this pleases God?
The day will be 3-1/2 years (biblical years)after the abomination of desolation. Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15. No where are we told to watch for the beginning of the last week, only the middle.
Oh, the time will be somewhere between 8:00-9:00PM.
Sorry but that’s as close as I can predict.
JB
Try reading all the many ways Psalm 110 is cited in the Bible, including the I Cor. 15 reference I offered.
So God offered His people victories in the OT, but calls us to suck it up and be good losers in the NT? Are you really sure that's what you consider by "good" news? Let me recommend Psalm 95, which is cited several times in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Today, if you would hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as your fathers did. And their corpses fell in the desert."
Soften your heart towards God, and He may have an encouraging word for you! If you are willing and obedient and trust Him.
Your contempt for the mercies of God are stunning. Scandinavians no longer offer human sacrifices -- but Jesus had nothing to do with that. Oh, no. Britons no longer paint themselves blue and follow idols -- but Jesus had nothing to do with that. Oh, no. We no longer fear instant annihilation from Soviet ICBMs, since Soviet Union is no more -- but Jesus had nothing to do with that. Oh, no. Tetanus, polio, and smallpox are under control, and most children born today can realistically hope to grow up -- but Jesus had nothing to do with that. Oh, no.
OK, so YOUR Jesus has been idle over the last few thousand years. Who do you recommend I offer my thanks to for these mercies?
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