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Locked on 10/27/2009 12:40:43 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
Childish behavior. |
Posted on 07/25/2009 2:40:04 AM PDT by Quix
The Bible says we cannot know the time of the Lord's return (Matthew 25:13). But the Scriptures make it equally clear that we can know the season of the Lord's return (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6):
"You yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night... But you brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night or darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober."
This passage asserts that Jesus is coming like "a thief in the night." But then it proceeds to make it clear that this will be true only for the pagan world and not for believers. His return should be no surprise to those who know Him and His Word, for they have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to give them understanding of the nature of the times.
Furthermore, the Scriptures give us signs to watch for — signs that will signal that Jesus is ready to return. The writer of the Hebrew letter referred to these signs when he proclaimed that believers should encourage one another when they see the day of judgment drawing near (Hebrews 10:25-27). Jesus also referred to the end time signs in His Olivet Discourse, given during the last week of His life (Matthew 24 and Luke 21). Speaking of a whole series of signs which He had given to His disciples, He said, "When you see all these things, recognize that He [the Son of Man — that is, Jesus] is near, right at the door" (Matthew 24:33).
A Personal Experience
Every time I think of "Signs of the Times," I am reminded of a great man of God named Elbert Peak. I had the privilege of participating with him in a Bible prophecy conference held in Orlando, Florida in the early 1990's. Mr. Peak was about 80 years old at the time.
He had been assigned the topic, "The Signs of the Times." He began his presentation by observing, "Sixty years ago when I first started preaching, you had to scratch around like a chicken to find one sign of the Lord's soon return."
He paused for a moment, and then added, "But today there are so many signs I'm no longer looking for them. Instead, I'm listening for a sound — the sound of a trumpet!"
The First Sign
One hundred years ago in 1907 there was not one single, tangible, measurable sign that indicated we were living in the season of the Lord's return. The first to appear was the Balfour Declaration which was issued by the British government on November 2, 1917.
This Declaration was prompted by the fact that during World War I the Turks sided with the Germans. Thus, when Germany lost the war, so did the Turks, and the victorious Allies decided to divide up both the German and Turkish empires.
The Turkish territories, called the Ottoman Empire, contained the ancient homeland of the Jewish people — an area the Romans had named Palestine after the last Jewish revolt in 132-135 AD.
In 1917 Palestine included all of modern day Israel and Jordan. In the scheme the Allies concocted for dividing up the German and Turkish territories, Britain was allotted Palestine, and this is what prompted the Balfour Declaration. In that document, Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, declared that it was the intention of the British government to establish in Palestine "a national home for the Jewish people."
The leading Evangelical in England at the time was F. B. Meyer. He immediately recognized the prophetic significance of the Declaration, for he was well aware that the Scriptures prophesy that the Jewish people will be regathered to their homeland in unbelief right before the return of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:11-12).
Meyer sent out a letter to the Evangelical leaders of England asking them to gather in London in December to discuss the prophetic implications of the Balfour Declaration. In that letter, he stated, "The signs of the times point toward the close of the time of the Gentiles... and the return of Jesus can be expected any moment."
Before Meyer's meeting could be convened, another momentous event occurred. On December 11, 1917 General Edmund Allenby liberated the city of Jerusalem from 400 years of Turkish rule.
There is no doubt that these events in 1917 marked the beginning of the end times because they led to the worldwide regathering of the Jewish people to their homeland and the reestablishment of their state.
Since 1917
Since the time of the Balfour Declaration, we have witnessed throughout the 20th Century the appearance of sign after sign pointing to the Lord's soon return. There are so many of these signs today, in fact, that one would have to be either biblically illiterate or spiritually blind not to realize that we are living on borrowed time.
I have personally been searching the Bible for years in an effort to identify all the signs, and it has not been an easy task to get a hold on them. That's because there are so many of them, both in the Old and New Testaments.
I have found that the best way to deal with them is to put them in categories, and in doing that, I have come up with six categories of end time signs. We will explore these catetories beginning in Part 2 of this series.
>>That is NOT to say that Catholics don’t bash Protestants with glee, and vice-versa.<<
That’s like saying that every Republican scandal means the Republicans are corrupt while blowing off the everyday scandals of the dems.
One must look at the amount of corruption as well as the timing of such.
Have some Catholics on these boards bashed Protestants? You betcha. Catholics come in all flavors of tactful.
But I have been told that certain Protestants consider the bashing of Catholics to be part of their “calling”. Called by God to do that. Catholics are not called by God to beat anyone over the head, figuratively that is
Sir, there is a major difference there.
***And if the Pentecostals can’t get the belief in God correct, how can you call yourselves believers?
Since when is personal belief dependent upon bricks and mortar?***
Personal belief may or may not coincide with Christianity.
***Why would personal belief depend upon some organization beyond the local gathering of Christians?***
Firstly, now do you know that they are Christians? Secondly, groups such as the Oneness Pentecostals claim to be Christians yet clearly are not. Thirdly, the Church is the only organization authorized to compile doctrine and to teach.
***It is the Spirit who sanctions.***
I will show you Scripture that sanctions the Church. Where is your personal sanction? Can you photocopy it and post an image on this thread pleasea?
This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
***There’s no need to even go beyond John. 6...
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
Sorry buddy, the heresy’s all yours...You own it...I know nothing about the Nestorians but I’ll bet they were a far sight closer to God than your religion ever was...***
We just identify the heresies presented to us by the imaginative. We don’t own them. Their practitioners (both then and now) do. I don’t have a religion.
***Years ago I would often ask people if they were a Christian...The Catholics always said NO***
Do you have any names?
***I have never had anything in common with a Catholic so I guess if you want to call yourself a Christian, I’ll have to find another word to describe myself...***
Good idea.
***I’ll just call myself a bible-believing disciple of Jesus***
So? I can call my dog a cat. Doesn’t make it one, though.
Ever notice how some folks hop-scotch their way through John 6?
Laughably transparent.
***This is a rather poor translation into English. Try the Greek instead. God is not a person, nor is he three persons, as we understand persons.
It took your religion 400 years to acknowledge that God is a Trinity...***
I don’t have a religion. The Trinitarian doctrine took hundreds of years to formulate and understand. It is difficult; so very difficult that a large portion of Protestants fail in that understanding even today.
***Followers of the Apostles knew about the Trinity for 400 years before your crew would accept it.***
Which followers? Where is your proof?
***Where do you guys get off criticizing Spirit filled, Bible believing Christians???***
Actually, I’d say that you ought to turn that sentence around. You criticize Spirit filled Bible believing Christians with almost every post that I have read. Our criticisms are not with those who follow God.
***I just got done telling you Jesus compiled the canon ***
Where does it say that?
***That’s your opinion.***
That’s in his post. Not my opinion.
Interesting. http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/william-tyndale.html says that:
...All these works were written during those mysterious years, in places of concealment so secure and well chosen, that neither the ecclesiastical nor diplomatic emissaries of Wolsey and Henry VIII., charged to track, hunt down, and seize the fugitive, were able to reach them, and they are even yet unknown. Under the idea that the progress of the Reformation in England rendered it safe for him to leave his concealment, he settled at Antwerp in 1534, and combined the work of an evangelist with that of a translator of the Bible.
The Betrayal and Death of William Tyndale
Tyndale was betrayed by a friend, Philips, the agent either of Henry or of English ecclesiastics, or possibly of both. Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Vilvoorden for over 500 days of horrible conditions. He was tried for heresy and treason in a ridiculously unfair trial, and convicted. Tyndale was then strangled and burnt at the stake in the prison yard, Oct. 6, 1536. His last words were, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” This prayer was answered three years later, in the publication of King Henry VIII’s 1539 English “Great Bible”.
He was charged with treason towards Henry because of his public opposition to Henry’s divorce, putting it into print in the Practyse of Prelates, and was executed by the government in Brussels, also a product of the Reformation and not Roman Catholic.
***Ever notice how some folks hop-scotch their way through John 6?
Laughably transparent.***
I just am amazed that a non Christian bothers to read John at all.
Well, there is that.
The YOPIOS crowd prefer to go straight to the epistles of Saint Paul. If the actual Words of Jesus Christ conflict with their interpretation of what Paul wrote, they dismiss the Teachings of Christ as allegorical or symbolic and proceed to construct a theology around their interpretation of the Pauline epistles.
Saint Peter explicitely warned that this would happen:
14 Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless in peace. 15 And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you:
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed, lest being led aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness. 18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and unto the day of eternity. Amen.
-- 2 Peter 3:14-18
I was wondering while shaving today (seems to be my only five minutes of thought per day) if part of the problem is some people’s approach to the “saint” idea. One poster gave the version of saints as any one who is saved thru Christ. This is obviously more liberal than obviously the Catholic idea, where we’re just looking for confirmation that someone already made it to the end zone.
It almost seems, after that horrific thread yesterday, that some people, now that they are saints in their own mind, when they do take their nose out of their bible, have little reason to look beyond their mirror. I dunno. Something weird has to be going on for a person to have a world view where they think they are doing the Lord’s work by talking smack to a person looking for hope for an ill loved one.
That certainly addresses the issue.
>>Something weird has to be going on for a person to have a world view where they think they are doing the Lord’s work by talking smack to a person looking for hope for an ill loved one.<<
You, my FRiend are very wise.
That right there is the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, delivered to us through the person of Pope Peter I.
All this complaining about Rome this and Rome that, but they talk more smack than Jim Rome ever could.
That be no small amount of smack.....
Actually, it is making it personal. But the problem with needling another poster in a personal way and having a good laugh over it, is that the same thing can be done IN RETURN. So, if that's acceptable, then, fine. :D There can be no whining when turn about happens--that would be thin-skinned, right?
I see no need to bring a moderator into this. I think it would be edifying indeed to see how long she continues this behavior.
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