Replies

> You don’t really know, do you?

Nope. Only One knows.

Matthew 24:36-37
36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

> put down the New York Times read the rest of the Bible,
> especially Ezekiel.

LOL!! We don’t get *ANY* newspapers here, because they have content, especially in the ads, that would compromise the innocence of our children. We don’t have any TV either! No cable, no antenna, no FM radio, nothing.

In my personal devotions, I just finished Ezekiel and Daniel, into Hosea now. I got the exact opposite sense as you, concerning the return of Israel and the nations that will come against her.

I have not numbered the times that I have been through the Bible, but we have family devotions very frequently, almost every evening (no TV, remember), where each of my 9 children is given 10 minutes to present to the rest of the family what they got out of their Bible reading for the day. They choose their own devotions, according to their interest, or according to the Spirit for those who have given their lives to Jesus.

Now, from Matthew 24:29-33
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

No interpretation necessary. Certainly, these things have not happened, yet.

But then, in Matthew 24:34, we read ...
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
... but what generation was the one to which Jesus was referring? Don’t know that either, but it certainly wasn’t the one that was sitting in front of Him at that time, because those things had not, and still have not, happened.

And Matthew 24:35 for emphasis ...
35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

In the verses following that, He continues to make clear that He is talking about the time when He returns. Maybe you don’t see it that way, but I certainly do.

Now there are these worldwide events that are yet to happen. I’m sure you have a way to allegorize these, but my opinion is that they are real events yet to take place.

Rev 11:8-13 The Two Witnesses
8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
11 And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
12 And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
13 And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

There is so much more, such as
* sealing of the 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel
* Wormwood (meteor?) falling into the ocean
* the seas and the fountains WORLDWIDE turning to blood
* all the fishes in the sea dying WORLDWIDE
* 1/3 of humanity being wiped out, as well as 1/3 of the vegetation WORLDWIDE
* Tigris and Euphrates drying up
* the 200 million man army coming from the East and crossing the dried out Tigris and Euphrates.
* Gog and Magog with a host of named nations coming against Israel for the final battle

I’ve heard some of the ways in which these things have been allegorized. All I can do is nod politely and say that I disagree. I’ve been studying these matters on my own, off and on, for years. I’ve listened to the various allegorizations of Revelation and the Olivet Discourse. They sounded false in my ears, and I don’t even remember them, as I have found more plausible explanations through my own studies, my observations from World History and Current Events, and from other saints in study groups and in lectures.

You probably came to your conclusions in much the same way. Why are your conclusions so different from mine? Don’t know. But I know I’m not gonna convince you, and I know you’re not gonna convince me.

Let others decide for themselves.

I’ve heard some of the ways in which these things have been allegorized.

Just one point of clarification. My methodology for interpreting the Bible does not involve “allegory” per se. Allegory is defined as, “the representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative.” E.g., the Br'er Rabbit/Uncle Remus stories are a form of allegory. In the Bible, we see an allegory in Paul description of the new/heavenly Jerusalem in Galatians 4. The bondwoman represents old Jerusalem and the freewoman represents the new.

I understand biblical imagery in terms of the prophetic genre. For example, in Isaiah 13 we have the prophecy against ancient Babylon. In the prophecy, Babylon’s temporal judgment is spoken of in term of

For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not give their light; The sun will be darkened in its going forth, And the moon will not cause its light to shine.

The language and context makes it clear that this is not speaking of actual physical phenomena, but is a symbolic image used by the author to describe the magnitude, intensity, and cosmic significance of this temporal judgment. We see similar imagery when the Bible speaks of God “riding on the clouds of heaven” (Psalm 68:4). We don’t expect to see God literally seated on a visible mass water droplets.

In similar fashion the harlot of Rev. 17 represents something. We usually don’t take it as an actual woman with a huge posterior seated physically on seven mountains. In this case the explanation is in the immediate context, but in other cases the text requires that we search the rest of the Bible of a suitable explanation. We can’t just take the first thing that pops into our head, or use some other standard (like current events) for deciding the true meaning.

In my view that process is not strictly allegorical.