Several of my professors TRAINED THE FACULTY--TRAINED THE TRAINERS at the premier, top most, highest ranking organizational development business consulting firm in the world. Evidently you'd have had a riot with them.
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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.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Sounds a lot like my tendencies in Bible Study.
Thx.
Am humbled . . . deeply humbled by your kind and fitting comment.
However, one learns to expect such from some cliques on such threads. Some folks seem addicted to those types of derisive diatribes . . . probably given the bleakness of their RUBBER BIBLE’D position.
Or else it’s the old REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDERed stuff that so many of us wrestle with until we work it through. It appears that many on such threads have a long ways to go before working that history through r mostly through.
It’s of no eternal consequence to me . . . except adding to my Heavenly bank account if I respond appropriately in my heart.
I would rather be able to post all sweetness and light and be inoffensive to one and all.
Sigh, tis not my lot on these sorts of threads. The issues are of eternal consequence to the degree that lurkers who habitually do not think things through thoughtfully could be deluded into missing that these ARE THE END TIMES and be sold down the river and the yellow brick road seductively into the satanic global government’s hellish lair almost unwittingly.
I try to do what I feebly can to vividly warn against that in memorable, startling ways. I want lots of vivid memory hooks for Holy Spirit to remind people with at the appropriate times in the not too distant future when they are making decisions influencing their eternal destiny.
BTW, IF you have a serious interest in a Dissertation amidst various belief systems including different types of Christians compared with each other as well as Atheists, let me know. I’d be willing to share the title with you and you could look it up on Dissertation Abstracts.
I’m deeply honored by your kindness.
sum1 . . . you may find the above exchanges exceedingly laughable given your observations me at the UNIV.
So far, apart from vague fluffyness, you really haven’t shown dispensationalism to be false. On the contrary, when asked in response to your claim that Mt 24 is fulfilled in AD 70, you provide everything BUT evidence of such. You make Jesus out to be a false prophet in that case.
= = =
You will learn that’s pretty standard for these types of threads and a certain clique.
That’s one reason I don’t bother much trying to debate the details. They virtually never respond to the Scriptures I do post . . . such as the one about God’s promises to the descendants of Jacob enduring as long as the stars endure etc.
Of course, what !!!CAN!!!! they really say against irrefutable UNRUBBERIZED SCRIPTURES! LOL.
Sigh.
Several of my professors TRAINED THE FACULTY--TRAINED THE TRAINERS at the premier, top most, highest ranking organizational development business consulting firm in the world. Evidently you'd have had a riot with them.
OK, I’m a bit confused . . .
I have the original list
“A” which gets pinged LEAST FREQUENTLY but can still be frequent if lots significant seems to cross my screen.
“B” list is more frequent but moderately frequent considering “A” vs “D” lists.
“C” is more frequent still.
“D” is almost the most frequent and is most of what I find interesting that crosses my screen.
“E” is just a handful of folks I kind of use as my own reality test, exhorters etc.
I don’t have it broken down into long posts vs short posts.
Please let me know your preference by A . . . D letters.
Sometimes I do try to speak 5% or so of the obvious language of the reader/hearer.
Sometimes I do try to speak 5% or so of the obvious language of the reader/hearer.
You know . . . like when in Rome . . . speak Latin?
I thought that, too.
Though I don’t think any of the globalists . . . certainly not many . . . will be going to Heaven. Being sold out to satan seems to rather preclude that to me.
Then there’s the Scripture about . . . the tares being taken out . . .
Interesting possibilities.
Your thoughts?
As pointed out before - your theology is inconsistent in this regard. The only way you can make your theology work is to a priori dismiss NT prophecy via spiritualization or write it off as an oblique reference to a historic event. This steals away from the OT prophecy concerning Christ.
= = =
I love how you say things so clearly.
Just as the OT prophecies of Jesus resulted in real, tangible fulfillments, why would the NT prophecies - particularly those by Jesus Himself - result in anything less tangible?
= = ==
WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL . . . HARUMPH!
Because . . . well because . . .
because . . . uhhhh . . .
because the REPLACEMENTARIAN’S Rubber Bibles and Rubber histories ensconced in their tiny little boxes insist on it!
Otherwise, they’d have to get rid of the tiny little boxes and come up with a different philosophy to idolize.
INDEED.
and . . .
AT times . . . very trying.
Trouble is, they construe that as
ALREADY HAVING TAKEN PLACE circ 70 A.D.
I know . . . such a notion is utterly UNBiblical
and hysterically laughable.
However, like taste, there’s no accounting for REPLACEMENTARIAN PSEUDO-THEOLOGY.
BALDERDASH UNTRUTH.
I’ve NEVER known a Dispy to
“dilute” the spiritual. Quite the contrary.
verse by verse demonstration of how Mat 24 was all fulfilled in A.D. 70???
That would be interesting.
The mental gymnastics and convolutions alone would be enough Rubber Bibled gyrations to make a whirling Dervish envious.
However, having been here a long time, I hope you don’t hold your breath while waiting.
I agree with you - there is a contradiction inherent there, but who knows what we might not understand about traditional explanations of some passages, and how things will unfold?
I just thought it was an uncanny means of expressing an obvious phenomenon that is being predicted by the bots.
It’s one of the
uhhhh
REPLACEMENTARIAN DOCTRINAL RULES on such threads.
SOP—Standard Operating Procedure from the first such thread I’d ever participated in a decade or so ago, hereon.
I don’t know why. I’m happy to be charitable toward all . . . even REPLACEMENTARIANS . . . and engage in warm friendly dialogue.
However, from the beginning, it was not to be. The derisive personal assaults seemed to be the order of the day and the only language they seem to know how to speak towards some of us. It’s distasteful . . . yet on occasion . . . adds a certain kind of energy or intensity to the threads.
And to the degree that makes solid Biblical content more memorable by the lurkers, I’m somewhat game.
NO doubt the weasel response is in the works. LOL.
INDEED.
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