Replies

>>>It is only due to preterism's need to have a 70 date that they must try to force the prophecies to fit it.<<<

I am not a preterist, but I know enough about it to know that you have, unfortunately, bought into the lie spread by the dual-covenant crowd. The only reason I believe in a pre-70 A.D. date is this: I can read English. Same for preterists. The many new converts to postmillennialism and preterism, as I understand it, can best be explained by those disillusioned with the many false prophets that have sprung up within the dispensational ranks. After leaving them behind in a search for greener pastures, some begin to take a literal approach to the New Testament, rather than the old, and their eyes are opened. It is really as simple as that. I would not read too much into it.

" And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:" (Mark 13:2-5)

"Verily I say unto you [, my disciples,] that this [your] generation shall not pass, till all these things be done." (Mark 13:30)

It either means Jesus was prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem during the lifetime of his disciples, or it means anything and everything. The Evangelical Industrial Complex prefers the latter because, without it, and some wildly imaginative authors, their book sales would be in the toilet. So do the mega-church and TV evangelists. Postmillennial preaching is rather dull, and under that doctrine it hard to scare the old ladies into giving up their last mite.

>>>As for the Gentiles killed throughout WWII and its aftermath, the numbers were horrible but the prophecy in question was for Israel. <<<

I don't recall mentioning them. I was referring to all the murders by the Bolsheviks and Mao.

>>>I'm sure many thought WWII and the Holocaust of the Jews, 6 million or more systematically slaughtered just for being physically descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, including Jewish Christians like yourself, was the worst so far, but the end was not yet.<<<

Yet, Hitler's driver was half-Jewish. As a World War II buff for forty years, the internet proved to be a real eye-opener. Admittedly, I was a Pacific War fanatic for most of that time, since I served in the Pacific; so I was late to the European theatre. But since the internet came along, I have ran across some remarkable video series, including one on his personal assistants. There is also this one titled, "Nazi Collaborators - the Jews Who Fought for Hitler:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l379T4484jY

Some things do not make any sense, do they?

>>>Does it really make sense to you that schismatics who rebelled against the Catholic Church in the 16th Century to reform or "redo" the faith once delivered to the saints would then produce a Reformed Theology than keeps reforming itself with new "doctors" into a Preterist Theology that says "I used to love her, but it's all over now, over now?"<<<

The word "Reformed" is best defined as, "those who broke the chains of the catholic tyrants."

>>>At least Calvin and Gentry have not called themselves Prophet like Joseph Smith, and their books are not yet treated as scripture although I wonder sometimes.<<<

You can primarily thank the Jesuit Emmanuel Lacunza, a Francisco Ribera protégé, for that. John Nelson Darby was a Lacunza protégé, as was William Miller, the founder of the Millerites, which later branched into the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-Day Adventists. Of course, Darby is credited with being the founder of Dispensationalism, which has similar end-times doctrine to that of the Millerites because of Lacunza. Francisco Ribera, the originator, was a Jesuit and counter-reformer, who tricked many into accepting his new, non-biblical doctrine, thus taking the heat off the pope.

It is all a big scam.

Philip

My plain reading of Zechariah without commentaries or Gentry's writings:

The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
In that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the Lord of hosts their God.
In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.
In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;
The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;
All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

The LORD is on Israel's side here; this is for the benefit of Israel, not an everlasting judgement on Israel.
The people besieging Jerusalem are in trouble with God.
All the people of the earth are going to be in trouble with God because they are besieging Jerusalem.
The horses (cavalry) are going to be blinded. In general, there was no Jewish cavalry. The Romans had the cavalry. This is implying that the LORD is going to take out the enemy forces.
The Jewish leadership is going to turn to God.
The LORD is going to make the Jews victorious against the besiegers and Jerusalem will be inhabited.
The LORD is going to save the rest of the Jews from the besiegers first, before he delivers Jerusalem.
Every Jews is going to be super warrior of God, like David (think Samson).
God is going to destroy all the Gentiles that attacked Jerusalem.
The people living in Jerusalem are going to realize Jesus really was and is the Messiah, and he has come back to save them from their enemies. They won't be able to stop crying, tears and tears and tears of repentance on a national scale.

Given that Peter and the others ran away to avoid being arrested, you surely don't mean it when you say there were these vast multitudes at his crucifixion mourning him. His mother, the Virgin Mary, whom we venerate as the most blessed Jewish woman ever born, was certainly there, as was the Apostle John.