Posted on 04/10/2024 7:03:34 PM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
Some people have a hard time accepting reality. Some things simply sound “too good to be true.” That could be said of Jesus’ promises to those who accept Him: absolute forgiveness and eternal life in the presence of God.
On the other hand, some people cannot accept the clear teaching of Scripture regarding the wrath of God that abides on all who do not obey the Son by accepting Him as Savior and Lord (John 3:36). They like the sound of a god who would not harm a fly but cannot accept the living God who will pour out His righteous indignation on a world that has rejected Him. They are even more appalled by the idea of Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, administering the wrath of God. Yet that is exactly what Revelation teaches (6:16).
It has been said that Revelation is too hard to understand. But Henry Morris, the founder of the Institute for Creation Research, once said: “Revelation is not hard to understand. It is hard to believe; but if you will believe it, you will understand it.”
It is critical that we understand up front that this final book in the canon of God’s Word is not merely the fanciful and imaginative vision of John the Apostle. The very first verse in the book establishes that it is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.”
The same verse goes on to explain the purpose behind Jesus unveiling all that John would be tasked to record: “…which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John.” Driving the point home even further, verse 2 tells us that John “testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.”
Other prophets of God affirm the divine inspiration to their prophecies by frequently weaving in the phrase, “Thus saith the Lord.” But John established up front that Revelation is the testimony of none other than Jesus Christ.
Revelation is unique in one other respect. No other book offers a promise of blessing for merely reading what is written. But verse 3 says, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.” Not clear enough? Jesus repeats the same promise in 22:7: “And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.”
Reading and hearing can be easily done. But how do you heed a book of prophecy—especially one as expansive as Revelation? How can I heed the sweeping prophecies yet to be fulfilled and often related to God’s wrath that abides on the unbelieving world? By doing what Henry Morris advocated and believing this great book of prophecy.
In other words—taking Jesus at His Word.
End Times Ping
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Maranatha!
Read the Book of Enoch and the Book of Revelation will be comparably easier to read/believe. It’s got some freaky stuff in there. Probably why they didn’t include it in canon.
Amazing how such a book from centuries ago still resonates today.
People were smarter back then than now.
Nothing amazing about that.
.
Since going through Revelation( 3X this month) I have a better understanding of the Bible and how the book of Revelation is intertwined with numerous books in the new and Old Testament. I especially enjoy chapter 12 and the end of chapter 6!!
Just FYI for those who are unfamiliar with the above Dispensationalist (earthly millennium, rapture-at-any-moment) interpretation of Scripture regarding the End Times presented here: the majority of Christians today (and who have ever lived, for that matter) do not ascribe to it. It was not developed until the early 19th century. It originated in England but is mostly held by many (not all) American evangelicals.
I'm not saying there is no truth in it or that nobody should consider it, only that it is important to know that this is not the only interpretation or position. As the majority of Christians in the world are either Catholic, Orthodox and other Eastern Churches who do not ascribe to modern Dispensationalism vastly outnumber the American influenced Evangelical Protestants and Protestant Fundamentalists that are the ones who primarily embrace modern Dispensationalism, it is important to point out that it doesn't represent the views of most Christians.
Not here to argue or debate, just here to clear the air. God bless.
I have been warning about the Ai-Christ.
but no one today considers the Revelations in that context, but if you do it makes a lot more sense.
I enabled the internet framework many years ago, and regret it, at the same time one of my friends wrote a 3d engine that is still being used today, but what was revolutionary then can run on a lawnmower today.
Recently I have talked with the leaders in Ai tech, (it is not AI or AGI today but 20 or 30 years from now I believe it will be.)
Reads like a Stephen King novel.
My favorite Book.
So in other words it is not true? Is that your point?
“Not here to argue or debate”
No, but you do love to spam my posts with falsities that Dispensationalism was initiated by John Darby and others in 19th Century England when in fact your own “church fathers” wrote much about Dispensationalism:
Justin Martyr
Dialogue with Trypho
“But if so great a power is shown to have followed and to be still following the dispensation of His suffering, how great shall that be which shall follow His glorious advent! For He shall come on the clouds as the Son of Man, so Daniel foretold, and His angels shall come with Him.”
Justin Martyr (d. 162): “But I and whoever are on all points right-minded Christians know that there will be resurrection of the dead and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and the others declare” (“Dialogue with Trypho,” in ANF, I, 239).
Eusebius commenting on Papias of Hierapolis
Eusebius, An Ecclesiastical History to the 20th Year of the Reign of Constantine
“In these he says there would be a certain millennium after the resurrection, and that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very Earth; which things he appears to have imagined, as if they were authorized by the apostolic narrations, not understanding correctly those matters which they propounded mystically in their representations.”
Irenaeus
Against Heresies
The rule of faith taught the following three truths: 1) Jesus would come bodily to Earth. 2) The rule of faith affirms the bodily resurrection of believers, and 3) the rule of faith affirms a future judgment
Irenaeus: “But when this Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world, he will reign for three years and six months, and sit in the temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire, but bringing in for the righteous the times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the inheritance, in which kingdom the lord declared, that ‘many coming from the east and from the west should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . . . . The predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionable to the times of the kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead.”
Tertullian
Tertullian: “But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after their resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem” (Against Marcion,” in ANF, 3, 343).
At least pretend to be honest when you post will you?
Seems to me revelation at Sinai to millions— who experienced it and believed it (they knew it, seeing is believing,)— is better proof.
--from Gospel Boogie--Leroy Abernathy & the Homeland Harmony Quartet (1947)
Nope. Just take it at face value unless face value makes no sense.
No reason to think the mark of the beast isn’t a literal, physical mark as clearly and plainly described.
And considering technology today, it’s more than feasible that it will happen. It’s just a matter of when.
Interesting, is it not, that John could have predicted something like this 2,000 years ago when there was no chance for enforcement of such a decree at that time. But there is now.
You need to learn to read more clearly. I stated clearly that no Christians of any standing before Darby taught the modern "earthly millennium, rapture-at-any-moment" interpretation of Scripture regarding the End Times."
The Church Fathers indeed taught about "dispensations" in salvation history, but NOT as the modern rapturists teach them. Rapturists taking their quotes out of context has become a pretty common practice.
And thank you for proving my point that rapturists cannot charitably and reasonably discuss this topic with out flying int a pique of anger. That's why it is fruitless to try to attempt a decent conversation about this here. I learned that lesson log ago. Have a blessed evening.
Check out Pseudo-Ephraem 306-373
Amen.
“No reason to think the mark of the beast isn’t a literal, physical mark as clearly and plainly described.”
Not long ago where I live, you could not buy or sell if you did not have a Vax card.
you could not go into a restaurant, I was thrown out of a bookstore.
People were scorned ridiculed and arrested.
We all know what is coming.
it might be a physical mark, it might be a microchip, or microtatto.
A “mark” does not need to be visible, just scanable
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