Posted on 10/22/2004 8:11:53 AM PDT by missyme
ping..........666
No, I mean by virtue of the impact on vast numbers of lives, facilitating their being drawn to Christ and becoming Saved by His Blood and making Him their Lord.
I confess, I only read the last one.
I have pains with such books for another reason--it's too easy for me to identify to intensely with the characters and their traumatic situations in such books.
But, hey, my friends rated the first Star Wars movie a
"9 tripper!'
Meaning Quix took 9 bladder breaks during the tense parts.
And, I fast forwarded through quite a number of parts of Lord of The Rings! LOL.
Well, if you are right,
then of course it's a good thing.
But I get the shakes
when I think about
the "Jesus" kids discover
in our pop culture.
I wonder if they
know Jesus, or if they will
some day live through this:
"Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'"
[Matthew 7:22-23]
Well, I finished the series because I wanted to see what happened to people. But there were a couple of times when I would read something and just groan thinking "no, they really didn't write that..."
And, I fast forwarded through quite a number of parts of Lord of The Rings! LOL.
Pure heresy, with the exception of the Aragorn/Arwen flashback scenes.
Wow! It's good to see people speak out against that smelly Left Behind series. I tried a few years ago and was villified on FR for daring to criticize such godly successful men as those charlatan authors running an obvious scam against an audience desperate for something to throw their money at and feel good about themselves at the same time.
Abd, See: Strongs #6 (Hebrew) Malik is Arabic for king.
666 years after the crucifixion/resurrection Abd al-Malik standardized Muslim currency (mint of the beast). He also built the Dome of the Rock and under his reign he also standardized the Quran.
http://www.granadamosque.com/gold/index.html
NEVER,......NO WAY,.......NEVER,......666 is/means ______________
.........neither the Anti-Christ, nor the Beasts.....are Islamic in anyway.
Sorry, I know YOU don't want to hear that,.....but,.....Islam is NOT either.
Some people seem to think "Christian" trumps "good" or "readable". I don't. I look at C.S. Lewis's works - fiction or nonfiction - and then the Left Behind drivel, and wonder. Does it really please God when we as Christians praise such stuff? Leaving aside the argument over whether it's "holy and true", it's not "good".
Hopefully in the next few years there will be a Christian fiction revolution, much like the one the Christian music industry has experienced in the last few years. I don't feel embarrassed to listen to some Christian contemporary singers, because they do a good job writing their songs, as well as having nice happy Christian messages. Both parts are important.
Well, the key issue in Dispensationalism is the difference between the Jews and the Church.
A Premillennial theology that neglects this diffence would have the church inheriting Jewish blessings, a major error.
One further thought. If one looks at the writings of early church fathers, one will find that even way back then there was not one eschatology that was embraced by all.
For the first three centuries Premillennial theology was the dominant one.
I consider the question to be a minor doctrinal issue where reasonable people can disagree as opposed to a major doctrinal issue, e.g. the deity of Christ, that is fundamental to the Christian faith.
Why it is important is that it is not just a theological position but a methodologial way of interpreting scriptures.
Literally hundreds of scriptures deal with the 2nd Advent of Christ and the Millennium reign.
Do we take them literally or allegoricaly?
If literal they can be shown part of a theological system that can explain God's Plan, which is far more then just salvation.
Agreed, I started reading the first book and it was awful.
It sounds like the books have gotten away from pre-trib theology if 'christians' are cracking codes to survive.
"Tension mounts as a villainous Preterist adversary seeks to find the disciple John's letter (the book of Revelation) and destroy it," a promo reads. "As a result, the early Preterist Christians must decipher and destroy a mysterious dispensational code in order to survive."/Sarcasm
/Sarcasm........the nation Israel ONLY has a 'future' as a Preterist/Noahide cult?
(Only the PRETERIST gang survives,....national Israel too is a PRETERIST cult?)
/sarcasm
(Row, Row, Row, Your Boat.....Israel is nothing but a dream?)/Sarcasm
It was just a little dig at your fascination with the Bible code stuff. ;^)
Ahhhh,
Talk about a polarizing topic! Sheesh.
And the hostile ones have virtually never fair mindedly researched the issue beyond a few headlines.
Cheers.
Stoned, crucified, burned at the state, run out of town on a rail, that sort of thing...
There has never been a thousand year reign yet of Jesus on the Earth. There has never been an event yet that Bible describes as "Behold we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, at the last trumpet". There has never yet been a 7 year period where the things are so horrible that even the mountains have been flattened and 8 hours off the clock per day have been shaved off(or the sun 33 per cent dimmed) and the moon apparently gone from our skies!
You can argue about chronological placements eschatologically, but there are some things the Bible is quite clear about what is to happen before "the end", including one last huge "uprising" of Humans after the 1000 years is finished and God rules from the great white throne in judgment over the entirety of humans that ever lived from Adam to that present time.
So what does she say about the rapture that publishers say are out of line?
Basically, she goes with an alternate reality solution that basically ignores traditional schools of the thought for the idea we should focus on people and relationships rather than specific theories.
That would be a woman's natural approach(and I mean this kindly not sarcastically in reference to scriptural references to a woman's special nature)...people and relationships.
But scriptures speak of a mass transfomation of Christians alive(after the dead rising first) from a material corruptible body to an incorruptible body with the ability to know as we are known and to see Christ as he truly is for "we shall be like him for we shall see him face to face".
There are arguements to made as to the timing of this event and I have no strong position as to when or how. The Bible says that Christ shall "come as a thief" at a time when men least expect it. How the "mass translation" and its timing is affected is obviously under arguement.
I agree that a case should be made for expanded commentary of the power of relationships in Christendom, starting with Paul's declaration..."In Him we live, and move, and HAVE OUR BEING"...that God is not very far from us and is closer than a brother. The insight gained from that contemplation of our ultimate surroundedness by God's glory should then begin to empower or relationships with our fellow believers as well. God's very act of sending his son to earth was his attempt to establish contact with a race that was incommunicado with him due to our sin.
The coming Marriage Supper of the Lamb is the act of the requiting of God's love for those who who have acknowledged his son, his church presented as bride to Jesus our groom. The Bible is indeed full of relationship symbols that could use more clarification and airing out.
People often complain of not being able to "relate" to church and to "church goers". More work needs to be done to show how much God desires to have relationship with man and how ultimately to show that such a relationship is the only thing that ever satifies the human heart!
An earthly marriage is only a pale picture of the intense desire of God to marry with his church in a spiritual way that brings his children to such depths of fullfillment that we can scarcely even speculate about!
The rapture is a marriage statement, a making good of a blood spilt contract, the ultimate joining of Christ to his church so that we spiritually become one flesh and body in unity with him and the Father!
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