Posted on 07/05/2010 6:48:05 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
The apostle John was among those gathered in the room when the Holy Spirit appeared as “cloven tongues of fire” on the disciples and all in the room spoke in the tongues of the various nationalities praising God and extolling the great things of God. These apostles could effect miracles in Christ’s name, sometimes raising the dead. Peter spoke and 3000 folks were saved that first day. Prophecies were uttered, speakings of tongues, miracles ect...were seen from the disciples and of the first fruits that great day of pentecost.
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
Joel 2 :28”
(You doubt the book of Revelation, do you doubt the book of Joel...perhaps God would like to pour out his spirit upon you so that you might prophesy in a day quite beyond the time of Alexander?)
Your quote:”It does not add to whatever appeal Christianity might have to educated people.”
Christianity naturally has no appeal to ‘educated people’ for as it says in Corinthians: “The resurrection is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks(the educated philosophers of Paul’s day). Christ also thanked the father for “Hiding His wisdom from the wise of this world and revealing it to babes” Else where it says “God’s “foolishness” is greater than the wisdom of men” and that “His strength is made perfect in weakness”!
It all cuts across one’s “educated” grain doesn’t it? It cuts across mine...but it’s a ‘scalpel’ I embrace! Fierce love like a scalpel can be a focused hurtful thing...but how much better one feels when the infection has been drained!!!
Well there’s trendy trivia-master sophistication then there’s learned wisdom and useful skills. The latter two don’t interfere with Christian faith at all. Paul was really putting the screws to the scribes and pharisees of his day, who were viewed then like the Ivy League are now, and were about equally full of fluff.
I have to take issue with your tagline. If you’re on this site, I’d wager you are of America... it’s the political class (especially the Kenyan) that isn’t.
It’s just a different point of view. I’m here in this country as a visitor “from another dimension” and my obligation comes from my creator, which is to do whatever good I can while present, while honoring everything that is honorable to both men and God.
I understand that completely... it is the Christian calling. However, America, as envisioned by our Founding Fathers, is in no way inimical to our Christian calling. Government, on the other hand...
That is why there will never be Peace as we know Peace between the two. Just like all their long ago contributions to science, math etc. stopped with Mohammed/Islam. Islam and it's teachings opposses every country they go into and has for centuries...this will not change. And the Palestinians have been raised with vile hatred for Jews. That will not change...state or no state. The other side of the coin is Islams hatred for the west...so if people think this is simply a "war" against the Jewish people...think again...because we are equally hated...make no mistake about that. They didn't take down Israels towers on 9/11...they took down ours.
America has been particularly blessed in having been birthed in a mix of Christian and biblical philosophies, even when the respective churches could not agree to the point that ecumenism would be possible. Despite this, I assume only the allegiance to the country that God asks me to give (which in fact is a lot). I came, and ultimately I will go, as a stranger to all earthly countries, to the world.
CHAPTER 1
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
That is the most realistic statement you have in the new testament as to prophets.
All such things stopped working centuries beore Christ. The Greek city states absolutely ran on information from the Oracles and then the planetary electrostatic forces or whatever it was which had enabled that sort of thing broke down, and the information which all such practices returned turned into mush, and it became dangerous to listen to the practitioners. Zechariah had this in mind when he admonished parents to simply kill children who went on trying to use their minds and brains in that manner:
ZEC 13:2 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.
ZEC 13:3 And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.
ZEC 13:4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive:
Zechariah was about six centuries before Christ and there has never been a real prophet on this planet since that time.
You cannot pick and choose between Mohammed, Jopseph Smith, and St. John "the devine(TM)". Either they are all believable, or none of them are. We either have a basis to argue against I-slam, or we don't.
Best book on the subject of what went into ancient religious practices including prophecy is probably still Julian Jaynes’ “Origin of Consciousness”. You have to read past the evolutional bias in the book but it’s worth the effort to do.
I know the difference; plenty of Christians are super smart and wise. The difference is where one places one’s faith and trust. “The fool says in his heart there is no God” states Proverbs. It was those kinds of “learned and wise of the World” to which I was referring, for they can only place their trust in materialism and in those things they can only see hear, touch, and experience. Thomas, the doubter needed something he could “touch” so that he could believe, yet he was counted as among the disciples. Yet Christ said there was a special blessing for those who would believe even if they never saw HIM or his miracles.
Muslims are murdering thugs.
If I were satan, I could not have come up with a better plan to sow generations of hatred and anger towards God’s people and enslave the minds of billions of people than islam.
Say what you will about the devil, but his cleverness is absolutely remarkable.
[1] In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. [1] Zechariah 13:1...
Let’s keep the chapter in proper context shall we? Lets also look at Israel in proper historic context...she had become apostate and wicked and God was getting ready to have Judah sent into exhile. There was idol worship and many false prophets. The chapter also hints at our coming savior since his blood became that “fountain for our sins and uncleaness”.
Look at verse [6] And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” Christ himself was indeed “wounded in the house of his friends,”
Look again at verse 7 thru 9:[7] Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
[8] And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.
[9] And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.
The context of this entire chapter doesn’t support your notion that Revelation ought to be axed from the New Testament. This chapter is is riven thru with multithreaded prophecy regarding Israel’s apostate status, the coming saviour, his death, the scattering of the Hebrews and their eventual refinement.
I don’t doubt your thoughts regarding a worldwide historic “ending of strange” static discharges associated with idols and prophetic mutterings and the befuddlement of oracles. A worldwide sea change of religious thought can be detected around 600 to 500 BC or around the time Israel went into exhile and the beginning of the 400 ‘silent years’ when the word of the Lord became limited. Socrates was born at this time, Krishna, Confuscious, Bhuddha all with philosophies that appear almost proto Christian. God was surely “winking” at the nations who were groping for him in the darkness of those times. We also know about various devices such as ancient batteries and electric rods..etcetera that were being used to decieve folks.
God was prepping history to receive his Son and suppressing confusion and satanic activity,while encouraging growth of intellect and reason was the means to do it. God’s spirit was at work quietly at that time but actively. We see Christ, during his ministry, himself forbidding demons to speak of his own divinity lest it sew confusion in the witnesses to Christ’s acts.
Finally any true prophets of God are 100 per cent accurate, their words are not “allowed to fall to the ground”. The New Testament, despite Revelation is filled with plenty of prophecies regarding the latter days, many of which do line up with Revelation.
We have Anna the PROPHET from the book of Luke:”36There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.[e] She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Should we cut the book of Luke out of the Bible because she was not a true prophet based on your view of Zechariah 13? Or Simeon mentioned earlier in Luke, because he received a word directly by God’s spirit that he would not die before he saw the promised one of Israel?
Joel was a prophet, the same as Zechariah. As I asked before, do you doubt what he said about a future pouring out of God’s spirit...causing “sons and daughters to prophesy?” Should we get rid of the book of Joel because it mentions God’s spirit making prophets of folks in violation of Zechariah 13 as you understand it?
The Arab-Islamic/Israeli war did not begin in 1967.
Arabs were massacring Jews whenever they were able long before Israel declared its independence.
In 1948, they vowed a war of extermination again the reborn state of Israel. They did they same in 1967.
That the Jews keep on beating them is an insult to their religion, their manhood, their honor. There will never be peace between Israel and Islam because peace to the Arabs means conceding defeat.
No one said it did. My comment addressed how the conflict was always referred to in the US media as the Arab/Israeli conflict, with the religious basis for the conflict seldom mentioned in all the years of ongoing media coverage from 1967 up until 9/11/2001, the time frame witnessed by many living Americans.
The writer makes the point that the Moslems hatred of the Jews is ancient, and began with Mohammed and the Jews rejection of him as a prophet. But for whatever reason, the Moslem/Jew conflict in the Middle East was always referred to as the Arab/Israeli conflict during all the events from the Six Day War in 1967 up until 9/11/2001.
That was probably party PCness and partly ignorance on the part of most in the MSM.
Here's the context...
The words 'prophet' and 'prophesy' which appear on every other page in the OT books after Genesis do not appear in Genesis at all other than the one vague reference to Abraham as God's prophet, after the flood. Before the flood there was no need for prophets as God and spirits spoke to men directly.
Between the time of the flood and the tower, and the time of the Trojan war, there were a number of ritualistic practices meant to communicate with spirits and these included prophets, oracles, familiar spirits (e.g. the ghost story involving Saul, Samuel, and the 'witch of Endor'), idolatry, and electrostatic devices such as the ark and the pyramids as well as devices similar to the ark which Etrurians called 'ka-mer' or spirit catchers, from which our 'camera' derives.
Idolatry never worked. The other practices involved static electricity and trance states, and they ALL stopped working around the time of Zechariah. That's what the section of Zechariah which I quoted is about. Again I recommend Jaynes' book on the subject; without it there is no possibility of understanding this stuff.
“Idolatry never worked. The other practices involved static electricity and trance states, and they ALL stopped working around the time of Zechariah. That’s what the section of Zechariah which I quoted is about. Again I recommend Jaynes’ book on the subject; without it there is no possibility of understanding this stuff. “
I see we simply have a difference of opinion as to what Zechariah 13 was all about, not necessarily in disagreement about God’s suppression of”false miracles” and false prophets about the time that Judah and the remainder of what was Israel was about to go into captivity. I’ll have to find the verse that speaks of one of the prophets observing the Shekinah glory of God removing itself from between the cherubim on the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant and vanishing in symbolic reference to how God’s glory had departed from Israel. What I find more fascinating, is how many of the great ancient thinkers we quote came into being during this same rough 400 to 500 year time period, between the initial captivity (or if you want to count after the 72 years when some of Judah’s people were allowed to return) to the time of Christ. God suppressed a lot of this occultism and told Satan to take a hike for awhile!
In the context of “static electricity”, I do find it interesting then that Christ stated that he saw Satan “fall like lightning” when the disciples reported back on the events that occured during their first “preaching and teaching outing” and of the sick who experienced miracles by their hands thru God’s power! Goes to show you that God’s spirit seems to have a muzzling effect on all those strange occultic practises you describe. After all “God is not the author of confusion!”
“They didn’t take down Israels towers on 9/11...they took down ours.”
BUT, not all nations will come against Israel. That’s the hatred the WORLD has for Israel, and now the U.S., through Barack Hussein Obama, has joined that hatred.
BUT, not all the nations will come against Israel in the "Battle of Armageddon". That’s the hatred the WORLD has for Israel, and now the U.S., through Barack Hussein Obama, has joined that hatred.
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