Nah, Massachusetts. He has a weekend place there where he can get away from it all.
Posted on 02/12/2013 8:13:24 AM PST by Alex Murphy
I don't buy the 5,000 year old tomb stuff, but Nimrod can be looked at as a type of anti-Christ.
The name Nimrod means "He who rebels."
Nimrod was probably the driving force behind the building of the Tower of Babel (the Bible lists Nimrod as Babylon's king).
Nimrod created the first "world government," and he did so by military conquest.
There was a long standing tradition that Nimrod was possessed by the devil (there were a lot of ancient stories about Nimrod, but since they aren't in the Bible I take them with a grain of salt).
The point is, saying Nimrod was an anti-Christ type of figure is reasonable.
Nah, Massachusetts. He has a weekend place there where he can get away from it all.
Massachusetts makes sense, given the proximity to NYC. Harlots can take the train into the city on Mondays, when they want to ride the Beast....
RIDE THE BEAST, BABY! YEEAAHHHH!!
I heard his pecker is too small and bent for 3 sixes.
I just read. Very interesting.
I presume you refer to 2 Cor 4:4, and or John 12:31; 14:30. It is a horrible misuse of scripture to use those to teach against the kingdom of God on earth. It does much damage to the prophets, the parables, the psalms, and the gospel of the kingdom. I understand why you would repeat it. It is widely taught as such. But this is a part of the reason America is in the moral dilema we are in. That teaching makes Christians irrelevant in todays world. In fact, it makes them somewhat useless to God's kingdom.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Romans 4:13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Psalm 24:1 The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
Psalm 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.
If you read the parable of the tares carefully, you will see that the tares are in the field which is the world. Later you see the tares are gather out of the kingdom where they have been growing. They were growing in the field, which is the world. The kingdom is the world.
Revelation 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
No offense, but I get the feeling you are “looking for a fight”. The reason I say this is that this is at least the second time you expand a single sentence by me into an entire sermon complete with backing scripture, and then attempt to refute it. That is, intentionally or not, you create straw men from my posts and then effectively slay them.
I’m afraid I really don’t have the time nor inclination, on Freerepublic, to dig deep into specific topics on which you are “loaded for bear”. Frankly, I agree with most of what you post.
BTW, I was reading 1 Cor. this morning and when I came upon the word “holy”, I suddenly thought of Moses at the burning bush and a niggling question percolated to the surface: What, exactly, is “holy” ground? What exactly is holy “anything”. I mean, deep down, with full knowledge, what exactly does it mean? Then an answer came into my head that touches on our very conversation, which also popped into my head.
Actually I wrote it myself. Since when is there something wrong with that.
It’s comical, actually.
But I’m no fan of “one liner” vanities. That’s what that vapid twitter thing is for. :-)
‘WISDOM’ is a reference to Solomon...
“The Antichrist’s rise to power is nothing to fear,” declares Bible scholar Jon Hornsworth of Atlanta.
Actually, I think he’s right in a way. That is, those who are Satans and take the number of the beast will “think” they have nothing to fear. Heck, this guy is so amazing that God cuts the time short lest even the elect be deceived.
And because I think the worlds current crisis is not solvable by any man, I’m very much looking for a guy to percolate to the surfact that actually fixes this whole mess. The world will be amazed.
And the beast will be identified.
In a sense you are right about looking for a fight. I am looking for iron to sharpen my iron. Prov. 27:17. I have been to dozens of churches, bible studies, even some time at seminary. No one wants to dig into scripture in any forum, online, offline, in church, at home, anywhere. It seems at times, that Berean Christians are nearly extinct.
In answer to prayer recently I have had the opportunity to talk prophecy with a pastor, at length over the course of many months of one hour meetings. He was in shock and awe at the breadth and depth of my knowledge of prophecy, and said I am "WAY ahead of him in this area." Yet, I consider myself to be only a beginning student.
I joined a bible study on Daniel a while back. We are on chapter ten. What a dissapointment. It is a book study, not a bible study. We follow McArthur's book, answer the shallow questions, and avoid learning anything.
Prophecy, the subject of this thread, is highly relevant to society. Jesus rebuked his disciples as fools on the road to Emmaus because they did not compare scripture with the events of their day, and understand that it was being fulfilled before their eyes.
This thread considers the idea of antiChrist in prophecy and sort of makes light of it implying every generation thinks its all about them. That simply isn't true. Looking to the future for the antichrist denies the fulfillment of prophecy. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has web feet like a duck, and swims like a duck..... Those are four marks. I gave 18 marks of the mystery of iniquity. All have been fulfilled.
Similarly, looking for the kingdom in the future only, or only in the spiritual non-physical realm denies scripture.
But who cares right? What does the kingdom of God matter to a Christian. It looks increasingly like I will be writing off freerepublic as just one more place where Christians are interested only in shallow one-liners, or dismissing anything they don't already believe.
peace to you
I thought holy was kind of simple. “Set apart for a purpose”
Before I get into my answer...
I am with you on Iron sharpening iron. Interestingly, it’s a phrase that leaves my lips at least once a week if not almost daily, especially this last year or so. However, I don’t really have the time when I am posting here (I’m actually at work right now). But here goes...
I also have been to many different churches and my position has signficantly changed on a number of issues since first being led to the Lord after reading Hal Lindsey’s 1980’s, Countdown to Armageddon. I joined an assembly of God church, I became a strong pre-tribulationist with a strong interest in bible prophesy, drove the church bus, played trombone in the church orchestra and ran the church sound board. This was a church with about 2,000 members. After 18 years I had to leave the church because my then wife became part of an epidemic of women there who divorced their husbands without cause - all using the same attorney. That is a story for another thread.
Only two years after becoming a Christian I became a “mid-tribulationist” (More precisely called “pre-wrath” and about two years ago I became a believer in the “Non believers go to eternal annihilation rather than eternal torment. I changed my position on both issues as I studied the bible and learned of the nature of God through prayer, study, my relationship with Him and observation.
And since leaving that AG church, I’ve attended Christian, non-denominational, “none”, foursquare and Baptist churches. We left Seattle in 2011 and after attending several churches, settled into a local baptist church.
They love our being there because I am actively involved as a sunday school student, but I ask tough questions. And sometimes “established” members bristle. An example would be after I taught a class, someone mentioned something about interpretations and I shared with them my views on how non-believers would spend eterinity. This one member got very agitated. I simply asked questions and his face got redder and redder and finally he held up his old and marked up bible and said “I believe the word of God”. My closing remark was “you believe your interpretation of it”. I said that because he quoted one or two scriptures and ignored everything I brought up.
I’m reminded of what my old pastor once said: Most people, on becoming a Christian, study and learn for the first year or two, solidifying their beliefs. They then spend the rest of their life searching the bible only to support those beliefs. They don’t grow.
And worse, going from a relatively unchurched area to the bible belt I’ve discovered there are a lot more people going to church here because “that is what you do” rather than because they are followers of Christ. The fellow I purchased my home from is a devout believer. He was hired as pastor of a church in the area and was fired after about two years. The reason? He had the same challenges I had with this one guy. In his case he was trying to actually TEACH THE BIBLE and the old-timers (and biggest contributors) were not looking for that. There were people in that church in their 70’s and 80’s that had been going there their entire lives and did not know the difference between the old and new testaments.
He was trying to change that.
And I am with you on the Daniel “book” study. It is what our sunday school does. I’d rather do a “topic” study. e.g. I’d LOVE to do an open minded study on eternal life - and the word “holy”.
Which brings me to my “epiphany”: I believe that the bible teaches that the earth is basically satan’s domain for now and Holy does, in fact, mean “set apart for a purpose”. That is supported by the concept of us being “in, but not of the world”. And holy ground? The epiphany? That particular spot of ground was, in fact, NOT part of satan’s realm. It was as if a point in space just above the ground spread out to create a sphere 100 feet in diamater or so and everything in that area was NOT part of the world that is satan’s domain.
It goes deeper than that, but I think you get my drift.
I’ve always had a problem with the word “holy”. It is one of those religios words that people don’t really think about - it’s actual meaning, that is. But when one applies the “set apart” aspect to the “this world is satan’s world for now” aspect, it suddenly makes sense to me, regardless of what it is applied to. i.e. anything called holy is of God, is Gods, and is set apart for His purpose, even if it is the dirt Moses walked at Mt. Sinai. Dirt which, btw, is no longer holy. The “God presence” sphere was removed.
I agree that this thread makes light of what it shouldn’t. But I also think the Left Behind books are setting people up for severe disappointment and a “great falling away” when they find themselves still fogging a mirror when people are taking the mark. People need to do more than just read some guy’s book. They need to prayerfully study and consider what the bible says.
The books can spark an interest, bring up good questions and even offer some insight and answers, but that is only the beginning. It is up to the reader to do their own search. It’s what happened to me when I became a “mid-tribulationist”. My sunday school teacher was very knowledgeable about the bible and taught a very large and popular sunday school class. He had written a white paper on the pre-tribulation rapture. He gave me a copy after I read the mid-trib info. As a fairly new Christian I was very excited that I would be given proof to support the position that most would want to believe - that we would avoid the “mess” in the end. But his arguments fell flat. The more I read, the more I realized he was performing logical gymnastics to interpret scripture to support his vision, while the other viewpoint (mid-trib) not only had much more plain scripture to support it, but even more worked with the way God deals with believers in both the new and old testaments.
And 30 years later the same thing happened regarding my beliefs about the eternal consequences of not accepting Jesus. I believe there will be awakenings like this for the rest of my life. There are so many things we think we “know” about God and His word but, in reality, we’ve never really studied them all that hard. Last week the Sunday school teacher threw out a list of things including “having church in someone’s home” as things “God is not pleased with”. Huh?!
But that is a discussion for another day. That, and the fact that I live in a dry county and my church believes that all drinking is sin...
Two footnotes:
1. I caught Hal Lindsey in a bald faced lie in his book “A prophetic walk through the holy land”. I have not followed him for decades, nor did I ever buy a lot of his end times stuff (though it sparked study on my part) but he DID bring me to the Lord.
2. On the two major topics I discussed, a couple of early links:
http://www.watchmanbiblestudy.com/BibleStudies/Definitions/PreTrib.htm
And for what it’s worth, for many years I compared our country to ancient Rome in its last days. In fact, I bought my farm in central KY in October of 2008 in the spirit of Revelation 18:4 and moved here from Seattle in August of 2011. But as of only about two weeks ago I no longer compare us to ancient Rome. I now compare western civilization to Babylon. I should have been all along. My error was being US-centric in my viewpoint.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2240648/posts
That is definitely what I mostly see, stagnation and ignorance. I am pleased to hear that you have been open and searching enough to change your position. It is difficult, I have been there. I especially congratulate you on converting to eternal annihilation. In many "conservative" churches you would not be allowed to be a member, and may not even be welcome for believing that one. Changing a belief based on deep personal bible study to something that poses a social risk is even more commendable.
You said: There are so many things we think we “know” about God and His word but, in reality, we’ve never really studied them all that hard.
Based on that statement I'll recommend something to you that I have been wanting to do with someone. First though, let me give you some reason/context.
You mention "this world is satan's for now". That concept is claimed to be taught by the verses I mentioned earlier, even though they dont teach it. It obviously depends on two things. What is satan and what is world.
World in many of these type of uses is not at all talking about the orb we call earth. It is kosmos, the current order of things. The bigger picture is VERY important here. There are two systems or kingdoms if you will. Christ's/Gods, and an earthly succesion of kingdoms which God raised up to put his people in subjection for seven times because of their sin. These kingdoms are amply discussed in Daniel and Revelation and revealed in history.
The earth, as in the planet is God's; every square inch. He has declared its purpose, some of which I quoted earlier. But the beastly succesion of world kingdoms, believers have been in, but not of.
So my challenge or recommendation to you is to test for yourself the one part of your statement doing a topic study. Write for yourself seven to ten things you know about Satan without looking at any scripture. I expect the list would contain the typical teachings. Then, you examine scripture and PROVE to yourself that these are actually true. Don't just look to validate what you believe. Examine each passage, consider views which disagee with what you have been taught and see if you can support what you "know". Remember to look at the passages which use the same Hebrew word sawtawn but are not translated as satan.
Among other things you may be surpised to learn that satan is: an angel of the Lord, the LORD, and many named human men. Particularly interesting is Rev 12. Many will cursorily reference this to teach things about satan. Yet since neither they nor their listeners have any idea of what Rev. 12 is talking about, they really are making nonsensical arguments.
Let me get back more to the original prophetic stuff. I think Daniel 2 makes this so simple, when one doesn't try to pervert the natural reading with a parenthetical church age.
Virtually everyone agrees on the 4 successive earthly kingdoms, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. Rome is in existence when the 4th kingdom appears, grows and smashes the 2520 year(seven times) dynasty of beastly empires. Several key stages of the destruction of Babylon have ALREADY taken place. The empire that struck the image on the feet already exists, and history clearly indicates who it was that accomplished this. Only historical ignorance, biblical ignorance and willful blindness prevent the truth from being accepted universally.
Write for yourself seven to ten things you know about Satan without looking at any scripture.
Interesting. I’ll take the challenge.
BTW, one thing that has amplified a lot of this for me is augmenting my study with simply listening to the NT on my 2.5 hour round trip commute every day. Just as I love reading Ecclesiastes in a single sitting, getting such large chunks in such a short time allows me to mentally link back to what I just heard an hour ago and other mental note taking. It’s an interesting experience.
I like both large chunks fast and the same chunk over and over. I led a bible study where we went through the entire book of Matthew in three classes. We looked only at Jesus' teaching, and only looked to glean the main point of each teaching session. It was very fruitful. It actually became more obvious how Jesus' discipleship changed over the course of his ministry.
The flip side is when I finally started to study prophecy, which I had put off for years, wanting to be fully grounded in other simpler things first, I began listening to Daniel and Revelation. I would listen either to a whole book over and over or a whole chapter over and over. I have probably been through Daniel over 60 times. Even after you have been through it many times, sometimes new little things pop out. good luck with super-spook.
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