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All-In [29938]
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Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ?
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Apr 1, 2024, 2:35 PM
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Some things never change; like women’s love of fine jewelry.
Isaiah 3:18 (680 BCE):
“In that day [the End of the World], the Lord will sweep away their finery…the earrings and bracelets and veils, the headdresses and anklets and sashes…the signet rings and nose rings…the purses and mirrors...”
So the End is sad day for all, but particularly for women’s accessories.
But unlike women’s never-changing love of accoutrements, the idea of the End of the World itself has changed. And so we’ve been working our way from the earliest accounts, towards the End as told in John’s Revelation, and what it all means, and how we got there.
Revelation might be a vision that John received overnight, but it’s not a vision that was created overnight.
Back in 8500 BCE, Obadiah showed us that two of the very earliest concepts regarding the End Times were 1) retribution by Yahweh on Israel’s enemies, and 2) universal love for Yahweh and Jerusalem. And those two concepts carry through to this very day. In Obediah’s time, if you were an enemy of Israel, the last thing you wanted to see was “The Day of the Lord.”
1:15 “The day of the Lord is near... As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head.
In this post we’re gonna look at three more prophets and how they added to that very basic concept of the End Time; Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah. A hundred years after Obadiah, in 740ish BCE, Yahweh was still angry with Israel’s neighbors. Amos Chapter 1 lays it out:
“This is what the LORD says: I will send fire on the walls of Gaza…”
“I will break down the gate of Damascus…”
“I will send fire on the walls of Tyre (Lebanon)…
Divine air-strikes were pretty common back then
But there’s a slight change between Obadiah’s earlier vision and Amos’s later vision. We learn that it’s not just Israel’s neighbors that are going to pay in the End; Israel herself has the wrath of God coming. And while Amos’s vision doesn’t have any dragons, it’s still nowhere you want to be:
5:18 “Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light.”
In Amos, the Jews themselves are going to pay in the End for injustice, lack of compassion, and corrupt business practices:
8:5 “…overcharging, skimping on the measure, boosting the price, and cheating with dishonest scales”
And pay for a few other transgressions, too:
2:7 “Father and son use the same girl…they lie down beside every altar…”
Israel had already been paying for disobedience on-and-off since they left Egypt. But this might be the first time God mentions there’s also going to be a Final Exam for Israel, and not just some pop-quizzes along the way.
In Amos, Yahweh’s End Game for Israel, and her enemies, is simple:
9:1 “I will kill [them all] with the sword. Not one will get away, none will escape.”
God: “Kill them all, I’ll sort them out.”
God even tells his people that while they might be the Chosen Ones, they’re not THAT special to him.
9:7 “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites [in Ethiopia]?” declares the Lord.
Although, they should be easy enough to tell apart.
And there’s another change in Amos that God doesn’t mention in Obadiah. God’s exiles will come home in the End to a permanent home. It’s a nice gesture, but of course one has to have exiles before it becomes fully relevant.
9:14 “…and I will bring my people Israel back…”
9:15 “I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted”
So if we look at our growing list of End Time criteria, we’ve now added 2 more promises. Let’s recap:
850 BCE Obadiah: 1) The bad guys will get punished, 2) Everybody will love Jerusalem and Yahweh
740 BCE Amos: 3) Israel gets punished, too 4) Israel gets a permanent home
That makes 4 promises
 
Our next prophet, Micah, comes about 40 years after Amos. By this time, Assyria has wiped out the northern state of Israel and the 10 Tribes. So that had to be weighing on everyone’s mind. Let’s see what God’s vision to Micah looks like, in 700 BCE:
4:1 “In the last days the…the LORD’s temple will be established…peoples will stream to it…They will beat their swords into plowshares.”
4: 5 “All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God...”
4:6 “In that day…I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief.”
4:13 “Daughter Zion, for I will give you horns of iron…you will break to pieces many nations. You will devote…their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.”
So that’s some more interesting promises from God. Micah tells us that people from around the world will stream into Jerusalem to see the Temple. With the implication that there will be sacrifices; that’s why one has a Temple after all.
And, Yahweh generously allows other nations to worship their own gods for eternity. Hint: that promise won’t last.
We also see the 10 Tribes returning home, and Jerusalem becoming a mighty military power that destroys other nations. That promise won’t last either. It will take another 2700 years for Israel to become even a proxy military power.
If we roll in Micah’s prophecy in with our earlier prophecies, here’s what Jews in 700 BCE must have thought the End Times, and eternity, might look like:
850 BCE Obadiah: 1) The bad guys get punished, 2) Everybody loves Jerusalem and Yahweh
740 BCE Amos: 3) Israel gets punished, too 4) Israel gets a permanent home
700 BCE Micah: 5) the Temple becomes the center of world worship, 6) the 10 Tribes return,
7) Other gods are allowed to rule, 8) and Jerusalem becomes a mighty war machine and a profit center
By my count, that’s 8, 8 promises:
You can see some similarities with Revelation starting to form up. There are no beasts yet, no Apocalyptic horsemen, no city with gold streets descending from the clouds, and no pregnant women harassed by dragons, but all that will come. We’re only about halfway through Israel’s ancient history, so we’ve still got 800 years to get all that stuff added in.
In Australia, dragons are apparently crocodiles…
Our last prophet for this post this is Zephaniah, in 630 BCE. As the old adage goes, “Go big or go home.” And Zephaniah, with his prophecy from God, goes BIG:
Because for the first time, God reveals that it’s not just Israel’s neighbors that are going be destroyed in the End, it’s the whole world. God goes global.
1:1 “I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” declares the LORD
1:7 “Be silent before the Sovereign LORD, for the day of the LORD is near." (It was also near in 850, 740, and 700 BCE)
So that’s a big change. Not since the Flood had God threatened complete global destruction. God was a little crafty with his legalese back then “..never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Because NOW we learn for the first time that the earth will be consumed by fire. Tricky, God, tricky.
1:18 “In the fire of his jealousy the whole earth will be consumed”
We’ll revisit that promise 700+ years later, in Revelation.
Revelation 8:7 “…and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth.”
And remember that part in Micah about other nations living in peace with their gods through eternity?
4: 5 “All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God…”
Well forget that. God revises that too, in Zephaniah:
2:11 “Distant nations will bow down to him [Yahweh], all of them in their own lands.”
God plays cuckoo with other gods. “Um, Yahweh, did you just push all other gods out of the nest?”
We also learn one other very important thing in Zephaniah. If you were God, and you destroyed the entire earth, that’s at cross-purposes with having people worship you; throwing the baby out with the bath water. If everyone is dead, who’s left to pray, right?
So a provision needed to be made so that someone would survive. An “Ancient Mariner” to tell the tale sort of thing. Or a branch to sprout from the stump to start over.
And so for the first time that I know of, the concept of a “remnant” appears in the Bible, in relation to the End Time.
There were already remnants from everyday run-of-the-mill destruction, but you also need a remnant for the very End, too. Or it would be a very lonely eternity for God. From Zephaniah 3:
3:8 “The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger.”
3:12 “[but] The remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the LORD.”
There’s gotta be some survivors.
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So our updated End Times checklist, circa 630 BCE and Zephaniah, looks something like this (revisions by strikethrough):
850 BCE Obadiah: 1) Bad guys get punished (see 9), 2) Everybody loves Jerusalem and Yahweh
740 BCE Amos: 3) Israel gets punished (see 9), 4) Israel has a permanent home
700 BCE Micah: 5) Temple becomes the center of world worship, 6) 10 Tribes return,
7) Other gods are allowed, 8) Jerusalem becomes a mighty war machine
630 BCE Zephaniah: 9) Entire world destroyed by God, 10) by fire, 11) but a remnant will remain
Next time we’ll add to our list again, and take on a really big fish. No, not Jonah, but Isaiah.
Isaiah is one of the bigger books in the Bible. At 66 chapters and almost 40,000 words, it’s basically a novel. Isaiah covers a lot of ground, and it must have been very popular at the time of Christ because he quoted from it quite a bit. Like here, in Luke 4:18
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” (see Isaiah 61:1)
So by looking closely at Isaiah, one can see where the people of Jesus’s time got a lot of their understanding of what both the messiah and the End of the World might look like.
And that’ll something we’ll look at more closely, next time …
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Hall of Famer [24515]
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Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 2:21 AM
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You know how those prophecies fit together better than I do, which is hardly at all, so I wonder this:
We know the consequence of the fall: "In the day you demand your moral independence you will die." (Paraphrase) God tells the Enemy, "You will bruise his heal but he will crush your head." He has a plan.
God's warning proves to be true. Abraham is then called from Ur, then the resulting family of 75 move to Egypt, then 5-10 thousand leave Egypt. They are about about to re-enter Canaan, and God says to them (Deuteronomy 9-11): "Okay, go take it. But dont think this is because you've earned it: you are a bunch of headstrong narcissists. So, here's the problem: the people there dont know me. You will be tempted to be like them, and if that happens you will suffer as they do. So, this is a mixed blessing I am giving you: follow me, and all will be well, but dont, and you wont like where that takes you." The plan is about half unveiled.
While there, they do what God warned them not to do. So, my question is: How would you fit what then happened to them into the prophecies you discuss? Would maybe some of those state what is coming as they ebb and flow between following Him and self reliance?
Maybe you are seeing that as you crossed out some of the prophecies, leaving the 7. Whether those 7 are are all end-time, or some for that time, I do not know, but those 7 do seem to be the result of the fruition of the plan, the redemption of mankind. How do you see it?
That's more than one question. And green eyes shouldn't get you band, though their effect is about the same.
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Oculus Spirit [94260]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 6:52 AM
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Context tells us whether the prophet spoke of Israel's immediate fate and is also how we determine a future fate of mankind, the end of the world as we know it.
Isa 3 opens with an address to the central subject, Israel. It closes with "26 And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground," which I believe to be about Jerusalem. I do not believe this is part of the world ending prophesies. They, the city and nation, are used interchangeably but the nuances of each use is important to comprehension of the passage.
The total number of the Sons of Abraham who left Egypt is over a million. I think it's closer to 1.5 mil.
God preserved the Torah, prophets and Psalms to show me how foolish I am when I read about Israel's failures and realize that's what I do daily from pride and worry (doubt). Though there might be millions of other reasons He preserved and provided the OT to me, none compare to my realizing that I'm just another Israelite fretting over things God has under control.
I suspect under that veil there's a huge nose, a 1" overbite and teeth that rival a great white. That's how I get by.
BTW, the first photo is a tranny.
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CU Guru [1012]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 8:40 AM
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> BTW, the first photo is a tranny.
You guys sure are experts in the subject lol
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Oculus Spirit [94260]
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You have no idea...
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Apr 2, 2024, 11:04 AM
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how right you are. I was at a party back in the late 60s, smokedup and drunk. I danced with a fine looking older woman and ask her to the prom. It delighted him to be so authentic. So yeah, I'm an expert.
I went with one of the females from my high school.
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Hall of Famer [24515]
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Re: You have no idea...
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Apr 2, 2024, 11:41 AM
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... who wasn't as good a dancer.
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 10:45 AM
[ in reply to Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question: ] |
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A place and people of insignificant size, yet central in world history, through today. There has hardly been a time when the world wasn't trying to undo them, yet they keep ending up with all the money and the Nobels. Even Monte Python says that to get anywhere you must, have, Jews. But it's all a myth.
This is not a big issue - whatever happened is what happened - but I am in the 5000-10,000 camp. You have probably read about all that, and the 1-2 million figure is of course defensible. It is equally possible that the translation of "thousands" should have been "units" or "divisions", leading to the lower number. That size, imo, fits the surrounding events and history; the pieces fit together better. But none of that is new info. Not a big deal, just interesting. The point is, you are right: the story of Israel is the story of me.
Ha. Yes. We live in a Star Trek episode, the one where people wouldn't age, until suddenly they did. We are all beautiful. Until we end up looking exactly like our grandparents. No one escapes that.
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CU Guru [1012]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 11:23 AM
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>But it's all a myth.
I don't know anyone who would say it's ALL myth.
Furthermore, it's a bit ironic that if it's the Jewish people who keep getting ahead, then maybe it's Judaism that's correct, they don't accept the NT, so I'm not sure how this is this would be in Christianity's favor?
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Hall of Famer [24515]
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If only my mom had wanted me to be a doctor...
Apr 2, 2024, 11:36 AM
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But, continue on with your thoughts on that.
Message was edited by: CUintulsa®
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CU Guru [1012]
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Re: If only my mom had wanted me to be a doctor...
Apr 2, 2024, 11:50 AM
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It's pretty clear on its own. You say Jews are successful as evidence for Christianity, and yet those very people don't even believe Jesus is the messiah.
So if it's evidence for anything, it seems we should look at Judaism.
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Re: If only my mom had wanted me to be a doctor...
Apr 2, 2024, 11:54 AM
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That was it? Sorry to bother you. Carry on.
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CU Guru [1012]
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Re: If only my mom had wanted me to be a doctor...
Apr 2, 2024, 11:55 AM
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lol, sorry your point was so easily dismantled
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Oculus Spirit [94260]
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Like all the lost they remain under the law.
1
Apr 2, 2024, 4:16 PM
[ in reply to Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question: ] |
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The difference is that unless a gentile gets circumcised and obeys the law he has not other path than Christ.
The Hebrews where rewarded with health, wealth, safety and many children if they continued in the law. To them, wealth proves their obedience to God. Look around, most wealth people aren't Hebrew which suggest that's not true.
Anyone in other than 3rd world countries who works hard, spends less than they make and wisely invest can gain wealth.
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All-In [29938]
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All-In [29938]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 1:37 PM
[ in reply to Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question: ] |
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I think I'm in the "nugget of truth" camp on the Exodus, too. The story feels authentic-y, but the numbers seem off to me. Whether it's misinterpretation over time, translational, or fudging, I don't know.
It's a shame we don't have another side to the story, because when we do it's easier to sus out, and sometimes pretty funny. One story that comes to mind is the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE. We've got both sides, the Jewish version in the Bible, and the Assyrian version on an ancient stela.
The Jews say "we gave them every scrap of wealth in the city, right down to the hinges on the Temple doors. God struck them all down, and the few survivors took our treasures and ran.
The Assyrians say, "they gave us every scrap of wealth in the city, right down to the hinges on the Temple doors, and so we let them live and went away."
It's anybody's guess as to which is the 'real' story. But either way, both agree Assyria got the gold.
Assyrian version
Jewish version
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All-In [29938]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 1:39 PM
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*stele
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 2:22 PM
[ in reply to Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question: ] |
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Right. Assuming God led them out, he can take care of 2 million as easily as 2. But still. Several million is a loong line of people walking in the desert to have left no more of a mark, and that many leaving Egypt should have gotten a mention. I just did a quick and dirty ciphering (highly suspect), and it would take them 8 days to pass a single point. I think the Red Sea crossing was overnight. There are possible explanations for all that, but with 5000-10,000 people it all works. That number - the possible translation of whatever Hebrew word it is into "division" rather than "thousand"- is considered legit by the mainstream, I think. Not required, but legit. All this is just amateur conjecturing on my part. Or amateurish.
How would you like to translate a piece of clay like that? No wait, how would you like to study a language like that enough to be good enough to do it? High school French did me in.
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CU Guru [1012]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 2:59 PM
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But that's how it works, if we don't take it at face-value, switch some things around then it makes sense.
Instead of, you know, saying yeah 2 million people, as stated, would have left a mark or gotten a mention, we have to say, well maybe there were just fewer instead of stating the obvious.
Do that a few hundred times, and voilà: we have a (more) coherent theology.
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All-In [29938]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 3:00 PM
[ in reply to Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question: ] |
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Logistics aside, there's another reason I think a smaller, rather than larger number makes sense.
Today, we tend to think of the Hebrews as a roughly homogenous group. But they were far from it. First, they were 12 tribes...not 2, not 3, but 12. That right there lends itself to a rather disparate group.
Even if they are all sons of Jacob, no 2 ever thought of joining up? That makes me think there was a LOT of independent thought going on. And remember, they spit up amongst themselves multiple times after crossed the Jordan.
First, they all worshiped at Mt. Gerizim (the Samaritans still do), then Eli set up a shrine at Shiloh, and that split them. Later on, David declared Jerusalem to be the holy city, over both Gerizim and Shiloh. So they had fractures all over the place.
And later on, it was Judah that sold-out Israel to the Assyrians. It's nothing less than the story of Cain and Abel on a national level; brother killing brother, nation style. My point being, these guys didn't see eye to eye on a lot.
Back down to the Exodus story, I can see a smaller group sticking together through the hardships. But the larger that group got, the more inclined it had to be to break up. We see it all the time, in every nation. Even our own, in 1861, with even occasional rumblings to this day.
As a side note, Israel has a curious relationship with Egypt. On the one hand, they were slaves for 100s of years, but on the other hand, the patriarchs went there to escape famine, Jesus went there to escape Herod, and in between, several times Hebrew kings call on Egypt for aid against northern nations like Assyria and Babylon.
But never do the Hebrews run north, to escape Egypt. It's always calling on Egypt, to save them fromn the north. So to be a mortal enemy who God took out all of the firstborn, they still seemed to have an ongoing love-hate relationship with Egypt that they had with none of their other neighbors. Even 'brother; states like Edom, or Moab, or Ammon. It's strange.
>How would you like to translate a piece of clay like that?
That's an interesting point and I'll have to look up the history. To my knowledge there was no Rosetta Stone like with hieroglyphics in Egypt. So how cuneiform was cracked, I don't know. Yet.  ">">">">
Rosetta Stone showing hieroglyphics up top, Demotic sc ript in the middle, and Greek on the bottom. Talk about the 'find' of the century! Translation? No problem, now.
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 3:29 PM
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Right. Most of those inconsistencies in behavior come from the independence - rebellion might be a better word - God warned them about. Heck, for a while God led them semi directly, through the judges, but no, that was not autonomous enough so they demanded kings because ... other countries had them. And that didnt go well. Stupid. But I do the same thing. Anyway, yes, they behaved like we do. Like he told them as they entered, "Dont think this has anything to do with you."
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All-In [29938]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 4:20 PM
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Did a quick 10 min search on cuneiform...a fascinating history.
To make a long story short, it took about 200 years to crack it (1600-1800), from on-and-off, and different, researchers over time. The first big clues came in Persia (Iran), of all places.
These were the basic steps to crack it, spread over those 200 years.
1) Surmised it (Old Persian cuneiform) read from left-to-right, in the direction of the cuneiform triangles (as opposed to right-to-left, like Hebrew, I think, or up-to-down like in Chinese)
2) Isolated 42 distinct characters (like our 26 letters in the alphabet)
3) The big one. Working with the knowledge that Cyrus, King of Persia was called, among other things, King of Kings, they looked for phrases that had repeated words, like xxxxxx-yy-xxxxxx or aaaa-bbbb-aaaa
And they found enough examples to isolate that phrase, then construct words, and later other phrases, that made sense from those examples. All from the "King of Kings" idea.
Then they went backwards, from the Old Persian, to Babylonian, to Assyrian, and finally to the last version of cuneiform deciphered, in ancient Sumerian.
Here's the word 'King', in Old Persian cuneiform, transcribed in a larger text
and here it is, inscribed on a wall
You can clearly see the word 'King' here, from the Palace of King Darius, in Persepolis, Iran. Look on the second row from the top, just before the crack in the middle starts, with the << II symbol, the first letter in their word for 'king.'
Very cool.
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 4:42 PM
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Yeah, that's about how long it would take me to get French.
Is it a phonetic alphabet? Cuneiform I mean, not French, which sounds like Chinese with an attitude. They say we sound like barking dogs. And that's just on tnet.
We had a Chinese exchange student for a year. Lovely girl, polite to a fault (was hard to not look at daughter and say, 'are you getting any of this?'), weighed 80 lbs if an ounce. Name was Wong Su Nam. Pronounced exactly like it looks. Except when she said it, in which case it became music. Same phonetics, but impossible for us to reproduce. The A in Nam, for instance, was a cross between 'calm' and 'ma'am': we couldn't do it. Probably sounded like hicks reading Shakespeare. Like in high school.
Thanks for delving into that. Fun stuff.
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All-In [29938]
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 9:11 PM
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That's a nice story. Had a good friend years ago who always had an exchange student in his house. He was Filipino, and I used to tease him saying "Ernie, your wife makes fantastic lumpia, but are you sure you're giving these kids an authentic "American Experience?" He'd say: 'What you talk abot you Soudern ahole? You tink America jess grids an fadback? I American jus like you!"
Funny guy, wonderful wife, great chess player. Lost many a game to him. The boss always gave him the toughest, gnarliest, messiest jobs, because he knew whatever it was, Ernie could get it done. Most capable guy in the office, hands down. Looked a lot like this.
Cuneiform has been assigned phonetics, but I'm not sure if there's any way to tell if they are in any way similar to the originals or not. Likely just based on modern pronunciations from those regions of the world.
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 10:18 PM
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Ha. I know that's not your guy, but he has the look. Wanna quick chess game? Uh, no, I'm sure it would be quick.
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Re: Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question:
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Apr 2, 2024, 1:15 PM
[ in reply to Is fun to view the prophecies laid out like that. A follow up question: ] |
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>So, my question is: How would you fit what then happened to them into the prophecies you discuss?
Hopefully I understood your question.
There are lots of prophecies beyond the ones I've listed. But for this specific exercise, as I laid out in post 1 or 2, I was only looking for those related to the End Times. And so I searched for key words and phrases like "End of Days", "Day of the Lord", etc.
What one finds when one approaches it that way is that the End Time punishments are virtually all related to the nation of Israel, and to other nations. Not individuals. So the prophets, in this case are not really assessing personal fates, but rather national fates.
Now, they do call out individuals along the way, but they are viewed in the context of leaders of nations. Their lives beyond that are rarely addressed. For instance, Ashurbanipal is only known as the king of Assyria. Whether he treated his family well, or his court, or his pets, or any of that stuff, are largely ignored. So he's not being condemned personally, necessarily. And in some cases, not at all. He is occasionally viewed as a "tool", or "implement" of God's will.
So when God says "I will strike Israel down", sometimes he says "with my own hand" and sometimes "I will release the chariots of Assyria on them", or something like that. Then, once that mission is accomplished, God will sometimes say "But Assyria became arrogant. They thought THEY were doing the destruction, and not my hidden hand through them. So now they too must be destroyed for their arrogance," lol.
As to the ebb and flow of obedience you spoke of, there are plenty of lesser, non-end time punishments Israel suffers constantly. But in this case I restricted it to those visions that led us to the vision in Revelation, specifically.
As a side note, the period of time I'm working in here is after the Judges and before Jesus. And a lot of the judgement through this period is national. But, if one backs up a notch, to the period from Egypt to judges, say, then there is much more 'personal' judgement. The stories are more personal, and less national. It's not all-or-none, but you have stories about Lot, say, or Jacob personally wrestling with the angel of God, etc. Just a lot more small-scale, more intimate stories.
The prophets don't do it so much, because they were only living in their particular moments, but summary books like Chronicles and Kings do go down the list saying "King A was a bad king, personally, because he fell away from God. King B was a good king, because he stayed true to god, etc.
>Maybe you are seeing that as you crossed out some of the prophecies, leaving the 7. Whether those 7 are all end-time, or some for that time, I do not know, but those 7 do seem to be the result of the fruition of the plan, the redemption of mankind.
They surely could be both; some for now and some for later. I was only assessing them as End Time prophecies, because those examples popped-up when I used specific search phrases. And those will change some too. Not all of them, and some more will be added. As I mentioned, I was only looking at it through the lens of "What was the path to get to that remarkable view we have in Revelation."
I have no idea if that answered your question, lol. But I gave it a shot. ">
>And green eyes shouldn't get you band
Fingers-crossed I stayed in bounds this time!
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Re: Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ?
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Apr 2, 2024, 9:29 AM
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Enjoy your posts. I know so very little about any of this. My takeaways from this one are:
Isaiah 3:18 says nothing about women. And while it may be addressing women in 680 BCE, in 2024 it is not.
Israel will be punished and Israel will have a permanent home. From what I've seen in my lifetime, they are one in the same. Maybe Israel's punishment IS having a permanent home.
As for the remnants, somewhere in there is the mention of 144,000 going to heaven, or something like that. I've heard a preacher mention, "there's gonna be a lot of disappointed people".
I have to be careful and rarely do I even bring up the fulfillment of prophecy. Connecting the dots going backwards is really easy and oft times dangerous. How many TV shows have I seen about Nostradamus and the fulfillment of his predictions and prophecy? A lot.
I believe the OT is filled with people, civilizations that just don't get it and God gets PO'd. Which is why we have the NT. And again, you can almost hear it in Jesus' voice, "no, that's not it!"
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Re: Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ?
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Apr 2, 2024, 2:06 PM
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Glad you enjoy the posts, Tigerhurst. Thanks for joining in and posting. There are a lot of opinions here, but that's exactly what the board is for...sharing opinions.
To address your comments:
>Isaiah 3:18 says nothing about women. And while it may be addressing women in 680 BCE, in 2024 it is not.
Yes, I cut out some of the earlier stuff because I am always fighting to keep my posts in the 1500-2000 word range. Sadly, that leaves out some funny stuff sometimes. Here's the context on Isaiah 3:18
3:16 The Lord says, “The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles.
One of the things that fascinates and amuses me is how little people have changed over time. Our tools change dramatically. Today we drive cars and not chariots, and we carry around iPhones and not stone tablets, but at our core, our emotions, motivations, fears, and attitudes are the same now as they were 3000 years ago.
So when I read this:
"...strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles."
I think, well heck, that's any spring day on the Clemson campus, right now!
>Maybe Israel's punishment IS having a permanent home.
Indeed. There's a great history behind all this. Since the 1800's, there was a Zionist movement that not only wanted a Jewish homeland, they wanted 'the original' Jewish homeland. The idea really got rolling after WW2. Britain governed Palestine at the time. They had taken it from the Ottomans after WW1 and still held it. So they were in the unique position, in place and time, to be able to restore the original Jewish homeland. But other options were available. The island of Madagascar was considered, as was the colony of British Guyana, in South America. As far as size concerns, we could have but Israel in a corner of Montana and it could have fit nicely (though that was never an offer, just pointing out that Israel is not very big.) But the Zionists insisted on Palestine, and Palestine alone. They were surrounded by enemies in 1000 BCE, and so they are today. I'm not sure I would have picked it, but it was their choice, for good or bad.
>As for the remnants, somewhere in there is the mention of 144,000 going to heaven
Yes, I'll get to that as we go. At this point in history, 600ish BCE, there is only the generic idea of a 'remnant' existing. But that gets further developed over time to the 144k number. It'll cover it in an upcoming post.
>Connecting the dots going backwards is really easy and oft times dangerous.
Very true. Everything has to be looked at with a critical eye, and of course, one can never be entirely sure of anything. But, this was a fun task I took on a few weeks ago, as much for my own curiosity as anything else, so I'm interested to see if it holds water or not. I'm sure the board will let me know ">
>I believe the OT is filled with people, civilizations that just don't get it and God gets PO'd.
I'd say that's a pretty accurate interpretation of the OT in a nutshell, lol.
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Oculus Spirit [94260]
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Re: Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ?
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Apr 2, 2024, 4:21 PM
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I believe the 144K who are saved are the 12k from each tribe. Psalms 22 really adds to Revelation to further describe those male Hebrew virgins.
"28 For the kingdom is the LORD'S: and he is the governor among the nations.
29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.
30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
31 They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this."
I believe they are 144K evangelist who will preach and testify of Jesus.
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Re: Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ?
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Apr 2, 2024, 4:29 PM
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Yep, I think you are spot on with that one, 88.
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So now we're back full circle on Psalms 22 being...
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Apr 3, 2024, 3:51 AM
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about King David prophesying of the crucifixion of Christ by presenting His words while dying? If you read Psa 22 and even if you have to imagine it's true as I claim, you'll see the human mind of Jesus as His body is being destroyed. You'll see the transitions of His mind as He realizes and acknowledges why He is there.
You'll see the deliverance, then the prophesies which can only come true because of His sacrifice.
I know, I'm sneaky and uncharacteristically patient and I never forget a a good healthy argument with an intellectual superior.
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Re: So now we're back full circle on Psalms 22 being...
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Apr 3, 2024, 7:41 AM
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>So now we're back full circle on Psalms 22 being...
Give me a while and I'm sure I'll waffle back and forth a bit
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Re: Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ?
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Apr 3, 2024, 9:08 AM
[ in reply to Re: Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ? ] |
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off topic (sorta) on Israel's home. I was talking to a military friend when he returned from the middle east. Trying to get some insight and understanding (this was several years ago and had nothing to do with what the current situation is). I asked if the Palestinians or otherwise Arabs PO's because of our support of Israel? To certain extent he said, but they really don't think that way because they view time in a different way. In answer to your question, he said, they're still PO'd about the Crusades.
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Re: Religious Pron: The End Times, 3 of ?
Apr 3, 2024, 10:36 AM
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On a similar note, I remember in the wake of 9/11 we announced that our campaign against Afghanistan and the Taliban would be called "Operation Infinite Justice." That lasted about one day.
Because in the Muslim world, only Allah can provide infinite justice. So overnight, rather than PO the entire Muslim world, and keep our focus just on the Taliban, our campaign became known as "Operation Enduring Freedom."
Along the line of your post, I took a military history class at Clemson in the 80's, and the professor had just gotten back from a trip to Vietnam to visit one of their war museums. At the time the Memorial on the mall was only a few years old, and the war was still very much on the country's mind. Movies were still being made about it, Apocalypse Now, the Deerhunter, etc. So we asked what the Vietnamese sentiment was.
He said, not a big deal, really. They lived in a constant state of war, and so for them, America was just next in line. They had been occupied by the French, then the Japanese, then the communists, and finally America. So their anger was focused on much more than just 1965-1975. We were the new kids on the block, and only passing through. What a difference in perspectives.
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Oculus Spirit [94260]
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Either Tnet or Spectrum freaked out on me and disallowed me to TU some of...
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Apr 3, 2024, 3:57 AM
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the responses in this thread.
I want you guys to know I love you. I know I'm an old man with confidence in my beliefs and resolved to defend what I believe and why I believe them. It becomes contention but as long as we refuse to allow our difference to bust our fellowship I think it's OK.
When I get sarcastic, call me out, don't allow me to be rude or excessively harsh. Call me down when I am dismissive or impatient. I can take a scolding and I know God speaks to me through even those I disagree with most. Forgive my arrogance and speak when my pride shames me.
Left out the 'r,' in through
Message was edited by: ClemsonTiger1988®
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