U.S. wants to dominate world, thats true isn't it?

[lazarus]

The US wants to dominate the world, that's true isn't it? Right or wrong the US does dominate the world and wants to continue to do so, that's true, right?

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenew..._RTRUKOC_0_US-R

Putin says U.S. wants to dominate world

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, in one of his harshest attacks on the United States in seven years in power, accused Washington on Saturday of attempting to force its will on the world.

The White House said it was "surprised and disappointed" by Putin's accusations but added Washington expected to continue to work with Moscow in areas such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction.

In a speech in Germany, which one U.S. senator said smacked of Cold War rhetoric, Putin accused the United States of making the world a more dangerous place by pursuing policies aimed at making it "one single master".

[Kountzer]

All through history every powerful and note worthy nation or country has tried to impose its will and influence on as much of the other countries in the world, as possible. Babylon, greece, Rome, England, Germany,...they've all done it. Russia also. So, why should the USA be any different? I'm not saying it is necessarily a good thing, just predictable. Also, it is prophecied in rev 13 that the usa would wield a certain amount of power and influence in the last days. For those in the prophetic know, this shouldn't be that much of a surprise.

[David Koot]

The stated policy of the U.S. is that it be the only superpower and not allow any other nation to approach that status. Interesting. Historically, other nations have tried that. didn't work. We are not unique. But, will we learn from history?

[John317]

All through history every powerful and note worthy nation or country has tried to impose its will and influence on as much of the other countries in the world, as possible. Babylon, greece, Rome, England, Germany,...they've all done it. Russia also. So, why should the USA be any different? I'm not saying it is necessarily a good thing, just predictable. Also, it is prophecied in rev 13 that the usa would wield a certain amount of power and influence in the last days. For those in the prophetic know, this shouldn't be that much of a surprise.

Totally agree. According to prophecy as I understand it, the US will continue to be a superpower until our government makes a national Sunday law and then it will begin having the worst problems its ever had. It will also work in cooperation with the papacy to dominate the world. In fact, it has already started doing that since Reagan's administration, but it will continue to do it more and more. I hate to say it but I look from now on for the US to begin speaking more with the voice of the dragon.

[John317]

The US wants to dominate the world, that's true isn't it? Right or wrong the US does dominate the world and wants to continue to do so, that's true, right?

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenew..._RTRUKOC_0_US-R

Putin says U.S. wants to dominate world

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, in one of his harshest attacks on the United States in seven years in power, accused Washington on Saturday of attempting to force its will on the world.

The White House said it was "surprised and disappointed" by Putin's accusations but added Washington expected to continue to work with Moscow in areas such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction.

In a speech in Germany, which one U.S. senator said smacked of Cold War rhetoric, Putin accused the United States of making the world a more dangerous place by pursuing policies aimed at making it "one single master".

As any close student of Russian history could tell you, the Russians envy the US our powerful positon in the world and wish they could take our place. In fact, they would take our place if they they thought they could do it. But if they were in our place, they would not be so generous and considerate of world opinion. For instance, see what they did in Afghanistan and what their armies did in Germany in WWII. They actually gave their soldiers orders to rape all the German women in Berlin. In Afghanistan they did the same. Women were taken in daylight to schools and raped and killed. This was done with the support of the Soviet military leaders.

[CyberGuy]

In Revelation 13 the lamblike beast which rose from the land which we believe to be the USA starts to speak like a dragan and causes fire to come down from heaven and forces the rest of the world to worship the image to the beast or sunday laws as we believe.

Fire from heaven? This has not happened yet unless you call the atomic bombinb of heroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 fire from heaven. I guess that could qualify but to many nations have that capability now.

Maybe that is something else. Like a laser Satelite platform in space.

[Dr. Shane]

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they would not be so generous and considerate of world opinion.

The US does wish to dominate the world in a benign way. The US wants to use its dominating power for what it believes is good. Of course, as students of prophecy, we know that the day will come that enforcing Sunday laws will be seen as good.

While I favor a more isolationist position militarily, I favor free-trade. I am against international, economic barriers. And it is the economics of it, more than the military, that the US uses to dominate the world.

The US does not dominate China although both certainly have big economic interests in the other. If China jumps on the Sunday law bandwagon when the time comes, it certainly looks like that alliance could stop other countries from being able to buy or sell (trade internationally) unless they adopted the legislation.

[bevin]

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But if they were in our place, they would not be so generous and considerate of world opinion.

Generous???? We use more of the wealth's everything per capita than any other large country. Our foreign policy is all about installing regimes that will give us good deals on trade. Our foreign-aid-per-GDP is nowhere near the top of the list, and is always tied to our interests. Generous???? Remove your tongue from your cheek

Considerate of world opinion???? Do you know what the world thinks of current USA global policy?

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For instance, see what they did in Afghanistan and what their armies did in Germany in WWII. They actually gave their soldiers orders to rape all the German women in Berlin. In Afghanistan they did the same. Women were taken in daylight to schools and raped and killed. This was done with the support of the Soviet military leaders.

The fight between Germany and the USSR was full of atrocities BOTH WAYS - and the Germans undoubtably started it.

/Bevin

[John317]

Fire from heaven? This has not happened yet unless you call the atomic bombinb of heroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 fire from heaven. I guess that could qualify but to many nations have that capability now.

Maybe that is something else. Like a laser Satelite platform in space.

There are various ways of understanding the fire from heaven. Rev. 13:13. I tend to think it has not happened yet, because it seems to be in the context of deceiving the world for the purpose of making the image to the beast. I see a relationship between this verse and 1 Kings 18:38, so I believe that the time will come when false religious organizations in the US will make it appear that God is on their side by the performance of some kind of false miracle that the whole world will witness.

It may be the result of the cooperation between the dragon [spiritism], the beast [the Papacy, or Roman Catholicism], and the false prophet [uS under false protestantism], the Satanic trinity that prophecy describes as "three unclean spirits like frogs." Verse 14: "For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty." The whole world will follow except for a small group who keep the commandments of God, hold to the testimony of Jesus, the spirit of prophecy [consisting of the Bible and the writings of Ellen White], and keep the faith of Jesus. (Revelation 12:17; 14:12; 19:10.)

[John317]

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But if they were in our place, they would not be so generous and considerate of world opinion.

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Generous???? We use more of the wealth's everything per capita than any other large country. Our foreign policy is all about installing regimes that will give us good deals on trade. Our foreign-aid-per-GDP is nowhere near the top of the list, and is always tied to our interests. Generous???? Remove your tongue from your cheek

Everything is relative, Bevin. Study what other major powers in the past have done. For instance, consider France and England or Japan when they were big powers. Consider the USSR during the cold war, as it acted in eastern Europe and Afghanistan.

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Considerate of world opinion???? Do you know what the world thinks of current USA global policy?

Yes, and as a nation we do not like it, do we?!!! As a superpower, are we totally insensitive to the world's opinion? Is that why the newspapers such as the NY Times , NBC and CNN constantly remind Americans that they are hated? Don't we see how the US is trying to change its policies so that the world will think better of it? The Democratic party is doing everything it can to make the US more popular with the world.

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For instance, see what they did in Afghanistan and what their armies did in Germany in WWII. They actually gave their soldiers orders to rape all the German women in Berlin. In Afghanistan they did the same. Women were taken in daylight to schools and raped and killed. This was done with the support of the Soviet military leaders.

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The fight between Germany and the USSR was full of atrocities BOTH WAYS - and the Germans undoubtably started it./Bevin

But what you are ignoring is the difference between the behavior of the US and the USSR in warfare throughout the history of both nations. For instance, study the history of the Red Army's assault on Poland after WW1. Whatever Germany did in starting the war is not the reason that Russian generals gave their soldiers orders to rape all the German women they found. They gave those orders because that is what Russia does to its enemies and it wanted to absolutely terrify the enemy. The US investigates and court-martials its soldiers when they are accused of war crimes. The USSR gives them medals.

I notice you did not take up the issue of what happened during Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

[David Koot]

.

Maybe that is something else. Like a laser Satelite platform in space.

Revelation is a symbolic book. I believe the 'call down fire from heaven' is symbolic. I think it is a reference to 1 Ki. 21, where fire coming down from heaven was the proof of the true God. The counterfeit in the last days will be so deceptive that it will present what appears to be unmistakable evidence of its 'divine' credentials.

Dave

[bevin]

How does one determine when an event really fulfills such non-specific prophecies?

It seems to me people make guesses, and when the guess is wrong, it is the person's fault, when the guess matches "prophecy is fulfilled", and when later events cause the match to be seen as not good enough, it is the person's fault again.

/Bevin

[there buster]

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How does one determine when an event really fulfills such non-specific prophecies?

The problem is using an inconsistent hermeneutic which fails to take into account the prophet's framework, prophetic foreshortening and--borrowing a term from optics--the 'circle of confusion.'

The prophet's framework may have profound implications. For example, do compass directions refer to the prophet's location at the time of the prophecy--say, Patmos in the case of Revelation-- or do they refer to some other point, such as Jerusalem or the Temple?

When John writes of fire coming down from heaven, does he have in mind a visual image of a lightning or laser strike from the clouds, a demonstration of divine power in a general sense, the episode at Mt. Carmel, or the prophet Elijah?

Instead of positing a consistent, reproducible hermeneutic, too many simply use an "A Looks like B (to me)" without ever examining the criteria for 'looking like.'

So the latest headline or speculation about the future intentions of some entity (both higly unreliable) become the 'fulfillment' of the prophecy. With no corrective framework in the hermeneutic, there's simply no way to affirm or refute such claims.

As to foreshortening, this phenomenon is easily understandable in visual terms. Standing on my hillside, I see two houses in the distance, which appear to be close to one another. The first house is 1 mile away, the second 2.5 miles. The apparent compression of distance between the two--they are farther apart than the distance from my vantage point is from the first one--is visual foreshortening.

When a prophet stands 500 years before event A, and 1000 years before event B, the two may appear to the prophet to be taking place almost simultaneously.

'Circle of confusion' relates to the resolution of an image. It is essentially the equivalent, in computer terms, of a pixel. Any given pixel must be a certain color and intensity. Depending upon the size and scale of the image represented, that pixel may accurately reflect the color of that actual location within the image, or it may be 'dithered,' that is, it may be a compromise or combination of two or more colers which meet at that location.

All this by way of saying that, the further from the prophet's point of view, the less precise the focus, or the grainier the image, if you prefer. That's why especially distant events in prophecy may be referred to in more than one way, by more than one symbol, to increase the likelihood that it will be correctly identified.

If, on the other hand, we have a single detail in a much larger prophetic picture, we must be careful at how specific we are in its application.

[bevin]

None of which makes it any easier to be sure the event really is the fulfillment - it just provides a longer list of excuses for why the prophecy doesn't match.

[there buster]

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None of which makes it any easier to be sure the event really is the fulfillment - it just provides a longer list of excuses for why the prophecy doesn't match.

Quite the contrary. The inevitable result of applying those principles is to invalidate tying ancient prophecies with specific events in the present, a so-called "headline hermeneutic," unless there are multiple points of identification, all of which match the prophet's original framework.

The problem is eisigetic, grabbing a headline or event and trying to match it up with the text in some notional way; or ignoring the prophet's framework, as well as his time, place, and audience.

In principle, it means that we can at best identify broad movements rather than specific individuals or events. It also has significant impact on the identity of the land-beast in Rev. 13.

It also takes into account that "we know in part, we prophesy in part." Those who misled you lost sight of that truth. Don't follow their example and demand that we know with precision what cannot be known.

I really thought you, of all people, bevin, would catch the import of what I posted. Instead of focusing on the hypocrisy of those who misled you in the past, take a look at the possibilities those principles open up before you.

[bevin]

So you are basically saying that these really long distance prophecies can't be easily tied to specific events - for instance trying to tie the Dark Day or the Falling of the Stars of the Great Earthquake to specific events in the 1700-1840 period would require a lot more evidence than just a head-line match.

/Bevin

[Kountzer]

Now that's a heavy post. It hurts trying to wrap my brain around it. It is good exercise just the same.

DB

[there buster]

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So you are basically saying that these really long distance prophecies can't be easily tied to specific events - for instance trying to tie the Dark Day or the Falling of the Stars of the Great Earthquake to specific events in the 1700-1840 period would require a lot more evidence than just a head-line match.

As a general matter, I would say yes. I'm hedging because there are other considerations. For me, at least, those three are particularly problematic. Which means when I teach that area, I comment as little as possible on it in most venues. I lay out possibilities, and let the learners come to their own conclusion. I NEVER start with that example, for the simple reason that it's better for everyone to start with the clear examples, get the hang of the tune, and then move to more difficult passages.

I usually begin with the two witnesses of Revelation 11 with an SDA audience, for reasons which quickly become clear.

In this context, I was primarily thinking about things like the land beast in Rev. 13, for example.

John didn't know an American Bison from a Kangaroo. And the prophecy had to have some value for him and for his audience--none of whom knew anything about Buffalos either. So the Buffalo/U.S. connection doesn't make any sense. However, within the frame of reference of the first century and the structure of Revelation, the broad movement represented by the land beast is pretty clear.

That's one of the reasons I find threads like this ironic in the extreme. Everyone wants to accuse Americans of being centered on themselves, while at the same time, SDA's who fear every move the U.S. makes are themselves centered on the U.S. as the beast of Rev. 13. How America-centered can you get?

No. These movements are broader and deeper than any nation-state. America has the most dynamic economy, and hence the strongest military in the world. Whatever affects America affects the world because of those factors. But the notion that the U.S. can dictate, can 'make all the world follow the beast.' Gimme a break. We can't even get Europe to defend themselves. If the last five years have proven nothing else, they've demonstrated that the U.S. can only lead the world where the world wants to go!

I must hasten to add that I haven't set down my hermeneutical principles for interpreting Revelation here, although I have taught Biblical Eschatology on three continents.

What I usually do is start out with an overall set of hermeneutical principles for the Bible in general, then sharpen them for the book of Revelation. Next I go through the Bible's progressive eschatology, and the Biblical approach to narrative an symbolic use of narrative.

With that foundation in place, I move to specific architectural features of Revelation, the structural members that provide the broad context of the book. Then I give a concrete example of interpretation, usually I begin with the two witnesses of Rev. 11, for an SDA audience.

I'm not trying to be evasive, it's just that I'm shortcutting a lot of things to state that conclusion about the dark day, etc.

What I'm saying, before the orothodoxy police arrive, is that I cannot say with great confidence that the dark day, etc., fulfill those prophecies. Nor can I categorically deny it. The nature of the text--and my knowledge, perhaps there are others who can speak with greater certainty--is such that all my conclusions about it remain tentative.

We know [only] in part, we prophesy [only] in part. And no one person's knowledge--even of what is knowable--is total

Therefore, I know only a part of the part which is knowable, which is in turn only a part of what is.

So there are parts of Revelation and the Bible to which I can speak with great confidence, and other parts where the only honest answer is, "I don't know." Someone else may know, or it may be unknowable, but in either case, I do not.

[bevin]

It sounds like you and I are in amazingly close agreement on our understanding of the Book of Revelation. It is describing broad themes and whole cultures, rather than specific political boundaries and denominations.

One aspect is absolutely clear - the return of Christ and the setting up of a kingdom which only knows sin from the "history books".

/Bevin

[there buster]

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It is describing broad themes and whole cultures, rather than specific political boundaries and denomination

Well, yes and no.

The closer the fulfillment of the prophecy is to the prophet's day, the more detailed and specific it can be. This is true for several reasons.

First, the power/movement described may already be in existence, even if the prophecy is about future events. Rome lasted at least three centuries after the writing of Revelation.

Second, the power/movement may be rising, present in a nascent form, and already possessing readily identifiable features.

Third, the technology/culture/economy etc. of events in the relatively near future may still be recognizable to the prophet and his audience.

But, 1000 years out, say the Crusades, are going to be presented in highly symbolic language. The structure of the papacy, the feudal culture of christendom, the whole thing will be difficult to picture and understand. (Not that the crusades are pictured in Revelation, just using them as an example).

Then try to imagine how Marxism or the industrial revolution might be described--you begin to see the difficulties.

And from the very first chapter--not to mention the title itself: Apokalupsis="unveiling"--it is clear that John expects his audience to understand the book.

3Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

You cannot 'take to heart' or, as the NASB renders it 'heed' something which you cannot understand.

So the beast with the lamb-like horns cannot be a Bison which has no meaning for them to heed. Nor can the locust/scorpions be helicopter gunships which they can neither conceive nor heed.

All of these things are encoded. And any good code has two purposes: to conceal from the enemy, and communicate with the audience.

Now, if WE in the end times are his audience, the code should be obvious to us. BUT, the code which makes sense to us would be opaque to the pioneers.

But IF the audience is the first century church, as the book avers, then it should be a code that makes sense to that audience. And, if so, it becomes a code at least theoretically accessible to every generation later.

Oddly enough, because of archeology, the book is probably easier for us to connect with than previous generations, because we know so much more about the first century.

This is a marvelous 'coincidence,' that people at the end of time should have the opportunity to understand this book about the end of all things, better than any generation since the original audience.