Anyone else find themselves needing to move on?

[olger]

What if toads are really just short people?

[Taylor]

Originally Posted By: cardw

It's back to the call to "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

So, as a gambler, I've decided to say there is a glimmer of truth possible in your conclusions, even though I don't believe those conclusions. Because I do not believe we are saved by our theological correctness, but by the Man Jesus Christ alone, I'm going to lay my cards on the table with a recognition of what is in store for me if I'm correct about His care, or what I have to look forward to if your correct.

If you are right, at the very best, everything a heart could desire for a maximum of a few score years while one remains alive. If I am right, a maximum after death if I don't last till Jesus returns, eternal life after resurrection with joy unspeakable and full of glory, everything Jesus desires for me. Hmmmm!

"Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." 3 John 1:2 NKJV

"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”"Revelation 21:4 NKJV

" Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work."2 Thess 2:16,17 NKJV

As a gambler, seems like a no brainer to me. If you hold the cards you have, and your wrong at the time of His appearing, there is no turning back. If I'm wrong, I wouldn't have lost anything that I wouldn't have lost anyway.

Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

Revelation 6:14-17 NKJV

Regards!

Agreed

[LifeHiscost]

What if toads are really just short people?

:smile: :smile: teehe teehe

[cardw]

Quote:

In the case of cardw, it was understood by me that he might place more trust in a gamble than he places in the Word, making what he was gambling on seem more important to be placed on that which would have the greatest possible returns instead of relying on what is rapidly falling apart as what he would get, even if he won the gamble on this world.

I don't consider it a gamble at all because I am reasonably sure that the Bible is made up. To me it's superstition to play this type of game.

There is so much interpolation in both the Bible and the extra Biblical history that it is quite apparent that most everything is made up. There is no contemporary evidence that what the bible claims about god and Jesus and living the Christian life is true.

[John317]

Quote:

There are over 2,000 prophecies in the Holy Bible about events that would take place in the future, sometimes centuries after the information was given, many seen to be accurate to the year if not the day. Just one is about to unfold in the near term that has a very good probability of occurring before I leave this earth. If it does, this is who will be able to benefit by its' fulfillment. I'm hoping you will be able to take advantage of what is promised.

This has no basis in fact. The problem with forecasting prophecies with no exact time period is that eventually many of these will happen due to the cyclic nature of history.

Check out the following:

Quote:

Ezekiel 26:1-5

In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: [2] "Son of man, because Tyre said concerning Jerusalem, 'Aha, the gate of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste,' [3] therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. [4] They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers, and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock. [5] She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. And she shall become plunder for the nations.

The above literally happened in recorded history. Today, if you go to Tyre, you will see that over 2400 years later, it is still being used as a place for the spreading of nets. Alexander the Great took the walls of the city and threw them into the sea, and these rocks are used in 2010 as a place for spreading the nets of fishermen.

Wikipedia:

Quote:

It was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years, and by Nebuchadnezzar (586–573 BC) for thirteen years, without success, although a compromise peace was made in which Tyre paid tribute to the Babylonians. It later fell under the power of the Persians.

In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to the island, but it continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era. The presence of the causeway affected water currents nearby, causing sediment to build up, making the connection permanent.

In 315 BC, Alexander's former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre, taking the city a year later.

This is a prophecy you can't say was made after the facts, because it is still be fulfilled this very day, over 2500 years after it was given.

It was written before Alexander built the causeway, and therefore before anyone could possibly have known that people would dry their nets on the rocks of the causeway. The book of Ezekiel was written long before Alexander's day. It was written about 587 BC, over 250 years before Alexander the Great took the city.

Then there's also the prophecy about Edom in the book of Obadiah. It was written in the 5th or 6th century BC while there were still many Edomites in existence, but Obadiah 18 said that all the Edomites would eventually be destroyed. It happened. The last of the Edomites disappeared off the pages of history about 50 years after the time of Christ.

On the other hand, the Bible predicted exactly what would happen to the Jews. See Deut. 28 and Daniel 9: 24-27.

Micah 5: 2 (written between 750 to 700 BC) predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. But there are two Bethlehems in Palestine. There's the Bethlehem near Galilee, and there's the Bethlehem in the south, near Jerusalem. Micah 5: 2 said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, the town near Jerusalem, and that is exactly where Christ was born.

Evidence of many such prophecies could be given.

Originally Posted By: cardw

In the case of Seventh Day Adventists we don't have an actual event that we can see because the cleansing of the sanctuary happens in heaven. Remember the SDA church started on a mistaken prophecy even though all the so called nominal churches had it right.

There's a lot that we as SDAs can see, however.

The nominal church had no argument or Bible evidence against the Millerite views of the prophecies. The churches simply rejected the prophetic interpretation of Miller and his associates. Their rejection wasn't based on evidence that the interpretation was in error.

It's important to remember that during most of the 10 or so years that Miller preached, he didn't specify the day when Christ was expected to appear. Miller preached that Christ would come "about the year 1843." Miller himself did not accept the date of Oct. 22, 1844, until the morning of Oct. 21. (Study Miller's own writings on this topic.)

Originally Posted By: cardw

So the reliability of Biblical prophecy within the SDA church had a very shaky start. It's called dead wrong. It's seems rather convenient that the fulfillment of the very prophecy that started the SDA church happens in a place that no one can verify.

Indeed, you're right about the "shaky start." It was similar to the start of the gospel of Christ. Both had a shaky start, and that was by God's plan. In the instance of the gospel of Christ, He died just as His followers were hoping He would be made king and deliver the Jews from the Romans. Instead, He was executed like a common criminal. That was very shaky. They underwent a great disappointment, similar in many way to the disappointment of the Millerites, who would go on to make the SDA church. They started out a few, with little hope of ever accomplishing anything except by the power of God, yet today, that same organization totals about 17 million world wide, and their message is going to all the world. Tens of thousands receive their message and decide to join the church and the movement every month.

Read what Ellen White said in in the late 1840s about the little paper that her husaband James was to publish. She said that God showed her this paper would some day be as streams of light all around the world. Today, that same paper is read all over the world.

Originally Posted By: cardw

Again, a lot of mental gymnastics to make something true most people can see has no truth at all.

Should we go by what "most people" believe? Truth is not determind by a vote, and never has been. What's important is whether there's good Bible evidence for the Millerite understanding of prophecy. SDAs believe there is. But no one thinks that everyone will be convinced. According to the Bible, "all" will follow after the beast power-- that is, all except for a small group who will refuse.

Here's the reason:

Daniel 12:10

Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand.

1 Cor. 2:7-16

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. [8] None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. [9] But, as it is written,

"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him"—

[10] these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. [11] For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. [12] Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. [13] And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

[14] The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. [15] The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. [16] "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

John 10:25-29

Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, [26] but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. [27] My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. [28] I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. [29] My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand."

John 7:17

If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

[cardw]

The problem with all of these so called prophecies is that either they are in such metaphorical language that they can be adapted to just about anything or the prevalence of interpolation by scribes casts doubt on most of these as probably being written after the events.

This falls far short of 2000 different prophecies which appears to me to be an exaggeration.

The other explanation for Jesus is that the story of Jesus was adapted to fit the many prophecies and characteristics attributed to the many sun gods of the Greek/Egyptian/Roman world combined with the Alexandrian Jewish Messianic beliefs. The anointed one or Christ is a messianic character that was presented as both literal and spiritual within gnostic texts that predated orthodox texts.

For example Justin Martyr (103–165) an early apologist for Christianity doesn't mention the gospels at all, but references the "Memoirs of the Apostles," the Old Testament, and portions of Paul. He believed that the Greek philosophers had derived, if not borrowed, the most essential elements of truth found in their teaching from the Old Testament. He did not state that Socrates and Heraclitus were Christians, but essentially argued that they had derived their philosophy from Christian sources. He adopted the Stoic doctrine of the "seminal word," and so philosophy was to him an operation of the Word—in fact, through his identification of the Word with Christ, it was brought into immediate connection with him.

He placed an emphasis on the idea of Jesus being the Logos or the Word, a distinct and separate being from God the creator. As you study the various early church fathers you see a progression from what we would call less Christian to more Christian. This would indicate that what we call Christianity today did not exist until today. There was no early pure church. It was being made up through a period of 600-1200 years.

You have to ask why there is such little said about Jesus in early non Biblical historical sources. You would think an event such as god on earth would have a lot more impact, particularly with an earthquake and solar eclipse happening on the same day. This event would have a huge astral-theological significance to pagan theologians and historians. And yet there is no mention of it. This story would be an attempt to connect Jesus with the sun since early church fathers such as Tertullian referred to Jesus as the SUN of god.

So these complex and rather tabloid like connections with ancient texts seem rather more constructed than prophetic predictions.