| Originially I was only accepting respones to articles that I wrote. The article this person is responding to wasn't written by me, but I figured that I should be fair and allow his/her voice to be heard as well. This response was sent in by Morrisaur@aol.com on 7-20-02. To Morrisaur: I appreciate the time and effort you put into resonding to the article linked to from my site. I disagree with your belief system, but I respect your opinion and it's welcome on my site. (even if I decide to tear it apart later, hehe) ;o) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am writing this in response to "The Second Coming: Another Failed Promise" piece and I hope others will get a chance to respond. God's Word. Before I get started let me explain something to the those who haven't excepted Jesus as Savior. This book the Bible was not written to you but to believers. It shows us our beginnings, history, true nature, the nature of God, His plan of salvation that He made before time began and what the future holds. Through out the Bible the things of God are called mysteries. The only people that could really understand them were the ones that submitted their hearts and minds to the will of God. To everyone that came to God with the wrong attitude and a closed heart the Word meant nothing but confusion. You might think that this seems unfair but no one ever said that God was a God of fair. Your children might not think it's far that their friends parents let them wonder around at night in a dangerous place, but it doesn't matter to you how unfair they think you are, does it. No, not if your any kind of parent. You do what is right and best for your children no matter how fair they think it is and so does our heavenly Father. He has promised to be faithful and just to those who are faithful to Him. In doing so He has had to put barriers up in His word that prevent those that haven't excepted His truth from understanding the most important and sensitive parts. If the enemy knew all there was to know then we would be easily led astray. Now, keeping that in mind let me tell you that your questions and criticisms are very good and understandable. They are a prime example of the blindness that the Lord has placed on you for you disobedience and honestly I had to think twice about debating them. After all I wouldn't want to reveal something that He doesn't want revealed. However I think He is capable of taking care of anything that I might mess up. So lets move on. To the Jews of His time: "Upon this generation!" Matt 23:36 - 24:1 The generation He was talking about were the unbelieving Jews that lived in approx. 30-33 AD. The Temple and most of Jerusalem was destroyed and its people slaughtered in 70 AD by Titus of Rome. The most common use of the word generation in the Jewish tradition is 40 years. Although you will find some Christians that will disagree with me, I will say to you that once a Jew or Gentile has accepted Jesus they no longer have a race but are Jews in spirit. Meaning that they have became the Chosen of God. His true followers would no longer be considered the same as other Jews. So when he spoke to Jews as a nation this did not include them. When He speaks to those that have accepted Him, He is speaking to all believers even those who have not yet received Him. My point here is that when he spoke to the unbelieving Jews in Ch. 23 all that he said was referring to unbelieving Israel and had nothing to do with those Jews that had accepted Him. Therefore His prophesy concerning them was fulfilled completely in the destruction of 70 AD. How many questions were there in Matthew 24, 2 or 3? I find it interesting that I must go to an atheist site to find someone that reads plain English enough to realize that the 3 questions in Matthew are the same as the 2 questions in Mark and Luke meaning that in Matthew it is also just 2 questions with the 2nd being what seems to be in parts. In reality the "sign of His coming and the end of the age" is a single sign that represents both actions, His coming and the end of the age. The problem you seem to be having is the same one that the disciples had. They probably associated the timing of the 1st question in conjunction with the timing of the 2nd. I am under the impression that Jesus chose not to answer the first question about "when will these things take place," meaning the destruction of the Temple because He had already told the Jews that it would happen with in their generation. There is no doubt in my mind that His disciples were speaking about the Temple in their first question and since there is no evidence with in the rest of Ch. 24 - 26 of the Temple being destroyed the only logical conclusion is that He chose not to answer it. Instead He answered the question that was in His opinion the most important, His coming and the end of the age. Bible prophesy is a two edged sword that if you don't pay attention you will miss more than you get. First of all the prophesies are not written to just anyone. God decides when He will reveal the truth and to whom He will reveal it. All things are revealed in God's good timing so as to bring the glory upon Himself only, no one else will be able to claim it. I don't claim any special gifting but I just read the words that I see. I tell you this so that you might have a better time understanding that the words in that Book were written as secrets for the most part. The Old Testament had everything in it that you needed to know about the coming of Jesus even down to the very day of His crucifixion, and yet most of the best scholars of the Temple missed it. Why? Because their hearts and minds were not fixed on the will of God and so when the signs came they were blind to them. The same holds true for the NT. The biggest difference, which might not be a difference at all, is that if you are not a born again believer in Christ you will never understand it because you aren't meant to. It's a secret. Many times in the NT things are called a mystery, including the gospel message. That is why Jesus told the disciples to go out and preach the Gospel, not write it down and spread it around. The Word of God is for God's people and not for every Joe that decides to pick one up. Secondly, Bible prophesy is similar to a riddle. It usual doesn't seem to make a lot of since until someone explains it to you and only then if you have the tools to understand it, which in this case you probably don't since you don't consider yourself a True Christian. "NOTE" I believe you said that you were a believer. Considering that you no longer believe I would submit that you were never really a believer. It is one thing to say you believe it is another thing altogether to actually a biblical believer. Like the old saying goes, "once and believer always a believer." Once you are really in Christ there is no way out. In almost every case, at least all the ones that come to mind, in the Bible when a prophesy is given there has been a dual fulfillment. What I mean by this is that a prophet speaks a prophecy and sometime later there is what seems to be a partial fulfillment. People get discouraged and some lose their faith. Like I said before, true believers never really leave the faith even when they don't understand it. You might call this the weeding out process, you know like separating the wheat from the tares. Inevitably however the prophesy gets fulfilled in God's perfect timing. A good example of this is in Daniel. Daniel either has or interpreted visions that forecast the rise and fall of the great Gentile empires that followed Babylon. Each one of these happened just as he said they would in God's perfect timing. Daniel had a dream about a ruler that would come and desecrate the new temple and slaughter a pig on the alter and many other things in detail. Sometime before Christ after Alexander the Great's death his kingdom was divide by 4 of his generals. One of these generals or a member of his line, I forget which, fulfilled much of this prophesy in detail but only about half of the total prophesy. We Christians realize that this was, for lack of a better word, an object lesson. The true fulfillment of this prophesy will be fulfilled by the Antichrist during the last 7 years of the of this dispensation. You know what is really funny is as Christians we cannot agree on prophesy most of the time because we try to interpret it with a bias. Everyone looks at things from their own perspective and this clouds the true revelations that the spirit gives us, if our heart isn't right our interpretation could be wrong as well. Yes, it is possible for a true Christian to have a poor attitude and ignorant heart. If our heart and mind is not seeking God's will it can be clouded by the enemy and misled but never can we lose the gift He has given us. If we get so deep into the wrong things the Lord has said that in some cases he would just takes us so that we won't get any worse or led others down the same path. I said all that to say that I believe that the Lord answered these questions in this form. Not addressing the Christians of that time as much as the Christians of the time of these signs. He told the disciples as well as the Jews that their generation would see destruction and that happened in 70 AD. However He also told them in verse 15 of Ch. 24 that when they saw the "abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel,...stand in the Holy place, [whosoever readth, let him understand]" KJV, Let them flee..." Now think with me. If the disciples saw or knew about the temple being destroyed in 70 ad they would understand the prophesy of "this generation" that Jesus gave to the Jews as being fulfilled and yet since the Romans didn't set up an abomination in the holy place or fulfill any of Daniel's prophesies in their destruction of the Temple this could not be a part of the sign of His coming or the end of the age. I admit that would have been a slap in the face but the Lord's ways are not our ways and He has proven that time and again. Jesus answered their questions in a way that it would benefit those Christians that would need to understand it most. How do I know that He was talking about a different generation then the one he was in? I can only tell you what the Scripture says to me. No where from Matt 24:2 - 26:1 is there any mention of the Temple being destroyed. It does say that their must be one for the desecration to take place but nothing about it's destruction. So, since the Temple is not their that means that another must be built. In Vs. 4-7 He warns them not to be deceived. He says their will be false Christ's, wars, famine and pestilence's but that this is NOT the end. Nation will rise against nation but this is only the beginning of sorrows. In Vs. 15 He speaks about the abomination being set up and in vs. 21 there is a great tribulation coming. Once again He warns them to beware. Vs 27 describes what His coming will look like and vs. 29 gives the well established, in both the OT and NT, sign of His coming. Vs. 30 is His coming, 31 is the rapture of the saints (most Christians will disagree with me at this point but just read the verse) and then in Vs. 32 and 33 He tells us to learn the parable of the fig tree. When it's branches are tender and it's leaves come out then the time is near or here. Then He says that: "So likewise ye (all Christians), when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near..." Now in Vs 34 when He says that "This generation shall not pass..." He is speaking to the generation that will "see all these things" This generation that sees all these things shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled. One other thing on the statement you made about Jesus' prophesy having failed. If you read on you will find in ch. 24:36 Jesus says very plainly: "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." and in MARK 13:32 But of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. How much plainer do you need it? Jesus' promise of his coming could not have been at the destruction in 70 ad because He knew of that destruction and it was fulfilled as He said but He could not have been referring to that time as His coming and the end of the age because He says plainly here that these things will happen but that He does not know when but only His Father knows. Imminence Your argument is interesting and for an unbeliever I suppose it would be convincing. I can't guaranty that I can explain it to your satisfaction because I am not gifted with decernment in all these things however a couple of things do come to mind when I read your piece. First, all the verses you sited are definitely interesting. Matthew 16:28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Mark 9:1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. Luke 9:27 But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God. These sure do seem to be speaking of an imminent return however Jesus could not know that these people were going to see the Kingdom because as I said earlier, He does not know when this will happen. Only God the Father knows the exact time, so what could He be saying here? One thing I do know is that there was one man seated there that has seen the Coming of Christ and the Kingdom of God set up, and he say it all before he died. Notice the words in blue and read above. The state that "some" would not die "till" or until they see these things. We know that the apostle John saw all these things before his death, he saw them so clearly that he was able to write them down in detail in the book of Revelation. But I know your thinking that John is one man but the verses say some. Well, lets look for a minute at what the word translated 'some' is in it's original language. 5100 tis {tis} ti;ß an enclitic indefinite pronoun; TDNT -- omitted,omitted; pron AV -- certain (104) -- some (73) -- any man (55) -- any (38) -- one (34) -- man (34) -- anything (25) -- a (10) -- certain man (7) -- something (6) -- somewhat (6) -- ought (5) -- some man (4) -- certain thing (2) -- nothing + 3756 (2) -- divers (2) -- he (2) -- thing (2) -- another (2) -- not translated (17) -- misc (22) [452] 1) a certain, a certain one 2) some, some time, a while Interesting isn't it that in a lot of these instances this word is translated in a singular tense. So Jesus could have been saying that there was a certain man there that would not die until he saw the Kingdom being set up. Now Jesus didn't say that this person or persons wouldn't die, just that it wouldn't happen until after they saw the Kingdom set up. In the Kingdom of God there is no death for those who have believed because the Bride of Christ is resurrected into new bodies before the Kingdom is set up. So since He is speaking to believers that wouldn't die once the Kingdom is set up but he hints that the one or ones that will see the Kingdom wouldn't die until they have seen it set up, what else could he be saying here. I believe the Lord knew that one of His disciples, probably knew it was John because of other things said about John within the Gospels, would be given the vision of His Coming and the establishment of the Kingdom of God but that He just couldn't tell them for sure the timing of these events. Jesus didn't know if His coming would be within the lifetimes of His disciples and that explains any possible warnings of imminence upon the part of the Lord. If Jesus didn't know when He was coming then His disciples couldn't have known either. So they taught that we Christians should live our lives in accordance with the Lord's word and anticipate the Lord's coming. Of course the letters from the apostles admonished believers to be alert and watching because no man can know the time of Jesus' coming. For the early Christians not to live and teach the possible imminence of His coming would be ignorant and down right irresponsible. Let's remember that the book of Revelation was the last book written at around 95 AD on the Isle of Patmos by John. By this time all the other NT books had already been written. Those other authors did not have the advantage of the book of Revelation when they wrote their books. This is just another reason to understand why they would have taught the imminent coming of Jesus. Now many Christians still teach the imminent return of Jesus in their belief of a Pre-Tribulational Rapture of the Church. This means that they believe the Bible teaches that the True Church of Jesus Christ will be taken up to Heaven just before the 7 year period called the Tribulation begins, which is followed by the physical Kingdom of God is set up and Jesus will reign here on earth for 1000 years. I say that there is no suggestion with in the book of Revelation that would support an imminent return of Jesus to Rapture the Church. There are some very distinct events that must happen first and there are signs that must be given before He can return. This however is a different topic altogether. King James Version Inspired? I believe I read that some Christians believe that the KJV interpretation of the Bible was inspired. I do believe unequivocally that the Lord had His hand in the translation process of the KJV. I would not however say that their work was inspired through the Holy Spirit like the books of the New Testament. The NT is the inspired Word of God given to the Apostles, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in there original tongues. What I am saying is that it is the books written in there original language that are inspired and not the new language translations. As far as the KJV is concerned, I wouldn't read any other version. I believe that of all the others that have been done there is no better translation of the Word of God, in either it's linguistic or doctrinal interpretations, then the King James Version. This includes all the newest versions such as the New KJV or the 21st century KJV. If you have excepted the gift of God through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ and your heart and mind are open to the truth of His Word, you will understand the KJV as if it were a kindergarten picture book. We Christians, NONE of us, has ever read the Word of God and gotten anything out of it because we could understand it. We understand it because the Lord has chosen to reveal it's truths and mysteries to us. I hope this has helped your understanding of the inspired and infallible Word of God and testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. I say our Savior because He has also paid the price for all your sins, past and present. The gift of redemption is out there just waiting for you to call out His name for forgiveness. The price for sin has been paid and the battle for your soul completed, the rest is up to you. Sorry for it's length but I don't write any other way. If there is anyone who's heart is crying out to feel the sweet savor of salvation please don't hesitate to write me. Morrisaur [Top] |
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