Number Of His Name

That was worth repeating.

And I'll add:

I also don't build doctrine around numerology and "Bible codes." I'll leave that to Louis Farrakhan.

 

Well, she was "completely" tormented! :laugh:

 

I am not talking about numerology in the sence of Louis Ferrakan or finding some hidden bible code. I'm talking about how the ancient world viewed numbers. Letters are symbols that represent a sound or a meaning. We see this with Hebrew the letter represents a letter sound it also represnts a number. Numbers used in prophetic messages were also used as symbols. 7 sometimes means just that 7 (quantitative). It also means Gods work completed. So when Jesus tells ust to forgive 70 * 7 is he talking about counting out 490 times each day? Or is he talking about unlimited? Total completeness completed? (or everytime).
I'm sorry for calling it Revelations. I will now refer to the Apocalypse of John to lessen the confusion. My discourse should have been more centered around the Book of Daniel. Daniel is completed in 70 AD with the Destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jewish people and Christians have taken up the standard. (So to speak) If you believe the last week in Daniel refers to some time in the distant future of now then you have to believe in numbers in a symbolic sence. The math just doesn't work out otherwise. Any calculate (the weeks quantitatively?) from Daniel to Jesus? Does it work out perfectly? Or is it off? I don't believe that judaism is what God has in mind. Christianity was always what God had in mind to bring the world to himself. If you believe that there is a peranthetical period called the "church age" (which should through the assmebly people off the wall because there is no single church according to them) Where God only works with the goyim then takes us out of the picture to re-establish Judaism where there are sacrifices have to begin again. No. I believe that Christianity and Jesus is the only plan and christianity is not some period in between.
As far as the rapture. I don't see Jesus coming back partly or half way to rapture the saints and remove his Holy Spirit from the earth just before the tribulation. 1st of all God doesn't do this with his righteous in the bible and often times they suffer along with the others. Look at Jeremiah! 2nd of all with out God's intervention on the human hart there can be no salvation. If the Holy Spirit were removed from the earth no one would be saved. Finally I believe in a full return of Jesus christ for judgement and the resurection from the dead. And our works will be put to judgement whether we are "saved" or not.

 

Yeah, you keep believing that. Get a credible source. Not Jack Chick. You've made up you mind unfortuantely. A case of don't confuse me with the facts please. Here are somethings from Christianity Today and Cornerstone Magazine Along with a personal letter about him which make good points. http://www.thebibleistheotherside.org/lettersp5.htm

 

I think you are talking about gematria. It's still numerology by any other name. Just because men made Hebrew letters represent numbers does not mean God was talking to us in words and in numbers. I realize God uses numbers in the Bible but we can't try to see a hidden meaning in it - that is the nature of occultism. I used to be an astrologer and I also used numerology -- numerology is based on aligning each letter with a number. I think maybe the "70 times 7" meant you just keep forgiving. There is no end to forgiving. It could be that some of this spoke to those people since they might have been familiar with the use of numbers in the ancient world, but it does not mean that we are to read a meaning into the numbers. Probably Jesus was turning it on its head -- for example, saying 70 times 7. That is more hyperbole than numerology. If there were a meaning in these numbers, God would have plainly made that clear and consistent in His word.

"Revelation" will do! :laugh:

I think people have worked it out. The 'weeks' are not our weeks of 7 days, as I understand it, but refer to something else that was not exactly translatable into English the way the Hebrew meant it. I'm going by memory here on my study of Daniel - has been 2 or 3 yrs.

Well, there are many who share your view. Some also see Noah and Job being rescued as foreshadowings of the believers being taken away before God's wrath/judgment comes down during the Tribulation. As for the HS being removed and no one being saved as a result, God can still intervene and send His Spirit, as He did in the OT.

Yes, believers' works will be put in the fire to see what remains.

 

Antiaging, Jack Chick also kept defending a woman, Lauren Stratford, who was later proved to be a fraud - she claimed satanic abuse. I think she wrote a book called "satan's underground." She was a fraud. Later, she tried to claim she was a Holocaust survivor. That wasn't true, either.

Chick has a very bad rep among believers who know some of this stuff about Rivera and the woman. Also, some of his tracts on the occult are just not correct.

Also, Chick is a King James only, believing that the KJ translation is the word of God. Of course, God did not inspire translations, not to mention there are errors in the King James. This is from Chick's Stmt of Faith

 

Amen, Brother -- and so should you. Here is my writing about other terms used instead of the "Great Tribulation Period Judgement" (AKA: last half of Daniel's 70th Week):

------------------------


Five Judgments

The Lord God is a judging God

"To judge" can mean three things in the Holy Bible:

A. to discern between good and evil (human function)
B. to condemn, usually falsely (human function)
C. to reward the just & punish the evil (Godly function)

The Five Judgments:

1. Believers for SIN on the Cross
WHO: All who will Believe
WHEN: 33AD
WHERE: Jerusalem
WHY: The Lord God is a merciful God.
HOW: The Grace of God through Messiah Jesus
WHAT: found innocent by the Bood of Jesus

How to get from judgment 1 to judgment 2
(and avoid judgments 3, 4, or 5):

Romans 10:9 (KJV): "That if thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved."

2. Judgment Seat of Christ
(2 Cor 5:10, 1 Cor 3:11-15)
WHO: Believers for works
WHEN: during the Great Tribulation on earth;
Right after the Rapture/Resurrection that starts
the Tribulation
WHERE: Heaven
WHY: to assign rewards (including
the Millennial Kingdom rest)
to the redeemed for their good works
HOW: The Grace of God through Messiah Jesus
WHAT: found innocent by the Bood of Jesus

3. Judgment of Yisrael under Antichrist
(Ezekiel 22:17-22 Time of Jacob's Trouble; Ezekiel 20:34-38;
Jeremiah 30:1-24; Revelation 6-19)
WHO: Yisrael
WHEN: during the Tribulation
WHERE: earth
WHY: The Lord God fulfills His promises
HOW: The wrath of God by Messiah Jesus
WHAT: Great Tribulation

4. Throne of His Glory judgment
(AKA: Sheep and Goat Nations judgment, Matthew 25:31-46)
WHO: the nations: the living surviver nations of the Great Tribulation
(these people are NOT saved, they are human in human bodies)
WHEN: after the Great Tribulation, before the Millennial Age
WHERE: Jerusalem
WHY: The Lord God fulfills His promises: God will bless those
who bless Yisrael and curse those who curse Yisrael
HOW: Judged by their treatment of Yisrael
WHAT: the cursed nations to Hell; the blessed nations
to the Millennial Messianic Kingdom Age

5. Great White Throne judgment
(Revelation 20:11:15)
WHO: the wicked dead
WHEN: after the Millennial Age; before endless ages
WHERE: between Hell and the Lake of Fire
WHY: The Lord God is not mocked
HOW: The wrath of God by Messiah Jesus
WHAT: the Messiah rejectors consigned to endless punishment

NOTE: The delineation of the five revealed
judgments above does not preclude other specific
or general judgments. One place on the net i found
a chart where TWENTY-FOUR judgments were delineated.
The Lord God is a judging God and His hand is not shortened
by His revelation to us nor
by our understaning of His revelation to us.

May Jesus our Savior and our Lord be Praised!

--compilation by ed,
incurable Jesus Phreaque

 

Marcia, I like your post 79. Sober; and that's how Christians should be understanding the Word of God. Sober means not intoxicated, but also not cold blooded. The 'higher' critics or 'biblescholars' we find also on this thread, to my liking are too cold-blooded. But God will spew out the luke-warm too. So, sober I adduce should be quite warm-blooded, but not irrational. Approach Revelation with that attitude, and most of it becomes quite simple to understand.

 

And that's why, Ed Edwards, I just cannot give your explanations of all sorts of resurrections a second thought. Besides making things thousand times more cerebral they should be, your view to me seems blinded with passion or enthusiasm you categorically are not prepared to exchange for the old Protestant and Reformed teaching on eschatology.

 

Thank you for your compliments. You are too kind, but thank you anyway.

Remeinds me of a movie I saw maybe 20 years ago. A man leading a quest for a Great Golden Treasure hidden as a bell atop a mountain -- he finds, after much dificulty, the bell. Climbing the cliff it was on is this small building, inside a common copper or iron bell about a foot high hanging from the top of the dome of the building. He almost missed the Golden Bell, a King's Ransom. In frustration he pulled the little bell only to find that the whole dome was the Golden Bell, and the small bell just a clapper for the true treasure.

// ... your view to me seems blinded with passion or enthusiasm you categorically are not prepared to exchange for the old Protestant and Reformed teaching on eschatology ... //

My views are also blind with passion & enthusiasm which I categorically not prepared to exchange for the old Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, East Syrian, Coptic teachings on eschatology: the post-Millinnial Messanic Kingdom before the Second Coming of the Lord.

My views are also blind with passion & enthusiasm which I categorically not prepared to exchange for the new Baptist/Carismatic teachings on eschatology: the pre-Millinnial Messanic Kingdom after the Second Coming of the Lord but with only one resurrection & rapture followed by complete destruction of the earth.

For I feel that the Holy Spirit has given me special Ed insite into the meaning of the eschatological prophecies. My Five Resurrections wrilting is an Evangelical Message. Some Calvinists say we don't need to do Evangelism, for the saved are already on God's list & they will get saved by God no matter what we do. The Roman Catholics say the RCC, Pope and all, will save us, no matter what I do. The Carismatics say if I do get saved I'll speak in tongues. We need to be evangelical, a person's eschatology should be should be evangelical.

 

In which case, it means more than just a quantitative amount by your statements. So if you take literally the weeks in Daniel its too short. Most people believe that they are 70 weeks of years which again you can't take Daniel literally. It's the last week I generally don't agree with when it comes to the rapturist. I do not participate in numerology. I'm just stating how the ancients view numbers. When looking at apocalyptic literature most everything is symbolic. Gates of the winds etc... Does that mean winds actually come out of gates or is it meaning the begining place of the wind. See what I mean? I may not agree with the whole rapture and most of what Darby tried to pass off but I think we do agree in the very end. Jesus is victorious, we will be raised from the dead to live eternally with Him.

 

Thank you, GE! :wavey:

I agree with you on the sober approach to Scripture.

 

I don't think your analogy works with "gates of the wind," which I think is a poetic metaphor or an idiom -- not an issue of hidden meaning.

Amen! :jesus:

 

Just a question here. Just to be sure GE... you're not calling me cold blooded and irrational are you? I'm not the emotional type and I try to be rational. I really do. Plus I love Jesus. Though I don't shout about it, I do witness to people. BTW you're from SA right. I lived for 6 years in East Africa. The most wonderful time of my life! After I left and went to live in Europe my family moved to J-burg. They liked it there. EA is where I first heard the gospel really preached (and lived!).

 

Ed Edwards:
"My views are also blind with passion & enthusiasm which I categorically not prepared to exchange for the new Baptist/Carismatic teachings on eschatology: the pre-Millinnial Messanic Kingdom after the Second Coming of the Lord but with only one resurrection & rapture followed by complete destruction of the earth."

GE:
Ed, I think you confuse the SDA future atonement for Reformed Eschatology.

Reformed Eschatology has Christ the Eschatos. Christian eschatology is 'things about Christ' whether 'pre-cross' or 'post-cross'. The Resurrection is not Christian eschatology, nor the culmination of it. God finished all His works and so rested in Jesus Christ through having raised Him from the dead; that is FULL Reformed, Protestant, Christian, eschatology. There would not have been a 'resurrection' or 'second coming' had not Jesus been raised from the dead. The Resurrection is already a fact and accomplished feat with God; it must only still realise in our human world and time. That in itself implies it shall be a once for all event and occurrence.

I do not doubt or think badly of your conviction and enthusiasm; don't misunderstand me please. I'm only sure you are wrong and make things far too complex for simple folks like me to understand even -- how must we believe it or share your exitedness with it?

 

One thing here I'll never be able to agree on; and that's this 'rapture' stuff it seems everybody here is so happy with. There is no such thing as a 'rapture'; how many times more must one say it? Darby manufactured the concept to suite his own views. Let's be honest: he mutilated the Word of God. It's that bad, yes!

 

There is only one 'spiritual' resurrection - John calls it 'the first resurrection' in his Revelation; in his Gospel he calls it to be born again of Spirit and Water. The saved who are raised in 'the last day' with 'the second coming' of Christ, shall not then be born again spiritually; they are born again spiritually before they die --- or never. The godless on the other hand, are NEVER born again or 'first', 'spiritually'. They ARE dead in their sins, and they DIE in their sins, and they are raised again in their sins to receive the last-day-judgment when Christ will come again, ONLY to be thrown into the lake of fire in that day.

 

Let's get one thing straight. Paul said people would be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. That is what folks nowadays call the Rapture of the Church.

Paul preached it centuries before Darby, so Darby was only stating what Scripture proclaims... we will one day be 'caught up.'

Amen!
Maranatha!!