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"This generation will certainly not pass"

Discussion in '2004 Archive' started by jv717, Apr 16, 2004.

  1. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Active Member
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    So by your own definition, nothing will ever be worse than the Flood which wiped out every living person and every living creature on the face of the earth except those in the Ark.
     
  2. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    One thing will be worse. It is still yet to happen.

    You have to convince us that the destruction of a city is worse than the destruction of the world. Good luck.
     
  3. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Active Member
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    Again, by your own definition it can't get worse. Unless you believe there will be less than 8 people alive.

    Now lets deal with your error. Where in the verse does it say the "world" will be destroyed?

    Matt 24:21-22
    21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now-and never to be equaled again. 22 If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

    Keep in mind who Jesus is speaking to. I know thats hard for futurist like yourself.

    Which would be worse for you? To lose one of your children or for one million Iraqies to die next week. You see, its not about numbers it about who is being addressed.
     
  4. KenH

    KenH Well-Known Member

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    Grasshopper, while I don't go down the preterist path as far as you do, I think you make cogent points. I also find it interesting that during my lifetime I keep seeing the pre-trib dispensationalists moving the goalposts around concerning when certain things they think about symbolic prophecy are about to begin. Which I find to be one of the major problems with dispensationalist interpretations of Scripture - it keeps changing - when one idea doesn't appear to be working out they go off on some other news story and try going down a different path.

    Of course, the biggest blow to their theory occurred when the Soviet Union - that they claimed was going to invade Israel - ceased to exist.
     
  5. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    Christ is saying that this time he is describing will be unlike any other. He is telling his disciples that it will be unparallelled (sp?).

    It is the disciples who are the ones he is talking to GH, not the city of Jerusalem.

    Keep trying.
     
  6. Glory Bound

    Glory Bound New Member

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    Well, it would seem to me that if Jesus was talking about at time over 2,000 years in the future, He surely could have chosen better words to do it with. If indeed He was describing events thousands of years away, His present audience must have been greatly confused.
     
  7. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    Actually, they weren't confused. Each generation is to live as though that is the generation that will see the return of Christ.

    Remember, our concern is to be Christ's witnesses and expect his return.
     
  8. Glory Bound

    Glory Bound New Member

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    Then He should have said "Each generation is to live as though that is the generation that will see the return of Christ." He could have chosen to say "Each" instead of "This", which tends to mean something different to the audience.

    It confuses me... and I've got people telling me what it "really means". :confused:
     
  9. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    No, he shouldn't have said that. It isn't for us to know when he returns. The day and hour belong to God alone. We are to concern ourselves with being witnesses of his glory.

    He said 'this' generation in the middle of a whole slew of events that would take place. Those events have NOT taken place yet. Why are you so confused?
     
  10. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
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    This is an excellent summation of the attitude believers need to have regarding the return of Christ.
     
  11. Glory Bound

    Glory Bound New Member

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    Maybe it's just me and the English language. I dunno.

    If you talk to me, and say the words "This generation..." I'm going to believe you're speaking of the present generation.

    Now, if you're speaking of things that haven't taken place, and say "That generation..." then I'm going to believe you're referring to some other generation following the current generation.

    To me, that's the obvious way to understand the words. Now you say "This" means "That"... and wonder why I'm confused? :confused:
     
  12. MalkyEL

    MalkyEL Guest

    Post deleted by Frogman co-moderator.

    Dear MalkyEl,
    Please read your private message.

    Thanks
    Bro. Dallas

    [ April 21, 2004, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: Frogman ]
     
  13. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    Didn't that generation that was present with him have to live in expectant return? They would have understood the context then like we do now.

    Malky, I don't think you are allowed to post the same message over and over and over and over.
     
  14. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
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    She's being childish and spamming the BB.

    It will probably get her banned so she can feel like a martyr for "the faith". :rolleyes:
     
  15. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Active Member
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    Which ones have not been fulfilled?
     
  16. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    All of what Matthew 24-25 has to say.

    Tell me, when did the judgment of the sheep and goats take place?

    When the 1 Thess. 4:17 take place?

    When did the great white throne take place?

    When was sin, satan, the beast, the false prophet, and all unbelievers sent into the lake of fire?

    Oh, and while you are at it, please explain to me why people are still dying if we are living in the new heavens and new earth.

    Enjoy.
     
  17. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Active Member
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    Do you not even know what you believe? You just told me on another thread that Matt 24:2 was fulfilled. Now you say none.

    Because you lack understanding of what the New Heaven and New Earth is.
     
  18. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    Way to skip all those questions, GH. Very good. Look, I don't have time for this. I thought you would be serious this time.

    Please though, educate me as to what the new heavens and new earth are. You know, where no crying would take place. Oops...
     
  19. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Active Member
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    So I guess you now acknowledge some have been fulfilled. Since you know I'm a Preterist and Preterist believe all things were fulfilled in AD70, when do you think I believe those things took place. Now you know why I didn't waste my time.

    I'll let other "heretics educate you on what were and are the Old and New Heavens and Earth:

    C.H. Spurgeon (1865)
    "Did you ever regret the absence of the burnt-offering, or the red heifer, of any one of the sacrifices and rites of the Jews? Did you ever pine for the feast of tabernacle, or the dedication? No, because, though these were like the old heavens and earth to the Jewish believers, they have passed away, and we now live under the new heavens and a new earth, so far as the dispensation of divine teaching is concerned. The substance is come, and the shadow has gone: and we do not remember it." (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. xxxvii, p. 354).

    Jonathan Edwards (1739)
    "Thus there was a final end to the Old Testament world: all was finished with a kind of day of judgment, in which the people of God were saved, and His enemies terribly destroyed." (History of Redemption, vol. i. p. 445)

    John Locke(1705)
    "That St. Paul should use 'heaven' and 'earth' for Jews and Gentiles will not be thought so very strange if we consider that Daniel himself expresses the nation of the Jews by the name of 'heaven' (Dan. viii. 10). Nor does he want an example of it in our Saviour Himself, who (Luke xxi. 26) by "powers of heaven" plainly signifies the great men of the Jewish nation. Nor is this the only place in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians which will bear this interpretation of heaven and earth. He who shall read the first fifteen verses of chap. iii. and carefully weigh the expressions, and observe the drift of the apostle in them, will not find that he does manifest violence to St. Paul's sense if he understand by "The family in heaven and earth" (ver. 15) the united body of Christians, made up of Jews and Gentiles, living still promiscuously among those twp sorts of people who continueds in their unbelief. However, this interpretation I am not positive in , but offer it as matter of inquiry to those who think and impartial search into the true meaning of the Sacred Scriptures the best employment of all the time they have." (Ephesians 2:9-10, in loc.)

    Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
    "The figurative language of the prophets is taken from the analogy between the world natural and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly, the world natural, consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and people, or so much of it as is considered in prophecy; and the things in that world signify the analogous things in this. For the heavens and the things therein signify thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them: and the earth, with the things thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades or Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them. Great earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, are put for the shaking of kingdoms, so as to distract and overthrow them; the creating of a new heaven and earth, and the passing of an old one; or the beginning and end of a world, for the rise and ruin of a body politic signified thereby. The sun, for the whole species and race of kings, in the kingdoms of the world politic; the moon, for the body of common people considered as the king's wife; the starts, for subordinate princes and great men; or for bishops and rulers of the people of God, when the sun is Christ. Setting of the sun, moon, and stars; darkening the sun, turning the moon into blood, and falling of the stars, for the ceasing of a kingdom." (Observations on the Prophecies, Part i. chap. ii)

    John Owen (1721)
    'It is evident, then, that in the prophetical idiom and manner of speech, by heavens and earth, the civil and religious state and combination of men in the world, and the men of them, were often understood. So were the heavens and earth that world which then was destroyed by the flood.
    ' 4. On this foundation I affirm that the heavens and earth here intended in this prophecy of Peter, the coming of the Lord, the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, mentioned in the destruction of that heaven and earth, do all of them relate, not to the last and final judgment of the world, but to that utter desolation and destruction that was to be made of the Judaical church and state
    'First, There is the foundation of the apostle's inference and exhortation, seeing that all these things, however precious they seem, or what value soever any put upon them, shall be dissolved, that is, destroyed; and that in that dreadful and fearful manner before mentioned, in a day of judgment, wrath, and vengeance, by fire and sword; let others mock at the threats of Christ's coming: He will come- He will not tarry; and then the heavens and earth that God Himself planted, -the sun, moon, and stars of the Judaical polity and church, -the whole old world of worship and worshippers, that stand out in their obstinancy against the Lord Christ, shall be sensibly dissolved and destroyed: this we know shall be the end of these things, and that shortly." (Sermon on 2 Peter iii. 11 <../../Books/russ-ap2o.html>, Works, folio, 1721.).

    John Brown(1853)
    " 'Heaven and earth passing,' understood literally, is the dissolution of the present system of the universe, and the period when that is to take place, is called the 'end of the world.' But a person at all familiar with the phraseology of the Old Testament Scriptures, knows that the dissolution of the Mosaic economy, and the establishment of the Christian, is often spoken of as the removing of the old earth and heavens, and the creation of a new earth and new heavens" (vol. 1, p. 170)

    "It appears, then, that is Scripture be the best interpreter of Scripture, we have in the Old Testament a key to the interpretation of the prophecies in the New. The same symbolism is found in both, and the imagery of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the other prophets helps us to understand the imagery of St. Matthew, St. Peter, and St. John. As the dissolution of the material world is not necessary to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, neither is it necessary to the accomplishment of the predictions of the New Testament. But though symbols are metaphorical expressions, they are not unmeaning. It is not necessary to allegorise them, and find a corresponding equivalent for every trope; it is sufficient to regard the imagery as employed to heighten the sublimity of the prediction and to clothe it with impressiveness and grandeur. There are, at the same time, a true propriety and an underlying reality in the symbols of prophecy. The moral and spiritual facts which they represent, the social and ecumenical changes which they typify, could not be adequately set forth by language less majestic and sublime. There is reason for believing that an inadequate apprehension of the real grandeur and significance of such events as the destruction of Jerusalem and the abrogation of the Jewish economy lies at the root of that system of interpretation which maintains that nothing answering to the symbols of the New Testament prophecy has ever taken place. Hence the uncritical and unscriptural figments of double senses, and double, triple, and multiple fulfillments of prophecy. That physical disturbances in nature and extraordinary phenomena in the heavens and in the earth may have accompanied the expiring throes of the Jewish dispensation we are not prepared to deny. It seems to us highly probable that such things were. But the literal fulfillment of the symbols is not essential to the verification of prophecy, which is abundantly proved to be true by the recorded facts of history." (vol. i. p.200).
     
  20. Daniel David

    Daniel David New Member

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    GH, feel free to actually answer my questions instead of posting quotes that do not answer any of the questions.
     
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