I don't. That's like trying to give someone directions to a certain location, and at the same time giving the recipe to a particular cake. It's confusing.
God gives lots of pictures of things that point to a greater thing. Passover pointed to Jesus, for instance.
But I do believe that the word of God, being generally true, can apply in similar ways throughout history. As such, certain events can be given by God as foreshadowings. For example, Joseph lived his life in such a way that it gives prophetic images of the coming Christ. It becomes, as such, a kind of "prophecy" of Christ, an allusion to what Christ would do.
Correct, and such is the way I see imperfect fulfillments like Antiochus. I do not accept "close enough" when it comes to Revelation by God who knows the end from the beginning. If inspired scripture says that the vile man does not worship the god of his fathers, I don't accept a Zeus worshiping Greek Syrian as the true fulfillment. I don't accept Alexander III, the 23rd Macedonian King, as the "first king" in Daniel 8. I do not accept imperfection from a perfect God. An imperfect God is not worthy of worship. "Close enough" is for humans. Humans are unworthy of worship.
That is the core when it comes down to it. God is worthy of worship, therefore He must be perfect, meaning He never gets details wrong, even small ones. So if there are imperfections in historical fulfillments, then it is not what God actually meant, and it will be fulfilled perfectly in the future.
I think we get the false notion of "dual prophecy" when certain truths in prophecy are sort of abbreviated or squeezed together in a time when there is little need for a strict chronology of events.
I don't accept imperfect pictures as fulfillment of something that comes from God.
Joel has always been a little difficult for me, and I would never establish "dual fulfillment" as a tool in Scripture based on a controversial interpretation. Peter quoted Joel to show that the locust plague would have an end to it, and that after it would be final deliverance, preceded by visions and dreams by God's People.
There is no effort by Joel to categorize these things into a specific time frame. We know from history that deliverance actually began with Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, and will be completed at his Return. This explains why Peter saw us having visions and dreams after Christ's resurrection, but well before his 2nd Coming.
The subject of the "Day of the Lord" is a whole another subject! It's one of my favorite subjects actually. I couldn't possibly hope to cover it at the same time as looking at Dan 11! But I don't think it's "dual fulfillment" as much as separating an eschatological Day of the Lord from a more generic, non-eschatological "Day of the Lord."
Well the sun and moon darkened on the day Jesus was crucified, and John wrote about it happening again.
I actually can't look at that as anything other than a dual fulfillment. Because when Jesus was crucified and the sun and moon darkened.... people didn't mourn and wail, they mocked Jesus as He hung on the cross. But John wrote that when the sun and moon darken at the 6th seal... that men would hide in rocks and dens and caves and ask the rocks to fall on them to hide them from the face of He who sits on the throne and the lamb. Clearly something else coming.
I have a similar, but different take on it. I believe Dan 11 was a specific event--not a dual event. It referred to Antiochus 4 (the latter part of the chapter). But I do agree that God designed it to look like Antichrist in some respects. I would call it "parallel fulfillment" rather than "dual fulfillment."
That's exactly my point. Dan 11 was an exact portrait of Antiochus, but not the Antichrist. You're making the point for me against using "dual fulfillments." It otherwise can get very confusing.
Well it's Daniel 11 that disputes details about Antiochus. The later half of Daniel 11 says the vile man won't regard any god, much less the god of his fathers. Antiochus worshiped the Greek Pantheon. He was a Greek. The Greek pantheon were the gods of his fathers. He didn't worship a "god of forces", an impersonal god.
Atheists do.
Their god isn't a person, it's an impersonal "science". They don't use science as just knowledge of the natural world, they worship and place faith in "science". It's not a person, it's an idea, and it's often.. represented by forces, like those in physics.
So by Antiochus placing a statue of Zeus in the temple, showing his god, the god of his fathers... disqualifies him to me as anything but a picture.
I think it's *very wise* to always keep an open mind. When do we ever stop being corrected by the Lord in these sinful bodies? I finally settled, however, on the Roman Empire because it is the 4th Kingdom of Dan 2 and 7, which apparently lasts until the coming of the Kingdom.
The Roman Empire in its ancient form passed away, but became what we call "European Civilization." It has been dominant throughout the present era up until the present. And if both the US and Russia ultimately join central Europe as a single political entity it would truly fit what Revelation says, "Who can do battle with him?"
I think Dan 2 and 7 are the same and were repeated because it was a confirmation--2 or more witnesses establish the credibility and certainty of a truth, in particular something so important historically. One was Nebuchadnezzar's Dream, and the other Daniel's Dream. They had slightly different details, confirming the same reality, in my opinion.
I disagree, the statue did not have a particular "little horn" like character that was warned about throughout Daniel from 7 on, and the 3 other beasts are allowed to continue after the 4th beast is killed, after the return of Jesus.
The statue dream has all components of the statue destroyed at once when Jesus returns.
Daniel was also disturbed by the visions in Daniel 7. If this was just a repeat (which was probably what he expected until he realized there were differences that made them impossible to be the exact same interpretation) he wouldn't have been disturbed and wouldn't have needed explanation.
The Babylonian, Persian, and Greek empires are over and done. They won't be continuing just without dominion after the second coming because they've been dead for thousands of years.
I think Islam remains so large an Antichrist because they represent the other members of Abraham's progeny. There are the Jews and the Arabs. The Arabs started Islam, and God promised to bless Abraham's descendants, both the Jews and the Arabs. This does not mean God has ever condoned Islam, except that He has allowed its faith in "one God" to continue unabated. In the same way God has allowed Judaism to continue with its belief in "one God."
But this is not the kind of Antichrist that rises out of the sea and out of the land of the 4th Kingdom of Rome. That was Europe. And an Antichrist must come from within the Christian "nation," namely European post-Christian Civilization, in my opinion.
No, rather Islam is so large an Antichrist because it denies that Jesus is come in the flesh. They revere Jesus as a prophet, an important prophet even, they have an empty tomb in Medina next to Mohammad's tomb set aside for Jesus after He returns.
However they teach that Jesus was just a man, who did not die, but was raptured to heaven alive, and will return, but be subservient to the Mahdi, and point at the Mahdi as the one everyone should follow, and proclaim Islam, and convert many Christians and Jews to Islam.
It sounds almost like the false prophet. Jesus did warn that people would come in His name and deceive many.
2 horns like a lamb... spake like a dragon. The dragon always taught people to rely on their own works and work their way to heaven their own way.
Islam is the craftiest religion that Satan taught men, containing enough of the truth to be believable... and therefore extremely dangerous. Someone masquerading as historical Jesus may be the false prophet, or one of many false prophets that Jesus warned about.
I think Gog is Russian, but like you I await further information. I could see Gog taking control of Europe, but it certainly isn't the reality now, so it may not happen--I don't know yet.
Well again, God didn't warn about other "penultimate" dictators, He warned about a singular eschatalogical dictator and used historical dictators and evil men (like Haman, not the King, but someone who had the King's ear who coudl convince the King to order the death of all Jews) to paint the picture of what he'd be like.
So when God rhetorically asks Gog if he's the guy that God has been warning about through the prophets.. to me it identifies Gog as antichrist.
I don't see any basis for that. But again, I don't know. It seems Russia and the US have been reserved by God for some great purpose in the last days? Destroying them would seem to undo what God's been developing over centuries now?
Them destroying each other to fulfill the 4th seal and totally upend the entire world system (to install a new one under the beast), and subvert most people's eschatological expectations would be their purpose.
Many people believe that either America is a Christian nation that will all be raptured, or that Antichrist will be the President of the US or something, and others believe that Russia is Gog and will invade Israel. How humbling will it be if they destroy each other in a nuclear war and prove virtually everyone wrong because they are not God?
It also leads to this: both the US, and Western Europe, and Russia, are all considered by the rest of the world to be "Christian Nations". If they cause a war that wipes out 1/4 of the population of the world and rains radioactive fallout over everyone.... and it was because of a war between "Christians" and other "Christians"....
what do you think the rest of the world, being largely Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Atheist will do to the Christians that remain in South America, Africa, Australia, China, etc?
My guess?
Revelation 6
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
Judgment is coming, and is always taking place in lesser forms. Final judgment takes place at Armageddon. Separating preliminary judgments from the final judgment is difficult to do at this point for me.
Right but before Armageddon, at least half the people on the planet (1/4th at 4th seal, a further 1/3 at the 6th trumpet) are killed.
