I have my own theory about the "end times"

[JTornado1]

I might as well be overly blunt about this and say that people realizing that all that dispensationalist trash is false is for the better - there's a long history of people having 'wrong' beliefs about various religions (Christianity only being one that it's happened to), and when they see that most of the rest of the religion never followed those crackpot ideas they move on and the actual membership is unfazed, nor do I think those that weren't already dead-set against whatever religion it is will avoid it either. Those unable to cope with the fact their beliefs were misguided get caught in the crossfire, yes, but even a large number of them continue adhering to the religion they always followed, and just readjust their beliefs in light of what's happened.

That kind of end times belief is most visible in the United States, some of the aspects of it are almost totally exclusive to the US evangelical/fundamentalist camp (particularly the pieces about one world government conspiracies and the anti-European sentiments that usually accompany them). Moreover, even in the US, it's still a mixed bag because not all churches here fall into that demographic or have anything to do with that theological framework. Not to mention that the state of the US' pop-culture churches doesn't equal the state of Christianity itself. Maybe it represents the hollow, consumeristic, feel-good, milk-fed Modern Church, but that's not representative of Christianity either.

About using those differences to drive us apart, when hasn't that been the case? You only need to look at numerous other contentious theologies and groups that make rifts between believers or make believers look like they need to be locked up in the loony bin. But I still trust that the vast majority out there are able to understand that a particularly vocal minority isn't representative of all believers.

I concur.

 

[GailS2406]

Dear CF'ers - I would like to toss in a thought, which I have found stunning and I find so few believers talk about.

Did you know that the nation of Islam believes in their own 'end-time' Messiah. I find this notable and disturbing. This is only one of MANY links to this 'promise'. PLEASE COMMENT - I need your thoughts on this.

Your sister-in-Christ, Gail


The concept of Messiah in Islam

According to the unanimously accepted saying of the Prophet Muhammad, God will bring about a saviour before the end of time to establish the global domination of Islam over all religions. In other words, the saviour will establish the Kingdom of God on this earth. In Islamic traditions, that saviour is known by the name of "al-Mahdi".
The establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth at the hand of the righteous people has been clearly mentioned in the holy Qur’ãn. God says:

We would like to bestow a favour upon those who have been oppressed in the earth and make them leaders and make them inheritors (of the world)." (The Qur’ãn 28:5)
​

He again says,

Certainly, We wrote in the Psalms (Zabur)...`As for the earth, surely My righteous servants shall inherit it.’" (The Qur’ãn 21:105)
​

 

[katautumn]

I have no doubt that all these popular Christian speculations about the end of the world are all false. Particularly as there are so many interpretations of it. However, I have come to the conclusion that this continual barrage of all these end times speculations is causing people to become over familiar with all these themes.

And what will be the outcome of all this? Simply this. As the entire world continues to hear about the end of the world, the antiChrist, 666, the mark of the beast etc and as all these things DON'T come to pass, the world will be turned off Christianity. Because the world will see that these things are not happening. Like I said before, when you see Tim LeHaye parodied in The Simpsons, you know the message has become saturated.

I'm inclined to agree with you. On another message board there were many times when I had fallen away I'd lurk over there and would laugh every time someone would say, "oh, I'm not buying Christmas presents this year, because Jesus will be coming back before then". They were also saying, "I truly believe that we shouldn't be fearful about Obama being president, because we'll be raptured before the election". And then they're sitting here a year later wondering, "why does the Lord tarry, so?! How could we be so wrong about the signs?!" It gave me absolutely no reason to come back to Christ. If anything, their words and behaviors caused me to sink deeper into my skepticism.

 

[AzA]

Did you know that the nation of Islam believes in their own 'end-time' Messiah. I find this notable and disturbing.

Islam is not a nation. It is a religion.
It is also a near-universal religious expectation that all of creation will one day fully submit to ideal order. In monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- this is described as the establishment of the kingdom of God.

Ecclesiastes says that God set eternity in the hearts of men. It appears that God set hope in the hearts of men too. We were not designed to thrive in fear or disorder.

 

[katautumn]

I think GailS was referring to Nation of Islam, which is a branch of the Muslim faith predominantly comprised of black men and women.

 

[AzA]

Perhaps; and that would be even more interesting.

The NOI's cosmology draws from a million sources and yet doesn't make them any more a true "nation" than fearing Gargamel would make me a Smurf.

When I was younger I spent some time dealing with NOI and other such groups. They might call for separation but are not unique. Nor do they have the power or cohesion that would be necessary to run a kingdom coup on any country they're resident in.

That said, the webpage Gail quoted from deals with Islam, not the hybrid Afrocentric offshoot, the NOI.

And it's currently quite popular to believe that radical Muslims will try to take over the world and crush Christianity (this is rather than the Russian-Sino-Communist villains of Cold War era Christian fiction).

 

[AzA]

...the hybrid Afrocentric offshoot, the NOI.

On second thought -- I don't even know if it's accurate to describe the NOI as an offshoot of Islam.

The source of Islam is Arabia, around the 7th Century.

The source of the Nation of Islam is Detroit, MI, in 1930.

And the purposes of the two groups are vastly different.

 

[Mahammad]

Dear CF'ers - I would like to toss in a thought, which I have found stunning and I find so few believers talk about.

Did you know that the nation of Islam believes in their own 'end-time' Messiah. I find this notable and disturbing. This is only one of MANY links to this 'promise'. PLEASE COMMENT - I need your thoughts on this.

Your sister-in-Christ, Gail


The concept of Messiah in Islam

According to the unanimously accepted saying of the Prophet Muhammad, God will bring about a saviour before the end of time to establish the global domination of Islam over all religions. In other words, the saviour will establish the Kingdom of God on this earth. In Islamic traditions, that saviour is known by the name of "al-Mahdi".
The establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth at the hand of the righteous people has been clearly mentioned in the holy Qur’ãn. God says:

We would like to bestow a favour upon those who have been oppressed in the earth and make them leaders and make them inheritors (of the world)." (The Qur’ãn 28:5)
​

He again says,

Certainly, We wrote in the Psalms (Zabur)...`As for the earth, surely My righteous servants shall inherit it.’" (The Qur’ãn 21:105)
​

In Islam there are 2 Messiahs, the true Messiah and the lying Messiah

the true Messiah is Jesus and the lying Messiah will come in the future and will create for himself an army and will claim to be a God and will kill anyone who doesn't worship him until Jesus come back and slay him.

 

[AzA]

Formy -- which branch of Islam are you part of?
And are there any sections of the Qur'an or other traditional writings that support what you have shared?

I'd like to be able to read some more.

 

[dark-in-the-whale]

Well, it may be all metaphor. The end of one thing is the beginning of another. We see this in ourselves individually. One way of living dies in us and another is born. And we see this in the rise and fall of cultures.

I think the far extreme of end time thinking results in Jim Jones and other horror shows. It also provides self-righteous hypocrites with a means of feeling they will be saved while the rest of us burn.

Literal interpretation of scripture IMHO is absurd and dangerous.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Well, it may be all metaphor. The end of one thing is the beginning of another. We see this in ourselves individually. One way of living dies in us and another is born. And we see this in the rise and fall of cultures.

I think the far extreme of end time thinking results in Jim Jones and other horror shows. It also provides self-righteous hypocrites with a means of feeling they will be saved while the rest of us burn.

Literal interpretation of scripture IMHO is absurd and dangerous.

At the same time though, there's only so much of the Bible you can allegoricize before it becomes silly. Things like the Genesis creation story are not literal. This is evident from 1) science, and 2) the way the text was constructed. However, when people start allegoricizing every word in the Bible, the meaning is lost. A decent example is saying Jesus never actually existed but he was rather a metaphor for living a good life. That's just silly. The texts (and to some extent, the historical record) don't show anything like that. Now, I don't know of anyone who actually believes that. I'm sure there's someone out there that does, though. I completely agree with you about the end times, however.

 

[dark-in-the-whale]

I agree that one can't allegoricize the whole Bible. And I believe Christ was a real person -- recorded as such by Roman historians. However, I believe that there are stories in the Bible that are there because of the Rabinical practice of using stories and parables to teach. For example, in both Jonah and Job men go through terrible suffering in order to find God. Neither Jonah or Job would have come to God by reciting scripture or platitudinizing: they needed human experience after which the word became flesh.

There is a wonderful midrash in the Zohar that says that the whale was Jonah's body, tossed about in the storm (emotions, suffering) so that when he washed up on shore he knew the necessity of faith.

Back to allegory: Some of them are just plain bad. Some of the allegories that were imposed on scripture by later clerics are very destructive, e.g.; that we owe the presence of suffering in the world to Eve's, and thus all women's, yielding to temptation.

No, I don't allegoricize everything. I believe that Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt although I think the parting of the waters was a later mythic interpolation. As for locusts and frogs, there is scientific evidence that such things are real and do great damage to crops. Moses may have imputed a divine punishment here in order to strengthen his position.

I love the Bible. I am distressed when it becomes a tool of tyrants and charlatans.

By the way, I just received Stories of Intent, by Klyne Snodgrass. The subtitle is A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. Looking forward to digging in.

 

[Johnnz]

Allegorising has become less and less acceptable amongst expositors. It is highly subjective and there can be many different 'interpretations' of the same scriptures. Today a more objective approach is advocated, understanding scripture within its original and linguistic cultural context.

John
NZ

 

[Codger]

The Real End Times
From the creation of Adam - It took God a little over 4,000 years to bring about the cross. This was his crowning achievement of all time. The ancients longed and looked forward to that day - we look backward to it. I believe it was Friday April 15th 29AD - the year of the 29th Jubilee. I prefer the year of Jubilees because it is symbolically significant - which seems to be the pattern that God uses. The literal is the type of the spiritual. There are other opinions about this of course. The day that God instituted and set into place the legal document of the New Covenant - which superseded the Old Covenant.

The next great step in God’s great plan was to put the Word of God into the hands of the common man. This was necessary in order to prevent deception, establish stability, and to instruct his people in righteousness. This happened about 1750AD with the development of cheap mechanical printing technology. Of course all through time God was busy harvesting people for his kingdom. Jesus trained the first Christians who functioned very effectively. They were turning cities up side down where ever they went preaching Christ crucified and with demonstrations of power. The Church became apostate and God had to slowly bring it out of this period of the middle ages. He is presently rebuilding the contemporary Church to the effectiveness of the early Church.

This brings us up to about 1750AD. What has God been doing over the past 250+ years? He has been maturing and training his Church and according to the Prophets of our day (like Rick Joyner) will continue to do so until the day when he begins to reap the final harvest of all harvests. At that time part of the Church will be cleaned up enough (estimated at 20%) that they can be trusted with the power and gifts of the Lord. He loves mankind and is willing that none should perish. Today, it is the common practice of most Christians, Muslims, and Jews to throw the unbelievers, Goyim, and infidels under the bus. Not God - he will exhaust every possibility and method to bring the lost to him. He will clean up the church under the coming persecution and hard times. This will escalate and continue during the great harvest of souls of the whole world. Actually, most Christians that I know have been going through pure hell for about 25 years now - this is God hardening his people and getting them ready for the coming persecution.

This is God’s simple eschatology and all of those who think wrongly that God is about to pull all of the workmen (Christians) out of the field and let the crops go to rot during the final harvest are greatly mistaken.

You can see how doctrines like Dispensationalism have taken the Christian world way off in left field with all their exciting and sensational teaching of prosperity, health, healing, happiness, and escapism.

 

[Bick]

Hi everyone. I have been thinking about this subject for many years now and have formulated my own theory about all this speculation of end times events, as interpreted from the book of Revelation.

I warn you however, it's very different. I doubt you've ever heard a theory like mine before. And some of you may be offended. But let me explain myself first.

For literally thousands of years, people have been predicting the "end of the world" and the second coming. Complete with specific dates and times. And of course they have been all wrong.

I have been noticing that even the popular media is very familiar with popular Christian end times speculations. For eg, there is a Simpsons episode where they take off Tim LeHaye's 'Left Behind' with their own:

"Left below".

It features the righteous going to heaven by way of the rapture and all the people on earth "left below" to suffer through the tribulation. All non Christians know at least a little of popular Christian end times theology. Whether Christian or non Christian, everyone has heard of the AntiChrist, one world government, 666 the number of the beast (eg, the Iron Maiden album), the mark of the beast etc. All these things are popular features of cartoons, movies, documentaries, sitcoms, youtube, rock bands.

I have no doubt that all these popular Christian speculations about the end of the world are all false. Particularly as there are so many interpretations of it. However, I have come to the conclusion that this continual barrage of all these end times speculations is causing people to become over familiar with all these themes.

And what will be the outcome of all this? Simply this. As the entire world continues to hear about the end of the world, the antiChrist, 666, the mark of the beast etc and as all these things DON'T come to pass, the world will be turned off Christianity. Because the world will see that these things are not happening. Like I said before, when you see Tim LeHaye parodied in The Simpsons, you know the message has become saturated.

I firmly believe that all these end times speculations are being used by the enemy to turn the world cold to the gospel. That there will be a massive falling away and all this massive barrage of Christian end times speculation is one of the ways that it will happen.

Like I said, it's unconventional but I firmly believe that. Make of it (and me) as you will.

MY COMMENTS: Certainly, the "end of the world" or the "end of the age" has been predicted for many years (I'm not sure about 'thousands of years').

Of course, any dates for such an event are false. Only God the Father knows the hour.

I would have to agree with you, that all this propaganda about "the end times", especially when dates are given, make Christians look like idiots.
When the rapture comes, there might be some who recall what Bible preachers have preached, and become believers, but personally, I believe the mass of humanity will write it off as if the missing were snatched away by UFO's or something like that.

As for the rapture of the church/body of Christ, I not aware of any "prophecies" that have to be fulfilled for that to happen.