God's Prophecies: what is behind them?

Purpledawn--I think I understand you. Thus, any TRUE prophet never "vainly prophecied out of their own imagination, right? In other words, the definition of a prophet was as you say one who spoke on behalf of God,right?This verse had me puzzled for a minute:So then I looked up the word "enticed"... So if a prophet were to be enticed, they would be following their own vain imagination or interpretation.If the Lord has enticed the Prophet, is that similar to the Lord allowing Satan to devestate Job?Perhaps there is an issue of common sense and free will on the Prophets part. They would know if the internal unction to say something came from the Lord or not, right? So enticement is not temptation....now I'm really confused. This message has been edited by Phatboy, 05-26-2005 06:54 AMThis message has been edited by Phatboy, 05-26-2005 06:57 AM

So in #1, God knows whats gonna happen and through the Prophet lets everyone know that if they don't change their ways, life will be difficult.In #2, God actually makes life difficult after telling everyone that it will get that way.I would say that #1 sounds more logical. The people bring on the difficulty by refusing to listen to God. He does not need to make life difficult. Refusal to listen to Him is in and of itself causing bad stuff to happen.

I thought about this one a bit as well. In James, it is said that God never tempts anyone.I am thinking that what this basically means, then, is that God allows the Prophet to feel the urge to speak, yet never actually gives the command to do so.Kinda like gossip is with many of us. We know that we know something that others do not know, yet it is not a necessary piece of information and the urge to retell it is because of our egos and our fleshly nature vs any altruistic motive.

I was just making sure that the original topic and issue was not "reframed" before it got off the ground. If I start a topic by asking "what did Gods word mean when He told Samuel to..." and you come along and say that the Biible is derived through human wisdom and not divine impartation, you are framing the issue from a non-believers standpoint. The whole point of my topic is to frame it from a believers standpoint. If you want to discuss human wisdom, start a new topic!

Buz, I have watched Jar for quite some time. He is right in that we really cannot nor should not judge his relationship to God. It is true that Jar is very liberal, and in fact believes that the final dispensation will have non religious people being accepted based on their works and not on their professed beliefs. this site has numerous scholarly interpretations of revelation. I am well aware of the traditional evangelical interpretation of revelation, and I lean towards the bible as inerrent and living word. Not so much inerrent literally and scholastically as inerrent practically and relationally.Berith.org -- Essays -- Understanding the Book of Revelation Another view.Jars view is quite liberal and is Anglican/Catholic/ Orthodox.Your view is Protestant, evangelical, and literal.This message has been edited by Phatboy, 05-30-2005 05:38 AM

Where does the prophecy say that most of the goats will be christians? While I agree that many who call themselves christian are not, I think that you are reading into this a bit. And i suppose that the sheep are all tree huggers who rolled up their sleeves and joined the peace corps!