Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
1 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Fulfillments of Bible Prophecy
Cedre
Member (Idle past 1490 days)
Posts: 350
From: Russia
Joined: 01-30-2009


Message 184 of 327 (507795)
05-08-2009 4:16 AM
Reply to: Message 163 by Modulous
05-05-2009 1:48 PM


Re: The confidence trick of prophecy
You didn't read my post before responding to this bit, perhaps? I have. Thousands of others have. And they didn't have the experience you did.
What experience were they anticipating when they went into Christianity? Perhaps they went into Christianity hoping for a particular feeling or experience but ended up getting something they didn’t hope for. My question is how can you say that you didn’t experience God if you were not formerly aware of what an experience with God feels like? Maybe what you felt is what an experience with God feels like. It’s practically the same as taking a drug for the very first time, before taking it you obviously have preconceived ideas of the feeling you might get after taking it, but at the best this is only a guess and the actual feeling may be widely divergent from what you had imagined.
The truth is every experience is unique Paul had a spectacular experience, which I will dub the Pauline experience, but many modern Christians, not all of them though, have had more humble experiences. So if your experience falls into the second category it doesn’t mean you didn’t experience God it simply means that your experience with Him wasn’t the Pauline experience you probably hoped for.
But the fact remains many people including Christians misconstrue what being in a relationship with God means, they think that a relationship with God is a warm tender sensation that lathers up in the gut causing you to feel good all over and when it dies back you desire it all over again and when it doesn't return you become depressed and overtime you succeed at convincing yourself that you have been forsaken by God.
This is a terrible mistake that is best avoided, but it is one that anyone can fall victim to even well grounded Christians become victims every so often. This is so because we are emotional creatures and we like getting emotionally involved in things including in our relationship with God, although this is not wrong it is wrong to base an entire relationship on an occasional warm fussy feeling that doesn’t even last.
A true relationship with God is not measured by how good you feel it is measured by how much faith we put in Him and have in His Word.
Luk 12:22 Jesus said to his disciples: I tell you not to worry about your life! Don't worry about having something to eat or wear.
Luk 12:23 Life is more than food or clothing.
Luk 12:24 Look at the crows! They don't plant or harvest, and they don't have storehouses or barns. But God takes care of them. You are much more important than any birds.
Luk 12:25 Can worry make you live longer?
Luk 12:26 If you don't have power over small things, why worry about everything else?
Luk 12:27 Look how the wild flowers grow! They don't work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn't as well clothed as one of these flowers.
Luk 12:28 God gives such beauty to everything that grows in the fields, even though it is here today and thrown into a fire tomorrow. Won't he do even more for you? You have such little faith!
Luk 12:29 Don't keep worrying about having something to eat or drink.
Luk 12:30 Only people who don't know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father knows what you need.
The important point that God wants to drive home here is our faith in him, without faith we cannot please God, as such our relationship with God also has to be established on faith and thus it is not so much about how we feel at a given time. And how is faith nurtured? By reading the bible and by spending quality time with God in prayer.
No. I called out, believing that he was my Holy Father. I appreciate that in order for your precarious faith to survive these facts, you have to find some reason to deny these things, you have to concoct a loophole to explain why it didn't work out for me, and for thousands - maybe millions, who are in a similar position.
Maybe you got lazy along the way; this may have been a result of you basing your relationship on something else other than faith. Only those who endure to the end will be saved the bible assures us. If you gave up along the way that’s your fault, don’t forget that you’re in a relationship here just like any other, if you neglect your partner this will cause a steady split between the two of you. If you didn’t spend quality time with God how did you expect your relationship to grow? To keep a relationship alive you need to apply a few principles to it the same goes if you want it to bloom; plow your relationship, sow in it, nurture it, make it work. If you draw nearer to God He will draw nearer to you, if you withdraw from Him He will withdraw from you also, it’s a give and take thing, it’s not one-sided.
1. You didn't try.
2. You didn't do it right.
3. You didn't believe hard enough.
4. Your subconscious scepticism interefered with God's desire to help.
These are valid points that could account for why your experience wasn’t so successful. If you doubt me don’t apply anyone of them in your human relationships and you will witness how in a short time they all bite the dust. If you’re in a marriage for example and if you don’t try to make it work or you don’t do it right for example you cheat and lie to your spouse and things like that, or you lack trust in your spouse, or you’re skeptical about your spouse’s love for you. Do you think after all of these things have taken place that your marriage will carry on to the next day or even grow? The same thing will happen with your relationship with God if you neglect or misuse it in any of the above ways. How can you honestly want a true experience or relationship with God if you’re not making an effort to have a true relationship? How ironic indeed is this.
Christianity is a faith-based relationship with God, it a relationship so treat it like one and you will see that it works after all.
Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Modulous, posted 05-05-2009 1:48 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 186 by Michamus, posted 05-08-2009 7:48 AM Cedre has not replied
 Message 188 by Modulous, posted 05-08-2009 8:32 AM Cedre has not replied

Cedre
Member (Idle past 1490 days)
Posts: 350
From: Russia
Joined: 01-30-2009


Message 185 of 327 (507796)
05-08-2009 4:38 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by purpledawn
05-07-2009 6:43 PM


Re: Righteous Servant
Righteous doesn't mean one has never sinned. The servant is called righteous after repentance. (Ezekiel 18)
Jesus still needed the baptism of repentance, so he probably did sin whether intentional or not. (Mark 1)
Your first point is right, but your second point is nothing more than a wild conjecture and even goes against what scripture teaches concerning the sinless nature of Jesus.
Removed from the "land of the living" could also mean removed from the land of Israel. Exile!
4th Servant Song
When Israel's exile finally ends, the leaders of the (Gentile) nations will marvel at a people who survived the expulsion(s) from the land of the living (an expression often used in the Hebrew Bible for the Land of Israel [e.g., Ezek 26:20, 32:23,24,25,26,27,32]), along with all the unfair and unjust treatment that accompanied their time in exile.
Purpledawn is at it again giving interpretation her own unique twist.
These scriptures she presents as support for whatever she believes by no means call Israel the land of the living. The phrase "land of the living" is a general phrase and not a specific one, which is used only to distinguish the world were the dead reside and the world were the living reside, it is not a specific phrase only referring to Israel as has been suggested by purpldawn.
Hard to tell in a poem over 2,000 years old in a dead language.
Its not been shown to be a poem number one and number two its not that hard to understand.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by purpledawn, posted 05-07-2009 6:43 PM purpledawn has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 189 by purpledawn, posted 05-08-2009 8:41 AM Cedre has not replied

Cedre
Member (Idle past 1490 days)
Posts: 350
From: Russia
Joined: 01-30-2009


Message 302 of 327 (508400)
05-13-2009 4:56 AM
Reply to: Message 301 by Theodoric
05-13-2009 12:14 AM


Re: Destruction of Jerusalem 70CE prophecy
His website is A Christian Thinktank , so I am sure he is very objectice. NOT.
As if the atheists are objective concerning their disbelieve in God. Is it not their refusal of the former that double up as motivation for their active denunciation of the miraculous and denunciation of God?
I find it highly two-faced for an atheist to assert and maintain that religious people are doctrinaire or subjective about their believes when in matter of fact atheists are just as passionate about defending their conclusions, and moreover one almost never encounters any constructive appraisal of God or of other faith issues by any atheist when visiting websites like EvC or talkorigins.org, or one will hardly find a critical review of atheism by any atheist. What you are sure to stumble upon is the slandering of religion and the veneration of atheism; if you call this behavior objective then this word has lost its meaning.
The simple fact that many atheist are in the business of actively crusading against any reflection of God even by children and being unattractively intolerant towards the idea of a god in their day to day lives while deifying atheism at the same time is proof that they are not objective at all but in fact are highly prejudiced.
To conclude this post I have one question. When is a person objective? Is it when he/she believes less in God or when he/she believes more in God?
Up to this point I have noticed that the largest number of posters here are more lenient to the first definition. I want the atheist to reply to this question? I would love to know how they define this word as it relates to the believe and disbelieve in God.
Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 301 by Theodoric, posted 05-13-2009 12:14 AM Theodoric has not replied

Cedre
Member (Idle past 1490 days)
Posts: 350
From: Russia
Joined: 01-30-2009


Message 325 of 327 (508477)
05-14-2009 5:03 AM
Reply to: Message 324 by purpledawn
05-13-2009 5:58 PM


Re: Destruction of Jerusalem 70CE prophecy
Mark 13:30
I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
As I said before, the statement concerns the generation the disciples could see in front of them, so to speak.
So the prophecy has a time limit.
Not so fast purpledawn! Looking assiduously at these verses reveal that Jesus was not alluding to the generation of his day that is the generation that he was speaking in; a careful reading of Luke 21:29-30, Mark 13:28-30, Matthew 24:32-33 will make this plain; instead Jesus was referring to the generation that will see the signs of his second coming happening. It’s easy to spot this if you refrain from reading the verses containing the generation quote in isolation and instead read it in tandem with the foregoing verses.
Let’s consider Mark 13:28-30 to bear out this point.
Now from the fig tree learn her parable: when her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh; even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation (The generation that knows that summer is nigh after witnessing the signs) shall not pass away, until all these things be accomplished.
(Mar 13:28-30)
The point of importance here is our understanding of the phrase ‘This generation’, what did Jesus denote by it? If he was talking about his generation, specifically the generation of the apostles then his prophecy has terribly failed since all of the things he mentioned would take place has not taken place yet, but the alternative interpretation as I have pointed out already is that Jesus was alluding to a distant generation that is the generation in which the signs he mentioned will start to materialize.
This interpretation has the support of the entire chapter; specifically Jesus provides qualifying statements like Mark 13:10 which state that the gospel must first be published among all nations before the signs can start to unfold. Therefore it is clear that these passages DO NOT refer to the generation Jesus was speaking in at the time or any other generation other than the generation that will witness the signs mentioned.
Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.
Edited by Cedre, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 324 by purpledawn, posted 05-13-2009 5:58 PM purpledawn has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024