Jesus's Prophecy Of His Gospel

In Matthew 24:14 Jesus prophesied that his new little religion/gospel would eventually be preached worldwide. The literal Greek text reads thus: "And will be proclaimed this gospel of the kingdom in all the inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations. And then will come the end."1. It was an itty bitty new little religion considered by the mainstream as a cult when the prophecy was uttered.2. The one who made the prophecy was soon after executed. Bigtime negative for the shakey new religion, humanly speaking.3. His desciples who were to begin the fulfillment were neither wealthy, powerful, highly educated nor influential.4. The mainstream religion of the time and region did everything possible to stop/hinder the spread of the new cult.5. The original desciples were nearly all executed also, according to tradition.6. Jerusalem, headquarters of the religion was soon invaded and routed.7. The Ceasars of Rome determined to stamp out the religion after the destruction, inflicting terrible torture and death to the Christians.8. When the prophecy was uttered, most of the inhabited world was not even discovered yet.So folks now, here we are with the prophecy pretty much fulfilled and that gospel book an all time best seller for decades, when humanly speaking the odds of it's ever being fulfilled were nigh unto impossible.This again is a prophecy of Jesus given during that same Olivet Discourse to his desciples who questioned him about the end time, that same discourse which we debated concerning the city of Jerusalem.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-23-2003]

Holms and PaulK,The prophesy is more significant because it was prophesied to extend to the entire inhabited world at a specified time when other prophecies of the same book were to be fulfilled, such as the ousting of the gentiles from the city of Jerusalem, the phenominal advance of knowledge, ditto world travel, ditto world government.

On second thought, not a good post.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-23-2003]

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I totally agree that what he said would happen has happened, but it has happened for many religions which 1) started under persecution, 2) survived until picked up by a powerful force (for Xtianity it was Rome), and 3) lasted until modern times where globalization has spread them worldwide.

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1. Of the scores of religions/cults which have emerged, only a very few have survived to become world religions.2. My point here is that of the scores of religions/cults which have existed the last two milleniums, none of these had prophesied that they would become world religions and if they had prophesied they wouldn't have the other prophecies that the Bible has to lend support to the specific fulfillment of the prophecy such as the Bible has given to show that the end time events which were to accompany the gospel prophecy at the time it was to be fulfilled would be in place at the same time.This is supernatural stuff; stuff, which as complicated complex DNA just doesn't happen by spontaneous naturalistic happenstance. You schoolastically saturated scholars of secularistic stuff need to be deprogrammed and apprised of the reality of the supernatural.

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The Bible is still being spread throughout the world buz.

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Uh huh. Yah, it sure is, isn't it? In fact, I have friends/Christian brother and wife who are presently translating the Bible into Indonesian dialects. It's not completed completely complete, but completedly becoming complete. Thanks to computers and other modern communication technology, the prophecy's fulfillment is on the fast track to complete fulfillment.

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But for the Athiest out there according to your interpertation or for your interpertation the world at the time the Apostles where on the earth was ONLY ROME so there for it reached the entire known world.

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Quiz, are you trolling for Biblical adversaries, or what? You showed up on the forum with your post #1 at the onset of my last Jerusalem thread. Statements like the above make me wonder why you just happened to emerge in these debates at such a time?????I repeat, the prophecy states that the gospel will be preached to the ENTIRE INHABITED WORLD for fulfillment.

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If you want to take it further the end also came in a way because the christian religon took over rome, pagan was expelled,etc

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1. Nonsense! Please read the entire accounts of the Olivet Discourse as given in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. Then tell the www whether the prophesied end time could have came in the fourth century AD.2. Please initiate a thread defining the Christian religion. (Do not derail this thread.) What showed up on the scene of world religions in the era of Constantine and how that scene played out in history is a far cry, I'm sure, from the fundamentals Jesus and his apostles established for the religion of NT Christianity.

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You can take it even further by remembering the prophecies about the stars falling from the sky, etc, this could be metaphore and be speaking about the gods of the pagan religon, in anycase the stars sure fell when the christian religon or formally known as catholic took over.

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You're delving into another topic here, but for the record, there's stars up there as we post which will indeed fall some time in the future in one way or another. Look up into the sky. When you see a star which seems to be moving, it is moving. They are called satelites which have been propelled up there by earth folk. They appear as stars. Will these fall when Jesus appears in the clouds at his 2nd advent? I don't know, but that is a possible fulfillment of this prophecy. I post this because you brought it up, but this is not the thread for delving into these other prophecies indepth. Please don't ask me to open a thread on this prophecy, because it's not on my list as a significant prophecy which I can dogmatically explain and interpret.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-24-2003]

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That's the problem, Buz. The supernatural just doesn't exist. It can't, by definition. On the one hand, if it's something that can affect reality, then it's not supernatural, it's natural. On the other, if it's superior to nature and can't affect it, then there's no reason to suppose it exists.

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This is such an obvious paradox about the supernatural that I'm surprised that somebody as old as you hasn't picked up on it.

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I gota love your illogical logistics, Crashy! They're pithly profound. Cool job of spinning off the reality of the supernatual and demeaning ole buz in one fell swoop.

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Buz, I have a question regarding how it is that you think about Biblical prophecy.
Do you look at the prophecies individually, figure out if they have come true or not, and then base your belief upon those conclusions?

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Well, I see you've already made up your mind as to the answer to your questions. So why did you put it in the form of a question anyhow? Do you want me to answer or are you going to stick with the answers you seem to have already convinced yourself of?

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Or, do you have faith that the Bible must be the inerrant word of God first, before looking at any of the prophecies, therefore making it impossible for you to ever consider that some of them might be so vague as to be meaningless, or that some might even be false or wrong? Wouldn't this just make it very likely that you will be tempted to interpret each prophecy in such a way as to support what you already believe?

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If, as I suspect, the second scenario is the case with you, then why bother having this discussion?

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You probably don't use the prophecies as reasons to believe; ........

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[you do it the other way around.]

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See? Your mind is made up, isn't it? So why should I try to convince you otherwise?[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-24-2003]

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So, buz, what is this evidence of the supernatural?

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Get yourself a pencil and paper and write down all the items I've itemized in this thread as to fulfillment and there, you have the supernatural. I've already explained as to how these are unusual and unique as required by true prophecy. I've not going to itemize them again for you personally. Your mind seems to be biasly set, so why waste my time?

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No faith no way you will ever really know he is there, you can debate all day long with no faith, you wont find anything.

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This is false and contrary to scripture. To the fundie Bibicalist, faith is not blind, as you are implying by your statement. The Heavens Gate folks from wealthy town, Rancho Santa Fe, Ca, all intelligent ordinary people who took their own lives simultaneously had very deep/powerful faith that somehow they were to link up to the Haley Comet which came through a few years ago. What was their faith based on? What they heard. What did they hear? unsubstantiated opinion of one man, who did nothing supernatural or provide ample evidence that what they were going to do would effect the desired objective. They died in their faith in their youth prime of their lives sensless death.In Romans 10:17 we read, "So belief (faith) comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." What were the words of Christ? That he was the son of God and he proved it by visible miracles, including the raising of the dead and spoken prophecy fulfilled as was predicted by the OT prophets centuries previous. Islamic suicide murderers, like the Heaven's Gaters, were inspired and taught by one man who performed no miracles, cited no fulfilled prophecies and who violated his own law in the religion of Islam. This is the fastest growing religion in the world today, including in the US where these devouts have crippled our economy, murdered thousands, destroyed the two towers of commerce of our nation and heavily damaged our Pentagon. Yet there is more support in this forum and elswhere in academia in America for this Mideastern religion than there is for Biblical Christianity from which our freedom heritage and blessings came. The Bible is being undermined, hated and attacked in America since the hippy sixties.------------------
The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buz
An eternal creator is as logical as an eternal universe which would be illogical without an eternal creator. buz[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 10-25-2003]

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The question to buz, and if you want to address it please do, is...

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In a world filled with supernatural prophets, and many Gods, what properties do you use to judge false prophecy from true prophecy?

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1. The false prophet often plagerizes prophecy from the Bible, with enough doctoring to make it sound original.
2. Is the prophecy something that would require a supernatural fulfillment by being rendered unpredictable when given.
3. Does the prophet have a consistent record of fulfilled prophecy?
4. For Biblical prophets, does the prophecy contradict other scripture?

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I think I agree with this as well... but I would like clarification first, maybe an example.

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Jesus's prophesies of several of the events in his Olivet Discourse were good examples such as the Gentiles occupying Jerusalem and then being booted in the end times coupled with his gospel will also be preached to all nations coupled with the budding of the fig tree, etc are a good example. Note that I said they should be unpredictable, not impossible.

BTW, Holmes, I'd tend to agree with your added criteria for bonafide prophets/prophesy.

That it was fulfilled in conjunction with other end time prophecies given at the same time, such as the gospel being published among all nations after "wars and rumors of wars" and earthquakes and such in many places, etc would be remarkable indeed. The wording of the whole discourse indicates a far off future fulfillment and for the gentile nations to be ousted after all that time would be highly unlikely.

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The prophecy should NOT involve common or naturally occuring events people are likely to see, so that their observation would indicative that something out of the ordinary has occured, and further that the prophet was unlikely to have known or guessed that it would happen in advance.

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I understand your limitation that "out of the ordinary" means "improbable" and not "impossible".

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Does this capture what you were after?

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