Hez 6:66? Nah Hermano with all due respect… you just can’t keep making this stuff up in the name of biblical prophecy.
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What the hell does that mean?
“He’s no saint. But then…” I was suggesting the kinds of rationalizations some Christians might offer for their support of Antichrist, when they speak about him after he comes to power, and after he starts persecuting Jews. In other words, they might say something like,
“God is using him (Antichrist) to help us, but not the Jews. Tough luck for them; but, persecution of the Jews aside, Antichrist (who we don’t realize yet really is Antichrist) is a pretty good guy, even if he’s not a believer.”
Cyrus the Great was not a believer, but God used him to help God’s people. Today, many Christians believe God is done with the Jews, and has no special plans for them in the future. That attitude is called “Replacement Theology” (the Church has replaced Israel). To quote “GotQuestions.org” before Randy does:
Replacement theology (also known as supersessionism) essentially teaches that the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan. Adherents of replacement theology believe the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, and God does not have specific future plans for the nation of Israel.
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I think God sees our beginning and end at the same time, and is in both places at the same time. If we drew a timeline of all human history–say from Adam being born, until the very last person is finally born again–on a piece of paper, God would be that piece of paper, holding and surrounding the timeline.
The prophets, although seeing the present, were also seeing into the future, in the Spirit. They then tried to describe their vision to us, using the limited vocabulary of their own time, and culture—and imperfect theology—for example, the false idea that God is a bipolar, violent killer; when actually, He’s not.
Making this stuff up? No, I am interpreting Scripture from a futurist viewpoint. Take the book of Habakkuk, for example.
The conditions surrounding Antichrist’s future rise; his sensuality; his corruptness; his violence; his defeat; and the Second Coming were all laid out long ago by the prophet Habakkuk. Sure, Habakkuk might have also been anticipating Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Jerusalem in 586 BC; but I am certain the book is primarily warning about Antichrist, and also giving hope about God’s rescue and justice at the Second Coming.
-In Chapter 1, Habukkuk starts out talking about seeing terrible conditions of violence and injustice all around him. I think he is actually describing coming world conditions just before the rise of the Antichrist, thousands of years after his own lifetime.
Then Habakkuk talks about a wicked foe who catches people in his net, and who is “destroying nations without mercy.” I think this is specifically Antichrist.
-In Chapter 2, God tells Habakkuk to…
“Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald may run with it.
3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come
and will not delay.
Note that in this revelation, God says He is speaking about “the end.”
Then the next verse, verse 4, is famous for its impact on the apostle Paul, as well as on Martin Luther:
“See, the enemy is puffed up;
his desires are not upright—
but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
Again, I think this “puffed up enemy” is Antichrist. Habakkuk’s description of this enemy goes on to tell of his use of wine (intoxicants), his bloodshed, his plunder of many nations, his “violence done to Lebanon,” and his idolatry.
-In Chapter 3, ask yourself, are we reading about Nebuchadnezzar’s end (who apparently died of old age), or Antichrist’s–at the Second Coming of Christ? Here is chapter 3 verses 3-4 & 13
God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.
4 His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden.
…
13 You came out to deliver your people,
to save your anointed one.
You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness,
you stripped him from head to foot.
Hmmm. Now wait a minute. God did not personally, dramatically come down from heaven to rescue his people from the Babylonians when they overwhelmed Israel in 586 BC.
And God did not personally, dramatically destroy Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, in 586 BC, either. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar eventually became a believer! Daniel records Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion testimony in Daniel 4:
“…Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just…”
So if Habakkuk was not foretelling the 586 BC Babylonian situation against Israel under Nebuchadnezzar, then we are still waiting for the future fulfillment of what he was describing.
To reiterate, the book of Habakkuk describes the dark world conditions at the rise of Antichrist, his corrupt nature, his large scale conquests and violence, and his demise at Christ’s Second Coming.
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Riposte… that’s a case of one-and-the-same-thing 
This is the inherent weakness of dispensationalism… Sure it can acknowledge the prophetic and historic context BUT in a heartbeat dismiss it out of hand based off nothing but an a priori of which it claims as certainty.
Yeah… “the end” of exile because of “the end”of the Babylonian empire courtesy of Medo-Persians — it’s ALL there in the bible AND history!
Ok, so God doesn’t turn up according to YOUR preferred modus operandi — therefore God didn’t turn up at all, REALLY?
Prophecy is figurative and symbolic language describing temporal events in terms of their spiritual significance — the OT prophets used cosmic language to describe these catastrophic and transformative historical events. Come to the NT and we find Christ’s parousia was imminent in their lifetimes, which means that it must be long-fulfilled by ours. What would happen if we began to walk in the empowerment of these promises kept?
Or to quote Tom Wright…
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and one more time… WRONG!
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Regarding the Seven Annual Festivals of Israel, and Their Prophetic Significance
The Jews still observe the seven annual feasts described in Leviticus 23:
- Passover (in Hebrew, “Pesach”)
- Unleavened Bread (Hag-Ha-Matzot)
- Firstfruits (Bikkurim)
- Weeks (Shavuot); a.k.a. “Pentecost” (Greek, pentēkostḗ hēmérā: fiftieth day)
- Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah)
- Atonement (Yom Kippur)
- Tabernacles (Succoth)
These seven feasts are not only commemorative, but also prophetic. It can be convincingly demonstrated that the first three were prophetically predictive of the First Coming of Jesus. And that the last three are associated with his Second Coming. And that the fourth one—right in the middle of the series—is associated with the Church. (Also, that the third rapture is prophetically anticipated in the fifth festival, the Feast of Trumpets!)
The first four festivals have already been prophetically fulfilled by Jesus:
1- Passover: Jesus was the Passover Lamb,
1 Corinthians 5:7
Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
2- Unleavened Bread: Jesus is the sinless bread of life,
John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
3- Firstfruits: Jesus is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,
1 Corinthians 15:20
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
4- Weeks/Pentecost: after His ascension, during the time when the Festival of Weeks (Pentecost) was being celebrated in Jerusalem, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to baptize his disciples, who had been told to wait for that experience in order that the Church would be initiated in his power:
Acts 2:1–4
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.(Interestingly, the giving of the law at Mount Sinai is actually celebrated during this festival of Weeks/Pentecost. Yet at Mount Sinai, three thousand people died at that event, Ex. 32:27-28. But now we Christians understand that the Mosaic covenant was a ministry of condemnation and DEATH, 2 Cor. 3:7-9. Whereas under the New Covenant of abundant LIFE, during the festival of Weeks—when at another mountain, Zion, Peter preached the perfect representative of God’s true, unipolar nature of love, Jesus (God the Son)—3,000 people received the gift of eternal life! Acts 2:41.
Also, the Book of Ruth is traditionally read during the Festival of Weeks, because the story is a reminder to the Jews that God is also concerned for the gentiles; plus, the setting of the story is during the Feast of Weeks—which celebrates the late spring harvest.
We Christians now understand that BOAZ, the kinsman-redeemer of Ruth (who was a gentile) REPRESENTS the kinsman-redeemer of all gentiles: JESUS of Nazareth. And we gratefully acknowledge that our salvation is from the Jews, John 4:22.)
The last three festivals–in their prophetic fulfillment by Jesus–are still pending:
5 The Feast of Trumpets: it will be prophetically fulfilled at the final Rapture, when all Christians meet Jesus in the clouds, at the sounding of the seventh and final trumpet:
1 Corinthians 15:51-52
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—
52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.Revelation 11:15 (NIV)
The Seventh Trumpet
15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”
6- The Feast of Atonement (Yom Kippur): will be prophetically fulfilled at the Second Coming of Christ, at which time all the Jews will finally recognize Jesus of Nazareth for who he really is: their Messiah–
Zechariah 12:10
“They will look upon me whom they have pierced, they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only Son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for their firstborn.”Zechariah 13:1
“In that day, a fountain shall be opened for the House of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sins and for uncleanness.”(Today in Israel, Yom Kippur is a day of national mourning, a day of fasting and prayer for the afflicting of one’s soul, Leviticus 23:28-29.)
7- Tabernacles: this feast will be prophetically fulfilled during the Millennial Age. We are told that the wicked people who attacked Jerusalem during the Battle of Armageddon, and survived, must go to Jerusalem each year to pay homage to Jesus (or, more probably, they must send representatives each year):
Zechariah 14:16-17
16 Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles.
17 If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain.I don’t believe this Zechariah passage is warning of a lack of physical rain for the disobedient, but rather a lack of spiritual rain; after all, concerning physical rain, Jesus has already clarified the true nature of his unchanging Father,
Matthew 5:45b
“…He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”The Feast of Tabernacles always includes water libations: offerings of thanksgiving to God for providing much needed rainfall.
But water is also the symbol of spiritual blessing: it was actually during this very feast of Tabernacles that Jesus stood up, and made the symbolic connection between physical water and spiritual water, in his famous invitation—
John 7:37
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.”(But, of course, a person must be willing to come to Jesus in order to receive his living water in this life…or else, postmortem–that is, after Hades, and after being cast into the remedial lake of fire outside the City gates, when those in that lake will still be invited to come in through those gates which are never shut:
Revelation 22:17
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.)
And of course, the symbolism of the Holy Spirit as water had already been laid out in the Old Testament; for example, by Isaiah:
Isaiah 45:8
“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the Lord, have created it.”
We recall that Peter quoted the prophet Joel–who spoke of both early and latter rains–in order to contextualize the strange new phenomenon of the disciples speaking by the Holy Spirit in tongues:
Acts 2:15-21
15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!
16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood BEFORE THE COMING OF THE great and glorious DAY OF THE LORD.
21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
Futurists believe that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit during Acts 2 represented the first of two outpourings: 1) during Peter’s time, at the beginning of the Church Age; and 2) at the end of the Church Age, in a second outpouring yet to come.
Remember, Joel does specify TWO times of “rain”:
Joel 2:23
“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.
Within the charismatic world, there is much argument about the timing of this yet-to-come second great outpouring of the Holy Spirit; but Joel 2:20 (above, earlier) relates the timing of the next outpouring to when “the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood,” which is noted to be ‘before The Day of the Lord.’
We also read another reference in Revelation concerning those same phenomena involving the sun and moon:
Rev. 6:12
I watched as he opened the SIXTH seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red,
And, as graphically illustrated in my Revelation chart—
RevChart1997BloomfieldSeiss.pdf
—the opening of “the SIXTH seal” (in Rev. chapter 6) is located during the Great Tribulation, shortly before The Day of The Lord commences. Hence, the “latter rain” outpouring of the Holy Spirit should probably be expected after the Pre-Trib Rapture, during the Great Tribulation.
Note: this suggested location for the second outpouring being during the coming Great Tribulation, is in sharp contradiction to the opinion of the dominionists of the New Apostolic Reformation, who insist that the prophesied Latter Rain is happening right now; and that virtually every strange spiritual manifestation in the Church today should be accepted unquestioningly as part of that second outpouring, and that these manifestations (for example, gold dust, angel feathers, glory clouds, “holy” laughter) are supposedly helping the Church to now set up God’s kingdom on earth—BEFORE the Second Coming of Christ. Whereas biblically, God’s kingdom will come when Jesus himself comes to earth with his Church to set up his Messianic Kingdom—personally, physically, and visibly.
Blessings.
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So what does this all mean? I mean to the average Christian that stumbles upon this site and this post?
Hopefully, they should see their need to prepare, because hard times are coming. But that nevertheless, God has a good ending to the story of mankind: we all live happily ever after!
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such a bad view of a great God…
I love you, Hermano. Really, I do. You clearly show by your testimony that you truly love the Lord and look forward to His coming back to this sad world to bring righteousness and restoration from the mess we have collectively made of it.
However, I cannot accept your take on prophetic scripture, particularly your understanding of what John (either the apostle or some other John) wrote in the book we call the Revelation of John. I don’t believe we can be so dogmatic as you appear to be about what it teaches. It’s too late this evening for me to expand upon that statement. I’ll attempt to do so in a future post and I’ll simply say for now that I believe it was written around 68 AD for the Christians living during Nero’s reign and for us is history but with many lessons we can take and apply to our own lives in this current period awaiting the final resurrection and emergence of a new earth and heaven wherein will dwell the righteousness for which we were originally intended.
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The use of the false filter of God being bipolar is reflected more by some translators than others.
Consider Mark 3:29. The context is that Jesus had been accused by the teachers of the law of casting out demons by the power of Satan. So Jesus explained the illogic of that accusation: Satan would be opposing himself. In verse 29, Jesus then went on to warn against blaspheming the Holy Spirit—which people do whenever they misidentify the Holy Spirit as being Satan.
Compare Mark 3:29 in the NIV translation, vs. in the YLT translation:
Mark 3:29 NIV
but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will NEVER be forgiven; they are guilty of an ETERNAL sin.”
Mark 3:29 YLT (Young’s Literal Translation)
but whoever may speak evil in regard to the Holy Spirit HATH NOT FORGIVENESS – to the age, but is IN DANGER of AGE-DURING judgment;’
-In the NIV translation of this verse, an unbeliever is wrongly given cause to think: “Oh no! I too have maligned manifestations of the Holy Spirit! So I am guilty of an ‘eternal sin,’ and I can never possibly be forgiven!”
-Whereas the YLT has Jesus saying that a blasphemer has not received forgiveness (is not yet a believer), and is in danger of a terrible, but temporary, judgment.
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With all due respect Hermano IMO this bipolar/unipolar is nothing but your own concocted invention… the Scriptures no nothing of it, and it seems only introduced by you to facilitate your own varied doctrinal propositions, i.e., you’ve simply introduced your own false filter straw-man to support your own said presuppositions — nothing more and nothing less.
Davo, whether I’m right or wrong, I respectfully reaffirm my honest belief that I am interpreting the Scriptures correctly about man’s bipolarity after the Fall, and God’s unchanging unipolarity.
And speaking of the Scriptures, in contradistinction to you, I do believe there was a real (literal, physical) Garden; a real Adam, from dirt, and Eve, from his flesh; a real snake used to tempt Eve; and a real Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Well that’s fine, I can appreciate this is your honest belief… but what does taking such things literally mean when you then go and attach any number non-biblical interpretations that don’t count for diddly-squat?
Davo, since the time our ancestors ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the (commonly undiscerned) filter of bipolarity is THE default filter which people use when they read the Scriptures by the letter, instead of by the Spirit (that is, by the unipolar filter of agapē).
This wrong view of God as bipolar is the reason many people give as much, or more, weight to the particular Scriptures which indicate God is bipolar, over the Scriptures which indicate He is actually unipolar. For example,
Bipolar Scriptures (The “LORD” is not only loving, but also vindictive, legalistic, and violent…like Satan):
Genesis 12:3
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;Exodus 4:24-25
24 At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him.
25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said.Numbers 11:33
But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.Isaiah 63:6
“I trampled the nations in my anger; in my wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground.”Habakkuk 3:2
LORD….in wrath remember mercy.
Unipolar Scriptures:
Matthew 5:44-45
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven . He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.Luke 6:28
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.Romans 12:14
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.Romans 12:21
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Hebrews 2:14
SINCE THE CHILDREN have flesh and blood, HE TOO SHARED in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—1 John 4:8, 16
God IS love.
By wrongly thinking God is fickle and bipolar, people presume He is more of a Judge than a Father: someone who sends them pain in this life, and then perhaps who will send them on to a never-ending torture chamber in the next, because they angered and disappointed Him. Whereas He is actually a loving, gracious Daddy, always reaching out with open arms.
Such bipolar people—with a false, bipolar image of God—are double-minded and ineffective for the Kingdom, and in bondage to fear their whole lives.
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That’s an excellent insight.
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When it is inconvenient to one’s theology it is all too easy to do as you do… ignore, explain away, filter out or just plain excise completely said violence attributed to God. “Skeletons in the cupboard” comes to mind and any number of critics notice them and dig them out even if we don’t. “Ah,” we say, “but that’s the OT… the NT is different.” And yet we find in-kind attributable violence in the NT as well. So ok, using your arbitrary bipolar model let’s check out Jesus/God of the NT…
Mt 15:4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’
Mt 10:34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.
Lk 12:49, 51 “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division.
Lk 19:27 But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’”
Lk 22:36 Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.
Jn 2:15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables.
Jn 3:36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Acts 12:23 Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died.
Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
Rom 13:4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
2Thess 1:6-9 …since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,…
Rev 2:22-23 Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.
Rev 2:27a ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’—
Rev 16:19 Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.
Rev 19:11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.
Rev 19:15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
There are of course as already mentioned handy EU ways for discounting and dismissing such nuisance texts away, as again has been evidenced many-a-time already on this board by yourself and others… but such is at best hardy credible or at worst just plainly dishonest. I know you maintain that when it came to understanding God near all the OT writers somewhere got it horribly wrong… do you suppose there may be the remotest possibility that on this matter you’ve got it horribly wrong??
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By ‘discounting and dismissing’ I assume you mean what others might call ‘interpreting’?
Either way, what’s the point of engaging when you have already stated that you will regard any attempt to interpret these texts differently to yourself, by members of this forum, as “dishonest”.
Well, here’s someone not on this board who talks about you:
No, more like what I actually said… attributing what the text CLEARLY presents as God speaking or doing instead to Satan — I’m guessing John you might call that interpretation??