The Bible makes it clear who the Whore is. the Whore is not a country it is woman that fornicates with the Kings of the world. She is all false religion from Babylon until her end.

The Bible also defines who the Beast is. It is a end time world kingdom and a end time man pretending to be God. But the end times spoken about is the end of the age it is not the end of the earth.The earth’s destiny is clear although there will be renovations and the elimination of all evil, the earth has no end.

You ought to thank God that your parents were converted and saved but instead you seem to hide from the Savior and embrace poetic versus. Flowery words cannot save your soul and God is not impressed by flowery words.

So I’m glad that you found peace and freedom in Christ. That’s wonderful! But at the same time, consider this: if these people at church forced you to believe one particular interpretation without allowing you to freely find out the truth for yourself, that was wrong. But the fact that their method was wrong doesn’t necessarily render all their interpration invalid? After all, you call these people your “initiators” into Christianity, so that means that they did in one way or another lead you to accept Christ. Now I don’t agree with Arminian teaching myself, the supremacy of the KJV, and so on. I suppose that they insisted that you believe their eschatological views or you would fall from grace or something like that, right?

Whatever the case, they were wrong on that, but the dispensationalist eschatology isn’t Arminian or Calvinist per definition. I don’t agree with the Charismatics on a number of issues myself but even so I’m sure you’ll agree they’re not wrong on every issue, are they? So what I’m trying to say here is that I hope you don’t make the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bath water. I’ve been there myself, I know it’s tempting. But to illustrate with an example from the Bible: the Pharisees were hypocrits because they didn’t live by their teaching - but did Jesus or St Paul ever suggest their teaching was wrong? They didn’t, the Saducees’ teachings were wrong even if the Saducees themselves might not have been hypocritical.

I agree with you that it’s important to also know about conflicting views and interpretations. You’ve convinced me to try getting a bit more to the bottom of all the different eschatological interpretations that exist in Christianity (as soon as I get a more time to do so, that is) . So far I haven’t really done that because for one thing I didn’t have enough time for it, and on the other hand - as I explained earlier - I have more or less settled my views on this issue. I don’t know all in detail but I think that’s not really the point anyway. The important thing to me is the knowledge that Christ is going to return and that His Kingdom is not of this world.

When I found Don’s website, I was going through something of a difficult time and I had been neglecting Christ for months out of a lack of support of other Christians and frustration with Evangelical christianity in general for a number of reasons. But through the teachings of Christ’s second coming and the Millenium, I found comfort and I felt urged very strongly to rededicate my life to Christ. It has had quite some personal impact on me. Before I found Don’s website I didn’t pay much attention to theology and all these doctrines and their names, even though I did read on things related to eschatology. But it’s not that one day I started wondering about Christian eschatology and learned about the doctrines only to turn to the Bible afterwards and then “pick” one that appealed to me or something like that. But the website did open my eyes in the sense that a lot of things I had been going through in my own life and the things I observed in the world around me, somehow all started to make a lot more sense now. I found out the purpose of this life through it, that purpose being the glorification and enjoyment of God and His grace - which, I think, should be the ultimate purpose of each Christian’s life.

I sincerely believe that if you read your Bible and sincerely pray that through the Spirit, God may give you wisdom and insight, He will reveal to you what it is He means in His Word. The point is not to study the Bible just to be able to rebuke others. I think none of us should want to read the Bible for the sole purpose of doing that, it’s rather disrespectful of God I think. Eschatology is difficult but well worth studying because it leads you to seriously think some things over. It’s part of God’s Word and can help us in better understanding the world around us, and urging us to live by His Word.

God bless!

You think you may have missed much of the Tim Warren article. (Please don’t shoot me yet!) I believe that in order to properly debate, one needs to thoroughly understand the opposing view from the opposition’s perspective. With Christian debates, please keep in mind (and you have alluded to this), the opposition is not typically surface only in their positions. They usually have thoroughly looked at scripture. Folks such as the Reformers were willing to die for their understanding of the scripture. They were persecuted for their belief. They relied more heavily on scripture than do most in the church today. Allegory is not a bad word, in fact, it is used in the Bible by Paul. Looking again at amillennialism, from the majority historical church perspective, “first resurrection” can refer to two things: 1) the resurrection from earth to the presence of Christ (this is the more literal interpretation looking at the context) and 2) the resurrection into eternal life the moment of regeneration - salvation. There is scripture to support this either of these concepts. Eph.2:5-6 “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:”
Col.2:12 “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.” This may not be what is meant in Revelation 20, but the Reformers were not fly-by-night Bible students. They had rejected the false papal religion, and they paid for that rejection. They suffered for Christ. They are the means that God used to allow future generations (you and me) to worship in spirit and in truth! I for one still consider their interpretation very deeply.

As I said before, I am not fully convinced of any one eschatology. But I normally discount the work of men who build a straw man out of their opponent’s view and then destroy it as if they were great warriors. (I am not saying you did that.) It matters not how much I respect their other work.

You know historical premillennialism is typically not argued because it is not well understood by dispensationalists, nor is post-millennialism for almost the same reason. Yet these two systems also have a great historical following. I don’t agree with either system, but in studies presented by the defenders of each system, I have had to admit that they were not developed without a great dependency on scripture. (Historical pre-millennialism makes no separation between the saved part of national Israel and the saved part of the Gentiles. This forms the whole church. The old testament Israel was called the church in the wilderness in the new testament writings. It is said that Moses knew Christ. Yet it expects a special work in the salvation of national Israel - just not apart from the whole church.

So I am just saying that due attention should be given to these historical systems in light of the system’s supporters scriptural understanding.

I said earlier my initiators into Christianity forced me accept the dispensational / Arminian model (though now I am convinced that none of them actual understood either dispensationalism or Arminianism), and it created a great lack of peace in me. I am free now and intend to remain that way - free indeed - free in Christ Jesus..

Maybe not, you just did an excellent job

I think historical Christian writings can be a blessing but only if you read them in the light of the Bible and in a responsible and sometimes critical way, keeping in mind the context and times in which they were written and by whom.

I read the article. I have to say I find it very unconvincing. The author focuses on Revelation 20 and it seems as if he bases his entire interpretation of Revelation on that one chapter alone, using a select few Bible passages as those in Matthew and Hebrews to prove that somehow now is the millenial reign of Christ and Satan is bound already. If Satan were really bound, the entire world would long have gone Christian. Islam would not have emerged and if it still did it would most certainly not be the fastest growing religion in the world today.

And What about the letters to the seven churches, the seals and the trumpet judgments, for instance? What about the Beast, the false prophet, the mark, the two witnesses? Why accept the Bible as truth and then dismiss almost all of the book of Revelation as pure allegory? Interpretations like these that debunk 95% of Revelation or call it “allegory” and neglect the Old Testament prophecies or alter their true meaning to fit their narrow interpretation of Revelation, have lead to terrible persecutions, hatred and injustice on behalf of so-called Christian churches claiming to be the right hand of God and His representatives on his earthly kingdom. Now I know that just because one holds to a non-dispensational view of Revelation, that doesn’t mean one is necessarily in favor of all of that. Again, the interpretion of the Revelation is not essential to one’s salvation. However, I think it does lead to some major misconceptions such as the idea that Christians should “win the world” for Christ, that we can “change the world” and so on. That is in my opinion a profoundly unbiblical idea.

The Bible tells us to resist the devil (James 4:7). If he were really bound, we would not have to resist him. St Paul also repeatedly mentions Satan. Indeed “some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan” he writes in 1 Timothy 5:15. The truth is that God’s kingdom is not of this world, and the Bible calls upon believers to abandon the ways of the world. It does call upon us to testify to the lost of the world, not to regain the world part by part for Christ, but so that these believers may be freed from the chains of this sinful world and be admitted to GOd’s heavenly Kingdom. Also check John 18:35-37. It deals with the issue of the very nature of Jesus’ kingship and that of His Kingdom. Worldly religions like Islam claim dominion over the world, I believe Christianity is in fact the exact antithesis to these false religions.

Anyway, I don’t want to hijack this thread or anything, just clarify and give a justification for the reason I agree with the dispensationalist view. Like I said, Don is by far the most qualified person to explain a number of issues here.

God bless!
el-nasrani

Has Hal repented from what? We do not know if he was even to blame for the personal issues and even if he were why should he expose his personal life to the whole world by confessing who knows what? Let those who are in his local Church circle worry about correcting him if he needs correction and repentance. As far as I know he has not done or said anything publically that he needs to repent publically for. Now Pat Robinson makes public prophecies he claims came from God all the time that do not come true. He needs to repent publically.

Yeah, Hal is dogmatic about what he believes but that sort of goes with the territory. What strong Christian leaders of the past were not dogmatic about what they believed?

What you are saying about his not presenting Jesus is your own opinion, It certainly is not a view shared by his followers. I found plenty in his books that talk about Jesus Christ. Like I said his first book was instrumental in my own salvation and hundreds of thousands of others also were saved so he must have said something right. Jesus is the focus of all his books. Perhaps he does not talk about Jesus on every page but anyone who reads his books know that he teaches fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus. Also Hal has many books and they cannot be broad brushed. “Amazing Faith” and “Combat Faith” is all about Jesus.

One criticism I do have is that in his books he uses human explanations of probable supernatural events and makes man bring judgment upon himself through his own wars or the like. However in most of the Vial and Trumpet judgments there simply may be no human explanation. Most of them probably are supernatural acts of God on an unrepenting world..

I really do not consider LaHaye to be a top expert on Bible prophecy. I believe all his books on Bible prophecy are limited to Revelation. He has written one of the best commentaries on Revelation that I have read but I would think that this was more of a research effort where he got the information from the works of several others than his own original theology. As far as I know he has not written on more broad topics of Bible prophecy. So I do not even put him in the same category as people like Ironside, Pentecost, Walvoord, Lindsey, Ice, etc.

Jack Kelly is very astute and is a prolific writer. His website and mine share reciprocal links. I do not agree with every one of his conclusions but that is par for the course in Bible prophecy on the minor subjective points.

If it were not for Hal’s inspiration I might not be doing this today. His “late Great Planet Earth book was instrumental in me finding the way to salvation and started my interest in Bible Prophecy. It seems most of us fail in one area of our lives but God can use us in spite of our weaknesses if we seek His mercy and move on to do the work He has for us.

I’m disappointed to hear of some of Hal’s personal issues. The first thing that came to mind was some of King David’s indiscretions, and then some of my own. Wow. I am so glad Jesus cared enough about each of us to take our place of shame.

As far as teachers go, I am not a prophesy expert, or “buff,” but I have read some of Ice’s work and have appreciated his perspective. Lately, I’ve really been blessed by Jack Kelly’s insights (gracethrufaith.com).

I can say that I am very weary of this world. There is nothing I would not gladly leave to be with Jesus in His eternity. I have a lot of responsibilities, and I’m rather like a slave — a very well treated one (by overall world standards) — but much like a slave nonetheless; I don’t really work for me, and what I earn is the Lord’s anyway, so, in a way, it doesn’t matter that I see very very little of it. This world has nothing to offer me, I am sick of sin, and my personal contribution to it. I feel very much as Paul described: “who will save me from this body of death?” /weary-whiney-rant-off

Anyway, sorry to ramble!

Don, thanks so much for responding personally to my comment. I’ve really enjoyed reading your site, and I often check-out your blogs!