Leaderboard

'And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.' The Bible speaks about a first heaven (earth's atmosphere), second heaven (outer space) and a third heaven (where God and His angels dwell). I believe Matt 24:31 is speaking of the first heaven because it's a rapture scripture, unless you think otherwise.

The following is just a concise summary of my **link removed **at my apologetics website, **name removed *** 1. Human Population Growth: Annual population growth rates exceed 1% in most of the world's countries, and at a 1% growth rate one goes from 8 people to 7 billion in just 2,071 years. Even if assuming population grew just half as fast as it does today, at a 0.50% growth rate, human civilization would still be only 4,130 years old. And if dropping down to rates just 1/5th the rates seen today, at a 0.20% growth rate, 8 individuals still grow to 7 billion in just 6,849 years. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html For an Evolutionist to argue that human population has been around millions of years they must argue that growth has been at a standstill all that time, and that human population did not begin growing substantially until the past 10,000 years. This is a strong evidence the world is younger. 2. Dinosaur Soft Tissue Multiple instances have now been documented of dinosaur soft tissue including flexible blood vessels and preserved dinosaur skin. Even large numbers of dinosaur eggs with the soft eggshells preserved by massive amounts of sediment after being flooded out of their nests were discovered. While iron has been shown to be capable of preserving soft tissue for 2 years, it does not explain how the organic material could have been preserved for tens of millions, contrary to all predictions of evolution. Examples: A) 2005 discovery of T-Rex soft tissue. B) 2009 discovery of hadrosaur soft tissue. C) 2013 discovery of hadrosaur soft tissue. D) 2013 lufengosaurus egg soft tissue. 3. Transitional Forms Darwin's falsifiable prediction that the fossil record would produce the required transitions between core types of life has been utterly proven false. Thus his original model of phyletic gradualism was largely abandoned after 1972 when Gould and Eldredge created a new theory, Punctuated Equilibrium, proposing evolution just sped up too fast for the transitions to appear in the fossil record - a convenient way of denying the fossil record's evidence to move the goalposts. Evolution: Library: Punctuated Equilibrium http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j11_3/j11_3_292-298.pdf Transitions listed today in Wikipedia's list of transitional forms are the same types of life seen today, ancient snails and nautiloids (e.g. Ammonoidea, Nautiloidea) which are similar to snails and nautiloids seen today. Ancient octopi (e.g. Palaeoctopus, Proteroctopus, Vampyronassa) which are strikingly similar to octopi seen today. There are ancient cockroaches (Aphthoroblattina), butterflies (Archaeolepis), spiders (Attercopus, Eoplectreurys), bees (Melittosphex), ants (Sphecomyrma), and leaf insects (Eophyllium), similar to insects today. There are ancient pangolins (Eomanis). There are ancient deer (Heteroprox), camels (Protylopus), and antelope (Eotragus). Etc. However, what is generally lacking are the transitions between these core types of life. Microevolution is compatible with the Genesis 1 account where species were told to speciate after their kinds, and does not infer a common ancestor. List of transitional fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A number of bipedal fossils have been discovered in recent years, and the oldest hominids in humanity's family tree are all now recognized to have walked upright and had unusual complexity similar to modern man, such as advanced faces. Orrorin tugenensis walked upright and was in an advanced stage of evolution. Sahelanthropus tchadensis discovered walked upright and had the face of a hominid half its age. Ardipithecus ramidus walked upright and was so advanced it disproved the popular apes to humans theory. Footprints discovered in 2009 showed Erectus walked upright. And Lucy, aka Afarensis, walked upright per a new study in 2011. * Ardipithecus: Oldest Skeleton of Human Ancestor Found * Orrorin: BBC News | SCI/TECH | 'Oldest' ape-man fossils unearthed * Sahelanthropus: Palaeoanthropology: Hominid revelations from Chad : Article : Nature Facelift seals standing of oldest hominid : Nature News Oldest member of human family found : Nature News * Erectus: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/science/27foot.html * Afarensis: "Lucy" Was No Swinger, Walked Like Us, Fossil Suggests On top of this a large number of alleged missing links have been discovered to have coexisted so that their evolving from one another as had been claimed is highly unlikedly. Most notably Afarensis and Ramidus coexisted, Neanderthals and Humans coexisted, and Habilis and Erectus coexisted. BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Finds test human origins theory A New Discovery in Human Evolution - Newsweek and The Daily Beast Skull May Alter Experts' View Of Human Descent's Branches - NYTimes.com Fossils paint messy picture of human origins - Technology & science - Science | NBC News Oldest <i>Homo Sapiens</i> Fossils Found, Experts Say 4. Microevolutionary Rates Microevolutionary rates today are consistent with a young earth, rather than millions or billions of years. Rapid Evolution Examples include Australia's cane toads which evolved longer legs and heat tolerance within a few decades, Italian wall lizards which evolved larger heads and new gut structures within a few decades, flowering plants, and rodents. That they can adapt so quickly suggests Earth is far younger, and that a common ancestor is false or we should be able to see the transitions between core types of life occur. Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island PLOS Biology: Rapid Evolution of Enormous, Multichromosomal Genomes in Flowering Plant Mitochondria with Exceptionally High Mutation Rates PLOS ONE: Recent and Widespread Rapid Morphological Change in Rodents

Hi Salty, Actually the topic under discussion is `the city of Babylon,` & I think it has passed its used by date. If you want to discuss the `locusts,` you could start another thread & then people would see it. When other topics are started, different from the main topic often people don`t realise it & could miss out on an interesting discussion.

Hi. Thanks Salty. Yes, the Bible is written in parable fashion providing pictures of how things happen (Psalm 78:2), but the events are not the kind of politcal events or physical wars and so forth that people imagine. Jerusalem is no different. The Bible's Jerusalem is not pointing to a political entity like the physical city in the present-day nation of Israel. In fact, Biblical Jerusalem is a picture of the Jerusalem above and the Jerusalem below (Galatians 4). The Jerusalem above is simply the whole group of saved persons who have ever existed and will exist (they are free from their sin penalty thanks to Christ). The Jerusalem below is rather those persons who are religious but don't have Christ (who expect the law to save them by their own righteousness). They are still in bondage to their sins and are not set free from their sin, because they have never truly received what Christ did for them. When congregations are looked at by God towards the end of the church age, if you will, he finds that they are filled with doctrines and tendencies of men, built by men, if you will (Genesis 18:20-21). Yet God builds his own people as he wills. The abomination that causes desolation is simply men's ways and ideas and men's authority entering into congregations such that the congregations are desolate of Christ. In other words, Christ is not present. The congregations become desolate. That is why Rev. 18 says that Christ's voice is no longer heard there. The people no longer have the Holy Spirit and so cannot hear Christ's voice. There is no physical image or statue involved. They idea of an image has to do with this. Christ's true believers are being made into his image by God himself. Any other group of persons is a false image of Christ, not meaning a physical statue or anything like that. Just not made in the image of Christ, which is perhaps what you may be saying as well.

You don't realize how wrong you are.

This is what I found here I've heard it sung a number of times...if you google the name (The Love of God) there is lots out there about that song

I have one approach, and have been using it for a while. In the rural area surrounding my little town is an area of Zulu homesteads, mostly mud huts, and some cement block buildings. It can be dangerous area, and a week after the wife and I ministered to one such "household"(a mud hut made of poles and mud with a roof constructed of old plastic, no water, no gas, just firewood for fuel), a young man was killed in the dirt track above the home. his throat was cut in a drunken fight. But, I walk into these villages with my wife (did it again this morning), armed with the most precious commodity I can bring. Food. People are starving, 35% of pregnant women are HIV positive, most households are run by grandmothers because parent are dead from AIDS (one such household had 14 children under the age of 5 being run by three women all in their late 60"s (when they die, what then?). The creche that the wife and I support has 31 children, many of whom are dropped off in the morning so that their mothers can go to school (some are 16, some sometimes younger). Of the 31 kids, at least 30% are HIV positive. One has the name iSimangaliso (miracle in Zulu), because his father is HIV positive and he is not. I bring a small food parcel of rice, maize meal, tinned fish, oil, candy for the kids, etc. And I tell the (mostly) women that are running the home that Jesus has blessed us in so many ways, and I want to, am driven to, share my blessings, because everything I own is His anyway. (the testimony of how this started is another story, all the Glory to God). And then we pray, and I tell them the good news, and we move on. We go back to the most dire of the homes and often take more food, and clothing, and blankets (for the older women). So how do I minister? Practically and with the Word. We have never been greeted with anything but rural hospitality and grace, and even when an old plastic drum is pulled out for me to sit on, it is done with grace, even before they know I have brought some relief from hunger for a few days. What this is doing is changing me, teaching me about real need, real hospitality, and the true meaning of having nothing except one's Faith. So when I get a bit exasperated as a moderator on Worthy with subjects like are angels actually extra terrestrial beings driving spaceships (seriously it was a thread), or arguing over the meaning of one word in the bible, please excuse me. We are told to make disciples of nations and to Jas_1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. There are many Christians who need to be witnessed to as well. Thus endeth the rant....

Blessings Christian The Word of God gives us a very detailed description of what becomes us after death in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 No,we do not become angels,angels are angels & man is man With love-in Christ,Kwik

Love this song!!

Marilyn, Better?

Living in the New Jerusalem. Rev 21 9One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. John 14 1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in Goda ; believe also in me. 2My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going.”

I see all of the S, T & B judgments as God orchestrating those on the plant earth to be in position after Armageddon to see The Second Coming. Christ descending to the Mt of Olives as He left the Mt of Olives. Rev 1:7 - Look He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced him, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. I do not see any rejoicing here at the Second Coming, only mourning, for those on earth. Rejoice, for you redemption draws near. Opposites. In Christ Montana Marv

it is frequent and as oakwood is we should be watching and paying attention. Sure it is bad is it going to get better in the near future; no. should we not care, should we not keep abreast of these things before they come here.

No reason to assume that all animals taken on the Ark were adult-sized.

The horse and camel used to exist in the new world (americas) until prehistoric man wiped them out. I suspected that dinos were wiped out after the flood by various things. If not man, then by a changed environment or disease etc.

Im going off topic here for a sec. if you all don't mind. But I just want to say that being unemployed and unable to find work, is one of the most despairing things that a person can go through. It feels as if your whole world is falling apart. You start out hopefull but the more doors that get closed to you the more despairing you feel. You just feel compleatly helpless at times. Okay, sorry I am so depressing. I'll let you all get back on topic now.

i think in many cases the answer to the 'why' question is bigotry. yep, i know that's an offensive word and nobody wants to be guilty of it, but the bottom line is an inability to accept (in this case) what scripture says because it goes so deeply against everything they've ever believed or been taught about something. and even though it is wrong, i can understand that tendency sometimes in cases where scripture is totally silent on a subject. but in cases where scripture is NOT silent, and something is discussed in scripture (old, new, or both testaments) as being either being allowable or forbidden, there really should be no wiggle room. and if scripture dictates that something is allowable for some but not for others, well, there's no room to wiggle there either. it is what it is. but there are those who just can't accept it because it offends them so deeply on a personal level.

BFP, May I ask how old your son is now? (as I said in the beginning of this, I have a very good online friend who is devastated because her 22 yr old daughter, is dressing as a guy, and she's very angry at her parents because they won't pay for surgery) So even though I don't have kids myself, I feel the effect this is having on us. I'd also like to ask how old your son was when he was allowed to stay in the woman's shelter? I almost became a psychiatrist when I was young, and I don't believe I would have advised that, as your son's pdoc did. So I'd like to know his age when the Doc allowed that? Speaking from a medical pov there is 1 huge problem here. We really can't change the genitalia of a person. Since I'm a Christian I know this is something of the devil. But I don't yet know exactly what it is. However, I don't think we should refuse to discuss this. I don't believe it will just go away. I can see several social and psychological reasons a teenager might feel they're in the wrong body. But it's more than that. Sevenseas, the issue of a hermaphrodite can fit in here. But how common is that? I asked a Doc I know if he ever saw a real hermaphrodite, and he said yes. However, there was only 1, and the person had died and the body was donated to the medical school he attended. Babies born with sexual ambiguity are more common. So far I have only heard of 1 case where the Doc's made the wrong guess. They made the baby female and when the child reached puberty it became obvious the person was a male. But that's all I know. Do you have a reason for adding this into the thread? It's fine by me, but I'm not sure these cases are also of the devil in the way the this transgender thing is. Just from what you fine folks have said here, I know that those of you who belong to churches, or may be in the legal fields, have to make formal protests against what has happened. If this idea of trangenderism becomes accepted by a new generation of kids, it will take over just like homosexuality has. I'll probably be dead by then, but I hate to think what kind of world that would be. I like to think Jesus will return and stop it before it gets to that. But suppose He doesn't. We have to try and stop it. Some people may be able to fight it best through prayer. I just know we all have to fight this in whatever way we can.

Babylon is not a political city of some sort. It is the great city (Rev 18). Cities in the Bible are pictures of the people associated with God. They are spiritual entities more than anything. The people associated with God are divided into two types. The Jerusalem above (saved persons) and the Jerusalem below (unsaved persons). The great city is variously called Jerusalem, Egypt, Sodom, and Ninevah, among others. It is no different with Babylon.

Hi. Yes they are the same basically. The Bible is merely providing illustration of the confrontation between the saved and the unsaved during the tribulation period. Armageddon simply means the gathering place of the troops in Syria. Syria is a picture of the congregations in the Bible, and that is why Abraham had a friend Eliazer of Damascus, for example. Anyway, the congregations are where the battle is, spiritually, between the true believers and the unsaved. There will not be a physical war with tanks and the like known as the Battle of Armageddon. It is just a picture of spiritual warfare between the saved and the unsaved during the final time period, not of political entities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgXL3y9RIbI&index=13&list=PL79A6DE41E0AECB16