Endtime_Survivors
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Everything posted by Endtime_Survivors
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At 5:00 the video quotes the director, "If superman were real he'd gather all the world leaders in a room and say, 'Behave, or I'll kill you'". The video makes a good point about how people have come to view God's authority and discipline as bad or unloving, but the ironic thing is that God will eventually say this kind of thing to the world. The Revelation talks about Jesus coming to rule with a rod of iron. While it's true that God does not want to see anyone lost and does not want to destroy anyone (in the sense that he feels joy or satisfaction from meting out destruction), destruction will happen. In Revelation 16 the angels are pouring out the wrath of God on a spiritually desolate world. These are some pretty serious consequences and a lot of people die suffering horribly. Yet, one of the angels says, "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus". Despite all the suffering of the people, the angel is praising God, not for the suffering, but for the justice. Accepting God's love also means accepting his right to put all the leaders of the world (actually, every human in the world) in a room and say, "Behave or I'll kill you".
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Hi all. Here's another video, this one about the Mark of the Beast. It's a bit longer than the other videos (a run time of 18 minutes) and it comes in 3 parts (the other 2 parts will be released later). The video attempts to detail how the Mark of the Beast will almost certainly manifest itself as a microchip implant in the hand for buying/selling and how various strategies for taking it are being developed and disseminated to the general public. I look forward to some lively discussion. -
Hi all. Here's another video produced by some friends of mine. It's 6 minutes, so not too long. There is a rather intimate link between prophecy and the teachings of Jesus. After all, the angel from Revelation 10 tells us that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. The video examines the relationship between Jesus' comments, in particular, about serving two masters and the Mark of the Beast, both of which heavily revolve around our relationship to money. I look forward to hearing what others think. Lets get some good discussion going about the Mark of the Beast and personal motivations!
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Hi Diaste. Fantastic posts. Thanks for adding your thoughts to the issue. I particularly liked this quote: I think the sad fact is that we're all guilty, to some degree, of prioritizing daily life over what God wants. The point of the teaching from Jesus is to get us to think seriously about that, and to look for ways in which we can change those priorities. We won't be able to do that until we can at least begin to question ourselves. "Is my job really consistent with what God wants"? "Is God really ok with me marrying this person"? Am I really eating and drinking to the glory of God"? I had a person tell me that he's so convinced and "settled in his heart" about what he believes that he doesn't even bother to think about arguments if they are contrary to what he believes. He said this as though it was some kind of spiritual confidence and it was shocking to me, because my understanding is that Christianity is all about questioning ourselves, one another, and even questioning God, if we can do it in a sincere and humble way. This idea that there are certain activities and beliefs which are so normal, ordinary, and fundamental that they are beyond question is precisely the trap that Jesus was referring to when referencing the days of Noah and Lot.
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Anyone remember the blood moons thing? Apparently there's another blood moon coming up on September 16th. I don't doubt that there are signs in the Heavens and that prophecy will eventually come to pass, but think about all the damage these false alarms cause to the Christian witness. It seems like people just like the attention that comes from making predictions. At least over on youtube there's a new end-of-the-world prophecy every month, and the videos predictably get thousands of views. Why?
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Hi cobalt. Something strange seems to be happening in our communication. The example you gave from you personal life suggest that you may be personally offended, which I think could be interfering with your ability to rationally examine the issues. I am reminded of the saying, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" For example, you say But then you say... Aren't you just playing games here? Then you go on to say... Yes, now I know you are allowing a personal bias to influence how you view this issue. Why should Abraham's testimony be immaterial? He's an eye witness to what was happening with those people just before the flood, but because his testimony does not conform with your point of view, you casually brush it aside as immaterial. There is no question as to whether the people were corrupt or not. The question has always been WHY did God see them as corrupt. Jesus' explanation was that they were too busy with the cares of this world to care about what he, their creator, wanted. That sounds pretty corrupt to me. Jesus wanted us to understand that corruption isn't just drunkards, murderers, fornicators, or thieves. The corrupt can, and often does include ordinary, decent folk who are guilty of nothing so sinister as decently going about their day-to-day lives without a care for what God wants. This is especially true for the religious folk because they often do this while assuming they are right with God. Remember that part about the people who thought they should be allowed into the party, but then Jesus says, "I never knew you"? Why would they assume they should have been let in? Obviously, because they believed they were right with God, and yet Jesus saw something very different in their walk, just like he saw something very different in the sins of Noah and Lot's day. You carry on about how corrupt those people were as though they were so very different from you, but were they really so different? According to Jesus, not really. Who knows. Perhaps the people of Lot's day thought the same things about the people of Noah's day, which is precisely why he talked about the same sins for both Noah and Lot's day. It's easy to point to the people of Noah and Lot's day and say, "at least I'm not like those people" and feel better about our own sinfulness. Jesus' answer is that we are not so different from them. They were humans and we are humans; we all struggle with materialism, greed, fear, pride, laziness, hypocrisy, etc... We all struggle to put God first, before anything else. Abraham went through it, too. God wanted to take his kid away from him and Abraham passed. The people of Lot's day did not. Just like the people in the parable from Luke 14, they were too busy with the day-to-day cares of life to care about what God wanted, so they were destroyed.
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Thanks. Sorry, I don't understand the reference here. Are you saying it's illogical to suggest that day-to-day activities can be sinful? Did you see the corroborating parable from Luke 14 where the people refused their Lord because they were too busy with the day-to-day cares of this life? The video also referenced the "cares and pleasures of this life" which choke the plants. It reference the rich fool who spent his time building bigger and bigger barns. It also reference the rich man who goes to hell and the poor man who is rewarded. In each of those example the lesson is about how we relate to the material world around us and specifically, how the material world can so easily distract us away from listening to God. The foolish man wasn't wrong for building a barn. He was wrong for doing so contrary to God's will. The question is, why could they have cared less? What did they care about if it wasn't God? Can you quote the scripture which says these people didn't believe in God? At least in Noah's day Abraham believed he could find even 10 righteous people. Why would he do that if these people were all atheists? No, I think Abraham was fooled by religious double-speak. There were plenty of people who had fancy religious talk ( which is probably why he thought he could find righteous people there), but when it came to the crunch he didn't find anything more than talk. It must have been a very disappointing, yet informative lesson about genuine righteousness. Following the logic, this means that any confessing Christians who carry on with day-to-day life despite the signs of the times around us, that they are actually part of the "unbelieving world" despite their claims to the contrary? It reminds me of the people knocking at the gate saying, "Jesus, you know us" and he replying, "No, I never knew you". Only if that daily life interferes with our ability to hear and obey the Lord. Apparently it's one of the easiest things to do considering the example of Noah, the example of Lot and all the teachings Jesus gave which relate to materialism and the physical world.
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Ahh, I see. Thanks Joe.
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Hi Joe. Thanks for the response, though I think I'm not understanding how you're relating your comments to the quote. Would you mind elaborating?
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Hi Oakwood. Thanks for saying this. I'm happy to see you talking about interpretations because that's pretty much all any of us really has. Even guidance from the Holy Spirit, or direct Revelation from God himself must still be filtered through the sieve of our interpretation. We must still process the information and decide how we want to respond to it or how it should fit into our understanding of reality around us. When I look at the teachings of Jesus, I see a lot of teaching about our relationship to the world around us, in practical ways. I see a lot of teaching about the physical verses the spiritual and how easily the physical can distract us away from the spiritual. That's what I see in his reference to the days of Noah and Lot; a people who became distracted by the cares of this world (i.e. the physical) and stopped caring about what God wanted (i.e. the spiritual). An interesting element to this scenario is that Abraham was convinced he could find even 5 or 10 righteous people. There must have been something in Sodom which caused Abraham to have this belief so strongly that he would argue with his own God about it. I believe Abraham was fooled by good intentions and flowery, beautiful, poetic, religious jargon. God knew better, which is why, in the end, he allowed Abraham to make the effort to find these righteous people. It must have been a rather eye opening experience for him when he couldn't find even one (aside from Lot). It's similar to what Jesus said about people who would come to the gates of the city, believing that Jesus would recognize them, but that he would instead say he never knew them. These aren't atheist. Something caused these people to think Jesus would know them. These are religious people who thought they had it all figured out, but instead had substituted God's will for their own, much like the husbandmen who wanted to take the vinyard and operate it based on their own rules. This is why the people of Noah's day were destroyed. Instead of going to Noah and begging for his help, guidance, answers, explanations etc, they were eating, drinking, building, planting, buying, selling, and developing romantic relationships when the flood came. They probably thought Noah was crazy, judgmental, mistaken, misguided, or any number of other reactions people have when the righteousness of their personal will is questioned. When it comes to our relationship with God, nothing should be beyond question, especially the most normal, ordinary, assumed activities.
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In the parable, the King says, "come now" and the people respond that they are too busy with their various worldly cares. I don't understand how you don't see the lesson there about treating the "cares of this world" as more important than God. But then, that is the nature of normalcy. People who are caught in it see their behavior as normal. It sounds strange to them when someone else comes along questioning that normalcy. I think that is where our disagreement lies. We view "normal" and "strange" as very different in this context. My interpretation of our discussion so far is that all that indignation about atheism and sexual sin is just a distraction; a smokescreen. The reason I think this is because I've quite clearly acknowledged that those things are definitely wrong, but that hasn't affected your responses to me. The video quite clearly says that things like marriage, buying/selling, eating/drinking, playing and building are not wrong. Neither does the video justify/condone atheism or sexual sin. Those things are also labeled as sins in the video. So, it seems like what you guy are really upset with is the idea that you could be challenged on the normalcy of life. It's one of those infuriating things about Jesus that made people so angry with him back in his day; he challenged their respectability, their familial relationships, their morality and their greed. He questioned them. He rebuked them. He was relentless in speaking uncomfortable truths, and in the end the people hated him for it. The radical teachings of Jesus have been glossed over with a few hundred feet of system respectability, to the point that a parable about ignoring God for the sake of the "cares of this world" instead becomes a parable about getting a better deal on the cares of this world. Remember when you posted that yesterday? That the people were at fault because they bought something without seeing it and therefore made a bad business deal and had nothing to do with them being too busy for God? Today really is like the days of Noah and Lot. They weren't without warning. Not at all. God isn't unfair. He won't just destroy people with no warning. Quite the contrary is true. He often gives people years of warning, but rarely do we listen to those warnings. When the consequences finally come and take us by surprise, it FEELS like we had no warning, but that's only because we didn't listen. The question is, what do the warnings look like? When someone comes along saying, "hey, there's a problem with your involvement in the cares of this world" isn't that a warning? Isn't that what Jesus taught in the parable of the husbandmen and the vinyard, how the owner sent servant after servant to warn the husbandmen, but they only abused and mistreated them? If you think a warning should, or can be, only something which you are prepared to recognize, then you will, of course, miss any warnings which you are not prepared to recognize, which puts you in a dangerous catch-22. I believe this is why Jesus' teachings are the way out of such a difficult predicament; he is the cornerstone; the tool by which we measure all truth and in those teachings there is a clear (at least to me) warning about becoming distracted by the normal, everyday cares of this world. God told us to listen to Jesus. He is the warning. His teachings. Look again at the parable. "Come now". "Too busy". It may be, and in fact is highly likely, that the teachings of Jesus is the only warning we'll ever get.
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Yeah so, the video is addressing the second sentence, as well as exalting business, chores, hobbies, friendships, food, or anything else above God. I really don't understand where our disagreement is.
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Yeah, they can be sins. If someone treats food, family, jobs, or hobbies as more important than God, are they sinning?
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Probably. But Jesus had a problem with people getting self righteous about the rather obvious sins (like sexual sins or atheism) while ignoring their own sins (like being too busy for God). This is the kind of luke-warmness that Jesus said makes God sick; people who say they believe in God, but who are too busy to listen to him. When the atheists look at that kind of example, what reason do they have to think this God is worth believing in when his own followers are too busy to care? What's more, why should the atheist take a Christian seriously about genuine problems like sexual fornication or atheism when the Christian himself is lost in the cares of this world, like materialism and greed? Sexual sin is a genuine problem, but consider the example of the pharisees who brought the adulterous woman to him. The woman was plainly guilty. There was no doubt or dispute about that. And yet, Jesus instead rebuked the pharisees. Why? Wasn't it because they were being self-righteous toward the woman? They were quite ready to see her die for her sin, but they had little or no regard for their own sins, and that's because they had come to see their own sins as normal while finding it easy to jump on the obvious sins like fornication. We need to be able to recognize genuine sins like fornication and atheism, but all our efforts to do so will only come across as hollow, shallow, and self righteous until we Christians can sort out our own problems regarding the "cares of this world". Even in your response you talk about "sins of the world" as though putting a business, relationship, or even food and clothing before God is not a "sin of the world". If those things are not sins of the world, then what kind of sins are they?
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Thanks for that. It's a team production of which I am a part. Neither the scripture nor the video suggests this. The context is that people had put these things before God (i.e. they had become distracted by the cares of the world). Anything becomes sinful if it comes between us and our creator, which Ican include the things we take for granted like the normal, everyday activities of life. Yes, "business as usual" is a good way to describe the point Jesus was making about the cares of life. Apparently, Noah was building the ark for more than a hundred years? And Abraham successfully haggled God down from 50 righteous people to something like 5 or 10 (i.e. if he could find even 5 or 10 righteous people then God would not destroy the cities). They had plenty of warning, but they were too busy with the cares of life to care about the warnings. This is why Jesus said that he'd come like a thief, not because he's a sneaky guy, but because people would be distracted just like they were in the days of Noah and Lot. I think we have agreement on this. The question is, why will they not take heed? If there are signs and warnings, why will they still be taken by surprise? And neither is this what the video suggests. The context is one of people putting these things before God. That is exactly the lesson. Nothing, not even food and clothing, family, or our own lives, should come between us and God. How do you decide which teachings are for the Jews and which teachings are for "disciples" of Jesus? At the end of Matthew Jesus tells his disciples to go into all the world teaching their followers to obey the same things Jesus taught them, which, of course, would include the teaching to go out and teach others to do the same and so on and so forth. When Jesus says, "love God and love your neighbor" was he only talking to the Jews, or was he talking to any would-be follower? Is it only the Jews who have problems with pathetic excuses or only the Jews who reject Jesus? No, that makes no sense at all. Jesus' teachings are for Jesus' followers, whether Jew, gentile, or other. It's hard for me to believe you think the lesson of this parable is to make better quality purchases rather than cultivating a willingness to go when God says, "go". We see this parable from verrrry different perspectives. Whether they were making bad business deals or not, the lesson of the parable is that they did not listen to God when he called. Agreed, and the reason Jesus gave for them rejecting the gift was that they were too busy with the cares of this life. They weren't atheists. They weren't sexual perverts. They were just too busy. This logic comes across as quite confusing. Shouldn't we all be throwing ourselves at Jesus' feet in gratitude for the banquet and gift of free grace? Or, is it only Jews who are capable of rejecting their messiah? We Christians are not like the Jews? Jesus' teachings about putting God first don't apply to us? I really don't want to misrepresent what you're saying so please do feel free to clarify your position if I've got it wrong, but this really does sound like what you're saying.
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Yeah, you're mistaken. Nah, the video suggests that it's easy to become self righteous about issues like sex sins and atheism while ignoring our own sins. Unsuspecting....of what? The question is, why were they unaware? If people ignore the voice of God because they've become distracted by the cares of this world, then, yeah, they probably will be punished. I'm not sure why you seem to feel so offended by that concept.
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Hi all, Here's another video, this one on the Days of Noah and Lot. It's a 6 minute animated feature which explores Jesus' comments from Luke 17:26-30. I look forward to hearing what others think and some positive discussion about this issues.
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That's true, but the same can be said for just about any piece of information in existence. Any idea, concept, or teaching could be twisted or abused. That's why Jesus used parables so often; he was giving them room to misinterpret his teachings, because in the end what God is really looking for is a hungering for truth; those who will not interpret based on convenience or ignorance but rather a sincere desire to know the truth even if it works against our personal biases or feelings. I don't think the video suggests this at all. I think it's good to keep an open mind with all these suggestions. True, it is getting ridiculous, but I'd suggest that is all the more reason for us to stay diligent and faithful. The same thing happens with a lot of different prophecies. It seems like every month there's some new prophecy about how the world will end next month and I've had several discussions with people a who are sick, in general, of hearing about any kind of "end of the world" or "end time" information. But that's all part of the bigger picture of faithfully persevering through all the psychological confusion. We shouldn't stop searching for gold just because there are so many worthless rocks in the ground. If the issue were only a "word puzzle" then I think it would make less sense, but the issue isn't only a word puzzle, and neither does the video suggest such a thing. The Mark in particular is clearly described as a means of controlling buying/selling. For a world which believes money makes the world go round, it's an ingenious way to turn people away from the real authority which makes the world go round. You don't need to solve a word puzzle to understand our reliance on money and the things money can buy. People will take the Mark because of fear and greed; not because they lack intelligence. I think we need to look at all the clues. You seem to be putting something onto the video which isn't there, perhaps some kind of lingering tension you feel with other sources of information which do exclude one piece of information over another.
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Hi all, My friends and I made a short video (only 5 minutes). A good many of you would probably already be familiar with the content but I'd still be keen to hear your thoughts on our perspective and perhaps get some good discussion going about the various theories and possibilities. Let me know what you think.
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That's a good answer, but I wonder about the "heart" part. Why should the heart be associated with emotions? And if the heart is deceitful above all things, how does that fit in?
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When the sincere disagree
Endtime_Survivors replied to Endtime_Survivors's topic in General Discussion
Hey Kwikphilly. Do you write greeting cards, by any chance? -
When the sincere disagree
Endtime_Survivors replied to Endtime_Survivors's topic in General Discussion
Yup, which is why I said the best way to know which approach to take is to be constantly asking God about it. As for feelings, I think it can go both ways. If someone asks you to do something which you believe to be immoral but which you can't quite explain, you could say, "it just feels wrong to do this". Would you be satisfied if the other person said, "we can't go by feelings"? What is the conscience, if not a "feeling" we get this way or that? The context in which I used the phrase was related more so to the conscience rather than an emotional outburst. Also, regarding what "seems" justified, aren't we all in the same boat anytime we make any kind of judgment, whether it is a blast or a more gentle rebuke? We're all operating based on what seems right according to our ability to understand and interpret information around us. The moment when we say, "no, it's not that it "seems" right to me, bur rather I know that I know that I know that I know I'm right" is the moment we close ourselves off from the possibility of being mistaken. -
When the sincere disagree
Endtime_Survivors replied to Endtime_Survivors's topic in General Discussion
Hi Bluebird. I think you have probably misunderstood the context of my comments. I did not say it feels good to blast people. I said that sometimes it feels right to blast people. The context is that of which approach to take; a soft, gentle approach (which Jesus sometimes utilized) or a harder, more stern approach (which Jesus and his followers also sometimes utilized) when dealing with those who teach doctrines contrary to what Jesus taught. I also finished off the thought by suggesting that the best way to know which approach to take is to listen to God. If you'd like more clarification on what I mean by "blast" let me know. -
When the sincere disagree
Endtime_Survivors replied to Endtime_Survivors's topic in General Discussion
Yup, which is why I said the best way to know which approach to take is to be constantly asking God about it. As for feelings, I think it can go both ways. If someone asks you to do something which you believe to be immoral but which you can't quite explain, you could say, "it just feels wrong to do this". Would you be satisfied if the other person said, "we can't go by feelings"? The context in which I used the phrase was related more so to the conscience rather than an emotional outburst. I believe there are two issues here. One is whether it is right to blast (implying that there are times when it is right, as demonstrated by Jesus on several occasions), and the other is what it means to blast (i.e. a godly rebuke vs emotional outbursts, self righteous indignation, ignornace etc). When Jesus said to Peter, "get behind me Satan" Peter probably felt more than a little blasted. When he said to a crowd of people (including his disciples), "O faithless and perverse generation how long must I suffer you" they probably felt a little blasted and when he likened the Syrophoenician woman to a dog, she may have felt a teensy bit blasted (though she persevered through it). When writing to the Corinthians Paul threatened to come with a rod (as opposed to peace and meekness) if they didn't shape up. They probably felt a little blasted. The context of my comments on blasting was in response to missmuffet commenting on how to respond to people teaching false doctrines. I agreed with her that we should keep in mind the "kindness and grace" approach, but said that there are times when it feels right (i.e. believed to be appropriate or necessary or spirit led) to take a harder stance (i.e. blast). So, when you respond with comments about how we can't argue people into the Kingdom and how we shouldn't overwhelm them with criticisms I'm hoping you will understand how I would interpret those comments as not being particularly relevant to the point I was actually making. Agreed and I believe you've spoken at least part of my mind with this paragraph. Jesus said that people would come from the East and West while the "children" of the kingdom will be cast out; the idea being that the people who thought they had it all figured out were the most wrong. It's interesting that these comments followed on from his interaction with a Roman soldier who was neither Jew nor Christian. It seems Jesus was implying that there will be some big surprises when it comes time to judge the people of the Earth. -
When the sincere disagree
Endtime_Survivors replied to Endtime_Survivors's topic in General Discussion
I think I get there you're coming from, but I think there may be a misunderstanding in where the two of us are coming from regarding concepts like "contention", "my point", and "division". I don't see those things as bad in themselves. The topic is "when the sincere disagree", which suggests that disagreement does not necessarily equate to wrong. For clarity, yes, you're right that I am mostly referring to moral/important spiritual issues rather than smaller opinion issues, though I also think it's pretty easy to confuse opinion issues with moral issues so I think there should be some room to discuss the overlap, too. If we have a disagreement, then we necessarily have a division between what you see to be right and what I see to be right. That does not mean the division is bad or wrong, but rather that we have different perspectives as to how we interpret God's will. For example, I may believe that we should spend resources to teach orphans how to read, while you may believe the resources would be better used to feed them. After all, if they're hungry then they probably won't be able to concentrate particularly well, but if they don't get an education they could end up becoming dependent on others for the rest of their lives. Neither approach is wrong in itself and neither is it inherently wrong that we have a division over which course of action would be better (assuming there is no direct leading from God one way or the other which is being ignored by either party). This is a situation where the sincere could disagree; unity and division; agreement with helping orphans, but disagreement about how best to do that. The bottom line is that we both want to help the orphans, even if we're divided over which method would be best. I believe the same could be true of both an atheist and a Christian working together in the same orphanage. There would be very obvious, and perhaps strong disagreement between the two of them, but despite the atheist's lack of theology, at least he's helping the poor. In that, he would have at least some agreement with both the Christian and Jesus and I'd suggest that, based on Jesus' teachings about loving our neighbor, that area of agreement would be more important in God's eyes than the area of disagreement. And then there is Jesus' interpretation of division, in that he actually boasted that he came to bring division, but it was division between right and wrong so it's not wrong to have division, but rather we should be sure that the division we do have is based on good and fair reasoning.