listener24

amen! And don't be afraid to use the word "speed up", which is the more likely correct translation of 2Peter 3:12. Other parts of the Scriptures demonstrate that God speeds up His plan based on human cooperation and prayer. For instance: Matthew 24:20 "Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath." And many others, above all Luke 18:1-8

Glad to hear! God' s timing! I'm noticing encouraging sings of the Spirit at work as well. And on the topic of this thread, you can notice a lot of links with sources talking about this specific prayer, as never in other historical periods except for the early first century. We can contribute to get the bride ready for Her bridegroom, praying for Him to rescue Her soon

Agree brother. Do you think that this awareness is spread all over churches? Do you think anything can be done to spread it?

Just wanted to confirm that this is a great analysis of a too common mistake. To confirm what @Retrobyter said, we can just read the other 134324 (countless) times in which Jesus talk about the Kingdom, and is never something just "within" us, but is His reign, an actual place in which there will be no more sadness or evil, and He will be the King. Simple and confirmed by reading all the other verses in the Gospel. Of course, to become "citizen" of this Kingdom and been taken in one day, we must prepare our hearts to love and obey God. But this doesn't mean at all the the Kingdom is in our hearts, it just mean that having love for God in our hearts is a PRE-REQUISITE to one day enter the Kingdom.

Hi brother, good question. There are many ways to answer this question and you can find already some good points in post like @Retrobyter 's ones. But I'll be happy to clarify even more, God willing. Is anyone doubting God's authority here? No. Consider this example, in form of a story. ********************************* There is a very kind king, living in a city. Let's call it "Amazing city". He is very generous, and willing to share his wealth. Indeed, all the citizen of that city, receive daily gifts from him, and they have all they need. Now, there is another city close to that one. The second city is lived by very poor citizens, and is led by an evil and a liar. Let's call it "Disastrous city". The king is sad for the condition of his poor neighbours in the "Disastrous city". So he send some messengers, to invite the citizen of the poor city to leave their rotten one and join "Amazing city", under his just and merciful domain. The righteous king instructs his servant to teach the poors: "if you wanna join our Amazing city, ASK the King to come and rescue you, and He will come. He will bring about justice to the ones who cry out at him day and night, he will shorten the days of their suffering in the "Disastrous city". But the leader of "Disastrous city", being an evil liar, doesn't give up so easily, and he convinces his citizen that the leader of "Amazing city" is not really teaching them to ASK to be delivered, and he doesn't really care about their opinion, but consider them brainless slaves. He convinces them that "one day", the King of "Amazing city" will take them into his city, but meanwhile it's a sin to ask him to be rescued. The liar also teach to fight the messengers, and if possible kill them, by convincing that the messengers are telling lies about the King. Finally, the liar create false messengers, that instead of the real "request" taught by the real messengers, invents countless of other useless requests to distract and divide them. Divide et impera. This, despite the fact that the King told the real messanger to say "do NOT waste words, do NOT keep on babbling, but ask me what I am teaching you, what is really important for your delivery: ask me to be rescued from the Disastrous city and to be under my Kingdom". The real messengers, saddened by these events, and by the stubborness of the "Disastrous"'s citizen, come back to the Kingdom. One of them have this dialogue with the King: Messenger: "King, you can do everything. Why don't you break into the "Disastrous" city with violence, and kidnap the poor citizens?" King: "I COULD do that. But, in all my sovereignty, I decide to do something different. I decide to wait until the "Disastrous"'s citizen will understand our message, turn to me and ASK to receive, KNOCK so that it will be opened, SEEK to FIND. Because if they don't even understand this, they probably don't even desire to join us, and the king of their city can accuse us to not being righteous, by kidnapping his citizen who are not asking to change city." Messenger: "Your Words are those of one who is righteous and respects free will. But what if the "Disastrous"'s citizen will never ask to be taken back?" King: "Don't worry, I know the future. I know that at a certain point most of them will understand the message and gather together to ask to be taken back, and I fixed the date of that rescue on then. So everything will be fine, for the sake of those chosen one." Messenger: "You are really a powerful, sovereign and respectful of free will king. I have one last question." King: "Go on" Messenger: "Why some of us are born in the Amazing city and some others in the Disastrous one?" King: "See, there was a time in which everyone was borning in the Amazing city. But some of them decided to take their possessions, and leave. They moved to the disastrous city with their new king, thinking they could create a better place. They were wrong. BUT few of them realized they were wrong. That is why I am waiting for them to understand, and DECIDE to ask me to bring them back. I told them a story, for them to understand this, but few did understand. Is called "the parable of the prodigal son". Messenger: "I love that parable. The father is sovereign, yet he decide to respect free will, and take into account His children decisions, like a good husband would do with His bride. Glory to this just Father, now and forever" ********************************************************** Now if this sounds familiar, is because there are at least 10 references of Gospel verses here. But this demonstrate how sovereignty can be perfectly compatible with the decision to use this sovereignty to respect free well of other people.

EDIT: I've researched more, and I'd suggest to read not only Boethius but the main thoughts expressed by various thinker on this topic: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/ It is definitely a topic that has been thoroughly discussed. We cannot be 100% sure about it from philosophical reasoning only, therefore, given its controversial nature, I'd re-read what I expressed in point 1 in my previous answer, and consider that, if doubting, it's still better praying that prayer, cause it will cause no harm. Not praying, if instead was useful, would be a great missed chance to be one of the contributors of God's plan. Oh, and btw, don't worry, you are right, God has already forecasted that the missed contribution of all the ones who won't join will definitely not stop His plan. He has already forecasted that He will come and no-one on this topic has said otherwise, it would be trivial to imply so after all the explanation that has been given here and in the opening thread. It will just be a missed chance for them to speed it up. Now, for those who feel lazy and don't want to reason on the link that I put above, so don't want to approach the problem from a philosophical perspective, let's approach it from a Scriptural perspective. From the Scriptures, we already know from countless example that God is incredibly respectful of human free will, and that human decision to cooperate with him or not change the events, because God has decided to treat human not as brainless robots, as someone may think by misunderstanding a core concept in Christianity, but as sons and daughters. For example, God forecasted Adam and Eve decision, BUT this don't mean that their decision To sin didn' t have any impact. If they didn' t decide To sin, the events would have been different (and there would have been a different future that God would have forecasted). Their decision did indeed impact the whole history. In the same way, if God' s population on Canaan borders (book of Numbers) should have decided to listen to God, they wouldn' t have to spend 40 years in the desert. Their stubborness changed the timeline. And God knew from the beginning about their stubborness and the consequent timeline, but this doesn't excuse them from their responsibility. All of this because God wants men to actively cooperate with His salvation plan, he doesn't want brainless robots as you are suggesting. "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." Thy Kingdom come. Maranatha.

Hi @Cletus and thanks for expressing this opinion. I'd like to divide my answer in "general considerations" and "considerations on Matthew 24:22" 1 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS Hastening the return of the King is a subject worth discussing, because either one of this is true: A) our PRAYERS and actions (spreading the Gospel) do have the power of hastening the day of the Lord (as 2 Peter 3:12 seems to suggest) B) our PRAYERS and actions (spreading the Gospel) do NOT have the power of hastening the day of the Lord Now we can also preach either A or B. But if we preach that our prayers and actions CANNOT hasten the day of the Lord, but A is true, we are making a tremendous mistake: we will be responsible, in front of the Father, to have spread a belief that delayed His coming(because if we don't hasten, we delay). And this will be a great responsibility since Jesus said: "For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned". And He also said: "Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (and He says this just before teaching a list of commandments, including how to pray, with the Lord's prayer) On the other hand, if B is true, even if we teach to quicken the day of the Lord, we would make no harm: simply, those prayer will not be listened, as thousands of other "humanly-invented" prayer. But at least we will have some Scriptural basis to justify our attempt. 2 CONSIDERATIONS ON MATTHEW 24:22 Now first of I'll suggest you to read Boethius. The fact that God forecasted the future doesn't mean that our actions have no effect on the future, that would be naive to think and in contradiction with most Christian beliefs. God forecasted our prayers for hastening the return of the Lord, and based on those he moved the date to the point He only knows it is. But this doesn't mean that our prayers are useless, on the CONTRARY they are extremely important and God has forecasted them from the very beginning. As well as He forecasted that we would have spread the Gospel in the whole world, thus hastening the Day of the Lord (Matthew 24:14) Now, to answer @Retrobyter, are the elects in Matthew 24:22 the Hebrews? Not at all, since Jesus uses other times the word elects and NEVER to refer to the Jews. He is talking about the whole God's flock, and how those days would be shortened in the whole history timeline (and not the "7 years" as someone could suggest) Look at Luke 18: 1-8 "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ 4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his CHOSEN ONES, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”" Do you think that here Jesus is referring only to the Hebrews? NO; Nor he does in the other times He mentions the "elects" or "chosen ones". Another example is Matthew 22:14: "For many are invited, but few are chosen." Is Jesus talking about the Jews here? No. Nor he does in Matthew 24:22 **************************************************************************** ACTUALLY, it is worth considering the connection between Matthew 24:22 and Luke 18:1-8 In Matthew 24:22 Jesus say that thanks to the elects those days will be shortened, and in Luke 18:1-8 Jesus says that He will bring justice quickly to the elect who cry out day and night at Him (but when the Son of man will come, will He find faith on earth?). The first Christians knew this when they prayed "Maranatha", "come quickly Lord Jesus". But then when Church got temporal power the most important Truths got trampled on for centuries, as "no one can serve two masters". Now, @Cletus, read carefully point 1 and ask yourself if you want to be responsible, in front of the Father for stopping the prayer that could hasten the fulfilment of His plan, in case you are wrong. In case I'm wrong, I would have nothing to worry about spreading the prayer discussed here, cause it would cause no harm, and in the worst case will help us remembering that Heaven is our main goal. As a last quote to demonstrate you without any doubt that our actions have a DIRECT effect on God timeline, here is yet another Scripture: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Thus, everyone who contributed on spreading the Gospel, along history, contributed to the fulfilment of this prophecy, therefore with his cooperation contributed to speed up God's timeline. The same is true for the Lord's prayer. Blessings siblings, and thanks for keeping alive the conversation.

though the primary purpose of this post is the prayer for hastening the day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:12), and is less concerned with pre vs post trib dicussions, I agree that your reasoning makes sense. The "mark of the beast" doesn't work as an argument against pre-trib, because that can be easily referred to the "left behind"

@Retrobyter Time to revive this thread, what do you think? Let's hear the opinion of some new members. Do you have any new considerations about the importance of the Lord's prayer with the intention expressed in 2 Peter 3:12? I don't have particularly new considerations, but I praise the Lord for all the people who are joining the Lord's prayer.

Well this a...great answer! Seriously, I' ve read your blog post as well, very true and encouraging. I'd add what I've mentioned above about the great consequences, and then we have the whole picture

Exactly, it also shows our ACTIVE role in hastening His return and His final delivarance from evil (as said in 2Peter 3:12, Luke 18:1-8, the Lord prayer and the prayer Maranatha)

"And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" "Then the righteous will shine like the sun, in the Kingdom of their Father" And consider also: Luke 18:1-8, and the Lord's prayer

(question is clear enough, no description needed )

Thanks @Retrobyter for saving me time, by writing precisely correct things. I don' t know btw where the fixation for homosexuality comes from in many Christians btw, since in the Gospel I've never read Jesus saying a word about it, so if we should estimate a percentage of Jesus' mentions on the topic would be. 0%, while for some Christian would be 60/70%, they are obsessed and need to talk about it periodically just as other people didn' t know already what they think about it. To these ones: get over it. Read the Gospel more and try to talk more about what Jesus talked about, in the same percentage. Also, I think that since primary school I haven' t seen something as ludicrous as the OT discussing your sexuality just because He wasn' t able to answer your rational considerations, we are beyond ridiculousness there and someone if He wants to demonstrate his adulthood for one time should just apologize

welcome!

(mine is one called "the Gospel of John")

we agree on many things sis. We agree that Heaven will be even more amazing that we can ever imagine. We agree that we will definitely need to leave behind many earthly things (love for power, pride, etc.) We even agree that we can speculate, by taking inspiration to Christ's parables and images that He left us. My only point is that of course right now, in our fleshy state, our imagination is limited and we can only imperfectly imagine Heaven; but still we SHOULD imagine, because thinking about it makes are more excited about it, while not talking about it and not thinking about it just makes us colder. If you think about what I'm writing deeply, you'll realize that we may agree on this one too. God bless

As other users pointed out, Jesus used earthly images to make us imagine Heaven. If you think you can make us imagine Heaven better than He did, then teach us how to do it. But if your only thought is "Heaven is totally different so let's just not imagine it at all", then I'll read you another time. There are already too many people not interested in Heaven or scared that it will be a boring place with boring people, thanks to some Christians Btw in the Gospel is clear what is from the world. Power over other people, unjustice, misery, diseases, violence. These things are definitely not gonna be in Heaven. But the creative power of the Lord will not certainly be limited to offering us a boring contemplation. I'll stop here cause too many Scriptures have already been presented and explained PS I like the image you just post. But if you think about it and reason on this last answer, my previous ones and what other users are saying, you' ll find out that it is compatible, because we are talking about 2 different aspects

Yep, it is a big issue. Luckily there are siblings like you,@BeyondET and many others on this thread and outside, who talk about Heaven in the way Jesus talked about, i.e. never as a static, boring place but always as a dynamic, full of creations place. Still the minority wrt to all the ones who were able to make Heaven sounds like the less exciting thing ever imaginable to both good and bad people I didn't know the word sanctimony, that's pretty much accurate

Best post on the subject.

You didn' t understand my post. Read again some differences I've mentioned with earthly things. Morevoer, if it were just a static place for people standing still doing nothing, there would not be needed any separation of those who listen to God from the evil ones who don' t obey Him. That' s why many who are convinced will enter, will NOT enter if in their hearts are still evildoers and don' t want to listen to God about what is right. "Who is faithful with few things is faithful with many things "

No I'm not, I'm always talking about Heaven in my posts, and not in a passive way of sitting down and wait for it, but as Jesus taught US in an active way of hastening his coming through the Lord' s prayer.Here's a more detailed answer of my thoughts about Heaven, from a previous answer I have written in another thread: it's always beautiful to reason about how life will be in the Kingdom. It keeps us focused on what waits for us, it fills our hearts with gratitude so that we can serve the Lord even better. Let's have the Scriptures talk for us, into 2 parts: ---------------------------------------------------- 1 -On "pleasures": "I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. " "for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes." "However, as it is written: "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived" -- the things God has prepared for those who love him--" "Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress "himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them." From these verses, we can imagine that incredible pleasures wait for us in the Kingdom. They will be different from the pleasures of the flesh in this world for 2 reasons: 1) in this world, someone have houses, good food, a healthy body, while someone else is starving to death. When we decide to go for a 2 weeks/thousands dollar vacation, we are "enjoying" it while someone else is starving to death. Instead, in the Kingdom there will be abundance everywhere, so pleasures will not be tied to guilt. 2) every pleasure will be made by God, so it will be incredibly better in its nature than those ruled in some ways by Satan In particular, I'm never able to read the whole verse from Luke 12:35-40 without joyfully crying. How mindblowing and heartblowing is the image of Jesus that "will dress "himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them."? ---------------------------------------------------- 2 - On "being similar to God": "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." "It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions." "All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them." A loving Father, always wants His daughters and sons to develop at the maximum of their capacities. Even a loving earthly father wish his daughters and sons to become noble, smart, capable, etc. Now, it's reasonable (and Scriptural) to think that God wants us to be as similar to Him as possible (but of course not identical, he'll remain our King, in the Kingdom). So He'll likely give us incredible power. That is another reason why is so important to become loving beings, before entering the Kingdom! Because we'll not stand still and doing nothing. We'll have incredible powers, by being similar to God. And only a loving being can use power for loving purposes, while power of evil beings must be limited, to avoid them hurt themselves and others (Indeed it's written: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?") ---------------------------------------------------- Finally, beware of everybody who tries to depict Heaven as a boring, static place. By doing so, they make people even more attached to this world, because people start to think that there are some things that they will only being able to do in this existance, while one day there will be nothing to do, just a boring contemplation. This is not Scriptural, nor makes sense logically, as demonstrated above, but it's a great way to pull the love for Heaven out of people.

I know there is a wide range of videogames, some good and some bad. As there are good and bad movies, etc. Btw, probably there is gonna be the "boredom room" for people who just like to do nothing and complain about other's activities too, so that they may be happy and satisfied as well

I would never be able to call a whole can of worms the peaceful images that the other users have shared here. Since there are actual dangers in church, I' d focus in fighting them if I were you, not on fighting edifying thoughts. And one REAL problem is that people don' t talk about Heaven and are not excited about Heaven anymore. That' s an ACTUAL problem, not beautiful thoughts like the ones shared by our siblings under this posts,and I don' t think your post is doing anything good to address it, on the contrary your post potentially increase it Finally, nobody is saying that what we are picturing are dogmatic truths. It is just a good and edifying activity, there are real dangers out there and This is not one

Agree with you that we won't be even close, because it will be BETTER than anything we imagine. However, what I'm pointing out is that while on earth, the CONCEPT of "better" is ABSTRACT, and instead our mind to be motivated needs some "image". That's why JESUS used them, and that's why it is EDIFYING to use our imagination. Then of course we will be positively surprised to find out that it'll be better than ever imagined, but while on earth let's use our fantasy to get even more in love with Heaven. God bless you