seekeratthesea

So what's your point? That that particular verse can't really be used to find end times scenarios, as people often seem intent on doing. And in general, that the end or days may be "no where in sight" anyway. Why is that an issue with you? I don't know that it is an "issue"......I just don't think it's true, and it's hard for an untruth to be an issue because an untruth is a negative. There are people who seem intent that we be living in the end times though, which is what I would call creating an issue of something.

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No........but I hear it all the time that when end of the worlders want to "prove" that we're in the end times, they use that verse AND THEN tell me that we've got more wars going on then any other time in history. And if it's simply "wars and rumors of wars" constitute all of history. Wars and rumors of wars includes the same time frame in which Christ spoke the words, it includes time frame BEFORE He came to earth too. Wars and rumors of wars is part of all history. And it's not quiet in todays era either, it's just less noisy. I'm an "end of worlder," but I don't use this verse to prove it because it isn't what Jesus said. On the other hand, it is the verses in Rev. and other OT passages that set the background. Now, when I say quiet, I certainly don't mean there will be no more wars. That will only happen when Christ returns.... and even then, there is one big one at the end of the Millenium. When I say all bets are off, it is in relation the the syllogism of that verse. Since the antecedent is false, it doesn't matter what the conclusion is in that syllogism. Now, when Christ spoke those words, they are in the future tense. Whether or not it includes the past before Christ is debatable. I didn't mean to imply that Christ was talking about the past when he said that. My point was that those words are so broad they could be applied to any part , or all of human history, before Christ's time, during, or after.

So what's your point? That that particular verse can't really be used to find end times scenarios, as people often seem intent on doing. And in general, that the end or days may be "no where in sight" anyway.

No........but I hear it all the time that when end of the worlders want to "prove" that we're in the end times, they use that verse AND THEN tell me that we've got more wars going on then any other time in history. And if it's simply "wars and rumors of wars" constitute all of history. Wars and rumors of wars includes the same time frame in which Christ spoke the words, it includes time frame BEFORE He came to earth too. Wars and rumors of wars is part of all history. And it's not quiet in todays era either, it's just less noisy.

I joined in June of 1988. The only west coast station I have been at is Yuma Az. Other than that I have been stationed at Okinawa, MCAS Beaufort, Okinawa, MCAS Yuma, St Louis for recruiting duty and now MCAS New River Twenty years in the Marine Corps and NEVER on Camp Pendleton?

I started getting that way before getting transferred away from the "end times" crowd......mostly from envy of the way they could attach daily newspaper headlines/current events to scripture, always "proving" That was a big deal for me, as I used to pride myself (yeah, I said pride) on being intellectual, and I also felt that as such, it was my christian duty to know everything (only a slight exaggeration). I started getting that way before getting transferred away from the "end times" crowd......mostly from envy of the way they could attach daily newspaper headlines/current events to scripture, always "proving" how brilliant they were. I ended up reading the Bible by myself before I got too pulled into that world, which thereafter left me skeptical enough of the whole notion of "expertise" especially when they apply it to themselves

Your experience sounds very similar to mine. Sometimes reading alone makes doctrine clearer, other times it just makes you realise that it's ok not to know everything. Both are good. I would still prefer to read it alone.....I don't even take a Bible to church but if the preacher hits on something interesting, I'll make a note and read later when I get home. This from your post is wisdom that everyone is "qualified" for, but that most just don't understand,

I am most assuredly not hoping for more wars in the future. I have spent the last 20 years as a Marine and the last thing I want for my children are more wars. I don

Well the blow em up wars were also cases of nations rising up against nation. Hamas and Fatah don't really qualify as nations or kingdoms, I see them as more like international street gangs. I believe that Christ actually said that these things must pass but that it would not yet be the end, and then went on to speak of persecutions. There are some who think the wars and rumors of wars were actually things that were going on at the time, and the beginning of that passage relates to the destruction of the temple anyway which took place in 70 AD....so there is arguement for that perspective. And in that scenario, the persecution could be seen as what was going to against Christians in the centuries following his crucifixion.

I agree that it's not as easy to study prophecy as some make it out to be. I waffle between Post and A-Millenial positions at any given time, but when someone tries to pin me down I'll say I'm a Pan-Mill (It will all pan-out the way God intended in the end) because it's caused people who have devoted a lifetime of study to disagree and change positions, I get a few hours a week of serious study, sometimes more, sometimes less. Of course I need an open mind. I always wondered about this cheerleader for armageddon thing (Jack Van Impe and company pushed it and it made my brain itch), but I'm equally perplexed at some pretribbers who stockpile three years worth of MREs.... I think a big part of understanding prophecy is understanding that you don't need to understand prophecy to be a good Christian anyway. And I know what you mean about the millenial positions. I don't even get into discussions about it anymore because so many people get WAY TOO invested into their favored notions, their pet antichrists, etc. They end up sounding more like they're selling a product than searching for truth. I started to get way too caught up in this stuff in the 80's, and then abruptly got transferred overseas, away from the crowd I was with, where I ended up reading my Bible alone, without anyone telling me what to think...........best thing that ever happened to me.

Sorry but you need to get up on your history........I was being told the same thing in the 80's, I know people that were being told the same thing in the 70's. War is on a general decline.....this should be good news for you...... You're not getting the point. The numbers, the body count, the intensity of conflict, has nothing to do with the Lord's prophesy. Wars and rumors of wars. That's all there is. There is nothing at all in the prophesy that indicates increase or body count. And actually, yes, there are more conflicts in this age than at any other time in world history: http://www.countdown.org/armageddon/war.htm Actually no..........conflicts have been going down since WW II. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati...9818_war30.html And wars and rumors of them have existed forever. That can be applied to any period of history.....and it's actually less applicable now than before, because of the decrease in the amount of wars, the smaller body count, This is something that should be welcomed and celebrated. And if you think the numbers and body count don't matter, why are you linking to a site that details those numbers and body counts? And if you want to ignore body counts or increase of wars.....you're still stuck with the fact they the prophecy would be no more applicable now than it was in the first century. You can find wars and rumors of war before the prophecy was ever made. "Wars and Rumors of Wars" "In AD 40 there was a disturbance at Mesopotamia which (Josephus says) caused the deaths of more than 50,000 people. In AD 49, a tumult at Jerusalem at the time of the Passover resulted in 10,000 to 20,000 deaths. At Caesarea, contentions between Jewish people and other inhabitants resulted in over 20,000 Jews being killed. As Jews moved elsewhere, over 20,000 were destroyed by Syrians. At Scythopolis, over 13,000 Jews were killed. Thousands were killed in other places, and at Alexandria 50,000 were killed. At Damascus, 10,000 were killed in an hour

I always figured the wars and rumours of wars meant that there would always be violence or the threat of it on the world stage, I dont see anything about an increase or decline, just a constant presence. Much like Jesus said the poor would always be with us. I guess it could be read that way, Here is another take on it, not mine but interesting. "Wars and Rumors of Wars" "In AD 40 there was a disturbance at Mesopotamia which (Josephus says) caused the deaths of more than 50,000 people. In AD 49, a tumult at Jerusalem at the time of the Passover resulted in 10,000 to 20,000 deaths. At Caesarea, contentions between Jewish people and other inhabitants resulted in over 20,000 Jews being killed. As Jews moved elsewhere, over 20,000 were destroyed by Syrians. At Scythopolis, over 13,000 Jews were killed. Thousands were killed in other places, and at Alexandria 50,000 were killed. At Damascus, 10,000 were killed in an hour

I always figured the wars and rumours of wars meant that there would always be violence or the threat of it on the world stage, I dont see anything about an increase or decline, just a constant presence. Much like Jesus said the poor would always be with us. I guess it could be read that way, Here is another take on it, not mine but interesting. "Wars and Rumors of Wars" "In AD 40 there was a disturbance at Mesopotamia which (Josephus says) caused the deaths of more than 50,000 people. In AD 49, a tumult at Jerusalem at the time of the Passover resulted in 10,000 to 20,000 deaths. At Caesarea, contentions between Jewish people and other inhabitants resulted in over 20,000 Jews being killed. As Jews moved elsewhere, over 20,000 were destroyed by Syrians. At Scythopolis, over 13,000 Jews were killed. Thousands were killed in other places, and at Alexandria 50,000 were killed. At Damascus, 10,000 were killed in an hour

Sorry but you need to get up on your history........I was being told the same thing in the 80's, I know people that were being told the same thing in the 70's. War is on a general decline.....this should be good news for you...... The threat of nuclear conflagration is the biggest threat to this planet. Only will take one to kill multitudes. And it is going to happen soon in the middle east. Question for you - why would you ask a question and then argue when people respond? Just because they don't agree with you? Or have a different point of view? What's up with that? The historical perspective on the nuclear conflagration is that the multitudes you speak of today used to be millions in the 80's and earlier, kids used to practice hiding under their desks in case of nuclear attack, we used to have to worry about thousands of nukes from the USSR.....I'm sure you can see the difference......but as I said to the other poster, our brains seemed synced for the negative. The difference is real and though threats need to be dealt with so that things can get better again, I think we need to stop instinctively coating everything with a pervasive pessimism. War is down, with starvation and disease but yet that's not the general impression. And I'll argue back whenever I think the answer is wrong, asking a question doesn't mean auto-acceptance of the answer. Well, they will be in the billions now. There won't be any place to hide. Whether you think the danger is declining by your own perspective, another person has their own perspective which isn't necessarily wrong. But, you can argue back all you want. It is your playground. Billions now? Well millions being killed in the 80's was considered a realistic scenario under the existing world conditions at that time. So explain the REALISTIC scenario existing at this time that you have in mind when you say it will now be billions. Sure, Israel bombs Iran. Iran retaliates and Israel nukes them. Then Syria and Lebanon and the Palestinians attack Israel. Israel nukes um. Russia and China get involved, the US get involved to protect Israel and wha-la, we have a billion dead and the middle east is a waste land. Does that meet your expectations or are you going to argue with me because you don't like my answer. No........it doesn't satisfy anything because it barely feasible, not realistic. Nuke war in the 80's was realistic and hundreds of billions were spent by nations in prep for it, and for surviving it. I can make up a risk board WW III scenario too. But I talking about something that as realistic as happening in the near future as nuke war with USSR was in the 80's.....and I mean realistic in the sense of active prep for nuke war by world superpowers, at moments notice with thousands flying across the oceans. Arab nations aren't even bothering to prepare for nukes from Israel because they don't plan on doing anything to provoke her. And syria, lebanon and the Palestinians aren't going to do anything if Israel bombs Iran.

Sorry but you need to get up on your history........I was being told the same thing in the 80's, I know people that were being told the same thing in the 70's. War is on a general decline.....this should be good news for you...... The threat of nuclear conflagration is the biggest threat to this planet. Only will take one to kill multitudes. And it is going to happen soon in the middle east. Question for you - why would you ask a question and then argue when people respond? Just because they don't agree with you? Or have a different point of view? What's up with that? The historical perspective on the nuclear conflagration is that the multitudes you speak of today used to be millions in the 80's and earlier, kids used to practice hiding under their desks in case of nuclear attack, we used to have to worry about thousands of nukes from the USSR.....I'm sure you can see the difference......but as I said to the other poster, our brains seemed synced for the negative. The difference is real and though threats need to be dealt with so that things can get better again, I think we need to stop instinctively coating everything with a pervasive pessimism. War is down, with starvation and disease but yet that's not the general impression. And I'll argue back whenever I think the answer is wrong, asking a question doesn't mean auto-acceptance of the answer. Well, they will be in the billions now. There won't be any place to hide. Whether you think the danger is declining by your own perspective, another person has their own perspective which isn't necessarily wrong. But, you can argue back all you want. It is your playground. Billions now? Well millions being killed in the 80's was considered a realistic scenario under the existing world conditions at that time. So explain the REALISTIC scenario existing at this time that you have in mind when you say it will now be billions.

Sorry but you need to get up on your history........I was being told the same thing in the 80's, I know people that were being told the same thing in the 70's. War is on a general decline.....this should be good news for you...... The threat of nuclear conflagration is the biggest threat to this planet. Only will take one to kill multitudes. And it is going to happen soon in the middle east. Question for you - why would you ask a question and then argue when people respond? Just because they don't agree with you? Or have a different point of view? What's up with that? The historical perspective on the nuclear conflagration is that the multitudes you speak of today used to be millions in the 80's and earlier, kids used to practice hiding under their desks in case of nuclear attack, we used to have to worry about thousands of nukes from the USSR.....I'm sure you can see the difference......but as I said to the other poster, our brains seemed synced for the negative. The difference is real and though threats need to be dealt with so that things can get better again, I think we need to stop instinctively coating everything with a pervasive pessimism. War is down, with starvation and disease but yet that's not the general impression. And I'll argue back whenever I think the answer is wrong, asking a question doesn't mean auto-acceptance of the answer.

No problem..........I would like to see stuff like that linked to all over the web, but the decline has been since WW II, not by just a few decades, unless we have different definitions of "few" I don't necessarily think we're in imminent end times, I don't know and am not into that scene anymore, having been there/done that in the 80's. But my perceptions are that in the 80's, the rumors of war were much greater than now, and I know that the case can ALWAYS be made that rumors of war are on the rise. I think historically speaking, war used to be so common that there were almost certainly more rumors of war in past centuries than now. But I'm sure there is no way of proving the rumor count of today as compared to rumor counts of past centuries anyway. It's just that with more wars in the past it makes sense that there would likely be more rumors floating around also.

I am not sure you could back this up, the numbers maybe but not the amount of conflict in the world... also perhaps this is a calm before the storm... or maybe your scope is too small, no one knows what the next few years will bring the last two lines sound like your hoping for more wars in the future....seriously, I don't mean to berate you but I get that kind of reaction from lots of people..and I don't mean to imply that I'm not guilty of it also.....but I think our brains are synced for the negative.....we shouldn't be greeting good news with reactions like that in my opinion This is kind of what I anticipated, people don't want to believe and even before they get info on they start rationalizing it i.e. calm before the storm......it can always be the calm before the storm, and if you don't want to accept it, you can always find a way not to........don't turn yourself off to good news. And I shouldn't really be personalizing it onto you this much either, it me and others as well. It shouldn't be that important that we be in the end times, if that's the motivation. And we should not be more attuned and welcoming of bad news than good. War really is declining.........be glad about it, it's okay to believe something good, and it's not good to react by instinctively covering up the good with a layer of negative possibilities, like calm before the storm or something similar. Here's a link, but people are really not open to this kind of stuff because of a general perception that things are always getting worse, I think we've REALLY tweaked our perception of things going on around us, end timers are typically even less open to good news than others.......... Do you think starvation is rising or declining? Disease? Here's the link, but remember, if you don't want to be open to it, it won't do any good....and it's hard to get out from under that cloud. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati...9818_war30.html From the article.....this is good news but our brain seems to want to search up reasons to reject it...... The authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says 19 major armed conflicts were under way worldwide in 2003, a sharp drop from 33 wars counted in 1991.

Sorry but you need to get up on your history........I was being told the same thing in the 80's, I know people that were being told the same thing in the 70's. War is on a general decline.....this should be good news for you......

Check your history......it's been declining since world war II......casualties and wars and the scale of the wars.....sorry

the end times are one area that I have little interest in, but it does not seem from what I know that the numbers of wars or rumors of wars dropping off would really mess up any of the end time theories "Wars and rumors of wars" are supposed to be one of the signs of the end times, so if they decline, the chances of being in the end times decline also. I'm sure they could rationalize it somehow but I think it would be a monkey wrench in their thinking.

There are articles out there about the decline or war both in terms of the number of casualties AND the total number of wars being fought. Something that I've noticed, less frequent, and less body counts...not to trivialize what's currently going on but the numbers are just smaller. So how does the decline of war/end times theology juxtapose against the "wars and rumors of war" which were actually more frequent in the past than now? I have a feeling I'm putting my feet in the fire here because my experience with end times theologists is that they don't like to give up their notions of the end being just around the corner......

...yes, but it's all a waste of time if Frodo and Sam can't destroy the Ring.. The conspiracy folks ARE running around like chickens with their heads cut off.....read you own post for proof. Seriously, you need to get out of that world. You're not enlightend but deluded, the majority isn't ignorant but cognizant, the world is not governed by conspiracy and does not work the way you think it does.

Is there actually an article link for what you heard. I did a real quick yahoo search and didn't find anything out. Yeah, if there is a link, I want to read it for myself. They *might* if the courts are liberal enough, take away the tax examption but I dont think they can be sued unless they are a church that openly embraces gays... Yes and despite the recent decision, I don't think the courts are liberal enough. And I still don't think the gay groups are even pushing for any type sanctions against preachers that would refuse to do a gay marriage........gay groups are now worried about the next election which is supposed to give voters a chance to reinstate the ban on gay marriage. Their hope is that by the time the election rolls around people will be used to gays getting married and will be more acceptive than in year 2000. Going after pastors for refusing to do gay marriage would be like throwing gas on a fire that they want to burn out soon so everyone forgets about it.