Futurism

[leah777]

one persons way of posting and communicating is not the same as anothers. We are not in a court of law, cross examining each other. 

[David1701]

23 minutes ago, DeighAnn said:

THE great falling away IS IN RELATION to the end times. 

A GREAT FALLING AWAY is the whole BELIEVING world,  falling away at the same time. AT the same time, like through a BIG event.   How do we KNOW?  Because Satan will DECEIVE the Whole World,  and to do that ALL the Christians living must be deceived. EXCEPT for those wearing the whole armor to withstand the darts.  


Has that ever happened?  IF so, WHO is it the whole world worshipped after,  because of the miracles and signs he performed in the sight of all men and believing him to be CHRIST RETURNED?  BECAUSE those are the requirements.  

Should be the simple to answer.  BUT it won't be.  

When did the end times start, according to the Bible?

Expressions like "the world" are generalisations; even nowadays, they almost never mean "every single person in the world", much less in NT times.

The great apostasy is an apostasy from the faith, which means not believing the essentials.  The elect cannot be thus deceived, according to the Bible.

The office of "Pope" is worshipped by millions, partly due to all the false miracles claimed by Romanism (he does not have to perform them himself).  He claims to have the authority of Christ on Earth and sits in the temple of God (i.e. the professing Church) issuing decrees, as if he were God.  One of his blasphemous titles is "Vicar of Christ", which means "Instead of Christ", which means "Antichrist".  Another blasphemous title is "Holy Father", when only God is our Holy Father.

In prophetic language, a "beast" is a kingdom (or its ruler, as representing that kingdom).  The "Pope" rules over the Vatican, which kingdom has ambassadors in nearly every country in the world, influencing world leaders.

[Your closest friendnt]

10 minutes ago, SONshine said:

both. 

Thank you for your response, What if it is none. What if it both? 

What we are going to do? 

Ask someone, but who knows about those things? 

[Heleadethme]

3 hours ago, Justin Adams said:

As has been said: "sometimes we have to unlearn things". Mostly this has to do with poor teaching and stuff we just 'imbibe unconsciously' from others. 

A note of history: if you read a lot, you will probably come across the RCC's edicts and especially Augustine's whos word was law (literally) for hundreds of years. The situation was really set in stone before the reformation that healed quite a lot in many debatable areas. We must remember, that Augustine in his City of God and other writings basically said that since Yeshua had not come back as expected, that the playing field was now wide open for the Church and its 'ministers' to do as they wanted and 'guide' God's work here on earth.

They really thought they had the right to do this and few dared oppose it. And so it went on for a very long time. A very long time indeed. Vestiges still linger today. They became very powerful and basically ruled many countries by their wealth and stealth and political power. They took what they needed and killed any that got in the way "of God's work".

Amen.  The problem seems to be the flesh, reading and understanding with the mind of flesh....really even without the RCC and it's founders and teachers, I suspect we all would and do stumble in much the same ways.  All flesh is the same.  Nevertheless, we are overcoming our flesh, dying to it, as we grow in the Lord with He being the Chief Shepherd of our souls.   Though of course it would have been ideal and helpful for us all to have really & truly matured teachers in our earlier years instead of bible school graduates and professional pastors....truth is such a rare commodity.

[leah777]

1 minute ago, SONshine said:

This is the great apostasy:

Rev. 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

. . .

Rev. 13:6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

Many people when they read these verses imagine that the dragon, Satan, is going to say evil things against God. But he's not going to be speaking "bad things" about God. He's going to be speaking AS GOD, and everything that comes out of his mouth is blasphemous because he is claiming that HE IS GOD. That's the blasphemy!  Remember what Paul told us would happen BEFORE our gathering back to Christ?

2 Thes. 2:3 
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The "falling away" is the great apostasy whereby the whole world worships the dragon, the son of perdition, Satan. 

2 Thes. 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

 

this happened when the first Pope appeared, and carried on with successive Popes. 

[Justin Adams]

10 minutes ago, leah777 said:

this happened when the first Pope appeared, and carried on with successive Popes. 

This is a possible scenario. I feel that there are others that were also involved.

[Heleadethme]

25 minutes ago, David1701 said:

When did the end times start, according to the Bible?

Expressions like "the world" are generalisations; even nowadays, they almost never mean "every single person in the world", much less in NT times.

The great apostasy is an apostasy from the faith, which means not believing the essentials.  The elect cannot be thus deceived, according to the Bible.

The office of "Pope" is worshipped by millions, partly due to all the false miracles claimed by Romanism (he does not have to perform them himself).  He claims to have the authority of Christ on Earth and sits in the temple of God (i.e. the professing Church) issuing decrees, as if he were God.  One of his blasphemous titles is "Vicar of Christ", which means "Instead of Christ", which means "Antichrist".  Another blasphemous title is "Holy Father", when only God is our Holy Father.

In prophetic language, a "beast" is a kingdom (or its ruler, as representing that kingdom).  The "Pope" rules over the Vatican, which kingdom has ambassadors in nearly every country in the world, influencing world leaders.

Yes, the RCC and Papacy I believe is one major manifestation of what 2 Thess 2 is talking about and was foreseeing.  But hold onto your hats, because unless I'm much mistaken, I believe there may be another major manifestation coming related, sadly, to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Time will tell, but we need to be sober and alert.  Antichrist is spirit (evil) and is not limited necessarily to just one manifestation.

[David1701]

16 minutes ago, SONshine said:

This is the great apostasy:

Rev. 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

. . .

Rev. 13:6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

Many people when they read these verses imagine that the dragon, Satan, is going to say evil things against God. But he's not going to be speaking "bad things" about God. He's going to be speaking AS GOD, and everything that comes out of his mouth is blasphemous because he is claiming that HE IS GOD. That's the blasphemy!  Remember what Paul told us would happen BEFORE our gathering back to Christ?

2 Thes. 2:3 
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The "falling away" is the great apostasy whereby the whole world worships the dragon, the son of perdition, Satan. 

2 Thes. 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

 

Satan is the power behind the Son of Perdition; but, the SoP himself is a man.  The first so-named was Judas Iscariot and the other is the anti-Christ (the office of Pope).  The Pope sits in the temple of God (the professing Church) making out that he has MORE authority than God.  He claims that he has the authority to change times, seasons and what the Bible teaches.

[David1701]

27 minutes ago, Heleadethme said:

Amen.  The problem seems to be the flesh, reading and understanding with the mind of flesh....really even without the RCC and it's founders and teachers, I suspect we all would and do stumble in much the same ways.  All flesh is the same.  Nevertheless, we are overcoming our flesh, dying to it, as we grow in the Lord with He being the Chief Shepherd of our souls.   Though of course it would have been ideal and helpful for us all to have really & truly matured teachers in our earlier years instead of bible school graduates and professional pastors....truth is such a rare commodity.

There is a difference between a born again Christian making mistakes and misunderstanding some things (we all do) and the deliberate deception of Romanism, which subverts the gospel and teaches a false way of salvation.  Born again Christians do not do this.

[Heleadethme]

4 hours ago, Starise said:

Organized people who are also attempting to responsibly study the Bible like to have a very unified cohesive Christian world view as it pertains to the future. We are trained from  a very young age to anticipate the future in some way. When will I get to middle school? When will I graduate High school? I can't wait until college or tech school is over etc. Even you youngest will say, " Are we there yet?" 

The Bible is a progressive book that just happens to often have many facts out of chronological order. It doesn't help that some people have taken it upon themselves to 'assist' us in determining what the order should be by adding their own views to it with no scriptural foundations.

Much of this ties into the desire to know what comes next, because if we can determine this we can then know what will come after it, then hopefully determine an overview of the timeline we are presently on with respect to biblical prophecy.. The idea that most of the prophecy has already happened naturally throws a problem to those of us who presently see things happening all around us in alignment with scripture to indicate other events are on the horizon. We can't discount anything. God is just the sort to do something in a way those less vigilant would be less likely to expect. 

Nothing against Justin, but I think the very term Futurism throws us off the path because it is associated with an extreme view when really it's a pin on term that distracts us from the reality of what is actually going to happen. IOW rather than going around calling each other extremists using pin on catch terms, type would be better served  producing the actuality of the events. 

Admittedly there is some room for flexibility. I think establishing a timeline is very important for us to measure where we are 'now'. If you don't know where you are, how can you possibly anticipate in any way what comes next? I believe this is something we each need to study for ourselves. If we haven't entirely arrived at a few concrete conclusions, just know this- WHERE YOU ARE IS IN CHRIST. No matter where that is. This means by extension, It's all going to eventually be ok.

Amen...I think the need to know the future is of our flesh...curiosity and control (knowledge is power) as well as enjoying getting all excited.

If i can try to explain this a little bit,  I gather the use of the term "Futurists" doesn't necessarily mean there is nothing coming in the future per se, but it is a convenient handle to call a certain way of looking at those scriptures that is unbalanced and unspiritual and ignores a lot that should not be ignored.  It threw me too at first.