tHEY HATE cHRISTIANITY WHICH OFFERS THEM ETRNAL LIFE BUT LOVE iSLAM WHICH WANTS TO KILL THEM ALL.

cIBTENOKATUVE PURSUIT HITS BRICK WALL FOR ME

 bEEN POKING AROUND TRYING TO GET A CLEARER SENSE OF THE WHOLE FRAME OF REFERENCE OF rICHARD rOHR BUT i'M GOING TO GIVE UP FOR NOW.  mAYBE i JUST DON'T HAVE THE PATIENCE TO TRY TO GRASP WHAT HE MEANS BY DUALISM OR THE uNIVERSAL cHRIST AND i DON'T WANT TO MISCHARACTERIZE HIS POINT OF VIEW, BUT GOOD GRIEF cHRISTIAINITY IS DUALISTIC, reality IS DUALISTIC i DON'T GET THESE EFFORTS TO TRY TO EMBRACE BOTH AS IF IT COULD BE DONE.  aND OF COURSE i REJECT THIS IDEA THAT cHRIST IS ANYTHING OTHER THAN jESUS, the mESSIAH PROPHESIDED FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO COME AS sAVIOR FOR MANKIND, A SINGLE HUMAN BEING ANOINTED BY gOD FOR THIS PURPOSE, gOD AND mAN IN ONE PERSON.  tHERE IS NO chRIST BEYOND THIS PERSONAL cHRIST.    i GUESS PEOPLE LIKE THE IDEA, FOR SOME REASON THEY DON'T LIKE THE TRUE cHRIST, THE TRUE DUALISTIC NATURE OF REALITY AND SO ON SO THEY DO AWAY WITH IT IN THESE OTHER CONCEPTS THAT TAKE THE TERMINOLOGY AND BLAST ITS JORMAL MEANINGS.

THAT'S WHERE i AM RIGHT NOW.  iT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE THE ENERGY AND THE MOTIVATION TO DO A THOROUGH JOB ON ANY SUCH CONCEPT OR PERSONALITY LIKE RORH BUT i HAVE TO REMIND MYSELF THAT i'VE NEVER ASSUMED THAT ROLE HERE.  iT'S NOT MY ROLE, i DON'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A SCHOLAR THAT \\\\\ WHO RADS EVERYTHING AND CAN PUT A DOZEN MOVING PARTS TOGETHER INTO A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF SOMETHING.  i WANT TO TRY TO GET THE ESSENCE OF SOMETHING AND HOPE TO MOTIVATE OTHERS TO PURSUE IT.  

gOOD IS GOOD AND BAD IS BAD AND i JUST CAN'T MAKE SENSE OUT OF ANY ATTTEMPT TO ....  i DON'T EVEN KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE TRING TO DO WITH THEM EXCEPT NOT ALLOW THEM TO BE CLEARLY DIFFERENTIATED.    i'M so RELIEVED TO LIVE IN A UNIVERSE WHERE gOOD IS GOOD AND BAD IS BAD AND TO KNOW THAT GOOD WILL WIN IN THE END.  nOTHING COULD MAKE ME HAPPIER.  aND cHRIST IS MY sAVIOR.  wE MADE NO MISTAKES ABOUT THAT.  rOHR HAS US MAKING A MILLION MISTAKES ABOUT ALL OUR ORTHODOX BELIEVES.  oH WELL, DISMANTILING REALITY AND TRUTH SEEMS TO BE THE PROJECT OF THE FORCES OF EVIL TODAY AND IF THEY CAN SEE IT AS SOPHSTICATED THEY'LL O FOR IT.  iN THE PROCESS OF COURESE THEYU MAKE A PATHETIC STRAW MAN OUT OF THEIR OPPOSITION.  tHEY WAY THEY CHARACTERIZE ORTHODOZXY, THE BELIEFSZ OF THE TRUE cHURCH, IS MOST DEPRESSING.  oLD WHITE BEAREDED MAN ON A THRONE IS SUPPOSEDLY OUR IDE A OF gOD?  gOOD GRIEF.  i GUESS HE PICKS OUT A SMALL SEGMENT OF THE cHURCH AND MAKES IT STAND FOR THE WHOLE SO HE CAN DISMANTLE IT AND LAUGH AT IT AND PRETEND IT'S WHAT WE ALL THINGK. 

hE ASO LAUGHS AT THE IDEA THAT EATING AN APPLE IS WHERE IT ALL STARTED, MAKING THAT RENDING OF THE UNIVERSE IN ONE ACT OF DISOBEDIENCED INTO A TRIVIAL SILLINESS.  hE EVEN CALLES IT SILLY.   nO IDEA OF FALLENNESS WHATEVER.  tHAT WE ARE BORN FALLEN, BORN IN ORIGINAL SIN, WHICH MEANS BORN WITH THE SIN NATURE THAT ACT OF ISOBEDIENCE BROUGHT ON US.  wE NEED REDEREDEMPTION FROM THIS, THAT'S WHAT SALVATION IS ALL ABOUT.  THIS SWORLD IS NOT NORMAL.  hE SEEMS NOT TO GRAPS THIS SIMPLE BIBLICAL FACT.  tHIS WORLD IS FALLEN.  oH HE KNOWS IT'S BROKEN AS HE PUTS IT, BUT HE DOENS'[T SEEM TO KNOW THAT THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO BE SAVED FROM.  i'M SURE i'M MANGLING WHAT HE WOULD SAY TO SOME EXTENT SO i SHOULDN'T GO ON WITH IT.  sO i'LL JUST HAVE TO LET HIM GO ON DISMANTLING REALITY FOR NOW.  

oH YES.  fORGOT.  hE THINKS IT'S TERRIBLE THAT lUTHER CHARACTERIZED US AS A PILE OF MANURE OR SOME SUCH.  i'M NOT AWARE OF THAT QUOTE BUT IT DOES SOUND LIKE lUTHER'S STYLE.  oF COURSE HE'S TALKING ABOUT OUR FALLEN NATURE.  nOT THE IMAGE OF gOD IN US BUT OUR FALLEN NATURE.  wHICH cALVIN CALLS TOTAL DEPRAVITY, ANOTHER CONCEPT rOHR RIDICLES.  iT'S JUST ANOTHER WAY OF DESCRIBING HOW WE LOST OUR ORIGINAL PERFECTION WHEN aDAM AND eVE  DISOBUYED gOD.    wE LOST OUR CONNECTION WITH gOD, LOST THE ACTUAL SPIRITUAL FACULTY WHICH CONNECTS US WITH GOD, ALL INHERIT A FLESHLY BODY WITHOUT THAT SPIRITUAL CAPACITY, THAT'S WHAT TOTAL DEPRAVITY IS.  nOT THAT WE AREN'T MORALLYH GOOD IN SOME CONTEDXTS BUT THAT WE AREN'T CAPABLE OF THE GOOD WE HAD AT THE cREATION, THAT WAS FULL OF NTHE HATURE OF gOD.

  AND HE DENIGRATES jESUS, "lITTLE HUMBLE" jESUS HE SAYS, AND THINKS IT CRAY THAT IN SOME ART HE IS ELEVATED TO THE ROLE OF A KINGLY gOD.  bUT HE SEEMS TO HAVE READ THE BIBLE, HOW DID HE MISS THAT jESUS WAS ALWAYS BEING CALLED THE ONE WHO SPOKE WITH AUTHORITY, UNLIKE THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, AND IS PRESENTED IN THE bOOK OF rEVELATION AS kING OF kINGS AND lORD OF lORDS, AND WAS ALMOST KILLED A NUMBER OF TIMES FOR CLAIMING TO BE GOD.  sCRIPTURE TELLS US THAT THE FALLEN NATURE H

tHIS WORLD IS A BATTLEGROUND BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL.  i SUPPOSE THAT SOUNDS FAIRYTALEIST TO SOME MINDS.  aND EVEN MORE FAIRYTALEISH THAT WE ARE SENT A HERO TO SAVE US FROM THE EVIL, the cHRIST OR aNOINTED oNE, PROMISED FROM ALL THE WAY BACK IN eEEN TO SAVE US FROM OUR SINS.  wHAT ON EARTH WOULD A uNIVERSAL cHRIST DO ANYWAY?  the cHRIST DIES FOR hIS FOLLOWERS SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO GO TO hELL FOR OUR SINS.  wE THEN RECEIVE hIS NATURE INTO US, gOD IN US THE HOPE OF GLORY, AND WILL SPEND ETERNITY WITH hIM IN A NEW WORLD FREE OF SIN AND EVIL.  yEAH PRETTY FAIRYTALEISH.  bUTG WONDERFULLY TRUEtOO BAD rOHR AND HIS FOLLOWERS WILL MISS OUT ON THAT.  

cONTEMPLATIVE mOVEMENT rICHARD rOHR gETS IT rIGHT IN SOME iMPORTANT WAYS BUT hORRIFICALLY WRONG IN THE END

For some years I've been aware that there is a Contemplative movement going on in some parts of the Church but I haven't done much to find out about it, just hear about it here and there, usually from someone warning against it although I don't take much time to find out what's wrong with it.   Since I was first drawn to Christianity by the Catholic mystics you'd think I'd be more eager to check it out but I don't expect much from it just from what little I've heard so I don't.

A friend who is not a Christian says she has been enjoyuing a Christian teacher named Richard Rohr so I said I'd check him out.  I'd heard of him in connection with this Contemplative movement but couldn't remember much about him.  Well I probably hand't heard anything of his though I thought I had.  

He's interesting.  I'll have to listen again if I think it necessary beause there's a lot to absorb.  My first reaction is that I think I've never heard any presentation that is both so importantly true ahnd so damnably false at the same time.  He does say some very interestingly true things but he says them in a context that is so false at first it just managed to agitate and anger me.   I'm over that but now I have the job, have given myself the job, of gryint to say somethinhg about him that gets at what I think is good and bad about it.  

I'll atart out by saying that what attracticeted me in the Catholic Mystics is just not found in the Protestant Church and that has always been a disappointm,ent to me, because in spite of their theological erros there is a body of trutyh there that I think she should be trying to hold onto.   I find it mostlyu in A W Tozer and nowhere else these days, a genuine Protestant who never loses sight of the foundation of salvation but can also see that we are missing something with that as our exclyusive emphasis.  His book the Pursuit of God, but also The Knowledge of the Holy, both are reminders that God is offering Himself to us as a lover and our respo0nse to Him through regeneration is a passionate love in return.  Or it would be if it were encouraged, but mostly we are just endlessly redirected to the gospel of salvation and maybe some to the teachings for grpwtj om sanctification, but really n othing that would stir up that love in us.  

Scripture itself doesn't emphasisze this, though, and I've wondered about that.  We have Psalm forty two which desribes our panting after God and we have the Song of Sooloomon for two main references to loving God in experience.

There are books out there that by their titles make you think they might lead in this direction, Loving God, Knowing God and that sort of thing but they never evoke that passionate affection for God which is the whole point of it all,   But even the Westminster catechism sayhs it:

baiscally what is the purpose of life, but they say  What is the cheif end of man?  And the answer is To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Glorify Him, magnify Him, worship and adore Him, and enjoy Him forever.

And anyone who is feeling a lack of this might well be drawn to something called Contemplative Prayer although it would lead into theological heresy.  Too bad.  I don't knows if there's antything to be found in that direction if we could do it right, but something that allows us to pursue God in the sway Tozer has in mind is definitely needed.  his books are certainly a start.  

So Rohr does point to the God of Love and he says some true and good things about seeking this God while overall he has us dancing around the pit of Hell.  Quite a feat really.  

In the beginning of his talk, Contemplative Vision Presentation One,  he is talkinjg about God indwelling us and how this is a gift of God, it has nothing to do with moral worthiness.  Golly gosh does that sound Protestant.  But he doesn't seem to know that.  In fact you could say that the entire Protestant Reformation could be summed ug as the revelation that we can't earn anything from God, everythign is a Gift, our salvation is a gift, His indwelling is a girt.   it took Martin Luther some years of struggle before he recognized that theme in scripture and that was the foundation of the whole thing, the overthrowing of Catholicism's works righteousness, the teaching that we do indeed earn our salvation, must have that moral worthiness to be saved.  Yes, Richard Rohr, that is CATHOLIC, but the Protestant Reformation overthrew exactly that and revealed that Catholics ARE NOT SAVED and cannot be saved as long as they think they have to do somethimg to earn salvation.  The first thig that is needed in the recognition that salvation is a free gift.  Sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura, solus Christius.  

But Richard Rohr has somje very bizarre ideas about what salvation is, what reception is.  Some strange idea about the meaning of thte Cross.  I guess it is possible to read scripture and know it pretty well and miss the whole point.  Luther did too of course, it was a long struggle for him so there's nothing unusual in Rohr's getting it all wrong although once you do understand it it is hard to see how others miss it.

Rohr thinks we are born indwelt by God, that God is always and equally available to all of us etc etc etc.  He has no nothing whatever that we are born in sin, in fallennness and that isbn't a normal condition, it's what Jesus died to save us from.  We cannot be indwelt by God until we believe that Jesus has saved us from our sins by dying on the cross in our place.   He took our sins on Himself, into His own body and we are nailed to that cross with Him and that is how we are saved.  THAT is the only translformation we are to undergo.  Rohr has some peculiar idea of transformation as what Christ came to do, transform sin somewhoew or totherk which seems to be about being in "solidarity" with sin or with the woundedness of the world or some such incomprehesnsible idea.  What what what?  

If we are saved we know we are IN Chrixt, we known He dided in our place, and we are born again as a result of that recognition.  Regenerated.  We now have two natures, the fallen sin nature and the redeemed saved transformed nature indwelt by God, but until we believe that we do not have salvation or recemption or the indwelling of god and the Holy Spirit.  Rohr seems to have NO idea of any of that.  But then Catholics generally don't.  that was of course the whole point of the Protestant Reformation.

He does same some interesting things about the Trinity, but he thinkis that idea was arrived at by the Church Fathers contemplating the relationship of Jesus to the Father and doesn't seem to know that the Trinity is found in many versis in scr8ipture, verses that affirm that God is One and Yet that Father, Sonm and Holy Spirit are separate Persons, or personas as he rather predantically insisted we understand, and that each one is also GFod , possises all he characteristics of God.  All that is in scripture, we didn't need the Church Fathers to arrive at it by musing on some small part of the Bible.  You can find all this spelled out at Blue Letter Bible.

BUT.  i DO COME BACK TO THE FACT THAT THIS cONTEMPLATIVE MOVEMENT DOES WANT US TO APPRECIATE THAT gOD IS lOVE, AND gOD IS RELATIONSHNIP.  yES THE TRINITY DOES EXPRESS LOVING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE THREE, AND HIS TERM pARICHORESIS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT IS ok TO EXPRESS THAT i THINK, A "CIRCLE DANCE" OR SOMETHING THAT EXPRESSES THE INTERPRRELATIONSHIPS OF LOVE AMOTN THE THREE.  

but YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY OF THIS WITHOUT BEING SAVED AND THAT'S THE GIGANTIC HOLD IN HIS THINKING.  wITHOUT THAT IT IS ALL IMPOSSIBLE AND THAT IS THE DANDINCING AROUND THE PIT OF hELL i WAS TALKING ABOUT.  yOU MUST BE SAVED AND then YOU CAN HAVE gOD.  yOU CANNOT HAVE gOD UNTIL YOU ARE SAVED.

but.   i DO CONTINUE TO LAMENT THAT THE ONLY PLACES WE ARE INVITED TO THE LOVE OF gOD THAT PANTS WITHIN US WITHOUT FULFILLMENT AS tOZER RECOGNIZED ....   LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT SORRY.    i LAMENT THAT THE ONLY PATHS i KNOW OF THAT TRY TO LEAD US THERE LEAD US TO hELL INSTEAD, NOT THROUGH THE INVITATION TO LOVE gOD BUT THROUGH THTE FACT THAT THE FOUNDATIONAL GRACE OF SALVATION IS ESSENTIAL TO IT.

i HATE ALL THE MISTAKES i KNOW ARE IN THIS.  aND NOW i HAVE TO STOP.  i THINK THERE'S A LOT MORE THAT COULD BE SAID BUT i'LL HAVE TO COME BACK TO IT IF SO.

Some Corrections

Was Able to use the Read Aloud function to hear the top page of the blog and cringe at how many errors of all kinds I made.  I can't do anything about them beause I can't see, andthe typos though numerous don't seem to be a huge problem, but I've made errors of fact that do bother me and I wish I could change them.  

I did note that I'd referred to the book of Daniel chapter nine when I should have referred to chapter seven as the source of the image of the beast in Revelation thirteen and even seventeen but there are other problems if I can remember them.

One is that in Revelation eleven where John is measuring the temple and is told to leave out the court of the Gentiles I said this would be until the fullness of gentiles was complete, but that's not what is said there:  they are allowed to trample the holy city is what it says,m for fourteen hunndred and njinety days, which is that important time period that is repeated in many ways in Revelation as well as the book of Daniel.  The women of Revelation twelve will be protected for that same period of time, the beast of Revelation thirteen will be allowed to persecute and kill the saints for that same period of time and I forget the other references right now.  

But it's expressed in different ways and I don't remember which form is used in which case:  some places it's fourteen hundred and nintey days, some places it's three and a half years, some places it's a time, time and half a time.  Oh yes the two witnesses testify for that same period of time.  And so on.

I also stupidly put Saddam in afghanistan when I meant Iraq.Or should have.

Qhat else.  Don't know at the moment.

By the say the surgery went well and I thank anyone who prayed for me.  I have a five inch incision at the base of my neck but oddly enough no pain, just tightness.  

What else.  Oh I know there were other mistakes.  Maybe I can come back and add them later if I remember them.  It shouldn't be too hard to add something at the boottom of the post.

mARK lEVIN: sAVING aMERICA nEEDS A bOOST

i'D WRITE YOU A PERSONAL EMAIL BUT i CAN'T DO EMAIL ANY MORE OR GET AROUND THE INTERNET MUCH AT ALL ANY MORE DUE TO BAD EYESIGHT BUT MAYBE SOMEONE WILL PASS THIS ON TO YOU.  

i THINK YOUR NEW BOOK COULD CHANGE SOME MINDS ON THE LIBERAL LEFTIST dEMOCRAT SIDE BUT i THINK YOUR TITLE IS GOING TO BE A BARRIER TO ANYONE ON THAT SIDE GIVING IT A TRY.  cOULD YOU MAYBE CHANGE THE TITLE FOR A LATER EDITION TO AIM IT MORE AT THEM?  aS YOU YOURSELF SAID RECENTLY THERE ARE dE...    THERE ARE dEMOCRATS WHO DON'T KNOW WHY THEY ARE dEMOCRATS, AND i'VE POINTED OUT HERE THAT THERE IS A WHOLE MOVEMENT OF dEMOCRATS WHO LEFT THE PARTY CALLED THE wALKAWAY MOVEMENT, WHICH WAS STARTED BY A GUY WHO WAS SUDDENLY FACED WITH THE FAFCT THAT HE'D BEEN LIED TO ABOUT dONALD tRUMP.  bRANDON sTRAT OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.  HE RESEARCHED MORE AND FOUND OUT THAT THE LIES WERE JUST ABOUT ALL HE EVER HEARD ABOUT ANYTHING AN LEFT THE dEMOCRATIC pARTY.  sO MINDS CAN BE CHANGED.

i'VE \\\i'VE 

THERE ARE A FEW BLATANT LIES, SIMPLE LIES i'VE THOUGHT i'D LOVE A CHANCE TO TTRY TO GET ACROSS TO SOME LIBERALS/dEMOCRATS.  tHERE ARE STILL PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO DON'T KNOW THAT tRUMP DENOUNCED THE NEWOlnAZIS IN HIS cHARLOTTESVILLE SPEECH SO THEY STILL THINK HE SAID THEY ARE GOOD PEOPLE WHICH OF COURSE HE DIDN'T SAY.    tHERE ARE ALSO PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO STILL THINK THAT HE MOCKED A GUY'S DIABILITY WITH THAT ODD HAND FLAPPING GESTURE HE MAKES, BUT THAT ONE IS EASY TO MPROVE WRONG BY SHOWING VIDEOS OF THE MANY OTHER TIMES HE MADE THAT SAME GESTURE AT PEOPLE WHO DON'T HAVE A DIASABILITY.  THE GESTURE IS SOMETHING HE DOES TO MOCK A STUPID IDEA.       aND THEN THERE IS GEORGE fLOYD .  tHERE ARE PEOPLE WHO STILL THINK THAT WAS A RACIST INCIDENT BY RACIST COPS.  aLL WE HAVE TO DO IN THAT CASE IS SHOW THE VIDEO OF THE EXACT SAME THING BEING DONE TO A WHITE GUY, tONY tIMPA AND THAT VIDEO SHOULD STILL BE UP ON yOU tube.  I hope it is anyway  Also the videos of the mocking gesture and Trump's speech at Charlottesville.  Democrats who have been deceived by these mdeia deceptions are capable of changing their minds when they are faced with the trutyh.

VByt tgat 

But I didn't wstart tis post to say that.  I want to suggest that Mark Levin might change the title of his book.  To something like

Is This The Democratic Party YOu Signed Up For?  Surprising Facts From the History of the Party that May Change Your Mind about some things.

Not good examples but I'm sure your wife could come up with a good title.

fREEDOMS GIVEN TO CRIMINALS, GOOD FOR EVIL, EVIL FOR GOOD, WHAT ELSE IS NEW

tHE cONSTITUTION CONFIRMS OUR RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE TOGETHER FOR A REDERRESS OF GRIEVANCES FROM THE GOVERNMENT, BUT DOES IT GRANT US THE RIGHT TO PROTEST IN FAVOR OF AN ENEMY OF THE uNITERD STATES SUCH AS hAMAS>  dOES IT?  iS THERE ANY WAY TO MAKE ANY OF OUR FREEDOMS APPLY TO THIS SORT OF AB OMINATION LEGALLY?  sHOULDN'T THEY ALL BE ARRESTED AND HALF OF THEM THROWN OUT OF THE COUNTRY?

EneND tIMES dITHERING

nOTE:  i'M HAVING SURGERY TOMORROW AFTERNOON, mONDAY THE 16TH AND WOULD APPRECIATE ANY PRAYERS IF ANYONE SEES THIS IN TIME.  dELICATE SURGERY ON MY THROAT.  tHANKS.

cORRECTION:  vELOW i SAY THAT THE BEAST OF rEVELATION THIRTEEN IS PREFIGURED IN dANIEL NINE.  THAT'S WRONG, dANIEL'S VISION OF THE FOUR EMPRIES OF WHICH THE FOURTH IS THE BEAST OF rEVELATION, IS dANIEL SEVEN.

 I know there are some people who read my blog who get driven crazy by my inability to settle into the pre tribulation pre millennianl eschatologt which is wiatin gfor the Rapture , to be followed by the Day of the Lard on earth while we are in heaven.    There's a lot about it that seems to make wonderful sense and I want to go with it but I just can't settle some questions that nag at me no matter how I try to brush them off.

It's a very nice scenario.  The Church is not destined for wrath and w4e are promised that we will be spared His wrath when it comes on the whole world.  That explains our being raptured off the planet before it all starts.  And then there is the way the last great tribulat8ion fits into the seventieth week of Daniel.  That last week is certainly still dangling unfulfilled and the Day of the Lord fits it like a glove.  

It does look beautifully aranged that prophecy of seventy weeks that actually ended at sixty nine with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on the donkey.  Beautifully arranged.  Jesus goes on to be crucified after the sixty nine weeks and for the next two thousand years we have the Church being built up apparently apart from the history of Israel which is the subject of the seventy weeks prophecy.  Daniel's people are the Jews and the prophecy is about their future, but that future is interrupted by the Church.  The last week of the prophecy has remained unfulfilled since Palm Sunday before Jesus was crucified.  When it resumes, as it must, it makes sense that we are again back in teh times of the Old testament or Danie'l;s people the Jews.  Hence the Book of Revelation is about the Jews, the finale of planet earth being ended with God's final dealings with His Old testaemtn people.  It all hangs together very nicely.

But but but but but ....

My buts don't challenge that basic scenario, I don't see how it can be wrong, but I nevertheless have lots of questions and buts in my head about how it is understood to play out.

Well, let me not be too hasty, since I may question some of that in the end, I don't know yet.  Nevertheless the way the Bible rounds off with a return to the Old TGestament is enormously satisfying, and that isn't just empty rhetoric, the whole overall plan of Revelation is very Old Testament in its design and characteristics, its imagery.  The beasts that are symbolic of what is being played out all relate back to the beasts of Daneil's vision in Daniel nine.  The tone is not New testament at all, it's entirely Old testament, at least after the letters to the CHurchs in the first three chapters.  It's really a jaw droppingly beautiful way to bring God's story to a close.

But but but but but

Forgive me, I have to stop here.  I'll either come back to this post and finish it or I'll continue it in another peopst.

Sunday the 15th

I hesitate about all this because I just don't want to be in the position of being at odds with te pre trib pre mill people.  I want that system to be true.  I have objected to the pre trib view of the antichrist and still have those same objections, but there are other problems I have with it that ar harder to let myself pursue.  For one thing I haven't worked them out in any satisfactory way, they pretty much remain quesionts, but they do call into question some cetral tenets of the pre trib view and that makes it hard.  But they bother me enough to want at least to toss out some half baed problems with it anyway.

My biggest problem is accepting the idea of two separate groups of saved people.  As I read the Old testament and on into the New all I see is that the people who give themselves to the Messiah are the people of God it is all aiming toward, and that is both Jew and Gentile as Paul makes clear.  The first believers in Jesus were all Jews, okay with the oaccasional Centurion here and there.  The Church was originally Jewish as it was meant to be.  When the Jewish leaders rebelled against Jesus as their Messiah it was taken out into the Gentile world and eventually became far more Gentile than Jewish.  But That to my mind doesn't make it a Gentile Church.  In fact there is no more Jew nor Gentile at all, we are all Christianas whatever our fleshly origina.  

So I have a big problem with the idea that this body of believers gets raptured while there are millions of Jews and Gentiles in the world waiting to be saved during the Great Tribulation.  How can the "times of the Gentiles" be over with the Rapture when there are all those Gentiles out there who will eventually become believers?   Just because the Book of revelation is oriented toward the Jews as God brings His dealings with them to a finale, and they are the evangelists who bring in all the Gentiles, doesn't to my mind make these new believers something other than part of the Church.   A separete Church?  I can't find that in scripture and so far I haven't heard any scribtural justification for the idea from the pre trib people, just an assertion that it is so.

But of course if it is the Church, if all believers are together the Church, the Body of Christ -- and how can He have two bodies anyway?  then the Raptaure can't happen until all the Gentiles AND Jews are saved, ALL ODF UIS AS ONE BODY.  Nothging else makes any sense to me.    Does that mean that we go through the tribulation?  I don't know how to think about all that.  I believe the pre trib emphasis on our being spared the wrath of God so I suppose I have to think of believers as being protected from God's wrath in some other way or believe in the rapture's occuring at a later date.  That is beyond my ability to sort out at this point.

But some other concerns enter into this theme.  I notice every time I read Revelation that God's wrath isn't mentioned until the sixth seal and particularly seventh.  We are told that the saints will go through harrowing times after we are introduced to the beast freom the sea in Revelation thirteen, and it is mentioned again in chapter fourteen.  

That suggests that God's wrath doesn't really begin with the opening of the first seal, but rather with the seventh. or even a later part of the seventh, that I'll have to explore more.    And if so then that is the wrath we are to be protected from.

It also seems to me that the first six seals in themselves do not suggest God's wrath but the sorts of tribulations we always encounter from time to tie on planet Earth.  False Messiahs, wars, famines, pestilences and so on, are all endemic to life in this fallen world.  But of course they are unleashed with the opening of the first seals so something about them puts them in the last days framework, but at least they are the beginning of sorros that jesus talsks about in Matthew twenty four.  The beginning of the end, the precursors to the Dayh of the Lord which is the outpouring of God's wrath.    

Is that the last half of the seventieth week of Daniel?  I think that sneeds some sorting out too.  I'm not even sure the first six seals fit into that last week.  It's nort necessary.  Jesus was qualified to open the seals right after He ascended to the right hand of God or perhaps after the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church.  He could have begun opening them back in John's Day, leaving the Day of Wrath for the last week of Saniel which is yet future.    Just a bunch of things I hae to muddle my way through.

In all tI've also noticed that we don't hear of the marriage supper of the lamb or the giving of rewards to the saints until the end of Revelation, but according to the pre trib scenario we receive them after the rapture while we are in heaven during the great tribulation which is going on in the world while we are there.  I don't reall hearing an explanation of this anyhwayre although it's possible I've just missed it.  In Revelation nineteen or twenty or whichever it is where these are mentioned it sounds future, it's about to happen, has yet to happen, and yuet the raptured saints will already be with Jesus in hjheaven supposedly already having experienced those things.   

I still like the seventieth week of Daniel as the framework for Revelation, and can'[t think how else it could fit into history.  It works beautifully there and so does the return to God's dealings with Isreael rather than the Church.  But that doesn't have to mean that there is a strict separation between Church and Israel, it just means that God is dealing with ethnic or fleshly Israel in Revelation and when they are saved they join the Church which is the Israel of God or spiritual Israel.  Those are the two different bodies as far as I can see, unsaved and saved, fleshly and spiritual.  God can turn His focus to ethnic Israel who were the subject of the Old Testaemtn without treating them as some kind of separate entity from the Chruch.   I've alsways been bothered by this idea that those who reject the t=pre trib scenario are committing something called Replacement Theology when I know that they are simply seeing the Old Testament being fulfilled in the New and it's very hard not to look at it that way in my experience.  The only division that makes sense to me is the division between fleshly and spiritual or unsaved and saved.  Ethnic Israel is unsaved but God is dealing with them anyway in Revelation as He dealt with them throughout the Old Testgament.   But then they get saved they don'[t join some other group than the Church, they join the Church as spiritual born again believers in Messiah.  

I do object strongly to the way the anti pre trib people deny any role at all for Isarel however.  It seems like some kind of mental disorder to deny that the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 should just be brushed off as some kind of weird coincidence.  Sorry, God does not operate that way, and god is in charge of it all.  Israel is certainly God's land and He's using it in some pointed way to bring history to a close.  they aren't saved but they will be saved, or "all" Israel will be saved ultimately, but they have a presence in the fallen world as God's people nevertheless and they are the stumbling block He is going to use to make His case against all those who deny Him and violate His commandments.  Revelation whos the way all this is going to play out in the end as the world is brought to justice, the Jews are saved and Jesus returns to rule us all.  

But of course all this stuff I'm raising here amonst to a sort of theological or eschatalogical catastrophe and I don't know how to resolve it all.  All I know is that these questions keep nagging me and I think theyuare important and I don't think pre tribbers are facing them honestly.

I'll be beside myself with joy to find myself going up in the Rapture of course so I can hope I'm wrong about any of this that contradicts such a possibility.

IIt still annoyeds me to hear the pret trib idea that the antichrist has yet to be revelaed and that the reelation will be the removal of the Holy Spirit.   the Reformers revealed the Antichrist scripturally as the Pope, he sits in the temple of God as if he is God himself, takes the titles of God and Christ and Holy Spirit to hismefl and that temple is the people of God who have been defined as thaqt temple in many places in the New testament.  That's what the Reformers said and hundreds beofre them alwaready identified the Pope as the Antichrist, it isn't as if they were the first.    And it is uttery ridiculous to think that Paul would have needed to be so cryptic about the identify of the Restrainer if the Restrainer was the Holy PSirit.  there would be no reason whatever tro keep that identity assecret.   No, it had to be the Caesars who were still in power in Paul'

s time but who woulde be replaced by the Bishop of rome in some important sense when he, the zanTICHRIST, TOOK ON THAT MANTLE OF POWER AND THE SO CALLED hOLY rOMAN eMPIRE CAME INTO EXPISTENCE.  aND FOR PETE'S SAKE THEY MAKEE MARTYRS GALORE OF CHRISTIANS WHO DENIED THEIR RIGHT TO AUTHORITY OVER THEM AND RECOGNIZED THEIR APOSTATE THEOLOGY.  mILLIONS OF MARTYRS OF THE cATHOLIC iNQUISITION, THE pAPAL iNQUISITION.  tHOSE HAVE TO BE THE MARTYRS OF rEVELATION FIVE IT SEEMS TO ME WHO ARE WAITING FOR NEW MARTYRS TO ARRIVE AND JOIN THEM DURING THE GREAT TRIBULTION WHICH IS ABOUT TO COME UPON THE EARTH.  

THE BEAST OF rEVELATION THIRTEEN, THE BEAST FROM THE SEA, IS CLEARLY THE rOMAN EMPRIE THAT HARKS BACK TO THE FOURTH BEAST OF dANIEL'S FISION IN dANIEL NINE.  iT CONTAINS THE EMPLEMS OF THE THREE FORMER EMPIRES IN ITS LEOPARD CHARACTERISTICS, ITS BEAR'S PAWS AND IT'S LION'S MOUTH, THE THREE EMPIRES OF dANIE'SL VISION THAT PRECENDED THE FOURTH GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAST WHOME WE KNOW TO BE RTHE rOMAN EMPIRE THOUGH HE CDIDN'T KNOW IT IN HIS DAY.  HE COULD ONLY SEE AS FAR AHEAD AS aLEXANDER'S gREECE.    bUT THE BEAST FROM THE SEA IS ALSO IDENTIFIED AS A MAN WITH THE NUMBER 666 AND i'LL JUST SAY IT AGAIN,  THERE IS NO OTHER POSSIBLE CALCULATION OF THAT NUMBER THAN THE ONE EMBEDDED IN THE TITLE OF THE pOPE WRITTEN IN lATIN, vICARIVS fILII dEI.  iT'S THE ONLY NAME IN WHICH THE NUMBERS ARE ACTUALLY A PART OF THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH THE NAME IS WRITTEN.  yOU CON'T HAVE TO FOOL AROUND WITH NAMES AND LOOK UP THE NUMBERS THAT ARE ASSIGNED TO THEM SOMEWHERE ELSE, THE NUMBERS ARE PART OF THE LANGUAGE ITSELF.  aND THE TITLE ITSELF means aNTICHRIST.  sUBSTITUTE FOR THE sON OF gOD?  oR iN THE PLACE OF THE SON OF gOD?  yOU AREN'T GOING TO FIND A BETTWSER DEFINITION OF THE aNTICHRIST ANYWAYRERE.  aND IT IS ANNOTYING THAT i KNOW SOME PRE TRIB PEOPLE READ MY BLOG AND HAVE SENE THIS ARGUMENT A ZILLION TIMES AND STILL IGNORE IT.  yEA i GUESS i'M SOIME KIND OF EGOIST, BUT i KNOW i'M RIGHT.

mIGHRT NOT BE fRACIS OF CORUSE, HE'S GETTING AWFULLY OLD, BUT i FIND IT HARD TO GIVE UP ON HIM JUST BECAMESE WE ARE SO CLOSE TO THE END, WE ALL FELEL IT, AND HE HAS BETTER QUALIIFCATIONS THAN MOST OTHER PEOPES, BEING A jESUSI AND BEING SELECTED ON THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF mARCH IN TH YHEAR TWENTY THIRTEEN, AND HAVING A SEAGULL, AN UNCLEAN BIRD, SITTING ON THE CHIMSENEW WHERE THE SMOKE ROSE TO ANNOUNCE HIS ELECTION.  aND HE'S A jESUIT, A jESUIT pOPLE OF ALL THINGS.  hE'S ONLY TOO WELL QUALIFIED FOR THE ROLE OF aNTICHRIST, BUT MAYBE SOMEONE ELSE WILL COME ALONG WHO IS EVEN ETERRER QUALIFIED.  wHO KNOWS?

lATER:  i WAT TO TRY TO SAY IT AGAIN.  tHE cHURCH CAN'T replace iSRAEL, THE cHURCH IS MADE UP OF SAVED PEOPLE AND iSRAEL OF THE bOOK OF rEVELATION IS unsaved iSRAEL, FLESHLY iSRAEL, eTHNIC iSRAEL.  tHE cHURCH IS THE BODY OF BELIEVERS, MADE UP OF BOTH gENTILES AND jEWS BUT TRANSFORMED, BORN AGAIN.  eTHNIC OR FLESHLY GENTILES REMAIN UNCHANGED, AND SO DOES ETHNIC iSRAEL OR ALL UNSAVED jEWS.  i DON'T THINK i'M GETTING THIS SAID AS CLEARLY AS IT NEEDS TO BE SAID BUT THIS WHOLE BUSINESS OF TWO SEPARATE BODIES IS WRONGHEADED AND HAS TO BE ANSSWERED IN SOME SUCH WAY.  

lATE sUNDAY:  aNOTHER QUESTION OCCURS TO ME.  iF jOHN WAS WRITING THIS VISION OF REVELATION AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF 70 ad, WOULD HE HAVE PRESENTED THE TEMPLE IN THE VISION AS INTACT AS HE DOES WITHOUT SOME KIND OF QUALIFICATION THAT IT WOULD HAVE TO BE REBUILT?  bUT THERE'S NOTHING ALONG THOSE LINES.  iN rEV 11,  i HOPE i GOT THAT RIGHT, HE'S GIVEN A REED FOR MEASURING THE TEMPLE AND TOLD TO LEAVE OUT THE OUTER COURT WHICH BELONGS TO THE gENTILES UNTIL THE TIMES OF THE gENTILES ARE AT AN END.  aND HERE i HAV ETO NOTE THAT SUPPOSEDLY ACCORDING TO THE PRE TRIB SYSTEM THE TIMES OF TEH gENTILES END WITH THE rAPTURE BUT DOESN'T THIS OCCUR YEARS AFTER THE rAPTURE?    aND THE OTHER MENTION OF THE TEMPLE IS WHEN THE aNTICHRIST SETS HIMSELF UP IN IT.  THAT'S THE PHYSICAL TEMPLE, NOT THE TEMPLE AS THE PEOPLE OF GODE IN THIS CASE.  aNYWAY, QUESIONS CONINUE TO MULTIPLY AND i DON'T SEE ANY OF THEM ADDRESSED ANYWHNERE THAT i KNOW OF.