tommy
Well-Known Member
Thanks Quahom!, I went ahead and worked on this the last few days after checking with you and I hope my thoughts here are presented appropriately and not insulting to anybody. Revelations, the climax, my how slow us humans are to learn. These are entirely my opinions (I did not read the posts here under “Revelations…are your ready” because I did not want to read anything that would alter my thoughts and will read them after making this post). I was not going to originally put my post up here, but with some encouragement and answers from another more senior member here in how to go about doing so and remaining on a positive theme, I decided to go ahead and do it anyway and am hopeful with these comments I won’t loose my privilege of being able to post here, because you folks here have human compassion and I am still seeking how to fully follow the religion Jesus would want me to follow, which I think is Christianity that stays away from nation (war), leaders who can misdirect their members because they are men, idols which is somewhat a confusing topic.
Here are a few dangers of following religion first rather then God in my opinion. We don’t always know what a doctrine or a council could put in place (i.e. Trinity) and that is why I think trust in the Bible and not a specific religion is important. I remember as a child in Catholic school having to say Father forgive me for I have sin and then I had to go kneel down and repeat about 10 Hail Mary’s and Our Father prayers. What does the Bible say about repeating prayers over and over (Rosary) as opposed to using the Lord’s Prayer through Jesus and then just talking to Him and continually using the word you rather then me? Religion in my opinion can confuse some with awkward beliefs for example, Is Mother Mary, the “Mother of God” or the Mother of Jesus? Does God have a Mother? I thought he is the Alpha and the Omega, which has no beginning or end. Some religions believe that Mary, the virgin Mother of Jesus remained a virgin her entire life. That is not true, because the Bible states that Jesus had several half Brothers and Sisters and he was the oldest in the family. We see this in the book of James and Jude and learn of half brothers who could not have come from a virgin and then Joseph would have not really been a normal person not wanting to have intercourse with his wife. I would imagine Mary was very beautiful since Jesus was perfect. Joseph seemed real normal to me with earthly desires and his seed came from the line of David, Noah and Adam. First we had Adam who did not obey his Father. Then, the Israelites, were praising a Golden Calf when Moses came down off Mt.Zion with all the laws, made out jealous God angry. Then the Israelites were given a glorious King, the Almighty One, Yahweh, what a wonderful name. But no, they wanted their own King. I kind of feel a little sorry for the Israelites
, they are always moving, geographically that is, even today there is talk of moving out again this summer (Gaza strip). Here is where I think the human race went wrong and why we are now standing on the crest of the great tribulation. God wanted one thing from us, since he created us, our sincere love and devotion and devotion is the key word here. This topic of Revelations is a serious topic and I do apologize for any lack of love and human kindness that may not follow Jesus’’ main theme of how we all get along in this world. We for the most part are devoted to our nation, leaders or a religion and we do need nation for a variety of reasons (police protection ect.) and religion to study as a group, but probably need leaders because we live in a nation, However, we have a supreme leader, God To find the key to Revelations we must realize that much of it is symbolism as it tells us that in the first chapter. Now since Revelations mentions Michael, is there any chance that this chapter refers to symbolism and a name that is only mentioned a handful of times (Micheal)might refer to Jesus in this chapter? Here is the definition of Michael, the name, “Who is like God”, that’s what the name means. This is important because it is my opinion that the Mighty Jesus would get the satisfaction and liberty of hurling the evil satan devil from Heaven. Michael, the Archangel comes up in Revelation 12:7 that uses symbolism and refers to Jesus in several different references (Lamp of God ect.) in addition to his name. Daniel Chapter 12:1 ties to the OT reference to Michael (the Archangel) as the “Great Prince” and some religions will not recognize the symbolism that Jesus (“Prince of Princes” how Catholics refer to Jesus in song) is actually Michael. Revelation 18:2-3, unfortunately refers to the mass of false religion that will fall prior to the end of the system of things including the group who committed fornication (priest molestation, sorry bringing this one up) in the last days and the scandal which has cost a billion dollars in defending itself and by all means please realize these are just my opinions on what I have researched and read and I do not want to insult anyone following the Big religion as my parents, brothers, sisters and many friends do and I did personally for 40 years. Revelations is a hard Book of the Bible and we need to learn in my opinion what is the 10 horns and what they represent. We also need to learn what is meant by the beast, the wild beast and Babylon the Great. God wanted praise to him and he even said to Moses more or less, hey, here is my name and you can tell them who I am when they ask. Then I started debating this issue on other forums about a month ago. I learned that the various translations of the Bible are very important as I started quoting the 1901 ASV Bible and learned that most faiths, including Catholic, Jewish (OT only because it uses Yahweh’s name and is very similar to their three books) and Christians felt pretty OK with the 1990 New Jerusalem Bible, so I will quote from here since there is some common ground. Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am Yahweh, this is my name”! I shall not yield my glory to another, nor my honour to idols”. Now idols are tricky, a whole separate topic, but I cannot figure out why when I see a bumper sticker with an image of the devil and you look real hard why you also see the cross. Is the devil using this as his trophy or is this extreme sarcasm? I don’t know. I also don’t know why sometimes idols move and reappear. Some may know what I mean here, some may not. I am a little embarrassed about what I have experienced in these regards and may be willing to go into a little more detail about what I mean here later if there is interest but want to spend the rest of this time speaking about Revelation, are you ready. Rev. 17:7-8 speaks of Babylon the Great, the prophecy of Rome, which has not yet occurred. Jeremiah Chapter 51:49 in the OT refers to Babylon as the ones responsible for the Israelites being “slaughtered” which could be symbolic what group (this might not mean all the individual members) will fall under Babylon the Great since the Bible uses symbolism and the OT and NT ties together. At first I thought that perhaps the Big religion was all wrong. But as I started debating these issues on other web-sites I learned that many Catholics are loaded with Bible knowledge, so how could all these members be all wrong? I don’t think that Babylon the Great is just 100% Catholic Religion, but the whole mass of false religion that has been led astray by politica/churchl leaders, nation, idols and anything else that is not 100% complete devotion to God through Jesus. That covers quite a bit and maybe in the future it is not the practicing members that fall who go on the correct path once all the scandals focused around sexual behavior, greed and money unfold leaving an empty church to go to, which I do not truly know the case either. I went on the search engine and typed in holocaust, Catholic religion and WWII because it has often been said that the Catholic Religion is the whore of Babylon the Great and a book came up below you can read, its free. Then I learned this, During WWII, pope Pius VII, remained silent during the killing of the Jews and God has instructed through Moses that “Thou shall not kill”. It was the ordinary Catholics that helped hide the Jews out of compassion for their fellow man and the pope, a human leader, turned his back to the biggest crime ever committed. However, millions were killed and only thousands were saved. Read this free book (however, I will put a warning label that if you do not want to read about some troubles the church had from 1938-1945, you might not want to open it) written by Michael Phayer about how the Vatican was silent about the killings of the Jews and how Pope Pius VII turned his back on the following web-site: http://iupress.indiana.edu/textnet/0-253-33725-9/0253108349.htm Rev 17:3-7 discusses the Beast (false religion) in Scarlet Red which could represent in my personal opinion, the blood of the millions killed when “nation went against nation” in WWII by those who were responsible and/or supported it. In Fascist Italy, on February 11, 1929, the Lateran Treaty was signed by Mussolini making Vatican City a sovereign state. Pope Pius XI claimed that he had “given Italy back to God, and God back to Italy”. Then six years later in October of 1935 Italy invades Abyssinia, claiming that is was “a barbarous land which still practices slavery” which was not condemned by the Vatican. We see last month on Showtime “our Fathers” and about Cardinal Bernard Law ending up getting a promotion after all of the cover up in the priest sex scandal. This also has happened at other religions like the Protestants. The Smith’s Bible Dictionary published in the early 1900’s says “Babylon (or Rome) in another form, the Papal despotism, a compound of Paganism and Christianity”. OK, then what defines paganism? Who is St. Patrick and St. Valentine and why don’t we read their names in the Bible? Is prayer directed to Saints paganism and do they get heard since it is not directed through Jesus to the Almighty One? As always, I do not know the answers, but am putting these issues up to share my thoughts in what I read in the Bible for purposes of debate and please be discerning about some of these sensitive topics that could be off and in some regards should be off, as like most of you I am a Bible student, that’s all. What are the ten horns referring to in Revelations? “Here is where the intelligence that has wisdom comes in: The seven heads mean seven mountains, where woman sits on top. And there are seven kings: five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet arrived, but when he does arrive he must remain a short while”. Revelations 17:9,10. Both terms are used scripturally to refer to governmental powers (Jeremiah 51: 24, 25: Daniel 2:34, 35, 44, 45).Six world powers are mentioned as having an impact on the affairs of God’s people: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon,, Medo-Persia, Greece. Of these, five had already come and gone by the time John received Revelation, whereas Rome was still very much a world power. This corresponds well with “five have fallen, one is”. But what of the “other” that was due to come? By the 19th century the Anglo-American world power was added. An angel explained to John, And the wild beast that was but is not, it is also itself an eight king, but springs from the seven, and it goes off into destruction Rev 17:11. How do we know that beasts are governments? Certain world powers of history appear directly in the Bible record as nations. Egypt, the serpent and also the bull, as well as Assyria usingthe bull. Medo-Persia used the Eagle. Athens used the Owl. Rome, the Eagle. In addition, Great Britain is designated by the Lion. The U.S., the Eagle. From the most remote times China has symbolized by the dragon and Russia the Bear. The symbolic scarlet-colored wild beast “springs from” the seven heads; that is, it is born from, or owes its existence to, those heads of the original “wild beast”…out of the sea”, of which the scarlet-colored wild beast is an image. What does this all mean? Well the Anglo-American power was the ascended head. The previous six heads had fallen and the position of the dominant world power had passed to this dual head and was now centered in it. This seventh head,as the current representative of the line of world powers, was the moving force in establishing the League of Nations and is still the major promoter and financial support of the UNITED NATIONS. Therefore, in symbol, the scarlet color wild beast, the eighth king “springs” from the original seven heads. Looked at like this, the statement that is sprang from the seven harmonizes well with the earlier revelation that the wild beast with two horns like a lamb (the Anglo-American World Power, the seventh head of that original wild beast) urged the making of the image and gave it life Rev. 13:1, 11, 14, 15. Therefore, the United Nations is also itself designed to look like a world government. At times it has acted like one sending people to war. As John soon learns, the time will come when the UN will act with considerable authority and call a war that “goes off into destruction”. (see part II, it won't all fit here) blessings, tommy
Here are a few dangers of following religion first rather then God in my opinion. We don’t always know what a doctrine or a council could put in place (i.e. Trinity) and that is why I think trust in the Bible and not a specific religion is important. I remember as a child in Catholic school having to say Father forgive me for I have sin and then I had to go kneel down and repeat about 10 Hail Mary’s and Our Father prayers. What does the Bible say about repeating prayers over and over (Rosary) as opposed to using the Lord’s Prayer through Jesus and then just talking to Him and continually using the word you rather then me? Religion in my opinion can confuse some with awkward beliefs for example, Is Mother Mary, the “Mother of God” or the Mother of Jesus? Does God have a Mother? I thought he is the Alpha and the Omega, which has no beginning or end. Some religions believe that Mary, the virgin Mother of Jesus remained a virgin her entire life. That is not true, because the Bible states that Jesus had several half Brothers and Sisters and he was the oldest in the family. We see this in the book of James and Jude and learn of half brothers who could not have come from a virgin and then Joseph would have not really been a normal person not wanting to have intercourse with his wife. I would imagine Mary was very beautiful since Jesus was perfect. Joseph seemed real normal to me with earthly desires and his seed came from the line of David, Noah and Adam. First we had Adam who did not obey his Father. Then, the Israelites, were praising a Golden Calf when Moses came down off Mt.Zion with all the laws, made out jealous God angry. Then the Israelites were given a glorious King, the Almighty One, Yahweh, what a wonderful name. But no, they wanted their own King. I kind of feel a little sorry for the Israelites
, they are always moving, geographically that is, even today there is talk of moving out again this summer (Gaza strip). Here is where I think the human race went wrong and why we are now standing on the crest of the great tribulation. God wanted one thing from us, since he created us, our sincere love and devotion and devotion is the key word here. This topic of Revelations is a serious topic and I do apologize for any lack of love and human kindness that may not follow Jesus’’ main theme of how we all get along in this world. We for the most part are devoted to our nation, leaders or a religion and we do need nation for a variety of reasons (police protection ect.) and religion to study as a group, but probably need leaders because we live in a nation, However, we have a supreme leader, God To find the key to Revelations we must realize that much of it is symbolism as it tells us that in the first chapter. Now since Revelations mentions Michael, is there any chance that this chapter refers to symbolism and a name that is only mentioned a handful of times (Micheal)might refer to Jesus in this chapter? Here is the definition of Michael, the name, “Who is like God”, that’s what the name means. This is important because it is my opinion that the Mighty Jesus would get the satisfaction and liberty of hurling the evil satan devil from Heaven. Michael, the Archangel comes up in Revelation 12:7 that uses symbolism and refers to Jesus in several different references (Lamp of God ect.) in addition to his name. Daniel Chapter 12:1 ties to the OT reference to Michael (the Archangel) as the “Great Prince” and some religions will not recognize the symbolism that Jesus (“Prince of Princes” how Catholics refer to Jesus in song) is actually Michael. Revelation 18:2-3, unfortunately refers to the mass of false religion that will fall prior to the end of the system of things including the group who committed fornication (priest molestation, sorry bringing this one up) in the last days and the scandal which has cost a billion dollars in defending itself and by all means please realize these are just my opinions on what I have researched and read and I do not want to insult anyone following the Big religion as my parents, brothers, sisters and many friends do and I did personally for 40 years. Revelations is a hard Book of the Bible and we need to learn in my opinion what is the 10 horns and what they represent. We also need to learn what is meant by the beast, the wild beast and Babylon the Great. God wanted praise to him and he even said to Moses more or less, hey, here is my name and you can tell them who I am when they ask. Then I started debating this issue on other forums about a month ago. I learned that the various translations of the Bible are very important as I started quoting the 1901 ASV Bible and learned that most faiths, including Catholic, Jewish (OT only because it uses Yahweh’s name and is very similar to their three books) and Christians felt pretty OK with the 1990 New Jerusalem Bible, so I will quote from here since there is some common ground. Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am Yahweh, this is my name”! I shall not yield my glory to another, nor my honour to idols”. Now idols are tricky, a whole separate topic, but I cannot figure out why when I see a bumper sticker with an image of the devil and you look real hard why you also see the cross. Is the devil using this as his trophy or is this extreme sarcasm? I don’t know. I also don’t know why sometimes idols move and reappear. Some may know what I mean here, some may not. I am a little embarrassed about what I have experienced in these regards and may be willing to go into a little more detail about what I mean here later if there is interest but want to spend the rest of this time speaking about Revelation, are you ready. Rev. 17:7-8 speaks of Babylon the Great, the prophecy of Rome, which has not yet occurred. Jeremiah Chapter 51:49 in the OT refers to Babylon as the ones responsible for the Israelites being “slaughtered” which could be symbolic what group (this might not mean all the individual members) will fall under Babylon the Great since the Bible uses symbolism and the OT and NT ties together. At first I thought that perhaps the Big religion was all wrong. But as I started debating these issues on other web-sites I learned that many Catholics are loaded with Bible knowledge, so how could all these members be all wrong? I don’t think that Babylon the Great is just 100% Catholic Religion, but the whole mass of false religion that has been led astray by politica/churchl leaders, nation, idols and anything else that is not 100% complete devotion to God through Jesus. That covers quite a bit and maybe in the future it is not the practicing members that fall who go on the correct path once all the scandals focused around sexual behavior, greed and money unfold leaving an empty church to go to, which I do not truly know the case either. I went on the search engine and typed in holocaust, Catholic religion and WWII because it has often been said that the Catholic Religion is the whore of Babylon the Great and a book came up below you can read, its free. Then I learned this, During WWII, pope Pius VII, remained silent during the killing of the Jews and God has instructed through Moses that “Thou shall not kill”. It was the ordinary Catholics that helped hide the Jews out of compassion for their fellow man and the pope, a human leader, turned his back to the biggest crime ever committed. However, millions were killed and only thousands were saved. Read this free book (however, I will put a warning label that if you do not want to read about some troubles the church had from 1938-1945, you might not want to open it) written by Michael Phayer about how the Vatican was silent about the killings of the Jews and how Pope Pius VII turned his back on the following web-site: http://iupress.indiana.edu/textnet/0-253-33725-9/0253108349.htm Rev 17:3-7 discusses the Beast (false religion) in Scarlet Red which could represent in my personal opinion, the blood of the millions killed when “nation went against nation” in WWII by those who were responsible and/or supported it. In Fascist Italy, on February 11, 1929, the Lateran Treaty was signed by Mussolini making Vatican City a sovereign state. Pope Pius XI claimed that he had “given Italy back to God, and God back to Italy”. Then six years later in October of 1935 Italy invades Abyssinia, claiming that is was “a barbarous land which still practices slavery” which was not condemned by the Vatican. We see last month on Showtime “our Fathers” and about Cardinal Bernard Law ending up getting a promotion after all of the cover up in the priest sex scandal. This also has happened at other religions like the Protestants. The Smith’s Bible Dictionary published in the early 1900’s says “Babylon (or Rome) in another form, the Papal despotism, a compound of Paganism and Christianity”. OK, then what defines paganism? Who is St. Patrick and St. Valentine and why don’t we read their names in the Bible? Is prayer directed to Saints paganism and do they get heard since it is not directed through Jesus to the Almighty One? As always, I do not know the answers, but am putting these issues up to share my thoughts in what I read in the Bible for purposes of debate and please be discerning about some of these sensitive topics that could be off and in some regards should be off, as like most of you I am a Bible student, that’s all. What are the ten horns referring to in Revelations? “Here is where the intelligence that has wisdom comes in: The seven heads mean seven mountains, where woman sits on top. And there are seven kings: five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet arrived, but when he does arrive he must remain a short while”. Revelations 17:9,10. Both terms are used scripturally to refer to governmental powers (Jeremiah 51: 24, 25: Daniel 2:34, 35, 44, 45).Six world powers are mentioned as having an impact on the affairs of God’s people: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon,, Medo-Persia, Greece. Of these, five had already come and gone by the time John received Revelation, whereas Rome was still very much a world power. This corresponds well with “five have fallen, one is”. But what of the “other” that was due to come? By the 19th century the Anglo-American world power was added. An angel explained to John, And the wild beast that was but is not, it is also itself an eight king, but springs from the seven, and it goes off into destruction Rev 17:11. How do we know that beasts are governments? Certain world powers of history appear directly in the Bible record as nations. Egypt, the serpent and also the bull, as well as Assyria usingthe bull. Medo-Persia used the Eagle. Athens used the Owl. Rome, the Eagle. In addition, Great Britain is designated by the Lion. The U.S., the Eagle. From the most remote times China has symbolized by the dragon and Russia the Bear. The symbolic scarlet-colored wild beast “springs from” the seven heads; that is, it is born from, or owes its existence to, those heads of the original “wild beast”…out of the sea”, of which the scarlet-colored wild beast is an image. What does this all mean? Well the Anglo-American power was the ascended head. The previous six heads had fallen and the position of the dominant world power had passed to this dual head and was now centered in it. This seventh head,as the current representative of the line of world powers, was the moving force in establishing the League of Nations and is still the major promoter and financial support of the UNITED NATIONS. Therefore, in symbol, the scarlet color wild beast, the eighth king “springs” from the original seven heads. Looked at like this, the statement that is sprang from the seven harmonizes well with the earlier revelation that the wild beast with two horns like a lamb (the Anglo-American World Power, the seventh head of that original wild beast) urged the making of the image and gave it life Rev. 13:1, 11, 14, 15. Therefore, the United Nations is also itself designed to look like a world government. At times it has acted like one sending people to war. As John soon learns, the time will come when the UN will act with considerable authority and call a war that “goes off into destruction”. (see part II, it won't all fit here) blessings, tommy
