Revelation; The Beast and the Temple

Originally posted by Alethea
Wrong word. It's the "Master of the Temple."
And the Master holds the reigns that controls and directs the Beast (network).

And it is we the people who give power to the Beast and bring it to life because we give it our consent.
We have the power to stop it with only 4 words. "I do NOT consent."

It was a king in history and in Daniel, and I was just following on from those references. A ruler might be called anything, but I don't see the point of insisting on the word "Master".

I think it would take more than four words to stop the kind of Beast you are imagining.

reply to post by DISRAELI

Does Victoria Clark quote any figures for the proportion of American Christians who believe a stone Temple ought to be built? Because of course this is a much narrower issue than the question of whether a Zionist state should exist in that land- it would be perfectly possible for someone to believe the latter without extending it to the former, so I was wondering what the figures were. Not living among American Christians, I've got no personal experience to enlighten me.

I saw the results of a poll taken in 2008, during the US presidential election which indicated 40% of American Christians support the Anti-Christ view of an individual man sitting down on a throne inside the physical re-built temple in Jerusalem. It figures quite prominently in most dispensationalist teachings and has become a large part of American culture itself through popular Left Behind Series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

It's all pretty rampant in America, where you'll hear people talking about the rapture even if they've never been in a church or opened a Bible. It's become part of American cultural sub-conscious.

10s of millions of dollars, tax exempt, have been flowing out of American churches per year, for illegal Jewish settlements in Palestine. That's why I mentioned the 666 talents per year that Solomon was raking in as the emperor from vassal kings. In every sense of the word, the US acts as the vassal to Israel, paying the yearly tribute, and then some.

Israel would never have been established as a state if not for British Christian Zionists, and it could not exist now without the Christian Zionist Americans.

Revelation 13
13 And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men.

Shock and awe
March 21, 2003, approximately 1700 air sorties. Live on every television in the world.

16 He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

The US sponsored UN Sanctions on Iraq:
a near-total financial and trade embargo August 6, 1990, May 22, 2003, which directly contributed to up to 500,000 deaths, mainly children.

Current US supported blockade of Gaza, the crime? elected government of Palestine, Hamas majority doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist.

Current US sponsored Embargo of Iran, UN went along, US added further, EU following the Beast added more. The crime? Not recognizing the current Zionist State of Israel as legitimate.

The US is the brute military power. Christian Zionism is the breath giving it life to mandate to the world. "Support the Jewish State of Israel or face military enforced trade sanctions or even death as a nation."

[edit on 24-8-2010 by pthena]

reply to post by pthena



A polemist peacemaker?

Perhaps the great delusion and falling away is some peoples belief in a pretribulation rapture of the church and their loss of faith when it doesn't happen. Tropical Fruit World Sounds like a great place to be when the shtf.

The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus which is the oldest known copy of Revelation (late 3rd century/early 4th) has the number as 616 not 666. This is just one link and there are several more if you google it.

www.preteristarchive.com...
4499_rev_13-18.html

Just something to think about.

[edit on 24-8-2010 by LAinhabitant]

reply to post by LAinhabitant

A polemist peacemaker?

Polemics isn't violent name calling. It is exposing error and explaining why it is error. The name calling isn't slander if the evidence fits the name. If the error leads to violence and bloodshed, then the curtailing of that error is indeed a work of peacemaking.

Perhaps the great delusion and falling away is some peoples belief in a pretribulation rapture of the church and their loss of faith when it doesn't happen.

The delusion that destroys peoples souls is to think that they can set millions of people up to be killed, and that they will some how be saved from the slaughter. The damage will have already been done before they realize that there is no special escape for them.

And I'm sorry to be in a bad mood right now. I just told some Mormon missionaries to leave after they insulted me for reading news papers instead of watching Glen Beck on Fox.

Tropical Fruit World! I just looked it up.

Before most Australians had even heard of avocados, Bob had often visited this Research Station and had acquired a taste for this new fruit. When he brought his Cootamundra bride to the Tweed, they both became addicted to avocados. They used to purchase them straight from the Research Plot.
www.tropicalfruitworld.com.au...

He used to get some of his avocados from Fallbrook, Calif. where his magazine office was. It used to be avocado capital of the world.

I don't hold any grudges, we've got a lot in common, like completely changing world-views based on a couple of paragraphs from a book. In my case, I chalk it up to the butterfly totem, not much known for cutting through storms, but blown off course.

Thanks for the mood change.

“It’s a number puzzle — the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero.”

Revelation was actually a thinly disguised political tract, with the names of those being criticized changed to numbers to protect the authors and early Christians from reprisals. “It’s a very political document,” Dr. Aitken said. “It’s a critique of the politics and society of the Roman empire, but it’s written in coded language and riddles.”
The Internet's Only Balanced Look at Preterism and Preterist Eschatology
Fixed Link

So 616 means Nero?

[edit on 24-8-2010 by pthena]

reply to post by pthena


I see a polemist as a warrier fighting for a cause. Hence a polemist peacemaker to me is an oxymoron and I was chuckling about it. Perhaps I should have put a smiley next to it as I certainly didn't mean it in a derogatory fashion and I am sorry if it was taken that way.
One of the bad things about his form of communication is it lacks intonation and expression as well as body language and facial expression.

This is for you:
www.donnasaurina.com...

I read the Wikilinks you provided and you obviously have much greater knowledge of theology and eschatology than I do. I became lost just with some of the terminology (perfectionism? Legalistic works based salvation possibly? Investigative judgement?) Perhaps some of the stuff is related specifically to LDS.

We all inadvertantly insult others at times. The Mormans mean well as. I know you do too but that doesn't change the fact what you say may insult someone else.

Col 3:12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering;


Col 3:13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.


Col 3:14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.


Col 3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

LOL.....Tropical Fruit World is still in business it appears. Glad I was able to change your mood. My mental telepathy must have worked as I repeatedly sent you the message to chill. I didn't know I had that kind of power! LOL!

reply to post by LAinhabitant
Thanks for the picture.

SDA and LDS are completely different. The main practical difference is between conscientious objection and following any order to go kill without question. I don't get on much with the LDS.

Perfect footsoldiers for any and every anti-Christ that comes along in my opinion. "Killing is the only right thing to do as long as some one tells you to do it." Since I disagree, they find it necessary to ask me if I'm an American. Pretty funny that the people Americans kill, and the people cheering back home both assume that that's what it means to be American.

It's not my place to forgive what is done to someone else, that's completely in the hands of the injured party.


[edit on 25-8-2010 by pthena]

Originally posted by pthena
I saw the results of a poll taken in 2008, during the US presidential election which indicated 40% of American Christians support the Anti-Christ view of an individual man sitting down on a throne inside the physical re-built temple in Jerusalem.

So that's the proportion which takes it for granted that a physical temple will be built.
And what percentage of those would be putting themselves behind positive action to get the building done? That's really what I meant by "ought to be built". Presumably a smaller proportion, because not all of them would adopt the logic of "we must make it happen for the sake of what comes afterwards". Isn't that the real hub of what makes the concept dangerous?

Originally posted by DISRAELI

Originally posted by Alethea
Wrong word. It's the "Master of the Temple."
And the Master holds the reigns that controls and directs the Beast (network).

And it is we the people who give power to the Beast and bring it to life because we give it our consent.
We have the power to stop it with only 4 words. "I do NOT consent."

It was a king in history and in Daniel, and I was just following on from those references. A ruler might be called anything, but I don't see the point of insisting on the word "Master".

I think it would take more than four words to stop the kind of Beast you are imagining.

In certain very important circumstances, those four words make all the difference in the world, even if not for any one other than the one saying them.

[edit on 25-8-2010 by pthena]

reply to post by DISRAELI

So that's the proportion which takes it for granted that a physical temple will be built.
And what percentage of those would be putting themselves behind positive action to get the building done? That's really what I meant by "ought to be built". Presumably a smaller proportion, because not all of them would adopt the logic of "we must make it happen for the sake of what comes afterwards". Isn't that the real hub of what makes the concept dangerous?

That question, of actually doing something was asked in Israel but not in the US. The closer it gets to action as opposed to the idea, the lower the number gets.

In the US money actually counts more than numbers. Lobbyists push the higher number as the important thing and shovel money in behind it.

People are getting their homes torn down daily. Settlers are taking 80% of Palestinian water daily. US Christian money is paying for it. I don't know how far ignorance of consequences goes in protecting people from their actions.

reply to post by pthena



Oops- I messed up there thinking about the
Mormans visiting you and typed LDS rather than SDA.
Sorry!

I haven't formulated an opinion on the 616 yet.

Another very thought provoking, and insightful thread

Your take on the abomination of desolation is new to my head, but rings true. When Jesus spoke of the temple, the disciples assumed he meant stone buildings, but he meant himself. So the temple within, suggests that many christians will be duped into accepting the AC as the messiah. And perhaps continuing to worship the AC, as they have Christ before.

It is viable, for man to continue misunderstanding, and while God was speaking of the AoD as inside a person, man is going to create the temple ANYWAY. So you have fulfillment of both ideas similtaneously.

The poep has fulfilled all of the "signs", as well as the feet of iron and clay. Whether the AC will be a poep or not is irrelevant i think, to the fact is that the AC will have the fullest support of the RCC.

Aside: was reading vigilant citizen's article on The deification of diana (although i can't find it now) but the way a girl was taken and made into a "goddess"is quite startling. Even to her burial, her life was made to fit into a precast mould of divinity, something that continues. Ask any woman about di and their eyes will tear. Surely it's THAT easy in this popular media age to elevate someone to godhood. Mandela too. Media spin, all of it.

peace

Originally posted by harryhaller
Aside: was reading vigilant citizen's article on The deification of diana (although i can't find it now) but the way a girl was taken and made into a "goddess"is quite startling. Even to her burial, her life was made to fit into a precast mould of divinity, something that continues. Ask any woman about di and their eyes will tear. Surely it's THAT easy in this popular media age to elevate someone to godhood. Mandela too. Media spin, all of it.

And I think it's very unlikely that anyone was deliberately planning this.
It was just the media's instinctive recognition of the image that the populace wanted to see.
That in itself probably says a lot about the roots of the divinisation process. It matches what people are looking for.

reply to post by DISRAELI

It was just the media's instinctive recognition of the image that the populace wanted to see.
That in itself probably says a lot about the roots of the divinisation process. It matches what people are looking for.

Yesterday, my sister emailed me because she had just seen the movie "The Road", mostly for the actor. She thought that the author (Cormac McCarthy) must be a very depressed person.

I wrote my own review of the book.

I actually read the book about a year ago. _____ got it from a friend of her's at work who I'd gone out to lunch with once, and she was interested in my reaction to it after reading it. I found it very depressing and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. There is no way that a nuclear (not stated but implied) cataclysm could kill off all green life and all animal life and yet leave humans alive at least the eight years implied in the book, based upon the boy's age. So the book is a quite gratuitous depiction of human struggle to raise a young one in the face of a hypothetical situation which is completely impossible. Two thumbs down.

Of course none of the other reviewers or award givers agree with my review. The lemming herd mentality is completely open to view on this one. One guy gives it a good review, everyone else follows the leader. Pulitzer Prize? For crying out loud! Oprah Winfrey?

The human need for acceptance, usually by "cultivation of the same", as in same style, same tastes, can and does become the "entry point" for those wishing to exercise control over people.


[edit on 25-8-2010 by pthena]

reply to post by DISRAELI

The "king in the Temple" theme begins in history.
The starting point is the controversial policy of the notorious Antiochus IV, who provoked the Maccabean revolt.
He's responsible for setting the pattern

The pattern actually starts with David. Whereas King Saul was not allowed to offer sacrifice for victory in battle, that being reserved for the "man of God" Samuel. Samuel pronounced removal of kingship from Saul for crossing that boundary between priestly and warchief office.

David, upon ascending to kingship in Jerusalem, transferred some relics to Jerusalem, the ark, 2 Samuel 6, with the king himself offering sacrifice at every 6 steps. Thus was started the Priest-King merger of church and state.

People assume that if a story is told in the Bible that it is automatically good and proper. That assumption is unsustainable when examining and comparing the stories.

At every turn, there are objections raised. Samuel against kings: God doesn't want that. "oh well, let the hard hearted have their way." David wants to build a temple: Nathan says "no, God says He is a moving God". Because of hardness of heart, ignore what God says he wants and "get away with" building a stone temple.

Wouldn't it be better to seek what God says He wants rather than pushing to get your own way, and "getting away with" something that really only glorifies yourself?

Look at where the glory and wisdom of Solomon ended up. By old age, he was offering sacrifice at the temple in the morning and then going off and tossing a child into the fire for some other god. The wisdom of Solomon is something to be despised and not emulated.

Just how much more polluted can a temple be than to have Solomon crossing the threshold?

1KI 8:10 When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.

1KI 8:12 Then Solomon said, "The LORD has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; 13 I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever."

Solomon got something into that temple, I doubt very much that it was my God.

You made mention also of Lords Supper, or Eucharist. Here's a story.
In GW Bush's first speech to the joint house of Congress after 9/11, he called his "crusade against terror" Operation Infinite Justice. There was no shock from his Christian or Jewish advisors. He, a Christian, was not shocked by his own utterance of blasphemy.

www.globalsecurity.org...
Following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Department of Defense designated the military response as Operation Infinite Justice.

Following the disclosure of Operation Infinite Justice, Muslim groups protested the name on the basis that their faith teaches that Allah is the only one that could provide "infinite justice".

Operation Infinite Justice was changed to Operation Enduring Freedom on Sept. 25, 2001.

The last time I associated myself with Christianity was on the Sunday just prior to the US invasion of Iraq. The minister got up and said, "This is not the body of Christ. This is not the blood of Christ. Let us remember our President, George Bush, as he leads us in the coming battle."

There was no shock among the congregation. No one left in protest. It's a done deal. American Christianity is already steeped in blashemy and anti-Christ.

[edit on 25-8-2010 by pthena]

Originally posted by pthena
At every turn, there are objections raised. Samuel against kings: God doesn't want that. "oh well, let the hard hearted have their way." David wants to build a temple: Nathan says "no, God says He is a moving God". Because of hardness of heart, ignore what God says he wants and "get away with" building a stone temple.

And the people's motive in the second case would have been like the people's motive in the first;
"...that we also may be like all the nations.."

[edit on 25-8-2010 by DISRAELI]

reply to post by DISRAELI
Don't miss what I added to above post.

And the people's motive in the second case would have been like the people's motive in the first;
"...that we also may be like all the nations.."

Back a while before 9-11, I was painting a new house, the contractor's foreman was going on and on about how America was God's special chosen country. I asked him where he was getting that from. "Right in the Book of Revelation", he said.

Since I couldn't remember reading anything like that in Revelation, I read it over again. Not only was the US not mentioned as any specially blessed nation, but I noticed also that Israel as a nation wasn't either. There is mention of a group from every nation, tribe, and people on the one hand, and 144,000 mentioned as from the tribes of Israel, not the nation.

Other than that, every nation or institution is a passing temporary thing, though given rule for short periods of time. And they aren't especially described in what would be considered flattering terms.

Nations are not much. What are the American Empire and the so-called Democratic Jewish State of Israel? Just passing fads, nothing to get all reverent about.



[edit on 25-8-2010 by pthena]

Originally posted by pthena
Not only was the US not mentioned as any specially blessed nation, but I noticed also that Israel as a nation wasn't either.

Similarly I would argue that even in the OT "Israel" is more about a community of people belonging to God than about a political nation in the modern sense (that sense of "nation" is hardly older than the French Revolution).
That ought to be borne in mind when people are attempting to apply the "promises to Israel".

[edit on 25-8-2010 by DISRAELI]

reply to post by DISRAELI

Similarly I would argue that even in the OT "Israel" is more about a community of people belonging to God than about a political nation in the modern sense (that sense of "nation" is hardly older than the French Revolution).
That ought to be borne in mind when people are attempting to apply the "promises to Israel".

I just read your description of God
www.abovetopsecret.com...
I like that, each part implies the other. 1 1/2 between Monism and Duality, actually seems better than my pantheism, which would be monistic.

As the communicator then, you quote the Hebrews verse. "spoke to the fathers through the prophets" would also imply some measure of incarnation that the prophets shared, "as the spirit of God that was in them moved."

You would probably agree then that such a God, the one who mandated alters of undressed stone, would really have no place in a temple of dressed and sculpted stone. A good reason for the book of Hebrews to make no mention of that temple but goes from the moving tent straight to the aliens and wanderers in the model of Abraham. No communication from God comes from the stone temple, but rather continues in the prophets.

More over in Hebrews, it is the Tent which represents the body of Christ, not the ark or any other piece of wrought or cast furniture. The Tent is made of skin.

So yes, "Israel" is the community of people that God stays with where ever they are scattered in the world. Nations are nothing. Stone temples are in and of themselves an abomination, serving the exact same function as idols do for idolaters. "God does not live in temples or statues of stone" but rather communicates in the hearts of flesh as per the promise given through the prophet Jeremiah concerning the new covenant.

JN 11:51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.

1JN 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

It seems to me that the truly devout Jews give way more weight to the Torah, which has no stone temple, then they do to the David line stories. That could explain why they are waiting on God in diaspora rather than demanding entrance into some chunk of real estate. I have a difficult time sorting out the various schools of Jewish thought.

The Samaritans never did mess with those Jewish stories, but stuck with Torah.
====================

I would guess that you grew up in the UK by your Tony Hancock quote. I just read Chapter 2 of Victoria Clark's book, "This New English Israel", the early Christian Zionists were Puritans, and they took off to the Colonies. We've had them here from the beginning. I haven't gotten to the Plymouth Brethren yet, but I do believe their Zionist teachings have mostly been abandoned, AFTER BEING EXPORTED TO THE STATES crying out loud! It's almost an exclusive American problem now! The US has the will and the means to make it a world problem, as they have been doing since Truman's recognition of the so-called Jewish State of Israel.


[edit on 26-8-2010 by pthena]

reply to post by LAinhabitant
You're right. I have insulted people and even unjustly accused others just because I didn't happen to understand them. Especially the Israelis who have a vision for a modest and peaceful Jewish homeland within Palestine, and are having trouble balancing their vision between the force of Judenhass on the one hand and the neo-Zionists on the other. Pray for them please, the people.

My guilt mounts, I hope for their forgiveness.

I believe this verse is the abomination that Daniel was speaking of.

Daniel 6:7
All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions

these 30 days fill in the missing link in the one week/7 year covenant. Half and half would be 1260 and 1260 but in Daniel 12:11, the angel tells Daniel that from the time the abomination is set shall be 1290 days.

The extra 30 days come from this decree. So the witnesses prophecy for 1260 days but at the 1230 mark, the wicked ones up the ante, put in this decree for 30 days, thus begins the abomination. The witnesses continue their testimony to fulfil the 1260 days and from the beginning of the 30 days to the end of the 7 year period we have 1290 days.

Daniel 12:11
And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

I have been reading some accounts of people meditating and through a prayer called the 'great invocation' they actually see 'maitreya' in a vision. This 'great invocation' could be the prayer they want to replace the Lord's prayer with. Doing that would take away the daily sacrifice, our daily prayer in which we thank God for our daily bread, the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.

[edit on 26-8-2010 by iamnot]