Searching for the Truth in the King James Bible;
Finding it, and passing it on to you.
EDITOR:
Steve
Van Nattan
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Here are TEN presuppositions under which prophecy is discussed at this web site:
ONE- Many prophecies to Israel are not fulfilled, especially about the return of Messiah Jesus Christ to rule and reign for 1000 years in Jerusalem. We reject the notion that some obscure Greek captain of one hundred fulfilled all the prophetic events in the Prophets. "Dispensational" is the key word, but NOT "Hyper."
TWO- We believe all of the prophecies to Moab, Ammon, and the Arab peoples (descended from Ishmael and the sons of Keturah) will also be fulfilled. We will not allow ANY Jew OR Arab hatred on this page. Arab bashing by wanna-be Zionists will be EXPOSED on this page, not tolerated. See our section on Hebrew Roots heresy.
THREE- Reformed theology is a mongrel exercise in wimpology. Why? Answer: Because it appeals in a "Christian" context to Satanic pride. WE can bring in the Kingdom = "I shall be like the Most High." So all Reformed thinking, whether from Calvin Seminary, the Manifest Sons of God, the New Age, Identity, Promise Keepers, or TBN, will be absent from this section.
FOUR- The Lord's Church will not go through the Wrath of God. I Thes. 5:9.
FIVE- The everlasting Gospel is ever and always by faith alone in the Son of the Living God, plus nothing. This applies to the Great Tribulation and the Messianic Kingdom. What happens AFTER a person's salvation experience is subject to Dispensational considerations.
SIX- True salvation cannot be lost under any circumstances.
SEVEN- Every prophecy is to be taken literally. If it is presented in picture form (Dragon) there is a reason, and the literal truth is still there. Indeed, the Dragon may be a real physical dragon. Nothing is to be discarded! God doesn't waste his divine Breath.
EIGHT- A saint who has no zeal to win souls is highly suspect in his interpretation of prophecy.
NINE- Numbers in the Bible have great significance. Thus, nine presuppositions here. Nine is the number of fruit. There are nine letters in KING JAMES and in HOLY BIBLE and in the total of the integers, 1611. You don't like that line of reasoning? Forty laughs on you, friend.
TEN- Larkin's charts be damned.
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Thoughts
on Living in Laodicea:
By Steve Van Nattan
Song of Solomon 3:3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go.....
6 Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?
The bride in this narrative is looking for her beloved, and soon she sees him coming. Until then, she wandered about the city looking for him but not finding him.
The Bride of Christ today is wandering around the city of this wicked world and age. It is called Laodicea in the Revelation of Christ to John in chapter three. Many Bible believers are wandering around looking for the return of Christ. While we must never lose our hope, we may expect to be grieved and troubled. By whom? By a church which claims to follow Christ and His Gospel, but they deny the power of his Gospel.
As Hannah prayed for the mercy of God to give her power to conceive, and as Eli was so dull spiritually that he thought she was drunk, even so, the true saint today will be mocked if he has a zeal for the power of God and the deeper life. The Eli's of Laodicea will yell at him, "Repent, get right! You are turning into a Pentecostal-- they are the only ones who talk about a new filling of the Holy Ghost."
Laodiceans look the other way when pride rises up in the assembly, and they boast of their numbers, massive buildings, and riches. They look the other way when the preacher gets divorced and remarried, and they pass around booklets justifying this progressive polygamy, thus mocking the ongoing teaching of Jesus Christ himself on the matter. They feast on the wealth of one another, claiming they "tithed," while missionaries live in poverty. They turn times of worship and assembly into goon shows with true worship replaced by comedy and "comic relief." They bring in floor shows of Southern Gospel boogie boys and fetching girlie shows from "Christian colleges." They wear lapel tags which say 100% for _______, some dead beat who preaches sloppy agape sermons and hustles the church secretary on the side.
The true burden of the saints is not the Liberal Whiskeypalians-- It is being cast out of the synagogue for asking for biblical proof that Bible believers are called to rebel against Caesar, or for wanting a deeper walk with God.
The coming of the Groom for His Bride will be marked by two things:
1. The deliverance of the Bride from living amongst tares and spiritual weeds in "good godly" fundamental churches.
2. The leaving behind of millions of tricky and clever phony saints to be dispatched by the Antichrist.
It is the case with tares that we cannot pull them up, for in doing so, we would pull up wheat due to offenses. So, we shall soon be relieved by the gathering up of the Lord's Church. Meanwhile, we must not dispair, and we must keep looking for the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don't give up saint-- We've come too far to quit now!
HOW TO MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF WITH PROPHECY:
By Pam Dewey
Teachers and groups proclaiming the imminency of prophetic fulfillments have been around since the time of Christ. The following are just a tiny few examples of such up to the 1800s. (Abbreviations of titles in the citations refer to books in the bibliography at the end of this website section.)
***
In the second half of the second century, a Christian convert named Montanus
succeeded in convincing many that he had been given a personal revelation directly
from God that the Second Coming was at hand. It would happen at Pepuza (near modern
Angora). "The prophet's personality and eloquence won him a host of disciples,
who flocked in such numbers to the appointed spot that a new town sprang up to
house them." (P. Hughes quoted in WPF, p. 6)
***
Joachim of Fiore (ca 1135-1202) a Catholic Abbot, did not believe in literal
second coming, but rather in a new stage of earthly influence on earth by the
Church, which would come after the three and a half year rule of the Antichrist.
He announced to Richard the Lionhearted in 1191 that the Antichrist had already
been born. And he declared the end of the current age would be somewhere
between 1200 and 1260, with the rule of Antichrist to immediately follow. A famine
in Europe in 1258 and a plague in 1259 led to the rise of the "flaggelants"
(men who beat themselves in a form of public penance), many of whom were believers
in Joachim's prediction regarding 1260. (TLD pp 50-51)
***
An Anabaptist preacher of the early 1500s named Hoffman declared that the
events of The End would begin in 1533, and that Strassburg would be the New Jerusalem.
"... there the magistrates would set up the kingdom of righteousness, while
the 144,000 would maintain the poer of the City, and the true Gospel and the true
Baptism [adult immersion] would spread over the earth. No man would be able to
withstand the power, signs and wonders of the saints; and with them would appear,
like two mighty torches, Enoch and Elias, who would consume the earth with the
fire proceeding from their mouths." (Richard Heath quoted in WPF, p. 7)
***
In the early 1600s, a common belief of many Jews was that the Messiah would
appear in 1648. Just prior to that date, a young Jewish teacher named Sabbatai
Zevi declared to his small group of disciples that he was the expected Messiah.
Although the 1648 year passed without a public acknowledgement of Zevi's claims,
he continued to gather followers. Around this same time, there arose speculation
among Christians that the Millenium would begin in 1666, and Zevi seems to have
latched onto that date. From 1651-1665 he continued to gather followers, and in
the fall of 1665 "... he proclaimed himself the Messiah in a public ceremony
in Smyrna: The madness of the Jews of Smyrna knew no bounds. Every sign of honor
and enthusiastic love was shown to him ... All prepared for a speedy exodus, the
return to the Holy Land. Workmen neglected their business and thought only of
the approaching Kingdom of the Messiah."
In an attempt to go to Constantinople and depose the Muslim Sultan there, Zevi was captured and imprisoned by the Muslims. Rather than dampen the enthusiasm for Zevi's Messianic claims, this temporary setback was viewed as just a short time of suffering he must go through before his glorification. "A constant procesion of adoring followers visited the prison where Sabbatai held court, and a steady stream of propaganda and tales of miracles poured out all over the Near East and Europe." As one contemporary European Jewess wrote, "Many sold their houses and lands and all their possessions, for any day they hoped to be redeemed. My good father-in-law left his home in Hamelm, abandoned his house and lands and all his goodly furniture and moved to Hildesheim. He sent on to us in Hamburg two enormous casks packed with linens and with peas, beans, dried meats, shredded prunes and like stuff, every manner of food that would keep. For the old man expected to sail any moment from Hamburg to the Holy Land."
The whole movement came to a screeching halt when the Sultan persuaded Zevi to convert to Islam. (WPF pp 8-12)
***
Many in Britain were very wary of the year 1666 (1000+666) and thus, "Quaker George Fox wrote that in 1666 nearly every thunderstorm aroused end-time expectations." (TLD p. 68)
***
Up to the early 1800s, most prophetic speculators based their scenarios
on a number of fairly vague premises. These might include personal revelations,
or the assumption that "current conditions" (plague, attacks of barbarians,
astronomical phenomena) were so awful that it MUST mean "the end is at hand."
Dates were often chosen for mystical significance (multiples of 1000, or 500,
or 666 and the like).
But the 1800s brought a new breed of prophecy speculators, with new, more "scientific" methods. Many of the factors that they built into their speculations are still common to this day. They have been compiled into a special section of this website. Click on this link to go to Aunt Pam's Prophetic Recipe Collection
The various groups and teachers from 1800 on who used these recipe ingredients are covered in the next section."
And then there is Texe Marrs :-)