ForHimAlone
April 24th 2004, 11:32 PM
I am going to agree with the great majority of the Fathers and Reformers and those as Mr. Wesley, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes, John Owen, and a host of others I could list for the orthodox dating of DANIEL, being around 606-600 BC therabouts. I am firmly convinced God gave a unique visionary understanding of prophetic history to Daniel as well as to Isaiah and don't endorse any kind of liberal dating of Daniel in the second century BC.
I also of a mind that Revelation should be looked at as a HISTORICIST, SHORT-TERM FUTURIST, and PARTIAL PRETERIST. For, there were seven literal churches of Asia. They are typological of the Church universal, and we see how the symbolism applies both to Rome and Babylon of old but also to kingdoms bereft of owning God's dominion publically in the world today.
I am convinced that, indeed, much of Revelation's pages are fulfilled. But there yet remains a few archtype events that have yet to happen.
Therefore, Revelation and Daniel may be tied together to show forth the unfolding prophetic reality of Christ as Daniel would foretell after the kingdoms so described came forth, being the Babylonian, Persian and Graecian kingdoms.
And with the Advent of Christ the promise and prophecy of the Old Testament order was fulfilled and with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple worship God brought an official end to the Jewish dispensation so far as it concerned being the seedline to produce Christ, who was to take the good news of Salvation to the entire world, including in reality the Gentile nations, only prophecied of before, as being included in the commonwealth of Israel's promise and prophecy, being the Messiah and his finished work.
Daniel is the advent of Christ looking forward while Revelation is the Advent of Christ looking backward and forward. Backward at the cross and ascension and descent of the Spirit and forward towards the second advent of Christ and the Consummation of all things.
But a great deal of the literal accomplishment of Revelation is already passed, and the destruction of the old system of worship in Jerusalem was the sign and herald of the new coming age of the Gospel being preached.
Daniel is not some figment, as Ezekiel the prophet, a contemporary of Daniel with Obadiah, and Jesus himself of more and greater Authority in the New Testament, testify of Daniel's piety. Daniel is listed with Noah and Job (and I might add Joseph) as being among the most Righteous men that ever lived among mere men. We of course cannot exclude John Baptist.
Since Daniel has such a high esteem and ranking among the ancients, including the church fathers, the reformers and of course our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles, we should not be afraid to understand Daniel as pure prophecy, written when he was a lad forward, among the captives of the House of Israel's royal stock of Hezekiah.
Daniel, it is believed, lived until some advanced age, from the commentaries I've read, such as Clarke and Gill, on the subject. He was a man of huge political importance through the entire dynasty of Babylon and early into the Persian empire. He so minutely foretold of the events transpiring on the Subject of the Persian and Greek kingdoms as well as Rome after them, that many when Rationalism and Liberal theology became fashionable, about the same time that the Plymouth Brethren were becoming prominent and Edward Irving was having his Bible conferences on Prophecy that Daniel was relegated as a pseudoepigraphal work written in the 2nd century BC rather than the old date, as the fathers, reformers, etc.
Revelation is mostly about the times of the entire church age, from the infantile period of its nativity until now. It also has a perspective that looks at the future as though it were finished already, or in a past-tense. Because it is telling us about the Consummation of History as culminating in the return of Christ, we find Revelation gives many historical intimations of that one, final, and yet future return of Christ that will be that supernatural experience of Christ and the Holy angels coming out of heaven, parted to reveal the Glory of God in Heaven.
While the judgment of God against unbelieving Israel and to commemorate the changing of the Covenant the temple worship was removed and at this time it was indeed the fulfillment of Christ's first advent. He abolished the Temple worship and established the Holy Spirit's presence resident within the believer.
The Jews deny Jesus yet as the Messiah or Christ, saying he did not keep his mouth shut as Isaiah says, but indeed they merely wrest this and other Scriptures to their own destruction, for the text is very plain that says Christ truly was as a lamb and opened not his mouth, the very words being cited by the evangelist. But the unbelief of some does not make God's faithfulness without effect.
The arguement on the Revelation not being entirely fulfilled is found in the references where the final judgment takes place, intimated in different portions of Revelation, such as in Chapters 6, 11, 14, 19 and 20 at the end, where Satan's judgment takes place.
Satan is according to the Bible, currently judged with the Victory we have in Christ Jesus and is somehow curtailed, his kingdom is encroached upon. Christ made an open show over the principalities and powers (both visible and invisible) and the New Covenant's prosperity in proliferating over the world is due to the Power of Christ and the Holy Spirit curtailing the power of Satan effectively binding him in some respects while the Gospel era continues to gather out the Church.
Now, Premillennialists (chiliasts) or those who believe in some "interim" 1000 yr kingdom AFTER Christ's return and PRIOR TO ETERNITY don't believe that Satan is bound at this time at all, citing EMPIRICAL evil as the reason we can't say Satan is bound. But most of these well-meaning and otherwise studious believers will also admit that We have the victory in Christ over the devil based on such texts as this one in Colossians and elsewhere in Paul and the Gospels. We have a certain victory over the devil as individuals and as a corporate body in, through, by, from, Christ Jesus. That victory is that God will get his Gospel out in the world during this time of the New Covenant's flourishing and at the end of the "day" of the Gospel the Devil will again be released.
This release of the devil will have characterized with it antichrist's spirit already at work in the world but then realized as the "man of sin" which really represents both political headship as well as individual persuasion and influence.
The nations of the world that forget God shall be turned into Hell. That pretty much sums up how most of the world will be at the end of history. "When the Son of Man comes back, shall he find faith in the Earth?" Jesus knew the apostasy was coming.
The fundamental political and social shift towards antichrist and the worst parts of the Revelation being fulfilled can have a futurist fulfillment as well. We know Christ has not returned yet, right? He has in the Holy Spirit endwelling all believers and keeping the devil bound now during the time the Gospel is taken to the world.
Just prior to the Lord's final and only advent, which said event includes the judgment of all mankind and the total renovation of the world, including the fulfillment of Revelation 21 and 22 as well as the later part of Revelation 20.
There is from Matthew 25 and elsewhere in Thessalonians from Paul and from St. John 5:28-29 and elsewhere that there shall be one, general judgment and resurrection of the dead, at the "Last Day" or the "second advent" of Christ, which is the same event. Paul used the Roman idea of the third or final trump, before John spoke of the seventh trump, in order to indicate that that was the time when our Lord would assemble the host and say "March!"
There is therefore much room to reason the idea is solid that there are elements of Revelation at the present that are deffinitely fulfilled and some that are not.
Whether 666 for instance, is already fulfilled, which it is from a number of perspectives, including a symbolic understanding of this number representing socialism, humanism, modernism and postmodernism, liberalism, etc, or a spiritual number like the idea in the Renaissance that man is the center of creation and even worthy of worship and is essentially good, antithetical to the Bible's notion that man was in the beginning good but corrupted himself by reason of believing Satan's lie that the knowledge of good and evil alone was sufficient to make us like God, even though we were more like God before failing this fundamental test than we were afterwards.
But God's Son dying for our sins is not an afterthought but the centerpiece of God's plan and purpose in the heavens concerning his people. He chose the Gentiles and Jewish nations that would believe on His Son long ere history was but manifest the truth of his Will and Word to us in time. God did not test man in the Garden of Eden for nought; but he knew that only by love and the knowledge of God's Mercy and Truth and Love and Forgiveness and Goodness could we understand why sin must be condemned and why sin cannot stand before God. God ensured that man's fate was not as the fate of the devil and those who chose to rebel with him.
I believe strongly that Revelation was written for several reasons for several occasions within the Church's history. Like the rest of the Bible it too is always fresh, ready to refresh us when we need the boost of God's assuring hand. It's not a book about guessing the end but a book that declares the end is here already and we're living in it and approaching the final end of it.
Revelation's tone is very deliberate and sincere; It calls Jew and Gentile alike to take heed of its pages and repent, or they too will perish as those of Noah's day.
But there is in Revelation a multiple-layer factor, to make room for history; therefore Revelation applies with distinction to the several kingdom eras that it goes through as it unfolds REDEMPTIVE HISTORY as it unfolded after the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But alas! I am a traditionalist who actually believes the dating of the ancients and such notable scholarship as Turretin, Owen, Clarke, the Reformers, the Fathers, and others on these matters.
I believe that we need not worry about a rapture when we should concentrate daily on ourselves and the fact that God at any moment could call us home. But I am also of the mind that God is not going to leave anyone out of that clarion call. The entire earth at once will hear God's voice and there will be no mistake, to any one who happens to be alive at that, precise moment in history, or dead for that matter, who mistakes THAT VOICE. For even the graves shall open and all history will come to an abrupt end, but there will be 'warning shots' fired at us historically to show us that we are in the 'last days' and that these days commenced with the advent of Christ Jesus, who from the first was principally was the HOPE and OBJECT of the Church's hopes and prayers of old.
Having given us the Church and the Holy Spirit, the gathering together of the Church out of all tribes, tongues, peoples and nations continues until the Consummation, the End of Days, the Last Day, to be precise, the "last trump" Paul referenced from the Roman military.
Sadly the Church at present is in a period spiraling out of control towards a humanistic Gospel where man is again deified as the center, and God is shown the door. But apostasy is part-and-parcel of revealing God keeping His prophetic word to us, for we are seeing in the cultural shifts within the United States, Europe and the world the changes required for the end of history to unfold.
But we don't have anything to go on besides the work of the ministry. Once the Church is gathered, God will end history. The Gospel must first be proclaimed to "every creature" and then God may bring the Gospel era to closure and usher-in the ETERNAL REALM, where the REDEEMED of the LORD will live for ever in glorified bodies.
The emphasis shouldn't be nitpicking on certain Scriptures but in seeing many references cross-referenced to get a picture of the Day of the Lord's finality and how that historic events prior to this greatest-of-all-days for man's history are typical of it, and foreshadow that great and aweful day of God's appearance before men to judgment. The destruction of Jerusalem and temple worship was just a preview of coming attractions, as is said of terrorism and 911 today in the early 21st century.
More than ever we see the world accommodating the post modernist "everything goes" philosophy of life, void of any judgment, God having given such up to a "reprobate mind" void of the truth. We see atheism in different forms and cultism and occult worship risen as never before. We see secularists rise in number and conservatives become more silent (save perhaps for forums as THEOLOGYWEB.com.) as there are no longer great men of God willing to take on the Establishment's athiestical view of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness here and elsewhere around the world.
We don't have to look far to find the popular results of our age, from the Renaissance, to the Baroque, to the Romantic, the the culture of mankind has steadily marched away from God and towards rank idolatry and atheism. Man is god now, and he will not have another rule in his place. And even "man" ruling is a wrestling between rulership by one, a few elite, or a representative form of elitism. The fight over who has control of what continues.
Only Christ can and shall set the governmental structures straight when he appears. Gone for all ETERNITY will be the kind of world we exist in at the present. Some will say that, because of God's mercy, he will let the Gospel era endure a very long time, and I believe 2 millennia is a fairly good amount of time and that we are probably close to, without giving a date, the end of history at this time.
Those who tend towards a more wooden literalism are probably salivating over the prospects of Babylon being rebuilt before their very eyes, and that by the United States! Those who see this as fulfilled Bible prophecy are those CONTEMPORARISTS who try like Hal Lindsay and Jack Van Impe, to fit modern events close to them into the larger Biblical scheme of events. But we are able to see only a few events from the perspective of our own lifetimes and must rely on history and the prophetic word gauged alongside present over-arching trends in cultural attitudes towards the God of the Bible and Christendom in general. While we are at the end of history there are yet decades worth of events perhaps to work out that will enable to the gospel to be full supplanted in the world and thus to demonstrate that the devil has been released.
I think that when body-resident identification becomes a reality we need to be careful because while the expression triple 666 indeed should be interpreted spiritually to represent all that is man collectively as he exists with his fallen nature and without God in the world we should be wary of gross manifestations testifying to this fact. I therefore while a partial preterist and symbolically understanding most of Revelation including 13:16-18 will also not take any kind of body-resident ID for the reason that it too closely approximates what is represented in a literal wooden sense in the Scripture. If there are those who find this hermeneutic somewhat "convenient" I remind such that it is not contradictory at all to endorse the number as representing something that is spiritual, which has the capacity also to represent something that is literally-manifested.
Now, I also believe that the church spends way too much time on trying to tell the future of certain individuals than in worrying about its collective future. Prophecy seems all the rage in some circles these days and yet the prophets of old will hardly have to stand in line for the authographs of so-called modern-day prophets as their lot, for the majority, are imposters. They are not speaking for God. Don't ask me if they speak for themselves or who is speaking through them. I will not judge before the time. But those who talk in tongues and also who prophecy in the first-person grammatically in the church today, gaining popularity all over, are not to be hook-line-and-sinker trusted, but "test the spirits" to see whether they be of God.
In fact, most of these so-called prophets are phonies not prophets. And for this reason I choose to rely on the pure, test of a prophet in the Word of God..found in Deuteronomy 18, God says that if what that man or woman says "Comes to pass" then that is a prophet of God.
Further, we are to "judge" when we hear all such manifestation today in the public worship. God is not being the salesman of new melodramatics with people thinking God speaks to them in the first person towards specific individuals in a local assembly of Believers. More often than not this type of manifestation is probably unconfirmed at best and the Word should be used to test this and all such spiritual manifestation. Give me the pure word of God and not these theatrics, thank you Jesus!
There are too many today grandstanding and doing for filty lucre what they should be doing with the faithfulness of the ox who treads the corn. They will have their rewards now but not then. The church is lazy, fat, asleep and filled in the United States and practically speaking is dead in many places, lukewarm dead. The Church in Europe is also dead. In the far east is there revival and true faithfulness because persecution for the Gospel remains high in that part of the world. The martyrs have not finished being gathered under the altar yet.
In America the Gospel thrives as elsewhere, here and there. The Church continues to loose its influence in the world as the Newsmedia and the Government encrouch and wrest more and more control from the Church. This is the wave of things to come. God is being shown the door and the Church as Israel of old, in the flesh will be sifted as wheat but God has prayed for the Church that her faith fail not. The Church in this context is looked at as a whole unit and when it comes to us as individuals we are to give diligence to make "our calling and election sure" and "prove our own selves" whether we be in the faith or not. Our spirit should testify with God's that we are his offspring.
Let us of the Day be strong in the Lord's might to pray for revival here in America, where the lukewarm, tepid water of the Gospel needs to stir the waters! Let's return to the orthodoxy of old time we can trust, even the ancient landmark our forefathers have set up. Let's return to an understanding that in Christ we look every day forward to an ultimate tomorrow and not to calling it quits at the end of life's work day.
I also of a mind that Revelation should be looked at as a HISTORICIST, SHORT-TERM FUTURIST, and PARTIAL PRETERIST. For, there were seven literal churches of Asia. They are typological of the Church universal, and we see how the symbolism applies both to Rome and Babylon of old but also to kingdoms bereft of owning God's dominion publically in the world today.
I am convinced that, indeed, much of Revelation's pages are fulfilled. But there yet remains a few archtype events that have yet to happen.
Therefore, Revelation and Daniel may be tied together to show forth the unfolding prophetic reality of Christ as Daniel would foretell after the kingdoms so described came forth, being the Babylonian, Persian and Graecian kingdoms.
And with the Advent of Christ the promise and prophecy of the Old Testament order was fulfilled and with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple worship God brought an official end to the Jewish dispensation so far as it concerned being the seedline to produce Christ, who was to take the good news of Salvation to the entire world, including in reality the Gentile nations, only prophecied of before, as being included in the commonwealth of Israel's promise and prophecy, being the Messiah and his finished work.
Daniel is the advent of Christ looking forward while Revelation is the Advent of Christ looking backward and forward. Backward at the cross and ascension and descent of the Spirit and forward towards the second advent of Christ and the Consummation of all things.
But a great deal of the literal accomplishment of Revelation is already passed, and the destruction of the old system of worship in Jerusalem was the sign and herald of the new coming age of the Gospel being preached.
Daniel is not some figment, as Ezekiel the prophet, a contemporary of Daniel with Obadiah, and Jesus himself of more and greater Authority in the New Testament, testify of Daniel's piety. Daniel is listed with Noah and Job (and I might add Joseph) as being among the most Righteous men that ever lived among mere men. We of course cannot exclude John Baptist.
Since Daniel has such a high esteem and ranking among the ancients, including the church fathers, the reformers and of course our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles, we should not be afraid to understand Daniel as pure prophecy, written when he was a lad forward, among the captives of the House of Israel's royal stock of Hezekiah.
Daniel, it is believed, lived until some advanced age, from the commentaries I've read, such as Clarke and Gill, on the subject. He was a man of huge political importance through the entire dynasty of Babylon and early into the Persian empire. He so minutely foretold of the events transpiring on the Subject of the Persian and Greek kingdoms as well as Rome after them, that many when Rationalism and Liberal theology became fashionable, about the same time that the Plymouth Brethren were becoming prominent and Edward Irving was having his Bible conferences on Prophecy that Daniel was relegated as a pseudoepigraphal work written in the 2nd century BC rather than the old date, as the fathers, reformers, etc.
Revelation is mostly about the times of the entire church age, from the infantile period of its nativity until now. It also has a perspective that looks at the future as though it were finished already, or in a past-tense. Because it is telling us about the Consummation of History as culminating in the return of Christ, we find Revelation gives many historical intimations of that one, final, and yet future return of Christ that will be that supernatural experience of Christ and the Holy angels coming out of heaven, parted to reveal the Glory of God in Heaven.
While the judgment of God against unbelieving Israel and to commemorate the changing of the Covenant the temple worship was removed and at this time it was indeed the fulfillment of Christ's first advent. He abolished the Temple worship and established the Holy Spirit's presence resident within the believer.
The Jews deny Jesus yet as the Messiah or Christ, saying he did not keep his mouth shut as Isaiah says, but indeed they merely wrest this and other Scriptures to their own destruction, for the text is very plain that says Christ truly was as a lamb and opened not his mouth, the very words being cited by the evangelist. But the unbelief of some does not make God's faithfulness without effect.
The arguement on the Revelation not being entirely fulfilled is found in the references where the final judgment takes place, intimated in different portions of Revelation, such as in Chapters 6, 11, 14, 19 and 20 at the end, where Satan's judgment takes place.
Satan is according to the Bible, currently judged with the Victory we have in Christ Jesus and is somehow curtailed, his kingdom is encroached upon. Christ made an open show over the principalities and powers (both visible and invisible) and the New Covenant's prosperity in proliferating over the world is due to the Power of Christ and the Holy Spirit curtailing the power of Satan effectively binding him in some respects while the Gospel era continues to gather out the Church.
Now, Premillennialists (chiliasts) or those who believe in some "interim" 1000 yr kingdom AFTER Christ's return and PRIOR TO ETERNITY don't believe that Satan is bound at this time at all, citing EMPIRICAL evil as the reason we can't say Satan is bound. But most of these well-meaning and otherwise studious believers will also admit that We have the victory in Christ over the devil based on such texts as this one in Colossians and elsewhere in Paul and the Gospels. We have a certain victory over the devil as individuals and as a corporate body in, through, by, from, Christ Jesus. That victory is that God will get his Gospel out in the world during this time of the New Covenant's flourishing and at the end of the "day" of the Gospel the Devil will again be released.
This release of the devil will have characterized with it antichrist's spirit already at work in the world but then realized as the "man of sin" which really represents both political headship as well as individual persuasion and influence.
The nations of the world that forget God shall be turned into Hell. That pretty much sums up how most of the world will be at the end of history. "When the Son of Man comes back, shall he find faith in the Earth?" Jesus knew the apostasy was coming.
The fundamental political and social shift towards antichrist and the worst parts of the Revelation being fulfilled can have a futurist fulfillment as well. We know Christ has not returned yet, right? He has in the Holy Spirit endwelling all believers and keeping the devil bound now during the time the Gospel is taken to the world.
Just prior to the Lord's final and only advent, which said event includes the judgment of all mankind and the total renovation of the world, including the fulfillment of Revelation 21 and 22 as well as the later part of Revelation 20.
There is from Matthew 25 and elsewhere in Thessalonians from Paul and from St. John 5:28-29 and elsewhere that there shall be one, general judgment and resurrection of the dead, at the "Last Day" or the "second advent" of Christ, which is the same event. Paul used the Roman idea of the third or final trump, before John spoke of the seventh trump, in order to indicate that that was the time when our Lord would assemble the host and say "March!"
There is therefore much room to reason the idea is solid that there are elements of Revelation at the present that are deffinitely fulfilled and some that are not.
Whether 666 for instance, is already fulfilled, which it is from a number of perspectives, including a symbolic understanding of this number representing socialism, humanism, modernism and postmodernism, liberalism, etc, or a spiritual number like the idea in the Renaissance that man is the center of creation and even worthy of worship and is essentially good, antithetical to the Bible's notion that man was in the beginning good but corrupted himself by reason of believing Satan's lie that the knowledge of good and evil alone was sufficient to make us like God, even though we were more like God before failing this fundamental test than we were afterwards.
But God's Son dying for our sins is not an afterthought but the centerpiece of God's plan and purpose in the heavens concerning his people. He chose the Gentiles and Jewish nations that would believe on His Son long ere history was but manifest the truth of his Will and Word to us in time. God did not test man in the Garden of Eden for nought; but he knew that only by love and the knowledge of God's Mercy and Truth and Love and Forgiveness and Goodness could we understand why sin must be condemned and why sin cannot stand before God. God ensured that man's fate was not as the fate of the devil and those who chose to rebel with him.
I believe strongly that Revelation was written for several reasons for several occasions within the Church's history. Like the rest of the Bible it too is always fresh, ready to refresh us when we need the boost of God's assuring hand. It's not a book about guessing the end but a book that declares the end is here already and we're living in it and approaching the final end of it.
Revelation's tone is very deliberate and sincere; It calls Jew and Gentile alike to take heed of its pages and repent, or they too will perish as those of Noah's day.
But there is in Revelation a multiple-layer factor, to make room for history; therefore Revelation applies with distinction to the several kingdom eras that it goes through as it unfolds REDEMPTIVE HISTORY as it unfolded after the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But alas! I am a traditionalist who actually believes the dating of the ancients and such notable scholarship as Turretin, Owen, Clarke, the Reformers, the Fathers, and others on these matters.
I believe that we need not worry about a rapture when we should concentrate daily on ourselves and the fact that God at any moment could call us home. But I am also of the mind that God is not going to leave anyone out of that clarion call. The entire earth at once will hear God's voice and there will be no mistake, to any one who happens to be alive at that, precise moment in history, or dead for that matter, who mistakes THAT VOICE. For even the graves shall open and all history will come to an abrupt end, but there will be 'warning shots' fired at us historically to show us that we are in the 'last days' and that these days commenced with the advent of Christ Jesus, who from the first was principally was the HOPE and OBJECT of the Church's hopes and prayers of old.
Having given us the Church and the Holy Spirit, the gathering together of the Church out of all tribes, tongues, peoples and nations continues until the Consummation, the End of Days, the Last Day, to be precise, the "last trump" Paul referenced from the Roman military.
Sadly the Church at present is in a period spiraling out of control towards a humanistic Gospel where man is again deified as the center, and God is shown the door. But apostasy is part-and-parcel of revealing God keeping His prophetic word to us, for we are seeing in the cultural shifts within the United States, Europe and the world the changes required for the end of history to unfold.
But we don't have anything to go on besides the work of the ministry. Once the Church is gathered, God will end history. The Gospel must first be proclaimed to "every creature" and then God may bring the Gospel era to closure and usher-in the ETERNAL REALM, where the REDEEMED of the LORD will live for ever in glorified bodies.
The emphasis shouldn't be nitpicking on certain Scriptures but in seeing many references cross-referenced to get a picture of the Day of the Lord's finality and how that historic events prior to this greatest-of-all-days for man's history are typical of it, and foreshadow that great and aweful day of God's appearance before men to judgment. The destruction of Jerusalem and temple worship was just a preview of coming attractions, as is said of terrorism and 911 today in the early 21st century.
More than ever we see the world accommodating the post modernist "everything goes" philosophy of life, void of any judgment, God having given such up to a "reprobate mind" void of the truth. We see atheism in different forms and cultism and occult worship risen as never before. We see secularists rise in number and conservatives become more silent (save perhaps for forums as THEOLOGYWEB.com.) as there are no longer great men of God willing to take on the Establishment's athiestical view of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness here and elsewhere around the world.
We don't have to look far to find the popular results of our age, from the Renaissance, to the Baroque, to the Romantic, the the culture of mankind has steadily marched away from God and towards rank idolatry and atheism. Man is god now, and he will not have another rule in his place. And even "man" ruling is a wrestling between rulership by one, a few elite, or a representative form of elitism. The fight over who has control of what continues.
Only Christ can and shall set the governmental structures straight when he appears. Gone for all ETERNITY will be the kind of world we exist in at the present. Some will say that, because of God's mercy, he will let the Gospel era endure a very long time, and I believe 2 millennia is a fairly good amount of time and that we are probably close to, without giving a date, the end of history at this time.
Those who tend towards a more wooden literalism are probably salivating over the prospects of Babylon being rebuilt before their very eyes, and that by the United States! Those who see this as fulfilled Bible prophecy are those CONTEMPORARISTS who try like Hal Lindsay and Jack Van Impe, to fit modern events close to them into the larger Biblical scheme of events. But we are able to see only a few events from the perspective of our own lifetimes and must rely on history and the prophetic word gauged alongside present over-arching trends in cultural attitudes towards the God of the Bible and Christendom in general. While we are at the end of history there are yet decades worth of events perhaps to work out that will enable to the gospel to be full supplanted in the world and thus to demonstrate that the devil has been released.
I think that when body-resident identification becomes a reality we need to be careful because while the expression triple 666 indeed should be interpreted spiritually to represent all that is man collectively as he exists with his fallen nature and without God in the world we should be wary of gross manifestations testifying to this fact. I therefore while a partial preterist and symbolically understanding most of Revelation including 13:16-18 will also not take any kind of body-resident ID for the reason that it too closely approximates what is represented in a literal wooden sense in the Scripture. If there are those who find this hermeneutic somewhat "convenient" I remind such that it is not contradictory at all to endorse the number as representing something that is spiritual, which has the capacity also to represent something that is literally-manifested.
Now, I also believe that the church spends way too much time on trying to tell the future of certain individuals than in worrying about its collective future. Prophecy seems all the rage in some circles these days and yet the prophets of old will hardly have to stand in line for the authographs of so-called modern-day prophets as their lot, for the majority, are imposters. They are not speaking for God. Don't ask me if they speak for themselves or who is speaking through them. I will not judge before the time. But those who talk in tongues and also who prophecy in the first-person grammatically in the church today, gaining popularity all over, are not to be hook-line-and-sinker trusted, but "test the spirits" to see whether they be of God.
In fact, most of these so-called prophets are phonies not prophets. And for this reason I choose to rely on the pure, test of a prophet in the Word of God..found in Deuteronomy 18, God says that if what that man or woman says "Comes to pass" then that is a prophet of God.
Further, we are to "judge" when we hear all such manifestation today in the public worship. God is not being the salesman of new melodramatics with people thinking God speaks to them in the first person towards specific individuals in a local assembly of Believers. More often than not this type of manifestation is probably unconfirmed at best and the Word should be used to test this and all such spiritual manifestation. Give me the pure word of God and not these theatrics, thank you Jesus!
There are too many today grandstanding and doing for filty lucre what they should be doing with the faithfulness of the ox who treads the corn. They will have their rewards now but not then. The church is lazy, fat, asleep and filled in the United States and practically speaking is dead in many places, lukewarm dead. The Church in Europe is also dead. In the far east is there revival and true faithfulness because persecution for the Gospel remains high in that part of the world. The martyrs have not finished being gathered under the altar yet.
In America the Gospel thrives as elsewhere, here and there. The Church continues to loose its influence in the world as the Newsmedia and the Government encrouch and wrest more and more control from the Church. This is the wave of things to come. God is being shown the door and the Church as Israel of old, in the flesh will be sifted as wheat but God has prayed for the Church that her faith fail not. The Church in this context is looked at as a whole unit and when it comes to us as individuals we are to give diligence to make "our calling and election sure" and "prove our own selves" whether we be in the faith or not. Our spirit should testify with God's that we are his offspring.
Let us of the Day be strong in the Lord's might to pray for revival here in America, where the lukewarm, tepid water of the Gospel needs to stir the waters! Let's return to the orthodoxy of old time we can trust, even the ancient landmark our forefathers have set up. Let's return to an understanding that in Christ we look every day forward to an ultimate tomorrow and not to calling it quits at the end of life's work day.