To all on this thread:
I have enjoyed reading this thread dealing with the end-times. I want to thank Shalom for starting a thread to discuss these very important issues. I thought I would share some of my general thoughts on the end-times:
Some General observations:
1. There seems to be a significant "feeling" among many, many people, including Christians and even non-Christians, that something big and important is going to happen sometime in the not-too-distant future. Christians, myself included, tend to believe that they are events that were prophesied about thousands of years ago and recorded in the Bible.
2. When it comes to the details, that is, in determining the specifics from prophecies, there is significant disagreement among many. For example, the issue of the rapture, which has been discused on this thread: some don't believe there is such a thing, some say pre-trib, some say post-trib, etc.
3. Despite the disagreement over the specific details, many, many people truly feel that their viewpoint was inspired by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, their view is the correct one.
Some Conclusions for Consideration:
1. The Holy Spirit will not contradict himself, therefore, not everyone who claims that their interpretation of the specifics was inspired by the Holy Spirit can be correct since many of the interpretations are contradictory.
2. However, the Holy Spirit may very well be at work preparing God's people for end-time events.
3. Many people may be mistaking the Holy Spirit's general prompting to study end-time prophecies for what they believe is a Holy Spirit inspired interpretation of the specific details.
4. The prompting of the Holy Spirit may be simply to study the prophecies. After all, how do you best teach children? Not by spoon feeding information to them. You teach children best by encouraging them to study and then allowing them to learn for themselves. It may be that the Holy Spirit wants us all to struggle, and I mean to really struggle through the prophecies so they are really imprinted in our spirits.
5. If my conclusions are correct, we must follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit and study the prophecies and share our thoughts and try to learn from our thoughts and from the thoughts of others. However, none of us, myself included, should be so dogmatic in our beliefs that we are deaf to what others have to say.
6. Finally, I truly believe that when the time is right, Christians with a hunger for truth will know when the end-time events are truly happening as they will recognize them from the Word of God. But they will recogize them because they have labored so hard to gain an understanding thanks to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
In Christ, Tom |
