"Get Out of Her"

[ChristineM]

What if there was imminent danger and you were given a warning to get clear?

Something that comes to my mind was when I was a kid and Mt Saint Helens became active. It started to spew smoke, many small tremors growing in intensity and size, leading scientists to declare that an eruption was eminent and to evacuate the mountain.

What happened to the people who didn't listen to the warnings given long in advance? Many people refused to listen, some were on the mountain hiking, camping. I read of a person who lived on the mountain and said he would never leave his home. Well, all of them died because they refused to heed the warning message.

Now, let's put another scenario. You're walking by an apartment building on an urban street and you clearly see flames coming out of the windows above and you notice that some of the occupants are unaware of the danger. Would you feel it now your responsibility to act and warn the occupants the apartment complex is on fire? If some of the people who were ignorant of the danger died because they received no warning, and you were able to warn them, would you have a guilty conscience? Would you indeed be responsible for their deaths, in part, by not warning them?

Now with those examples in mind read the prophecy in Revelation 18:4. It is directed to God's people who are in "her." They are told to get out of her, because if they don't they will share with her in her sins and receive the plagues she receives:

"And I heard another voice out of heaven say: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues."-Revelation 18:4.

This is an ominous warning. The voice is from heaven. If you read the context it talks about a world-wide organization that is given a mystery name Babylon the great. She is called a prostitute that commits sexual immorality with the kings of the earth.

So here is the question...does a warning like this stir you to think? If you are part of her surely you want to know!

Why are God's people warned to get out of her? Who is she?

Notice that she is held responsible for the bloodshed of all humankind in God's eyes:

"Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.”-Revelation 18:24.

To those who think God will never hold people and organizations responsible for their actions. What does this tell you about him? He says about her:

"For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.  Repay her in the way she treated others, yes, pay her back double for the things she has done; in the cup she has mixed, mix a double portion for her. To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning."-Revelation 18:5-7.

How does it feel to know that God is going to hold everyone and every organization accountable for their acts? And the way they deal is the way they will be dealt with?

How does it make you feel to know there is no one too mighty to surpass heaven? Does not even scripture state:


"If you see any oppression of the poor and a violation of justice and righteousness in your district, do not be surprised about the matter. For that high official is being watched by one who is higher than he is, and there are others who are still higher than they are."-Ecclesiastes 5:8.

So who is she? Who would want to remain part of this bloodguilty world-wide empire? And who knows and is warning before it is too late?

First I'd call emergency services, then I would assess the situation. If warning those who were unaware of the danger wouldn't rob my kids of their mother i would attempt to warn them.

If my actions would cause a danger to myself or others there are a couple pf actions i could take. Throw stones at the windows of the residents. Ensure emergency services were aware if the situation when they arrived.

No god involved

 

[Altfish]

It reminds me of the account of doubting Thomas. Did you hear of it before? Perhaps. It was after Jesus was raised from the dead. He appeared in the middle of a locked room before his disciples and Thomas wasn't there.

Well Thomas refused to believe it. He said, unless I see him and am able to stick my fingers through the holes in his hands, I won't believe it.

Later Jesus materialized into human form again in the midst of his disciples while they were worshiping God in a lock room and then he turned to Thomas and said stick your fingers through my hand. He obviously appeared with holes as Thomas wanted.

Then Thomas recognized the Christ. Jesus said something very enlightening:

"Jesus said to him: “Because you have seen me, have you believed? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”-John 20:29.

Have you ever read the four gospel accounts? They don't take that long to read. Mark, the shortest only takes maybe half an hour to read all the way through.

There are 4 accounts for a reason. They each give different eye-witness testimony. And that testimony is trustworthy. In any court of law the word of 2 or 3 witnesses is enough to establish something as truthful.

Peter said:

"No, it was not by following artfully contrived false stories that we made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but rather, we were eyewitnesses of his magnificence. 17 For he received from God the Father honor and glory when words such as these were conveyed to him by the magnificent glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, whom I myself have approved.” 18 Yes, these words we heard coming from heaven while we were with him in the holy mountain."-2 Peter 1:16-18.

I told you I had read the Bible, the story of doubting Thomas is one of the most famous.
It doesn't convince me though.

You can quote as much scripture to me as you like; how about I quote Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris - will you stop believing? No, well don't assume I have not read those quotes, been brought up in Christian Schools, been to Church Lads Brigade for 5-years or more. I have it preached to me, I'm still an atheist.

 

[YoursTrue]

BUT ...

A rational person assesses the threat, weighs up the evidence for the impending doom and them makes a decision to flee or ignore the perceived threat.

So when my grand daughter shouts "snake", I look at what is worrying her and see it is a worm (Night crawler to those in the US) and ignore or educate my off-spring.

When one sees the truth he should heed it. Unless he likes joining untruth. On the other hand, it is like Pontius Pilate asked, "What is truth?" To me, this is an evasion tactic.

 

[YoursTrue]

First I'd call emergency services, then I would assess the situation. If warning those who were unaware of the danger wouldn't rob my kids of their mother i would attempt to warn them.

If my actions would cause a danger to myself or others there are a couple pf actions i could take. Throw stones at the windows of the residents. Ensure emergency services were aware if the situation when they arrived.

No god involved

Some circumstances ask or push a person to involve themselves in things they really do not believe in. In other words, they consider those things -- celebrations, etc. -- to be based on lies, but I'll leave you to figure out what those things may be.

 

[YoursTrue]

Actually double payment would be unjust, besides, if she is responsible for the death of all the prophets how would God pay her double by only taking away her one life?

Doesn't make sense IMO

It makes sense to me. Taking away one life (in this case it's quite a 'large' life) is good enough for me. But because of the magnitude of responsibility (culpability) the so-called double payment is, shall we say, a weighty judgment.

 

[exchemist]

When one sees the truth he should heed it. Unless he likes joining untruth. On the other hand, it is like Pontius Pilate asked, "What is truth?" To me, this is an evasion tactic.

On the contrary, "What is truth?' is a very good question indeed, in a great number of situations. All sorts of people make claims about truth. So the question is very often whom to believe, if anyone.

 

[viole]

Fair enough.

When Jesus was on earth he did many many things that proved he was the son of God. God himself said so from heaven on 3 different occasions. Anyway, after all that he did, including bringing dead people back to life, after being in the grave for over 3 days, the Jewish religious leaders blindly asked for a sign.

Jesus said they had this saying:

“When evening falls, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is fire-red,’  and in the morning, ‘It will be wintry, rainy weather today, for the sky is fire-red but gloomy.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but the signs of the times you cannot interpret."-Matthew 16:2, 3.


I was raised with a similar saying. Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

So assessing the signs of the times with Bible prophecy and perceiving the imminent fulfillment of such Bible prophecies a person would rationally want to take action.

These are just nice stories written in a book, you know... Without any evidence to have truly happened.

Every religion has its one set of stories and, ceteris paribus, there is no rational way to prefer one over the other.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Altfish]

When one sees the truth he should heed it. Unless he likes joining untruth. On the other hand, it is like Pontius Pilate asked, "What is truth?" To me, this is an evasion tactic.

Truth is not up for debate, something is either true or false.
I think JC and God is/are false, religion is a con.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

They each give different eye-witness testimony. And that testimony is trustworthy.

The Gospels are not eyewitness accounts. How could they be, when they narrate events happening when no one was around, among other things?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Now with those examples in mind read the prophecy in Revelation 18:4. It is directed to God's people who are in "her." They are told to get out of her, because if they don't they will share with her in her sins and receive the plagues she receives:

"And I heard another voice out of heaven say: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues."-Revelation 18:4.

I recall that during the Reformation the roman mysterium was accused of being her. This was taken literally by some people in high government positions. At the time it was very inflammatory, just one of many such inflammatory statements. I guess people justified this to themselves at the time in order to change things, but its obvious in hindsight that they didn't get out of Babylon, and generally this was a disagreement over what churches ought to do rather than a fight over what Babylon was. The world continued on its course, and the early reformation churches continued to be somewhat similar to the Roman model. This does not mean they are babylon. What it means is that we must be careful not to label other Christians or groups of people with inflammatory labels. Its something to learn from the past. The reformation could have succeeded without this angry verbiage, and it could have been peaceful.

Notice that she is held responsible for the bloodshed of all humankind in God's eyes:

"Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.”-Revelation 18:24.

Hard to say. We start by saying what 'She' cannot be and what she could be.

Clearly, whatever it is that is responsible for all of the bloodshed of *all* the human race can't be a person. They can't be her. It can't be something that only exists in our period of History, or some group of people. It has to be more broad, such as an idea, a technology, a form of government, perhaps a human quality...something huge like that. It has to be something that spans time.

"If you see any oppression of the poor and a violation of justice and righteousness in your district, do not be surprised about the matter. For that high official is being watched by one who is higher than he is, and there are others who are still higher than they are."-Ecclesiastes 5:8.

So who is she? Who would want to remain part of this bloodguilty world-wide empire? And who knows and is warning before it is too late?

That is precisely what we are trying to determine, for if we could identify her then we could take care of business. The slippery fiend is like an invisible tick.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Now, let's put another scenario. You're walking by an apartment building on an urban street and you clearly see flames coming out of the windows above and you notice that some of the occupants are unaware of the danger. Would you feel it now your responsibility to act and warn the occupants the apartment complex is on fire? If some of the people who were ignorant of the danger died because they received no warning, and you were able to warn them, would you have a guilty conscience? Would you indeed be responsible for their deaths, in part, by not warning them?

Do you actually have "flames," though?

Imagine you were woken in the middle of the night by one of your neighbours who told you that you were in imminent danger of dying in a fire.

You bundle your family up and rush out into the cold night. You then look at your building: no visible flames or smoke. You ask the person who woke you up what's going on.

He tells you "well, no... there's none of the physical evidence someone would expect from a fire, but I read something written by a person I consider trustworthy saying that someone else - who I'm sure ought to know about stuff like this - that the fire is about to happen... and has been 'about to happen' for about 2,000 years."

Would you be grateful or angry about what the person had done?

 

[Windwalker]

What if there was imminent danger and you were given a warning to get clear?

The operative word here is imminent. Add to that, something that can be confirmed as actually a threat. Now apply that to the religious zealots who try to scare people into conversions.

Those are always about some nightmare scenario in the future that may come to get them, while there is no confirmation of imminent threat. There is nothing tangible, like telling someone not to walk under a tree on a cloudless day, because lightning might strike it and hit them underneath it.

That's just scare tactics for conversion. Never a good way to start off a spiritual path to peace and love. Fear is the opposite of love.

 

[Father Heathen]

I look at what is worrying her and see it is a worm (Night crawler to those in the US.)

We call them worms (or earth worms) here, too. Night crawler might be a regional or generational thing. Only heard my grandfather call them that when he used them as fishing bait.

 

[Left Coast]

There are 4 accounts for a reason. They each give different eye-witness testimony. And that testimony is trustworthy.

No, they don't give eyewitness testimony. Mark, the first gospel on which the others are based, doesn't even claim to be eyewitness testimony. All 4 gospels are thoroughly mythological.

And second of all, eyewitness testimony is well-known to not be trustworthy. Human memory is notoriously fallible.

Peter said:

"No, it was not by following artfully contrived false stories that we made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but rather, we were eyewitnesses of his magnificence. 17 For he received from God the Father honor and glory when words such as these were conveyed to him by the magnificent glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, whom I myself have approved.” 18 Yes, these words we heard coming from heaven while we were with him in the holy mountain."-2 Peter 1:16-18.

No, I'm sorry, Peter didn't say that. 2 Peter is well known to be a pseudepigraphal book, meaning a book that claims to have been written by an apostle but actually wasn't. They were quite common in early Christian circles.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There are 4 accounts for a reason. They each give different eye-witness testimony. And that testimony is trustworthy.

No, they don't give eyewitness testimony. Mark, the first gospel on which the others are based, doesn't even claim to be eyewitness testimony. All 4 gospels are thoroughly mythological.

The Gospel of Luke describes itself as a mixture of thirdhand and (at best) fourthhand accounts: in Luke 1, it says that Luke is based on prior compilations of accounts that were "passed on to us by eyewitnesses and servants of the word."

(And since it differentiates between "eyewitnesses" and "servants of the word," this implies that the "servants of the word" were not eyewitnesses.)

In any court of law the word of 2 or 3 witnesses is enough to establish something as truthful.

Not true. Eyewitness testimony is weighed against other evidence.

 

[columbus]

Imagine you were woken in the middle of the night by one of your neighbours who told you that you were in imminent danger of dying in a fire.

Or, suppose this.

You're an insurance salesman. You pull the fire alarm in a big apartment building.

Hundreds of people race out onto the street, afraid that the building is burning. It takes about an hour for evidence to arrive that it was a false alarm. But in the meantime, people are scared and confused.

The next day, you mail flyers about your fire insurance policies to everyone in the building. You sell ten new policies. Not only do you make money, you are your agency's top salesman for the month. You get respect, cash, and self-validation. You helped people protect themselves from the dangers of fire damage.

You forget about the lie that was pulling the fire alarm in a crowded building.
In fact, you don't even think it was a lie. It was a wake-up call!

That's the way I see the OP. An opportunity for an egotistical person to make a claim that benefits them, but isn't true. While ignoring real problems, like looming environmental disaster. It's like selling fire insurance to people in a building who's foundation is rotten and in danger of catastrophic collapse.

That's how I see claims like the OP.
Tom

 

[ppp]

Something that comes to my mind was when I was a kid and Mt Saint Helens became active. It started to spew smoke, many small tremors growing in intensity and size, leading scientists to declare that an eruption was eminent and to evacuate the mountain.

What happened to the people who didn't listen to the warnings given long in advance? Many people refused to listen, some were on the mountain hiking, camping. I read of a person who lived on the mountain and said he would never leave his home. Well, all of them died because they refused to heed the warning message.

It's a matter of credibility.

Scientists have a long record of high and demonstrable reliability,

Religions, including the assorted sects of Christianity, have a very long record of demonstrable unreliability. Christianity alone has produced dozens of failed apocalyptic predictions in my lifetime alone. Hundred over the last two millennia. All misses. No hits.

 

[nPeace]

What if there was imminent danger and you were given a warning to get clear?

Something that comes to my mind was when I was a kid and Mt Saint Helens became active. It started to spew smoke, many small tremors growing in intensity and size, leading scientists to declare that an eruption was eminent and to evacuate the mountain.

What happened to the people who didn't listen to the warnings given long in advance? Many people refused to listen, some were on the mountain hiking, camping. I read of a person who lived on the mountain and said he would never leave his home. Well, all of them died because they refused to heed the warning message.

Now, let's put another scenario. You're walking by an apartment building on an urban street and you clearly see flames coming out of the windows above and you notice that some of the occupants are unaware of the danger. Would you feel it now your responsibility to act and warn the occupants the apartment complex is on fire? If some of the people who were ignorant of the danger died because they received no warning, and you were able to warn them, would you have a guilty conscience? Would you indeed be responsible for their deaths, in part, by not warning them?

Now with those examples in mind read the prophecy in Revelation 18:4. It is directed to God's people who are in "her." They are told to get out of her, because if they don't they will share with her in her sins and receive the plagues she receives:

"And I heard another voice out of heaven say: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues."-Revelation 18:4.

This is an ominous warning. The voice is from heaven. If you read the context it talks about a world-wide organization that is given a mystery name Babylon the great. She is called a prostitute that commits sexual immorality with the kings of the earth.

So here is the question...does a warning like this stir you to think? If you are part of her surely you want to know!

Why are God's people warned to get out of her? Who is she?

Notice that she is held responsible for the bloodshed of all humankind in God's eyes:

"Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.”-Revelation 18:24.

To those who think God will never hold people and organizations responsible for their actions. What does this tell you about him? He says about her:

"For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.  Repay her in the way she treated others, yes, pay her back double for the things she has done; in the cup she has mixed, mix a double portion for her. To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning."-Revelation 18:5-7.

How does it feel to know that God is going to hold everyone and every organization accountable for their acts? And the way they deal is the way they will be dealt with?

How does it make you feel to know there is no one too mighty to surpass heaven? Does not even scripture state:


"If you see any oppression of the poor and a violation of justice and righteousness in your district, do not be surprised about the matter. For that high official is being watched by one who is higher than he is, and there are others who are still higher than they are."-Ecclesiastes 5:8.

So who is she? Who would want to remain part of this bloodguilty world-wide empire? And who knows and is warning before it is too late?

I remember it being revealed that many lost their lives due to misleading promises and false hopes.
These came from politicians and religious leaders, and I'm sure some of the merchants were involved too.
It does show that, people do see danger, but allow themselves to be easily fooled into thinking.... "Things are not so bad."
They trust the wrong source.
Nevertheless, we sound the warning, because we can't decide who will act wisely, from who won't.

 

[nPeace]

These are just nice stories written in a book, you know... Without any evidence to have truly happened.

Every religion has its one set of stories and, ceteris paribus, there is no rational way to prefer one over the other.

Ciao

- viole

I think you'd be more accurate to say, without the evidence you are looking for - namely, a supernatural being performing supernatural events right before your eyes, and you carry a mark that's visible to everyone, so you wouldn't be able to make the excuse... "I had a dream."
God won't do that though, so you'll never see any evidence to your satisfaction... maybe.

 

[YoursTrue]

Truth is not up for debate, something is either true or false.
I think JC and God is/are false, religion is a con.

Religion certainly can be a con. But Pilate couldn't figure out what is truth when he asked Jesus, so evidently it was up in the air for him.