ppp
Well-Known Member
You can spin it anyway you like. But it comes down to the fact that you are not credible. There is no reason to conclude that you know, or are even capable of knowing the things you claim.
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There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?
- Thread starter an anarchist
- Start date
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Jesus promised that Christ would return to earth after the gospel had been preached everywhere on earth.
That had already happened by the mid-1800s so there is no need to wait any longer.
| The millennial zeal reached its climax in the year 1844. I wanted to know exactly why. What had led all these people to the same year? I found the answer. This date in history had been chosen primarily because of three specific promises made by Christ Himself to His disciples. He gave three promises, saying that when these three things came to pass, He (Christ) would return to earth. The first promise: His Gospel would be preached everywhere on earth. The first promise of Christ was easy to find. He made it to His disciples in direct reply to their questions. They asked Him: “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3) This verse is found in the twenty–fourth chapter of Matthew. Christ then gave His disciples in the following words: “But he that shall endure until the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness … then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:13-14) This was clear enough. The end would come, and Christ would return, when His Gospel was preached throughout the world. My next step was to discover when the Gospel of Christ was considered to have been preached throughout the world. A study of the spread of Christianity made by scholars of the 1840’s, convinced them that the message of Christ had, by their day, already encircled the globe. The Gospel was being taught in all the continents. By 1844 it was being taught even in the interior of Africa, not by solitary missionaries, but on an organized scale. A commercial history of East Africa states: “Christian missions began their activities amongst the African people in 1844. (Year Book and Guide to East Africa, Ed. by Robert Hale Ltd., London, 1953, p. 44) Dr D. L. Leonard, historian of the Mission movement, in his A Hundred Years of Missions, says of the spread of the Word of Christ and His Gospel: “… for the first time since the apostolic period, (there) occurred an outburst of general missionary zeal and activity.” He is speaking of the last years of the eighteenth century, leading to the nineteenth century, to 1844, and beyond. “Beginning in Great Britain, it soon spread to the Continent and across the Atlantic. It was no mere push of fervour, but a mighty tide set in, which from that day to this has been steadily rising and spreading.” Another account states: “In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was organised. Students of the prophetic word felt at the time that these agencies were coming in fulfilment of the prophecy.” (Our Day in the Light of Prophecy, Spicer, p. 308.) This was a direct reference to the prophecy of Christ that He would return when His gospel was preached everywhere in the world. Before 1804, the Bible had already been printed and circulated in fifty languages. In 1816 the American Bible Society was formed. George Storrs in the newspaper, Midnight Cry, on 4 May 1843, stated that these two societies (British and American) with their innumerable branches were spreading the Gospel of Christ in every part of the world. G. S. Faber in Eight Dissertations, which was completed in the very year of greatest prophetic fervour, 1844, declares: “The stupendous endeavours of one gigantic community to convey the Scriptures in every language to every part of the globe may well deserve to be considered as an eminent sign even of these eventful times. Unless I be much mistaken, such endeavours are preparatory to the final grand diffusion of Christianity, which is the theme of so many inspired prophets, and which cannot be far distant in the present day.’ M. H. Goyer writes in his book on prophetic fulfilment: “The British and Foreign Bible Society (for one example) has issued, since its foundation in1804, over 421 million copies of the Scriptures, in practically every country known throughout the globe.” In Our Day in the Light of Prophecy, Spicer wrote that the Gospel in his day had been spread ‘to ninety-five per cent of the inhabitants of the earth.’ He added: “It was in 1842 that five treaty-ports in China were open to commerce and to missions—advance steps in the opening of all China to the Gospel. In 1844 Turkey was prevailed upon to recognise the right of the Moslems to become Christians, reversing all Moslem tradition. In 1844 Alan Gardiner established the South American Mission. In 1842 Livingstone’s determination was formed to open the African interior.” Dr A. T. Pierson in Modern Mission Century wrote: “India, Siam, Burma, China, Japan, Turkey, Africa, Mexico, South America … were successively and successfully entered. Within five years, from 1853 to 1858, new facilities were given to the entrance and occupation of seven different countries, together embracing half the world’s population.” There were many additional references which made it clear that the Gospel of Christ, and its teachers, had entered every continent by the year 1844, spreading the Word of Jesus the Christ throughout the world. This was considered by the students of Scripture to be in exact fulfilment of the words of Christ given in Mark: “And the gospel must first be published among all nations.” (Mark 13:10) In this same chapter, Christ warns that when this takes place: “Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” (Mark 13:33) When this Gospel is published in all nations, Christ again promises: “… then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.” (Mark 13:26) The millennial scholars of the 1840s felt that Christ’s first promise had been fulfilled. They felt it had been clearly demonstrated that the Gospel of Christ had been ‘preached in all the world for a witness’ and, therefore, the hour for His coming must now be at hand. I was convinced myself that the first promise of Christ had indeed been fulfilled by the year 1844. There could be no doubt of this. It was an interesting beginning. |
You are correct.
Unfortunately, mainstream christian thought was hijacked long ago, and corrupted with concepts from Plato and other non-christians.
But it didn’t start out that way...
No, it actually hasn’t….
What is God’s Kingdom? Most people, even in Christendom, don’t know.
Some say it’s a “feeling in your heart.”
IOW, the preaching about it has been ambiguous, at best; people haven’t been taught what it really is.
(See Daniel 2:44; it’ll give you some idea.)
But as Jesus said, after it is preached, “then the end will come.”
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
This is completely untrue!
Please, it is best to say you don’t know, than to spread lies about what a group teaches.
Because really, it casts aspersions on everything else you say. No one can trust your statements.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
They keep claiming that it is going to happen. I got a letter today. OK, yesterday now. They have predicted the end of the world something like five times. JWs are not the best source when it comes to describing their own beliefs. Probably too afraid.
EDIT:
Oops! I was wrong. Eight time!!
8 Times The Jehovah's Witnesses Were Wrong About The End Of The World - Godless Mom
A list of predictions from Jehovah's Witnesses that never came true. Keep it by your door for the next time the Witnesses come knockin'!
www.patheos.com
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
It's the exact same topic.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
You said: "joelr claims that it is 100% proven that God does not heal those who pray.
That is a claim of faith since it is not proven."
I just showed you that it's not a faith claim. My uncle's prayer wasn't answered. It doesn't take me any faith at all to say god did not answer my uncle's prayer. I have results (or lack thereof).
How is anyone able to show that God (which one?) answered a prayer for anything, ever? It appears that this god answers prayers at about the rate of chance. Which is to say at about the rate we would expect to find if there isn't any god answering anything.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
By prayer? How did you determine that?
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
I didn't. I quoted your entire post and highlighted the parts I wanted to draw attention to.
You seem to be accusing me of changing the words in your post which I definitely have not done.
Finding god by faith is not the same as "believing science." You can say that until the cows come home, but when we actually get into it, and you describe what it is you're doing, what you are describing is unjustified belief. That is not a reliable pathway to truth.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
In my experience as a former Christian, if a person experienced healing after praying, both the healed individual and those who prayed believed that God had answered their prayers. If not, and the individual was not healed, this person and those who prayed believed that the unanswered prayer was God's will. If the individual died, it was also God's will. There were some Christians who informed me that it was God's will that I endured years of abuse while I was growing up, and they even provided an excuse for it. Other Christians, on the other hand, informed me that I didn't have enough faith in God for him to answer my prayers or that I had unconfessed sins in my life that prevented him from doing so. It didn't seem to matter to them that I was a young child (and then a teenager), pleading with God to save me from being constantly abused at home and bullied at school. I felt like I couldn't win for losing.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
What?
Notice how none of them just settle on "god did it" and pretend that they've answered something.
It doesn't show that it does. That's the point. It also doesn't show that magical pixies did not do it for them either. Nor invisible leprechauns. And yet we don't posit those as potential explanations. Ask yourself why that is.
Science is "blind" in that it seeks demonstrable answers and explanations? What an absurd statement.
Almost as absurd as simultaneously asserting that "it takes humans to actually see that God did it."
But not quite as absurd as your statement that following the evidence where it leads is "blindly following science."
Good grief.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Yes I do. I was demonstrating that to another poster. As I said already.
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Well that's an extremely damaging thing to teach a child. Ugh. I'm sorry you had to endure that garbage.
Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
Thank you for your kind sentiment. Yes, it was extremely damaging, but it didn't pale in comparison to an evangelical pastor once telling me when I was a young adult that I was a cursed soul, that God hated me and allowed me to be abused as a punishment for the sins of my birth parents, and that there was nothing I could do to change God's mind about me. Of course, I believed him because the Bible states that God hates, and it speaks of generational sins.
Ebionite
Well-Known Member
I'd presume so. Intubation doesn't just remove itself, and he said that the doctors had no explanation for what happened.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
1. Do you think you know what God's kingdom is?
2. How do you think you know whereas other Christians do not know?
Daniel 2:44 does not say what God's kingdom is.
The verse says "in the time of those kings." Who are those kings?
Daniel 2:44 In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
The end of what? I believe it means the end of the old age and the beginning of a new age.
Matthew 24:14 says that the gospel message will be preached in all the world before the end of the age.
The gospel message had been preached in all the world by the mid-1800s so that marks the end of the old age and the beginning of a new age.
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