Posts by Cold Steel

34

Revelation written to the 1st century churches

by maccauk11 in

im suggesting revelation was not for us today but to the seven churches in minor asia.

they 1st centruy faithful ones were waiting for the promised return of messiah, like he promised them.

he did in fact return on the lcouds to take them to heaven.

Cold Steel

OP: I’m suggesting Revelation was not for us today but to the seven churches in Minor Asia. The 1st century faithful ones were waiting for the promised return of Messiah, like he promised them. He did in fact return on the clouds to take them to heaven.

And when did he return in the clouds with “all the saints” with him? We’re also told that “every eye” would see him, including those who put him to death: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.”

The problem with your interpretation is that you’re ignoring an entire body of prophecy that has not yet happened. For example, the apostles knew that before Jesus returned, 1) Jerusalem had to be destroyed, 2) the temple leveled, right? They also knew that 3) the Jews had to be scattered throughout the nations of the earth, and that in the future, 4) the Lord would set his hand again to recover his people (see Isaiah 11), 5) the building of the third Jewish temple (Revelation 11). And they knew there must be 6) a “restoration of all things” which all the holy prophets had written and spoken about (Acts 3).

Remember that the apostles also were prophets. They knew prophecy and all the things that had to come to pass before Jesus could return. Jesus continued to teach the apostles for 40 days after his resurrection. What did he tell them? Why isn’t any of it in the scriptures? We have traditions, but the only thing we’re told is that he taught them the mysteries of the kingdom of God. If Jesus was resurrected, then we have to acknowledge that he knew what the future would be. After the 40 days he ascended into heaven on the Mount of Olives and you’ll recall that two angels stood by and told them that Jesus would one day come “in like manner” in the clouds of heaven. The two prophets in Revelation 11 were never recorded as coming, nor the despot mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39 and Revelation 16. Again, this despot was the one many of the other prophets said would come (as Ezekiel notes in 38:17-18). Since the Lord did not come to the aid of Judah when the Romans sacked Jerusalem, we can only assume it would be fulfilled far in the future!

So how could all this happen in one generation?

In my mind it’s a bit presumptuous to think one knows what these scriptures were meant for. As one scholar writes:

All the 40-day teaching is described as very secret, delivered to a closed cult group. There is no desire to intrigue and mystify, however, as with the Gnostics, but rather the clearly stated policy that knowledge should be given always but only to those who ask for it, with the corollary that the higher and holier a teaching the more carefully it should be guarded. As “the last and highest revelation,” the teaching of the 40 days was top secret, and has not come down to us.

Since Irenaeus, churchmen have strenuously denied that there ever was a secret teaching or that anything really important has ever been lost. To profess otherwise would be perilously close to an admission of bankruptcy; yet Christian scholars do concede that the Apostles had information that we do not have, allow the existence of an unwritten Apostolic tradition in the church, and grant that there was a policy of secrecy in the early church—though insisting that it began with the catechetical schools. The catechists, however, appeal to a much earlier tradition of secrecy, and when the Fathers attempt to reproduce the unwritten tradition which they claim for the church they have nothing to offer but the commonplaces of the schools. Plainly things have been lost. [Source]

In other words, I believe the first century apostles knew exactly where they were in the grand scheme of things. I don’t think they expected Jesus’ return in their day or even their great grandchildren’s day.

The modern day churches especially since the 1830s are in delusion to think it is written for us today [or] some future generation. The language used is symbolic, metaphors and hyperbole and taken mostly from the Old Testament prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah. They also used the same language which in fact was how the Jews used language to make descriptions of events.

This is an opinion, of course. One may also surmise that Ezekiel and Isaiah were written for us today. Ezekiel, after all, goes so far as to address the Beast (Gog) in Ezekiel 38: “Thus saith the Lord God; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?”

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Messiah told those 1st century [ones] that all things would occur in their generation and it did! Just like he said. The Apostles all confirmed the expectation of Messiah’s return in their lifetime.

Uuuuugh...yeah. When did Jesus return in the clouds? What was the coming of the sign of the Son of Man? When were the two prophets killed, and who killed them? The Beast came down upon Jerusalem to destroy it, but the Lord came to the rescue of Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed Jerusalem's enemies. How did that go down?

Sorry...it just does not compute.

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12

The American Constitution versus the 'Kingdom of God'.

by yadda yadda 2 in

i thought this comparison between the american constitution and the 'kingdom of god' was very interesting from an article in this ex-mormon's excellent website http://packham.n4m.org/us-xian.htm.

the article notes how america's founding father's were deists, not bible-believing christians.. but our nation is also a system of government, not just a society.

the constitution is about government, not about society.

Cold Steel

The reason Mormons are strict constitutionalists is that it's the BEST form of government when man must govern himself. Theocracy works BEST when the leaders receive revelation from God. The kingdom in Daniel 2 implies that no human dominion will be needed as we slip into the Millennium. Also, a righteous people need almost no governing, for they govern themselves. A wicked people need despotic government to maintain peace.

Mormon prophecy indicates severe tribulation in the earth just prior to the return of Christ. Now, Israel is under the nuclear umbrella of the United States and no nation dares move against it. But the time is rapidly coming when the United States will rather suddenly cease to being a world superpower. It's ability to project military strength will decline to unsustainable levels. Then, without the United States, a major kingdom will arise (most likely in Turkey), which will consolidate power in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Then it will at some point decide to attack Israel and retake Jerusalem. That will be the great battle of Armageddon which leads to the return of the Messiah.

When the government of God is established, it will be a theocracy, with a strong connection to the freedoms contained in the bill of rights. People will have the freedom to believe as they choose and if people sin, it will be because they choose to. These are, in a nutshell, the beliefs of the LDS faith. With the return of Christ, many will be destroyed at his coming. But these will be murderers, despots, and the lowest element of people. But those who are decent, honorable people of the earth, will be spared.

Will everyone be happy with a theocracy? Probably not. But people will see the incredible improvement with the way the nations are governed. The only scriptural resistance noted by the prophets is that spoken by the prophet Zechariah, who in Chapter 14 indicates that many Muslims at first will not be cooperative with the new government. Those among those nations that will not go up to Jerusalem to take part in the feast of tabernacles will be "encouraged" to reconsider, partially through drought and physical plagues. Eventually, Zechariah states, they'll go.

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139

Ever consider joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

by rawe in

has anyone here left jehovah's witnesses to join the churuch of jesus christ of latter-day saints?

what was your motivation for doing so and how has it worked out?.

if you haven't joined the lds or considered it, as an ex-jw, what is your general view of the lds faith?.

Cold Steel

Randy: If you wouldn't mind selecting one of the claims, perhaps the one you find most compelling, when I get the time, I'll case it down and respond. The general theme of your claims was statements in the Book of Mormon that could not be known to Joseph Smith. Naturally any future event if specified in specific detail would qualify. Any past event, if specified in specific detail, and generally not known at the time but only re-discovered in our day would qualify.

Okay, that sounds reasonable. The greatest demonstrable point would be old world geography. This includes evidence for the first book of Nephi, so you don't have to read a great deal of the Book of Mormon. But first we'd have to agree that if someone were going to write a fictional account about an area of the world and a historic period in which very little was known (even amongst scholars) regarding the middle-eastern area, including the deserts of Arabia, the established trails and culture, writing directions that anyone with Nephi's account, a compass and a means of desert travel could follow, then having every detail of the entire journey check out with Ø errors -- that that would be an impossible achievement, even with the best maps of the day.

Just one more point. At the time Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, it's amazing to me that not one record on metal plates had ever been found, anywhere. Today, we have gold plates, silver plates, copper plates and others (mostly gold) from both the old world and the new world. And wrting on gold plates was a practice that just seemed to be starting at around 600 B.C.

So I'll PM you with some of the places you can begin your investigation.

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139

Ever consider joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

by rawe in

has anyone here left jehovah's witnesses to join the churuch of jesus christ of latter-day saints?

what was your motivation for doing so and how has it worked out?.

if you haven't joined the lds or considered it, as an ex-jw, what is your general view of the lds faith?.

Cold Steel

barry: The LDS invited me to their church a while ago. The missionarys told me there was a great apostacy in the early church and expected me to believe a glib statement such as this. If there was an apostacy when did it occur . Was it after Jesus left for heaven, was it after or before the complete bible was decided and the trinity doctrine was decided....

What they should have told you is that the great apostasy happened at the time the last person holding the keys of the kingdom passed from the scene and there were no more apostles. If you're looking for a specific date, no one pretends to know that. Only God. Whether you believe it or not is totally up to you. I guess it happened between the time John wrote his Apocalypse and the time all the bishops and cardinals began wearing gaudy outfits and living off the people. It also happened when revelation ceased. So perhaps it was a process.

As for being asked to pray about things you don't know, see James 1:5-8 (below). To hear anti-Mormons talk about prayer you'd think Jim Jones was going to follow things up with some Kool-Aid! Okay, if you aren't interested in Joseph Smith, or whether he was a prophet, by all means, don't pray. Don't do it and then whine about it. If you leave God alone, he'll leave you alone. It's pretty fair, isn't it?

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. -James 1:5-8

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139

Ever consider joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

by rawe in

has anyone here left jehovah's witnesses to join the churuch of jesus christ of latter-day saints?

what was your motivation for doing so and how has it worked out?.

if you haven't joined the lds or considered it, as an ex-jw, what is your general view of the lds faith?.

Cold Steel

Digderrido: A friend of mine left the Mormons, some of the similarities were astounding, we often compared our upbringing. He now has gone back to them, seems happy enough, though I'm guessing his pull to go back was much the same as some ex jws.

The big difference is that the LDS have considerable evidence to back their claims. Yes, things aren't perfect, but the Jehovah's Witnesses have absolutely no evidence whatsoever of their claimed divine calling.

Rawe: These 13 words, called a doxology, were a later addition to the Bible, hence modern translations do not include them. Some believe much of the Book of Mormon is based on unpublished manuscripts for another author, Solomon Spalding. Whatever the case might be, we would say Smith or Spalding likely did not know this portion of the Lord's prayer was not originally in the Bible.

According to the late-LDS apologist Hugh Nibley, our greatest scholar:

The most significant example of this freedom of composition is certainly the Lord's Prayer. "Originally," wrote Jeremias, "the doxology, 'For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever,' was absent," yet it is found in the oldest church order, the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." Has someone taken liberties with the sacred canon, then? No, "the absence of the doxology from the original text," Jeremias explains, "does not mean that Jesus intended his prayer to be recited without a word of praise at the end. But in the very earliest times, the doxology had no fixed form and its precise wording was left to those who prayed." Only "later on...it was felt necessary to establish the doxology in a fixed form," which explains why the prayer has different forms in Matthew 6:13and Luke 11:4. Also, the older Aramaic form of the prayer required forgive "our debts," which the Greek of Luke changes to forgive "our sins" vindicates both the inclusion of the doxology in the Lord's prayer in 3 Nephi 13:9-13 and the reading there of "debts" instead of "sins." [Source]

Also, another scholar notes:

Most manuscripts, although not the earliest ones, include at the end the triadic doxology, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." This phrase (which is an excerpt from I Chronicles 29:11-13) is a plausible conclusion for the prayer: it recognizes the preeminence of God, and our total dependence upon him; it is a reminder that he is the loving King, and we the servants; and it explains why it is to him that we pray. [Source]

I’ve read sample s of Spalding’s writings and the Book of Mormon was not written by Spalding. The Book of Mormon contains numerous Hebraisms which point its ancient middle-eastern origins. These are found in none of Spalding’s known writings, nor do they appear in some of the early books you proffered. One of the more fascinating of these is chiasmus (a mirror image type construct found in detail in biblical writings). After attending a lecture on biblical chiasmus as a missionary, John Welch, now a professor of law at BYU, began looking for it in the Book of Mormon. Although many anti-Mormons say chiasmus is little more than boring repetition, Welch and numerous Bible and Book of Mormon understand and value this literary structure for its aesthetics and its power to communicate at multiple levels simultaneously.

At the time the Book of Mormon was published, no living scholar knew about chiasmus, or knew that any book claiming ancient Hebrew origins contained examples of this literary device. It was only later in the nineteenth century that Biblical chiasmus was fully recognized and described to the scholarly world. [Source]

Welch later noted:

I had long appreciated and valued the Book of Mormon, but it was not until I began to see it speaking for itself before sophisticated audiences, especially in connection with such things as chiasmus and law in the Book of Mormon, that I began to sense the high level of respect that the book really can command. On many grounds, the Book of Mormon is intellectually respectable. The more I learn about the Book of Mormon, the more amazed I become at its precision, consistency, validity, vitality, insightfulness, and purposefulness. I believe that the flow of additional evidence nourishes and enlarges faith.

Those who seek to implicate Sidney Rigdon also tend to be ignorant of Rigdon’s background as co-founder of the Campbellite movement. Alexander Campbell was furious at Rigdon for leaving his religious movement for Smith’s, and though he scourged Smith at every opportunity in print, he never impugned Rigdon’s integrity. Rigdon’s motives for joining the saints was simply that despite Campbell’s great understanding of the scriptures, he could not honestly claim any means of divine authority. Others leaning towards Campbell at the time also joined the saints for the same reason. It thus stands to reason that Rigdon’s motives for joining Smith were honest. It doesn’t follow, then, that he would join Smith, then conspire in writing a fictitious book of scripture and pawning it off to the public.

There are simply too many things Smith, Rigdon, Spalding and anyone else at that time couldn’t have known. And regardless of how compelling the evidence, ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons will never admit one shred of it. On the other hands, we LDS readily concede there are issues with the Book of Mormon and the book of Abraham, we at least have people researching them constantly. And these are professors of ancient scripture, anthropologists, archeologists, historians, journalists...and even a professor of Islamic History who, by the way, is working with leading Muslim scholars in collecting and translating old and neglected works that have heretofore been unavailable to the entire Islamic community.

I personally think there’s extremely compelling evidence for the Book of Mormon. In 1940, the Mayans were the oldest culture in Mesoamerica, which is where most LDS scholars believe the Book of Mormon events took place. This was a problem since the Book of Mormon speaks of two ancient civilizations. That was a problem. There was a Jaredite civilization that came from the great tower when the Lord confounded the languages. They would have dated from about 2500 – 300 B.C. Why was there no evidence of them?

In 1941, archeologists in Mesoamerica announced they had found an earlier culture that were much older than the Mayans. They called them the Olmecs, and they inhabited Mesoamerica between 2500 – 300 B.C. It cost the church a fortune to pay off those archeologists to invent the Olmecs civilization and where did it get us? The fact that the Mayans dated from 600 B.C. to 380 A.D. (the same time as the Nephites in the Book of Mormon) also didn’t buy us any credibility. Up until fairly recently, people stuck the Book of Mormon in my face and wanted to know where that canyon and “river of water” were in Arabia, and where that lush Garden of Eden-like “Bountiful” was in the burning desert of the Quarter. I could only tell them I had no idea. Then, beginning in the mid-1990s, they found it all. The canyon, the river of water, Bountiful, the trail Lehi took...they even found Nahom. Did the ex-Mo or anti-Mo community give us even a nod? We should live so long! Now they’ve found horses in Mesoamerica. Again, silence from our enemies. Oh, and we’ve found the barley, the wheels, gold plates and other stuff. So while it exists, we can’t force people to read it, study it or acknowledge it. Instead, I keep reading their crap about there being no evidence.

Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon

The Authorship of the Book of Mormon

Hisses from the Dust: The Gold Plates and the Recovery of Sacred Records

The Sermon at the Temple and the Greek New Testament Manuscripts

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106

No more doubts for me! Good-bye JWN! We have THE TRUTH!

by DATA-DOG in

i could go on and on about my personal journey over the last 2 years or so, but i don't need to.

everything i needed to hear to finally lay my doubts to rest happened on one meeting night.

it could only be divine providence.

Cold Steel

DATA-DOG: Only Jehovah could put his idea for M.E.P.S into a human mind. Just like the Tabernacle builders of old who received the Holy Spirit to invent never before seen "socket pedastles," the humble brothers were able to design M.E.P.S.

Hey, brother, sounds like you got hit with some of that old
time religion...some ..NEW LIGHT!!..

Now, what's M.E.P.S.?

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22

TheGreat Tribulation was in the 1st century

by maccauk11 in

"then there will be a great tribulation, not seen since the beginning of time nor will everoccure again.

im saying,christ was talking about the comingdestruction of jerusalem in the 1st century and not the end of the world but the end of the jewish system of things.

there is no end of the world.

Cold Steel

Preterists and Fulfilled Eschatology is a great idea. You just have to ignore about 780 prophecies to make it work.

Are you really saying that what happened in the first century, to Jerusalem, was the worst thing that had ever happened up to that time or up to the present? It was horrendously horrible, no doubt, but we have World Wars I and II, not to mention the War of 1861. And if nuclear devices begin going off or that Yellowstone caldera blows, things may change. Heck, if the last one happens, they'll see it in Jerusalem.

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18

been on jwn for about a year, here is what i've learned or had an inkling about

by nowwhat? in

the organization:.

engages in revisionist history [1914 christ's presense foretold].

judge rutherford was a false prophet and a crook [1925, beth-serim].

Cold Steel

Religion shouldn't be enforced, especially by church leaders. Nor should you EVER be shunned, especially on the orders of church leaders. I've head of so many cases where the family or friends doesn't want to shun someone, but they fear being victimized themselves.

What would happen if a group left, kept the same doctrines and beliefs, but kept their churches independent? They could even form a GB if they wished, but kept them from exercising dictatorial power? Would Jehovah destroy them as readily as he would, say, a bunch of Methodists?

28

Revelation, It's Grand Climax at Hand

by Cold Steel in

it's a rather large red book.. if i wanted to purchase one from a pioneer, how much would it cost?.

i'm reading a borrowed copy now.. thanks!.

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Cold Steel

The pre-trib rapture is a recent idea, but I don't think the rapture at the return of Christ is a recent concept. The prophet Zechariah tells of Christ's return in detail.

As you can see, prophecy is not too difficult to figure out. When people tell me about figurative fulfillments, I ask them to show me some. Those that have figurative or apocalyptic elements are rather obvious. That is, if you start reading about dragons, stars, beasts, horns and such, one knows one must look for literal elements. But when the prophets speak about things that are literal, you can pretty much bet that they're literal. Read Isaiah 53, for example. It's all about Christ as anyone who's read the New Testament can tell. The ones who don't want to find a literal fulfillment (like the Jews, who reject Christ) will mind a more mysterious angle.

As for the two prophets, Zechariah talks about two olive trees and two candlesticks, but doesn't tell us what they represent. John does, though. He tells us about the prophets and then said, "These are the two olive trees and candlesticks...." It's doubtful he would throw us another spiritual bone so that later someone could say, no the two prophets were actually two classes of missionaries that were abolished and then reinstated. By the time we're done they'll be two red ants on an ant hill somewhere in Tyre. Remember, too, it was the Beast who kills the two prophets. And as soon as the prophets ascend to heaven, the Beast is killed where he stands. So if you don't buy into the JW interpretation, well, it's just too bad for you.

But back to the rapture. Here again is Zechariah:

It's very easy to understand because it's all there. Does it strain critical thinking? Yeah, but so does the parting of the Red Sea, the virgin birth, the resurrection and the ascension. All religion does that, but I have no problems believing it. Note in the above the prophet states that the Lord my God (Christ) will come and "all the saints with thee." Saints means "holy ones" and can refer to the Jews, Israelites, early Christians and Christ's followers today. But John talks about how "every eye" would see him, including those who killed him. Is that a reference to the Jews he's with or those who were part of the Roman army and who are now in the spirit world?

Other than that, the scripture above is pretty clear cut.

If one reads Isaiah 63, it's difficult not to see this as Christ's second coming.

Clearly this is Yahweh speaking. He asks a rhetorical question, "Who is this that cometh....?" but then answers and says, " I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. " Again, it inescapably points to the fact that Jehovah is Jesus Christ, and that Jehovah is not the Father, but the Son of the Father. If the Governing Body is looking for some "new light," that should be good for a few lumens. I mean, "And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced...." (Zech. 12) and " Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives...." Here we see that Jehovah's feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, when it's a clear reference to Jesus. "Hello, McFly!"

But that's another topic.

Jesus ascended into heaven and two
angels appeared saying he would come
in like manner. They were on the mount
of Olives, where it's prophesied he will
return.

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22

There is no end of the world

by maccauk11 in

revelation was wirtten to those seven 1st century churhces not thechurhc of doolaly in florida etc.

those 1st cnetruy beleivers were fully expectant of the returning king in power and he did.

he didnot lei or mislead them.

Cold Steel

Well, this would present quite a few problems for Christians if what you say is true.

Preterists and fulfilled eschatology proponents live in an odd dreamworld that is both unfulfilling (no pun intended) and confusing. Many believe in Jesus and that he is the Christ, but then turn around and say the future is a sealed book with no future.

One looks at Zechariah 12-14, for example, and Ezekiel 38-39, where Jerusalem is devastated by a foreign enemy. It evokes images of ancient Rome's assault on Jerusalem, where utter destruction faces the Jews by a very determined foreign leader. But unlike Rome, this despot of the latter days, despite his overwhelming military superiority, will be destroyed by the God of Israel, for the Lord suddenly enters the fight and personally intervenes on the side of Judah, destroying their enemies.

The scriptures are clear in that Judah would be destroyed and the remnants would be scattered among all nations of the earth. But as Isaiah said, " And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth."

Once back in their own land, the day of the Lord would come when a great military despot decides to come down upon Israel and sweep it off the land. As the great prophet Zechariah writes:

This is the last great battle of the earth and it's one that clearly hasn't taken place. We've already seen that Jerusalem has become a burdensome stone for all that burden themselves with it. It's already the world's hotspot and, because of it, it's the greatest threat to the peace of the planet. Also, as we've seen, thouse "round about" Israel have threatened to destroy the Jews and retake the land God gave to Judah's sons.

But before Judah is rescued, it will be on the verge of destruction. Again, the prophet states:

Only one-third of the city will remain when the Messiah steps in to save the people.

"All nations" most likely is hyperbole. Most likely, it means all nations in the region, probably mostly Muslim. Again, if one looks for fulfillment of these prophecies, one will not find it. Note that the scripture states that Yahweh's feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives. This is where Jesus ascended and where he will return, as the angels who were with him foretold.

But who will be this great despot, the one John calls the Beast, who gets his power from Satan? Ezekiel calls him Gog, and the Lord addresses him directly. Obviously, whoever Gog is will be familiar with these scriptures, yet will proceed anyway.

The "prey" are those who were gathered out of the nations, as Isaiah prophesied. His goal will to take it as a spoil, for gain. But isn't this battle supposed to take place at the end of the Millennium? Although there are similarities between this battle and the one at the end of the Millennium, the rebellious at the final battle will obviously see it as the conclusion of the same battle at the beginning of the Millennium. It's clear the battle being discussed in Ezek. 38-39 is in the beginning of the Millennium.

Note it will be in the latter years and be against those who were gathered out of the nations.

If one examines the scripture closely, this battle will be in the latter days, and it will be the battle the Lord had spoken about through other prophets. The great battle at the end of the Millennium has not been spoken of by the other prophets, except John. So we must conclude Gog and the Beast are one and the same. Gog shall come against the land of Israel and there will be a great earthquake associated with both Gog and the Beast. This is the earthquake that will occur at Yahweh's coming, the "great shaking in the land of Israel."

This is the chapter telling about the two prophets of the last days who would confront the Beast and keep him at bay for three and a half years. Note the earthquake in verse 13. Note, too, that this is no "spiritual Israel" but the actual city "where also our Lord was crucified." Preterists and fulfilled eschatology scholars and proponents like to ignore this prophecy. But has it been fulfilled? Did it happen, but just occur "invisibly"? Moses ascended to heaven in a cloud. In like manner, these two prophets would ascend into heaven in a cloud.

Perhaps the greatest evidence that prophecy still remains unfulfilled is this part of Ezekiel 39:

At the conclusion of the battle of Armageddon, in Jerusalem, the house of Israel would finally know that Yahweh, or Jesus Christ, is the Lord their God from that day foreward. This is clearly at the beginning of the Millennium due to the time frame and the promises. At the end of the Millennium, there won't be seven months to bury the bodies or seven years to burn the weaponry and fuel. It also is a time when the heathen shall know that Israel went into captivity because of their iniquity and because they trespassed against the Lord. Also that they were scattered throughout the world, but that they had been regathered and blessed forevermore.

If the preterists are right, then none of this saw fulfillment, and the prophecies were false.

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