"Signs of His Coming"

No thanks. I got nothing against the second coming. But my resources are limited, and prefer to spend them on study of the first coming.

 

If you are a young Christian, it would probably be very foolish of you to go to that conference. There are more doctrines about Bible prophesy than there are Christians. You would probably be MUCH better off carefully and prayerfully studying what Christ did for you on the cross.

 

Craig are you saying that our brother needs to continue studying the cross in relation to his salvation?

 

I think Craig has a point here. Revelation, which is, I am sure, what the conference with deal with, cannot be even reasonably guessed at until one has read the OT prophets, in which we find many of the symbols explained.

In addition, it might be noted that although the people of the Hebrew faith had studied prophecies for years, they fully expected Christ to come as King once and for all, and missed entirely the fact that He would come first as the Suffering Servant. That became apparent after the fact, actually, when we looked back at Isaiah.

I think perhaps we are dealing with the same phenomena now: we study and study the prophecies and when they are finally all accomplished we may well find ourselves saying, "So THAT'S what they meant!"

We are told to recognize the signs of the times. It's hard to miss them now, and it is interesting to watch the events unfold. But I am not sure we should get a whole lot further than that in our declarations. I think we were told about these signs so we would not panic.

But aside from not panicking, we have a lot to do here and now in a dying world. Each of us must be a glove within which the Hand of Christ works and not go charging off on our own 'good' directions. What we build with the materials we harvest ourselves (wood, hay, straw) will be burned. It is only what is built through Him with the materials He has supplied (gold, metals, jewels) that will not be burned. He has promised to chop off every branch that does not bear fruit and burn it. I think a lot of us have a lot of fruitless branches in our lives that are not bearing fruit, and thus taking our energy away from the part that He is directing in order that our lives bear His fruit.

It is so easy to get involved in all kinds of good and wonderful projects, to choose our own goals, to plan for the future, etc. I have learned in my 58 years that that is wood, hay, and straw. And the Bible also warns us about that. Let us submit entirely to Him, knowing that these are the end times, and let Him do His work through us in our daily lives in our relationships with the people He puts into our lives.

Conferences on prophecy most often lead to confusion and fear or the type of 'maybe today' hysteria that precludes His work here and now in our lives. Yes, maybe it will be today! That would be so wonderful! I used to tease my kids that I had scheduled the Rapture ten minutes from now but the Lord kept disagreeing! There were more people to be touched.

We don't know so much. But let us proceed with what we DO know: Christ Jesus Himself in us.

 

Craigbythesea:

==First let me say that I am not jumping on you about this statement Craig. I am responding to your statement but I am also making a general statement. So don't take everything I am about to write as a direct response to you/your statement. That said....

I am constantly amazed when I hear Christians say that new believers should not study Bible prophecy. Such an attitude is unBiblical and misguided. The return of Jesus is one of the most important topics in the New Testament and it shows up alot in the Old Testament as well. His return is, in fact, a motivation for holy living (1Jn 3:2-3) and is what we are to be looking for (1Thess 1:9-10, Mk 13:37, etc). It is the hope of the believer (Titus 2:13-15) and comfort to the believer (Jn 14:1-6, 1Thess 4:13-18). So it amazes and saddens me when I hear Christians tell new Christians that they should not study Bible prophecy. In fact the return of Christ is one of the first things a believer should study.

As for the book of Revelation...new believers should read it as well (Rev 1:3, 22:7). Sure there maybe much they don't understand however they should read it since it is part of God's Holy Word. It should never, never be avoided.

__________________________

==It is not important, for a new believer, to take sides on the "hot button" issues that us theological types like to throw around. In fact I don't see that it matters as long as one believes that Jesus is coming again (soon). They have time to get all the details worked out and study various positions for themselves. However at the start it is important for them to learn that Jesus is coming again and start getting familiar with the promises and warning associated with that event.

I also believe that prophecy is a great witnessing tool. I personally was saved thanks to a Free-Will Baptist preacher who taught High School Bible when I was a senior. The man scared me to death. I started reading and studying the Bible and, several years later, I was saved. However God used that man's ministry to start me on the road to salvation. Many others have similar stories. Also prophecy is a wonderful comfort (1Thess 4:13-18). Knowing that not only is there heaven and life after death but that there is also a literal physical resurrection of the believer in the future (at Christ's return) is a great comfort. So new believers should study Bible prophecy.

_____________________________________

==No doubt that is very, very, very important. And it should certainly take up most of their study time. However you can't take prophecy out of the picture or downgrade its importance. In fact the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead points us to a very important prophecy...the future resurrection of all believers!

Now I can't endorse the above mentioned conference. I am not familiar with the gentleman who is preaching it, nor am I familiar with the church in question. These comments are only in reference to the general issue of prophecy and the new believer (even evangelism).

In Christ,
Martin.

 

Martin wrote,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post and share with me your concerns. I did not, however, mean to suggest that the prophesies in the Bible should not be carefully and prayerfully read. I only meant to suggest that Bible prophesy conferences are an inappropriate setting in which to learn what the Bible says about prophesy, especially for Christians who do not have a substantial knowledge of the Bible, including the history of the lands and places mentioned in the Bible and a knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek terminology and phraseology used in Biblical prophesies. Indeed, the absence of the knowledge of these things is the primary cause of the vast multitude of different teachings on Bible prophesy.

Bible prophesy belongs to the genre of literature known as Oriental Apocalyptic Literature and uses terminology and phraseology from that body of literature. Therefore, the study of Bible prophesy involves the study of this body of literature and those who sidestep making a study of it more often than not come up with the most outrageous imaginable interpretations.

 

Free food?? kay, maybe I'll have to reconsider

That's EXACTLY what I was referring to. I'm way to busy to be studying the first coming to be overly concerned with the second coming.

 

Perhaps for those who want to study ahead for the conference you could provide some scriptures.

Where would one look in the Bible for these prophecies:

This Bible Conference theme is "Signs of His Coming" and will cover Biblical Prophecies being fulfilled in such places as Israel, Europe, Russia, China and the Middle East.

Where should one look for these:

He will also be covering Biblical prophecies being fulfilled on such topics as a one-world government, religion and the economy.

And these, especially the weather one:

Other areas of prophetic fulfillment will include technology, wars, invasions and weather conditions.

This will allow those going to be able to jump right into his prophetic teaching.

 

Just listen to Van Impe. He can find all these for you! He may be able to find anything!