Prophecies of Daniel - Page 56 of 60 - Prophecies fulfilled, and yet to be fulfilled

No Millennium?

Mar 18, 2013 · by Mark McMillion · In: Insights, The Future and Endtime, Basic Christianity

A few days ago I had a brief dialog with a missionary friend of mine in Europe about the subject of the Millennium. He wrote this:

Millennium – a word not found in your Bible, denoting a mythical time period somewhere in the far future when all we don’t have faith for now will suddenly happen as if by magic…

So I wrote a note back to him:

While the literal word “Millennium” is not in the Bible, just as the word “Rapture” is also not there, Revelation chapter 20 does specifically refer six times to a period of 1000 years of Christ’s reign on earth.

And he wrote back:

Neither Jesus nor the apostles preached a millennial gospel . . . No other scriptures [other than the book of Revelation] speak of a temporary kingdom to be set up when Christ returns . . . The Millennium was not a part of Jesus’ gospel…

So I decided to leave it at that for right then.

But it did certainly get me thinking. As a Christian and Bible teacher, I definitely believe in the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth. If any of us are believers at all, we’ve prayed the prayer He taught us to pray which includes, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) We who love the Lord have that kingdom in our hearts already. But is it really here on earth right now?

In other posts such as “Did He Really Say That?” I’ve gone into the sayings of Jesus where He clearly stated that He was going away, but that He would return here. One simple and clear place to see this is in John 14: 1-3.

Personally, I feel uneasy about beginning to dissect and dismembered the Word of God. Since God’s plan has always been a progressive unfolding of the truth, I find no problem at all with the book of Revelation having a more complete and detailed explanation of the future than what we find in the Gospels.

If we are to remove Revelation 20 from the Bible, shall we also take the next two chapters away, the last ones in the Bible? These two talk about the “New Heaven and the New Earth” which are to come at the end of the Millennium, talked about in Revelation 20. And then we find back in the Old Testament that Isaiah foretold the same thing perhaps 800 years before the writing of Revelation, speaking of the coming “new heavens and the new earth” in Isaiah 66:22.

In my video on Daniel Chapter 2, I emphasis what seems to be the highpoint of that chapter, verse 44, which says:

“In the days of these kings, the God of Heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other peoples, but it shall crush and destroy all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. “

Then in the video on Daniel Chapter 7, again this coming kingdom on earth is highlighted in verse 27 which says:

“And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.”

Elsewhere in Revelation, not just in chapter 20, it talks about a coming of God’s kingdom on earth immediately after the Second Coming of the Lord. In Revelation 11:15 it says “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior”, which is at the time of the 7^th trumpet. In Revelation 5:10 the 24 elders say “you’ve made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall rule on the earth.”

There are oodles more Scriptures like this. Isaiah saw “the lion shall lay down with the lamb” (Isaiah 11:6; 65:25) and “they shall beat their swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:4). Or in Zachariah 14: 9-17 where those being ruled on earth during the millennium by the Lord and His people will receive no rain if they refuse and rebel from His rule.

To say that Jesus never mentioned a 1000 year rule on earth is what is called “arguing from silence.” In other words, “He never said it personally Himself on earth so it must not be true.” Jesus doesn’t have to have said it personally Himself for it to be true. There are all kinds of things He never personally talked about when He was on earth. But they are found elsewhere throughout the Bible.

So I am going to stick to what I believe is taught in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. There’s even a pretty sober warning at the end of Revelation about all this. It says “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (Revelation 22:19) Seems like John the Beloved’s Revelation, which is actually “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 1:1), is not something we are suppose to discard.

The Mark of the Beast starts March 23?

Mar 15, 2013 · by Mark McMillion · In: Current events, The Future and Endtime

This morning I got an email from someone in Scandinavia, asking me if “the Mark of the Beast” would be started on March 23 of this year. She sent me this clip that someone sent her:

“On Sunday March 21, 2010 the Senate Healthcare Bill HR 3200 was passed and signed into law the following Tuesday. There are a legion of horrible and just plain evil aspects to this bill and I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of them by now. I don’t want to discount them, but what cannot be missed here is this new law now opens a prophetic door on a magnitude not seen since the reformation of Israel.

This new law requires an RFID chip implanted in all of us. This chip will not only contain your personal information with tracking capability, but it will also be linked to your bank account. And get this, Page 1004 of the new law (dictating the timing of this chip), reads, and I quote: “Not later than 36 months after the date of the enactment.”

It is now the law of the land that by March 23rd 2013 we will all be required to have an RFID chip underneath our skin and this chip will be linked to our bank accounts, as well as, have our personal records and tracking capability built into it.”

First, I’ll assume if you are reading this that you know what the Mark of the Beast is. This is in reference to Revelations 13 where it states that in the final world empire of the coming Antichrist, some kind of mark or chip will be placed in the hand or head of people in order for them to be a part of the world economic order that will be put in place at that time. Revelations 13, verses 16 & 17 say “And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

So this email stated that the recent Health Care Bill in the USA, often called “ObamaCare”, is instituting and mandating the Mark of the Beast, long foreseen by Bible scholars of many backgrounds and centuries. And further, that this will begin to take effect in the USA on March 23, 2013, a few days from now.

Is this really true? And here I have to steady myself as this really, frankly makes me mad. First I’ll refer you to a blog post I wrote in late December entitled “Sound Doctrine” or Speculation. In that article I wrote:

The apostle Paul admonished Titus to “speak the things that become sound doctrine”. (Titus 2.1) But there’s really a lot today that is preached here in America or taught on some websites that is really not sound doctrine. It’s often nebulous speculation on Bible themes, frequently mixed with a worldly agenda to compel Christians to vote for one political party against the other.

This is exactly an example of this kind of thing. And it really grieves me. It grieves me because both Christians and non-Christians are being duped by those with a political agenda to believe that “Bible prophecy is being fulfilled before your eyes!” The goal is to rally gullible Christians to support one political party in the USA against another. In order to do this, the Word of God is being misinterpreted and misrepresented for purely political gain. And sadly millions of Christians here, mostly those in the evangelical churches, are taking all this as solid gospel truth. It isn’t.

Like the man who was famous for his profanity, when he stood silently looking at his overturned cart of apples and his friends asked the usually vocal fellow, “Aren’t you going to say anything?” He answered, “I just can’t do the subject justice.”

That’s how I feel right now. I just can’t do the subject justice. But I may aim to try. Because this is serious. In the 3 years since I moved back to America after 36 years as a missionary, over and over again I’ve seen the delusion that American Christians are having dished up to them like this thing my friend sent me this morning.

Paul admonished the early Christians in Ephesians 4:14: “… that we no longer may be children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the dishonesty of men, by people’s trickery, or by clever strategies that would lead us astray.”

These kinds of emails and websites that inflame Christians to anger and drag them down into the worldly political arena, exalting one political party and defaming another, are just what Paul warned us of. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom was of this world, then would my servants fight. But now my kingdom is not from here.” (John 18:36) And Paul said, “our citizenship is in heaven”. (Philippians 3:20)

If you are an American Christian and are being duped and manipulated to believe falsehood through misapplied Scripture, I strongly urge you to put your first allegiance to the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Only His coming Kingdom on earth will bring true righteousness. It’s just not our calling to be gullible pawns in the affairs and political intrigues of this present world. Involvement in the politics of this world is not what Jesus called for or what the early Christians were a part of. “Come out of her my people, that you be not partaker of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues.” (Revelations 18:4)

Raptureless

Mar 8, 2013 · by Mark McMillion · In: Current events, The Future and Endtime

A Russian friend of mine wrote and asked me about the web site raptureless.com. So I checked it out. As the name suggests, part of the main idea is that the whole concept of “The Rapture” is not really on the cards.

Raptureless.com is put together by a guy that I feel is a very appealing and sincere person. His name is Jonathan Welton and I was fascinated when reading about him. Here’s how he describes his parents and background

My parents both graduated from a Pentecostal Bible College in the early 1970s. They attended classes during the era of the Jesus People Movement, the Vietnam War, and the especially bestselling “Late Great Planet Earth” by Hal Lindsey. My parents met and married and I was born in 1983. This was an era of much speculation and fear regarding the endtimes. My parents heard all the confusing, conflicting points of view, and instead of becoming obsessed with figuring it all out, they made a choice.

They determined to raise godly children who would raise godly grandchildren. They chose to think long-term and invest in their future and the future of their children. They didn’t have all the answers regarding a “perfect theology of the endtimes,” but they knew better than to buy into the hype. When their friends quit their jobs, bought boats, and racked up credit card debt “because the end of the world is around the corner and we won’t have to pay it back,” my parents called this irresponsible and unChristlike behavior.

Amen, bravo and well done. I come from nearly exactly the background of Mr. Welton’s parents. I have 4 children who are right in his age group.

It’s a challenge to comment on Mr. Welton’s website and views because I try to limit the size of these posts. He’s placed a book on line, with much research and church history included. I find myself agreeing with a number of points and opposed to many things he’s opposed to.

In his third chapter, he goes over the history of Christianity’s understanding of Bible prophecy. And he highlights the influence in the 1800’s and early 1900’s of 3 men, John Darby, Edward Irving and C. I. Scofield. Those who are more knowledgeable concerning prophetic study will know these men were instrumental in promoting what today is called the PreTribulational view of the return of Jesus.

Then Mr. Welton goes on into our times to outline the numerous modern authors and teachers of Bible prophecy who’ve in a sense, cried “Wolf! Wolf!” And yet no wolf appeared. I share Mr. Welton’s deep concern for how these well known modern writers have profited handsomely from their writings but they’ve also just been completely wrong in their numerous predictions of “the end of the world” being only a matter of a few years or even a few months away.

But as much as I respect the character in Mr. Welton’s writings, some of it does seem like the story of the one who throws the baby out with the bathwater. He’s certainly right about the religious hype and fear-mongering that’s generated so much noise (and income) here in the States. At least it’s raised the awareness of millions to the knowledge of a coming Kingdom of God on earth. But there’s been very much that’s just proven false and that’s certainly confused the hearts of believers.

But Mr. Welton’s solution is to present a view of the history of Bible prophecy that doesn’t ring true to me. He says that for 1500 years the church and body of Christ didn’t look to a future of endtime events leading up to the coming of the Lord and His Kingdom on earth. Instead, he says that the church saw the prophetic chapters and verses that we look to as happening in the future to have already been fulfilled at the time of Jesus or immediately after that.

This teaching of Mr. Welton’s is not uniquely his. There’s a good article about this view of prophetic fulfillment in Wikipedia under the title “Preterist”.

Again, I’m constrained by a desire to keep these articles short and so I won’t go into voluminous details to explain how the body of believers has looked to a future return of Jesus for the last 2000 years. But Hippolytus of Rome, from 211 AD, wrote in his “Commentary on Daniel” in Book 4.14.2 about Daniel chapter 7:25,

“’It was given into his hand for a time and times and half a time’ which signals three and a half years and after this the coming judgment…”

This and so much more in Hippolytus’s book from the third century points towards the believers of those times looking to a future Great Tribulation, followed by the return of Jesus and His Kingdom on earth.

As much as I respect Mr. Welton and his work, I remain a firm believer that there are prophecies yet to be fulfilled, of a rapture and a coming of Christ’s Kingdom on earth. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations. And then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14)

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Daniel’s Dreams and Visions

“’It was given into his hand for a time and times and half a time’ which signals three and a half years and after this the coming judgment…”