Seems like a pretty good take on it .

I think if more people would read the history of the early church and about that tribulation, they would change thier views. It just fits so well with revelations, and after all, Paul was writing to the churches at that time, how could warnings about something far in the future be for them?

Why should Christians support Israel when Israel has rejected their messiah?
Israel WERE God's chosen for a reason, to be the line of the messiah and so they were given promises that are now for the true church. Those who believe in Jesus are now spiritual Israel and they are God's chosen, not any ethnic group. There is no more jew or Greek, male or female, all are one in Christ, spiritually speaking.

I'd like to ad to this skinner.
Israel was God's Chosen. Chosen to be faithful like Abraham was faithful. Even when a deceiver like Jacob wrestled with God. He prevailed and found the courage to face Esau through faith. It always been about faith.
The Nation of Israel proved over and over that no one can live by the law.
Only through faith can anyone be saved.

For by Grace are ye saved though faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. ( lest any man should boast ) Ephesians 2:8-9
God is no respector of men. Acts 10 : 34

Don't forget the anit Christ who going to make the Christans life death.

Which one?
Little children, it is the last time, and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrist; when you we know that it is the last time.

I don't think it possible that we are in the Kingdom Age. I don't see Revelations 20:3 in any way, both past or present, being fulfilled.

I see were your coming from J
I get my understanding from the beginning of the Abrahamic covenant.
Who are the nation's in Revelation 20:3 speaking of.
I'll give some verses that I believe are the nation's that shall no linger be deceived in Rev 20:3
Gen 22:18 Gen 26:4 Matt 28:19 Mark 13:10 Luke 24:47 Rev 7:3-4 Rev 21:24
Now verses of Nation's deceived
Rev 18:3 Rev 18:23
I'll ad another post with explanation. It may be a little lengthy.

In Rev 20:3 ( and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nation's no more.
In Gen 22:18 and Gen 26: 4 it says, in thy seed shall all nations of the Earth be Blessed.
So who is thy seed that is blessing these nations.
In Galatians 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were all the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many;but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.
The first 3 gospels speak of teaching all Nations, baptizing the in the name of the Lord
We know this as the great commission.
Rev 7 speaks of 144,000 sealed by God.
Are you starting to see a pattern.
All the faithful who come to Christ from all nations of the world are partakers of God's promise to Abraham.
And the devil has nothing on Jesus. John 14:30 ( for the prince of this world cometh , and hath nothing on me.
That he should deceive the nation's no more.
So wouldn't I seem that satan would be bound for those in Christ ? All that are blessed by thy seed which is Christ.
I'll post on nations deceived in a bit.

Now the nations deceived realy depends on your interpretation of who mystery Babylon is.
I am going to be explaining my understanding of national deceived with the understanding that mystery Babylon is 1st century Rome.
Revelation 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the whine of the wrath of her fornication, and the king's of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
This seems like nations deceived and not followers of Jesus.
Rev 17: 6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the marters of Jesus:
This would support jerusalem and 1st century Rome.
Jesus words to the pharisees in Matthew 23: 35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barnachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the alter.
This is judgment spoken of By Jesus just before he prophesied the distruction of the second temple in Matthew 24
These verses just scratch the surface of The kingdom of God being Christ's finished work on the cross.
Not all will enter, and not all will inherit the kingdom. But the seed of Abraham = the Bride of Christ
I Believe are the kingdom. In a nut shell that is my short version of my interpretation of the Binding of satan and the kindom.
Rich

This is worth discussing - for everyone that's reading or posting on this and other bible-religion-prophecy-conspiracy threads, not just danny, who, as always, shows an ability to see through the assumptions that tend to make these conversations float off into the clouds and meaninglessly dissipate in in the wind, and who helps us maintain a healthy connection to the ground (if we pay attention, that is).

I see two issues that contribute to the problem, and the first issue leads to the second. The primary issue is context and a general inability (without putting in some serious long-term effort) to read and understand the bible in a context that is not merely our own. The Bible is not a book, and it certainly wasn't written in English. The Bible is a collection of many "books" that were written in three different languages over the course of at least 1000 years - the most recent parts of the collection are nearly 2000 years old. Those newer parts are about a guy named Jesus who is said to be bringing a conclusion to his version of the "bible", parts of which were already at least 1000 years old then. There are layers upon layers of context to work with when reading the Bible - and with any ancient work for that matter. Consider the Mona Lisa. There's the context of the woman herself. Who was she? How did she live? Why did she dress or look the way she did? Then there's context for Da Vinci. Why did he choose to paint this woman? Why did he paint her with that expression? Why that back ground? Why did he choose those particular paints? What did he hope to portray to his audience? Then there's the context of the audience. What did they think about it? Did it have any significance to them? Then more layers: Francis I, the curators at the Louvre, etc., until we eventually arrive at the context of someone standing in line today to view the painting. Is the modern viewer a Renaissance art enthusiast? Is it a check mark on a bucket list just because you're in France? Did they really like the Dan Brown book? Do they want to throw soup on it to protest climate change? So what does the Mona Lisa mean?

We have the same issue with the Bible, only the stakes are probably a bit higher. People build their lives around what this book says after all. We have the context of the characters in any biblical narrative (e.g. Cain and Abel). We have the context of the people who handed down the story orally over generations. We have the context of the first people to write the story down. We have the context of the compilers of the collection who used words and word-plays to stitch the narratives into a cohesive unit sometime in the Second Temple period. We have the context of Jesus and his followers who claim that everything up to that point was about him. We have added contextual layers as Christianity spread to the Greco-Roman world. More context as the stories pass through Medieval Europe. Then the Reformation and Enlightenment. Then the scientific and industrial age, and at some point we'll end up with a 21st century trapper reading the book in rural America and wondering what in the world to do with 7-year tribulations and unicorns.

Reading the Bible is easy, but understanding and applying what it says in a responsible way is very difficult. No wonder! It takes some serious effort to even make a reasonable attempt, and that leads to our second issue: misapplication. If we don't understand where the Bible came from and what it is trying to do, then we run the risk of completely missing the point and applying our misguided points in wildly inappropriate ways. Without contextual understanding of the Bible, we begin asking 21st century questions of 1st century writings. Sometimes the 1st century writings have something to say. Sometimes they just don't. We have to ask ourselves whether we're asking appropriate questions. Asking how to love my neighbor in the 21st century makes sense. The answer may not be simple, but the Bible probably has some insight. Same with "rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's" and many other important issues. However, asking what John the Revelator wrote about the Russian election...that may be a bit off the mark. Asking what Genesis 6 says about aliens? Again, interesting if you're into that sort of thing, but it's just not on the radar for anyone in the entire history of Judaism or Christianity until 2000 years after the writing of the Bible ended. It's like asking what Da Vinci's use of a natural setting in the Mona Lisa says about his opinion on fossil fuel consumption. Or what does the folding of her hands say about the flavor of Campbell's Chunky?

As a follow-up to my previous post, I'll try to get to the specifics of this thread and Biblical prophecy, once again using danny's post as a launch pad.


The idea that The Revelation should be read as a Nostradamus-esque collection of predictions about the future that can somehow be decoded to help us predict when God will blow up the world is a modern concept. It has arisen in modern America and is not aligned with how the book was read throughout the majority of church history, and it doesn't align with the biblical concept of prophecy in general.

In the Bible, the primary purpose of prophecy is not predicting the future. It is about telling the truth! Exposing the lies of the current age with a God's-eye-view of what is actually going on with an eye toward what God has in store for the future. The eye to the future is not about specific predictions and timescales but about hope for God's justice and the overthrowing of unjust power structures that persecute and abuse image-of-God humans in the current age. The strange and fantastic images were well-understood tropes in the ancient world, and it was a commonly used writing style. We have trouble understanding them because we aren't part of that time and culture, so we have a tendency to misunderstand and misapply them. A good modern analogy is political cartoons. Imagine you have no understanding of US politics or political images. Then look at some cartoons and try to imagine predicting the future with them. Will there actually be donkey's wearing blue ties in the future? Should we be on the lookout for talking elephants with beautiful blond coiffures? Memes work the same way. In order to understand them, you have to understand a lot of other cultural references - everything from movies and music to politics and war and internet cat culture. It would be easy to get lost without cultural anchors.

The Revelation (and Daniel and others) are all about God's future judgement of the unjust nations and His redemption of the world and its faithful people. There are many different images used to describe these things that may be confusing to us wouldn't have confused many people 2000 years ago. There's no way to talk about all of the issues and images here, but there are many good resources out there. I'd would just encourage extreme caution in using biblical prophecy to predict future events or things of that ilk.

Also, what was written may have been very apparent to the people at that time, but we don't always catch the reference in today's context.

One thing I like about the translations is, if the translators are worth there salt. Then the bible would be translated from the best understanding we have from the culture and time the and language.
There's somthing to be said for the anointing.
A person can have knowledge of the word from Genesis to Revelation. And still have no rear spiritual understanding. The Holy Spirit is the teacher. We are also to test the spirits..
I agree that trying to predict future prophecy with out a timeline already given is futile.
One example is Daniel s 70 weeks . Some se it fore 70 weeks with the understanding it has come to past.
Then there's some that think there's a gap between the 69th week and 70th week.
The latter being an open book that seems to have endless predictions.
There are hundreds of properties that have come to pass. Personally I believe most of he bible prophecy fas been fulfilled. And I know better than predicting a date or on event as prophecy.