What say you?
Abraham's Three Visitors
- Thread starter Musicmaster
- Start date
What say you?
I've been hearing for years the dooms-day preachers out there on TV, radio and in publications claiming that America is soon going to be destroyed.
Is not the Lord the same yesterday, today and forever? Given His His sentiments about destruction of even a city be the same today as back then, especially for a nation with many, many believers and followers of Him, in numbers FAR greater than fifty, or a hundred, and even thousands?
Yes, though the Lord destroy us as a nation because of the evils throughout, He is able to preserve us, and to save us from the destructions that may come upon this nation, and many others.
What I suspect, however, is that Russia will soon attack Israel, with 4/5ths of their military being defeated, and the nuclear material they leave behind will be used by Israel to power her cities for seven years.
The Lord is good, no matter what. If we lose our lives here, then we gain eternity.
MM
Is not the Lord the same yesterday, today and forever? Given His His sentiments about destruction of even a city be the same today as back then, especially for a nation with many, many believers and followers of Him, in numbers FAR greater than fifty, or a hundred, and even thousands?
Yes, though the Lord destroy us as a nation because of the evils throughout, He is able to preserve us, and to save us from the destructions that may come upon this nation, and many others.
What I suspect, however, is that Russia will soon attack Israel, with 4/5ths of their military being defeated, and the nuclear material they leave behind will be used by Israel to power her cities for seven years.
The Lord is good, no matter what. If we lose our lives here, then we gain eternity.
MM
I agree with the Bible that says in Genesis 18:1–2 .......... “The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre........".
Abraham stands “before the LORD” in verse 22. When Jesus appears in His pre-incarnate body in the Old Testament, we call it a “Christophany.”
It would be easy, and many have done this, to say that the other two were Michael and Gaberial but that would be ADDING to the Word of God. If God wanted us to know, He would have told us so who they were is not important. What we do know is that the other two were the angels who later visited Sodom and spoke to Lot in Genesis 19.
As have I my dear brother. It makes for a good attention getter for a sermon. Thanks for the open door to comment.
"IS not the lord the same yesterday, today and forever"............Yes HE is but not in the way that He operates and deals with humanity.
IF HE does TODAY what He did in Genesis 19, then we can say that yes.........The USA is in immediate trouble. Now remember, AMerica is only 250 years old. YES...........it has been here physically since Creation but, the Declaration of Indenendance was ratified by the US Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.
However, I think that we say with all confidence that the USA has been under the judgment of God now for about 50 years. Think back about...........in the 1960’s with the baby boom generation came a movement characterized by rebellion against authority and society.
Consider REAL HISTORY and what that led to =
The women’s liberation movement began. It was a rebellion against God’s design that the husband be the head of the home.
In the 1962’s evolution began to be widely taught in public schools as the accepted method of education
Public prayer was prohibited in public schools in June 25, 1962, the US Supreme Court the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional
In 1963, the Supreme Court made the corporate reading of the Bible and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer unlawful in public schools.
Now I would submitt to you that As we look at a number of statistics, 1962 marks the year when significant parts of God’s judgment started.
In 1973, The legalizing of abortion, the killing of unborn babies was made legal in.
In 1980 America further rejected God with the Supreme Court ruling against the display of the Ten Commandments on public property.
In 2003, Massachusetts made same sex marriages legal.
It is ONE thing to see these things take place, but It is not just these court rulings alone that have resulted in God’s judgment, but the people in the USA have accepted these court rulings and accepted the mindset and beliefs that have gone along with them. Even among Christians, there have been few that have pushed their politicians to have these events overturned especially the first and third events. Is there a record anywhere that the CHURCH stood up and yelled in protest!!!!!!!!
Now with all of that in mind, now consider that The Christian church in America, by and large, has become carnal and apostate. A high percentage of Americans call themselves Christians and there is a form of godliness, but sin and wickedness abounds among professing Christians. The following is a few of those sins that are seen today..........
High rates of sexual abuse exist in many churches, including or perhaps especially, in conservative churches.
77 percent of Christian men between the ages of 18 and 30 view pornography at least monthly. www.onenewsnow.com/culture/2014/10/09/survey-alarming-rate-of-christian-men-look-at-porn-commit-adultery
Among married Christian men, 35 percent have committed adultery in an extramarital affai.
www.onenewsnow.com/culture/2014/10/09/survey-alarming-rate-of-christian-men-look-at-porn-commit-adultery
A high percentage of professing Christians are living in adultery in church approved divorce and remarriage relationships.
MY thought is that America IS BEING JUDGED right now in many ways.
1. Economically = Inflation and High Debt.
“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)
2. Sickness
"They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the
fruits of the field.” (Lamentations 4:6-9)
3. Abortion legalized.
Here is a medical fact that I would say NO one reading this knows. In 1973, abortion legalized the killing of unwanted babies. For many
of us, it appeared that God had done nothing about the legalization of abortion, BUT, since 1973 the sperm cell count of men has
decreased over 50% and there is no sign of the decline slowing down! Scientists have not been able to determine the cause of the
decline. Source : https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/health/male-sperm-count-problem.html
4. School Shootings
5. New Diseases
During the past 20 years, at least 30 new diseases have emerged, for many of which there is no treatment, cure or vaccine.
Source: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/dise-cn.htm
6. Americans die younger.
“The USA ranks at or near the bottom in nine key areas of health: low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teen pregnancy and
sexually transmitted infections; HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and
general disability.
Source: www.floridatoday.com/usatoday/article/1818903
Thanks for asking!
If you mean that the uranium in unused nukes (either the tactical or theater variety), I'll say that weapons grade reactive isotopes are much much more refined than that used in power plants. This makes their use in power production much more problematic. We have a problem storing spent fuel for current reactors, Using weapons grade plutonium would increase the problems with everything from power plant production to spent fuel disposition.
If you mean using their reactor fuel from reactors brought to Israel to run Russian transportable power plants, I guess it could be done, but I think they will be more of a hazard than a resource. Few are likely to be left without being disabled and recovering and reprocessing their fuel is not an easy task. Again, but reactors are sensitive to the exact properties of their fuels (which is why fuels are deemed spent, even when they are still dangerously radioactive).
Now I do not know for sure......but Contextually I think he was referring to Ezekiel 39. In v. 12 the war materials are burned for 7 years. Assuming that the burning takes place at least starting 7 months after the war ( to allow the battlefield to cool down ), and if the burning is done continuously, it would take 7 months.
Cool down? Again this makes little sense in terms of nuclear materials as MM was addressing. If the time refers to waiting for radiation from exploded nukes to 'cool off' (decay) I note that the half life of most nucleotides is several decades, if not centuries.
If one is talking about wildfires, so that the nuclear materials may be retrieved, modern firefighting will not take that long, particularly in the desert and where specific targets can be identified.
Some years ago, I came across some pamphlets printed just prior, during, and just after the Civil War.
These tracts had similar lists regarding events of the day and preached that the End-Times wew imminent or starting.
I believe the Lord desires us to be anticipate His return at all times. This should be a constant reminder to both keep ourselves living according to His words and to always keep telling others about His love & comming return
This is some good conversation. Thanks, y'all.
Some additional thoughts...from what I'm seeing in the responses, mostly from Major, is that the nation is being judged already, but not in the manner as what happened to Israel, with her being wiped out, taken captive, time after time because of her being so stiff-necked.
So, where it was one thing for Sodom and Gomorrah being wiped out by fire, the Lord promised Abraham that He would not destroy the righteous with the wicked, and thus making no difference between the two. THAT is the key to my appeals to what the Lord stated to Abraham. There are many thousands of righteous here in America, and for the righteous to be wiped out with the wicked, the Lord's own ethic as expressed to Abraham is no different today than back then, give, as pointed out earlier, the Lord is the same throughout all time.
The Lord delivered, by supernatural means, the only righteous within the walls of those cities, before destroying them.
Luke 21:35-36
35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
There's yet another key. This is a command from the Lord. Keep this at heart, and in all your prayers, for this is one means by which we are prepared with the oil in our lamps as the wise virgins.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-10
2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as [do] others; but let us watch and be sober.
7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
The wicked may indeed bring great persecution against the Lord's people, but I see no reason to believe that the very wrath and judgement from God is going to at all fall upon us without Him pulling us out of harm's way, for He is not a respecter of persons.
How about this: Lot was considered and counted among the righteous...the very man who was willing to send his own daughters out to those perverse men outside his door. What manner of man would do such a thing to his own blood, knowing full well how mighty and powerful are the angels in their ability to defend themselves against all flesh?
Oh, man. There is so much MEAT in all that imagery and the things said therein....so much to discuss in it all. Hope y'all have the patience to plumb the depths of this with me. There are some who watch all this silently, and I sense a debt to them to bring forth all the substance of what Deity has revealed in this, for all I've been hearing from the big names out there is nothing more than gloom and doom, and believers deserve better than to believe the wrath of the Lord is going to fall upon us all, which is a failure to differentiate between us and the wicked. God is better than all that.
I love you all.
MM
Some additional thoughts...from what I'm seeing in the responses, mostly from Major, is that the nation is being judged already, but not in the manner as what happened to Israel, with her being wiped out, taken captive, time after time because of her being so stiff-necked.
So, where it was one thing for Sodom and Gomorrah being wiped out by fire, the Lord promised Abraham that He would not destroy the righteous with the wicked, and thus making no difference between the two. THAT is the key to my appeals to what the Lord stated to Abraham. There are many thousands of righteous here in America, and for the righteous to be wiped out with the wicked, the Lord's own ethic as expressed to Abraham is no different today than back then, give, as pointed out earlier, the Lord is the same throughout all time.
The Lord delivered, by supernatural means, the only righteous within the walls of those cities, before destroying them.
Luke 21:35-36
35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
There's yet another key. This is a command from the Lord. Keep this at heart, and in all your prayers, for this is one means by which we are prepared with the oil in our lamps as the wise virgins.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-10
2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as [do] others; but let us watch and be sober.
7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
The wicked may indeed bring great persecution against the Lord's people, but I see no reason to believe that the very wrath and judgement from God is going to at all fall upon us without Him pulling us out of harm's way, for He is not a respecter of persons.
How about this: Lot was considered and counted among the righteous...the very man who was willing to send his own daughters out to those perverse men outside his door. What manner of man would do such a thing to his own blood, knowing full well how mighty and powerful are the angels in their ability to defend themselves against all flesh?
Oh, man. There is so much MEAT in all that imagery and the things said therein....so much to discuss in it all. Hope y'all have the patience to plumb the depths of this with me. There are some who watch all this silently, and I sense a debt to them to bring forth all the substance of what Deity has revealed in this, for all I've been hearing from the big names out there is nothing more than gloom and doom, and believers deserve better than to believe the wrath of the Lord is going to fall upon us all, which is a failure to differentiate between us and the wicked. God is better than all that.
I love you all.
MM
No. I was not talking about exploded nukes. I work with nuclear materials, and am well aware of both weapons grade and commercial power generation materials, as well as nuclear powered field equipment. As a scientist, it's part of my job. I work all three realms, and so know what can be done, and with what (without going into all the boring details).
MM
All that is true.
What sets TODAY apart from all other dates is May 14, 1948. THAT event when Israel was placed into the LAND then makes all of the prophecies IMINANT!
Brother........as I said, I do not know! All I do know is what the Bible says.
Ezeliel 39:9-10
"Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and use the weapons for fuel and burn them up--the small and large shields, the bows and arrows, the war clubs and spears. For seven years they will use them for fuel. They will not need to gather wood from the fields or cut it from the forests, because they will use the weapons for fuel. And they will plunder those who plundered them and loot those who looted them, declares the Sovereign LORD."
All good stuff MM. I appreciate your comments and well thought out responces. I guess all of this comes down to what we understand the judgment of God to be.
In Genesis....Abraham asked God that if 10 righteous men were found would He not destroy Sodom. The answer is that there were NOT 10, there was not even ONE. God saved FOUR (4) but He did that because of Abraham and not Lot being righteous. And even one of those four was in rebellion!
We tend to misuse the phrase of..."God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow".
God IS the same in character but NOT in actions.
It was God's way in years past that nations when judged went into captivity.
It was God's way to save humanity in years past by an Ark (Boat).
It was God's way to display Himself in years past in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
It was God's way to lead men by a set of Laws in years past.
However, TODAY He has chosen to save, display, judge and lead men by His dear Son the Lord Jesus Christ.
Personally, I have NO idea if God is judging the USA today. I listed several things that are taking place today in the USA that are NOT taking place in all other nations today and the events that seem to have started something of a response from God. Is that His Judgment???? I do not know!!!! Everyone will have to answer that on their own.
Is the USA under the judgement of God today! YES.....IMHO I think so.
Will the USA continue to exist???...............................YES....I think so.
What I do know for sure is that when it rains......EVERYONE gets wet!
I agree, Major. Thanks for the feedback.
Allow me to posit here that when I spoke of God's being the same then, today and forever, I was speaking of His character, ethics, morality...et al.
So, to further explain what I failed to delve into earlier, let's look back at that conversation between Abraham and the three personages:
Recall Abraham asking if the Lord was One to destroy the righteous along with the wicked, and the Lord denied that question's voracity in relation to Himself, in how He operates on the basis of His character.
Now, someone is bound to ask how I could know that since it's not stated explicitly. The answer dives deep into the implications of the words spoken that give to us a glimpse into the deeper things of God. Let's focus on just two aspects of what was asked and stated:
1) Will God destroy the righteous with the wicked, and in so doing,
2) Will He then make the righteous and the wicked one and the same?
The Lord emphatically denied that He would ever treat the righteous being as the wicked in His dealings. For solidification of my point, I will quote this:
Genesis 18:25-26
25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
26 And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
When we meditate upon the key statements above, and the acknowledgement from the Lord, we see Abraham drawing the parallel between destruction as the result of the actions and attitudes of the wicked, and the righteous being destroyed along with the wicked, and thus the Lord treating the righteous as He does the wicked, which He flatly denied by promising to not destroy the cities if there are 50, then...you know the rest.
So, Abraham knew the outcome of the righteous being destroyed along with the wicked, and that it was not right, but rather injustice, and the Lord confirmed that with His affirmation in verse 26 and beyond. In other words, the Lord was willing to withhold His wrath against all the tens of thousands of wicked if only there were ten found to be righteous in those cities.
Now, when you speak of His actions, I'm sure we can agree that He will never divorce His actions from His nature, His ethics in dealing with the wicked. So, for the Lord to actively pour out His judgement and wrath on this nation, and thus destroying the righteous along with the wicked, that would be a denial of the very ethic spoken to us in glaring detail where, "...that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
I hope this focuses the spotlight of my treatise down to the details in that exchange in order to highlight the precise point being made. To say the Lord would not make the righteous to be as the wicked in His dealings in one event, and then do otherwise in another situation, that makes Him out to be as fickle as the Mormon god.
My faith is such that the Lord can indeed direct His wrath and judgement in a perfectly focused aggression against the wicked without it spilling out all over the righteous. In other words, rather than Sulphur and brimstone, but any number of other outflows the Lord may direct according to His good pleasure. He can cause them all to drop dead, but I'm sure He has other means by which He can give them additional chances to turn to Him. Not my call, of course.
MM
Brother MM.........Please believe me in that I never questioned your voracity or faith or intelligence in any way.
My only point was that the judgment of God then (Sodom).........is not the same as it is today. I know that sounds kind of goofy, but it is none the less true. God is the same but His methods change from time to time was all I was saying.
I did not want anyone (You) to think I was saying that because God destroyed (Judged) Sodom that He was going to destroy the USA.
God bless you my brother! I appreciate all that you do!
Major, please understand I was thinking nothing of the kind. I saw your response as an opportunity to dredge down into deeper levels. That all.
I agree with you in that God can do things differently in different times and places. I was only drawing attention to the grounding within God's own nature in how He goes about pouring out His judgement and wrath. That caveat is simply stated in the observation with Abraham's declaration to the Lord that it would not be doing right to account the righteous as being like the wicked in His dealings, and the Lord confirmed that in His response.
I hope that makes more sense. In other words, I do not fear the Lord pouring out His judgement upon this nation in an expression of His wrath so long as the righteous are present and in the midst of the outflow of where that might fall and splash. He may indeed pour out His wrath upon America, if it's still around, after He takes us out from here, but not while we are still present.
As stated before, the evils of the wicked may cause an economic and/or social implosion of America while we are here, but it won't be the wrath of the Almighty spilling over onto us as if we are just as the wicked.
No offense taken, and no offense intended.
MM
Major, please understand I was thinking nothing of the kind. I saw your response as an opportunity to dredge down into deeper levels. That all.
I agree with you in that God can do things differently in different times and places. I was only drawing attention to the grounding within God's own nature in how He goes about pouring out His judgement and wrath. That caveat is simply stated in the observation with Abraham's declaration to the Lord that it would not be doing right to account the righteous as being like the wicked in His dealings, and the Lord confirmed that in His response.
I hope that makes more sense. In other words, I do not fear the Lord pouring out His judgement upon this nation in an expression of His wrath so long as the righteous are present and in the midst of the outflow of where that might fall and splash. He may indeed pour out His wrath upon America, if it's still around, after He takes us out from here, but not while we are still present.
As stated before, the evils of the wicked may cause an economic and/or social implosion of America while we are here, but it won't be the wrath of the Almighty spilling over onto us as if we are just as the wicked.
No offense taken, and no offense intended.
MM
Reguardless of what others say about you, I think you are a really great guy MM!
For many years, I have been watchful in my readings of prophecies of the future to consider how our technological advances may (or may not) be reflected.
God surely understands atomic power, computers, the internet, etc, and knows how we employ them, but the prophets He spoke thru had neither thebasic technical understanding nor the vocabulary to describe these things. Besides, the technological landscape are less the point of these prophecies than the interaction between the Lord and His creation (us), and how the battle between Christ and Satan may be affected.
So we have prophecies concerning things not clearly understood by the prophets themselves being described in often non technical terms by those prophets, while now we cannot help but try see those glimpses in through our technically trained eyes and brains.
I see what you're saying. However, dare we deduce from the descriptions of burning of weapons, whatever they saw on that battle field that they did not understand, what we know today helps to fill in the gaps. I have doubts that the weapons will be burned literally, and that they will burn for seven years. The plausible path is that the nuclear materials in the weaponry and other assets left behind by a defeated army will be useful for Israel to use for the next seven years. The Jews are resourceful enough to do what I described.
If it proves otherwise, then nothing lost.
MM