Why Trump can't be an antichrist - impossible in modern world - belongs to prosperity gospel - unusually sees wealth as a sign of God's approval - celebrity status is NOT the same as religious worship
- MID EDIT
Trump can't be an antichrist because of the US constitution which protects freedom of religion. Nobody in the US or anywhere in the world can force you to stop being Christian if you are a Christian in the USA.
And every president gets a FALSE "proof" that they are the antichrist. In Biden's case it was because of his donations text number. His number was 30330 and when you take his election year 2020 and divide it by 666, an impossible calculation to do 2000 years ago as they didn't have decimals and didn't know how to do that sort of division, you end up with 3.0330330...
This just shows how much time people must spend puzzling over bits of paper or on a calculator trying to find a number related to the antichrist connected with the presidential candidate.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Jan 20th, 2020 “So help me God” [inauguration day oath].
Nobody thinks of the president of the USA as someone to worship in a religious sense.
White House official video as embedded in Encyclopedia Britannica page: Donald J. Trump's inauguration as the 45th U.S. president
Bible passage is about a false peace due to worshipping the “Beast” - the person and his image.
In the Bible passage it talks about a false peace due to people worldwide worshipping the "Beast" both the person and his image. There is nothing even remotely like this going on.
Many Christians think this was actually about the Emperor Nero in the first century Roman empire - there was an element of worship involved with Roman Emperors so it fits the passsage. Nothing like that today.
You can understand how a peace that was due to people uniting together to worship someone who was not deserving of worship and who misbehaved could cause problems. That actually makes some logical / reasonable sense.
Biden is not asking anyone to worship him. Nor is Trump or any other president. It simply has nothing to do with the job of the president.
Antichrist - though a concept likely related to the Roman emperors - is nothing to do with modern ideas of royalty which have no element of worship
It’s nothing to do with royalty either. For instance in Britain the King is the head of the Anglican church. But he is not someone to worship.
The King’s role rather is formally as “Defender of the Faith”. That may sound like it is defending the Anglican church against all other branches of Christianity and other religions.
But no. First, the monarch got this title from the Pope originally before the Anglican church split off from the Catholic church.
This title dates back to the reign of Henry VIII, before the break with Rome. In 1521, Pope Leo X issued a bull (or charter) granting Henry the title – Fidei Defensor in Latin – in recognition of the theological treatise Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (or ‘Defence of the Seven Sacraments’) which he authored, possibly working with Thomas More and Cardinal Wolsey.
The title Fidei Defensor – or Fidei Defensatrix for queens – has been bestowed occasionally on other monarchs by the papacy, notably James IV and James V of Scotland.
In 1546, following the break from Rome, Parliament passed an act bestowing the title upon Henry and it has been used by subsequent English and then British monarchs.
Then in modern times the monarchy and the Anglican church have had to examine their roles based on modern ideas of a religiously diverse Britain.
King Charles sees his role rather as defender of the religious diversity of the UK.
The monarchy has responded to these changes in two ways. First, as Prince of Wales in the 1990s, the now-King mused aloud whether the monarchical title defender of the faith should not be reinterpreted as “defender of faith”. This is understood to have been his reaction to the growing presence of non-Christian religions in the UK, as well as signalling a more relaxed and inclusive attitude towards non-Anglican Christians.
QUOTE “The concept of our established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”
Second, at a Lambeth Palace ecumenical meeting hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury in February 2012, the Queen, speaking as supreme governor of the Church of England in her diamond jubilee year, said:
In practice, this was thought to confer a role on the Church of England distinct from its previous concern to defend its exclusivity. At the same time, it was welcome to many of the members of non-Christian religions whose presence had grown in the post-war period, and also accepted by the Anglican hierarchy, which seems to have encouraged the Queen to take the initiative.
And at a recent meeting with faith leaders, the King remarked that, as monarch, he intends to protect the diversity of religion in Britain, and to “respect those who follow other spiritual paths, as well as those who seek to live their lives in accordance with secular ideals”.
So the idea of royalty is nothing to do with the idea of an antichrist.
Of course nobody would worship the King or pray to him.
What about celebrities?
The emotion we feel for a celebrity as a fan is not religious worship
We simply don't have emperor worship or anything resembling it any more in our world. Most countries have freedom of worship. The emotion people feel as a fan may be similar to worship but isn't the same. For instance a lot of people are fans of Trump or of Biden. But they don't worship them in a religious sense.
The main difference is they don't expect anything back from the person they worship. Nobody is going to pray to Trump or Biden or Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie.
Religious people pray to God for support in their lives. Though most don't expect miracles, they think that the prayer is meaningful and that there is something going on beyond just being a fan of God or Jesus.
We have this even in Buddhism - in that case we think of it as opening out to something in yourself that is far greater than you realize and that is present in everyone, for instance unbounded love, compassion and wisdom and see Buddha as exemplifying it.
So it doesn't have to be a deity as conventionally understood but there is some idea of something far vaster than yourself that you are connecting to / opening out to and that directly supports you back again.
This element is not present in fan worship. If someone is a fan of Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie say, they wouldn't pray to these actors or ask them to guide them in their lives or follow the religious path of Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie.
But the idea of the anti-christ in the Bible is exactly that. It is a religious figure - or figures as the word is in plural who also elevates himself or herself above all other deities or objects of worship.
QUOTE Do not let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and who exalts himself over every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits down in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.
The "man of lawlessness" is usually identified with the antichrist for those who believe in a singular antichrist.
This quote treats religious worship and fan worship as the same.
QUOTE STARTS
You feel worship for someone (or something) so special to you, that all you want is to get close to them or occupy yourself with them. For example, if you are a devoted fan of a singer and all you want to do is watch them, read about them, and go to their concerts. Or in a religious sense, when you feel deep reverence for a deity and want to put your life in service of them. People can also feel worship for non-persons, such as sports teams.
We worship those who we perceive as ‘meaning-makers’, those who bring significant meaning to our lives. We perceive the other person as vastly superior, superhuman or sacred, and we would gladly give ourselves over to them.
Worship is a ‘follower emotion’. You trust another entity with your wellbeing because you believe they will take good care of you. You may also try to imitate them (mimicry), become a part of their world, or establish a parasocial* relationship.
*Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party is completely unaware of their existence.
However for religious people, then it is not a parasocial relationship in that sense. Christians do believe God and Jesus are aware of them and do invest emotional interest, energy and time.
Religious people often think that God or whoever or whatever they worship IS aware of their existence.
Nobody sane would believe that Angelian Jolie or Tom Hanks is aware of anyone who is a fan of them
Also - it has to come from their side that they elevate themselves according to the Bible definition, not just above other people but above all the world’s religious figures too.
Of those two actors I mentioned, Tom Hanks is Greek Orthodox
Angelina Jolie is a non theist, she hopes that God exists for the people who believe in a God. But there doesn't need to be a god for her. She is raising her son as a Buddhist and hasn't said what her own religion is.
QUOTE Hmm… For some people. I hope so, for them. For the people who believe in it, I hope so. There doesn’t need to be a God for me. There’s something in people that’s spiritual, that’s godlike. I don’t feel like doing things just because people say things, but I also don’t really know if it’s better to just not believe in anything, either
That has various other quotes / information from her. The quote originally comes from here:
Obviously neither of them are going to elevate themselves above every God or object of worship.
And neither Trump nor Biden nor any president has ever tried to elevate themselves above deities or other objects of worship either
Indeed the presidential oath of office ends with “So help me God.”
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."
Indeed more generally, it just doesn't happen in most of the world today, that presidents or kings or queens or government leaders are subject to religious worship - the idea of emperor worship ended in most of the world with the fall of the Roman empire.
Emperor worship continued to some extent in China with the Confucian worship of emperors, to some extent for the emperor of Japan and this worship of a person does continue to the present in Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
The Emperor of Japan was never seen as a deity in the Western sense but there was an element of religious worship amongst Shintoists.
He was never seen as omniscient or omnipotent, but seen as perfectly revealing the sacred nature of things, “Kami nature”
He was worshipped, but not really in the sense of Christian worship.
QUOTE STARTS
The Emperor as akitsu mikami
During the 1930s there were some who taught that the Emperor was akitsu mikami ('manifest god') a human being in which the property of kami nature was perfectly revealed, but they qualified this by saying that the Emperor was neither omniscient or omnipotent.
However the Emperor's qualities of kami nature together with his direct descent from Ameratsu, the highest of the kami, made him so superior that the Japanese thought it entirely logical that people should obey the Emperor and worship him – but it did not make him God in the Western sense.
He never really gave up his divinity as he was never seen as divine.
The end of divinity
When the Emperor gave up his divinity on the orders of the USA, in the Imperial rescript of January 1 1946, he in fact gave up nothing that he had ever had, but simply restated an earlier traditional set of beliefs about the Imperial family.
Kami nature is to do with the sacred or mystical element in something.
Kami as a property is the sacred or mystical element in almost anything. It is in everything and is found everywhere, and is what makes an object itself rather than something else. The word means that which is hidden.
Kami have a specific life-giving, harmonising power, called musubi, and a truthful will, called makoto (also translated as sincerity).
Not all kami are good - some are thoroughly evil.
There Ameratsu is the Japanese sun goddess. This is a story about her
As the kanji of Amaterasu’s name (天, ama; 照, terasu) indicate, she was a sun goddess, shining (照) from heaven (天). The story of when she shuts herself away in a cave demonstrates the extent of her power in this role. When her younger brother Susanoo wreaks havoc on the heavenly plain, the frightened Amaterasu hides in a cavern, plunging both the heaven and world into darkness, which causes all kinds of disasters. The myriad gods gather and discuss what to do, deciding to perform a ritual—one involving a ribald dance and uproarious laughter—calling on her to emerge. Amaterasu is enticed from the cave, and shines on the earth and heaven once more.
Her light is essential in both realms. This is why Kojiki says that her descendants came down to the world to rule Japan as emperors. Legitimizing the early Japanese state of Yamato might be called the main theme of the Kojiki legends. It is also the reason why Amaterasu is revered as the highest deity in Japanese mythology.
Anyway there is no way that the entire world would worship the emperor of Japan.
There is one other country to look at.
The only country that really still has worship and even enforced worship is North Korea.
North Koreans are forced to have a photo of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il (Kim Jong Un's grandfather and father) on the best wall of their house and to bow down to it. There must be nothing else on that wall, only the photo, not even windows.
They are also expected to rescue the photos if there is any danger. If your house goes on fire the first thing you do is to rescue the sacred portraits of the North Korean leaders and North Koreans will risk their lives to save these portraits from the slightest damage.
. The cult of Kim: North Korea’s obsession with portraits of its leaders | NK News
QUOTE The homes in other countries differ dramatically from those in North Korea. What truly stands out the most is how in every home, without exception, there hang the portraits of Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, Kim Jong-Un, and Kim Jung-Suk. Every family in North Korea must display the portraits in their homes; no one can refuse this. It is forbidden to have even just one speck of dust on the portraits because inspectors, who are the head of the in-min-ban (neighborhood watch units), come to inspect the status of the portraits in each and every home two to three times a month. In addition, monthly and quarterly, people called the “geu-roo-ppa” (그루빠) also do a surprise visit and check the status of the portraits. They go to each home randomly, without any prior notice. As a result, North Koreans need to always make sure that these portraits are kept clean. If the portraits are not clean, as in there is any speck of dust found on them, then the families are punished and are chastised in front of everyone in the town or village to be criticized during an event called “sa-sang-tu-jaeng” (사상투쟁). I am still in disbelief that this is common practice in North Korea. It is unacceptable.
Even then they don't have the belief that Kim Jong Un is personally aware of them or knows about them. So - it is more like an enforced respect than the western idea of worship.
North Korea is becoming very slightly more open according to this report: Religion-and-Belief-in-the-DPRK-APPG-on-FoRB-report-Dec-2014.pdf
But it is not quite the same as the Western idea of worship - and North Korea, sometimes called the "hermit kingdom" has no interest in expanding to the rest of the world. They hope for eventual unity with South Korea though how exactly nobody really knows. Surely not under the Kim family lineage. But Kim is not interested in being a leader outside of North Korea and there is no possibility of the rest of the world worshipping Kim Jong Un.
In short - for celebrities:
They don't really think that the celebrity is a deity,
don’t pray to them, and don’t expect the celebrity to have loving kindness for them personally like God and Jesus do for Christians.
For Confucian leader worship:
It's similar to Roman emperor worship in some respects - but it's not quite Westen worship.
North Korea is the only remaining place with that level of worship
there is no possibility of the rest of the world worshipping Kim Jong Un.
So it can't happen.
We can’t have a globally worshipped emperor
And we don’t go in for worship. No president has ever been worshipped. Even the Pope isn’t worshipped and is very clear that he only rarely is infallible, once in 1950, last time before then in 1854, and only by the protection of the Holy Spirit.
Kim Jong Un is the center of a religion which sees him in great respect but it is Confucian respect not really what in the West is called worship.
And many nowadays are non religious, such as athiest, and humanist.
Others belong to many religions.
It seems beyond incredible that some world emperor would
arise who as a result of resolving a war in the Middle East over Israel -
that war would involve all the countries globally,
he would be worshiped by Hindus, Confucians, Taoists, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, humanists, atheists
all these countries would cooperate in enforcing this global worship on their citizens.
That is what I mean when I say it doesn’t work politically in our modern world.
This made more sense when the world had Roman Emperors who did have emperor worship, and when the Israelis had no awareness of the kingdoms in Africa, the Chinese empire, the various empires and kingdoms in India, whatever there was in the Americas at the time, the aborigines and Maoris and so on
But we don’t go in for emperor worship today and are aware of a far more diverse world.
So
We can't have an antichrist in a modern world, there is no possibility of a world emperor that everyone worships - that era ended with the end of the Roman empire.
There have been numerous wars in the Middle East and many involving Israel and many peace treaties and we don't get world emperors imposing peace on the world and forcing us to worship them every time there is a war and then peace or ever.
Peace is peace. Peace is good. These people who sadly see any peace treaty in the Middle East as the first step towards the Beast of Revelation have their heads stuck in a dusty 2000 years old book not the living Bible.
There is no beast and can't be in that literal sense. We don't have emperors or empower worship and no way that we have everyone in the world worshipping some person or figure (that did seem to be a possibility in first century AD when they thought the Roman empire was just about the whole world.
The word "antichrist" doesn't occur in the book of revelation only St John’s gospel. But the idea of the Beast is a figure everyone has to worship, you are killed if you don't worship it. That is not something at all credible in our modern world.
We don't have emperor worship any more and not likely to ever happen. In most countries we have freedom of speech. Freedom of religion (or non religion).
It's just not politically credible that we have some new figure who everyone in the world worships.
He would have to be worshipped by all Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Taoists, Confucians, Shintoists, the practitioners of Ancestor worship, Parsees, those who follow the Aborigine religion, or the Polynesian or the native American beliefs etc. etc. , ... and all those who don't believe any religion and are atheist / agnostic / humanist (not so many like that at the time of Jesus).
How in our modern world could we have a single person or object who brings about a temporary world peace by getting all these people with such diverse beliefs to worship him, which is the basic picture in the Book of Revelation?
Example, US Constitution can never be modified to require compulsory worship
Nobody has ever been worshipped in modern times as a result of negotiating a peace treaty or wanted to be worshipped and there is no way e.g. the US constitution is changed to force everyone in the USA to worship someone or be killed if they don't. It's obviously impossible.
That would require 3/4 of US state legislatures to vote for a new constitution based on compulsory worship. It can't happen not even one state would vote for that.
Why a "Mark of the beast" is impossible in the USA
This story was possible in ancient Israel 2000 years ago. The Roman emperors had emperor worship. It was possible to have compulsory emperor worship.
This story can NEVER happen today in modern America or in most countries in the world.
1. By first amendment rights you have the right to practice your own religion, whether it is Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or whatever it is.
2. so compulsory worship of anyone or anything would be illegal.
For this story to come true in the USA it would need a constitutional amendment to remove the first amendement and add a new amendment that says that you have to worship an image of some sort.
That amendment would then need a majroity vote in 3/4 of the US states for this new amendment. I.e. a majority of the population in each of 3/4 of the US states would need to vote for it at the end of long complex process.
After such a radical change of the constitution much of your legal system would no longer be valid, you'd have to strike off many of the laws in the American Code. So you'd have numerous court cases as the justices tried to figure out what your laws are now, with this requirement of compulsory worship which would make many laws unconstitutional if they permitted freedom not to worship this image..
Although theoretically possible, this is NEVER going to happen.
So this story can't literally happen in the modern world. Not in the USA. Not in Europe, not in the Middle East. It's hard to see it happening anywhere.
So - maybe this is really a story about events in the first century. Some Christians think that.
Or perhaps it is a story to help us to look at our tendencies in the current world at a personal level. Curtis Chang says he understands the book of Revelation not as a "Crystal ball" about the future, but as an "X-ray" helping to look at ourselves and our practice as a Christian.
Curtis Chang answering the question "Is the COVID vaccine the mark of the Beast?" Answer NO.
About how book of Revelation is X-ray rather than Crystal ball of the future, & a compass for our time rather than a map
Transcript here: https://www.christiansandthevaccine.com/episodes/04
Many Christians say MOST (not all) of the book of Revelation already happened 2000 years ago - ALMOST ALL of the book of Revelation is in the past tense and it describes the temple as in heaven not a physical temple.
So the simplest most straightforward way to read it is that everything in the past tense in the book of Revelation already happened and many Christians read it like that.
Almost all of it is in the past tense including all the passages people worry about here. It's a message of hope for Christians who experience bad times in their lives, back then Christianity went through one of its worst times ever persecuated by the Roman empire.
Message of Bible of love and kindness, peace is good, kindness is good, wisdom is good
The message in the Bible is of love and kindness. There is something very strange about an interpretation of the Bible that scares people by saying that peace is bad.
Peace is good. Kindness is good. Wisdom is good. When there is a measure of peace that's something to rejoice even if it is partial, even if it doesn't last.
Book of Revelation may be better understood as a message to help christians in adversity and persecution to face appalling dangers with love and understanding
The Book of Revelation describes the world of its time not our world 2000 years later. It was written at a time of persecution of the early church. In the book, Christians face appalling dangers, impossible ones indeed and come out of it victorious. Christians feel it has a message of hope and resilience.
Here is a pacifist interpretation of the book of Revelation I found. It is by Ted Grismud, senior professor of Peace Theology at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. He goes into lots of detail, I’ve picked out some of the passages that give the overall approach to how he interprets the book.
I read these words as a call to look back to the gospel story and to recognize that that story provides what we need to shape our vision of reality. When we do that, the various unsettling visions and images in Revelation come together as a restating of the basic message Jesus left us with: “Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.”
…
I start with an expectation that Revelation is about healing and salvation and offer an outline of the book consistent with that expectation. Within this outline that highlights the framework of the book as an exhortation to follow the way of Jesus, the plague and judgment visions are secondary and serve the healing message, rather than making up the core message.
…
Thus, Revelation reinforces and expands the message of the gospels—e.g., love God and neighbor, seek healing and not retaliation, refuse to imitate the tyrannical ways of the world’s leaders. Interpreters of Revelation tend to lose sight of the anchoring of the book in Jesus and thus fail to note all the ways throughout the book that Jesus and his way are evoked. In the end, the healing ministry of Jesus extends to the nations and the kings of the earth.
…
Thus, Jesus wars against the Powers using the “weapons” of love, courage, clear talk, solidarity with the vulnerable, and suffering love (all captured in the metaphor of “blood”). The “blood” of Jesus and the “blood” of his followers defeats the Powers, destroying their credibility and their hold on deceived humanity. Violence, in this story, is not violence visited upon God’s enemies by God, but it is violence accepted by God and the Lamb and the Lamb’s people as the consequence of their faithful witness—violence that witnesses to liberation and healing.
(5) Revelation concludes with a vision of New Jerusalem, a place of healing (Rev 21–22). God heals the nations and the kings of the earth—those who earlier in the book rebelled against God. They join the faithful multitude of chapter 7 in establishing the city that practices the politics of the Lamb.
The peaceable message that Revelation proclaims, I suggest, is not a message that everything will turn out okay in the end. It is not a message of an interventionist God who is in control of history. It’s a message of the sovereignty of love. It is a message of the call to have love shape our values and ideals and convictions and loyalties in all areas of life. It is a realistic message embedded in the pain and alienation of life in history, in this world. The plagues reflect the difficult realities we face as we begin 2021. They are the context for Revelation’s call to “conquer” with love, a call the remains valid for those of us today who are sensitive to the same Spirit that fueled John’s creative imagination.
. Our need for the book of Revelation’s peace message (Peaceable Revelation #4)
QUOTE Ted Grimsrud is Senior Professor of Peace Theology. Prior to joining the faculty at EMU in 1996, he served 10 years as a pastor in Mennonite churches in Arizona, Oregon and South Dakota. He is especially interested in the connection between Christian theology and pacifism.
The Mennonites are a branch of the anabaptists which are protestant but share some beliefs with Catholics. So they are rather centrist / mainstream and not a radical church.
Who are the Mennonites? What is a Mennonite?
Mennonites are Anabaptists, which is a faith stream within Christianity. Anabaptism grew out of the 16th-century Radical Reformation (which followed the Protestant Reformation). Technically, Anabaptists are neither Catholic nor Protestant, although they do share some beliefs of both.
The first Anabaptists separated from the state church when they began re-baptizing adults and refusing to baptize infants until they could make an adult decision to follow Christ. Anabaptism literally means to re-baptize. At that time, infant baptism was not only an accepted practice, but it also bestowed citizenship. These early Anabaptist Christians were the forerunners of today’s Anabaptist/Mennonite Christians and many others in the “Free Church” tradition that sought the separation of church and state.
Mennonites are named for Menno Simons (1496-1561), a Dutch priest who embraced Anabaptist theology as an alternative to Catholicism. As an influential Anabaptist leader, he consolidated the work initiated by moderate Anabaptist leaders.
Also, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that 2000 years ago they were talking about a future 2000 years in the future. Instead they understood it as about their lives right then, 2000 years ago.
See also my
BLOG: Many religious views about the world ending or not
Catholic view of Jesus return as far future once the work of the church is done and again a message of peace
This is a matter of individual belief. But Catholics according to the catechism -which isn't a requirement rather a guide - they believe that Jesus could return at any moment but his return is delayed until he is recognized by "All of Israel". That is clearly not going ot happen in the near future, seems unlikely this century.
They say to be prepared as if Jesus would return at any moment but not to expect it essentially.
He could return at any moment but his return is delayed and continues to be delayed indefinitely.
Also Pope Francis said that Jesus return is a time of peace. Not violence.
As his personal interpretation. Just talking about how he sees it.
Pope Francis put it like this:
"God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart."
"More than a place, it is a state of the soul where our deepest aspirations will be fulfilled with abundance."
He said "It's beautiful to think about this, isn't it, to think about heaven. All of us will be there, all of us. It's beautiful and gives us strength."...
[About questions about the end times]
No one knows the answer to those questions, the pope said Wednesday at his weekly general audience, but Catholics are convinced that the end of time will not bring the "annihilation of the cosmos and of everything around us."
God's plan, he said, is to renew everything in Christ and "bring everything to its fullness of being, truth and beauty."
Quoting the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, he said, "God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart."
"This is where the church is heading," he said. "More than a place, it is a state of the soul where our deepest aspirations will be fulfilled with abundance."
At the end of time, he said, "we will be face to face" with God. "It's beautiful to think about this, isn't it, to think about heaven. All of us will be there, all of us. It's beautiful and gives us strength."
Quotes from this page The world will end with peace, not annihilation, Pope Francis says
So he also is describing a future of great peace not unlike the Jewish idea.
After all they have the same Bible as the basis for their beliefs so Christians need to try to find a way to interpret Isaiah 11:6-9 too.
Others including liberal Quakers see peace from revelation as something we can connect to right now right here, all of it including the final chapter of the city of Jerusalem descending miraculously from the sky
Then some Christians including liberal Quakers - they see the peace as something we can connect with right now, right here,
QUOTE (FROM A QUAKER) A lot of interpreters assume that time is linear in Revelation, a chronological narrative that moves from the past to the future. This has created extremely problematic interpretations. Liberal Quakers often talk about building the Kingdom of God on earth now, rather than waiting for a heavenly afterlife. This is how Fox read Revelation, not as describing a future in the sky, but as two realities existing side by side, Babylon and the New Jerusalem. We are called to come out of Babylon and enter the New Jerusalem in this lifetime.
Whatever your views on all this, the Bible is not a book meant to scare people. It is a message of solace and hope in difficult times.
For more on this:
blog: Many religious views about the world ending or not
Book of Revelation in past tense except the descent of the renewed city of jerusalem at the end - beginning of a future age of peace
The Book of Revelation is written in the past tense for all of it except the very end with the descending of the renewed city of Jerusalem and the beginning of the age of peace.
The Christians who interpret it all as about events in the future don't explain why there is a change of tense for the end of the book.
This is the mainstream understanding of it by a contemporary theologian in the Anglican church. From Ian Paul, one of the contributing authors to the Cambridge
QUOTE This statement connects the preceding narrative, and the identity of the ‘male son who will rule the nations with a rod of iron’ (12.5, compare 2.27 and 19.15), with the ‘lamb looking as though slain’ in 5.6 and further back to the atoning, kingdom-forming death (‘blood’) of Jesus in 1.5–6. The time of woe is, therefore, the time in which John is writing and in which his readers are living—a time of ‘tribulation, kingdom and patient endurance’ (1.9) as John set out from the very beginning.
. How does Revelation configure space and time? | Psephizo
QUOTE STARTS
This points to the spatial references in the text functioning together as an extended metaphor for humanity’s spiritual state, and the descriptions of the heavenly realm as suggesting a spiritual, prophetic perspective on the mundane realities of the earthly realm.[4]The consummation of his vision report is the coming of the New Jerusalem down from heaven to earth, where the two realities finally converge.
Any simple configuration of Revelation’s temporal dynamics is immediately challenged by the large-scale structure of the text. Revelation certainly has an eschatological focus, as with other apocalyptic texts, and the closing chapters have a particular eschatological finality about them. However, almost every major earlier section also includes final eschatological motifs, linking with the closing visions, and these often correlate with one another. So, for example, each of the series of seven seals, trumpets and bowls ends with an eschatological motif, following some sort of interlude—the one associated with the final trumpet being particularly developed:
...
Any simple configuration of Revelation’s temporal dynamics is immediately challenged by the large-scale structure of the text. Revelation certainly has an eschatological focus, as with other apocalyptic texts, and the closing chapters have a particular eschatological finality about them. However, almost every major earlier section also includes final eschatological motifs, linking with the closing visions, and these often correlate with one another. So, for example, each of the series of seven seals, trumpets and bowls ends with an eschatological motif, following some sort of interlude—the one associated with the final trumpet being particularly developed:
The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever. (Rev 11.15)
But the strong anticipation (that the final trumpet is the third woe) is disrupted, with no mention of ‘woe’ in relation to the final blast, which instead leads to a declaration of eschatological triumph. So where is the third ‘woe’? It actually comes in the following chapter and is connected with the victory of God’s anointed one (‘Messiah’) achieved through his death on the cross:
The time of woe is, therefore, the time in which John is writing and in which his readers are living—a time of ‘tribulation, kingdom and patient endurance’ (1.9) as John set out from the very beginning.
...
For John and his readers, the present time of tribulation is also the time of Exodus wanderings; they have been ‘freed from [the slavery] of our sins’ (Rev 1.5) but have not yet entered the Promised Land.[8]
This present age therefore has, according to John, a double significance. It is a time of victory, since the death of Jesus has brought the final, eschatological victory of God into the present. And yet that victory is not yet completely realized, and the Enemy and the enemies of God are still at large, causing the people of God to suffer and even die. This ambiguous nature of the present time in fact forms the very basis of the appeal of the risen Jesus through John to invite his readers to ‘conquer’ (2.7, 2.11, 2.17, 2.26, 3.5, 3.12, 3.21)—living out the as-yet-not-fully-realised victory of the lamb, rather than succumbing the apparent but passing power of their opponents.
Quakers see it all as about the present - even the end of the book, Catholics see almost all as present
Quakers go as far as to say the whole thing is about the present even the very end of the book. They see Jesus return as happening all the time right now everywhere.
Catholics see it almost all as already happened. The last part could be entirely peaceful and is what happens when the work of the church is done.
Catholics according to the catechism - which isn't a requirement rather a guide - believe that Jesus could return at any moment but his return is delayed until he is recognized by "All of Israel". That is clearly not going to happen in the near future, seems unlikely this century.
They say to be prepared as if Jesus would return at any moment but not to expect it essentially.
He could return at any moment but his return is delayed and continues to be delayed indefinitely.
Also Pope Francis said that Jesus return is a time of peace. Not violence.
As his personal interpretation. Just talking about how he sees it.
Pope Francis put it like this:
"God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart."
"More than a place, it is a state of the soul where our deepest aspirations will be fulfilled with abundance."
He said "It's beautiful to think about this, isn't it, to think about heaven. All of us will be there, all of us. It's beautiful and gives us strength."...
[About questions about the end times]
No one knows the answer to those questions, the pope said Wednesday at his weekly general audience, but Catholics are convinced that the end of time will not bring the "annihilation of the cosmos and of everything around us."
God's plan, he said, is to renew everything in Christ and "bring everything to its fullness of being, truth and beauty."
Quoting the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, he said, "God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart."
"This is where the church is heading," he said. "More than a place, it is a state of the soul where our deepest aspirations will be fulfilled with abundance."
At the end of time, he said, "we will be face to face" with God. "It's beautiful to think about this, isn't it, to think about heaven. All of us will be there, all of us. It's beautiful and gives us strength."
Quotes from this page The world will end with peace, not annihilation, Pope Francis says
So he also is describing a future of great peace not unlike the Jewish idea.
After all they have the same Bible as the basis fo their beliefs so Christians need to try to find a way to interpret Isaiah 11:6-9 too.
Then some Christians including liberal quakers - they see the peace as something we can connect with right now, right here,
QUOTE A lot of interpreters assume that time is linear in Revelation, a chronological narrative that moves from the past to the future. This has created extremely problematic interpretations. Liberal Quakers often talk about building the Kingdom of God on earth now, rather than waiting for a heavenly afterlife. This is how Fox read Revelation, not as describing a future in the sky, but as two realities existing side by side, Babylon and the New Jerusalem. We are called to come out of Babylon and enter the New Jerusalem in this lifetime. [source given in the debunk]
BLOG: Many religious views about the world ending or not
It doesn't fit politically and geographically and militarily and in terms of contemporary beliefs and attitudes, we no longer have any worship of Roman empires. I go into that already here:
And it doesn't fit theologically as I just explained either with mainstream Judaism, whether orthodox or liberal or with mainstream Christianity with nearly all churches saying the rapture is a false doctrine and the idea that most of the events in the Book of Revelation are still to come faces many issues of interpretation as brought out by that theological account I just mentioned. It doesn't fit the large scale structure of the book or the way tense is used with nearly all of it in past tense or the position in the narrative of the section about Jesus.
For those that have these beliefs, then most of them seem to find it joyful and not a problem so for them it's okay even though most churches say it is a false doctrine.
I write this to help those who find the ideas scary not to repudiate the beliefs of rapture believers. If they want to believe it that's fine. But it doesn't fit with mainstream theology, or politics, geology, militarily, with Jewish mainstream beliefs or with the way that people think about religion globally today. The narrative is a kind of religious fantasy rather than anything that could realistically happen in our real world and it is very difficult to impossible to fit it to the Bible requiring it to be interpreted in a way that most Christians find strained and artificial and a false doctrine.
Trump’s Christianity - the Prosperity Gospel - not a believer in the 3rd Temple prophecy
Some people who are scared of the third temple prophecy think that Trump might try to put pressure on the Jews to build a third temple in Israel. But his actions are nothing to do with that prophecy. Many evangelicals in the US just think that Israel was given to the Jews by God and that Jerusalem is its capital and need no more reason than that to approve it.
It’s only a very tiny minority that believe in the third temple prophecy, the belief that Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is the first step leading eventually to WW3 and Jesus appearing above the clouds to levitate a billion Christians into heaven (without dying first), to save them just before the war.
Many Christians would regard this as a bizarre belief if not brought up with that culture. At any rate, it is certainly not “in the Bible”, since the US did not even exist at the time of the Bible, and the prophecy is quite new, the result of some novels, the “Left Behind” series and a TV series, and the elaborated details are the result of script writers and authors of a work of fiction.
For details see:
. Why we don’t need to worry about a Jewish “third temple” or war between Israel and Palestine
Trump is not of that view himself.
He is indeed a church-going Christian, usually attending church for Easter and Christmas every year,. and a few other occasions. In his first term he attended church for Christmas and Easter every year except in 2020 when he skipped them because of COVID restrictions. He also attended church for his inauguration day in 2017, the funeral of George H.W:. Bush in 2019 and on two extra personal occasions in 2019.
. How Often Does Trump Actually Attend Church? Not Often
. LIVE: Follow President Donald Trump this Christmas Day
He also has a pastor he sees often as well as an evangelical board that meets with him once a week.
However, his religion is the "prosperity gospel" that God rewards people with material wealth - that being wealthy is a sign that God approves of you.
The key bulwark of faith-based Trumpism is the prosperity gospel — a movement rooted in Pentecostal preaching that holds that God directly dispenses divine favor in the capitalist marketplace to his steadfast believers. Trump assiduously courted the leading lights of the prosperity faith well before his presidential run got serious enough for him to make the obligatory rounds at hard-line evangelical gatherings, such as last month’s Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference. Last year, he hosted a conclave of three dozen leading prosperity preachers at Trump Tower, and his effort promptly netted him the vocal support of prosperity televangelist Paula White. Indeed, White is reputed to have presided over Trump’s born-again conversion.
. How the prosperity gospel explains Donald Trump’s popularity with Christian voters (July 15, 2016)
More about it here
. Trump pastor Paula White: The president ‘100 percent is a Christian … a person of repentance’
. To know Donald Trump’s faith is to understand his politics | Martyn Percy
This Prosperity Gospel is unorthodox. There's nothing wrong with being a rich Christian. But Jesus in the Bible often tells his followers not to worry about being poor.
Especially in the Sermon on the Mount which many take to be his most central teaching in the entire Bible, his "consider the lillies"
" And why take ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin: "
Another passage there is
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
And the "eye of a needle" paragraph is even stronger. He says it is far harder if you are wealthy, only possible through the grace of God.
"I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
Pence doesn’t subscribe to the Jerusalem prophecy either. He thinks recognizing Jerusalem as a capital of Israel is a path to peace.
"When we open the American Embassy in Jerusalem, we will in a very real sense end this historic fiction, we'll embrace reality. And President Trump and I believe that in doing that, that peace in the region becomes more possible, once we confirm, that we stand with Israel, that we stand with Jerusalem as their capital, and then we can see if there is a way forward to end years of conflict in the region." '
. There's Prayer on a Regular Basis in This White House': Mike Pence Reveals Faith Behind the Scenes
Of course others would say this is not the way ahead, that if they want to strive for peace they should recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine too.
However, Trump certainly did NOT say that the US moved the embassy to Jerusalem in order to start a war in the Middle East or anything even remotely like that.
The idea of trying to deliberately trigger an apocalyptic end of the world by causing warfare in the middle East is a nutty minority of a minority evangelical view in the US.
Few even of those who believe in the idea of a future Emperor / Beast of the entire world and the rapture believe that it is their job to make these events happen somehow.
All the events that have to happen in the bible first - clearly not to be taken literally
The Euphrates passage is late in the book and many fantastical and impossible things happen first.
There is hail and fire mixed with blood. 1/3 of Earth is burnt up and 1/3 of the trees are burnt up and all the green grass is burnt up.
A great mountain is thrown into the sea. 1/3 of the sea becomes blood. 1/3 of living creatures in the sea die. 1/3 of all ships are destroyed.
A star falls into the sea [makes no sense with modern ideas - back then they thought stars were tiny, like people in size] and a third of all fresh water turns bitter and undrinkable.
1/3 of the sun is destroyed (impossible) and 1/3 of the moon is destroyed (impossible) - and this for some reason leads to the sun shining only 2/3 of the time it usually shines for (rather than 2/3 of the brightness) and the Moon also for only 2/3 of the time it usually shines for (makes no physical sense). So (impossibly) days get shorter by 1/3 and similarly the moon shines for less of the night (impossible)
Then an eagle flies over saying “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!”
A bottomless pit opens. From the pit comes fire and smoke. Then from the smoke come locusts. The locusts are like horses prepared for battle, appear to have human faces, woman's hair, teeth of lions and crowns of gold breastplates of iron, and wings that sound like horses and chariots rushing to battle, and tails and stings like scorpions.
Four angels released to kill 1/3 of humankind using 200 million supernatural soldiers mounted on horseback to do so. They kill 1/3 of humanity through their supernatural horses breathing out fire, smoke and sulfur.
Many other fantastical things happen.
Only after all that and many other things, finally the Euphrates dries up and a big army crosses the dried up river on horseback on its way to Armageddon in Israel with the "Kings of the East" leading the charge on horseback.
Then those 200 million horsemen fight a big battle with the rest of the world on a tiny hillock which wouldn't even fit 200 million people wedged together in a crowd, they'd have to stand on each other's heads in a 20 kilometers tall tower never mind the horses.
It is just not meant to be taken literally, can't be.
Also remember that God is love.
QUOTE "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:7-21 - English Standard Version
https://www.biblestudytools.com/esv/1-john/passage/?q=1+john+4:7-21
8. The book ends with a magical replacement city of Jerusalem descending from the sky and bringing in a new world of peace.
Amongst Christins, there's a wide range of views on how to interpret the book of Revelation, summarized in "From Adam to Armageddon: A Survey of the Bible", page 178 as
[Lightly edited for clarity for autistic readers]
A view that Revelation must be understood in the context of its own time
- the events symbolized in its pages have already taken place.A view that only a portion of the revelations have occurred
- offers clues to the remaining portion of human history."A view that the book is best understood spiritually,
- no attempt should be made to interpret it in the context of history.A view that the book is prophetic
- its prophecies are yet to be completely fulfilled."
The idea of a literal Armageddon is the fourth of those common ways of interpreting the Bible.
As the author of "From Adam to Armageddon" says
"Regardless of whether Revelation holds the secret of the time and place that history as we know it will end, it holds the view that how one lives matters greatly. That alone makes it of value for those who use it as an authority for their lives.
"Its vision may have been intended primarily to support Christians facing death for their first-century faith, but it has served a much broader purpose for continuing Christianity. A book of comfort and devotion, it has called people to faithfulness over the years, while assuring them of the faithfulness of the God it proclaims."
(From Adam to Armageddon: A Survey of the Bible : page 180)
So, it seems it is intended primarily as a message of hope, originally written for Christians who faced death as a result of their faith and now a general message of hope to Christians in trouble.
That's why view 1, that the events described in the book of Revelation have already taken place is also a reasonable view to take, After all, how would it be a message of hope to prophesy to Christians of the first century AD about events that would happen 2000 years into their future?
Or indeed view 3, that it is best understood spiritually.
In both of those interpretations, it has no future predictive power since it either describes events of the first century AD, or is meant to be taken spiritually, as a message of hope, with no intention of prophecy of actual events in the world.
Many Christians do take it in those ways
Many things in the Bible don't apply literally to the present. Even the most fundamentalist Christians don't think that there is literally a sky made of lapis lazuli say, and cisterns full of water above it indeed they can't, the passages are inconsistent, some say rainwater is stored below rather than above the lapis lazuli of the blue sky.
This is a good summary of how the Eastern Orthodox church sees it, and it is similar to how many Christians see it, also makes a good point that no individual has the right to make a definitive interpretation of the Bible:
QUOTE Now, we know from elsewhere in the New Testament that the early Christians were convinced that Christ’s Second Coming was near, and undoubtedly this expectation was only further fueled during the severe persecution ordered by Emperor Domitian, who put Christians to death for refusing to worship him as a “god”—after he had proclaimed himself so. Given the fact that the early Christians were enduring a horrible period of persecution, the main theme of Revelation is to provide the persecuted Christians with a sense of hope that would encourage them to remain faithful to Christ despite the fact that at any moment they could be put to death for the Faith. Hence, Revelation focuses on the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God and how the Christians by remaining loyal and faithful to Christ, will ultimately reap the rewards promised by Christ. The vision of the Apostle John recorded in Revelation was a reminder from God to the faithful not to give in to their enemies, but to remain faithful. They were challenged to remain hopeful and spiritually strong and to overcome state pressure, the slander against Christians that was prevalent in the synagogues, false teachers, etc. While the Book of Revelation does speak of events yet to come—such as the Second Coming of Our Lord—it is not a book that was written primarily to reveal contemporary or coming events.
...
QUOTE Weird interpretations of Revelation are not new. Already in the second and third centuries there were so many twisted and sensational misinterpretations that the false teachings that arose caused great confusion to the Christians of the time. For this reason, while the Book of Revelation was included in the Canon of Scripture, it was not permitted to be read publicly in the services of the Church.
QUOTE The Orthodox Church does not persuade people not to read Revelation. It does caution people to read it with a solid background knowledge of the rest of Scripture, especially the New Testament, and with a basic understanding of the times which produced Revelation. At the same time, the Orthodox Church does not accept the notion that everyone can properly interpret the Bible as he or she wants. Some Protestant bodies believe in this, but Orthodoxy does not. We say that the Church has the ability to properly interpret Scripture, and this means that we should study and adopt the interpretations that have been handed down over the 2000 years of the Church’s living history. Given the fact that that which is contained in Scripture is the inspired word of God, revealed to mankind and not to a single individual, no individual has the right or ability to offer “the” definitive interpretation of Scripture. This is especially the case with Revelation, which as noted above cannot be interpreted as one wishes, lest one come to ridiculous conclusions that Gorbachov’s birthmark is the “mark of the beast.”
[ONE OF THE INTERPRETATIONS]
. Book of Revelation - Questions & Answers
It may help to give the Catholic interpretation.
Views of Catholics -more important to focus on our present than be pre-occupied with end times - and Jesus return is suspended until “all of israel” recognize him
Catholics think of Jesus as returning in the future but they don’t set dates and they think that it’s more important to focus on our present than to be pre-occupied with the end of times.
This understanding of the "last days" differs from that of those who believe in the Rapture. Catholics agree that there will definitely be an "end of time" and that history as we know it will one day be complete. But we also recognize that each of us will face the end of our time on earth, and that this should, in many ways, concern us more than the end of the world”
Are We Living in the Last Days? (Are We Living in the Last Days?)
They have various ideas about what the book of Revelation actually represents and how to interpret it. But they reject the idea of a “rapture” in the sense of many of the Evangelicals
According to the Catholic Catechism (catechism-of-the-catholic-churchf) Jesus second coming is suspended until “all of Israel” recognizes him.
674 The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel"
I think you can safely say this is not going to happen for a very long time, if ever, as there is not the slightest sign of Jews en masse converting to Christianity. They have their own Messiah traditions with differing ideas on that and many don’t think there will be a Messiah at all (of course they don’t recognize Jesus as a Messiah).
On "end times" Pope Francis said Catholics are convinced the end of time won't bring about annihilation of the cosmos, but renewal and bringing everything to its fullness of being, truth and beauty.
What Pope Francis says:
START QUOTES
"God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart."
"More than a place, it is a state of the soul where our deepest aspirations will be fulfilled with abundance."
He said "It's beautiful to think about this, isn't it, to think about heaven. All of us will be there, all of us. It's beautiful and gives us strength."...
[About questions about the end times]
No one knows the answer to those questions, the pope said Wednesday at his weekly general audience, but Catholics are convinced that the end of time will not bring the "annihilation of the cosmos and of everything around us."
God's plan, he said, is to renew everything in Christ and "bring everything to its fullness of being, truth and beauty."
Quoting the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, he said, "God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth where justice will abide, and whose blessedness will answer and surpass all the longings for peace which spring up in the human heart."
"This is where the church is heading," he said. "More than a place, it is a state of the soul where our deepest aspirations will be fulfilled with abundance."
At the end of time, he said, "we will be face to face" with God. "It's beautiful to think about this, isn't it, to think about heaven. All of us will be there, all of us. It's beautiful and gives us strength."
END QUOTES
Quotes from this page (The world will end with peace, not annihilation, Pope Francis says)
And they generally see this as far future.
That is one of many traditions.
That is one of many traditions.
I go into the views of many Christian traditions on the book of Revelation here
And expand to other religions here
BLOG: Many religious views about the world ending or not
In short the book of Revelation is not about astronomy as we currently understand it and the images were surely never intended to be taken literally
More about the Bible passage - nothing to scare you - doesn’t make sense as modern politics or military strategy for an army to march across the Euphrates
The Euphrates isn’t drying up. Also the scenario in the Bible doesn’t make sense in the modern times, there is no way that an army is going to be marching across the Euphrates.
The only country that would make sense for is Iran but it’s on friendly terms with Iraq and whether the Euphrates is dry or full of water would make no difference to them if for some reason they wanted to send an army across the Euphrates. They would just cross the river on bridges.
Syria and Iraq already have territory on the same side as Israel of the river so it is not going to affect them.
Iran is friends with Iraq and whether the Euphrates is low or high would make no difference as they would drive over bridges if they wanted to go to Israel
Background graphic from here
. The-Tigris-and-Euphrates-Rivers-in-Turkey-northern-Syria-and-Iraq_fig1
So, there is no way that any country is going to be able to attack Israel or not depending on how high the water is in the Euphrates.
Syria and Iraq obviously not as they own both sides of the river and any other country not because they'd get to Israel by sea, not likely China invades Israel via Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq and then is held back by the Euphrates which flows through Iraq, because the water happens to be high rather than low.
Rivers can hold back an army with a determined defender - but the Euprhates in particular is never going to be a major barrier for some Eastern country trying to invade Israel.
. distance Wa Genjihe, Tashkurgan, Kashgar Prefecture, China to Israel
Same also if it was Iran invading Israel again it’s not likely such an army is going to be held up by the Euphrates if it gets that far and travels by land.
It's clear the passage is based on the geography and politics of the time of the Bible and can't be just transplanted into the present and in the same way then whether the Euphrates is high or low again can't be transplanted into the present as something of significance in warfare.
Remember the passage says that an angel dries up the Euphrates so that the kings of the East can cross it.
Which kings anyway? Iran, China, Iraq, Syria, they don't have kings.
So there isn’t any real risk that low levels of water in the Euphrates could lead to some big war by letting an army march across it. So the scenario in the Bible doesn’t make sense in a modern world.
Armageddon is far too small for a modern war
The Bible verse that scares people says:
“Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great Euphrates River, and it dried up so that the kings from the east could march their armies toward the west without hindrance. 13 And I saw three evil[c] spirits that looked like frogs leap from the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. 14 They are demonic spirits who work miracles and go out to all the rulers of the world to gather them for battle against the Lord on that great judgment day of God the Almighty.
16 And the demonic spirits gathered all the rulers and their armies to a place with the Hebrew name Armageddon
. Bible Gateway passage: Revelation 16 - New Living Translation
A battle at Armageddon also doesn’t make much sense today.
Armageddon isn't a likely location for an important modern battle - far too small to fit even the armies on it
We can't take the book of Revelation literally as describing modern politics and technology as it doesn't fit - and nothing to suggest it is about a future 2000 years later.
Background image from here File:תל מגידו.JPG - Wikimedia Commons
This did make sense in the first century AD when the Euphrates was a natural barrier that could have hindered armies.
Also Armageddon doesn’t make much sense as a site for a battle either. It’s just a small mound in Israel and you couldn’t fit a modern army on the top of it.
QUOTE The army had 200 million soldiers on horses. I heard them say how many there were.
. Bible Gateway passage: Revelation 9:16-18 - New Life Version
Then they are supposed to join battle in the tiny hillock of Armageddon in Israel.
It's only about 1 km by 0.5 km
That gives each soldier an area of 5 cm by 5 cm to stand on (25 square cms). They would have to stand on each other's heads in a big tower.
. 100*100*1000*500/(200 million) - Google Search
Allow them 500 by 500 cm each to stand on (giving enough space to breathe and move a little, scratch themselves)
. Human Dimensions and Minimum Standards
Then they would need to be in a tower 10,000 soldiers tall (500 * 500 / 25). Height about 20,000 meters over the hillock of Armageddon or about 20 kilometers high.
That’s not accounting for the horses as they are riding on 200 million horses.
That’s more than three times the total number of horses in the world, around 60 million total domesticated and wild. So someone has to breed an enormous new herd of horses to get the horses for all those soldiers to ride on.
. How Many Horses Are In The World - Online Field Guide
And 200 million soldiers is about 200 times the size of the Chinese army.
The author of the book of Revelation wasn't a mathematician, it's fantasy. It's not meant to be taken literally.
So:
No angel has poured out anything
There are no kings of the east
The Euphrates is like many rivers around the world that are sometimes lower and sometimes higher - either naturally or due to human involvement.
Some rivers stop running altogether for part of the year.
These things happen and are not supernatural. There is no need to hypothesize an angel to explain the Euphrates drying up.
The Bible is a product of its times and there’s no reason to suppose it is meant to be a prediction of events 2000 years in the future of the authors. Nothing in the Bible to suggest such a vast timescale indeed it’s all about it talking about events in the lifetimes of the readers of the Bible - AT THE TIME OF JESUS - and the time of the apostles.
Not about in the lifetime of present day readers 2000 years later.
That is taking the book of Revelation very literally to suppose it refers to a real war.
Rember it says that drying of the Euphrates is a vital divine intervention to let the kings of the East cross the Euphrates.
Why would, say, China or Russia want to march across the Euphrates and who would be the kings to lead their army?
So - again phrasing it in a way that will be easier to understand. They are fantasizing and using make belief. They are imagining a first century war with first century strategy and weapons fought in a 21st century world.
You can let them do that. No need to debunk / undermine their fantasy. But it is not good for your mind to try to join it and have the same beliefs as them.
Because that is like trying to believe black is white, you just don't have the necessary background to enter into this fantasy.
Also modern kings don't lead armies any more, I don't know of any kings that are generals of the armies in their own countries - so kings wouldn't advance across the Euphrates in any possible scenario. This is an idea from the world 2000 years ago where kings would march at the head of armies.
This gradually stopped happening a few centuries ago - to start with they would direct operations from a nearby hill rather than fight in the battle itself - and then they devolved fighting to generals (who also directed operations rather than fight at the front line).
George II age 60 in 1743 was the last monarch of the UK to lead an army into battle - before then many kings died in battle - William the Conqueror was a famous example, shot in the eye with an arrow.
(Battle of Flodden: When kings were killed in battle)
This is a fun animation of it. (
)
Though, minor correction, 1:32 (
)
In 1934 I think this is the crown prince who later became King Saud but not king at the time? (Saud of Saudi Arabia - Wikipedia)
Anyway we don't have kings leading troops into battle any more, not heard of a 21st century example, have you?
Also, long before the Euphrates dries up, in the story in the Bible, everyone in the world has to make images of a beast with seven heads and ten horns with crowns on them, the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion
- and these images they made all come to life and speak to people and anyone who doesn't make these images and worship them is ordered to be killed by the second beast which has the voice of a dragon and small horns like a lamb
Then, the ones who continue to worship the first beast are then marked on the forehead or right hand with the mark of the beast.
Whatever this is about - if you take it literally it seems to be about global compulsory worship. This is never going to happen in the modern world
Christians have many ways of interpreting these passages. But very few would take them literally as they are impossible in our modern world.
There are no dates in the Bible. Some Christians find the idea of Jesus coming in the near future a support for their faith, so it's a positive message for them.
But after 2000 years with him not coming and each generation many Christians expecting him and he doesn't come yet, then it's not too likely he comes this century - if it is something will happen at all.
There are also a fair few Christians who don't interpret this as a future literal event in time but in other ways such as an inspiring form of imagery or about something that is always happening in every moment or as something that happened historically 2000 years ago.
Jesus is not likely to return this century. Probably not for thousands of years. It is hard to see how he can return today. Because the stories about how he returns don't match the present day world.
E.g. for those who believe there has to be an antichrist first it's hard to see how anyone in the present day world could be worshipped by all the 2 billion Christians and somehow turn them away and either forcefully or by influence persuade all those Christians to stop following Jesus's teachings. It was a possibility in the 1st century AD when there were far fewer Christians, nearly all in areas controlled by the Roman empire and when there was a tradition of emperor worship but we don't have any equivalent of the Roman empire or compulsory worship today.
The Catholic Catechism says Jesus is waiting for all Jews in Israel to recognize him first. This is not likely this century
But you can open your heart to the love and kindness of Jesus right now. In that sense Jesus is always with you.
Some Christians think that opening your heart to Jesus is what Jesus meant by Jesus return. E.g. many Quakers think that all the passages about Jesus return in the Bible are about Jesus in this very moment always.
. Why you can ignore all date setting prophecies based on the Bible - no dates in it
I cover some other topics here:
We will NOT get a global world worshipping emperor “Beast” as a result of the Hamas terrorist attack - NO EMPEROR WORSHIP in most of the world since the fall of the Roman empire
There is NO RISK of world war from Hamas. Hamas is just terrorism and counterterrorism, no way that Jordan or Egypt get involved, Iran is the only country in the region supporting Hamas or Hezbollah, and it won't attack directly
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Yeah not just his church attendance though. By his actions I mean his lying, his attitudes towards woman and minorities, personally attacking people. And the rape allegations that he has been found liable for in court.
But you are correct that most Christians are a bit hazy about what they believe. I mean I consider myself a Christian and I'm hazy about what exactly I believe.
Thanks Robert. Though I wouldn't necessarily call Trump a devout Christian, I mean who knows what he really believes and he does surround himself with evangelical Christians but his actions don't exactly spell devout christian.
But anyway thanks again.