God's Prophecies: what is behind them?

I think it's a little bit of both and maybe some other factors too.I think, at least based on the initial assumptions considered in this thread, the Lord does see the beginning from the end so to speak.But I also think that the Lord has seen in advance where he would have to directly interact with his people in order to keep them on task.In addition to this, if the Lord cannot truly look upon the "face of sin" then it may be that he has to get his prophets (or angels) to deliver the bad news that the Lord himself may be incapable of looking upon.One other factor that people might not be considering is that prophecy is not always a future-ward experience. Moses was revealed many things which pertained to the past as well as the future.This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 05-28-2005 11:03 AM

Brian, imo, Phat is right. You're off topic.1. Your statement is the equivalent of me stating that there's not one thing in science allowing for anyone to argue for the toe.2. Your topic of your message was not about how prophecy works, but whether prophecy is real/true.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Having forsight, God plans his moves so as to best respond to man's actions, in order to accomplish his ultimate purpose/will.In short what he controls/does is determined by him according to his forknowledge of what will be. Even the hardening of Pharoah's heart as per the Exodus by God himself, was due to his knowledge of Pharoah's belief, intentions and actions towards Israel and towards Jehovah, the god of Israel.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Phat,If I ask you if you stopped beating your wife, for purpose of discussion we will assume you are married and never beat your wife, do I have the right to insist that anything other than a "yes" or "no" answer is off topic?I suppose Percy or someone could come up with a Forum that involves forced choices and only allows the specified choices otherwise no comment but until that is made explicit the negation of a statement in a topic is part of the topic. I'm not surprised that Faith objected but you are an Admin and I expect better comprehension from you.lfen

When has God ever pronounced anything? What we have are people, prophets, who claim they are speaking for God. When Pat Robertson, or the Pope, of Joseph Smith, or Jeremiah etc. tell us God told them something why should I believe that God refuses to address me directly but rather wants me to take my orders from them? Hint, it was more effective when I could be ordered summarily to be stoned to death or burnt at the stake or something like that.Clearly religion is rule by a priest class. The genius of Judaism was to claim that the priests had the word of God. If bad things happened it wasn't because the priests and their claims about God were wrong but because the people were guilty of something and bad things would continue to happen until they obeyed the priests. Prophecy was the tool the priest used to control society. It was kind of the equivalent to the mass media of those times.lfen

The whole book of Revelation, sometimes referred to the Apocalypse is just one example of God pronounced prophecy:Revelation 1:1,2
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
2Who bore record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Well, that is what in the book John claims. Joseph Smith made claims, Muhammad made claims, etc and etc. All these are people claiming to have received some message. You are a person telling me the book of Revelation is God pronounced. God has not told me this. It's all the claims of people. That is my point.lfen

Since you bring up Revelations, and it refers to things that would have happened thousands of years ago, it's a good place to examine prophecy.We can begin with Revelation 1:1 Which of the prophecies came about "shortly", say within the author's lifetime?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

My friend, you're acting like I would be chastized for (and likely again permanently suspended for) if I said "until I understand the three laws of thermodynamics, they're all a lot of hooey," all the while I refused to do a study of them. The prophecies definitely are not what you master in a reading, nor without a handle on the historical events that satisfy the fulfillment of those which have been either fulfilled, partially fulfilled or are obviously soon to be fulfilled. Like science, it becomes a very interesting and enlightening study if you set your mind to do it.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Note that also in verse 3 of chapt 1 it says "the time is at hand." Then go to the last chapter of the book of Revelation, chapter 22 verse 10 you read that same phrase, "the time is at hand."What these three verses are aluding to is that this book of Revelation is a prophecy of the Christian era/age and the time for that age/era is/has begun. Many evangelical scholars of Biblical prophecy, including myself believe the letter to the 7 churches of Revelation 2 and 3 are a prophecy of 7 church periods, the 7th church period being the last and being the one which exists when Jesus's 2nd advent occurs at the end of the church age. It's an extensive study in itself, but the wording of each church fits quite nicely with historical events and conditions which existed throughout the 2000 year church age of Jesus Christ and Christianity.The seven seals, trumpets and vials then cover end time events which OT and NT prophets call the time of God's wrath and the time of persecution and tribulation to come upon the Christians world wide of the last church age, the Laodicean. The 7th seal is/becomes the 7 trumpets and the 7th trumpet is/becomes the events of the 7 vials of God's wrath which the world will experience before the millenial reign of Christ upon earth as per chapter 20. The apostle prophesies that the Philadelphian church, the next to last or sixth escapes that time. Many, again including myself, believe that time is quickly emerging upon the world scene.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Yes, a few people believe that. But that's not what it says. It says it's speaking of current events, events happening at the time it was written.So which of the things happened?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Jar, the Book of Revelation is a spiritual book written to believers. It is not easily understood, and certainly not without a willingness to adopt the perspective necessary to delve it's mysteries. Faith can be thought of as a perspective. It is a view of things, and some deeper aspects must be viewed with earlier more fundamental "views" in-hand.Think of it like math. You will have a hard time understanding the mathematical symbols of even algebra and certainly calculus, differential equations, etc,... without being taught them, and really hard if you don't know arithmatic yet.A good start is the context of the book. The book details an actual experience of John's, a vision, and is therefore the only exclusively "prophetic" book in the New Testament. By "prophetic", I mean in the same vein of writings of the Old Testament prophets.Without getting too much into it, prophecies can often have multiple fulfillments, or at least an early and a later one.One of the fulfillments was the blood of the martyrs being spilled by a new creature (new system) based on the old system (beast) that was fallen. The prophecies specifically speak of a harlot, which indicates a religious institution and spirit that corrupts and substitutes or masquerades as true religion, represented by the pure Bride.If that doesn't describe the rise of Roman Catholicism's merger with the Roman Empire, and it's intense political persecution, I don't know what does.That's one, but like I said, the book is probably not written nor intended to be understood by the non-believer.

I was just making sure that the original topic and issue was not "reframed" before it got off the ground. If I start a topic by asking "what did Gods word mean when He told Samuel to..." and you come along and say that the Biible is derived through human wisdom and not divine impartation, you are framing the issue from a non-believers standpoint. The whole point of my topic is to frame it from a believers standpoint. If you want to discuss human wisdom, start a new topic!

Well, the question seems addressed to all of us. It doesn't specify believers. Hence "Which of these models do you seem to apply to the Bible's God?" must needs be answered by some of us as, "neither".I'd think the OP should specify who is supposed to answer the question but this doesn't. Something along the lines of "I'm asking those of you who are Christians and believe in the inerrancy of the Bible ...",
Or "I'm asking Jews and Christians ... ".It's not clear what the implicit criteria the OP had and the default seems thus to be anyone reading the question.lfen

quote:

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Prophecy was the tool the priest used to control society.

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The OP originator should have specified he was talking to Christians if he didn't want other views.From a OT (Hebrew) viewpoint the questions are not applicable.
Message 9I haven't noticed anyone who has answered give any OT biblical support to their reasoning that prophecy functions as the OP suggests.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France