GoldStar

Billy Graham Open Secret Alliances This may Ruffle some feathers, but let the chips fall where they may...

I would be curious to know which of the analogies I cited you would not consider legitimately comparable, and your reasons why, just to understand your reasoning process if you don't mind sharing that

Hi Chockfull, I think you make a good point there, it reminds me also of how that situation of a 'closed society' is similar also to Washington, D.C., or the Vatican in Rome, Branch Davidians in Waco, Hollywood, maybe even the International Space Station, where a woman astronaut was recently celebrated for (supposedly) spending 666 consecutive days in space, a number which is very interesting... But there are sometimes good reasons (e.g., economical) why people live in close proximity, but maybe the other side of the coin is an unintended consequence. Remember the news story recently about the family with I think 13 kids living secluded in a house in a normal residential area...

Chockfull, if you had been with him 24 hours a day for years, I would say that you would be pretty safe in drawing that contrast, otherswise, it is pure speculation But even if it were true that BG was always faithful to his wife (an admirable thing), there is evidence that he was involved in other things that are much worse than being a plagiarizing drunkard adulterer, but no one has mentioned the worse things in this thread as far as I know, and I am not satisfied with the source I have, so I am waiting to find a more definitive source or at least multiple corroborating sources before I post it

Ok, you got me back lol, glad we can have a little fun here But did you mean literal grammar Nazi, or figurative grammar Nazi. I do Nazi which one exactly you are referring to

HI Chockfull, I appreciate the TImothy verse, but John 17:3 where Jesus Christ himself declares that his Father is the only true God is the simplest and most compelling verse, but this verse in Timothy goes right along with the other ones I posted, thanks for reminding me of that one But I didn't refer to anyone's verses except for BIble verses: I apologize but I am not sure what are the other point(s) you are trying to make with the rest of the text in that post I have had conversations with Mike and he did very clearly tell me about how he holds up the 'Doctor's" publications as very full of truth, even above the Bible, but I told him I certainly do not agree with that, the Bible is my first and last source, and I look at other sources in between to help me understand certain things For example the Greek word transliterated 'pascha' is translated 28 times in the new testatment as Passover, but one time in Acts 12:4, 'pascha' is translated as Easter, which is incorrect, but that distinction is not found in the Bible itself, so a Greek concordance helped me understand that truth

Wait, listen, what's that sound? Antifundamentalism comin' 'round gonna try to take the Fun around out of Fun-damentalism found

Chockfull, I agree with you on this (except it's Revelation, not Revelations): But I have to disagree with you on this: It was John, not Paul...or George or Ringo....sorry, couldn't resist, just for Fun damental reasons: Rev 1:1 - "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:" "Fun damentalism hath its benefits, chiefly amongst them is accuracy of truth..." ~ author unknown

One can prove it to be conclusively false very easily when reviewing the clear sacred scriptures of the creator as provided above along with sound reasoning based on truth and logic But one could conclude the trinity to be true if they follow the opinions of people who follow the easily-provable false doctrines of the false religion that at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. invented the false doctrine of the trinity (historically documented), and which also teaches that Mary is the mother of God (apparently a single mom since they remain mum on the existence of a father of God), and which has also had to pay over $5,000,000,000 BILLION DOLLARS (see legal records) to settle lawsuits from men who when they were innocent little boys were sexually abused by non-heterosexual predator pedophile priests of said false religion (see court records). That's how

Thanks Chockfull, I wish I had your confidence in order to make statements similar to those, but my thinking is that multi-millions of dollars can hide many things as we all know by now But the "there's worse about him" that I mentioned previously has not been touched on by any comments here, I may post the source I have already but was waiting till I found a more complete source of proof, but research takes time What could this have to do with it?: "their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage."

No, not that, it's something much worse...

You are very welcome Grace, thank you for taking the time to read my posts, sometimes I do not have the time to keep re-editing them down to the most essential information so it sounds like I am rambling and I feel bad about that, but it is a lot of work to edit it down to the essentials, I try to do the best I can. I include the scripture references and sometimes the entire scripture itself to save people the time of having to look them up themselves, but I recommend looking them up yourself because you make it your own that way I always try to use the clearest verses so that there is very little wiggle room, and if you look at comments on my posts, there are few times when others respond with scriptures, because I try to present an airtight case with clear scriptures It's hard to argue against clear scriptures and sound reasoning Again, thank you for your kind words, they are very much appreciated

Thank you Grace, I appreciate your kind words, I try to post interesting, informative content, it's nice to be appreciated, thank you

Exactly why I brought this side of the story into this thread Grace Now everybody knows Was he a great preacher - emphatically yes! Was he a great Christian - emphatically no! And there's worse about him, just keep digging, it'll come out

The Truth about The Trinity I see alot of discussion back and forth about the Trinity, but very few scriptures backing up points of view, so I offer this: The top 2 authorities that God sent to represent Him in the New Testament were Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul Both of them stated very clearly that the Father is the only God Jesus said it more clearly, in John 17:1, Jesus Christ is speaking out loud and directly addresses his Father, and in verse 3, Jesus says: "And this is life eternal that they might know thee, THE ONLY TRUE GOD." So in this verse, Jesus Christ is clearly declaring that his Father is THE ONLY TRUE GOD. That pretty much leaves out anyone else being God. - Jesus is not God - the holy spirit (the gift of eternal life from God) is not God - Jesus Christ's Father is the only true God. The Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 8:6 ~ "...but to us, there is BUT ONE GOD, THE FATHER..." Very clear. The Trinity is best summarized in the following statement: "God the Father, God the Son, God the holy spirit" - The word 'Trinity' is not anywhere in the Bible - The phrase 'God the Son' is not found anywhere in the Bible - The phrase 'God the holy spirit" is not found anywhere in the Bible The Trinity is not a Biblical doctrine The Trinity is not a Christian doctrine The Trinity is a false doctrine Yes there are verses that seem to imply that Jesus is God, but those verses are either figures of speech or unclear. But those figures and unclear verses do not negate the very clear verses that very clearly say that Jesus Christ's Father is THE ONLY TRUE GOD. The other verses only throw shade, but they do not eclipse the clear verses. The unclear verses must fit together with the clear verses, because they are all the word of God, and God is not the author of confusion. ###

Infoabsorption, Don't feel like the lone ranger, I also have a tendency to sometimes instantly want to come to a conclusion about what something means when I first read a scripture, but I usually wait before accepting my own first impression until I have a chance to look at it more critically, and compare it with other related scriptures and other people's ideas about whatever the subject matter is In the Rev 22:2 tree issue, I have looked at it critically, and don't see even the slightest hint pointing to it being figurative as I wrote earlier, but as I mentioned, I am open to looking at any scriptural proofs or logical arguments that would prove that it is figurative, just don't see anything pointing to that. About 'nations': I looked up the Greek 'ethnos': In the New Testament there are these verses where the word nation (Greek 'ethnos') refers to Jews: John 18:35 "Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?" Acts 10:22 And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews" (GoldStar added the following words in all-capital letters to make words stand out, not to indicate yelling ok): Infoabsorption wrote: "I looked at the Greek interlinear on Rev. 22:2 and the "nations" in the Greek is "ethnos" which is referring to Gentiles http://biblehub.com/greek/1484.htm (as distinct from ISRAEL)." 1484 éthnos (from ethō, "forming a custom, culture") – properly, people joined by practicing similar customs or common culture; nation(s), USUALLY referring to unbelieving Gentiles (non-JEWS). I'm not an expert on this particular point > but I do believe that the Jews came from the tribe of Judah, which is only one of the 12 tribes of Israel There's still work to do... But this BibleHub reference that you provided does point towards the argument that I made that the Revelation 22.2 word NATIONS ("leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations") is referring to NON-CHRISTANS...

Like I said Infoabsorption, I'll be glad to look at any solid arguments for your case, and I will do further study on nations in Rev 22, but my reasoning in my initial post is rock solid and peppered with scriptures documenting, though not an exhaustive study, is much more solid than the figurative tree view But show me the money, not the promissary note please

Infoadsorption, I see you still want to try and sneak symbolic meanings into Rev 22............lol Ok we all have our beliefs.....I already made a very solid case that the tree is literal, not symbolic, earlier in this thread, so no need to repeat it here, except to say that every baker's dozen of donuts is not necessarily secretly symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel, it's a stretch with nothing else in the chapter pointing to the tree being symbolic in Rev 22, the context of which is the other chapters of Revelation If I have some time I may post more specific info about the nations Cheers

It is a very interesting discussion without the combative conflict-baiting commenters who continually create conflict and then try to blame it on the poster - Done with this conflict-baiting commenter who is completely off-topic, saying nothing at all about the topic or content of the post but only complains to create conflict. Unprofitable.

I used the same language that Twinky used and took the time to answer Twinky's question so to quote Twinky from another comment to me: "what are you complaining about??"

You need to read more carefully Twinky Both groups of people, Christians, and also non-Christians (who apparently according to Rev 22:2 will be allowed to live on the new earth), both groups have physical bodies. But as I clearly stated and documented from scriptures (see scriptues I posted) in my initial post, the physical bodies of the Christians in the new heaven, which are their earthly, natural bodies glorified to be physical bodies just like Jesus Christ's body after he was raised from the dead (Luke 24:39). The Christian's glorified, physical body is the spiritual body referred to in 1 Corinthians 15:44 ~ "there is a natural body, and a spiritual body". The spiritual body is not a spirit (Luke 24:39). It is logical that the glorified, spiritual body of the Christians will not decay or get sick or die. They are eternal, and healthy, in nature. Stands to reason. The scripture in Rev 22.2 points to the idea that there is a different 'Salvation' for 'the nations' that apparently do not have glorified, spiritual bodies like Christians will have (see verses I quoted) Apparently the 'nations' in this verse refers to non-Christians. True Christians (those who have received the holy spirit because of believing in Jesus Christ) WILL have glorified, spiritual bodies, which have eternal life, and logically will not get sick or decay and not need the leaves of the tree for healling The other people who did not have a chance to receive the holy spirit for whatever reason, and thus do not have their natural bodies glorified into perfect spiritual bodies that have eternal life because of not receiving the holy spirit for whatever reason, even though they did not commit sins worthy of eternal danmation, those people are apparently allowed a different 'Salvation' different from Christians' Salvation of eternal life in glorified, spiritual bodies and being children of God by being born again Those other people will apparently according to Rev 22:2 be allowed to live on the new earth, but apparently in non-glorified natural bodies similar to the ones we have now, and those natural bodies will also get sick and decay, and will need the leaves of the tree for healing, which Christians will not need This short scripture in Rev 22:2 is not well known but opens the door to explain what happens to all the people who did not have a chance to be born again for whatever reason It is not reasonable to believe that all those people (probably in the billions) will automatically be damned to eternal damnation just because they didn't have a chance to receive the holy spirit by believing in Jesus Christ for whatever reason God can be cruel at times, but to just cast millions and millions of people into damnation because they lived at a time when receiving the holy spirit was not available yet, or because they lived in a place where it was not possible to hear the gospel of Salvation and believe in Jesus Christ does not reflect God's just nature, which is huge and loving and righteous

Infoabsorption, I agree that there are clearly figurative uses of the word 'tree' in the Bible, for example in the verses you refer to. But content of those verses do not show any relation at all to the tree in Rev 22:2 So for example if I told you that I used to have a swing on a tree when I was a kid, and you told me that you also used to have a swing on a tree when you were a kid, that coincidence does not automatically create any relationship between those two trees with swings. Unless upon further discussion we realized that we both happened to live in the same exact home at different times and we then realized that we actually had swung on the same exact swing but at different times. That would create a relationship between the two swings that we had talked about. They were actually the same swing, unless whoever lived there later had replaced the first swing with a new one due to wear and tear on the first swing. But we still could have determined that the tree was the exact same tree, a very large oak tree 50 feet straight south from the back door of the house. So the fact that there are other verses that use the word 'tree' in a figurative way does not automatically mean that the word 'tree' is figurative in Rev 22.2, especially when the content of those other verses has no relation to the content in Rev 22.2. I agree that the tree could very well be a literal tree, and the evidence that we have looked at so far clearly points to that it is a literal tree. I am open to any other information you may have that might point to the tree in Rev 22:2 being purely symbolic, but until I see such information, the evidence and logic that we have looked at so far, clearly point to the tree being a literal tree. WIthout any definitive proofs to the contrary, believing that the tree is symbolic is pure speculation based upon personal preferences. I am open to looking at any other proofs you may provide. == == == == == Regarding your last statement in your last post: "...I see the events recorded in Revelation occurring shortly after it was written..." There are many things recorded in Revelation, including Rev 21 where it talks about "...the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven..." which have clearly not happened So the statement "I see the events recorded in Revelation occurring shortly after it was written..." is overly broad and easily proven to be an incorrect statement Of course if you meant to say that SOME things in Revelation occurred shortly after Revelation was written, that is different, but that is not what that statement says Just to let you know, I am enjoying this conversation with you and am happy to read any arguments that are soundly backed up with clear scriptural evidence, but unfortunately due to time limitations, I do not debate many arguments that are not backed up with clear scriptural evidence There is no limit to speculative ideas and wild goose chases I follow the advice in 1 Timothy 1:4 neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.

Infoabsorption, thank you for contributing a meaningfully to the conversation, it is refreshing to see that instead of someone just throwing meaningless criticisms like rocks just trying to draw attention to themselves because they have nothing intelligent to contribute to the conversation Without doing a comprehensive study, at first reading of Rev 22, I do not see much figurative symbolism, one is the word "Lamb", which I think most people familiar with the Bible would immediately recognize that as a symbolic reference to Jesus Christ, not a literal lamb animal. To see a better example of figurative symbolism, if we look a few chapters back at Revelation 17, where in verse 3 it refers to "a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast....having seven heads and ten horns", I think most people would also immediately think that the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns is not a literal beast but a figurative one, like a mythological beast. In addition Rev 17:7 says "And the angel said unto me....I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns," then in verse 9, the angel says "And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth." And in verse 12, the angel says "And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings". And in verse 18, the angel says "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." So in Revelation 17, the unusual figures of speech (beast with 7 heads and ten horns) are explained in the text of the same chapter itself, so we know, the seven heads, and the ten horns are figures. And even the woman, who could be a literal woman, is explained to be a symbolic figure actually referring to a city. As we know, the Bible contains both literal and figurative speech, and there are certain ways to know whether what one is reading is either literal or figurative. Sometimes it is easy like in Rev 17 where we are told what is figurative and what the figures actually refer to. In normal communications, the majority of things spoken are literal, for example, if are at home with your wife for the weekend and it has been raining all weekend and your backyard is flooded again like it has been many times before when it rained and it looks like a swamp again and your wife is looking out the patio glass door at the flooded backyard and says to you, "We're gonna have to drain the swamp again," she is most likely literally referring to the flooded backyard, and not to the crooked politicians in Washington. If Trump is on TV and says "We need to drain the swamp," he is most likely talking about the politicians in Washington and not to your flooded backyard, unless he is there at your house looking at your flooded backyard through your glass patio door. Then you might need to ask him to clarify which swamp he is referring to. Context is a reference point that helps us know if language is literal or figurative. Familiar figures of speech are usually understood immediately for example when your friend says: "Hi Fred, how's your better half," or he says "When you gonna buy some new wheels?," or "Wow, you flew out of that room when you left..." All familiar figures of speech. You probably know what each one of those mean, even though we have never met, and this is the first time we have ever talked. When less familiar figures of speech are used, for example the Rev 17 beast with 7 heads and 10 horns, or for example if someone were to say something unusual like "Man, that's like a hippopotamus flying a refrigerator!", since I just made it up and it is not in common usage, it would probably require an explanation of what it means. A person who is familiar with the Bible would immediately recognize the Lamb of Rev 22:2 to be a figure of speech referring to Jesus Christ and not a literal lamb, but to a person not familiar with the Bible, they might need to have it explained. Back to Rev 22:2, the river and tree and leaves appear to be literal, because there is nothing in the chapter explaining those common things to be symbolic figures like the explanations in Rev 17. And also, there is nothing unsual said about those very normal things, like the river having eyes, or the tree having seven heads, or the leaves having horns. We can speculate that those common words (river, tree, leaves) mean this or that, but that is pure speculation. There is no reference in that chapter to those normal things being symbolic references to other things. The most reasonable understanding is that they are just a river and a tree and leaves, but the leaves are used for healing of the nations (people), just as many natural substances have been used for healing on earth for thousands of years, for example aspirin (from Spireaea, a biological genus of shrubs that includes natural sources of the drug's key ingredient, salicylic acid, which resembles what is in modern-day aspirin, which can be found in jasmine, beans, peas, clover, and certains grasses and trees.) I would be very interested in hearing what it is that leads you believe that the tree and leaves are not literal but figurative. Rev 22:2 says "the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations", no mention in that verse of eating the fruit of the tree. The leaves are used for healing, as many substances found in nature have been used for healing on earth for thousands of years. ---------------------------- As far as Rev 22:10 which only says "And he (the angel) saith unto me, SEAL NOT the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand." If we compare it to a similar verse, Revelation 10:4 which says: "And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I WAS ABOUT TO WRITE: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, SEAL UP (as in my lips are sealed) THOSE THINGS which the seven thunders uttered, AND WRITE THEM NOT." So SEAL UP seems to mean DON'T WRITE IT - Rev 22:10 And SEAL NOT seems to mean WRITE IT - Rev 10:4 So John must have written what he was told to SEAL NOT So Rev 22:10, although at first glance it seems to be a mysterious statement, once it is compared with Rev 10:4, it seems to be nothing more than a fancy way of saying 'don't write it'.

Thank you WordWolf, I would like to hear your thoughts on this subject

I like that one Twinky