Re: Three Major Prophecies About Billy Graham's Death

I understand it's confusing. But that is why I told you that you need to study the other views if you are going to try to engage in any kind of debate about it. Otherwise, you aren't going to understand the other positions and will misrepresent them. And this goes for all the debates. It's time consuming to do this, so many won't do it, but it's just what it takes for any kind of worthwhile debate.

"I just can't keep it straight. Especially if you believe some things are literal and some are not."

But this is how the bible is written, both literally and figuratively. And even those who claim to be "bible literalists" all the way through, will still read certain scriptures figuratively if it suits their positions. My dad says he remembers getting a letter from the school when I was in kindergarten asking if you read the bible literally or figuratively. He said he was confused at first by the question and then he thought, "it's both!" The key is to figure out which scriptures are meant to be taken literal and which ones are to be taken figuratively by using the standard rules of biblical interpretation. But aside from that, can you imagine a school sending out a letter like that today, asking how you interpret the bible? :)

There is nothing wrong with referring to what happens when Jesus returns as "the rapture", other than that word now carries a lot of crazy false baggage with it, so if anyone uses that term now, they really need to define what they mean by it, otherwise many will think "the rapture" means the "Left Behind view" which is unfortunately a very common view.

"If there is no anti-christ at the end trying to make us take on a false religion or a mark of the beast, then what do I have to worry about?"

But there is. I do not believe this has been fulfilled yet:

7 When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, 8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. 9 And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

"the camp of the saints and the beloved city" I believe is figurative for "the universal church, all believers alive on the earth", and there is all kinds of biblical support for that.

As I have said before, I think that article I put up a while back made a good case about "the antichrist" being Satan himself and of course he works through people so we have therefore had many antichrists already and will continue to have many antichrists. I'm not dogmatic about that position and need to study it more but the article did make sense to me.





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