From: ceb@dbrus.unify.com (Caroline E. Bryan)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: ARMAGEDDON NOW!
Date: 10 Apr 92 03:37:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: dumas.Apr.9.23.37.17.1992.25255
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organization

In article <Apr.8.04.38.07.1992.28176@dumas.rutgers.edu> sl@ccd.harris.com (Scott Linn) writes:
>-- 
>     I originally posted this to alt.messianic.  I post it 
>here in response to the question about the nearness of the
>"End Times."

( review of "premilleniaran" book deleted )

Sorry to inject a historical note in here, but if I remember my biography of
Albrecht Duerer right, lots and lots of otherwise level-headed people were
convinced that Jesus's Second Coming would be in 1000 A.D., too.  Every last
one of them turned out to be wrong.  I suspect that the current bunch of
"prophets" will have the same batting average, for two reasons.

1.  There's no guarantee that God counts in thousands, or uses anything like
the same numbering system we do.  Maybe He counts in 1992's!  Or, since it
seems pretty likely now that Jesus was born around 4 B.C. (or was it 7, or
2?), maybe if Armageddon is scheduled for Birth +2000, it will be in 1996
(or 1993, or 1998)!  Or maybe Armageddon is scheduled for Crucifixion +2000,
or 2028 (or 2025, or 2030).  On the other hand, God is eternal and lives in
eternity, which is a place that has no time at all.  So it's more likely that
it won't be a year with a nice even number on it, or a length of time that is
nice and even, according to human temporal culture.  In fact, if His "day"
hasn't changed since Genesis, and 6 days is worth about 4 billion years (the
geological age of the planet), then considering that Jesus told his disciples
that some of them would still be living to see Armageddon, a possibly more
reasonable prediction would be sometime within 70 years after Jesus's death,
figured as God figures time.  At roughly 666,666,666.7 earthly years to the
celestial day, 70 celestial years comes out to about 17 trillion 45 billion
earthly years.  One would hope the human race could get its act together long
before then, but maybe Jesus knew whereof He spoke.

2.  Jesus also says that "no man shall know the day nor the hour", that He
Himself doesn't know when He will return, only the Father knows.  I take that
to mean that every single prophecy of Armageddon is by definition wrong.
Let's say God decides (in defiance of point 1) that Armageddon will be on
Good Friday, 3 PM Jerusalem time, 2000 A.D.  Some human (like me, just now)
comes up with a prediction that that date and time is "the day (and) the
hour".  To conform with what He Himself said, He changes the schedule, making
me wrong and leaving the day and the hour still unknown.

(My church celebrates His return on April 19, 1992, BTW.  The RCC teaches,
among other things, that we should all live as if He were to arrive tomorrow.
Doesn't leave much room for slacking off until the last minute and then
cleaning up our acts in the nick of time.  Why are people so obsessed with
determining this date, if they don't have that kind of behavior in mind?)


Carrie		ceb@dbrus.unify.com	x6244
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