April 8, 2014 by laurelanthenat

The Harbinger Fraud

Isaiah 9 was a Harbinger for Israel

not The United States of America

A harbinger is a warning given ahead of time. Jonathan Cahn, A self styled Messianic Rabbi, published his out of context theory in 2012, eleven years after it supposedly took place. So, it is hardly a real harbinger.

There is also no hermeneutical reason for Mr. Cahn claiming that Isaiah 9-12 is a prophecy about The United States of America. These Isaiah warnings were clearly a prophecy given to Jacob.

The view that reflects this kind of thinking is a much disparaged, ego-centric hermeneutic. Insert your time, your people or your place on the basis that you feel that you are too important not to be in the Bible. Cahn’s making it about America, because a few trees died on 9-11, is absurd.

We can draw a general typology from the Old Testament, in that the ancient people of Israel were unfaithful to God and were judged. Therefore, the church, that has also largely been unfaithful to God, will also face judgment. Continue reading →

February 14, 2014 by laurelanthenat

Symbolism in Icon Paintings

Ever wonder about all those symbolic things in Roman Catholic icon paintings? Here is a nice article that explains some of them.

Of the lilies it says “Though there are some differences in interpretation, the stem of the lily is thought to symbolize Mary’s religiously faithful mind, the petals her purity and virginity, the scent of the flower her divinity, and the leaves her humility.”

A Comparison of Two Madonna Paintings by Bouguereau

William Bouguereau’s “Virgin of the Lilies” versus “Madonna of the Roses” By Kara Lysandra Ross | January 22, 2014

February 12, 2014 by laurelanthenat

Weeping Idol

It is shocking that people in this day and age still fall for this kind of fraud.

What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For the workman trusts in his own creation when he makes dumb idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a dumb stone, Arise! Can this give revelation? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. Hab. 2:18 -19

Hundreds flock to ‘weeping’ Mary statue in Israel

This article claims these people are Christians, however they are clearly Roman Catholics.

February 5, 2014 by laurelanthenat

IHOP – the International House of Prayer

A Very Clever Counterfeit

It is bad enough that we have to combat TBN as it preys on lonely widows, now we have a group preying on the young.

For more information see Link

The PASSION of the PRESENCE

& the Purpose of the Passion

Yes, you can have an ecstatic relationship with God. That is what our Song of Songs blog is trying to teach. But you cannot get there by using pagan meditations techniques, visualization, and hypnotism as your method, this is what the Bible calls sorcery.

Real ecstasy comes from long in-depth study of the Word of God. If we want the intimacy, like any relationship, we must work for it.

Apostasy comes from the neglect of a plan reading of the Bible. These predators would stand no chance of deceiving anyone if all were eel versed in the Bible. However the foolish and ignorant are easy prey.

I have laid up thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psa. 119:11

January 28, 2014 by laurelanthenat

Ancient Aliens

Cyrus the Great

The Ancient Aliens TV series is one of the greatest examples of ignorance run wild in postmodern times. None of these so-called experts have ever read a single book, article, or report from actual archeologist or comparative religion experts.

They look at some ancient painting, carving, or stele with no understanding of what the artist might have been trying to communicate and conclude “ALIENS”. It is absolutely absurd. If it weren’t for the fact that we meet people who believe them, the whole thing would be funny.

They believe that no human ever invented or discovered anything without the help of these elusive aliens.

However, instead of spending a lot of time explaining all these paintings carvings, and steles we have found two wonderful sites that have already done the work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H2-BawRLGw&feature=share

January 7, 2014 by laurelanthenat

Musings on H. Grattan Guinness’ Round Chart called “The Year of Messianic Cycles.”

Nearly everyone in the Historicist world is familiar with this Round Chart. If you have not seen the chart, we have provided it and the chapter it came from.

Initially this chart made little since to me it was just a bunch of boxes in a circle. However several years ago I began to play with this chart and started to see things that I am not sure Mr. Guinness understood.

One of the problems I had with the chart is that I just don’t identify the Hebrew months by their numbers. As a Messianic I am used to using their names, Nissan, Iyar, Sivan , etc. So I made a photo copy I could write on and wrote the names of the months in. Then I saw the first WOW. The crucifixion was early in Av on this scale. If you are not Jewish or Messianic /Hebrew Roots you probably have never heard of Av, or the Ninth of Av.

Tisha B’Av i.e. the ninth of Av (July or August on the Gregorian calendar). Is one of the most solemn days on the calendar. It is a fast. According to the Mishnah [Taanit 4:6] there are five great calamities have all fallen on this day.

1. The return of the 12 spies, [Num 13–14]

2. The destruction of Solomon’s Temple, [2 Kings 25:8 -12]

3. The destruction of Herod’s temple, in 69 A.D. [Matt 24]

4. The razing of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D.

5. The failure of The Second Jewish revolt, or The Bar Kochba Rebellion.

So on the scale of this round chart Messiah went to the cross around Tisha B’Av. The same day that both Nebuchadnezzar and Titus destroyed the temple.

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19

Dates

The first thing everybody notices is that Mr. Guinness thought was that the Return of the Lord would be in 1920, where Rosh Hashana i.e. Feast of Trumpets appears on the chart. We now know the event that happened was the Allied forces under British general Allenby liberated Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks in Dec 9, 1919. (Three weeks early is not a real problem on a chart of this length.)

This naturally made me look at the other holy days and special days of the Hebrew calendar on this scale.

Passover would have been about the time of Noah.

Pentecost/Shavuot would have been about the time of Abraham.

We already mentioned Tisha B’Av.

So the next Holy Day is Yom Kippur and that should be the year 2256.

Tabernacle/Sukkot in 2391

Simchat Torah in 2655

Do I have a point? No, not really, I just thought that it was interesting that all the past holy days can be placed on the chart, at significant points. So the ones that are still future probably have an event as well.

Hebrew Calendar

November 26, 2013 by laurelanthenat

Captivity captive

This is a really odd verse in the KJV. Other translations have since made the verse more readable. However, in doing so people no longer notice the weird verse and no longer ask why or what is this verse about. So, only the Greek readers notice the language.

Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Eph. 4:8KJV

Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” Eph. 4:8 RSV

Once noticed, it is easy to recognize that it is a quote from Psalms 68. All the goofy ideas disappear, as one realizes the context is a resurrection/restoration passage.

Thou didst ascend the high mount, leading captives in thy train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there. Psa. 68:18

Captivity captive, or Shevut shevu, is a phrase that is frequent in both the Hebrew Old Testament. In the Greek New Testament it is echmaloteusen, aichmalosian. It is like a double negative in English, where the result is a positive. The captives will be re-captives back to where they came from.

The ancient custom of taking your enemies captive seems a little strange to us. The United State of America hasn’t done it since WW2. We interned people of Japanese descent, and of course we still have Native-American reservations. But, this was common throughout history, as relocated people are less violent. Shortly after captivity, they exhibit what we now call Stockholm Syndrome, where captives identify with their captors more than their own people.

“If they sin against thee — for there is no man who does not sin — and thou art angry with them, and dost give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; yet if they lay it to heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to thee in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have acted perversely and wickedly’; 1Kings 8:46-47

For the Edomites had again invaded and defeated Judah, and carried away captives. 2 Chr. 28:17

“Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak, lead away your captives, O son of Abino-am. Judg. 5:12

The Lord said that captivity would be their punishment if the people did not keep their promise to follow God, and only God [Lev 26]. But, even there the captivity is stated to last for only 2520 years, a.k.a. the Full Times of the Gentiles, The Seven Times Captivity. After this time, the Lord would restore, i.e. take captivity, captive.

However, when the Jews came out of captivity in the Exodus they chose to return to it through their own rebellion. The Gentiles had always been in captivity. They never understood, nor will, of the liberty of faith in the One True God. Their pagan holidays and festivals were evil sexual extravaganzas that sometimes even included human sacrifices. In their superstition the common people were at the mercy of the pagan priests and priestesses who reported (made up) what the gods had said.

God, through Moses and Aaron, told Pharaoh to let His people go free so that they could come out of Egypt to worship Him.

In the same way Gentiles were to come out of their paganism to worship God, just as the children of Israel had come out of Egypt. Messiah did not come to the Gentiles as whole nations. One by one, Messiah comes and takes us “captivity captive.” We are returned even though we never knew we were lost. We never knew we belonged.

“Wherefore he saith, “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men”. Eph. 4:8KJV

October 23, 2013 by laurelanthenat

The Effects of Futurism

Recently, we acquired some old books on prophecy from the internet. They are listed and linked to in the Bibliography.

One of them had an interesting statement on the effect that Futurism would have on the church.

Now, if the theories of these writers are entirely groundless, the effects of their error may prove extremely fatal to the Church. The strongest bulwark against the revived zeal of the Romish Church will have been taken away when it is most needed; and the danger of a renewed apostasy will have been fearfully increased, at the time when its guilt would be most aggravated, and its punishment most speedy and sure. A spirit of feverish and skeptical doubt, the most fatal to real progress in divine truth, will have been injected, without warrant, into the minds of thousands; the light which the word of God has thrown, for the benefit of the Church, on behalf of the whole period of her history will have been quenched in darkness; and her hopes for the future, by a perplexed and fallacious application of irrelevant prophecies, be involved in a chaos of fanciful conjecture and inextricable confusion. First Elements of Sacred Prophecy by Rev T.R. Birks, page 2, London 1853

He seems to have had the foresight on our present church worldview quite accurately. We have gone from the crazy notion of a rapture, which is what they were teaching in Birks’ day, to the hoax of Blood Moons. Once you deconstruct what prophecy means into what one imagines it means, all the extravagantly concocted spurious errors become doctrine. This lunacy of errors has blinded many a believer into staying babies, continually feeding on the “milk” of the Word. They have been convinced that they cannot read the Bible for themselves. For they do not test what their spiritual leaders claim is in the Text. If they did, they would be throwing many spiritual leaders out. They come to the erroneous conclusion that it is they who cannot understand prophecy and they are stupid.

We are here to tell the congregation of the Lord. YOU ARE NOT STUPID! These things are not in Scripture. There is no rapture, seven-year tribulation, or political antichrist in the Bible.

Whether they are misinformed on their own, or they are following some other teacher they have not checked out. They are making it up. The story they tell is a scary one, and because scared people put more money in the collection plate there is no reason for them to stop. They are seeking followers and financial gain over the sure word of prophecy.

October 8, 2013 by laurelanthenat

Hosea 14 – The Ten Lost Tribes

The promiss of a return is in Hosea 14.

1 Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. 2 Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him, “Take away all iniquity; accept that which is good and we will render the fruit of our lips. 3 Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. In thee the orphan finds mercy.”

God’s call to “Return” is in the continual tense in the Hebrew. Meaning that He never gives up on this call to return to Him [Song 6:13]. However their “stumble” is over and done. They had stumbled into the worship of the work of their hands i.e. idols. It is not a permanent condition they just need to pick themselves up and start walking back.

Continue reading →

September 10, 2013 by laurelanthenat

The Promise of the Third Temple?

The Prophecy from Amos.

11 “In that day I will raise up

the booth of David that is fallen

and repair its breaches,

and raise up its ruins,

and rebuild it as in the days of old;

12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom

and all the nations who are called by my name,”

says the LORD who does this. Amos 9:11-12

The same promise is also in Isaiah.

5 then a throne will be established in steadfast love

and on it will sit in faithfulness

in the tent of David

one who judges and seeks justice

and is swift to do righteousness.” Is. 16:5 Continue reading →

Israel & The Church in the Last Days

The Historicist View of Prophecy