Dear Shari and Toby,
THE
TRUTH ABOUT RELIGION.
SEE ALSO – THE REST OF THE BIBLE
DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN CHURCH AND BIBLE
The truth about religion is different for every person. The reason it varies so widely is the expectation of physical results from the application of spiritual or logical laws or the opposite. Who says you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip?
Religion envelopes the following concepts:
-Where we, as mankind, are going?
The scale of religious study covers our whole universe (and others) and all of time (before it began and after it ends). All of man’s knowledge and understanding, regardless of the source, is applicable in this study. Many of the religious concepts cannot be proven with man’s current understanding and we are told that is where faith steps in. We are supposed to have faith that what someone is telling us is true. At one point in history we were unbelievers if we read the Bible to decide if what we are told is true. This was very convenient for those in charge doing the telling. A true understanding of religion can only be obtained by first understanding the physical occurrences and timeline of our world. Then apply known logic to fill in the missing pieces. Finally, stepping back and applying the spiritual concepts that have been provided will point in the direction to place our faith. The more complete our understanding of these concepts the stronger one’s faith becomes.
The abundant sharing of information over the internet has opened up access to documents and ideas not previously available to the average person only five years ago. The use of computers over the last twenty years has made studies possible that could not be done before. The results of my studies (and other’s) are being combined in this format for your convenience and hopefully point toward a direction for your faith and studies. These letters will focus mostly on the physical understanding of the questions above. As needed, the logical results will be pointed out. References supporting the conclusions will be provided. For your faith to be strong it will be necessary for you to understand and check these references. When you check these references, many conflicting opinions will surface. Please check all of these until you reach your own conclusions.
When it comes to establishing future dates in prophecies, people always quote Jesus that “no man knows the day or the hour” of his return. This was an expression known to the Jews representing the feast of the trumpets (Sept/Oct time frame). He was actually telling us which feast day he would be returning. Not only can the start of this feast day vary + more than one day for human and physical reasons but the orbit of the Earth may have changed at that time causing a variation in the calendar. We may not know the hour or the exact day but we can read in the Bible and pin it down to within + one year. Several scriptures tell us that people who earnestly study God’s word (making them wise in his ways) would understand when knowledge had increased to a necessary level. Daniel 12:4
Christ, as well as many other notable figures in other religions, knew the Earth was moving toward a natural disastrous event that would change life as we know it. He also knew the “approximate time” it would occur. He also knew that free will acts as a group could move that time and the points leading up to it by days or months. The future has not happened and can be affected by the choices we make. It is a probable future. Much information has been provided in the past and has been proven to be accurate. If information from these same knowledgeable sources can be trusted, we can expect the information about the future to be accurate. By studying the past, present and future prophecies we get a good understanding of how we as humans have developed and where we are headed as a group. Any guidance provided in this book is from the proven physical and mental (logical) viewpoint. Spiritual guidance is for you to develop from your understanding as you progress through the material.
In the past, prophets have channeled guidance predicting future events and this guidance was recorded as prophecy in spiritual works such as the Bible. The knowledge from these outside sources provides guidance in how to live our lives. Man takes this guidance, forms rules from it, tries to apply it blindly to all situations, forms a religion from it and tries to coerce others to follow what he thinks is correct. This section on religion is not intended to tell you which rules to follow but to provide as much information as possible and let you make the decisions necessary for your life. The answers to questions; where do we come from, what do we do now and where are we going; will not be stated. You will need to study the information and references to find your answers. This book is not written to tell you how to live but to make it easier to find and study the most reliable information available. The choices you make will determine how you live.
FROM TIM MCHYDE’S “KNOW TH FUTURE”
What's another example of these days that Revelation describes the fulfillment of? One is found in a commonly misquoted and difficult saying of Jesus that must be covered next.
Many Christians have come to believe that “no man knows the day or the hour” about any prophetic event in the future. They believe that we are not supposed to understand prophecy until after it happens. They therefore believe that studying prophecy is a waste of time and tend to stay away from it. In other words, Christians generally understand that when Jesus said “no man knows the day or the hour” it was meant to discourage us from trying to know anything about the future, even if our reason is to be better informed for planning our lives. This belief in tandem with the confusion we touched on already explains why Christians have little understanding of God's prophetic plan.
So to assist in breaking through this paralyzing paradigm, let me pose a few questions about this limitation from understanding future timings that Jesus supposedly communicated:
Have you ever noticed that he phrased it in a very odd specific way: “day or hour” instead of “time” or simply “day”?
Do you know what specific event Jesus was talking about that “no man knows” this about?
What about Daniel and Revelation which give day counts of 1260, 1290 and 1335 days from one event to the next? Clearly, when you see the starting point event you can count and know the day of the ending point event, as well.
Why does Daniel 12 says that “the wise would understand” Daniel's prophecies (including those very day counts in the same chapter) in the time of the end—our time?
When Revelation 1:1 says it is written to show God's servants what will come to pass, does that mean everything except the timings given all over the place in 42 months, 1260 days, time, times, and half a time, etc.?
The solution to the apparent contradictions raised above comes through realizing that Jesus' statement is a Hebrew idiom. It is another one of those “difficult words of Jesus” that you have heard of. These sayings are difficult usually because readers today are unfamiliar with their cultural and historical context. In this case, the Jews of that day referred to the Feast of Trumpets as the “feast of the unknown day and hour.”
Jesus used that idiom in the Olivet Discourse in the context of talking about the day of his angels coming to rapture God's servants to heaven. It even says a few verses earlier that this gathering will happen with the sound of a great trumpet (Matthew 24:36, 31)! The reason the Jews referred to it as the feast of the “unknown day and hour” was that it was the only one of their holy days that came on the first day of the Biblical month.
Why is this significant? Because, as explained above, in Jesus' day the Biblical calendar months still were reckoned by the first visible crescent of the moon which could appear either on the 29th or 30th day of the current month. So, the new month began on the evening that the first sliver of the new crescent moon became visible (Biblical days begin at sunset, not midnight). Their system was to wait for two witnesses of the new moon before declaring a new month on the 29th instead of the 30th (just as the Two Witnesses will do upon their resurrection -Rev 11:12).
Yet even with today's technology, we cannot predict with 100% accuracy at what moment the first day of the new Biblical month will begin. Weather and atmospheric conditions are just too variable to predict if two sets of human eyes will be able to spot that dim sliver of the new moon. Therefore the one holy day that falls on the first day of the lunar month is still the “feast that no man knows the day and hour of.”
So you can see now that Jesus was not discouraging us from studying prophecy to know the timing of events in advance at all. He was actually confirming the specific day of the rapture as the Feast of Trumpets, the only festival that falls on the 1st day of the month!
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. A. Einstein
RELIGION.HTM
6/22/2017