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5.0 out of 5 stars
In The Year of Our Lord!, March 17, 2007
This review is from: The Merciful God of Prophecy: His Loving Plan for You in the End Times (Library Binding)
First I must indicate, I was upset that at times throughout the book in most cases "Him", "He", and "His" with regard to God and/or Jesus was not capitalized. The capitalization was implanted before I as a child, learned to appreciate what was written for me-- The Good News!
".. and when the time came for the church to take its place in history, with whom did Jesus begin? He started with twelve uneducated men. I would never have used a group like that to found anything that I wanted to last forever..." [Page 137.] The last sentence with regard to the UNEDUCATED surely bothered me.
Since these are the only negative words that I can say for this book, let us examine what was the main thrusts of the book by starting with turning to Page 33: "I think God wanted, once and for all, to show his superiority over the false gods of paganism. He knew that one of the best ways to prove his superiority would be to contrast his brand of prophecy with that of the most gifted magicians, enchanters, sorcers, and astrologers that Babylon had to offer(much as did in the great contest between Elijah and the false prophets of Baal).
Who really knew what lay ahead? God, or the false gods of Babylon? Why not pit the best the pagan world had to offer against a true prophet of God?"
Corrie Ten Boom said "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." [Pg. 200].
"And yet, somehow, men and women throughout history choose to abandon the sure Word of God and cling to the fantasies and lies of lesser authorities. Even ancient Israel made this tragic error." [Page 32.]
Page 41 : "God's prophecies remain infinitely superior to those in the Sun or the Enquirer or to the predictions of any merely human psychic, seer, medium, astrologer, fortune-teller, tarot card reader, or any other false prophet."
Page 30: Regarding 9-11-2001: "If these psychics could really see the future, I reasoned, at least ONE of them should have hinted at the disaster..."
Man's prophecies that have come true -- zero/ versus God, five hundred have already come to pass and another equal amount, yet to come.
Page 31 :"But if you really want to know what the future holds, why go to men and women with such atrocious track records? Why not go to somebody who really knows the future, someone who has publicly uttered no fewer than a thousand predictions... with an accuracy rate to date of 100 percent."
Corrie Ten Boom said "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." [Pg. 200].
"Truly you are a God who hides himself." (45:15 NIV) [Page 46], but nay, that is not so, and our author indicates this wholeheartedly throughout his treatise.
"Our loving Lord describes enough of the wonders to come to entice us into making a decision to experience these wonders for ourselves. Yet he does not reveal the best; this he saves for later." [Page 45.]
"I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God...You are my witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one."(Isa. 44:6-8) [Page 47]
"As you might imagine, I firmly reject any such modern conceit. I do not believe that we need to 'reuse' the images and words of Bible prophecy to properly understand and benefit from them. Of course, when biblical writers intentionally use metaphors and symbols, we must try to understand what they meant to convey through these images. But when they speak plainly -- when they employ nonpoetic language in a straightforward way -- what right have we to pronounce their words 'metaphorical' or their ideas merely words WHATEVER INTERPRETATION suits us? Certainly, we may disbelieve their message if we so choose. But we have no justification to claim that they meant 'Z' when their own words declare they meant 'A.'" [Page 58].
"An old rule of thumb for Bible interpretation stands up pretty well: 'If the plain sense makes good sense, then any other sense is non-sense." [Page 259].
"... we ,must recognize that God intends to 'lift the curtain' on Bible prophecy as history winds to a close..." [Page 260.]
With regard to The Tribulation: "On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken" (Luke 21:25-26 NIV). [Page 141]. One cannot help but visualize the televised scenes of the Tsunami that struck Indonesia and when momentarily the earth literally tilted from its axis.
Consider all the earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires we have been experiencing in abundance lately.
Mankind in the age of Daniel knew nothing about man-made travel, nor man-made machinery and one cannot help but reflect about our modern age, with space travel and global instantaneous information via The Internet :
"Page 262 Appendix A
-- Knowledge and travel have increased exponentially (Dan. 12:4)."
"In fact, for centuries, many readers of Bible prophecy thought they had to read passages about the Jews returning to their homeland as symbolic, as metaphors for something else. How could such a thing LITERALLY come true, they reasoned?
Well the Lord is now at work bringing his ancient people back to their ancestral homeland. Just as he said he would." [Page 69.]
"God will lead his people -- maybe a million or more Jews -- into the wilderness. Most prophecy scholars think they'll head to Petra, the rock city in Edom..." [Page 146] See also my reviews regarding books about Petra at [...].
After surrogate Hagar bore her son by Abraham, along came the promise:
"...'Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him' (Gen. 1:19.) the following year -- true to god's word and a full quarter century after God had first spoken the promise -- Isaac was indeed born to Abraham and Sarah.
A time for celebration! And yet, so were planted the roots of today's Middle East turmoil. Why? The Jews trace their ancestry back to Isaac, while the Arabs count Ishmael as their father. And the hostility predicted so long ago continues to boil." [Page 70.]
"Why does God restrain his anger? Why does he not stir up his full wrath? Only because he is a merciful God who loves us and hates the very thought of ever having to judge us." [Page 77].
"Through the prophet Jeremiah, for example, God declared,
'I myself said,
"How gladly would I treat you like sons
and give you a desirable land,
the most beautiful inheritance of any nation."
and not turn away from following me...
Return, faithless people;
I will cure you of backsliding.'
(Jer. 3:19, 22 NIV)." [Page 76].
Page 103 and 104 speaks of the sacrificial Lamb of Passover in Exodus. In the New Testament we meet The Lamb of whom was prophesied "... that this lamb should be a male without defect -- and that in killing it they should take care to not 'break one of its bones' (Exodus 12:46). The New Testament calls Jesus Christ 'our Passover lamb' (1 Cor. 5:7 NIV) and says that as the spotless Lamb of God, slain during Passover almost two thousand years ago, he was sacrificed so that we might enjoy peace with God. He died so that we might live- and in accordance with Scripture, not one of his bones was broken (John 19:33).
Bible prophecy authenticates the identity and mission of the Messiah like almost nothing else, and all these prophecies point to only one man in history: Jesus Christ." [Page 104].
"... Why did Jesus stop his quotation of Isaiah 61 at the first half of verse 2? He did so because he had come the first time to 'proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,' that is, the age of grace in which we're living. He did not come the first time to inaugurate ' the day of vengeance of our God,' something that is yet to occur (see chapter 10). That's why he stopped reading where he did." [Page 106.]
"... I'm going to start a new faith based on Peter's declaration, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.'
Jesus intended his prophecy as great, Good News..." [Page 128].
"Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God has 'set eternity in the hearts of men'(NIV) [Pg. 244.]
"God's questions to Judah suggest one for us. When will we learn that it is up to US whether we suffer under God's awesome hand of judgement? He has given us the power to decide our own fate." [Page 79].
"Although no one know the day or the hour of Jesus' return, I recommend that you ask, every morning when you first awake, 'Could this be the day?' One of these days, it will be the day. That's why we should live every moment in preparation for his coming." [Page 167]
--A-men!--
"Come, Lord Jesus!"
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