To: LightShinesInTheDarkness
The locust by your understanding ? (I like to cautiously qualify what I say when I am not 100% certain about something, rather than being proud or presumptuous. I don't know the exact meaning of everything in the Scriptures, and I am more familiar with, and certain of, some things than others. It's not all or nothing.) We either know what the Bible says about this, or not . Its not by my understanding that we know the locust army is Satan's angelic army during the Tribulation . (Yes, this is correct.)
The bible describes not " creatures of some kind ". The bible is very specific .And its not open for interpretation.
The "locusts" are demons, but they are described (not referred to) as creatures---strange looking things: Human faces, long hair, lion-like teeth, scorpion-like tails, etc. Demons can take different forms, like human form or serpent form. But these demons, as well as the demons on horses that breathe deadly fire, smoke and sulfur and have tails that wound (Rev 9:13-19) are indeed the same army described in Joel. Their purpose is to judge (punish) unsaved people, like the other judgments of God that He will unleash/pour out during the Tribulation. The only people these things will affect are people who do not have the Holy Spirit living in them (unsaved people). That includes people who used to be in Christ and are no longer.
Because the Bible is very thorough in the meanings.
The bible warns us, so we can escape the deception. Not divide and fall as denominations cause.
A Locust is used as an object lesson, metaphor, for what Satan and the fallen angels cause to the state of ones soul who believe what they say.
(No...the locust demons described in the Revelation are exactly what the Revelation says they are: Demons that carry out God's judgment on unsaved people---people without the seal of God on their foreheads---by actually stinging them. It's not a metaphor for anything, and it has nothing to do with the deception of Christians who give heed to seducing spirits, or the state of their souls.)
Locusts, to greenery : is as Satan disguised as Christ ( 2 Corinthians 11:1 - 15 .) is to the dead state of the soul of an apostate Christian . Christians unfamiliar with what the Bible says at that time .
Daniels prophecy uses the iron and clay for the last system of the end times. Iron wont mix with clay .Satan being supernatural, over a flesh world, wont work as a world order Daniels Fourth beast. . People are both flesh and spirit (they have a body and a spirit), not just flesh. And Satan has been the ruler of this world since the fall of man as far as I know; that's nothing new. What will be new is how much power God allows him to have during the Tribulation years. From everything I've read in Daniel and the Revelation, the New World Order will work as a government until Christ returns and destroys it (Dan 7:7, 23, 11:36). Daniel 2:43 explains that the iron not mixing with clay has to do with sexual unions between demons and humans, not with the stability of the kingdom of the beast. People under the government of the antichrist will be saying that there is "peace and safety" (1 Thess 5:3) when Christ comes and destroys the world.
Its an abomination to God . Satan is blaspheming claiming to be him, and Christians whoring after him. (The abomination that makes desolate will be Christians taking the mark of the beast and worshiping his image, which will make them desolate. The Holy Spirit will depart from them and they will no longer be in Christ. People with the Holy Spirit in them are the only ones who can be made desolate, just like the temple of the Jews was left to them desolate when God departed from it. Unsaved people are already dead and empty. They cannot be made desolate by worshiping the image of the beast or taking his mark.) Revelation teaches all of that ..
The rock is cut out, without hands, and hits that, When Christ returns, Jesus' Kingdom fills the whole earth Daniel 2:34 (Yes.)
The chapter really isn't focused on their offspring .
What a Christian should worry about, is to avoid kindling a false fire of Antichrist inadvertently.. God will not tolerate it . (?)
This is why the Churches are addressed at the opening of the prophecy of Revelation .
No...The churches are addressed because those churches needed to be addressed, and because the point of the Revelation is to warn and inform Christians about the events of the coming Tribulation (Rev 1:1, 22:6) and how to prepare for it---chiefly by washing their robes (repentance), as Revelation 7:14 and 22:14 say, and as five of those seven churches Jesus rebuked needed to do. The messages to the churches were for those churches to get ready because the tribulation was coming soon (Rev 1:1), (except for the Philadelphian church who would die---presumably by martyrdom---before it happened) and Jesus' return at the end of it (Rev 22:7, 12, 20); but the messages to those churches hold examples and warnings for us too, as does the rest of the Revelation, obviously.
Isn't merely ? I'm not sure what you're referring to.
Christ's teachings are specific that the nature of Satans tribulation is one of deception.
No, the nature of the wrath of Satan will be persecution. (Revelation 13:10; 17:16; Matthew 24:9) The deception during the Tribulation will be of the unsaved; the persecution will be of the saved.
Christ taught a " False Christ , signs and wonders ". Matthew 24. Paul gives a synopsis of this in 2 Thessalonians 2 . Revelation repeats this in one form or another .
It's important to know what scriptures are referring to the things that will be affecting the unsaved and which ones are speaking about Christians and the things that will be affecting them.
Paul talks both about Christians and unsaved people in 2 Thessalonians 2. So does the Revelation of course, throughout it.
Jesus said false christs and prophets would try to lead even the elect (Christians) astray with signs and wonders (Matthew 24:24), but He didn't say they would.
He also said many would come in His name saying "I am he," and would deceive many (Mark 13:6). No true Christian would believe a man who claimed to be Jesus or the Messiah, but they would and do listen people who say that Jesus is the Christ but teach a different Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible, in various ways. And this deception is already happening, and has been for centuries.
But this is not the "delusion" Paul was talking about. The delusion specifically refers to the signs and wonders performed by the false prophet which will convince unsaved people that the antichrist is God. True Christians won't believe this. They won't take the mark of the beast or worship his image because they are deceived into thinking that he is really God. They will take it because they want to keep their lives and not be persecuted.
The falling away is primarily because Christians refuse to listen to Christ exact teachings about the Tribulation from Genesis to Revelation . That Antichrist come first .. Christians today are instead falsely taught, Christ comes first. This sets them up for apostasy to the false Christ. If they don't know that, they cant be said to know much of Christ's actual teachings.
Actually the falling away has to do with Christians being lovers of themselves, money, pleasure, proud etc., and refusing to obey the Lord as they know they ought, as I said before, and as the Bible also says, not because they're confused about the timing of the events of the Tribulation. Not knowing the exact timetable and meaning of the events of the tribulation is a minor problem by comparison to not knowing and obeying the commandments of the NT. The reverse of what you said is true: If they don't keep Christ's teachings, they're not going to know what they need to know or think they know about the events of the end times. But more importantly, they're not going to be supported by God during the tribulation if they persist in rebellion against Him, and their actual love for themselves will prevail over their professed love for the Lord they are choosing not to obey.
Their denominations are teaching their own stuff...
The falling away of the saints is the same, as there are no multiple choices in the Bible. (?)
There is a falling away of the saints (from the teachings of the New Testament---the one faith, Christianity, that was once for all delivered to the saints---and thus, from obedience to Jesus Christ also), which has been going on for centuries but is coming to a head now (Dan 8:23); and there will also be a strong delusion that affects unsaved people; but the falling away/rebellion and the strong delusion are not the same thing or related to each other.
Denominations have split, because they wont focus on what CHRIST said (Yes.). The Greek is specific, "Falling away " means apostasy . You must believe, to apostatize (Yes.).. Paul warns,because they loved not the truth, that they might be saved. (This is talking about people who reject the gospel, not Christians who fall away from Christ.) Christ addressing the Churches, because they left their first love, for traditions of their churches, false doctrines, musings, which God did not say. (Yes, this is true, in the case of the Lord's rebuke to the church at Ephesus; but their having left their first love, for whatever reasons they did, is not related to what Paul wrote about unsaved people not loving the truth in order to be saved. In 2 Thess 2 the wording is similar to what Jesus said to the Ephesian church about abandoning their first love, but the two scriptures have nothing to do with each other. We know that what Paul wrote about those who refused to love the truth and so be saved and who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thess 2:10,12) is referring to the unsaved, because Revelation 13:8 makes it clear who Paul is referring to.)
The whole warning is to them that believe . Because they have the most to lose.
