Are We Living In The End Times?

[robert_rath]

I was able to view this new DVD coming out Sep 29, 2009

Are We Living In The End Times?

it covers question about RFID chip, The North American Union, and the prospect of living in a cashless society.

You migth be shocked to see the answers.

amazon.com has it for pre-order and it already has been in the top 100 within it's own category I might add.

I guess this would make for a great bible study night at a church, or even to create questions. Any, ways if you can pick up a copy. it is beter then you think.

RR

 

[watchmen]

Thank you Robert, this is a interesting subject, and there is no doubt in my mind we are in the last of the last days. We could enter into the Tribulation period any moment now.

 

[Theocracy]

Through out history there were many end of time scenarios that never happened. Now if we make it past the year 2012 (another "the end" scenario) than I feel we are good for another couple hundred year or luckily a couple thousands of years.

The DVD you mentioned does sound interesting and worth checking out

 

[watchmen]

Through out history there were many end of time scenarios that never happened. Now if we make it past the year 2012 (another "the end" scenario) than I feel we are good for another couple hundred year or luckily a couple thousands of years.

The DVD you mentioned does sound interesting and worth checking out

Actually through out history very few believed it wa sthe last days. As a whole only the first generation church, and this generation have truly believed we are in the last of the last days.

 

[suaso]

how can we measure that this generation truly believes they are in the last days more so that the generation before them believed they were in the last days?

Maybe the next generation (que star trek theme) will believe they are in the last days even more than this generations believes.

Plus, even if this generation did/does believe they were/are truly in the last days, does that make it true? In other words, do we let our opinions determine reality, or do we allow our opinions to be formed by reality?

As far as I am concerned, every day since the ascension of Christ into heaven has been one amongst a multitude of days that constituted the "end times." There have been many, many days since the universe was created. In comparison, the days since Christ's incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension have been less than the days before...they are the last days of the world though they have been many days in our human concept of time.

Either way, we have to live each day like it is ours. Life is so short. Our days are truly numbered. The end times might not occur in our lifetime, but death certainly does occur in every man's lifetime ;-)

 

[pickles]

Maby some of Our long standing Christians can answer the questions about how people thought in past history. My mother before she passed felt we were moving into the quickening. For some years I felt it was just alot of pointing. I now believe that much is in motion. The difficulty is we know only our time and Gods timing is not known to us. I do see much in the coming days but I still want to pray about it. The truth is though, that we all should live with our hearts in Jesus as each day is a gift and none of us know our indivigual moment that he will call us home. Readyness is your hope. God bless, pickles

 

[keet]

I believe that the last days began about 2000 years ago, so of course my answer is yes.

 

[imoss]

Actually through out history very few believed it wa sthe last days. As a whole only the first generation church, and this generation have truly believed we are in the last of the last days.

hmmm very interesting as my grandmother recalls it being the "end times" when Hitler was doing his thing in the 40's... she's now passed. Once again it does seem to be the end times but i'm certainly not going to live in fear cause I'm on the right side :0) seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

hmmm very interesting as my grandmother recalls it being the "end times" when Hitler was doing his thing in the 40's... she's now passed. Once again it does seem to be the end times but i'm certainly not going to live in fear cause I'm on the right side :0) seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Well Germany even Nazi Germany was a Christian nation, Hitler was a Catholic, Christians were not persecuted or executed for their testimony of Christ or for being Christian, so 1940's Germany could be in no way considered an example of end-time perecution of Christian saints. A better example would be Stalin's Communist USSR which did indeed persecute and imprison, toture and muder Christians on a large scale, millions of Christians were murdered during the Communist regime of the USSR.

When the end-times come it will be something similar or say Christian persecution under the Ceasars, Christians being fed to lions, etc, just like communists burning down Christian Churches and sending Christians to Gulags to be tortured without mercy for years. One particular gruesome torture that was especially designed for Christians was that they had to sit in a chair in a concrete cell for 16 hours a day that were not allowed to lean or lower their head, and they had to repeat for 16 hours a day 'Communism is good, Christianity is bad' over and over. One preist was confined for over 12 years performing this task everyday, he was also beaten and tortured in the most brutal ways, that I will not talk about here, He only survived because Jesus Christ would to come to his cell and visit him. Jesus Christ once asked him what his name was, and the Christian preist still tied to the wooden chair barely alive, and suffering terribly replied "I have no name Lord, I shall take your name, for I am a Christian"...Now that is what it means to suffer for Christ, that is persecution for testimony of Christ and that was not even the end-times which we are told will be the worst in all of history.

So we are not even close to the end-times. But events can change for quickly, no doubt things are going to get progressively worse until the Lord decides the time is due for Harvest.

 

[Ryan1976]

Well Germany even Nazi Germany was a Christian nation, Hitler was a Catholic, Christians were not persecuted or executed for their testimony of Christ or for being Christian, so 1940's Germany could be in no way considered an example of end-time perecution of Christian saints. A better example would be Stalin's Communist USSR which did indeed persecute and imprison, toture and muder Christians on a large scale, millions of Christians were murdered during the Communist regime of the USSR.

When the end-times come it will be something similar or say Christian persecution under the Ceasars, Christians being fed to lions, etc, just like communists burning down Christian Churches and sending Christians to Gulags to be tortured without mercy for years. One particular gruesome torture that was especially designed for Christians was that they had to sit in a chair in a concrete cell for 16 hours a day that were not allowed to lean or lower their head, and they had to repeat for 16 hours a day 'Communism is good, Christianity is bad' over and over. One preist was confined for over 12 years performing this task everyday, he was also beaten and tortured in the most brutal ways, that I will not talk about here, He only survived because Jesus Christ you to come to his cell and visit him. Jesus Christ once asked him what his name was, and the Christian preist still tied to the wooden chair barely alive, and suffering terribly replied "I have no name Lord, I shall take your name, for I am a Christian"...Now that is what it means to suffer for Christ, that is persecution for testimony of Christ and that was not even the end-times which we are told will be the worst in all of history.

So we are not even close to the end-times. But events can change for quickly, no doubt things are going to get progressively worse until the Lord decides the time is due for Harvest.

Those "Chrisitans" that were martyred in those times should be named. The majority of them were Eastern Orthodox Christians. Roughly 25 million of them gave their life. 6 million Jews during WWII and 25 Million during the Atheist regime's rule...

50 Million Orthodox were martyred from 1894-1923 in Asia Minor.

That's nearly 100 million in little over a century, and growing.

Men, women, children and infant Eastern Orthodox Catholics.

 

[iamnotashamed]

Many Christians were martyred under Hitler- those that risked their lives to hide and assist the Jews in any way they could.

It is not for us to know the day or the time when Jesus will return. We know that we are living in "end times" because Jesus said so. We need to live each and every moment as if He will return to take us at that very moment. I know that it seems as if Biblical prophecy is being fulfilled rapidly, and that it is intriguing to speculate, but more important is thinking about our friends and family, and all those around us in this world that don't recognize Jesus as Savior. Prayer, forming relationships, meeting needs, and confronting evil are more worthwhile pursuits.

I do believe that we are going to be experiencing an increase in persecution here in the states, and it is important to strengthen your faith through prayer and study, so that you can remain strong if and when it happens.

iamnotashamedthelist.com Are YOU on the list?

 

[suaso]

The havoc that Hitler and Stalin released upon Christian people is almost too much to fathom. Hitler didn't stop at the Jews. The Eastern and Russian Orthodox Christians suffered terribly. Byzantine and Roman Catholics did too to a large extent. I'm sure Protestants did as well. I think the ironic thing is that the Atheists who would support the Soviet regime to follow were victimized just as brutally by their own government. Evil has an interesting was of destroying it's own...because that is all evil can do is destroy...both what is good and what is bad. Good only creates good and never creates evil.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

Many Christians were martyred under Hitler- those that risked their lives to hide and assist the Jews in any way they could.

As I said, there was no persecution of Christians under the Nazi's, they themselves were by majority Christians, they had no law against Chrsitianity, very few confessed Christians suffered at the hands of the Nazi's, and they did not suffer for the testimony of Christ, if they were to be imprisoned it was not on the grounds of being Christian. That's just the facts.

That is different from the atheist Communists who persecuted Christians solely for being Christian.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

The havoc that Hitler and Stalin released upon Christian people is almost too much to fathom. Hitler didn't stop at the Jews. The Eastern and Russian Orthodox Christians suffered terribly. Byzantine and Roman Catholics did too to a large extent. I'm sure Protestants did as well. I think the ironic thing is that the Atheists who would support the Soviet regime to follow were victimized just as brutally by their own government. Evil has an interesting was of destroying it's own...because that is all evil can do is destroy...both what is good and what is bad. Good only creates good and never creates evil.

The Eastern and Russian orthodox sufferd under the Communists, the Roman Catholic church fully supported Adolf Hitlers Nazi party and this is true of Spain, Italy, Serbia, etc the fascist right wing parties of this era were supported by Christians both Protestant and Catholic but especially the Roman Catholic Church was allied with the German Nazis.

 

[MahogonySnail]

Christians were imprisoned by the Nazis for helping Jews.

 

[suaso]

Um...no. The Roman Catholic Church was not "allied" with German Nazis.

Prior to Hitler going apey and trying to take over the world, I do believe a pope did sign/approve of some mutual "I recognise your country as having a new form of government" deal when Hitler took power of Germany. As so as Hitler began doing some bad things, he was criticized by the Church, which is exactly why he tried to have Pope Pius XII kidnapped/assasinated. That, and Pius XII had a habit of hiding Jews on Vatican property where Hitler's pact with Moussilini had no validation, not to mention the large amount of false baptismal certificated (signifying one was not Jewish but Christian) that priests/bishops were supplying to Jews in their are in an attempt to help them get out of the country and to safety by appearing to be Catholic on paper.

Mahogany is right. Christians of all stripes were imprisoned/tortured for helping the Jews. It was a messed up time to live in.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

Um...no. The Roman Catholic Church was not "allied" with German Nazis.

Hitler was a Roman Catholic and so were many of the Nazi's, German National Socialism was built out of of a German Christian foundation in which both the Protestants and the Catholics played the most significant parts, Hitler and the Nazi party were democratically elected by one of the largest political margins in modern history, their voters were by majority Catholic and Protestant and had the full support of their Churches, Preists, Nuns and Pastors. But this allience between German National Socialism and the Catholic Church was also apparent in Italy where the Holy See signed a pact (drafted byPacelli and Gasparri) with Mussolini in Feb. 1929, known as the Lateran Treaty. The Vatican very much supported the Fascists in Italy who were indeed allied to Germany. In the 1930's, Pacelli negotiated an signed agreement - Reich Concordant, with Nazi Germany in 1933, with the approval of the Vatican.

Prior to Hitler going apey and trying to take over the world, I do believe a pope did sign/approve of some mutual "I recognise your country as having a new form of government" deal when Hitler took power of Germany. As so as Hitler began doing some bad things, he was criticized by the Church, which is exactly why he tried to have Pope Pius XII kidnapped/assasinated. That, and Pius XII had a habit of hiding Jews on Vatican property where Hitler's pact with Moussilini had no validation, not to mention the large amount of false baptismal certificated (signifying one was not Jewish but Christian) that priests/bishops were supplying to Jews in their are in an attempt to help them get out of the country and to safety by appearing to be Catholic on paper.

There is absolutely no proof of any of this besides creative jounalism. You will notice that my facts are verifiable.

Mahogany is right. Christians of all stripes were imprisoned/tortured for helping the Jews. It was a messed up time to live in.

No the point I was making was that the German Nazi's did not persecute Christians, they persecuted Jews with the support of the majority of German Christians both Protestant and Catholic, the Catholic Church was allied with the Nazi's as they were allied with the Fascist parties of modern Europe. That's just the facts, one can choose to deny them I suppose, but it doesn't change the facts.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

Um...no. The Roman Catholic Church was not "allied" with German Nazis.

.

This is the actual signing of the "Reichskonkordat"

 

[suaso]

I realize the deal with the Reichskonkordat. This was in 1933 when Hitler was rising to power. When a country undergoes a major shift in politics, the Church is naturally concerned about her members. So, this pact was signed. The terms of the pact were such as to guarantee that Catholics could still freely worship as they did prior to Hitler, that the Vatican (a sovreign nation) could communicate with the Catholic churches in Germany, That the Church could collect taxes from it's own churches, that Catholic bishops would uphold the German consitution/government, that teachers of the Catholic faith in public schools be chosen by Catholic bishops, Catholic organizations would have the freedom to operate as normal, and that priests/bishops could not join political parties or act on behalf of them.

Mind you, this was a pact between the Vatican, a soverign entity/nation, and Germany which was also a soverign nation. Germany had a whole new form of government, and the Vatican wanted to maintain diplomatic ties with the nation for the sake of the very many Catholics living in it. The Vatican wanted to protect the interests of the Catholic Church and its members, and Germany wanted to ensure that the Church wouldn't try to usurp power by speaking against this new form of government. The Vatican wasn't wild and crazy about the new government, but it wanted to ensure that Catholics would have the same rights as before. They had no idea of the monster Hitler would become. Many of the greatest world leaders did not. It doesn't matter that Hitler had been baptized Catholic. Being baptized doesn't prevent one from existing as a horrible human being.

Once the world saw what Hitler was really trying to do, they were abhored, including the Church. As the Nazi party began to violate the terms of the Reichskonkordat, Pope Pius XI spoke out quite clearly against Germany in his encyclical called "Mit brennender Sorge" in 1937. Cardinal Pacelli is believed responsible for suggesting this bit of the encyclical: "Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God." Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is the man we now refer to as Pope Pius XII.

Basically, a yes, a treaty was signed between Germany and the Vatican in 1933. By 1937 it had been violated by Germany, and the Church finally realized the danger of the Nazi party as the Nazis promoted an ideal of nationalism, racial superiority, and the pagan ideology creeping into German politics as something very much against Christian ideals.

As for what the Church did do for the Jews, check these links:
Jewish Virtual Library
Controversy over the Church's involvement (also from the above group).

And when it boils down to it...yes, the Church should have done more. The world should have done more. Some sent armies. Some did otherwise. The Church did more than most nations, excluding the efforts of the Allied armies, to save Jews. I'm sure many local Protestant churches did their part as well.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

I realize the deal with the Reichskonkordat. This was in 1933 when Hitler was rising to power. When a country undergoes a major shift in politics, the Church is naturally concerned about her members. So, this pact was signed. The terms of the pact were such as to guarantee that Catholics could still freely worship as they did prior to Hitler, that the Vatican (a sovreign nation) could communicate with the Catholic churches in Germany, That the Church could collect taxes from it's own churches, that Catholic bishops would uphold the German consitution/government, that teachers of the Catholic faith in public schools be chosen by Catholic bishops, Catholic organizations would have the freedom to operate as normal, and that priests/bishops could not join political parties or act on behalf of them.

Mind you, this was a pact between the Vatican, a soverign entity/nation, and Germany which was also a soverign nation. Germany had a whole new form of government, and the Vatican wanted to maintain diplomatic ties with the nation for the sake of the very many Catholics living in it. The Vatican wanted to protect the interests of the Catholic Church and its members, and Germany wanted to ensure that the Church wouldn't try to usurp power by speaking against this new form of government. The Vatican wasn't wild and crazy about the new government, but it wanted to ensure that Catholics would have the same rights as before. They had no idea of the monster Hitler would become. Many of the greatest world leaders did not. It doesn't matter that Hitler had been baptized Catholic. Being baptized doesn't prevent one from existing as a horrible human being.

Once the world saw what Hitler was really trying to do, they were abhored, including the Church. As the Nazi party began to violate the terms of the Reichskonkordat, Pope Pius XI spoke out quite clearly against Germany in his encyclical called "Mit brennender Sorge" in 1937. Cardinal Pacelli is believed responsible for suggesting this bit of the encyclical: "Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God." Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is the man we now refer to as Pope Pius XII.

Basically, a yes, a treaty was signed between Germany and the Vatican in 1933. By 1937 it had been violated by Germany, and the Church finally realized the danger of the Nazi party as the Nazis promoted an ideal of nationalism, racial superiority, and the pagan ideology creeping into German politics as something very much against Christian ideals.

As for what the Church did do for the Jews, check these links:
Jewish Virtual Library
Controversy over the Church's involvement (also from the above group).

And when it boils down to it...yes, the Church should have done more. The world should have done more. Some sent armies. Some did otherwise. The Church did more than most nations, excluding the efforts of the Allied armies, to save Jews. I'm sure many local Protestant churches did their part as well.

Yes there was a signed contract of agreement between the vatican and the German National Socialists, Hitler an avid Bible reader was a Roman Catholic himself, Germany was a Christian nation, and no persecution of Christians either Catholic or Protestant took place in Nazi Germany, that is fact as I have stated. In regard to pagan elements or expressions, there was not a law against this in nazi Germany, just like America is considered to be a Christian nation by and large, but there are elements of paganism in it, this is freedom of expression there is no law against paganism. The Nazi's brought in a law against Jews owning property in Germany, as a sovereign Nation this is acceptable, because of the status of the Nation and a democratically elected government they have the right to do this, just like today in Israel you must be Jewish to have citizenship and own property, it's the nature of sovereign rights. In Australia Indigenous people gain ownership rights over certain lands, I am Australian but no one gives me any land, do I claim that I am discriminated against? See this is why one must be careful of opinions and fables, here-say and stories, as Christians we should concentrate on truth, Christ charges us to do so, truth needs to be verifiable and proven and established in a world of lies and confusion, it's not an easy task, but we have a guide, who will lead us into truth.

Christians died on all sides of the World Wars, Americans and British were Christians for the most part and so were the Germans.