The TRUTH About Ukraine & Russia

Dadad,

You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Your entire theology seems to be built around the statue dream of Daniel and the order he gives the metals. I would encourage you to stop trying to find hidden meanings in obscure passages and instead focus on the clear intended meaning of the overarching messages of the Scriptures themselves. The Law and Prophets point to Jesus...not to present day conflicts between Russia, Ukraine and so forth.

Which is easier: to refute/rebuke an individual; or explain Scripture?

I would propose that if you want to help, that you explain why GOD provided the Daniel 2:45 sequence Iron, Bronze, Clay, Silver, Gold = 4,3,5,2,1 = FIVE. Please note that any mechanical design has multiple views and cross-sections which contribute to the features of the finished product. And if you as a machinist discount ANY view/cross-section, YOU'RE FIRED. So how is that you do the same thing to GOD's Word, and expect to be rewarded??

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I am not a machinist. I don't know what you are talking about.

Maybe Daniel wrote the order that way because the statue had been broken to pieces and the lack of order highlighted the ruined mess of the kingdoms which were represented in the idol. Or, maybe they are not in order for the same reason my wife tells me to get eggs, milk, butter and flour and then asks if I got the milk, eggs, flour and butter. The order doesnt matter....something else matters and that's whether or not I fouled up my run to the grocery store. For me to think she has a hidden message in the order of the groceries would only increase her frustration with me because I would be missing the point!

Of all the powerful things Daniel wrote, the fact that you are caught up on a sequence of broken pieces of a statue highlights the real tragedy in your approach to understanding the Bible.

Dadad,

If a letter is written... it is written with a purpose and intent from the author (not unlike what I am currently writing to you). As the author of the letter, I intend for my words to communicate ideas that then shape your thinking about a particular subject. This subject is usually elaborated upon in many different ways and the literary devices that are agreed upon by both you and I act as a foundation for that communication. Thus, everyday communication is generally effective at achieving its goal. The book of Daniel is a letter in the Scriptures to God's people relying on these same principles. It is not a mystery code book where someone needs a secret decoder ring to find some mysterious orders of things in order to decipher the hidden meaning. I know you think you have the decoder ring based on some fanciful hermeneutic you stumbled across, but I choose to believe that God communicates to us in the same way I am communicating to you...straightforward with words and ideas. God is not hiding his message in secret lists and numerology. I think this paints a very unfortunate picture of God as one who will only be found by those who are clever enough to ignore the actual message of Daniel and look at the orders of objects to decode the mystery text instead.

Perhaps you should reconsider the simplicity of the Scriptures. I think you will find it is not at all "flat" but is much more robust than the numerology you are currently consumed with.

Correction to my post #2.

Nikita Krushchev ceded the Soviet Republic of Crimea to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine in 1954. My source stating that it was Michael Gorbachev was incorrect.

Eschatological exercises in interpreting Russian policy and US position in current events seem to suggest unusual parallels with scriptural content. The problem with most private forecasts is that they tend to get too specific. Every single book written on the subject has fallen into error when they attempted to get too precise regarding future events.

The Bible is almost magical in its ability to fog specific future events at the same time as it affirms the veracity of what has past as God's handiwork. I'm not suggesting that hindsight is 20/20 or that believers are self-deluded. I am saying that the picture becomes unusually clear after the fact. It really does!!!

The Bible also seems to indicate that God wants it that way. What do you do with a book that is incredibly self-interpreting in every regard, that somehow seems to make claims about the future without revealing specific times & dates, yet provides incredible verification, reasons and purpose to those same events when they actually transpire?

"Any technology sufficiently developed is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clark (author of 2001 A Space Odessy)

I have long felt that God's handiwork in my life and the lives of those I know and love is almost at the level of real magic. If human technology approaches magic, then how much more that of divine providence when it reveals itself in the world?

That being said, it is quite clear that scripture seems to indicate Russian political and economic influence will grow as the times of the end approach. At the same time the influence of western culture (Europe, UK & USA) will wither. We see exactly that happening today.

There is a passage in scripture that states a restraint will be removed from the enemies of God and Israel in the last few days before AntiChrist's war breaks open like an infected scab. Some say the restraint is the Holy Spirit. I for one cannot and will not believe for a NY minute that God's grace will EVER be withdrawn from the earth. What then could this passage imply?

I suggest to the reader that the restraint spoken of is not spiritual, but that of the political & military support now afforded to Israel. Imagine if you will the reaction of those enemies of Israel to the political and military castration of western support for Israel. It would explain much including Muslim hatred of America and the ascendency of the Russian Federation.

Unfortunately, these are generic opinions at best. No one really knows what will happen next or when. History has a strange way of making foolishness of detailed predictions. Not for nothing is Our Lord called the King of Kings.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I realize a typical American view of this is the injustice of the persecution of the Jews. Its my understanding that this situation has been racheted up a little with a certain pro Russian party telling Jews to do the same things the Nazis did in 41. Register themselves and their property so the persecuting party can take the things the Jews have without taking anything that the Ukrainians have.

But it seems no one is looking at what the Lord is doing here. Its been the history of Israel’s relationship with the Lord their God that when Israel refuses to do something the Lord wants them to do, they end up in a situation that is not of their own doing that basically put them in a go home to Israel or die. If they value their lives in the Ukraine more then God’s will for them to return to Israel they will suffer the consequence. God’s not stupid He will use our enemy to have power over us to make us do what we wouldn’t do otherwise, and then destroy our enemies. I’d bet anything that the Lord is using this to bring more of His People Israel home, first, then the rest can happen.

As far as what side the Americans are on, in WWII the Americans where used by God to releace His People into Israel by not only stopping the Nazis but being instrumental in the establishment of the Jewish state Israel. And our unprecedented prosperity shows that the Lord God has rewared the US for it. This time around is sketchy. The Ukraine is a major conduit of Russian oil to the rest of the world. And western cooperate interests are to stifle the Russian flow so to dominate the oil market. So don’t get to self righteous US flag wavy. The US has just finished a romp and stomp in the middle east protecting western oil interests. In other words if the shoe was on the other foot and our oil supply was threatened we would be there with bells on.

DaDad said:

Hi DPMartin,

In case you missed History 101, I believe it was the Russians who supported Lybia's Gaddafi regime; Iraq's Hussein Dictatorship; Syria's Assad's; and Egypt's Generals dating back to Nassar. Toward these I would observe that Egypt and Syria (along with Jordan as appropriate) have continually attacked Israel; Lybia sheltered and supported Abu Nidal, who was responsible for the November, 1986 attack on the Neve Shalom Main Synagogue in Instabul, Turkey; and Hussein attacked a neighboring nation and launched Scud B Missiles against Israel. -- All under the armament, consent, and cooperation of Russia.


So where you point your finger at the United States, please allow me to suggest that you take your blinders off and weigh the international thugs without adding your rear end to one side of the scale.


With Best Regards,
DD



PS I forgot to suggest that Russia has been DIRECTLY responsible for the THREE historical violations of International Law, including: Hungary, 1956; the Berlin Wall, 1961; and Czechslovakia, 1968, -- all in conformance with the "three ribs" in Daniel 7. And they've now they've arisen to "devour much flesh" per that same Chapter. And of course, we should also be aware that Iran will join the conflagration, -- who coincidentally is a recipient of Russian "assistance".

So in the future, please be so kind as to judge righteously.

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I spoke under the presumption that the events and doings here mentioned were understood, but of course when speaking to the hostile and enraged, men of wrath, they always assume no one else is as smart as they are, especially when there is disagreement with them. They must be all stupid, but it’s the fool who thinks everyone else is the fool.

I like the blinder reference, hence the blind declaring who is blind. Mind you for the believers view is the view of the Kingdom of God which the view from, and of the Throne of the Kingdom of God. Which makes no nation more “righteous” then the other. The Lord Jesus the Beloved Son of God who now sits at that Throne, came to the Nation of Israel, His Nation, His People and what was His Judgement thereof a few years after He returned to the Father? And no one, no one is above the other when it comes to righteousness. And our views mean nothing, unless it agrees with the Lord’s view, or opinion if you like, or Judgement if you like.

You really don’t get it, do you? Note, how many years ago was it that Ezekiel and Daniel was first written? And it was then that God’s Judgements were divvied out for those nations. And what they would do when the time came. Therefore they weren’t going to do something else were they? And yet you don’t see the need to be thankful that one, it wasn’t this nation that was condemned to the troubles mentioned by the Prophets, nor are you thankful you weren’t born in a nation like Iran screaming die for Ala, or who ever.

The simple point is, that the U.S. is just as obnoxious as any other nation when protecting its own economical interests. And if the US was in the present situation in the Ukraine as the Russians are now, note that the subject is about the Ukraine and Russia you posted not Syria not Iran not any other, the US would be of the same attitude.

Wake up and smell the sewage that's being dished out, this ain’t no John Wayne movie where we are the good guys with the white hats. Nation wise the only "good guys" in the Lord God's sight is Israel and He has so much as said so how many times.

The Ukrainian government is threatening to blockade the rebel held city of Slovyansk. The insurgents there have threatened to fight to the bitter end. This could provoke intervention by Russia as a "humanitarian" gesture to assist the besieged city. However the Ukrainian government despite numerous threats has yet to mount an effective, substantial offensive against the insurgents. Meanwhile the United States and the European Union have promised additional sanctions against Russia s early as Monday.

newlife said:

DaDad, I would not be presumptuous with my predictions. In every time period there are those who see the end times unfolding in their current events.

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I tend to follow your logic to a point, sir.

In the year 1,000AD at the end of the first millennium, many Christians believed Jesus would return. The problem was that the season wasn't right. All they had to go on was a page on the calendar - the wrong calendar I might add. Christians measure the passage of time on a Gregorian solar calendar. Muslims measure the passage of time on a Lunar calendar. Hebrews measured the passage of time on a calendar which combined BOTH lunar and solar cycles. The implications of the difference should be obvious.

Jesus gave the outline for defining predictions of the end times. He said that we should watch the seasons. In modern parlance I would suppose that means TRENDS. Jesus also cautioned that no one would know specifics - the day or the hour. Therefore I assume Jesus meant we could indeed have a solid notion that something was in the breeze, so to speak.

Which way is the wind blowing today?

Ezekiel suggested that the nation state of Israel would be revived as a living entity and that the people of Israel would be gathered by God from the corners of the earth to reinhabit the land as in former ages. In 1948 Israel became a modern sovereign state among the community of nations. The political reality of this cannot be denied. Many agree that this event is the keystone in the pattern of events of the end times as predicted by the Bible. It's a very real trend.

Other trends include signs and wonders in the heavens. It seems an almost weekly occurrence that astronomers announce some celestial event that hasn't been seen for hundreds of years and which is happening currently. Taken as an isolated incident it would mean nothing, but considered as a whole we've got something very nearly like a heavenly fireworks pageant - and a grand finale too. It is happening so often and with such spectacular display that we've become jaded with the news. Many do not even bother to watch an event which if even one of these had happened in ancient times might have affected an entire civilization for the rest of it's history.

But we think nothing of it. I think the common description is - 'coincidence'. Except that there has never been such a 'coincidence' ever recorded in all of human history.

And there is violence on a global scale never before seen in history - unless of course one attends to Jesus' reference to the days of Noah. The 20th century was the bloodiest hundred years in human history. The bloodletting goes on. We see it in our neighborhoods, we see it on TV, we read about it in magazines and newspapers and many Americans carry firearms for defense. Are these the days of violence spoken of by Jesus himself? Stay tuned. There's more to come.

Eschatological novelists and TV evangelists love to expand on the sensational aspect of these matters. It's very profitable to be a pseudo prophet. The trap, I think, is suggesting specific events and times and places and hours. History, someone has said, has a way of making fools of those who pretend to predict it. We can clearly see trends, but we cannot clearly detect or interpret events. Even the CIA has trouble doing this.

Which way is the wind blowing?

It's pretty clear that something of global and spiritual importance is about to happen / IS happening. Exactly how things will play out remains to be seen. The same wind that blows changes also blows dust into our eyes.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...