Revelation 7

[Vengle]

I don't disagree with that. But when it comes to great depth, walking in the Spirit and being as Christ, I do think some will be awakened when we move into this.

When Paul wrote this, he did consider Israel at the moment cast away, but said it would not be forever. That doesn't mean none will be his now, he does as he wishes! And obviously, at the time some already were his, like Paul himself!

It has already been started, but I think it will be fulfilled when again the church awakens.

[sup]11[/sup] I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. [sup]12[/sup] Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
[sup]13[/sup] For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, [sup]14[/sup] if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. [sup]15[/sup] For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

We will get to those verses to discuss them.

It matters not what I agree with or what anyone else agrees with.

All the matters is God's true Word.

 

[Prentis]

That is true. Looking forward to it.

 

[Vengle]

The mount of Olives is...the nation of olive trees, His nation of believers.

The mount Sion is...the nation of the called ones, the tribes of the children of Israel. They are called as they are the wife, His servants and they are apart from the whole of the church, or, all of the olive trees. They are apart for they are sealed with truth and will not fall. However, part of the olive trees do fall to deception for the mount of Olives cleaves in half. [Zech.14]

Who stands on mount Sion or...who stands on the nation of the called ones? The chosen ones, the firstfruits.

Revelation 7:1-4 2 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

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Revelation 14:1-4 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
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The tribes sing the Song of Moses. The virgins sing a new song only they can sing. The tribes are sealed....the virgins have His Father's name written in their foreheads. Are some of those of the tribes included in the other group singing the new song? I don't know but I do know...there are two different groups.



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Have you missed the boat? Or, taken a road that lead elsewhere?

Hebrews 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

If we are going to do this let's all agree to stay on Paul's letter to the Romans.

Otherwise it as I said, too many locks that have us held so that we are unwilling to deal with them one at a time.



Unless you want to discuss that first so that you see this Jerusalem below is Hagar and her children yet in bondage?​

 

[Vengle]

Romans 11:1 "I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin."

Paul is asking, "Hath God cast away his people?" as in, "Has God completely cast away His people?"

Paul argues that he himself is proof that cannot be true.

They all knew Paul was a late conversion on the road to Damascus so they would have no problem understanding what Paul meant.

One could view that as Paul speaking of the nation in its entirety. And they would be right but for what that means to them. For many think Paul begins there to argue that whole nation is to be saved.

And people can be very adamant about that idea, seeing that Paul used exclamation in saying, "God forbid."

So then we must ask how we might know for sure if Paul was speaking of that entire nation as God's people or just a remnant of them?

We must stick to the context to know what Paul meant, and in the next four verses (2-5) Paul makes quite clear that he only means a remnant was not entirely cast off.

 

[Vengle]

Interjection:

There is something else that need be understood. That remnant of Israel is specifically about the promise for a nation of king/priests to rule with Christ. These branches and that entire olive tree is about the government by Christ, but there are others of the flesh Israel that are not part of that promise and yet are being saved. Just not the fleshly entire nation.

That spiritual nation of king/priests with Christ is the 144,000 of all who conquered by faith.

Not all who have faith do conquer here and now, even of that Israelite nation. And when and if they conquer in the future they will yet not become king/priests with Christ, for by that time the purpose of that 144,000 will have been accomplished of bringing all mankind back to God through Christ that will ever be brought back to God.

 

[Vengle]

Romans 10:12-13 "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Romans 10:14 "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?"

Romans 11:13-14 "For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them."

Ponder this intensely, Paul is not at all speaking about those prophecies being fulfilled in the future. "If by any means I may provoke"

Paul wants those Roman gentiles to get over their high-mindedness (their pride over replacing those branches that were lopped off) and get out there and preach to his brethren of the flesh.

Paul hoped, "I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them."

But he needed those Gentiles to get over their pride and stop snubbing their nose down at the Jews so that they could be effective preachers toward them.

Ponder these next two verses carefully:

Romans 11:30 "For as you also in times past did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy, through their unbelief;"

Romans 11:31 So these also now have not believed, for your mercy, that they also may obtain mercy.
Paul is telling them, You were shown mercy because of their fall and it is time for you to direct that mercy also back toward them.

The futuristic interpretations of this are completely false. It is being fulfilled in every generation just as it was by Paul and those that preached the gospel of Christ in Paul's generation.

There is no word "they in the original language text of verse 32, so leave it out as you read verse 32.

What Paul told them there is no different than what he told the Galatians.3:22.

i have jumped ahead because the responses were not forth coming. But I will discuss the olive tree and more in a short. I just thought to try to give the dog a bone so to speak to keep it interested. Not a slur mind you, that is just a common old hackneyed phrase.

 

[Prentis]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression you are stuck on the idea that what I meant is that it is future and not at work now, which is not what I meant. :huh:

We are to be a light to both Jews and Gentiles! Amen!

 

[Vengle]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression you are stuck on the idea that what I meant is that it is future and not at work now, which is not what I meant. :huh:

We are to be a light to both Jews and Gentiles! Amen!

Yes that is what I thought. Happy to be wrong.

However, that is what others and I believe even Insight thinks.


i am going to take a break for a while.

I am intertwining this with house cleaning and laundry.

 

[Prentis]

Then you will be happy of this!

I believe it is at work now, and now we are called, Jew and Gentile to be one in Christ Jesus and in Him to love each other as he has loved us. The great wall of partition has been made away with!

 

[Vengle]

Amen, that is exactly right.

How familiar are you with the Koine Greek that the NT was written in?

I ask because I would like to know if you know how to recognize and understand the function of singular and plural pronouns when you read the scripture.

The KJV was faithful to use thee, thou, thy, and thine for the singular Greek pronoun, and ye, your, yours, we, they, them, their, and so forth are always in the plural Greek.

That makes a huge difference in understanding what is being said to whom. For many things apply as a group that do not apply to the individual.

That is where all the confusion as to what the temple is came in for many years. People interpreted scriptures like as 1 Corinthians 6:19 to their own sin frazzled physical body when it in fact is speaking to them as the one body of Christ.

Our bodies are like the utensils that were used in the temple service under that Old Law. Therefore that is why we must purify them for use in that one temple, that one body of Christ. But it is not because our physical body is a temple. Our physical bodies would not qualify to be a temple of God or his spirit. But as a utensil our physical bodies must be purified, made ceremonially clean, holy and fit for God's use if we would be a part of that true temple or enter into it.

When I studied the Biblical languages I found that to be one of the things that helped much.

Think about that because we are told to present our bodies a living sacrifice. Romans 12:1

OK, so we are supposed to sacrifice the temple of God to God?

Not so.

That sacrificing of our physical body is the way we purify it so that it may have a sharing in the temple of Christ.

Even of the Apostles, they were stones but not the whole temple any one of them by their self..

 

[Prentis]

Interesting observations!

I am only slightly familiar to Greek. Started to learn it in very small ways, but that endeavour seems to be on hold for now.

That is why I like the KJV though, when I have compared it to the Greek, I have found it faithful.

 

[Vengle]

None of the Bible's I have ever found are perfect.

The NKJV fails to carry the singular and plural pronoun feature forward in it and so the thee, thou, thy, and thine are made to appear to be plural if we would use the KJV standard for judging them. "Thee" becomes "you" which is always plural by KJV standards but which we always tend to think of in modern terms as singular. So the net effect is that we no longer are able to distinguish the plurals and end up interpreting them as singular when we read.

The KJV in more than a few places could do a better job of rendering its prepositions. There are places in the KJV where for some reason they have rendered the Greek into English using the wrong definition of the Greek preposition that appears there.

I like the KJV and tend to use it more than than other Bibles, but I like to compare many Bibles and then one needs to have at least enough knowledge of the languages that they can check the original text because some of the Bibles are really way out there in adding their personal interpretations.

It has really over-all proved beneficial for man though that this problem exists because as man caught sight of these variations it moved greater numbers of men to dig deeper and learn to know the word of God better. God could have inspired the perfect Bible for us with no mistakes in it so I conclude he must have saw it was for our benefit not to do so.

Another net result is that only those who are really interested due to that love of God in their heart manage to make their way through those variations. Those motivated of pride latch onto which ever variation suites their need.

It is fascinating and is but one of many things that show the wisdom of God in my estimation.

Did you catch the ambiguity there? :lol:

Not that my estimation is the wisdom of God, but that God's allowing these variations shows God's wisdom.

 

[veteran]

I am perplexed to see so few are willing to speak to the symbology of verse Rev 7:1 and yet purport to understand the prophecy.

This is why Christianity will be in darkness when he comes.

Many do not understand the language of God.

Insight

Understanding about the "four winds" symbol from the Old Testament is not that difficult. It's in the sense of coming judgments, and about a sealing of God's servants. Our Lord Jesus also used the "four winds" concerning the time when He will gather His saints, per Matt.24 and Mark 13. The winds of the earth were also used to represent coming judgments upon Israel and other nations (like Isa.27, Jer.49 and Ezek.5).


Rev 7:1-3
1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
(KJV)

Because the subject of those four angels holding back the four winds shows that they WERE given to hurt the earth, sea, and trees, reveals the idea of judgments upon the same. That's not difficult to discern.

The main point of it is that God's SEALING of His servants is to take place first, before God's judgments come upon the earth, sea, and trees. Per Rev.17:15, the 'waters' represent peoples, nations, tongues, and multitudes.

One could just as easily say this sealing of God's servants is for prior to the "day of The Lord" events to occur with Christ's coming. Yet the subject of 'sealing' links it with the events on the 5th Trumpet of Rev.9, which more specifically reveals just what this 'sealing' is for.