I know what you are referring to. (Matthew 11:14)
But what about this? Have all things been restored?
Mark 9:12 NIV
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things.
Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?
God the Father's plan of restoration, is in regard to people
repenting towards Him, through faith in Christ.
In a recent post on this site, I wrote about it under the thread title:
"Were the Two witnesses from the past?" (Christian Debate site- post #428- #443 (beginning on page 22).
I have re-posted it here, with the post numbers of
that thread.
Part 1,2 and 3 by Earburner:
John and Jesus
were a
joint ministry. See also Zech. 4:14.
Elizabeth and Mary knew each other before their children were born.
Elisabeth and John the baptist:
John 1
[
12] And when Zacharias saw him [the angel], he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
[
13] But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and
thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
[
14] And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.
[
15] For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord [not among men], and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink;
and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
[
16] And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
[
17]
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just;
to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Mary and Jesus:
[
34] Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
[
35] And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee:
therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
[
36] And, behold,
thy COUSIN Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
[
37] For with God nothing shall be impossible.
[
38] And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
[
39] And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;
[
40] And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.
[
41] And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary,
the babe leaped in her womb;
and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
[
42] And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
[
43] And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
[
44] For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears,
the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
If that isn't being "anointed" before and at birth,
with the symbolic "oil" of the Holy Spirit of God (Zech. 4),
then all of Christianity has gone blind to the truth.
Zech. 4
[
11] Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
[
12] And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes
EMPTY the golden OIL out of themselves? [Oil is symbolic of God's Holy Spirit].
[
13] And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
[
14] Then said he,
These are the two anointed ones, that stand by [for] the LORD of the whole earth.
Part 2
Most Christians are assuming that the two witnesses haven't come yet, because by
their mind of thinking, all the
literal words have not been fulfilled yet. Therefore, by
our perspective of time, many perceive chronologically, that the two witnesses MUST appear just before Jesus returns in Glory. However, the problem is,
only God the Father knows precisely, of when to send Jesus to return and redeem His people.
From what I understand, Jesus has not returned in flaming fire yet, but He did appear as one of the "two witnesses", and indeed it was before "that great and dreadful Day".
As for the other witness, being John the Baptist, he fulfilled Malachi 4:5-6, as shown in Luke 1:16-17.
Malachi 4
[
5] Behold,
I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
[
6]
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers [the act of restoration], lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Luke 1
(The
holy angel of the Lord said to Zacharias):
[16] And many of the children of Israel shall he turn [cause repentance, to restore] to the Lord their God.
[17]
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power [authority] of Elias,
to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just;
to make ready a people prepared for the Lord [God], who was in the mortal flesh of Jesus.
Please notice that the prophecy of Malachi 4:5-6 was
NOT fulfilled verbatim** in Luke 1:16-17.
Is most all of Christianity calling the angel a liar?
Think it through WITH the mind of Christ, and not by the mind of your "natural man", or by the religious persuasion of "church-ianity".
**Note: the same holds true for the book of Revelation.
Part 3
(post #537)
Let me interject here for a moment, with a biblical and Godly point, that shall enhance your understanding.
James 5[
17] Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain:
and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
Such
a length of time as that, is equivalent to 1260 days, and/or 42 months, aka 3.5 years.
If I recall correctly, two people, in a
joint ministry, of God's "anointing", was allotted
an identical time period to accomplish the work assigned
through them. One lost his head over it, and the other's Father, did
assemble two sticks for Himself and his Son's fate [the cross]. 1 Kings 17:12.
After the completion of those two events, of 6 months and 3 years (1260 days),
it surely did "rain" again, in fact now equally and everywhere on all the earth, it has "poured upon" the earth mightily, not with literal rain, but rather
with the "rain" of God's Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost, and is still ongoing today.
