Post by WalksInSpirit on Sept 26, 2006 4:58:16 GMT -5
The Rapture/Temple Of Knowledge: 09-18-06
Blu says: Who is going to volunteer the prayer today?
true_eagle says: di u gona do prayer
diane says: I can do the Holy Spirit prayer again if you like
true_eagle says: thanks
Blu says: sounds good
diane says: k
diane says: O God, who did instruct the hearts of thy faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us, by the same Spirit, to have right judgement in all things, ever to rejoice in His consolation through Christ our Lord, Amen
true_eagle says: amen ^i^an bless us all
Blu says: Amen
kazu says: amen
Leon says: Divine spirit is magnified in my whole being----amen
Blu says: I would like to present this afternoon some food for thought on the rapture as requested by Mike!
true_eagle says: ahhhhhhhhhh ty
Blu says: this is an article in the Venture Inward magazine
diane says: Amen, Leon
diane says: sounds great, Blu
Blu says: Bear in mind that this is the author's opinions and we are free to believe as we do
true_eagle says: yes
true_eagle says: the 2nd coming of christ
Blu says: In the novel Left Behind, by the Christian authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, several hundred passengers on an American jet plane are flying from Chicago to Europe when many of them suddenly vanish, leaving behind the clothing and jewelry they were wearing. The flight crew and other passengers are thrown into a panic
Blu says: – Is it an attack by aliens or what? The captain soon learns by radio that people on the ground by the thousands have disappeared just as mysteriously, many while driving autos, creating horrific chaos.
Blu says: This dramatic opening scene introduces the reader to “the Rapture,” a theological concept accepted by many Evangelical Christians who believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. They believe that at some point in time,
Blu says: perhaps quite soon, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior will suddenly be gathered up bodily and carried off to spend eternity with Him, leaving the rest of humanity behind to face the so-called “tribulation.”
Blu says: It’s a fearful scenario, one that the authors have stretched into a series of novels that their publisher claims has sold over 10 million copies, sufficient to inspire two Hollywood films.
Blu says: Left Behind is different from the popular Hollywood productions of Cecil B. DeMille dramatizing the Ten Commandments, say, or even Mel Gibson’s violent version of the Crucifixion of Christ.
Blu says: These and other biblically inspired films depict historical events, whether accurately or not, often in an inspiring style.
Blu says: But dramatizing prophecy, or events that have not yet occurred, and may never occur, is another matter. If it is the prophecy of a secular figure, such as Nostradamus or even Edgar Cayce, one is free to accept or reject it as plausible.
Roz says: Left Behind is fiction
true_eagle says: yes
Blu says: But the story of Left Behind is represented as taken from Holy Scriptures. In the novel a Protestant minister tells his flock: “I believe the Bible teaches that the Rapture of the church ushers in
Blu says: a seven-year period of trial and tribulation, during which terrible things will happen.” Fundamentalist Christians may feel compelled to believe the story. Such fiction becomes truth in their minds, and thus cannot be readily dismissed.
Blu says: When I read Left Behind, I assumed it was based on prophecies found in the book of Revelation. Much to my surprise, upon rereading that perplexing final book of the New Testament, the term Rapture was not to be found.
Blu says: Further research determined that the term Rapture does not appear anywhere in the Bible.
true_eagle says: an john chapter 14 verse 1 is one of my favorite
Blu says: Where did this non-biblical notion come from?
Roz says: fear based
Blu says: Scholars attribute it to a 19th-century Irish Anglican priest, John Nelson Darby, who broke with the Church of England and founded his own sect in Dublin in 1827. Darby’s congregation had no church but held prayer meetings and Bible study in members’
Blu says: houses. They had no ordained minister, but affirmed the ministry of all believers. When the group formed a meeting in Plymouth, England in 1830, they became known as the Plymouth Brethren, a name that has stuck to this day.
true_eagle says: true . rapture is not menthioned.. in theconcordences
Blu says: Darby coined the term “Rapture” from the Latin rapere, meaning, “to be caught up” or “snatched.” Its scriptural underpinning is found in I Thessalonians 4:16-17, which says “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel,
Blu says: and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
Blu says: Darby’s Rapture doctrine was part of a larger theology that he advanced under the name “Dispensationalism.” Dispensational theology holds that God’s dealings with humankind can be divided into distinct dispensations, or time periods in the evolution of
Blu says: humankind. Dispensationalists say there are either three key dispensations – the Mosaic Law, the present age of Grace, and the future Millennial Kingdom – or five of them: Innocence – Adam; Conscience – after man sinned, up to the flood; Government – after
Roz says: a notion that WE are the chosen ones? Chosen ones are those who serve
Blu says: the flood, man allowed to eat meat, death penalty instituted; Promise – Abraham up to Moses and the giving of the Law; Law – Moses to the cross; Grace – the cross to the coming Millennial Kingdom; Millennial Kingdom – a 1,000-year reign of Christ on
Roz says: who choose to serve
Blu says: Earth following the Second Coming. In each dispensation, Darby theorized, man is tested in his obedience to the will of God as revealed at that time.
Blu says: Opponents of Dispensationalism point out that it is non-biblical; but advocates claim that several early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria (150-220 A.D.) and Augustine (354-430 A.D.), expressed a belief that God dealt with His people differently in progressive dispensations.
Blu says: Darby’s theology didn’t fare particularly well in England but gained a strong foothold in America after he visited the United States, preaching and starting Brethren churches. By the turn of the 20th century several religious publications lent support to his cause, and
Blu says: the widely known evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, founded several Bible schools that taught Dispensational theology. American dispensationalists tended to distance themselves from Darby and
Blu says: his Brethren sect “while taking from his theological bag dispensational doctrines such as the secret Rapture,” one writer observed.
Blu says: The adjective “secret” was added to “Rapture” because some claimed that Jesus would secretly Rapture the faithful prior to the tribulation and then make His public return in the Second Coming
Blu says: after the tribulation. Others argued that the Rapture would follow the tribulation. And since the Bible doesn’t mention either one, believers are left to argue the matter.
Blu says: Whatever timetable one prefers, the Rapture concept spread widely among conservative Protestants, largely because of the influence of the Scofield Reference Bible.
Blu says: Its publisher, Cyrus I. Scofield, was the United States district attorney for Kansas under President Ulysses S. Grant, and later served a brief prison sentence for forgery.
Blu says: While in prison, Scofield underwent a religious conversion, and in 1883 was ordained as a Congregationalist minister in Dallas, Texas. Scofield started a correspondence Bible study course, and from that course created the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909.
Blu says: Largely through the influence of Scofield’s notes added to the Bible text, dispensationalism became influential among fundamentalist Christians because he blended Darby’s theology with the King
Blu says: James Version, leading readers to conclude that it was all the word of God. One writer summed up the effect:
Blu says: “Had Scofield decided to publish his notes in a separate volume rather than inserting them on the pages of the Bible itself, in all probability they would have soon been relatively forgotten.
Blu says: Instead, they have been devoured by hundreds of thousands, many of whom are unaware of the distinction between the biblical text and Scofield’s interpretation.”
diane says: what a sham
Blu says: Scofield was denounced by one critic as “an intellectual charlatan, a fraud who pretends to knowledge which he does not possess; like a quack doctor,” but this did not diminish the popularity of his interpreter’s Bible or its acceptance by Protestant clergy, lay Christians, and many Bible schools such as Dallas Theological Seminary.
Blu says: By the 1950s half of all conservative Evangelical students were using the Scofield Bible, for as Craig Blaising, professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, declared, “The Scofield Reference Bible became the Bible of
Blu says: fundamentalism, and the theology of the notes approached confessional status in many Bible schools, institutes and seminaries established in the early decades of this century.”
Blu says: A current statement of beliefs posted on the website of the Dallas school verifies the professor’s claim:
Blu says: “We believe that, according to the Word of God, the next great event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the Lord in the air to receive to Himself into heaven both His own who are alive and remain unto His coming, and also all who have fallen asleep in
Blu says: Jesus, and that this event is the blessed hope set before us in the Scripture, and for this we should be constantly looking.”
Blu says: As for the tribulation, the Dallas seminary states: “We believe that the period of great tribulation in the earth will be climaxed by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth as He went, in person on the clouds of heaven, and with power and great glory to
Blu says: introduce the millennial age, to bind Satan and place him in the abyss, to lift the curse which now rests upon the whole creation, to restore Israel to her own land and to give her the realization of
Blu says: God’s covenant promises, and to bring the whole world to the knowledge of God.”
Blu says: The powerful impact of Scofield’s text on several generations of fundamentalists and such evangelistic preachers as Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who advanced Dispensational
Blu says: precepts, undoubtedly accounts for the popular success of the Left Behind fiction, for millions of people today believe its scenario to be gospel truth. As the Christian critic Richard T. Ritenbaugh observed, they expect that “at some point in the near future, Jesus
Blu says: Christ will return and ‘snatch away’ all Christians on the earth. Those who believe in Jesus will rise to meet Him in the air, and He will whisk them off to heaven for a 3 1/2-to-7-year Marriage Supper.
Blu says: In the meantime here on Earth, untold destruction occurs when ‘born-again Christians’ suddenly vanish while at the controls of cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, heavy equipment, and the like. ‘Unsaved’ relatives and friends will frantically and unsuccessfully
Blu says: search for their raptured loved ones. The media will provide 24-hour coverage of the mysterious disappearance of millions of people, speculating wildly on its cause – everything from a mass
Blu says: alien abduction to shifting dimensions and levels of consciousness. Does this sound like something our God would do?”
Blu says: Edgar Cayce certainly didn’t think so.
Blu says: I don't think so either
Blu says: Although he grew up in a rural Southern Protestant (Disciples of Christ) church community, and might have been subjected to such an interpretation of the Bible as a boy, his many discourses as an adult –
Leon says: It would help lower world population
Blu says: LOL
Blu says: in which Jesus was mentioned repeatedly – never mentioned the Rapture. And when he spoke of tribulation, it was usually in the familiar expression “trials and tribulations” that are to be anticipated in the course of anyone’s life:
Blu says: “The great tribulation and periods of tribulation, as given, are the experiences of every soul, every entity. They arise from influences created by man through activity in the sphere of any sojourn. Man may become,
Blu says: with the people of the universe, ruler of any of the various spheres through which the soul passes in its experiences. Hence, as the cycles pass, as the cycles are passing, when there is come a time, a period of readjusting in the spheres,
Blu says: (as well as in the little earth, the little soul) – seek, then, as known, to present self spotless before that throne; even as all are commanded to be circumspect, in thought, in act, to that which is held by self as that necessary for the closer walk with Him.
Blu says: In that manner only may each atom (as man is an atom, or corpuscle, in the body of the Father) become a help-meet with Him in bringing that to pass that all may be one with Him.” (281-16)
Blu says: Cayce did not consider the book of Revelation a forecast of tragic days ahead for the unwashed. Indeed, he says it should be viewed symbolically rather than literally. “The Revelation – is a description of, a possibility of, thy own consciousness; and not as a historical
Blu says: fact, not as a fancy, but as that thy own soul has sought throughout its experiences, through the phases of thy abilities, the faculties of thy mind and body, the emotions of all of thy complex – as it may
Blu says: appear – system. And ye will find peace, and an awakening – beautiful!” (1473-1)
Blu says: He interpreted Revelation primarily as a call for self-examination, contemplation, and personal understanding. “[For] the experience of every soul who seeks to know, to walk in, a closer communion with Him. For the visions, the experiences, the names, the
Blu says: churches, the places, the dragons, the cities [mentioned in Revelation], all are but emblems of those forces that may war within the individual in its journey through the material, or from the
Blu says: entering into the material manifestation to the entering into the glory, or the awakening in the spirit, in the inter-between, in the borderland, in the shadow.” (281-16)
Blu says: That is not to say that the Cayce philosophy is easy on us. Revelation, he said, calls us to look within and discover: “What is lacking in self? Are ye cold? Are ye hot? Have ye been negligent of the knowledge that is thine? Are ye stiff-necked? Are ye adulterous in thought, in act, in the very glories that are thine?” (281-16)
Blu says: Edgar Cayce found no terrifying warning that Jesus will gather only a select few and carry them off to Heaven, while the rest are Left Behind to suffer. Cayce said Heaven (or Hell) is a state we each
Blu says: create for ourselves. “Each entity’s heaven or hell must, through some experience, be that which it has builded for itself.” (281-16) Many opportunities await us to redeem our errors.
JohnB says: head ache might that the gloria has fallen down a bite Blu
Blu says: Cayce agreed that Jesus would come again, and not just once. “And He will come again and again in the hearts, in the minds, in the experiences of those that love His coming. But those when they think on Him and know what His Presence would mean and
Blu says: become fearful, He passeth by – even as the experiences of the entity through that sojourn found many that harkened not to the simple words of Him who gave, ‘Know thyself, know that thy Father abideth in thee. And if ye love Him, ye may know His ways, His experiences.’” (1152-1)
Blu says: Who, then, will be left behind?
Blu says: “The Father has not willed that any soul should perish, and is thus mindful that each soul has again and again – and yet again – the opportunity for making its paths straight.” (2021-1)
diane says: those who are fearful
Blu says: If we reach the end of our physical life cycle and have not met the prescribed tests of spiritual development expected by our Creator, Cayce says the soul has a more attractive option than the terrors of fictional tribulation:
Blu says: “The soul is not lost; the individuality of the soul that separates itself is lost. The reincarnation or the opportunities are continuous until the soul has of itself become an entity in its whole or has
Blu says: submerged itself ... That’s why the reincarnation, why it reincarnates; that it may have the opportunity.” 826-8
Blu says: There is no comparing the frightening doctrine of John Darby with the uplifting message of Edgar Cayce, and no way of comparing the extent to which these opposite beliefs have taken root among
Blu says: Christians, or persons of other faiths for that matter. Books containing rival doctrines are circulated widely, and television evangelists have propagated dispensationalism far and wide for many years.
Blu says: Believers are free to accept or reject either of these opposite beliefs – but many Protestants cling to the scary Left Behind notion simply because they regard it as Gospel, the word of God, little realizing it is only the rant of an Irishman who was mad at the church.
Blu says: End
true_eagle says: all tho jesus does not use the word .. rapture.. wat he discribes is !
Blu says: wow, don't tick off an Irishman!
JohnB says: bravo Blu
true_eagle says: thanks blu
Blu says: YW Mike
Blu says: Any more comments?
true_eagle says: an if we know jesus... we will b ready..... if !
Blu says: we can have open chat now!
true_eagle says: di u gona do prayer
diane says: I can do the Holy Spirit prayer again if you like
true_eagle says: thanks
Blu says: sounds good
diane says: k
diane says: O God, who did instruct the hearts of thy faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us, by the same Spirit, to have right judgement in all things, ever to rejoice in His consolation through Christ our Lord, Amen
true_eagle says: amen ^i^an bless us all
Blu says: Amen
kazu says: amen
Leon says: Divine spirit is magnified in my whole being----amen
Blu says: I would like to present this afternoon some food for thought on the rapture as requested by Mike!
true_eagle says: ahhhhhhhhhh ty
Blu says: this is an article in the Venture Inward magazine
diane says: Amen, Leon
diane says: sounds great, Blu
Blu says: Bear in mind that this is the author's opinions and we are free to believe as we do
true_eagle says: yes
true_eagle says: the 2nd coming of christ
Blu says: In the novel Left Behind, by the Christian authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, several hundred passengers on an American jet plane are flying from Chicago to Europe when many of them suddenly vanish, leaving behind the clothing and jewelry they were wearing. The flight crew and other passengers are thrown into a panic
Blu says: – Is it an attack by aliens or what? The captain soon learns by radio that people on the ground by the thousands have disappeared just as mysteriously, many while driving autos, creating horrific chaos.
Blu says: This dramatic opening scene introduces the reader to “the Rapture,” a theological concept accepted by many Evangelical Christians who believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. They believe that at some point in time,
Blu says: perhaps quite soon, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior will suddenly be gathered up bodily and carried off to spend eternity with Him, leaving the rest of humanity behind to face the so-called “tribulation.”
Blu says: It’s a fearful scenario, one that the authors have stretched into a series of novels that their publisher claims has sold over 10 million copies, sufficient to inspire two Hollywood films.
Blu says: Left Behind is different from the popular Hollywood productions of Cecil B. DeMille dramatizing the Ten Commandments, say, or even Mel Gibson’s violent version of the Crucifixion of Christ.
Blu says: These and other biblically inspired films depict historical events, whether accurately or not, often in an inspiring style.
Blu says: But dramatizing prophecy, or events that have not yet occurred, and may never occur, is another matter. If it is the prophecy of a secular figure, such as Nostradamus or even Edgar Cayce, one is free to accept or reject it as plausible.
Roz says: Left Behind is fiction
true_eagle says: yes
Blu says: But the story of Left Behind is represented as taken from Holy Scriptures. In the novel a Protestant minister tells his flock: “I believe the Bible teaches that the Rapture of the church ushers in
Blu says: a seven-year period of trial and tribulation, during which terrible things will happen.” Fundamentalist Christians may feel compelled to believe the story. Such fiction becomes truth in their minds, and thus cannot be readily dismissed.
Blu says: When I read Left Behind, I assumed it was based on prophecies found in the book of Revelation. Much to my surprise, upon rereading that perplexing final book of the New Testament, the term Rapture was not to be found.
Blu says: Further research determined that the term Rapture does not appear anywhere in the Bible.
true_eagle says: an john chapter 14 verse 1 is one of my favorite
Blu says: Where did this non-biblical notion come from?
Roz says: fear based
Blu says: Scholars attribute it to a 19th-century Irish Anglican priest, John Nelson Darby, who broke with the Church of England and founded his own sect in Dublin in 1827. Darby’s congregation had no church but held prayer meetings and Bible study in members’
Blu says: houses. They had no ordained minister, but affirmed the ministry of all believers. When the group formed a meeting in Plymouth, England in 1830, they became known as the Plymouth Brethren, a name that has stuck to this day.
true_eagle says: true . rapture is not menthioned.. in theconcordences
Blu says: Darby coined the term “Rapture” from the Latin rapere, meaning, “to be caught up” or “snatched.” Its scriptural underpinning is found in I Thessalonians 4:16-17, which says “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel,
Blu says: and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
Blu says: Darby’s Rapture doctrine was part of a larger theology that he advanced under the name “Dispensationalism.” Dispensational theology holds that God’s dealings with humankind can be divided into distinct dispensations, or time periods in the evolution of
Blu says: humankind. Dispensationalists say there are either three key dispensations – the Mosaic Law, the present age of Grace, and the future Millennial Kingdom – or five of them: Innocence – Adam; Conscience – after man sinned, up to the flood; Government – after
Roz says: a notion that WE are the chosen ones? Chosen ones are those who serve
Blu says: the flood, man allowed to eat meat, death penalty instituted; Promise – Abraham up to Moses and the giving of the Law; Law – Moses to the cross; Grace – the cross to the coming Millennial Kingdom; Millennial Kingdom – a 1,000-year reign of Christ on
Roz says: who choose to serve
Blu says: Earth following the Second Coming. In each dispensation, Darby theorized, man is tested in his obedience to the will of God as revealed at that time.
Blu says: Opponents of Dispensationalism point out that it is non-biblical; but advocates claim that several early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria (150-220 A.D.) and Augustine (354-430 A.D.), expressed a belief that God dealt with His people differently in progressive dispensations.
Blu says: Darby’s theology didn’t fare particularly well in England but gained a strong foothold in America after he visited the United States, preaching and starting Brethren churches. By the turn of the 20th century several religious publications lent support to his cause, and
Blu says: the widely known evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, founded several Bible schools that taught Dispensational theology. American dispensationalists tended to distance themselves from Darby and
Blu says: his Brethren sect “while taking from his theological bag dispensational doctrines such as the secret Rapture,” one writer observed.
Blu says: The adjective “secret” was added to “Rapture” because some claimed that Jesus would secretly Rapture the faithful prior to the tribulation and then make His public return in the Second Coming
Blu says: after the tribulation. Others argued that the Rapture would follow the tribulation. And since the Bible doesn’t mention either one, believers are left to argue the matter.
Blu says: Whatever timetable one prefers, the Rapture concept spread widely among conservative Protestants, largely because of the influence of the Scofield Reference Bible.
Blu says: Its publisher, Cyrus I. Scofield, was the United States district attorney for Kansas under President Ulysses S. Grant, and later served a brief prison sentence for forgery.
Blu says: While in prison, Scofield underwent a religious conversion, and in 1883 was ordained as a Congregationalist minister in Dallas, Texas. Scofield started a correspondence Bible study course, and from that course created the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909.
Blu says: Largely through the influence of Scofield’s notes added to the Bible text, dispensationalism became influential among fundamentalist Christians because he blended Darby’s theology with the King
Blu says: James Version, leading readers to conclude that it was all the word of God. One writer summed up the effect:
Blu says: “Had Scofield decided to publish his notes in a separate volume rather than inserting them on the pages of the Bible itself, in all probability they would have soon been relatively forgotten.
Blu says: Instead, they have been devoured by hundreds of thousands, many of whom are unaware of the distinction between the biblical text and Scofield’s interpretation.”
diane says: what a sham
Blu says: Scofield was denounced by one critic as “an intellectual charlatan, a fraud who pretends to knowledge which he does not possess; like a quack doctor,” but this did not diminish the popularity of his interpreter’s Bible or its acceptance by Protestant clergy, lay Christians, and many Bible schools such as Dallas Theological Seminary.
Blu says: By the 1950s half of all conservative Evangelical students were using the Scofield Bible, for as Craig Blaising, professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, declared, “The Scofield Reference Bible became the Bible of
Blu says: fundamentalism, and the theology of the notes approached confessional status in many Bible schools, institutes and seminaries established in the early decades of this century.”
Blu says: A current statement of beliefs posted on the website of the Dallas school verifies the professor’s claim:
Blu says: “We believe that, according to the Word of God, the next great event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the Lord in the air to receive to Himself into heaven both His own who are alive and remain unto His coming, and also all who have fallen asleep in
Blu says: Jesus, and that this event is the blessed hope set before us in the Scripture, and for this we should be constantly looking.”
Blu says: As for the tribulation, the Dallas seminary states: “We believe that the period of great tribulation in the earth will be climaxed by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth as He went, in person on the clouds of heaven, and with power and great glory to
Blu says: introduce the millennial age, to bind Satan and place him in the abyss, to lift the curse which now rests upon the whole creation, to restore Israel to her own land and to give her the realization of
Blu says: God’s covenant promises, and to bring the whole world to the knowledge of God.”
Blu says: The powerful impact of Scofield’s text on several generations of fundamentalists and such evangelistic preachers as Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who advanced Dispensational
Blu says: precepts, undoubtedly accounts for the popular success of the Left Behind fiction, for millions of people today believe its scenario to be gospel truth. As the Christian critic Richard T. Ritenbaugh observed, they expect that “at some point in the near future, Jesus
Blu says: Christ will return and ‘snatch away’ all Christians on the earth. Those who believe in Jesus will rise to meet Him in the air, and He will whisk them off to heaven for a 3 1/2-to-7-year Marriage Supper.
Blu says: In the meantime here on Earth, untold destruction occurs when ‘born-again Christians’ suddenly vanish while at the controls of cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, heavy equipment, and the like. ‘Unsaved’ relatives and friends will frantically and unsuccessfully
Blu says: search for their raptured loved ones. The media will provide 24-hour coverage of the mysterious disappearance of millions of people, speculating wildly on its cause – everything from a mass
Blu says: alien abduction to shifting dimensions and levels of consciousness. Does this sound like something our God would do?”
Blu says: Edgar Cayce certainly didn’t think so.
Blu says: I don't think so either
Blu says: Although he grew up in a rural Southern Protestant (Disciples of Christ) church community, and might have been subjected to such an interpretation of the Bible as a boy, his many discourses as an adult –
Leon says: It would help lower world population
Blu says: LOL
Blu says: in which Jesus was mentioned repeatedly – never mentioned the Rapture. And when he spoke of tribulation, it was usually in the familiar expression “trials and tribulations” that are to be anticipated in the course of anyone’s life:
Blu says: “The great tribulation and periods of tribulation, as given, are the experiences of every soul, every entity. They arise from influences created by man through activity in the sphere of any sojourn. Man may become,
Blu says: with the people of the universe, ruler of any of the various spheres through which the soul passes in its experiences. Hence, as the cycles pass, as the cycles are passing, when there is come a time, a period of readjusting in the spheres,
Blu says: (as well as in the little earth, the little soul) – seek, then, as known, to present self spotless before that throne; even as all are commanded to be circumspect, in thought, in act, to that which is held by self as that necessary for the closer walk with Him.
Blu says: In that manner only may each atom (as man is an atom, or corpuscle, in the body of the Father) become a help-meet with Him in bringing that to pass that all may be one with Him.” (281-16)
Blu says: Cayce did not consider the book of Revelation a forecast of tragic days ahead for the unwashed. Indeed, he says it should be viewed symbolically rather than literally. “The Revelation – is a description of, a possibility of, thy own consciousness; and not as a historical
Blu says: fact, not as a fancy, but as that thy own soul has sought throughout its experiences, through the phases of thy abilities, the faculties of thy mind and body, the emotions of all of thy complex – as it may
Blu says: appear – system. And ye will find peace, and an awakening – beautiful!” (1473-1)
Blu says: He interpreted Revelation primarily as a call for self-examination, contemplation, and personal understanding. “[For] the experience of every soul who seeks to know, to walk in, a closer communion with Him. For the visions, the experiences, the names, the
Blu says: churches, the places, the dragons, the cities [mentioned in Revelation], all are but emblems of those forces that may war within the individual in its journey through the material, or from the
Blu says: entering into the material manifestation to the entering into the glory, or the awakening in the spirit, in the inter-between, in the borderland, in the shadow.” (281-16)
Blu says: That is not to say that the Cayce philosophy is easy on us. Revelation, he said, calls us to look within and discover: “What is lacking in self? Are ye cold? Are ye hot? Have ye been negligent of the knowledge that is thine? Are ye stiff-necked? Are ye adulterous in thought, in act, in the very glories that are thine?” (281-16)
Blu says: Edgar Cayce found no terrifying warning that Jesus will gather only a select few and carry them off to Heaven, while the rest are Left Behind to suffer. Cayce said Heaven (or Hell) is a state we each
Blu says: create for ourselves. “Each entity’s heaven or hell must, through some experience, be that which it has builded for itself.” (281-16) Many opportunities await us to redeem our errors.
JohnB says: head ache might that the gloria has fallen down a bite Blu
Blu says: Cayce agreed that Jesus would come again, and not just once. “And He will come again and again in the hearts, in the minds, in the experiences of those that love His coming. But those when they think on Him and know what His Presence would mean and
Blu says: become fearful, He passeth by – even as the experiences of the entity through that sojourn found many that harkened not to the simple words of Him who gave, ‘Know thyself, know that thy Father abideth in thee. And if ye love Him, ye may know His ways, His experiences.’” (1152-1)
Blu says: Who, then, will be left behind?
Blu says: “The Father has not willed that any soul should perish, and is thus mindful that each soul has again and again – and yet again – the opportunity for making its paths straight.” (2021-1)
diane says: those who are fearful
Blu says: If we reach the end of our physical life cycle and have not met the prescribed tests of spiritual development expected by our Creator, Cayce says the soul has a more attractive option than the terrors of fictional tribulation:
Blu says: “The soul is not lost; the individuality of the soul that separates itself is lost. The reincarnation or the opportunities are continuous until the soul has of itself become an entity in its whole or has
Blu says: submerged itself ... That’s why the reincarnation, why it reincarnates; that it may have the opportunity.” 826-8
Blu says: There is no comparing the frightening doctrine of John Darby with the uplifting message of Edgar Cayce, and no way of comparing the extent to which these opposite beliefs have taken root among
Blu says: Christians, or persons of other faiths for that matter. Books containing rival doctrines are circulated widely, and television evangelists have propagated dispensationalism far and wide for many years.
Blu says: Believers are free to accept or reject either of these opposite beliefs – but many Protestants cling to the scary Left Behind notion simply because they regard it as Gospel, the word of God, little realizing it is only the rant of an Irishman who was mad at the church.
Blu says: End
true_eagle says: all tho jesus does not use the word .. rapture.. wat he discribes is !
Blu says: wow, don't tick off an Irishman!
JohnB says: bravo Blu
true_eagle says: thanks blu
Blu says: YW Mike
Blu says: Any more comments?
true_eagle says: an if we know jesus... we will b ready..... if !
Blu says: we can have open chat now!
