Posted by ME on June 14, 2012 at 10:05:12
In Reply to: Re: Daniel 7 posted by FH on June 13, 2012 at 17:18:20:
I'm happy someone wants to talk about scripture, but Lord help me, I do have trouble wrapping my head around the apocraphal writings. When it comes to contrasting what TFI teaches versus understanding what the Bible really says, I trust a lot of what the folks at makestraightpaths.com have to say. They haven't addressed the whole of TFI speculation on end-time prophesy, but they do a nice introduction piece to the subject in their article on Daniel 2.
When deciding whether to take 1.5 hr to listen to a teaching, I tried to figure out the religious affiliation of the website and the teacher, Walter J. Veith. The website isn't very transparent, and that makes me a bit suspicious. It turns out Dr. Veith is affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventists.
I admire the Adventists for their lifestyle and consider their core beliefs within the unity of Christian faith, but I am skeptical of their end-time teaching. This is a group, after all, that was founded out of the Great Disappointment of 1844. The SDA sees itself as the remnant called to proclaim the Three Angels' Message of Rev. 14:6-12. Maybe they are the remnant mentioned in Rev. 12:17. The Holy Spirit hasn't confirmed the truth of that claim to me.
My biggest concern with placing too much emphasis on discerning the signs of the times for Jesus' Second Coming is that "the more convinced one is of the immanent return of Christ, the less likely one is to make long-term commitments." I personally feel called to focus on living in the Kingdom of God here and now through a long-term commitment to feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, comforting those that mourn, visiting the prisoner, and caring for widows and orphans. This is what I believe the Lord has asked me to do to prepare for his return. My spiritual focus doesn't leave a lot of time or energy to speculate on how all the screwed up stuff that happens in this world fits into the Book of Daniel.