If you read my email and this post carefully you will note that I made one change in the email that I discovered too late in this last post. The whole quote was from page 2, not page 21.
By all means order the book!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
January 30.
I have been away from this for awhile, but am excited to get back into it.
The below is the first of a series of verbatim quotes from the Preface to Grattan Guinness' monumental work, History Unveiling Prophecy, and in the recently republished book, page 21. I would strongly suggest that anyone with even a modicum of interest in this subject order the book from Amazon. The knowledge and understanding that one will acquire, long hidden from today's religious world, will be well worth the $33 cost of the book.
"The lofty decree of Papal Infallibility issued by the Vatican Council of 1870, immediately followed by the sudden and final fall of the Papal Temporal Power, after a duration of more than a thousand years, was the primary occasion of my writing the series of works on the fulfillment of Scripture prophecy which has appeared during the last quarter of a century.
"I left Paris, where I have been labouring in the Gospel, at the outbreak of the Franco-German war in July, 1870. It was in the light of the German bombardment of that city, of the ring of fire which surrounded it, and of the burning of the Tuileries, that I began to read with interest and understanding the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse. Subsequent visits to Italy and Rome enlarged my view of the subject. A library of books bearing on it was accumulated, historical, astronomical, and prophetic, including 150 commentaries on the Apocalypse, ancient and modern, from the commentary of Victorinus in the third century, down to those of Elliot and others in the nineteenth. These studies laid the foundation for my works on prophecy.
"The present work, which differs in important respects from my previous works, as being chiefly historical in character, may be fitly introduced by a brief explanation of the method of interpretation which it follows.
"A great and incontrovertible principle underlies the method it pursues in the interpretation of the Apocalypse. Simply stated that principle is that
I have been away from this for awhile, but am excited to get back into it.
The below is the first of a series of verbatim quotes from the Preface to Grattan Guinness' monumental work, History Unveiling Prophecy, and in the recently republished book, page 21. I would strongly suggest that anyone with even a modicum of interest in this subject order the book from Amazon. The knowledge and understanding that one will acquire, long hidden from today's religious world, will be well worth the $33 cost of the book.
"The lofty decree of Papal Infallibility issued by the Vatican Council of 1870, immediately followed by the sudden and final fall of the Papal Temporal Power, after a duration of more than a thousand years, was the primary occasion of my writing the series of works on the fulfillment of Scripture prophecy which has appeared during the last quarter of a century.
"I left Paris, where I have been labouring in the Gospel, at the outbreak of the Franco-German war in July, 1870. It was in the light of the German bombardment of that city, of the ring of fire which surrounded it, and of the burning of the Tuileries, that I began to read with interest and understanding the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse. Subsequent visits to Italy and Rome enlarged my view of the subject. A library of books bearing on it was accumulated, historical, astronomical, and prophetic, including 150 commentaries on the Apocalypse, ancient and modern, from the commentary of Victorinus in the third century, down to those of Elliot and others in the nineteenth. These studies laid the foundation for my works on prophecy.
"The present work, which differs in important respects from my previous works, as being chiefly historical in character, may be fitly introduced by a brief explanation of the method of interpretation which it follows.
"A great and incontrovertible principle underlies the method it pursues in the interpretation of the Apocalypse. Simply stated that principle is that
GOD IS HIS OWN INTERPRETER
"In two ways does the great Revealer of the prophecy explain its meaning--by words, and deed; by written words, and acted deeds. He has given us a verbal explanation of its most central and important vision, one which stands in close and commanding connection with all its other visions; and in the long course of Christian history he has fulfilled its predictions.
"Thus Scripture is the key to Scripture; and Providence to Prophecy.
"The historical interpretation of the Apocalypse which rests on this twofold foundation has been slowly developed under the influence of divine action in Providence; it has changed in details with the changing currents of Providence; it has grown with the growth of the knowledge of the plans of Providence; it has been confirmed and sealed by the whole course of Providence. It is no vain, or puerile, or presumptuous speculation. It is a reverent submission to the very words of God, and a reverent recognition of His acts. God has spoken; He has given an explanation of the central and commanding vision of the prophecy; and God has acted; He has fulfilled its predictions. In pointing to the words and deeds of God we act as His witnesses. What hath God said? What hath He done? These are the questions. We are wearied with vain speculation as to the meaning of the prophecy which have no other foundation than the assertions of men. We are wearied with speculations as to imaginary future fulfilments of prophecies which have been plainly accomplished before our eyes in the past; prophecies on whose accomplishment in the events of Christian history the structure of the great Reformation of the sixteenth century was built; on the fact of whose accomplishment in their days the confessors stood, and the martyrs suffered. Alas! the speculations of men have clouded these facts and brought into disrepute the Holy Word of God. Even good men have been led to neglect the voice of divine prophecy, and to refuse its lamp to light their steps, through the follies of its exponents. Is it not time that the last prophetic book in the Word of God, a book bearing the seal of the signature of the name of "Jesus" should be lifted up from the dust of neglect, and set upon a candlestick in the midst of the house, to shed it clear light and cheering beams on all around? Let the reverent believer who 'trembles' at God's Word, the patient student who has searched the records of the past, the uncompromising witness who fears not the faces of men, lift up that fallen lamp from the soil on which men have cast it, and place it where Copernicus placed the sun, as a kingly light enthroned in the centre of its system" End of quote.
For your information, other books by Guinness include:
Light for the Last days
Romanism and The Reformation.
The Approaching End of The Age
"Thus Scripture is the key to Scripture; and Providence to Prophecy.
"The historical interpretation of the Apocalypse which rests on this twofold foundation has been slowly developed under the influence of divine action in Providence; it has changed in details with the changing currents of Providence; it has grown with the growth of the knowledge of the plans of Providence; it has been confirmed and sealed by the whole course of Providence. It is no vain, or puerile, or presumptuous speculation. It is a reverent submission to the very words of God, and a reverent recognition of His acts. God has spoken; He has given an explanation of the central and commanding vision of the prophecy; and God has acted; He has fulfilled its predictions. In pointing to the words and deeds of God we act as His witnesses. What hath God said? What hath He done? These are the questions. We are wearied with vain speculation as to the meaning of the prophecy which have no other foundation than the assertions of men. We are wearied with speculations as to imaginary future fulfilments of prophecies which have been plainly accomplished before our eyes in the past; prophecies on whose accomplishment in the events of Christian history the structure of the great Reformation of the sixteenth century was built; on the fact of whose accomplishment in their days the confessors stood, and the martyrs suffered. Alas! the speculations of men have clouded these facts and brought into disrepute the Holy Word of God. Even good men have been led to neglect the voice of divine prophecy, and to refuse its lamp to light their steps, through the follies of its exponents. Is it not time that the last prophetic book in the Word of God, a book bearing the seal of the signature of the name of "Jesus" should be lifted up from the dust of neglect, and set upon a candlestick in the midst of the house, to shed it clear light and cheering beams on all around? Let the reverent believer who 'trembles' at God's Word, the patient student who has searched the records of the past, the uncompromising witness who fears not the faces of men, lift up that fallen lamp from the soil on which men have cast it, and place it where Copernicus placed the sun, as a kingly light enthroned in the centre of its system" End of quote.
For your information, other books by Guinness include:
Light for the Last days
Romanism and The Reformation.
The Approaching End of The Age
In my next post I will offer Guinness' outline of the book.
Footnote: In the first paragraph the bold print of 150 commentaries was added. Otherwise, the italics throughout were in the original.
Footnote: In the first paragraph the bold print of 150 commentaries was added. Otherwise, the italics throughout were in the original.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
There's a certain amount of repetition that I must do here, since the ground I am going to cover here I have already covered to some degree in my earlier emails.
Restating my basic premise, almost the entire evangelical community has been led astray in the interpretations of Revelation as the result of the very shrewd cunning of a Jesuit priest who was but for a few years a contemporary of Luther himself, namely the late 1500's.
You must understand that what Luther did in his posting of his 95 theses in 1517 was a little bit akin to lighting a stick of dynamite in Europe. Defections from the Roman Catholic Church were multitudinous in number, and the church was not at all happy about it.
Their solution was to hire a Jesuit priest name Ribera. His solution was a re-write of Daniel 9, the last four verses, which you already should know is the vision of the 70 weeks. What he did, simply, was change the 'he' of verse 27, which clearly in the text refers to MESSIAH, and make it refer to the antichrist.
Condensing what I had originally intended to document here from other websites but have since thought to be unnecessary, is that his re-write found its way in to the library of the Anglican church in England, and lay there buried for nearly 200 years. It was then, in the early 1800's that S.R. Maitland, librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, found it and shared it with several others who are of lesser importance here.
The one who is not of lesser importance, however, is the editor of the famous study Bible, C. I. Scofield. If you do a Google search of Scofield you will find that his Bible, richly annotated from Genesis to Revelation, did more that any other single volume to promulate what is held almost universally in our day in evangelicalism as the approach to the Book of Revelation, namely that beginning with chapter 6 none of it has started yet.
To conclude this post I draw your attention to only two texts that in themselves lend a strong voice to the error of that approach. The first is Daniel 12:9, "And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end."
The other verse is Revelation 1:3, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand."
Close up then, but at hand now, now meaning at the time of John's writing. In witness whereof let it be repeated that ALL the church fathers throughout the ages, right up to the 1800's believed that Revelation was church history in disguise.
In a word, the entire doctrine of futurism had its beginning, insofar as its being published widely, only in the 1800's.
If anyone reading this wants to see my original email that includes a little more detail with regard to the original meaning of Daniel 9, please email me at dgregory17@sc.rr.com.
Restating my basic premise, almost the entire evangelical community has been led astray in the interpretations of Revelation as the result of the very shrewd cunning of a Jesuit priest who was but for a few years a contemporary of Luther himself, namely the late 1500's.
You must understand that what Luther did in his posting of his 95 theses in 1517 was a little bit akin to lighting a stick of dynamite in Europe. Defections from the Roman Catholic Church were multitudinous in number, and the church was not at all happy about it.
Their solution was to hire a Jesuit priest name Ribera. His solution was a re-write of Daniel 9, the last four verses, which you already should know is the vision of the 70 weeks. What he did, simply, was change the 'he' of verse 27, which clearly in the text refers to MESSIAH, and make it refer to the antichrist.
Condensing what I had originally intended to document here from other websites but have since thought to be unnecessary, is that his re-write found its way in to the library of the Anglican church in England, and lay there buried for nearly 200 years. It was then, in the early 1800's that S.R. Maitland, librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, found it and shared it with several others who are of lesser importance here.
The one who is not of lesser importance, however, is the editor of the famous study Bible, C. I. Scofield. If you do a Google search of Scofield you will find that his Bible, richly annotated from Genesis to Revelation, did more that any other single volume to promulate what is held almost universally in our day in evangelicalism as the approach to the Book of Revelation, namely that beginning with chapter 6 none of it has started yet.
To conclude this post I draw your attention to only two texts that in themselves lend a strong voice to the error of that approach. The first is Daniel 12:9, "And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end."
The other verse is Revelation 1:3, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand."
Close up then, but at hand now, now meaning at the time of John's writing. In witness whereof let it be repeated that ALL the church fathers throughout the ages, right up to the 1800's believed that Revelation was church history in disguise.
In a word, the entire doctrine of futurism had its beginning, insofar as its being published widely, only in the 1800's.
If anyone reading this wants to see my original email that includes a little more detail with regard to the original meaning of Daniel 9, please email me at dgregory17@sc.rr.com.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
I deeply regret, after finishing a lengthy explanation via email earlier this evening regarding the change of venue of this series from email to this blog that an attempt to copy and paste it here was totally unsuccessful. If anyone reading this knows how to do that, kindly inform me, since at least portions of that email would be very helpful to put here without having to retype them.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Perhaps it would be well to explain how all this started. It was way back in 1975 or thereabouts, and my car was out of commission, and another Christian brother had taken me to a meeting of an interdenominational Christian group. When he brought me home and was sitting at the kitchen table he just opened up and began sharing with me about Daniel chapter 9:24-27.
I will not say that his manner of delivery was the best (that was a long time ago) but something sparked inside me, and since what he said blew my prophetic 'ship' right out of the water I resolved that I had to follow this one up, which I did, and which took about two years.
I found one book on 'Antichrist' which was very poorly written, but the bibliography in the back took me to the reasonably well stocked shelves of what was then Columbia Bible College, which was where I met my first wife (with the Lord since 1988). And since I lived in Columbia at the time I took considerable advantage of their library.
The author whom I found to be almost an inexhaustible resource of prophetic and historical information was one Henry Grattan Guinness, about whom I have already written somewhat. Fortunately, the CBC (now CIU for Columbia International University) library had several books by him, and I proceeded in the course of the next not just two years but probably ten or more to read all of them.
I must at this point argue along with Os Guinness, great grandson of the above Guinness, that the view of many Christians that learning and scholarship is a hindrance to spiritual growth, is a very unhealthy attitude. Certainly when we boast of our learning it becomes an outright sin, but if one does a simple study in Proverbs on the word 'instruction' one will find that the Spirit of God has nothing but good to say about learning. Indeed, the very word disciple does not mean follower, but rather learner.
Anyway, the study that I am about to pursue in this venue is about the things that our eyes were opened to back then, and which I have considered to be truth ever since.
It is getting late, and I sign off here.
I will not say that his manner of delivery was the best (that was a long time ago) but something sparked inside me, and since what he said blew my prophetic 'ship' right out of the water I resolved that I had to follow this one up, which I did, and which took about two years.
I found one book on 'Antichrist' which was very poorly written, but the bibliography in the back took me to the reasonably well stocked shelves of what was then Columbia Bible College, which was where I met my first wife (with the Lord since 1988). And since I lived in Columbia at the time I took considerable advantage of their library.
The author whom I found to be almost an inexhaustible resource of prophetic and historical information was one Henry Grattan Guinness, about whom I have already written somewhat. Fortunately, the CBC (now CIU for Columbia International University) library had several books by him, and I proceeded in the course of the next not just two years but probably ten or more to read all of them.
I must at this point argue along with Os Guinness, great grandson of the above Guinness, that the view of many Christians that learning and scholarship is a hindrance to spiritual growth, is a very unhealthy attitude. Certainly when we boast of our learning it becomes an outright sin, but if one does a simple study in Proverbs on the word 'instruction' one will find that the Spirit of God has nothing but good to say about learning. Indeed, the very word disciple does not mean follower, but rather learner.
Anyway, the study that I am about to pursue in this venue is about the things that our eyes were opened to back then, and which I have considered to be truth ever since.
It is getting late, and I sign off here.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Now to get into what I really want to talk about, which is the prophetic books of the Bible, namely Daniel and Revelation. I am bold to say that there are some principles that I learned thirty years ago (acually 35) that very significantly affect how one approaches both books, but especially Revelation, principles that seem to have escaped most modern students.
I know that sounds presumptuous but if you hand in there with me I fully intend to prove it.
Here are the principles:
Number 1, the action indicated in Revelation started way back when the book was written, and is not awaiting some future day to begin. Let me alert you right up front that if you go to nearly any supposed good Christian bookstore and look for books on this subject you will not find a single one that accepts this premise.
Number 2. The book of Revelation is not intended to be taken literally. The word in verse one at the very beginning is the English transliteration of our word semaphore, which the older ones among you will know is that type of flag waving that was used on board aircraft carriers to land plands before the days of radio communication. In other words, the book of Revelation is inspired sign language. In one very real aspect this separates the 'men' from the 'boys' in the process of interpreting, because it takes a lot of real study to wade through all the terms (symbols) used in the book and come up with the meaning of those symbols. Fortunately using the old illustration of not having to re-invent the wheel, other very able scholars have already done that for us, the only problem being finding their books, which as I said are NOT on the shelves of the Christan bookstores, for reasons I will explain later.
Number 3. Even the time elements are not intended to be taken literally, but rather using the year-for-a-day principle, meaning that it is not 1260 literal days (and other verses use time, times, etc, or months) but rather 1260 years, and when one sees the correlation between passages thus interpreted with the known facts of church history it is a little akin to having goose pimples on your flesh it is so awesome.
I close this post with the positive affirmation that I by no means understand the whole book. What I do understand, AND THAT WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, is that the book is not about events yet in the future, but rather about what has already transpired in what is now nearly two millenia since the book was written.
This is a considerable paradigm shift from the customary interpretations of today, so it will take some time to get used to, but something very sobering will happen in your spirit when it grabs hold.
I know that sounds presumptuous but if you hand in there with me I fully intend to prove it.
Here are the principles:
Number 1, the action indicated in Revelation started way back when the book was written, and is not awaiting some future day to begin. Let me alert you right up front that if you go to nearly any supposed good Christian bookstore and look for books on this subject you will not find a single one that accepts this premise.
Number 2. The book of Revelation is not intended to be taken literally. The word in verse one at the very beginning is the English transliteration of our word semaphore, which the older ones among you will know is that type of flag waving that was used on board aircraft carriers to land plands before the days of radio communication. In other words, the book of Revelation is inspired sign language. In one very real aspect this separates the 'men' from the 'boys' in the process of interpreting, because it takes a lot of real study to wade through all the terms (symbols) used in the book and come up with the meaning of those symbols. Fortunately using the old illustration of not having to re-invent the wheel, other very able scholars have already done that for us, the only problem being finding their books, which as I said are NOT on the shelves of the Christan bookstores, for reasons I will explain later.
Number 3. Even the time elements are not intended to be taken literally, but rather using the year-for-a-day principle, meaning that it is not 1260 literal days (and other verses use time, times, etc, or months) but rather 1260 years, and when one sees the correlation between passages thus interpreted with the known facts of church history it is a little akin to having goose pimples on your flesh it is so awesome.
I close this post with the positive affirmation that I by no means understand the whole book. What I do understand, AND THAT WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, is that the book is not about events yet in the future, but rather about what has already transpired in what is now nearly two millenia since the book was written.
This is a considerable paradigm shift from the customary interpretations of today, so it will take some time to get used to, but something very sobering will happen in your spirit when it grabs hold.
Well, now that we have that under our belt we can turn to things more important. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with the magical combination of keys there on your keyboard let me instruct you on a few of them. They are truly dynamite. All of them use the Control key, which ought to be at the extreme ends both left and right at the bottom.
Control A: You select everything. The substitute for this is to left click your mouse and drag it, which is a pain in the neck.
Control C: Copy everything selected. (Whenever anything is selected it will turn either blue or black.
Control V: Paste what you copied into whatever other format you wish.
Control Z: Very, very handy if you are quick enough. If you make a mistake and something 'goes away' that you did not want to go way, whatever your last command was can be 'undone' by hitting Control Z as the very next command.
Well, that's enough instruction for one lesson.
Control A: You select everything. The substitute for this is to left click your mouse and drag it, which is a pain in the neck.
Control C: Copy everything selected. (Whenever anything is selected it will turn either blue or black.
Control V: Paste what you copied into whatever other format you wish.
Control Z: Very, very handy if you are quick enough. If you make a mistake and something 'goes away' that you did not want to go way, whatever your last command was can be 'undone' by hitting Control Z as the very next command.
Well, that's enough instruction for one lesson.
I'm trying to get the feel of this venue. I made an entry yesterday, and the website swallowed it and never gave it back. Yes, that means I lost is entirely, with which I was not entirely happy!
So this evening I was a little more savvy, and before I selected one of the choices (none of which I really understood) I took the necessary precaution of selecting my remarks and copying them, so that if the computer swallowed them again I would have a copy this time.
Lo and behold when I pressed the buttons I pressed the post ended up where I wanted it to, so I must have done something right.
So, I'm going to press the 'publish post' box again, and see what happens.
So this evening I was a little more savvy, and before I selected one of the choices (none of which I really understood) I took the necessary precaution of selecting my remarks and copying them, so that if the computer swallowed them again I would have a copy this time.
Lo and behold when I pressed the buttons I pressed the post ended up where I wanted it to, so I must have done something right.
So, I'm going to press the 'publish post' box again, and see what happens.
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