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Cephyr13 -> RE: The Anti-Christ is From The Middle East (4/30/2008 5:15:19 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Midwest
2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
You make a great point by using this verse. I don't think people realize what this verse is saying. God had an Ark of the Covenant for the Jews in which He, the Holy Spirit, was in. And if you touched it, you'd die. If it was present during a battle, the other army would be wiped out. This was God and He apparently was REALLY angry that He had been put in a box and decided to wipe out any army that would come against His box, or any one that would touch His box. Just kidding on that angry part. hehehehe
Anyway, the way it went in the Old Testament was that only the High Priest could approach the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies in the temple once a year and give a sacrifice to account for everyone's sins for that year, AS A SYMBOL of the coming Messiah. The Jews thought the sacrifice saved them, but missed that their Messiah was the actual one that would give the sacrifice to save them. So they did the temple cerimonies to show the future arrival of their perfect sacrifice, their messiah, whether they knew it or not. The High Priest would have a rope tied around his waiste when going into the Holy of Holies to give this sacrifice, because if he had not repented of even one sin to God and asked forgiveness for it, God would strike him dead with the Ark as soon as he pulled back the curtain and entered into the Holy of Holies. Then, they'd drag him out by the rope. Not high priest was killed, to my knowledge. David had the Holy Spirit in him, we know. David actually went to the temple, pulled back the curtain, pulled up a stool and sat right in front of the Ark and spoke to God for quite a while. Gutsy move!
When Christ died on the cross, it says that the curtain that separated anyone from seeing or going into the Holy of Holies was torn in half, showing that the perfect sacrifice for all sins had been given in Jesus, and no more were required... and through Jesus' sacrifice, we all have access to salvation and to God.
In the New Testament, we are told that we have the Holy Spirit now, like the Ark of the Covenant did, and that our bodies are now temples of God, and that we should respect them as such and not defile them.
In 2 Thess 2:1-4 says in verse four:
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Now, if our bodies are the temples of God now, and Satan spreads false doctrines throughout the church and we believe them, then I'd say Satan is coming into the temple of God (our bodies) and making a claim as God. Look at Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons for an extreme example of this. They do not believe in the Trinity. They believe God the Father, the Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit are two or three different people (depending on if you're Mormon or JW). And that is very anti-christ. So this false Jesus as taken seat in their hearts and acted as if he's God when it's really just Satan.
I won't really go into tongues too much, because I'll step on too many toes, but imagine if tongues were NOT being produced by the Holy Spirit but rather a demon spirit posing as the Holy Spirit. God gave us free will and sovereign reign over the earth and all that's on it in Genesis 1:26, meaning He cannot interfere unless we ask Him to do so through prayer. Now, if Satan knows prayer is that powerful, wouldn't he want to counterfit prayer and substitute it with something meaninglessa and powerless so that Christians aren't praying but rather babbling for no apparent reason? Sure he would. That's smart. Well, get this: Satanists speak in tongues exactly the same way Christians do, and I've heard from ex-Satanists that the tongues sounds exactly the same when Christians do it as when Satanists do it. Also, if you study the times of the Corinthian church when Paul reprimanded them for speaking in tongues, you find out that the reason he spoke only to Corinth about tongues is because they were the only church near Delphi and Athens. And in Delphi and Athens, the secular people were speaking in a babble language that was exactly like "tongues." So these Corinthians grew up with this babble language and implimented it into Christianity. Paul tells them about what tongues REALLY is, and tells them to stop speaking in this babble tongue or they'll scare people off from the church. He says that tongues is a known laguage on earth. Missionaries and my friends can vouch for that first hand. ALL stories in the last 1900 years up to about the 1900's regarding tongues are from missionaries who say they were speaking to someone who did not speak their language, but as they started speaking to them, that person's language came out of their mouth. And in every instance it's written about, the person they spoke to in tongues (a different language that the other person understood, but that the speaker had never spoken before) resulted in that person being saved.
The gifts of the spirit are always for others, not ourselves. So tongues, the babble language is useless to others. And if you ever look at an exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 14 in regard to the tongues spoken of there, you find out that there's this strict definition between "speaking" in tongues and "praying" in tongues. And you find that praying in tongues is done in your spirit, not verbally, and you are the one that's supposed to get the translation of the "tongues" in your mind in English, and only then are you to speak the translation to others. If you don't get the translation in your mind, then Paul tells the people not to speak it. I think this was to prevent the babble or a false spirit of tongues we might year in our spirit. I have an exegetically study from Ellis Skolfield's book Demons in the Church I typed up directly from the book if you'd like me to email it to you. It's interesting and enlightening. When I talked to Ellis, he said that while studying "tongues" in the church in the last 1900 years, he found that it virtually didn't exist in the church the way it does today, and even quoted a pastor from the 300 AD era that said the babble language tongues that Paul reprimanded the Corinthian church for is non-existant in the church (as a whole) today. Interesting.
Therefore, I think the temple is our body, and this "man of sin, man of lawlessness" that's coming in is the spirit of antichrist, which is the spirit of devils, and they're coming in via false doctrine, like the doctrine of tongues. And it fits so well when you see that these people THINK it's the Holy Spirit speaking it through them, when it's actually just a demon spirit claiming to be the Holy Spirit. I could tell you some interesting stories about people who've tested the spirits causing the "tongues" in people. It usually freaks out the person speaking tongues. Another interesting note is that in Corinthians 11, we see that Paul spends most of the chapter teaching the church ordinance of women wearing head-coverings (hats or scarves), and says that they are a "sign of authority for the angels" (fallen angels, I think). What's interesting is that if a woman says it is a spirit that speaks the tongues through them, and they are not the one controlling the tongues, if they put on a head-covering, their ability to speak tongues is suddenly gone. They can't speak in tongues anymore, they say, unless they simply make it up as they go. lol I find that kind of funny... Just something to think about...
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