On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 14:04:27 GMT, "P.T." <pt@yahoo.com>
spake thusly:

Your response? "Well, it would have to, in order to
become a world empire", even though in reality, it
already was a world empire.

It has never been a WORLD empire.

First of all, the Bible does not use that phrase.

Second, you don't seem to understand that the world
to them, was the KNOWN WORLD.

Nebuchadnezzar stated his decree as follows...
"...the king to all the people, nations, and men of
every language that live in all the earth. (Dan 4:1)".

Even Cyrus said...

"The Lord, the God of Heaven, has given me all the
kingdoms of the earth." (Ezra 1:2; 2 Chron. 36:23).

Third, since the Bible is our ruler and not the daily
news that you like to point to for doctrine, Daniel
said that the first kingdom in the prophecy, was
Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel 2:37-38

37) You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God
of Heaven has given you a kingdom, power, and
strength, and glory.
38) And wherever the sons of men, the beasts of
the field, and the birds of the heavens live, He has
given them into your hand, and has made you ruler
over them all. *YOU* ARE THIS HEAD OF GOLD.

So yes, Babylon DEFINITELY WAS an empire
that ruled the known world.

Now you go ahead and disagree with Scripture,
if you wish, but that place was laid to waste at
a point in time, as prophesied and the Bible says
it would never be rebuilt. You claim however,
that it must be rebuilt.

Now you don't seem to understand this, because
you quote some village, or some such thing. I
would suggest that you study the language of
the Bible, meaning how God phrased things and
also the geography in detail.

Instead of doing this, you try to claim that it must
be rebuilt and that it was never a "world empire".
The reality is, as I said, the Bible doesn't use that
phrase. However, Babylon is what would have
been considered a world empire, since that was
the known world at that time.

You also fail to realize that God said He would use
the Medes and the Persians as the instrument of
Babylon's downfall as a kingdom (Daniel 5:28), since
you ignore the fact that the Medes and the Persians
were an actual people and a combined kingdom that
did actually conquer Babylon. Yet, even though Babylon
was the big kingdom and peoples actually called the
Medes and the Persians did literally conquer Babylon,
as the Medo-Persian Empire, you still await a rebuilt
Babylon and some modern nation, who you will claim
is the modern fulfillment of the Medo-Persian Empire,
for this prophecy to be fulfilled.

Does that make any sense? Not to anyone who is not
blinded and brainwashed (no offense, really) by some
"end times" doctrine. No casual reader of the Bible,
who knows their history, would be waiting for some
modern fulfillment, unless they too, did NOT know their
history and started listening to preachers and reading
books, telling them this.

The fact is, that Daniel was still writing his book,
after the Medo-Persian Empire had conquered Babylon
(Daniel 9:1) and yet, it still isn't enough for you,
that Daniel also prophesied that this kingdom would
be comprised of two kingdoms blended into one
(Daniel 7:5), which was the Medo-Persian kingdom
and that one of the two would be more dominant than
the other in that kingdom (Daniel 7:5).

It doesn't even phase you, how the way the kingdom
of Babylon was conquered, was fulfilled.

In 539BC, led by Cyrus, the Medo-Persian Empire
conquered Babylon.

Cyrus was a Persian and it was the Persian half of
the empire that was dominant and this was as Daniel
foretold (the bear raised itself up on one side).

Jeremiah had said that the Babylonian army would
not put up a fight and sure enough, one wasn't.
Cyrus basically walked right into the city gates, which
had stupidly been left open during a feast and
took control.

Both Isaiah and Jeremiah said that the protecting
water, which was the Euphrates River must be
dried up and sure enough, Cyrus diverted the river
into a lake, so that his men crossed it with ease.

Since you love the Torah so much (as do I), read
the test of a prophet...

"When a prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah,
if the thing does not follow nor come to pass, that
is the thing which Jehovah has not spoken. The
prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall
not be afraid of him." - Deuteronomy 18:22

Can anyone think that thousands of years could have
gone by and this prophecy is STILL NOT FULFILLED
and we are supposed to think that these were real
prophets, given the test that God gave the people?

The fact is, that what Daniel, et al, prophesied, WAS
fulfilled and THEY PASSED THE TEST!

Now I agree that Babylon was not immediately made
a wasteland. Even the prophecy of Tyre took two
invasions to completely fulfill, but still, which were
not thousands of years apart. But the fact is, that
Babylon was made a wasteland and God did not say,
"Now what I really mean, is that it will be a wasteland
and then rebuilt and then made a wasteland again.".

So you have two options. Either believe God and see
if somehow you are misunderstanding what He said.
Or call God a liar.

You look to news reports to support your beliefs,
instead of the Bible. The fact is, Saddam Hussein
said he was going to make Babylon a great place
again and rule from there, in his quest to dominate.
The end timers gave us web links, just like you did.
But the reality is, it never happened and they believed
the doctrines of men, instead of the word of God.

So if your test is whether or not the whole idea of
Babylon and the kingdoms agrees with the Torah,
for it to be considered Scripture by you, you again
have two options...

Either believe that the prophets passed the test,
or that Daniel and Jeremiah, etc., were wrong and
failed the test.

You claim to submit to God's word. Yet you don't
submit to this simple instruction that is right there,
in the Torah.

Or is it possible that you don't understand it
properly? Maybe God is talking about the city itself?
Or just using forceful speech, to show that it would
never be a huge empire again? Maybe it is the
language of the Bible and prophecy, that you are not
understanding? Is that possible, or are you perfect?

Eve Tyre, while it took two invasions, was fulfilled
and we do not see thousands of years passing,
without fulfillment. And using your logic, the
atheists would have every right to claim that the
Bible is false, because these prophets did not pass
the test given in Deuteronomy 18:22.

The end timers do a lot of harm! They have us
looking at a God who gives this test and then
it doesn't get fulfilled and they claim that we are
supposed to look to Scripture, to see the proof
of God. Hypocrisy!

Let's take a look at the language of the Bible...

The end timers claim that some planet wide tribulation
is coming and while ignoring the fact that Jesus talked
about a local destruction, claim that He spoke of a
world wide destruction. They call attention to the
fact that nothing like it had happened before that and
that Jesus said it would never be that bad again.

Well, let's see. What about the Flood? Are we to
think that wiping out all life, except for eight
people, who would have died drowning, which is
no fun btw and would have seen chaos and all
kinds of killing, to steal someone else's boat, etc.
and the wide spread fear, from never having seen rain
before and probably thinking that the sky was falling,
was NOT worse than the end timers' claim that a
percentage of the planet's population will be killed?

Here is one man's comment, that I think is appropriate
here in this matter...

"Also we must remember that the Jews were,
and still are, a very colorful and passionate people.
Their idioms and means of communication often
employed hyperbole and exaggeration for effect.
It was part and parcel of that culture. We are being
horribly anachronistic when we try to hyper-literalize
such things. The Bible must tell us how to interpret
the Bible even if it means we must topple the idol
of "literalism" that we have erected today. Biblically
literal means that we interpret things literally in the
sense that they were intended to be understood."

Now let us look at what God said in Ezekiel,
regarding the overtaking of Jerusalem, by Babylon,
which only a fool would deny happened...

"And I will do in you that which I have not done, and
the like of which I will never do again, because of all
your abominations." - Ezekiel 5:9

Now when we read Ezekiel 5, we will find the same
language as we find in Jesus' discourse and in
Revelation. But it pertained to THAT LAND, just
as the language used by Jesus and in Revelation
and it does NOT mean (from the Greek), the PLANET
Earth. Read Ezekiel 5 and note the language and
you will see, if you are searching objectively, that it
speaks of the same horrors and uses the same type
of language that is used throughout the whole Bible.

Let us take a look at what God said about Egypt,
which was, without question, fulfilled, since it
discusses the death of the firstborn in Egypt...

"And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land
of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be
like it any more." - Exodus 11:6

Now the last time I checked, Egypt was on planet Earth.

Now since you wish to cling to rigid literalism in
these texts, you wish for me to now believe, that
a tribulation will take place and that Egypt will
obviously have to be part of it and that it will be
worse (obviously also in Egypt, if it is world wide)
and the likes of which has never been seen before,
when God has said these things quoted above
about Egypt? And about Jerusalem?

Let us note that these things WERE FULFILLED.
So, how can this supposed coming, planet wide
tribulation, be worse than what God said would
never be that bad again?

You see, it is YOUR BELIEF that doesn't make
sense. Mine is perfectly in line with the Biblical
use of language and expression.

Once again, you are presented with two options.

Either believe that God used hyperbole and
exaggeration, to make a point, WHICH WAS
THE COMMON METHOD OF EXPRESSION,
or that the Bible is contradicting itself at every
turn and cannot be trusted.

The choice is yours. I have made mine.