Knight said:
Again... all God needs to know is Satan's intentions and know that He will at somepoint allow a battle to take place. I think Revelation is a book about the "kinds" of things that God knows will take place. It's more like a GIANT warning so you can make plans now to avoid those "kinds" of things.
Do you have any reason to believe that (other than the fact that it goes with your belief system)? The book of Revelation seems pretty detailed. For example:
Revelation 11:3-8 KJV
(3)And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. (4) These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. (5) And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. (6) These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will. (7) And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. (8) And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. (9) And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. (10) And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. (11) And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. (12) And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. |
That's a pretty specific prophecy. We know, from the text that
(1) God will have two witnesses in the end times,
(2) if anybody tries to hurt them, they will be killed by fire proceeding from the witnesses' mouth,
(3) the witnesses will have to power to stop the rain,
(4) the witnesses will be able to turn the water into blood (as well as other plagues),
(5) they will be killed,
(6) their bodies will lie in the streets for two and a half days, and
(7) they will be resurrected.
Knight said:
OK... so let me ask you something....
God often dispenses His foreknowledge to us i.e., in the form of prophecy. Why would God tell us what He thinks is going to happen in the future? What is the point of prophecy?
Asked another way (with a specific example)....
Why would God tell Peter ahead of time that Peter was going to deny Christ three times? Why tell Peter that?
Feel free to speculate.
I believe that there are two reasons (and I'm just speculating).
1.
To get people to repent. Of course, this would only relate to conditional prophecies, such as the one you would see in Revelation 2:16 (
"Repent or else...").
2.
To prove His deity. What better way for people to marvel than to predict the future. That's why people go to psychics and other such loons.
Edit:
Does believing Open View Theism automatically mean believing that one can lose thier salvation? I've heard this before, and just wanted to ask.