Dennis On "What Prophet-eth a Man If He Can't Get It Right?"

What Prophet-eth a Man If He Can't Get It Right?

In my entire life, NOT ONE prophecy, which now in my mind is merely the human tendency to speculate about events as they perceive them, has "come true."   Aside from cracking the code, the Bible does not really speak of Britain, The United States, Russia or China.  Kings of the North, South, East and West are vague figures that have been named wrongly for thousands of years.  No prophet ever just came out and said "The King of the North is Larry the Great of Syria or the King of the South is Omar the Awesome of Ethiopia.  Well I am sure they actually have said that somewhere but they were wrong.

There have been hundreds if not thousands of the Two Witnesses of Revelation over the millennia, not to mention quite a few Elijah's, Elisha's and those in the spirit and power of John the Baptist.  EVERY Fundamentalist Christian Sect, Cult, Denomination and Church has spent it's years on earth reading the Bible as if it were a newspaper, living in the last days and among those who would be changed in a moment and in a twinkling of an eye at the last trump.  And they are all dead now and it is our turn.  I picture millions a hundred years from now in a world even worse than this present one printing booklets, loading ipads or downloading stuff into the chip in their heads about "the end times," and having it sent from yet another Prophet or Apostle who just knows what it's all about and what is about to happen.

Prophecy is merely speculation based on the factors one sees around them at the time they live and move and have their being.  Most other professions speculate, but religion  has to call it prophecy.  Just sounds better and more true and sure than speculation.

Before we take a look at some failed prophecies that all COGers think is not failed at all please understand that any prophecy one finds that they think is already over and done with is NOT DUAL.  Many things in the Bible are over and done with and have nothing to do with us or the times in which we find ourselves.  They are not DUAL.  Dual is what you make something when you want it to be still true and about to come around again for it's REAL fulfillment. It's simply not true.  Everything Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel said in their day was for their day.  The suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 was never Dual nor about Jesus.  It was about Isaiah who felt he was the one suffering to get the message out to Israel but that's another story.  No prophet looked hundreds and hundreds of years ahead .  If the people who were then facing what they were facing ever even thought that, they would turn away in droves because " well then, if this if for the way far ahead types, how does that help us?"-

Duality is what one does to drag into the present, ideas and stories that should have stayed rooted and grounded in the past where they were meant to be applied.

Bob Thiel, Awesome Prophet of the Still Going Church of God,  for example, is not a Prophet.  He is a speculator of religious outcomes as are all men and women who think they see themselves in the pages of the Bible.  What a slippery slope that is!  Ron Weinland nor his wife are the Two Witnesses.  Herbert Armstrong was not really the Elijah to come and GTA was not the guy dressed in filthy rags spoken of by the prophets. These were just religious folk of various and interesting persuasions.  Gerald Flurry is not really "that Prophet," and Dave Pack is not really an Apostle of the Overarching Church of the One True God/Christ.  It's all made up and it's all quite fantastic and silly.

So let's take a look at failed prophecies in the Bible and please try not to scream "It's Dual!"  or "That's out of context!"  If you are given to that, enjoy  

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
This is an example of Matthew making a scripture mean what it never meant which he did often. This is not a prophecy for 700 years into the future about Jesus. It was about not worrying about the Assyrians destroying them as it would be taken care of and that God was with them.  Immanuel means "God is with us,"  which is far different from Matthew's take of "God with us."  Jesus was never called Immanuel.
Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
Damascus is still inhabited today with over a million people, and hardly a ruinous heap.
Isaiah 19:4-5 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts. And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
The river mentioned here is the Nile.  The Nile is still one of Egypt's greatest natural resource.
Isaiah 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.
The Canaanite language has never been spoken in Egypt, and is now an extinct.
Isaiah 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
There are uncircumcised people living in Jerusalem even today
Ezekiel 29:10-11 Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.  No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

Never in its long history has Egypt ever been uninhabited for forty years.

Amos 9:15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.

Many times, Jews have been pulled up out of their land.  The ownership of their land is still being fought for.

Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Nineveh was never overthrown.  Why?  Because God changed his mind in verse 3:10, despite what Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19 and Ezekiel 24:14 says about God never changing his mind.  You will find in the Bible that when God, "changes his mind," it is always because what was said to be wasn't and we needed an out.
Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
Nowhere in the Old Testament is such a prophecy found, so how could such a one be fulfilled?
Matthew 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
There is no passage in the Old Testament that can be attributed to what Jesus is saying here.
Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Jesus states that all the signs marking the end of the world in Matthew 24 would be fulfilled before his generation ended.  That generation ended 2000 years ago, and the world has not come to an end, neither have all those signs been fulfilled. And "this generation" means THAT generation.
Matthew 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Jesus tells the high priest that he would see his second coming.  The high priest is long dead, and Jesus hasn't returned yet.
 
Resist the idea that these are dual.  "Ok, they didn't happen yet!" is not the way to go on these scriptures.  They are not about the times to come.  When Jesus told people they would see the Son of Man or that those who pierced him as in Revelation would see him he meant very soon and NOT after thousands of years when they were resurrected.

Add to this what every Church of God Bible reader should know, that being  the FACT that the Apostle Paul really did predict Jesus would come soon and shortly and didn't, which makes him not so good at predictions either.  

Paul really did say "WE who are ALIVE and remain,....."   Paul really did say "WE shall be changed" and "We shall not all die, but we all shall be changed,"   Anyone can see the progressive hope turned to disappointment in the early Church who never looked thousands of years into the future for one second.  Does Bob Thiel predict thousands of years into the future as if we'd care about such times long after we die?  No...of course not.  Prophecy is for the times the prophet lives in and to give hope, well founded or not, to those who hear him THEN not now!
Whoever and whenever Revelation was written, it was NOT for the distant future and it is not DUAL.  When the author wrote chapter 12: 1-4 about the woman clothed in the sun with the moon under her feet about to give birth and the dragon waiting to devour the child, go run an astronomy program of September 7, 69 AD where the constellation Virgo the Virgin, bathed in the days sunlight, the moon under her feet , legs open towards the horizon with the Serpent of the constellation Ophucus waiting and you'll see how "as above so below" works when prophets look up at the night sky of THEIR times.  It's what people do to explain their crazy world in which THEY live, not the one in which we live way in the future. 

Reading the Old and New Testaments as one would read a Newspaper is a BIG mistake.  The Prophets weren't really writing to us 2700 years ago and the Apostle Paul or John did not mean US.  The books weren't written yesterday to be downloaded today.  Most if not all these sincere men and women were wrong in what they thought they saw for themselves and had not intention of being dual about it.  And please don't think "Well, God didn't tell them it was Dual."   I know you will.

Living in the world and on this planet can be both wondrous and very dangerous.  It always has been.  We all think we would like to know "what's going to happen," both to the world and ourselves mostly.  World conditions at anytime in history can be seen as being at an end.  When millions and millions died of the Black Plague, would they not see "prophecy coming alive!"?  When Rome fell or the Pope showed up, would many not see that as "prophecy coming alive!"?  Of course.  Every Pope is the last Pope and all deviants from the norm  of politics and religion are antichrists.  


What does it hurt to filter one's world through "prophecy" right or wrong?  It hurts you because it often postpones facing reality. How many in the faith believe  that they won't actually die and then have to face the fact that they will die as have all before them?  All flesh is grass. No exceptions.
 It can make you give resources you don't have to people who don't use them well or make a living off you.  It can sucker you in to a career you wish you'd never had. It can blind one to the joy of life or make your kids wish they had other parents.  It can suck out your confidence and crush hope because it can take you down the wrong path or put you on the wrong train even if you think it is on the right track.

For me, and only me probably amongst the COG crowd, life is to be lived in the only time you actually have...now.  It is not easy and the prophecy bug bites deep into the human need to know even if they don't really know.  The past is only in our heads and tends to torment us endlessly if we don't let go of the baggage and the future simply is not here.  When it arrives it will just be another moment in the now to deal with and then a past memory. 

No prophecy uttered by any WCG/COG or Fundamentalist Christian in my life has ever been correct.  As far as I can tell, this holds true back through the last 3000 years.  100% of all Prophets so far have been 100% wrong 100% of the time. 

Over the hill, just around the corner, very soon, 3,5,10, 15 and certainly no more than 20, gun laps (have we not run out of bullets by now?), shortly and the hour now is simply aren't true to date .  

You know who is no prophet. You know who is no Witness nor is you know who.  You know who is not "that Prophet" and you know who is not really a gifted Apostle of the last days.   And like it or not, the scoffers spoken of in the Book of Peter were right.  They weren't evil.  Their motives weren't wicked.  They weren't being mean or faithless.  They just noticed and began to notice that what they had been told all their lives by the prophets and Apostles simply was not coming to pass.  They simply were ahead of their time and saying things that others were only thinking....and they were right. 

Life itself can be  a Non-Prophet experience if you have eyes to see how badly they predict the who, what, when, where , why and how of the unknowable future. 

Dennis
DenniscDiehl@aol.com