Wednesday
Aug192009
Horton Reviews Wright
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 01:20PM 
Mike Horton reviews N.T. Wright's latest book on justification.
You can find it here: Click here: Wright Wednesdays » White Horse Inn Blog
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 01:20PM
Reader Comments (6)
I have read both of your books "The Man of Sin" and "A Case for Amillennialism" and enjoyed them both as an expose' of how erroneous America's rapture theology has become.
I am a volunteer apologists for Reasons to Believe. In follow-up to discussions with Ken Samples on our recent RTB Alaskan cruise conference I have been recommended to contact you via your blog site.
I am a Chemical Engineer in the OIl & Gas industry in Houston who through basic Biblical curiousity and investigation believe I have identified that in the following exegesis of Isaiah 18 we are presented with an excellent prophecy of America's destruction via nuclear war, etc.
I do not have the credentials of a dedicated endtimes researcher like you; therefore, I would hope that upon your review of this prophecy and exegesis that you would carry the burden to get this message out to our nation via blog, book, or whatever. Even part of the instructions from God given in this Isaiah 18 prophecy is to carry this message to the people. Therefore, I just want to get the message out!
My exegesis is simply interspersed with the scripture. I believe the coincidences with America (once the better Hebrew word translations are included) are just too many to ignore!
My contact information is:
keith.henderson@hfg-engineering.com
504-913-5230 cell
713-292-9283 office
Isaiah 18
Isa 18:1 Ah, the land of buzzing quarters, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;
This is the “Ah” of delight as the artist turns to one of his favorite creations to present a masterpiece to an appreciating audience. This is a land of throbbing influence buzzing to the ends of the earth. The location is beyond deepest, darkest Africa or as kids alluding to foreign unknowable lands used to say “beyond Timbuktu” (which is also in the middle of Africa) thus referring to a land by the strangeness of its name as being remote from Israel.
Isa 18:2 that sends ambassadors by the sea, even by implements of paper upon the waters
The world corporate influence that sends financiers, technical consultants, educators, etc., to the world via the powers of contracts, engineering drawings, books, etc. throughout the seas of people across the earth is described here.
Go, swift messengers, to a foreign nation sown and independent, to a
We have a command to go and tell this message to this nation which is a non-Jewish nation that is “founded on independence”.
people formidable from their beginning onward, a nation that is measured out
These people are formidable from their beginning (such as defeating the British Empire at its conception) and formidable onward (such as saving the world in WWI and WWII). This nation is measured out or drawn out from the other nations via immigrants from other nations around the world.
and who treads down, whose land the rivers divide!
This nation dominates its opposition and is blessed with a land of multiple rivers like our Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Colorado, Columbia, etc.
Isa 18:3 All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when a flag is lifted up on the mountains, look; and when the trumpet is blown, hear.
All the world is put on notice by God that when this flag, this symbol is displayed that they are to look just like our Star-Spangled Banner Anthem whose words are:
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Given this verse and the verses below of destruction I can not help but see the vision of a land devastated like a tornado blast with only the irony of the Star-Spangled Banner’s lonely tune breaking through the eerie quietness and silence of abandonment.
Isa 18:4 For Jehovah said to me, “I will be still, and I will behold in my dwelling-place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
This message to Isaiah has been spoken by the “Supreme Authority” who states that He will clearly behold this coming sight from His Holy Abode in the joy of a beautiful environment.
Isa 18:5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower is becoming a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and the spreading branches he will take away and cut down.
This nation will be destroyed and cut down immediately after its peak (before it can become a “sour fruit”) like so many of the great empires of history. Apparently the “superfluous” sprigs and branches of this nation will be the prime object of removal, but not necessarily all persons.
The words “before the harvest” may indicate that this nation’s demise is before the rapture.
Isa 18:6 They shall be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
The utter desolation and quantity of death is so great that it creates a massive human body count that can not be buried. The magnitude of this devastation is emphasized by its double-statement.
Isa 18:7 In that time shall a present be brought to Jehovah of hosts
God quite “uniquely” considers the death of this nation to be a present or gift brought to Him as if they are a covenant people in a Holy relationship with Him.
from a people sown and independent,
(repeated for emphasis from above)
even from a people formidable from their beginning onward,
(repeated for emphasis from above)
a nation that is measured out and who treads down, whose land the rivers divide,
(repeated for emphasis from above)
to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, the mount Zion.
The final destination for this nation is under the name and authority of God, that is Mount Zion which is an old Testament archetype for the worshipping church.
tract... brought back some memories... If you were to write a tract
from the reformed, Calvinistic position, could you share what it might
look like ? ( Without just listing a series of Scripture quotes )...
I mean something that an unchurched teenager might read...
( of course you must remember the ' Chick ' tracts with your
background in the Bookstore business )..not necessarily like those.