War in Heaven: Revelation 12: 7-14 - Lesson 11b (Series 3)

[@yvonnebitar2649]

Father bless, thank you Father Peter for continuing this series, I have learned so much!🙏 Praise be to God!

[@GuitarJesse7]

Father bless, I really appreciated your words during Q&A about the church needing to be mission oriented, to experience Christ in such a way that we can’t help but want to share the truth with others and lead them to the life that He offers to the world. My family and I have come out of evangelicalism and are now becoming catechumens in the Orthodox Church. We ask ourselves how we could go for so long without even knowing about the Orthodox church, and it would seem in part that there hasn’t been enough of a witness by Orthodox Christians. Fortunately that changed more recently and we I was exposed to material from people like you, Jay Dyer, Father Josiah, and many others. I pray that more Orthodox Christians will recognize the treasure they have and that Christ will overflow from them into the world. And that those of us that are converts will not just leave our heterodox and atheists friends and family behind and disappear into the Church, but will share with others what we have found.

[@Gustavo-so7zk]

I admire your zeal but it is important to be careful in how you go about proselytizing/evangelizing because it’s very different in the Orthodox Church compared to Protestantism and forms of Western Christianity. The principle goal of the Orthodox individual is theosis, and the way you attract others to the church is through complete devotion to Christ in your life. We are all called to be Saints, and the Saints are our guide to life, and their focus is fully and solely God and loving others. Trying to argue with people who believe differently is nothing compared to living a life guided by the Holy Spirit and the fruits of the True Church. God be with you my friend. May Christ have mercy on us both.

[@nicholasgerhartz6923]

See you at church 😇

[@twaho]

Another writing of an eye witness to consider. Josephus, Wars book VI Sec. 288 Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and (2) a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, and at the ninth hour of the night, (3) so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskilful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, (4) a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. Moreover, (5) the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night… Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, (6) before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, *(Jesus and the angels returning in the clouds for battle against the principalities and powers, also known as nations)* and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, (7) in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise *(Last trump),* and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, ‘Let us remove hence’. *(the souls under the alter taking part in the first resurrection)*

[@twaho]

We do understand the only people we were warned of by Jesus and the apostles? The only ones which were referred to as the children of satan? Even the false prophet in the book of acts, the author was sure to inform us of his nationality. Christ is present in his body, Christians. satan is present in his body (John 8:44) They are, and have been moving to take the inheritance from the heir. Matt 21:38 But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, *‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’* Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, *and heirs according to the promise.* Father, I believe we've been had and we are in Rev 20:7, the gathering of the nations by satan. I can even use the Ante Nicene fathers to back this position.