144,000

144,000.... anybody ever heard this significant number of Revelations before?  It is a very distinct number and obviously meant for a reason purpose.  Biblical scholars have been pouring over this number for eons.  So, I am not about to give you the final answer on it.  I just want all of us to be aware of it.  Let me know what you have heard about this number.  One thing that I do know is it is single-handedly responsible for Jehovah's Witnesses, and also pushed in the cults of Seventh Day Adventists and Mormonism.

If you have never even heard of this number and don't know any history of it check out Rev 14: 1-5.  

The spin that Jehovah's Witnesses put on this number started with a man named Charles Russell.  As a teenager he hated the church's views on hell and the Trinity and found them unreasonable.  His thought led him to Adventists who assured him of no eternal punishment and his faith in the Scriptures was restored (all be it, wrong).  By the time he was 18, he had his own bible studies going and was taking the Adventists set date 1874 for the end of the world and ran with it.  When that date came and went he pushed it back to 1914.  He kept setting new dates as they came and went all while stating that only 144,000 people on earth would make it to heaven.  Soon his congregation grew and he saw that he was going to have much more followers than 144K , so what was he to do?  He then announced that everyone who had become a JW before 1935 would go to heaven (the "little flock"), while everyone who became a JW after 35' would be among the "great crowd" who would not go to heaven but could look forward to living on Earth in a new paradise after Armageddon and the Millennium. 

I guess the point of this is that yes the bible is confusing at times and definitely hard to believe.  So, what some weak at heart or stubborn in power will do is take what they like about it and run with it.  Or, take what they don't understand and change it to help put their mind at ease.  I think we do that on a much lower scale, but we do it just the same.  No, we don't get a cult following but we do sometimes pick and choose parts of the bible that make us warm and fuzzy and forget to look at the dirty tough pages sometimes.  

I would really like to hear what, if any, things or theories that you have heard about this number before I rip off a super long post that most won't read through.  Again, I apologize for the delay and didn't mean to step on Jules' Tuesday toes.  Won't happen again.  

ONE

Ty

p.s. Congrats to Terry and his wife Tanner on the birth of their healthy perfect miracle today.  I won't take any more thunder than that from him if he wanted to bring it everyone in his own way on here.