All Entries Tagged With: "Rapture"
Moving Toward 666
(c) Terry James at Rapture Ready
Bible prophecy students who hold to a literal interpretation of prophecy yet future–futurists, as we are sometimes termed—have long speculated how America might figure into the ultimate system of control of the beast regime. That Antichrist economic/worship system is foretold in the following:
“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Revelation 13:15-18).
America–but not Al Gore, as he has claimed–was at the heart of developing the internet. The internet is a type of medium that more and more looks to be one a hybrid of which might deliver on the globalist elite’s ambition to intricately link everyone on the planet in a person-to-person system of governance. More than coincidentally, such an internet hybrid will almost certainly produce, through electronic bondage, the Antichrist dictatorship that will enslave everyone on the planet.
We should expect, based upon the many proliferating end-of-days signals now occurring in birth pang-like frequency and intensity, that there should also be found on the prophetic horizon such an enslavement system in the making. Sure enough, there is such a system developing, and, again, the United States of America is at the forefront, just as the nation is at the forefront of the gush toward globalism.
The once mighty U.S. dollar is being systematically rendered the equal of all other of the world’s currencies. This is being done through printing trillions of dollars that have nothing of substance backing them whatever, and by U.S. leadership intentionally melding America’s sovereignty with a swiftly changing global monetary order.
The great tax-and-spend powers that be have been turning up every stone known to the fiscal world to find a way to exact tax revenues from use of the internet. Believe me when I tell you that they will be able to do this at some point in the near future. The voracious tax grab must first, of course, be shown to have a dramatic reason to be done. A crisis must be at hand, you see, in order to justify such invasion into the individual liberty intrinsic within the internet. No doubt, the crisis must involve national security so that we the people will be afraid not to go along.
Try this on for size, my fellow citizens…
“The President has likened threats to the internet to that of a nuclear attack. The White House should take direct control of US cybersecurity, the woman tipped to be President Obama’s net security czar has said. Melissa Hathaway told a conference in San Francisco that the net had not been built with safety in mind.
She has just completed a review of cybersecurity for the President.
‘This poses one of the most serious challenges of the 21st century. Cyberspace won’t be secured overnight on the basis of one good plan,’ she said…
President Obama has made the issue of cybersecurity a top priority and ordered this 60-day review to determine how the government should dramatically restructure how it handles the internet and security… Recent breaches have targeted the US power grid and the Pentagon.
To date, the government has kept its own counsel on the shape of its new cybersecurity establishment. However it has been reported the administration has finalized plans for a new Pentagon cyber command to coordinate the security of military computer networks…” (“US ramps up cybersecurity focus,” Maggie Shiels, BBC News, RSA Conference San Francisco, 4/24/09).
The American administration’s determination to bring the internet–and all involved within the medium–under strict government control proves there are plans for new bureaucracy on the drawing board of ever bigger government. It is only a matter of time–a very brief time, I suggest—until such bureaucracy will be constructed globally. It is just such a construct from which I believe the 666 mark and numbering system of Revelation 13:15-18 will ultimately emerge.
The super internet will have at its core the use of Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) monetary units. Such will eliminate, the developers and implementers will claim, theft of money that the hard currencies have presented. The problems that are part of national currencies will also be eliminated, or at least made controllable, they will assure, such as problems involved with the rates of exchange of one national currency against another.
The ultimately evolved super internet system will have at its heart a computer marking and numbering system that will electronically link the individual with a central controlling entity whereby all people can be monitored and instantly dealt with as necessary. Bible prophecy foretells this whole diabolist ball of wax will revolve around worship of the beast–Antichrist. This will take place during the tribulation era, the time of God’s wrath against rebellious earth dwellers (Rev. 6: 17). However, Satan’s scheme to ultimately have all of humanity worship him will not touch saints of the Church Age (Age of Grace).
Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church (Matt. 16:16). The Apostle Paul said: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do” (1 Thess. 5: 9-11).
–Terry
A Brief History of the Rapture
Original Article from Midnight Call
One of the most often cited objections to pretribulationism is that it is a new teaching in church history, having only come on the scene in the 1830s. It is often argued that if the pre-trib Rapture were biblical, then it would have been taught earlier, and throughout church history. In the last decade, individuals have found a number of pre-1830 references to a pre-trib Rapture. Here is a summary of that evidence.
THE EARLY CHURCH
Since imminency is considered to be a crucial feature of pretribulationism by scholars such as John Walvoord,1 it is significant that the Apostolic Fathers, though posttribulational, at the same time just as clearly taught the pretribulational feature of imminence. Since it was common in the early Church to hold contradictory positions without even an awareness of inconsistency, it would not be surprising to learn that their era supports both views. Larry Crutchfield notes, “This belief in the imminent return of Christ within the context of ongoing persecution has prompted us to broadly label the views of the earliest fathers, ‘imminent intratribulationism.’” 2
Expressions of imminency abound in the Apostolic Fathers. Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, and The Shepherd of Hermas all speak of imminency.3 Furthermore, The Shepherd of Hermas speaks of the pretribulational concept of escaping the Tribulation.
You have escaped from great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of such a beast. Go, therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If then ye prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and ye spend the rest of the days of your life in serving the Lord blamelessly. 4
Evidence of pretribulationism surfaces during the early medieval period in a sermon some attribute to Ephraem the Syrian, but is more likely the product of one scholar called Pseudo-Ephraem, entitled Sermon on The Last Times, The Antichrist, and The End of the World.5 The sermon was written some time between the fourth and sixth century. The Rapture statement reads as follows:
Why therefore do we not reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that he may draw us from the confusion, which overwhelms all the world? …For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins.
This statement makes evident a clear belief that all Christians will escape the Tribulation through a gathering to the Lord, and it is stated early in the sermon. How else can this be understood other than as pretribulational? The later Second Coming of Christ to the earth with the saints is mentioned at the end of the sermon.
THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH
By the fifth century A.D., the amillennialism of Origen and Augustine had won the day in the established Church–East and West. It is probable that some form of premillennialism persisted throughout the Middle Ages, but it existed primarily underground.
It is believed that sects like the Albigenses, Lombards, and the Waldenses were attracted to premillennialism, but little is known of the details of their beliefs since the Catholics destroyed their works when they were found. But there was at least one who held to some form of pretribulationism, namely one named Brother Dolcino in 1304.
Francis Gumerlock is the individual who advocates the Brother Dolcino Rapture find and said in his book: “The Dolcinites held to a pre-tribulation Rapture theory similar to that in modern dispensationalism.” 6 The reason Gumerlock believes that Brother Dolcino and the Apostolic Brethren taught pretribulationism is found in the following statement:
Again, [Dolcino believed and preached and taught] that within those three years Dolcino himself and his followers will preach the coming of the Antichrist. And that the Antichrist was coming into this world within the bounds of the said three and a half years; and after he had come, then he [Dolcino] and his followers would be transferred into Paradise, in which are Enoch and Elijah. And in this way they will be preserved unharmed from the persecution of Antichrist. And that then Enoch and Elijah themselves would descend on the earth for the purpose of preaching [against] Antichrist. Then they would be killed by him or by his servants,and thus Antichrist would reign for a long time. But when the Antichrist is dead, Dolcino himself, who then would be the holy pope, and his preserved followers, will descend on the earth, and will preach the right faith of Christ to all, and will convert those who will be living then to the true faith of Jesus Christ. 7
THE REFORMATION CHURCH
After more than 1,000 years of suppression, premillennialism began to be revived as a result of at least four factors. By the late 1500’s and the early 1600’s, premillennialism began to return as a factor within mainstream Protestantism. With the flowering of biblical interpretation during the late Reformation Period, premillennial interpreters began to abound throughout Protestantism, and so did the development of sub-issues like the Rapture.
Some began to speak of the Rapture. Paul Benware notes:
Peter Jurieu in his book Approaching Deliverance of the Church (1687) taught that Christ would come in the air to rapture the saints and return to heaven before the battle of Armageddon. He spoke of a secret Rapture prior to His coming in glory and judgment at Armageddon. Philip Doddridge’s commentary on the New Testament (1738) and John Gill’s commentary on the New Testament (1748) both use the term rapture and speak of it as imminent. It is clear that these men believed that this coming will precede Christ’s descent to the earth and the time of judgment. The purpose was to preserve believers from the time of judgment. James Macknight (1763) and Thomas Scott (1792) taught that the righteous will be carried to heaven, where they will be secure until the time of judgment is over. 8
Frank Marotta, a brethren researcher, believes that Thomas Collier in 1674 makes reference to a pretribulational Rapture, but rejects the view,9 thus showing his awareness that such a view was being taught in the late 17th century. There is the interesting case of John Asgill, who wrote a book in 1700 about the possibility of translation (i.e. Rapture) without seeing death.10
Perhaps the clearest reference to a pretrib Rapture, if not the most developed system, before Darby comes from Baptist Morgan Edwards (founder of the Ivy League school, Brown University) who saw a distinct Rapture threeand a-half years before the start of the Millennium.11 The discovery of Edwards, who wrote about his pretrib beliefs in 1744 and later published them in 1788, is hard to dismiss.12 He taught the following:
II. The distance between the first and second resurrection will be somewhat more than a thousand years. I say, somewhat more—, because the dead saints will be raised, and the living changed at Christ’s “appearing in the air” (I Thes. iv. 17); and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium, as we shall see hereafter: but will he and they abide in the air all that time? No: they will ascend to paradise, or to some one of those many “mansions in the father’s house” (John xiv. 2), and disappear during the foresaid period of time. The design of this retreat and disappearing will be to judge the risen and changed saints; for “now the time is come that judgment must begin,” and that will be “at the house of God” (I Pet. iv. 17)…(p. 7; The spelling of all Edwards quotes have been modernized.)
CONCLUSION
I have heard from another scholar who is reading through many Latin manuscripts of previously unpublished documents that he has found a number of previously unknown pre-trib Rapture statements from pre-19th century Christendom. He is planning to publish his material in a few years. What these pre-Darby Rapture statements prove, if nothing else, is that indeed others did see the Rapture taught in Scripture similar to the way that pretribulationists in our own day teach. Thus, the argument that no one ever taught pretribulationism until J. N. Darby in 1830 is just not historically true and it is becoming increasingly clear with each passing year. Maranatha!
ENDNOTES
1 John F.Walvoord, The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976), pp. 24-25.
2 Larry V. Crutchfield,“The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation in the Apostolic Fathers” in Thomas Ice & Timothy Demy, editors, When The Trumpet Sounds (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995), p. 103.
3 Crutchfield,“The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation in the Apostolic Fathers,”pp. 88-101.
4 The Shepherd of Hermas, 1.4.2.
5 For more information on this matter see Timothy J. Demy and Thomas D. Ice,“The Rapture and an Early Medieval Citation,” Bibliotheca Sacra (Vol. 152,No. 607; July-Sept. 1995), pp. 306-17.
6 Francis X. Gumerlock, The Day and the Hour: A Chronicle of Christianity’s Perennial Fascination with Predicting the End of the World (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2000), p. 80.
7 Gumerlock’s translation of the Latin text in Gumerlock, “A Rapture Citation,”pp. 354-55.
8 Paul N. Benware, Understanding End Times Prophecy: A Comprehensive Approach (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), pp. 197-98.
9 Frank Marotta, Morgan Edwards: An Eighteenth Century Pretribulationist (Morganville, N.J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1995), pp. 10-12.
10 The entire title of Asgill’s work is as follows: An argument proving, that according to the covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures,Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life, without passing through Death, although the Human Nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed through Death.
11 Marotta, Morgan Edwards.
12 Morgan Edwards, Two Academical Exercised on Subjects Bearing the following Titles;Millennium, Last-Novelties (Philadelphia: self-published, 1788).
The Dilemma of Watchfulness
by Gary Stearman
Addressing his congregation, a minister was recently heard to say, "If I teach you that the Rapture of the church is imminent, you’ll become obsessed with the idea. You won’t be able to think about anything else. In fact, I believe that the desire for Rapture is an unhealthy preoccupation. It’s an event that’s been preached for centuries, and Jesus still hasn’t come back. Folks, we should really be centered on worship, Christian service and personal spiritual growth. Hoping for an event that may not come is a waste of time."
This admonition came from the pastor of a large evangelical church. Not so long ago, illustrating a theological shift that is becoming all too familiar, this very church proclaimed that latter-day prophecy was being fulfilled, and that Jesus could return at any moment!
This quiet change reflects a phenomenon that has plagued the entire age of the church, which has taken many turns in its position on the doctrine of last things. The last two thousand years have witnessed the first century’s Apostolic expectancy of Rapture and Resurrection dissolve into the belief that there would be no Rapture and no millennium at all. Augustine spiritualized the Apocalypse, saying that the Millennium had already begun with Christ’s First Coming. He saw only the age of the church, followed by the Second Coming of Christ. Centuries passed, and that teaching was modified into another: The church became "redeemed Israel," and the Kingdom Age was founded under Christ and the Apostles. The Millennium is past; the church will Christianize the world, then Jesus will come to receive His throne. The role of the individual believer is to support the growth of the church, as it becomes increasingly dominant.
Today, many large churches have quietly followed this pattern, returning to the doctrine and the general belief that the church will convert the world, giving rise to a golden age which brings in the Kingdom. It also holds that the church becomes the redeemed Israel, inheritor of the ancient promises. To believe this, one must turn aside from every prophetic Scripture that calls for a latter-day collapse of morality, numerous international wars, natural upheavals, and domination by an evil world order that comes to power after the great world war predicted in Ezekiel 38.
One must also forget all the Scriptures that predict the regathering of the Jews, which the following verses condense into a compact and powerful statement:
"For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
"And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
"And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God" (Ezk. 36:24-28).
Furthermore, latter-day Israel will be victorious over those who would destroy them. In the Bible, their enemies are well-defined and vicious. Israel’s restoration is to be greeted by those who would take their promised inheritance. The following statement evokes the present "Palestinian" conflict:
"Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession" (Ezk. 36:2).
Today, the highest of all those places – the Temple Mount – is possessed by those who deny that Israel ever had a Temple there at all.
But we must never forget the excitement among Christians in the decades following Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day war. Ancient Mount Moriah was captured, then returned to the enemy in the name of peace. But something changed in the process. Israel was perceived as dominant … being on the verge of strength and unity, standing as a strong nation. Can we so quickly forget the spiritual anticipation that characterized the decades following Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War? Remember the land brought back from being a desert waste? Isaiah’s prophecy was widely quoted:
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose" (Is. 35:1).
Israel, once a desert, was called the "California of the Middle East," providing produce for Europe and Asia. In those days, countless books, pamphlets and sermons praised the regathering of Israel, breathing new life into believers. First in the United States, then quickly spreading to other countries, the doctrine of the pretribulation Rapture became popularized in a way that hadn’t been seen since the passing of the first-century Apostles.
Before that, the dawn of the twentieth century had witnessed the formalization of pretribulational teaching. C. I. Scofield’s reference Bible stood at the peak of a mountain of published teaching on this belief. But only decades later, following the 1967 war, did the world really sense the nearness of Christ’s return for His people. Though it was not correct, many in the church proclaimed that the "times of the gentiles" (Lk 21:24) had come to an end. Yes, they were factually mistaken, but their hearts were in the right place.
Pretribulational doctrine depends upon the proper understanding of the latter days, as they degenerate into paganism and apostasy and fall into the hands of the ungodly, who are subsequently judged in the Tribulation … following the age of the church.
Rapture enthusiasts rode high on the premise that Israel had taken the Temple Mount, and thought that it wouldn’t be very long before the prophesied events that herald the Tribulation would happen in rapid succession. As we, and others have so often said, the cry coming from the pulpit and the mass media during the closing decades of the twentieth century was, "Jesus is coming soon!"
It was not said that, "Jesus is coming when you least expect it," but "Jesus is coming soon!" Acting on this general sentiment, some were moved to set dates, using complex calculations and numerous "reasons" why Jesus should come for His church on such-and-such a day. They were universally mistaken, and bore the quiet ridicule of others, who prided themselves on not having fallen for the temptation to expect Christ at a particular season, or in conjunction with some important world event.
This fact alone cooled the ardor of the watchful. Again, they were faced with the prospect of being accused of folly as they called for something that never happened. Watchful Christians strained to discern patterns that would suggest that the gathering storm was closer than the day before. Many did this with great caution, recalling that in the 1930s and 40s, many Christian leaders had named Adolph Hitler as the antichrist. Certainly he was an antichrist.
As the twentieth century drew to a close, presidents came and went, along with other leaders, some of whom had been particularly singled out as the evil characters alluded to in prophetic Scripture. Though they have grown older, some of them remain influential to this day. Realizing that some of these men could rise to take power over the world in a predicted consortium of power, their behavior and public statements are closely monitored.
For years, the question has been asked, "If we’re so close to the Rapture and subsequent judgment, shouldn’t the antichrist be alive today?" Some answer in the affirmative and try to deduce the identity of this evil "prince who shall come." Others smile knowingly and congratulate themselves for never having yielded to that temptation. It is this smug superiority that rises from time to time, forcing many of the watchful to retreat. Nobody likes to be embarrassed. Enough pressure from anti-prophecy scoffers even forces theological shifts away from premillennial expectancy, toward postmillennial self-satisfaction.
Zion, the Great Sign
And then there is Israel, the focus of all timed prophecy. It was David who named the historic mountain called Moriah by the name that marks a major movement. He called it "Zion," from the Hebrew word that means, "a sign or marker," which it surely is. Zionism is the great latter-day sign. That it is from the Lord and not men may be seen in the hatred that the world has for the Zionist movement.
For centuries, the church forgot the dispersed people, who had drifted all over the world and settled into the obscurity of daily existence, while still keeping their customs, rituals and Hebrew language … in secret, lest they be persecuted. Sometimes, they were hunted out and slain like animals in government-sanctioned pogroms.
The Anti-Christ and Mr. Obama - Part 2
Jack Kelly, RaptureReady.com
Last week’s article has quickly become one of the most widely read of any we’ve ever posted. It has also generated several questions and some wild information I had never heard before. Among these are excerpts from secular news sources containing two non-Biblical prophecies that I will offer first. Since they both opened with rhetorical questions, I’ve arranged them in our familiar Q and A format, but post them as written. The remaining questions are all reader submitted.
Two Non-Biblical Prophecies
The first one is very controversial and I offer no opinion as to its validity, except that I’ve received it from several independent news sources. I have been able to confirm that Johanwa Owalo was who this prophecy says he was and that it apparently came from a document copyrighted in 1915. Readers are cautioned to conduct their own research before accepting it as authentic.
“Q. Is Barak Obama the “Son of Kenya” foretold by the great 19th Century Kenyan Prophet, Johanwa Owalo, the founder of Kenya’s Nomiya Luo Church?
A. Among the Kenyan people of the Luo religion Owalo is believed to be a prophet similar to Jesus Christ and Muhammad, and who in 1912 made this horrific prophecy about the United States:
‘So far have they [the United States] strayed into wickedness in those [future] times that their destruction has been sealed by my [father]. Their great cities will burn, their crops and cattle will suffer disease and death, their children will perish from diseases never seen upon this Earth, and I reveal to you the greatest [mystery] of all as I have been allowed to see that their [the United States] destruction will come about through the vengeful hands of one of our very own sons.’ “
The next one comes from a Forbes.com article dated 10-26-08 by Amir Taheri, author of 10 books on Iran, the Middle East and Islam.
“Q. Is Barack Obama the "promised warrior" coming to help the Hidden Imam of Shiite Muslims conquer the world?
A. This question has made the rounds in Iran since last month, when a pro-government Web site published a Hadith (or tradition) from a Shiite text of the 17th century. The tradition comes from Bahar al-Anvar (meaning Oceans of Light) by Mullah Majlisi, a magnum opus in 132 volumes and the basis of modern Shiite Islam.
According to the tradition, Imam Ali Ibn Abi-Talib (the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law) prophesied that at the End of Times and just before the return of the Mahdi, the Ultimate Saviour, a "tall black man will assume the reins of government in the West." Commanding "the strongest army on earth," the new ruler in the West will carry "a clear sign" from the third imam, whose name was Hussein Ibn Ali. The tradition concludes: "Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us ."
In a curious coincidence Obama’s first and second names–Barack Hussein–mean "the blessing of Hussein" in Arabic and Persian. His family name, Obama, written in the Persian alphabet, reads O Ba Ma, which means "he is with us," the magic formula in Majlisi’s tradition.”
From these secular sources it appears that people from diverse backgrounds believe that a leader matching Mr. Obama’s description could appear in the last days, and that his impact will not be good for America. Time will tell.
Reader Submitted Questions
Now we’ll begin our reader submitted questions. In the interest of time and space, I’ve summarized them all into three basic questions that speak to Mr. Obama’s qualification to be the anti-Christ.
Q. Re: The people of the leader who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary (Daniel 9:26) How can Mr. Obama be the fulfillment of Daniel 9:26 if he was born in Hawaii, or Kenya for that matter?
A. When Daniel wrote these words from the Angel Gabriel, the Babylonians were about to be conquered by the Medes and Persians. The Romans wouldn’t arrive on the scene for several hundred years yet so Gabriel needed a way to identify them. He told Daniel the coming leader would be from the people who would destroy the city and sanctuary following the Messiah’s rejection. The Jewish Temple and the City of Jerusalem were destroyed separately. The Roman General Titus Vespasian led the troops who burned the Temple and tore its ruins apart stone by stone in either 68 or 69 AD depending on who’s account you favor. He did this under orders from his father Vespasian who was the Emperor of Rome. Then in 135 AD another Roman Emperor, Hadrian, ordered the complete destruction of Jerusalem as a consequence of the bar Kochba rebellion. These two separate events bear witness that Gabriel was referring to the Romans. Together they meet the standard that a matter must be established by the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses. (Deut. 19:15 )
Brittainia (Great Britain) first came to the notice of the Romans in 55BC and by 43 AD had been assimilated into the Roman Empire, well before the City and Sanctuary were destroyed. Therefore the Roman Empire of the time stretched from Great Britain in the west across southern Europe and Northern Africa to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf in the East. Romans called the Mediterranean sea “Mare Nostrum” (our sea) because the Roman Empire pretty much surrounded it.
Many students of prophecy agree that almost anyone of Middle Eastern or European descent could meet the qualification of Daniel 9:26 to be the anti-Christ providing he also becomes a world leader. They say this is even true of many Americans because of our prior status as a British Colony and the fact that our country was founded in large part by Europeans whose ancestors dwelt in the Roman Empire of Biblical times.
Mr. Obama is almost certainly of European descent through His mother, and those who claim to have done the research say that on his father’s side he’s much more Arab than African. In fact Mr. Obama Sr.’s birth certificate identifies him as an Arab. They say Mr. Obama Jr.’s genealogy shows him to be 50% Caucasian, 43.75% Arab and 6.25% African. And in an interesting side note, Great Britain is one of the countries Mr. Obama is being asked to prove he’s not a citizen of in at least one of the lawsuits that have been filed. If he was born in Kenya in 1961 he would likely be a British citizen, because Kenya’s independence from Great Britain didn’t take place until 1963. The Supreme Court Justices will review one of these suits on Dec. 5,2008 to determine if they want to hear oral arguments. It is still unclear to everyone why Mr. Obama doesn’t just release his original birth certificate and put an end to all the speculation.
Q. Since the soldiers who destroyed the Temple were actually Assyrian mercenaries, and since Isaiah mentions an Assyrian enemy of Israel (Isaiah 10:5), doesn’t this mean the anti Christ has to be Assyrian? Wouldn’t that exclude Mr. Obama?
A. In my answer above I showed that the Angel Gabriel had to be referring to Rome when he spoke of the people who would destroy the city and the sanctuary. Remember, they were two different events, almost 70 years apart, and both times the soldiers were under Roman command following Roman orders. Also, the Assyrian Empire had been assimilated into Rome by territorial conquest, so there was no official Assyrian presence at the time. And had the passage referred to the Assyrians, Gabriel could have just mentioned them by name, since everyone in Daniel’s day knew of them.
Isaiah 10:1-19 is a judgment against Assyria. The Hebrew word translated Assyrian in verse 5 is Asshur, the name of the second son of Shem. This means it’s a reference to the Assyrian people, the descendants of Asshur, not to an individual. When the Assyrian King Sennacherib conquered Damascus and the Northern Kingdom, his army was bringing God’s judgment against godless people (verse 6). But when they set their sights on Jerusalem (verse 11) they exceeded God’s intention. In one night God sent the angel of death into the Assyrian camp and by morning 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were dead. Isaiah compared it to a fire burning through thorns and briers. (verses 17-18) The remaining Assyrians went home in shame and later Sennacherib’s own sons killed him. (Isaiah 37:36-38 ) Based on these things, I am not convinced that the Scriptures require the anti-Christ to be of Assyrian descent.
Q. The Bible seems to say that the anti-Christ will be asexual. Since Mr. Obama is happily married with two daughters why wouldn’t this exclude him?
A. This question refers to Daniel 11:37 which in the KJV reads;
Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.
According to tradition, the phrase “desire of women” refers to the Messiah, not to the anti-Christ’s sexual orientation. From the time of Eve it was every Jewish woman’s desire to be the mother of the Messiah, so one of the informal names of the Messiah was “the desire of women”. This whole idea stems from the phrase “seed of the woman”, a reference to the promised redeemer from Genesis 3:15 . The idea that the anti-Christ will be asexual can not be supported from Scripture.
What’s The Point Of All this?
My purpose in this study has been to separate Biblical fact from human opinion on the issue of the anti-Christ, specifically in support of my claim that there’s no Biblical reason Mr. Obama couldn’t one day be revealed as the anti-Christ. By the way, much this information could be used to support the opinion that Bill Clinton, Prince Charles, or a number of others could turn out to be the anti-Christ as easily as Barack Obama, but he’s the one I’ve been asked about.
In part one of this study, I said that I don’t think it’s time for the anti-Christ to be introduced yet, and that the Church will not be here when he is. In 2 Thes.2:1-8 Paul gave a summary of End Times events in sequence. A careful reading reveals that Paul identified three specific things that will have to happen before the Day of the Lord (Great Tribulation) can come. There will have to be a falling away, a rebellion against the truth. This is when the believers in name only will be drawn out of the true Church into one of the various apostate movements we see springing up in our midst. The restraining force that’s holding the secret power of lawlessness back will also have to be taken out of the way. That’s the Holy Spirit contained in the Church, a reference to the Rapture. Then the man of lawlessness will be revealed and will stand in God’s Temple proclaiming himself to be God. That’s the abomination of Desolation that kicks off the Great Tribulation, and that’s when the world will know for certain just who the anti-Christ is.
For us it’s enough to know that the signs pointing to the End of the Age are appearing all around us. This is not happening so that we can hunker down and prepare for the storm. It’s happening so we can begin making preparations for our departure. Whether it’s several months or several years is also immaterial. The sooner we act the better prepared we’ll be. No one on Earth will be able to tell you in advance when we’ll be leaving. There will be no specific warning. One moment we’ll be here and the next we’ll be there. Jesus said we won’t know the day or hour, but He had Paul tell us that we should not be taken by surprise. Fore warned is fore armed, they say, and we’ve been forewarned. You can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah. 11-22-08
The Anti-Christ And Mr. Obama - Part 1
Jack Kelly, RaptureReady.com
Since the election I’ve been asked a number of times to comment on the likelihood that Mr. Obama could be the anti-Christ. Let me begin by saying that having been elected President he’s Mr. Obama now, not just Obama. As for him being the anti-Christ I’ve discouraged that thought because I don’t believe it’s time for the anti-Christ to be revealed yet. But apart from that there’s no Biblical reason I can find that would absolutely disqualify him. And based on the things we know about the anti-Christ there’s a fit in several important places. The anti-Christ will have to burst on the scene quickly and powerfully to accomplish so much in the little time he has, so maybe he’ll need a head start. If that’s the case, maybe Mr. Obama is on his way to becoming the anti-Christ. Let’s find out.
We know that the anti-Christ will be a descendant of the people who made up the Roman Empire in Biblical times (Daniel 9:26 ), and he’ll arrive on the world scene as a peace maker (Daniel 8:25 ). He won’t be part of the world’s powerful elite at the beginning of his career (Daniel 7:8 ) but will rise up among them to eventually surpass them and become the leader of the entire world. (Rev. 13:7-8 )
He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power. (Daniel 8:25 )
This means that he’ll base his success on a lie, misrepresenting himself and his intentions, but people will want to believe him so badly that they’ll disregard his inconsistencies until it’s too late to stop him. Initially he’ll seem successful, but just when they’re saying “Peace and safety”, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains to a pregnant woman, and they won’t escape (1 Thes. 5:3 ).
Deja Vu All Over Again?
Some of us remember when Jimmy Carter was elected President of the US. The country was fed up with Washington and even though he had no national leadership experience, we elected him because he was an outsider who promised change. He said he would never lie to us, but after the election it turned out that he had. He had misrepresented his background and didn’t have the ability he needed when it came to governing. He said he was Christian and even orchestrated a land for peace deal between Israel and Egypt, but he proved to be anti-Israel. Soon we had a crisis in finance with interest rates at 20%, an energy crisis with our first gas shortages, and an administration that didn’t know how to work with Congress to fix things. The Iranians captured our embassy and held our citizens hostage. Thankfully he lasted only one term.
Mr. Obama could easily turn out to be just another Jimmy Carter, and if so America will suffer through the next four years and then he’ll be gone. But if he continues to be successful in convincing people all around the world that he’s on the right track even though everything seems to be falling apart, it could be a different story.
If my calculations are correct, American Christians have just voted in our last presidential elections and won’t be here to see if Mr. Obama turns out to be the anti-Christ or not. But someone with a lot more experience in accurately predicting the future has some interesting insight into the next few years. His name is Gerald Celente, CEO of Trends Research Institute, and he’s renowned the world over for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events. He accurately predicted the 1987 Stock market crash, the Fall of the Soviet Union, the 1997 Asian currency collapse, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and one year before the fact predicted what he said would become known as the Panic of 2008, saying that giants would tumble to their deaths, which is what we’ve just seen in the fall of several of our oldest and biggest financial firms, and with the big three auto makers teetering on the brink. (You can check his track record for yourself at www.trendsresearch.com )
Celente is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.
According to his recent Fox News interview, called “Predicting Obama’s Impact” (posted on YouTube on Nov. 10, 2008), by 2012 America will have become an undeveloped nation. There will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and holidays will be more about obtaining food than gifts.
“We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas….we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place….putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree,” said Celente, adding that the situation would be “worse than the great depression”.
“America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” he said, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.
All this comes from a man with an international reputation for being right and whose continued success depends on it. If he’s right now like he has been so often in the past, then the next four years will be worse than the Carter Administration ever was, rather than the launching platform for a coming world leader.
(By the way, please take note that this is another independent expert pointing to the year 2012 as one of cataclysmic significance in bringing about the End of the Age.)
There’s a wild card that I hesitate to throw in here because I don’t even want to think about it. But if it’s true it could easily cause the problems that Mr. Celente is predicting. For some time now certain people, Republican and Democrat alike, have been saying that Mr. Obama isn’t legally qualified to be President because he’s not a natural born citizen of the US. I won’t go into the details but the point is that he could make this all go away by producing a legitimate birth certificate, something he’s been unwilling to do. A federal court has given him until Dec. 1, 2008 to do so, and if he does then the Electoral College vote will be certified and he’ll be the next President. But lawsuits in a dozen or so states have been or are being filed to prevent the certification until Mr. Obama proves he’s qualified. If the courts throw out the election who knows what could happen.
What Time Is It?
As many of you know, I’ve said that all of the End Times prophecies including the 2nd Coming could be fulfilled as early as 2018. I base this on the Lord’s promise that the generation being born at the time of the first End Times signs would still be alive when “all these things have happened” (Matt. 24:34 ) Most scholars view the re-birth of Israel in 1948 as the first of the end times signs. With an average lifespan being 70 years, according to Psalm 90:10 , everything will have to come to pass by 2018. If the Rapture only just precedes the 70th Week of Daniel it could come 7 years earlier, in 2011, which is 2 ½ years from now, about half way through Mr. Obama’s first term, assuming the election stands.
So here’s how to tell if he’ll become the anti-Christ or not. If it seems like he can do no wrong, if people feel safe and it’s beginning to look like there’ll be peace in our time, then there’s a good chance he’s the one. But if Gerald Celente’s predictions are coming to pass, and the world’s in worse shape than ever, then he’s just another Jimmy Carter, an inexperienced outsider who had no business running for president in the first place, let alone being elected.
Time will tell, but either way we can look for some difficult days ahead for the Church. Because either way we are in the final phase of post Christian America and can expect the world around us to become more and more anti-Christian. And if the economy continues to self-destruct it will be just that much worse.
But whether Mr. Obama turns out to be the anti-Christ or not is really irrelevant to the Church. Our job in the short time we have left is to get ready to move to our new home. That means breaking our ties with the old one. Anything that can’t be put to kingdom use is excess baggage to us now. We should be sending whatever treasure we have up ahead. We should stop worrying about our career, our retirement fund, our lifestyle, and all those other worldly distractions and put all our resources to work for the benefit of our next life. After all it’s the real one. And one way or the other, this one is already gone.
Whether you believe in a pre-trib rapture or not you know my advice is sound. After all I’m not just making this up. Everything I ‘ve been saying is straight from the Lord’s own mouth. He’s the one who said to quit storing up treasure on Earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. He’s the one who said to store up treasure in Heaven instead. (Matt. 6:19-20 ) And He’s the one who said not to worry about our lives here but seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and he’ll provide all our needs. (Matt. 6:31-34 ) So whether you think we’re leaving here soon or not, it’s time to pay attention to what He’s been telling us. No matter how much time you think we have, you can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah. 11-15-08
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