Posted on 11/24/2008 5:15:55 PM PST by Michael Eden
Let me just start with the sobering thoughts of Trends Research Institute CEO Gerald Celente, and then save my comments for after:
Celente Predicts Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012Aint that a heavyweight boxer's send-you-whimpering-to-your-knees shot to the gut.So there you have it - hardly a nutjob conspiracy theorist blowhard now is he? The price of not heeding his warnings will be far greater than the cost of preparing for the future now. Storable food and gold are two good places to make a start.
Paul Joseph Watson, November 13, 2008Prison Planet - The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.
Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not 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,” said Celente, 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.
Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as “The Panic of 2008,” adding that “giants (would) tumble to their deaths,” which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others. He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 per cent.
The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.
The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”
In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.
“There will be a revolution in this country,” he said. “It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen.”
“The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”
“It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.”
“We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension.”
The George Washington blog has compiled a list of quotes attesting to Celente’s accuracy as a trend forecaster.
“When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente.” — CNN Headline News
“A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties.” — The Economist
“Gerald Celente has a knack for getting the zeitgeist right.” — USA Today
“There’s not a better trend forecaster than Gerald Celente. The man knows what he’s talking about.” - CNBC
“Those who take their predictions seriously … consider the Trends Research Institute.” — The Wall Street Journal
“Gerald Celente is always ahead of the curve on trends and uncannily on the mark … he’s one of the most accurate forecasters around.” — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Mr. Celente tracks the world’s social, economic and business trends for corporate clients.” — The New York Times
“Mr. Celente is a very intelligent guy. We are able to learn about trends from an authority.” — 48 Hours, CBS News
“Gerald Celente has a solid track record. He has predicted everything from the 1987 stock market crash and the demise of the Soviet Union to green marketing and corporate downsizing.” — The Detroit News
“Gerald Celente forecast the 1987 stock market crash, ‘green marketing,’ and the boom in gourmet coffees.” — Chicago Tribune
“The Trends Research Institute is the Standard and Poors of Popular Culture.” — The Los Angeles Times
“If Nostradamus were alive today, he’d have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente.” — New York Post
As I've previously written, "The Beast Is Coming." And he's coming soon.
You remember Hillary Clinton's now-famous "3 AM phone call" ad? Well, it's pretty much 3 AM every minute of every day right now, and the most inexperienced and most radical President in US history simply isn't ready for it. Don't believe me; just ask Vice President-elect Joe Biden to reminisce about what he said a few months ago: "The Presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the job-training." We are ONE crisis away from complete disaster and even total collapse. And - given a very likely Hillary Clinton appointment to Secretary of State - you have the two most senior members of Obama's administration on the record repeatedly stated that Obama would simply not be up to the job.
Well, he's got it. We gave it to him. Along with a total Democratic majority that will give him power not seen since FDR. And boy, oh boy, are we ever going to pay for it.
Possibly the most terrifying crisis of all could occur before Obama even takes the oath of office. Former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton is among a group of foreign policy experts who believe that Israel - fearing Obama's weakness and lack of commitment to their security - will attack Iran before January 20, 2009 in order to destroy the rogue, terrorist state's nearly complete nuclear weapons program. And even Joe Biden pretty much had to say that you're going to have to have blind faith in Obama, because it won't be apparent that he has any clue what he's doing.
On the economic front, we now have Obama already backing away from his pledge to tax the bejeezus out of the rich and raise capital gains so that he can give the lower classes (including those who don't even pay taxes) a "tax cut." Which is pretty much an implicit acknowledgment that he didn't have a clue what he was talking about during the campaign, and that the people he was demonizing had a far better understanding than he about how the economy works.
Which is partially why investors have been bailout out of the market in droves since Obama's election, and why 74% of chief executive officers believe that an Obama presidency will be a disaster for the nation.
The good news for liberals, given Celente's analysis: you've always wanted to destroy Christmas. Now you'll finally be getting your wish. Way to go.
Evangelical Christians have long known this coming meltdown was coming. The United States isn't mentioned in Bible prophecy for one good reason: we won't matter. We won't have the power to project ourselves into the Middle East during the final days, and we won't have moral courage to support historic friend Israel when it matters most.
Grant R. Jeffrey wrote a book entitled Final Warning: Economic Collapse and the Coming World Government which came out in 1995. He concluded his chapter 14, ''The Coming Economic Collapse," by stating:
"However, in the last few years the size and complexity of the financial derivatives market has exploded until today over $21 trillion is at risk in America and and astonishing $42 trillion is at risk worldwide. To place these figures in perspective, the total value of all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange amounts to only $6 trillion. We should remember that the stock market crash of 1987 that resulted in the loss of $1 trillion of investors' funds was precipitated by a massive drop in the financial derivatives market. During the last year the largest Japanese steel company in Germany lost $1.4 billion. Then, Orange County, CA, lost $2 billion while the 270-year-old Barings Bank of England was forced into bankruptcy when they lost $1.3 billion in one week on a derivatives trade by one 28-year-old employee. This incredibly dangerous derivatives market could very well be the trigger for the coming financial collapse that the Bible indicates will occur in the last days leading to the rise of Antichrist and the revived Roman Empire" (p. 247).Grant's insightful and clearly prophetic analysis both reveals the means of our economic destruction while simultaneously pointedly revealing that the cancerous roots of the financial implosion occurred during the Clinton era, and NOT as a result of Republican or Bush policies.
In September 2003, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank said of the GSE entities which created the housing finance crisis, ”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” And Democrats steadfastly refused to regulate them at a time when President Bush urged regulatory reform when it could have averted disaster. And Barney Frank - representing the Democratic consensus - was still in denial as late as July 2008, saying, "I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under." In one of the greatest propaganda campaigns in human history, the American media managed to convince the electorate that policies that were conceived and carried out during Democratic administrations were somehow the Republicans' responsibility.
I worked as hard as I knew how to elect John McCain because I saw Barack Obama as the walking disaster who would destroy America and prepare the way for the beast of Revelation. Secular humanists will continue to laugh at people like me even when they are in the darkest depths of the Apocalypse. But I hope that more and more people will begin to realizing it's no laughing matter before the looming disaster engulfs us all.
As a final P.S. let me say one final thing about the Apocalypse. If you cheat and read the last page of Revelation to see how it all ends, you will find that God wins, and all those who oppose Him lose. The time is coming when we will all have to pick our sides.
> But the article is say something about the Panic of 2008. That only leaves 1 more month for the panic to begin. I don’t think that’s really going to happen so soon. <
You don’t call what’s happened in the market over the past 2-3 months a panic???
That passage is speaking of Babylon.
The problem is we don’t know how long the book is.
The current situation is far from being the prelude to the End. Jim Jones convinced thousands of people that it had come thirty years ago and that things were beyond horrible when they were just a little out of whack.
LOL! This is on page 5 of a 2001 interview of Celente...
“Look at these groups. Eminem, the Backstreet Boys. The most amazing thing is that they’re talentless. They’re not good looking. It’s amazing. The industry keeps missing the opportunity. And they’re dumb. When the Beatles were popular, they were hip, they were clever. But these guys are dullards. “
http://www.allbusiness.com/services/amusement-recreation-services/4571925-1.html
He’s got good sense!
Mr smith,
You said:
LOL! This is on page 5 of a 2001 interview of Celente...
“Look at these groups. Eminem, the Backstreet Boys. The most amazing thing is that they’re talentless. They’re not good looking. It’s amazing. The industry keeps missing the opportunity. And they’re dumb. When the Beatles were popular, they were hip, they were clever. But these guys are dullards. “
http://www.allbusiness.com/services/amusement-recreation-services/4571925-1.html
Thank you for the link.
I call this “ANTICULTURE.” The same media that so completely engaged in propaganda to elect Obama and Democrats is also advancing a culture of nihilism, vacuousness, and moral degradation such as defies rational thought.
Anticulture is like a giant reciprocating engine, pushing culture down into worse and worse ignorance and degradation with every stroke, every story, every program. They create a culture that despises what we once cherished, and cherish what we once despised.
Anticulture mocks the Judeo-Christian Western civilization that gave us Bach and Beethoven even as they feed us Backstreet Boys.
Arrogantsob,
You said (with one long para deleted to be concise):
Trying to set a time line for such an event is a futile gesture in my mind and has been done so many times any new attempt has no credibility.
So far one of the main elements is missing in any case and that is the rebuilding of the Temple.
Where is Islam in the Bible other than the references to the founder of the Arabs, Ismael?
I would argue that everyone who plans ahead for ANYTHING is doing that very thing. What you are saying has no credibility is a part of human nature. We plan. We predict. We forecast. People who buy stocks and bonds care VERY MUCH what the market and the world will be like.
The Bible doesn’t specifically mention Islam, but why should it? What the Bible DOES do (Ezekiel 38-39) is mention the coalition of countries who will one day attack Israel under the leadership of Russia. The coalition is composed entirely of what are Islamic countries today, and they are the very countries that most actively hate Israel today.
Here is an identification of those countries:
http://www.theomegareport.com/articles/joel_rosenberg_0801.shtml
Joel Rosenberg, btw, is ANOTHER guy who has been identified by the media as having an incredible grasp of what WILL happen. He predicted a terror attack on the world trade center by terrorists flying an airplane. He predicted the US would take out Saddam Hussein. Before it happened.
And why? Because he believed the Bible, and wrote a novel based on a literal interpretation. He noticed that the Gog-Magog powers that invaded did NOT include Egypt and Iraq (Babylon); Egypt had already made peace with Israel; but Iraq? Under Saddam Hussein? So - BECAUSE he believed the Bible - he created a scenario in which Saddam would be taken out and Iraq would become a future ally.
You are entirely right: the temple WILL one day be rebuilt. That event will occur after the Antichrist assumes power and forms a pact with Israel (one the Bible says he’ll betray and break). The reason we don’t have a 3rd Temple is because we haven’t had Antichrist come yet.
And ANY legitimate student of Scripture would NOT have bought into your “Look at all those other people who believed we were in the Tribulation” precisely BECAUSE that hasn’t happened yet.
In any event, many of the events the Bible has predicted have occurred - specific things like a 200 MILLION many army and a route across the Euphrates - as opposed to general things like wars and plagues.
What Celente - and for that matter myself - are doing is like looking at cancer. Once you’re diagnosed with it, there’s nothing crazy about looking at how it will likely advance in the future. Celente is looking at incredibly disturbing 2008 economic data - economic data he largely predicted in advance in 2007 - and making reasonable predictions of what will happen in a few years.
Ask yourself: as we throw $7.4 TRILLION at our economic problems, do you not think it’s possible that our dollar will come to lose value? Do you not think that hyperinflation is at least a real possibility? Should wise people looking at what to do with their money not be at least a LITTLE interested in what will happen?
Is is speaking of “mystery Babulon”. Think of it as a system, a “way” more than an individual country.
Yes. People also thought Hitler was the antichrist.
Since the most significant threat to God's people in the last two thousand years, and to the world itself, is Islam any system of prophecy which does not even mention it does not give me any confidence in it.
An example of the logic necessary to believe your belief is the deduction explaining the removal of Saddam. Little of the postulates necessarily lead to the idea that Iraq will not be part of the destruction of Israel or that the removal of Saddam has any thing to do with it.
Identification of Russia as the leader of the coalition is also nothing more than faith. There is no mention of Russia in the Bible and the nation did not even come into being for more than a thousand years after the mention of Gog and Magog.
Your analogy to detecting and defeating cancer also strains logic.
Sorry but chapter 18 says nothing of a “mystery” but speaks of the fall of Babylon.
>>Sorry but chapter 18 says nothing of a “mystery” but speaks of the fall of Babylon.<
Correct. Babylon is called a “mystery” in Rev 17:5. And she is described as a woman with this on her forhead: MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
And in verse 18 of Rev 17 describes her as “...the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”
Revelation 18 then continues on regarding this subject.
Keep in mind, at no time did I say that the US IS the prostitute. What I said is that as more time passes, she seems to be. Rev 18:11 is especially interesting: “”The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more— “
If this were to happen today, to what nation would this refer?
You are right on the level of human “logic” being transcended by prophecy. On the simple, “Atheism is the only way to believe or think” view, you’ve got me.
If there is a Creator God - if such a Creator is even worthy of consideration - than prophecy is likewise worthy of consideration. The fact that you are willing to throw it out to due entirely to atheistic presuppositions really doesn’t amount to diddly as far as I’m concerned.
Prophecy is as valid as the one giving the prophecies. And Christians have good reasons for believing their “source.”
Interestingly, by the way, Judeo-Christianity and Judeo-Christianity ALONE provides prophecy in its holy Scriptures. Islam does not (save one, when Mohammad gave a self-fulfilling prophecy to return to Mecca). The Bible, however, confirms itself again and again by prophecy.
I actually COULD argue that Islam is referred to in the Bible, given the fact that Allah is the moon god, and Moses mentions worship of the moon in Deuteronomy 4:19.
But your argument assumes that God is somehow more afraid of Islam than He is of anything else. I guess I just don’t think so. There have been innumerable false religions, and Islam is simply one more of them. The fact that it should be specifically singled out in prophecy because it would come to have more adherents (1.3 billion) than other false religions (Hinduism has 870 million adherents, shouldn’t IT have been mentioned, too?) doesn’t mean that much to me. There are 2.14 billion Christians, btw
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20060106/christian-population-growth-rate-higher-than-world-less-than-muslims-hindus.htm
“Any system of prophecy which does not mention X does not give me any confidence in it.” Any system of prophecy which does not mention Einsteinian physics does not give me any confidence in it. That pretty much becomes a game where you can justify unbelief by making “X” anything.
God gave the test of a false prophet, and false prophecy. If it doesn’t come to pass, it’s false.
God created individuals with free will, including the freedom to reject Him. You want to reject divine prophecy, fine. You want to reject the coming Antichrist, the coming one world government, the coming Tribulation, fine. You want to reject that one day - and I believe soon - there will be a global economic system in which anyone who does not have a particular mark will not be able to buy or sell, fine. You’ll just be one among billions of fools taking it.
Me, I accept it, and I believe I’m seeing more and more confirmation that it’s beginning to come to pass all the time.
“Human logic” is all we humans have to work with. Certainly there is no reason to accept the reasoning of those who incorrectly claim their opponents are “atheistic”.
“Confirmation” of biblical prophecy is in the mind of the beholder not objective fact. It is like that of Nostradamus, subject to multiple interpretations through whatever Decoder Device is handy.
It is an excellent method of fleecing the flock however. One of the best since it cannot be argued against with any kind of rationality.
Allah is not a “moon God” but ONE god. Islam does not accept multiple gods and calls believers in the Trinity, Polytheists. Sick and perverted as the followers of Mad Mo are they do not worship Nature Gods.
Nor do I imply God is afraid of anything just point to the fact that the most significant religious movement since Jesus is totally absent from “prophecy”. Nothing has been as destructive to Christianity as the Islamic killers which systemicly destroyed the Christian communities throughout the Middle East. Millions have died at its hands for almost fourteen hundred years. An event of such staggering magnitude and so deadly to Christians is oblivious to the “prophesy”. Islam is hardly just another religion.
People are not Christians just because they are born so but must live it. Thus, at least half the “Christians” claimed by you are not Christians at all. Look at the communist churches which make up the mainstream religions in this country ready to srrender to evil at the drop of a hat.
And, if you have not noticed, Hinduism is not a murderous millenium long assault on Christians and Jews.
China? Japan?
No, “human logic” is NOT all we humans have to work with. Again, such a statement simply rules out God, rules out divine revelation (which we would NEVER have formulated by “human logic”), and rules out most other of the most important aspects of our lives. My choice in my wife was hardly based on “logic.” And I can guarantee you that her choice in ME wasn’t!
I wrote an article based on Immanuel Kant’s proof that human reason has a very extreme limit.
http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/why-pseudo-scientific-atheists-are-wrong-about-the-essence-of-science/
Just one of myriad discussions on “Allah” as moon god. The actual fact of the matter is that you can’t find a detailed etymology of the word “Allah” without the moon god cropping up.
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/archive/index.php/t-52114.html
As to your comment:
“Confirmation” of biblical prophecy is in the mind of the beholder not objective fact. It is like that of Nostradamus, subject to multiple interpretations through whatever Decoder Device is handy.
Let me simply say that - beyond the insulting and trivializing comparison of biblical prophecy to Nostradamus (when you find me 2 billion converts to Nostradamus I’ll stop laughing), you fail to realize something incredibly important. Namely, when one simply takes the approach that one should take to ANY literature - to interpret it literally unless the author is clearly being figurative or you have sound reason NOT to take it literally - you find that most people generally agree on the message of Bible prophecy. I’ve got books on biblical prophecy by dozens of authors - and I could easily go buy books from dozens more - who essentially agree on most elements of biblical prophecy. You are simply wrong in your “eye of the beholder claim.”
All one has to do is simply take the Bible seriously, and it very much CAN be “argued against with any kind of rationality.” It is only people who are determined a priori to find it meaningless that find it meaningless.
I say again: if we have a global government which Bible prophecy predicts, and the coming of an Antichrist world leader who fulfills a number of incredibly detailed prophecies that we are given, then only a fool will pursue your line of reasoning. And I think there is very good evidence/reason to believe that we are headed for exactly that direction. You laugh at me for believing it, and I’ll laugh at you for NOT believing it.
And again, your whole “I don’t take Bible prophecy seriously because it doesn’t mention X” where X can be anything continues to strike as trivial. The Bible should have mentioned Hitler, who was responsible for 50 million deaths. The Bible should have mentioned Karl Marx, or Chairman Mao, or Joseph Stalin (all of whom were responsible for more lives taken than one can likely document re: Islam, btw). The Bible should have mentioned this or that or the other thing. The Bible should have mentioned what I had for lunch today.
Tell you what: create your very own universe, create free-willed beings in your image, and then reveal yourself to them by revelation - and you can go right ahead and tell them all about Islam or whatever else you want.
Biblical prophecies are almost always man's interpretations not literal passages from the Bible. Fortune tellers and such are explicitly ruled out for the people of God. Jesus also tells us that “even the Angels” do not know the coming of the end.
Kant did not limit reason as regards things of the world but as it applied to metaphysical things. Reason works perfectly well when applied to the material world and its manipulation.
You distort my meaning when trying to apply reason to matters of the heart. Although it certainly is a recent phenomenon that it is less relevant. Marriages were arranged in the past and reason was the primary aspect of the process.
Allah has no resemblance to the Moon God but is described as a universal and omnipotent God not one limited to the Moon. There is nothing to the argument that because of similar names the named is the same any more than it would be to claim that Jesus is the same as Zeus because of the names’ similarity.
Jesus did not have a religion started in his name because of prophecy so the “2 billion in his name” argument is also bogus.
You must be joking to claim prophecy is a literal reading of the Bible. There is little literalism in it and only makes any sense at all by interpreting obscure or symbolic language and passages.
Nor is there any truth to the claim that the elements of prophecy are universally acknowledged even by those who believe it is real. Any statement would be met with many variations of meaning and many more claims that it had no validity at all.
You then elide into a implication that not believing in modern prophecy is the same as not believing the Bible. I would guess that there are many Bible believers who follow Jesus when he says forget about it and live as though tomorrow will be the last day.
Modern day tyrants did not kill more than Islam btw. It expanded almost entirely by war destroying the almost entirely Christian Middle East as its first step. War was its system of proselytization for a thousand years.
I get the idea that you have a “win by sheer attrition” style, and that is how you will ultimately “win” this argument: I am not willing to waste my time with you until doomsday writing a 1000 comments, because you would write 1001, even though I believe that “doomsday” is actually fairly close at hand.
I won’t waste my time arguing with you about Allah and the moon god. I provided a link showing a relationship. I could have provided a thousand more. Muslims try to dismiss the link, the same way they try to dismiss the Jews’ history in the land of Israel. But the etymology is clearly there. My pastor has his doctorate, and grew up as the son of missionaries in Muslim countries. He is a fluent speaker of Arabic, and his own studies have confirmed the association between Allah and the moon god. I trust his expertise over your casual dismissal.
Kant CLEARY argued that there are clear limits to human reason because we are trapped by our limited cognitive faculties and senses. There are many things that we cannot know beyond a limited and distorted degree. I provided the article to demonstrate that. You provided a trivial dismissive sentence.
And the reason we depend on divine revelation is because we CANNOT know everything. We couldn’t know God at all, unless He revealed Himself to us by revelation. We could neither seem him with our senses, nor comprehend His ways with our minds. Throw out revelation, and you throw out the knowledge of God, pure and simple.
You couldn’t be more wrong in claiming that Christianity - as well as the Messiah Jesus who founded it - was not based in prophecy. The coming of Jesus Himself was based in prophecy. The so-called “protoevangelium” (first gospel) of Genesis 3:15 prophesying a deliverer who would ultimately crush satan begins a series of prophecies that become more and more specific until we get to prophecies such as the virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14-9:7). Fully 40% of the Bible was prophetic at the time it was written - and many of those prophecies have come true exactly as God said. Many of those prophecies concerned the coming of Messiah. When Herod asks his “Bible experts,” they tell him that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2 citing Micah 5:2). When John the baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He was the promised Messiah, Jesus quoted Scripture to show how He was fulfilling prophecy. He also gave us plenty of last days prophecy. You might try reading Matthew 24, for instance. Jesus also prophesied that He would be raised from the dead, and literally the whole Christian religion stands or falls on believing in that prophecy and its fulfillment.
I have a book by Joel Rosenberg titled “Epicenter.” If you AREN’T an “arrogant s.o.b.” and you are actually willing to have your opinion changed, you should read it.
Rosenberg came to fame by writing a couple of novels that predicted things that actually happened. US News & World Report called him a “modern Nostradamus” as a result (to tie in with your Nostradamus stuff). Rosenberg predicted that terrorists would fly a plane into the World Trade Center before they did it. He predicted the US would attack Iraq before 9/11.
The interesting thing about Rosenberg’s books wasn’t as much what he predicted by why he predicted it: and the answer is Bible prophecy. He took the same Bible prophecy that you trivalize as total symbolism of which any interpretation is as invalid as anyone else’s, and took it literally.
Specifically, he read Ezekiel 38 and 39, concerning the alliance of countries that would attack Israel in the last days. And he noticed something interesting: that neither Egypt nor Iraq (Babylon) were on the list of countries that would attack along with Russia.
Egypt was startling enough. Understand something: prior to the time Ezekiel wrote, Egypt was centuries-long enemy of Israel. They were involved in wars against Israel again and again. Yet they weren’t in the coalition.
But precisely because of Ezekiel, Bible scholars weren’t shocked when Egypt signed the first peace accord with Israel, representing the first (and officially still the only) Muslim country to recognize Israel.
But Rosenberg’s problem was Iraq, which went by Babylon in Ezekiel’s time. How on earth would Iraq under Saddam NOT participate in an attack against Israel? There’s no way the guy who styled himself as a “modern-day Nebuchadnezzar WOULDN’T pass up such an opportunity! So Rosenberg recognized that Saddam would have to go for the prophecy to be fulfilled. Hence the terrorist attack, and hence the US invasion of Iraq to take him out.
And today, with the United States an ally of Iraq, we very much can understand why two historic enemies of Israel would NOT participate in an attack on Israel. That’s what happens when you take the prophecies in a literal grammatical manner: they come to pass.
That, btw, would constitute another reference to Islam. Russia (Magog) and Iran (Persia) attacking Israel, with an alliance that today lists all the Muslim countries that would in fact be most likely to attack Israel today!
http://www.theomegareport.com/articles/joel_rosenberg_0801.shtml
I can go back at least 150 years and quote John Nelson Darby, and show you that Christians - on the basis of Bible prophecy alone - were confidently saying that Israel would become a nation when there was NO evidence that that would happen OTHER than Bible prophecy. But prophecies in Ezekiel (e.g. 37) and Revelation made it crystal clear that Israel would have to become a nation. And after two thousand years, it did.
How did John know that there would be an army of 200 million that would flow out of the east? At the time he wrote, there weren’t 200 million people living in the whole world! And he had no way of knowing that the east would be the global population center.
There’s ALL KINDS of stuff like that in the Bible. All you have to do is read it as though the person who was writing the prophecy was describing a literal space-time event, and it comes to pass!!!
My favorite one of all is Daniel 9:24-27. The prophecy of the 70 weeks. The seventy “sevens” or “weeks” (shebua) refer consistently to the 7-year sabbath cycles for the land described in Leviticus 25:1-8. 2 Chronicles 36(esp v. 21) points out that the Jews hadn’t kept the sabbath once for 490 years. And God was going to give the land its full sabbath rest by removing the Jews from it, just as He said He would (Lev 26:33-35). And so God removes them from the land for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:12).
So Daniel 9 begins with Daniel realizing that the 70 years are almost over, and that God - again because he took the prophecy LITERALLY - is about to be completed (Daniel 9:2). And he begins to pray. And then an angel appears and provides the prophecy of the seventy sevens.
The issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Dan 9:25) refers to Nehemiah 2:1-9 and the reign of Artexerxes 1. This event occurred during the 20th year of Artexerxes’ reign, which is reliably dated to 445 BC. And according to the “clock” the angel gives Daniel, there would be 69 sabbath cycles, and then Messiah the Prince would come and be cut off and killed (Dan 9:25-26).
What happens when we start counting 69 sabbath cycles? Well, a Jewish scholar named Ben Zion Wacholder, using information that would have been common to the Jews of Jesus’ day, DID count them - all the way back to antiquity (in an article in Hebrew Union College Annual). Based on his work, we know this: the decree of Artexerxes fell during the sabbath cycle 449-442. And the 69th sabbath cycle falls from AD 28-35 - exactly the period of Jesus’ public ministry and execution.
So there was an expectation. And men like Simeon (Luke 2:25-27) were expecting to literally SEE the Messiah whose coming prophecy had described.
That’s what happens when you take the prophecies literally. Yes, there is figurative language. But we use figurative language all the time. Every single day, my newspaper tells me the time to the minute of “sunrise.” Well, the sun doesn’t “rise,” and everyone knows it. But just because language is figurative doesn’t mean that no one can know what it means. It is nothing more than a matter of learning and understanding. And it’s a matter of realizing that the symbolism refers to something literal/specific. And a great deal of the Bible’s symbolism is the same way.
You can refuse to do so, and you can trivialize those who take their Bible seriously. But you do so at your own risk. When Jesus said He’d come again (again, a PROPHECY!) He said his coming would be like a thief’s. He told His own to watch the signs, and be ready for Him. But the rest of the world WON’T be watching, and they won’t be ready. Don’t be one of them.
Before bitterly complaining of my responses look to who initiated the long “sheer attrition style”. It was not I who brought up a multiplicity of subjects.
I do not believe that modern men are in tune with the spirit of phrophecy. And that many of the parallels between phropecy and actual events happening now are extremely tenuous. In your view that condemns me. So be it. This thread was predicated on another topic altogether.
To both of you (arrogantsob and Michael Eden)
Well....this thread may well indeed have been predicated on another topic altogether....
but by God’s divine will (no doubt) this thread has become a gem and shining jewel of information, insight and inspiration (at least, for me).
Thank you both for an informative and fascinating exchange of information. I have enjoyed this thread more than any other thread that I’ve read in FR for months now.
See, arrogantsob....God really does work in mysterious ways. He put you here tonight to challenge M Eden and just look at the wonderful results. I doubt that I am alone in these sentiments.
Thanks again.
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