Issued: 05/28/22

PLEASE NOTE:  All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.  The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Only Highest God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christian will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

We have heard of Baby-Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha in reference to demographic cohorts.  Applying this metric to the people living before the second coming of Jesus, our generation might be called Gen Omega; based on current events, we should be able to discern the expiring signs of our times the same way people looking at the sky make informed guesses about the day’s weather (Matthew 16:3).  Instead of clouds and wind patterns, we have Biblical prophecies that essentially are coded messages:  “You have been given knowledge about the secrets of the kingdom of God. But to others they are given in parables [using allegories and symbols], so that they might look but not see, and they might listen but not understand” (Luke 8:10).  Jesus was not breaking new ground:  He was confirming the way in which God had chosen to reveal His “secret wisdom” to Judeo-Christians even before the world had begun (Deuteronomy 29:29; 1Corinthians 2:7).

Scriptural Signposts

   Thus the Judeo-Christian Bible is built on foundational doctrines, one of which is the promise that “the Lord Yahweh will do nothing, unless He reveals His secret [i.e., future intentions] to His servants the prophets [for public dissemination]” (Amos 3:7).  Since He foreknew that with the creation of Satan everything would go to pot, counter measures had to be put in place to set things back on the right track.  These would be in the form of prophetic warnings specific to time periods, as for example, the progression of world empires from Babylon, to modern alliances [ten toes], to the coming of God’s Kingdom in Daniel 2:32-45—in short, the whole trajectory of Western governance. ¹ There would be prophecies specific to each generation predicting world events, human excesses, punishments for misbehaving Judeo-Christians—all too numerous for us to list here but easily discernible from Scripture.  You do the research.

   A second foundational doctrine is the cyclical nature of human suffering.  Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 is not telling us that history repeats itself, for history is a human concept, like ‘Mother Nature,’ formulated to explain an external reality.  What Ecclesiastes does tell us—and very clearly so—is that men’s evil and immoral acts are re-enacted throughout time:  What has been done will be done again.  Who are the “doers?”  Men who, by their own choices and volition, find it more gratifying and rewarding to imitate Satan rather than Jesus [Genesis 6:2,5; Ecclesiastes 7:29, 9:3; John 8:44).  Be them attempts to consolidate absolute power (Isaiah 14:14), evident in today’s politics and entrepreneurial shenanigans; seduce people with visions of possibilities out of human reach (Genesis 3:5); or trumpeted, self-aggrandizing philanthropy (Matthew 6:2) ostensibly aimed at solving the world’s ills (Matthew 26:11), every human endeavor not rooted in and dependent on Jesus (John 15:5) channels the dark side of the Horseman who embodies death:  Satan himself (Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 6:8).

   Related to this is God’s determination that human beings live once (Hebrews 9:27), whereas Satan and fallen angels live on influencing the course of human events until their annihilation in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10,13-15, 21:8).  The gift of life may be all men’s ticket to pride; but it is choices made in that one lifetime that either lead to their salvation or condemnation—choices, by the way, that enable Satan to act or not against them (Ephesians 2:2; James 4:7).  God’s ultimate objective is saving souls (Ezekiel 18:21-30; Micah 7:18; Romans 6:16; 1Timothy 2:4; 2Peter 3:9); before he is incinerated, Satan wants to bring down with him as many souls as possible.  Against such a suicidal mindset, the Deity upon Whom all men depend for existence is not going to haggle over or negotiate any terms with them.  It all boils down to a case of do as He says or die.²

   What Judeo-Christians have, then, is a system conceived before time was and woven in symbols throughout Genesis’ Creation,³ Paul’s argument in Hebrews 4:3: “His works were finished at the foundation of the world,” which also applies to Peter’s comment regarding Jesus’ crucifixion (1Peter 1:20).  Other evidence includes “books” to be opened on Judgment Day where the names and actions of righteous and unrighteous people have been pre-recorded.  Moses attested to their existence in Exodus 32:32, as does Psalms 69:28, Daniel 7:10, and Revelation 20:12.  Every human eventuality; every egregious behavior Satan is capable of deploying against mankind in terms of famines, wars, and natural catastrophes thanks to men, has been taken into account and forewarned, the way flashing lights are placed along uncertain ground, so that people of faith can avoid pitfalls on the dark road to salvation   Hence the litany of punishments in Deuteronomy 28:15-68;⁴ or the warnings about what to expect from the rule of men in 1Samuel 8:9-17; or identifying the behind-the-scenes power driving world governments (John 14:30, Luke 4:6, 2Corinthians 4:3-4; 1John 5:19).

   While these require the acknowledgement and acceptance of Satan’s existence, which in our ‘enlightened’ days has been disparaged and pooh-poohed, we of faith should focus on the fact that we know of Satan from God’s and Jesus’ written testimony in Scripture; and if anyone has the temerity to call them liars, [a concerted effort of long-standing nonetheless (Jeremiah 8:8)], so be it.   However, their unfaith serves a vital purpose:  Manifesting to us who is wheat and who is chaff (Matthew 18:7; Acts 20:30; 1Corinthians 11:19; 1Timothy 4:1-2; 2Peter 2:21; 1John 2:19).  That too God has provided for, so that we should be mindful of not doing what Jesus so aptly described in Matthew 7:6.  If men put their faith on other men but hold faith in God to a different standard, well and dandy:  “Let each one be fully convinced in his own mind” (Romans 14:5)—provided the right of others to believe what they will is equally respected.

Doctrine-Specific Messages for Gen Omega

On Death after Life

   Hebrews 9:27 is part of the Biblical doctrine on the nature of death, which is highly pertinent in our age of ‘after-life’ experiences; ‘what-I-saw-in-Heaven’ declarations by self-professed returnees from the great beyond; ghost sightings; memories of past lives; and reincarnation.  Hebrews 9:27 could not be clearer:  Men only live once and then are resurrected to face Jesus’ Judgment, wherein some will be redeemed and others put in storage to be burned at Armageddon.  In between a person’s death and one of two programmed resurrections (John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15; Revelation 20:6), a person’s soul leaves the body and goes back to God (Genesis 35:18; Ecclesiastes 12:7) in a state akin to human sleep (1Samuel 28:10-15; Ecclesiastes 9:5; Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2; Luke 8:52; Acts 7:60; 1Thessalonians 4:15; Revelation 6:11).  They are not singing in any heavenly choir; nor playing harps on fleecy clouds; nor able to intercede for living relatives or idolatrous devotees before God (Ecclesiastes 9:6); nor atoning for venial sins in a non-existent Purgatory; not coming back through mediums to communicate with grieving kin; nor riding the merry-go-round of reincarnations.  Prioritizing denominational dogmas over the authority of Scripture is anyone’s prerogative.  Just remember:  “He who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination”; for God only listens to the worshipper who listens to Him (Proverbs 28:9; John 9:31).

   There are only two explanations for people who claim to have had such experiences:  Outright frauds trying to sell a bill of goods for fame or lucre; or people whose minds were implanted with false recollections that to them seem very real.  If false, God cannot possibly have anything to do with them (1Samuel 2:30).  If genuinely believing the integrity of memories not substantiated by Scripture, much Bible-consultation and prayer for illumination is strongly advised; for those truly toeing God’s line cannot be so deceived (Proverbs 14:6; Matthew 24:24; 1Corinthians 2:13-15; Ephesians 6:6).

Doomsday Predictions

   For a long time end-of-the-world prophecies have been the staple of crackpots and prophets of doom.  Naturally none of them should have been heeded, since only God, not even Jesus and God’s angels, knows when He will put an end to the period of grace (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7).  Will all due respect to the Mayans whose prophecies of cataclysmic/transformative events gave some people the jitters in 2012, they could not have been in good standing with a God Who reviles polytheism and idolatrous worship in all its forms.  If God has not told His own Son, Jesus, the specific date when His patience with men will run its course, why would the Mayans know?  Oh, they had their mathematical calculations…based on what, inspired by whom, and corroborated by which chapter and verse?

   It is understandable that men without faith could have been unsettled by or doubtful of Mayan predictions; but Mayans, like all non Judeo-Christian cultures, play no role within the Bible proper.  Notwithstanding, neo-Christians have imported pagan customs and read world-ending omens in phenomena like shooting stars, passing comets, plagues, heathen invasions, or visions by charismatic ‘prophets’ who were believed on the strength of their word without Scriptural backing.  Judging by the popularity of doomsday scenarios depicted in movies, people are irrationally if not pathologically obsessed with destruction.  Perhaps because such images in air-conditioned rooms eating tubs of popcorn desensitize people to those fearful what-ifs?  Will they be as entertained when the plagues outlined in Revelation 16 befall them and they are made to endure them?  Jesus’ embedded message in Luke 21:25-26, also intended for Gen Omega, does not convey images of titillation and glee.

   Yet even unrealized prophecies serve a purpose:  They speak volumes about Christendom’s spiritual condition when doomsday timetables are preached from neo-Christian pulpits—and what is worse—believed by congregants.  But then there are lots of wolves in designer’s clothing amongst the flock, and their preaching has all the instinctive elements of their predatory counterparts in nature­—which does not excuse the sheep for heeding their voices instead of Jesus’ (John 10:11,27).   And here, without question, is Gen Omega’s reenactment of Jeremiah 5:31.

Divine Timetables

   How has God given us other pointers to recognize end times?  Jesus communicated one in Acts 1:8:  “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  God’s doomsday clock started ticking on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on the Apostles gathered in unanimous prayer (Acts 2:1-4).

  [Slight Digression:  There is symbolic meaning to this date.  In the Old Testament it was called the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks (Exodus 23:14-16; Leviticus 23:15-22; Deuteronomy 16:16).  Fifty days {7 weeks} were to be counted from the celebration of FirstFruits; hence the epithet Feast of Weeks.  These 50 days were preceded by Passover {Jewish “seder,” a single meal not measured in weeks or days} and the 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread.  Not to belabor what seems to be obvious, but if Jesus was the Passover “eaten” prior to the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Matthew 26:17-19,26-28; Luke 22:7-20; 1Corinthians 5:7), and he was the bread from Heaven untainted by the yeast of religious hypocrisy (John 6:51; Luke 12:1), we see how God had foretold Jesus’ generation about his person and mission centuries before Yahweh of hosts became incarnate as Jesus.

   Following the Last Supper on Thursday evening, his crucifixion on Friday before the Sabbath (Luke 23:54-56), and early Sunday morning resurrection (John 20:1), Jesus first appeared to the Apostles that Sunday night (John 22:19—note the reaffirmation of Sunday as the “first day of the week”; consequently, NOT the Seventh Day of the Commandment); and continued interacting with the Apostles for another 40 days (Acts 1:3).  So counting from Thursday’s Last Supper to Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, we have approximately 3 + 40 days; thus 7 days between Acts 1:9 and 2:1 must have elapsed for it to have been Pentecost.

   Note also that these things combined point to Jesus’ role as God’s harvester of souls—he being the sower of the seed (Matthew 13:37).  By the time of the Last Supper, the Apostles were “unleavened” enough—except for Judas, of course—to qualify as Jesus’ First Fruits, an epithet that in end times will identify the 144,000 to be chosen from the whole of humanity.  Like the Apostles, they will not be contaminated by denominational allegiances or preaching corrupted gospels (Revelation 14:4-6).  And this prophecy too, written millennia ago, is particular to Gen Omega].

   Satan had not missed a nanosecond mobilizing human minions to preempt Jesus’ timetable.  Luke 19:11 tells us that when Jesus neared Jerusalem, some around him believed that the Kingdom of God would appear immediately;⁵ so Jesus went on to provide a pointer specific to end times:  “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).  Note the nuance between this verse and Acts 1:8:  “When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Both are essentially stating the same outcome, except that in Matthew the end of times is scheduled to begin at the completion of world evangelization.  So while Gen Omega is given a ‘red’ alert, previous generations were given ‘blue to orange’ warnings [persecutions, earthquakes, wars, famines (Matthew 24:6-8)].

   In Acts 1:8 Jesus instructed the Apostles to evangelize Judea and Samaria, which meant Jews got a first crack at seizing salvation:  The Apostles were to finalize the job Jesus himself had started (Matthew 15:26).  The Apostles had indeed come to Jesus’ side; though at least in Peter’s case, he had not quite jettisoned the stranglehold of Mosaic tradition, nor, according to Paul, even at a later date (Acts 10:14,28; Galatians 2:11-14). 

   The objective of uniting Jews and Gentiles into a single nation did not begin with Jesus:  It had been spelled out in the Old Testament by different prophets and in different ways [Deuteronomy 29:14-15; Hosea 2:23; Jeremiah 3:8 and Ezekiel 37:15-22—where Israel symbolized Jews and Judah, Jesus’ tribe (Hebrews 7:14), symbolized Christendom].  With Jesus come and gone, the times allotted to Jews had expired; those allotted to Gentiles had just begun (Luke 21:24); times which, needless to say, were to be more destructive and bloody than anything Jews had dished out.

   Peter’s vision in Acts 10 was the opening salvo; to his credit, he had the good sense to realize their import (Acts 10:34-35).  Thus the Apostles and their cohorts began their missionary trips, most notably those of Paul [he wanted to evangelize Spain (Romans 15:24)] and Peter to Mediterranean lands, from which some tribes of Europe [the seven-headed beast of Revelation 13:1] still to coalesce into nations [i.e., emerge from the “sea” of humanity], would export their ‘serve-both-God-and-Caesar-amalgam’ of Jesus’ Gospel ostensibly to save souls.  It is interesting to note that in those early days the Holy Spirit nixed Paul’s plan to evangelize Asia (Acts 16:6)—perhaps to leave room for the nation of Islam as promised to Agar on behalf of Ishmael (Genesis 17:20)?⁶

   Riding on top of the seven-headed beast was the mother-harlot of all daughter-harlots (Revelation 17:5), Scripture’s way of profiling the Roman Church [seven hills and ascendancy over the European, un-holy Roman Empire (Revelation 17:9-18] from whom Protestant denominations were born—all predictably in disobedience to Jesus’ unifying mission (Mark 3:24; Ephesians 1:10, 4:3-6) extending to this very day.⁷  Divisiveness is to Satan what electricity is to the Frankenstein monster:  The medium that makes him ever stronger over men, which is the reason why his vectors in politics and religion divide people in order to conquer—one more way of bringing Caesar into the Christian discourse.

   It was mother-harlot who laid waste to the saints, though to corroborate this, we do not need Scripture:  Human history will do superbly.  When Roman Catholicism became the religion of the Roman Empire, Daniel 8:24 and Revelation 13:7 went into high gear from prophecy to reality for centuries on end, during which blood copious enough to drench our planet’s crust down to the lithosphere⁸ was shed and rationalized as ‘doing God’s work’; by wielding not the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17), but Satan’s homicidal sword (Ezekiel 21:3,10-13) in the form of crusades, inquisitions, auto-da-fés, endorsements of African and New World genocides, and the like.  It is interesting to note that while Daniel was told “to seal” what had been revealed to him (Daniel 12:4), John was told to swallow the proverbial bitter pill (Revelation 10:9-10), because he was closer in time to Gen Omega’s precursors than Daniel was.

   In other words, Daniel’s prophecies fulfilled the purpose of Amos 3:7 but were not intended to be understood by intervening generations until Roman Catholicism’s empowerment in 4 CE.  This adhered to an earlier pattern seen in Jeremiah 29:1-10, where Jewish captives in Babylon were told to conduct business as usual—but not to heed false prognosticators in their midst—until 70 years from the fall of Jerusalem had elapsed.  But prior to the city’s fall, Jerusalem as site of Yahweh’s Temple [being shadow to the substance of Jesus’ body as God’s residence (Colossians 2:9)], the message had been quite different:  This place is going to the dogs; no sense in putting roots down is what is slated for destruction.  Or as stated, “You are not to take a wife, nor are you to have sons or daughters in this place” (Jeremiah 16:2); followed by a millenary sequence of events stretching from 586 BCE [when Jerusalem fell]; to the advent of Jesus’ Apostles (Jeremiah 16:16—see Matthew 4:19); to bodies lying in open air referencing end times’ events (Jeremiah 16:4, 25:32-33; Ezekiel 39:8,17-20; Revelation 19:17-18); up to the final realization that men’s trust in men had availed them nothing (Jeremiah 16:19-20—cross reference Proverbs 5:11-14).

Science-Specific Prophecies for Gen Omega

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run back and forth, and knowledge [science] shall be increased.”

Daniel 12:4

   The contempt for religion shared by notable empiricists mirrors God’s dismissive attitude towards science; for science, by definition, is the antithesis and negation of the faith that pleases Him (Hebrews 11:1,6)—a case akin to tit for tat.  Notable examples are given in Daniel 12:4, where all the wonders of scientific achievements are written off in a single sentence:  Science shall increase; and in 1Timothy 6:20-21, where Paul calls science “false” as well as leading endorsers astray.  Though some neo-Christians have undertaken to wed science and Scripture to imbue logic into something as counter-intuitive as faith, God chose to withhold evidentiary confirmation of His existence by instead choosing to test men’s faith on grounds of tri-partite testimonies [Jesus, Holy Spirit, Biblical writer].  Everything else outside of Scripture is food for naught.

   As we approach end times, Satan’s deceptions—allowed by God (2Thessalonians 2:9-12)—have gone into overdrive.  Not a day passes that some new dinosaur fossil is found contradicting the account of Noah’s Flood and the time-span encompassed between Jesus and Adam in Luke’s chronology (Luke 3:23-28); or some hominid remains challenging Genesis 1:26’s assertion; or some UFO sighting suggesting there is life elsewhere in the universe.

   We have gone into some of these issues in previous discussions.  For our purposes here, let us add Paul’s stabs at science’s predilection for observable facts in Romans 8:24 and 2Corinthians 4:18.  His arguments are stock and parcel of warnings against the reliability of what is seen, which have been inserted in Scripture as warnings to keep us focused on the straight and narrow path to salvation (Matthew 7:14).  Jesus did not go as far as Paul; but his miracles like multiplying fish and bread in defiance of the law of the conservation of matter [it can neither be created nor destroyed], or walking over water nullifying the law of gravity, may very well be Scriptural arguments against the unreliability of ‘incontestable’ facts.

   Remembering the standard outlined in Isaiah 28:13, and evident in Scriptures like Matthew 27:39↔Psalms 109:25, Mark 15:34↔Psalms 22:1, Zechariah 9:9↔John 12:15, etc., divine truths are revealed in snippets, like pieces of a puzzle that must be locked together into a meaningful, coherent whole.  We look up into the night sky and see that immense vastness science tells us is still expanding; but what is Scripture’s take on that reality seen by righteous and unrighteous alike?  Foreknowing that Satan would seek to undermine faith with these issues during end times, how did God choose to counter Gen Omega’s perception of the cosmos as explained by astronomy, or address controversial issues like life in other planets and UFOs?

   We have been told that Satan has been given carte blanche to deploy any and all types of deceptions to make men doubt the integrity of the Bible (2Thessalonians 2:11-12); and Satan is able to do this because God lets him.  Why?  For the usual, overriding objective:  To differentiate between those who choose to believe what they see in contradiction of Scripture, and those who see the same things filtered through the corrective lens of faith.

On the Nature of the Universe

   Let us take the opening of Heaven as Stephen was being stoned to death (Acts 7:55-56).  This confirms the relative proximity of the divine to the human realm; more than that, unlike Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28:12 attesting to that proximity, Stephen’s confirmation was visual—exclusive to him, a man of faith, whereas invisible to everybody else around him (Acts 7:58).  For corroboration we have Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, a trajectory monitored by the Apostles until Jesus was hidden by a cloud (Acts 1:9).  Assuming Jesus to have been of average height, how far up could he have gone and still be seen by human eyes?  Granted that a cloud covered him, but Jesus could not have risen very far above ground; which leads us to conclude that Heaven’s lower boundary, now impassable like the barrier back to Eden (Genesis 3:24—see Luke 16:26), is not far above yet invisible to us.  And both Isaiah 14:15-17 and Ezekiel 28:17, which deal with Satan’s imprisonment on earth during the Millennium (Revelation 20:2-3) when the redeemed will look down upon him from Heaven, confirm this.

  So Heaven is right above us but unseen and undetected by human instruments; or more correctly, invisible because something prevents human senses from perceiving it.  Now this ‘preventive’ something was at play in 2Kings 6:17, Luke 24:16,31 and John  20:14, in the last two instances affecting people who knew Jesus by sight but were unable to recognize him.  Mark 16:12 tells us that on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appeared to two disciples “in another form,” which we must not take to mean that Jesus looked different from the one they had known in life, but that the form they were made to see hid Jesus’ true countenance, thus making recognition impossible.  The same idea is apparent from John 21:4, but here distance from shore to boat seems to be the operating factor; so that when the fishing Apostles secured their catch, the similar event recorded in Luke 5:6-7 came to John’s mind and he was able to recognize Jesus.

   A more suggestive Scripture is Isaiah 25:7:  “He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations.”  First of all, which “mountain” is this?  The Zion where the Heavenly Jerusalem will repose (Revelation 21:2,10), presented symbolically in Daniel 2:35: “But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”  Let us remember that the “statue” in question is made up of all kingdoms from Babylon down to European nations⁹ at end times (Daniel 2:37-43).  Daniel 2:44-45 very clearly states that the surviving kingdom is God’s Kingdom, with the Heavenly City as its capital and God’s eternal dwelling place (Isaiah 2:2, 56:7; Revelation 21:3,22-27).

   If Daniel’s great mountain fills the whole earth—a brand new version of it (Isaiah 65:17, 66:22; Matthew 24:35; 2Peter 3:13), this agrees with Revelation 21:1’s contention that the sea will be no more.  Also note the parallels between Revelation 21:4 and Isaiah 25:8 regarding God’s wiping away the tears shed by the redeemed during their earthly pilgrimage from Satan’s [Pharaoh’s—Ezekiel 29:1)] servitude (Romans 6:21; Titus 3:3—see John 8:44); through the desert of “valley of the shadow of death,” [death referring to both Satan individually and to his realm specifically—(Psalms 23:4; Luke 4:6; John 14:30; 2Corinthians 4:4; Hebrews 2:15; Revelation 6:8]; until their entrance into the Promised Land foreshadowed by the Israelite experience:  Entering from the east and crossing a body of water dry-shod (Exodus 14:21-22↔Joshua 3:17↔Revelation 16:12), with Joshua’s namesake, Jesus, at the head of God’s people (Micah 2:13).¹⁰

   But what does Isaiah 25:7’s “covering” refer to?  What mankind sees as heaven; and if we are to believe Jacob and Stephen, capable of opening and closing?  In Malachi 3:10, are “the windows of heaven” a figure of speech or an underlying reality?  Through what did Jesus enter Heaven when he went up and disappeared from the Apostles’ view?

   We need not surmise anything; answers are clearly given depicting the cosmos more like a contrived illusion than what science’s instruments observe and quantify.  “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?  Can you loosen Orion’s belt?  Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear [Ursa Major?] with its cubs?  Do you know the laws of the heavens” (Job 31-33)?  Yahweh “stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” (Isaiah 40:22).”  “The sun turned as black as dark sackcloth and the whole moon became like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth—as a fig tree casts her unripe figs, being shaken by a great wind (Revelation 6:12-13—see Isaiah 13:10, 34:4, 51:6; Ezekiel 32:7-8; Joel 2:10,31,  3:15).  How can this infinite vastness we see up there dissolve like smoke or be rolled up like a scroll?  How can stars—not meteors—fall like unripe fruit?  How can the sun go dark (Amos 8:9)?

   The unusual thing about these prophecies is their number; not even the Sabbath Day, which is one of the Commandments, receives such emphasis and focus throughout the Bible.  Jesus followed suit:  “Immediately after the [Great Tribulation], the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken loose” (Matthew 24:29—see Mark 13:24-25).  And so did Peter:  “The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly…[that day] will come like a thief (Matthew 24:42-44; 1Thessalonians 5:2) in the night [when no one can work? (John 9:4)].  The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire…That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat…in keeping with [God’s] promise (Isaiah 65:17), we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2Peter 3:7,10,12-13).

   We will continue with this discussion in Part II.

¹The East is a non-issue in Scripture, perhaps because Islam and polytheistic religions were foreknown to prevail there.

² Which is not being heavy-handed:  Creation is His and He runs it as He sees fit (Job 41:11; Psalms 24:1; Daniel 4:35).  Surely, whatever men’s relative positions in society, they wield and dispense power by their own rules; so we should not be hypocritical enough to deny God His rightful due.  Furthermore, there no sense in challenging divine beings who cannot be prevailed against (Isaiah 46:10; Acts 26:14; 1Corinthians 10:22); nor, judging by men’s historical record of entrenched and perennial failures, any worthwhile suggestions they could make to improve a perfect God’s system.  As far as God is concerned, human opinions are incompetent, irrelevant, and not even welcomed (Job 40:2). 

³ See Genesis: The Myth That Never Was.

⁴ Discussed in The Lowdown on Human Suffering.

⁵ Repeated à la Ecclesiastics 1:9-11 in 1844, 1878, 1881, 1914, 1925, 1975, the last six failed predictions by a denomination proudly professing to be God’s “witnesses.”  Not for them Isaiah 8:20 to straightjacket their prophetic zeal; rather Satan’s rule of thumb, ‘if you fail, try and try again.’  Needless to say, these are a handful of worldwide examples in an irrational Judeo-Christian tradition Satan continues to mine for all its worth.    

⁶ A graphic example of the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Had Sarah been more believing of God’s promise to give her a son (Genesis 18:10), she would not have prevailed on Abraham to impregnate Agar to fulfill her maternal needs (Genesis 16:2)—the source of all Judeo-Arab bloodshed.

⁷ As ‘theologically conservative’ Global Methodists are now striving for.  For them same-sex marriages and openly gay clergy are issues more compelling than the unity Jesus insisted on.  Needless to say Jesus had no time to rehash teachings on sexuality—and their consequences—that had been spelled out from Genesis to Revelation (Genesis 19:4-9; Leviticus 20:13; Judges 19:22-24—see verse 25, male rape was very much the issue; 1Kings 14:24; Romans 1:27; 2Peter 2:6-7; Revelation 21:8).

   That being said, if for some people God-forbidden, sex-based partnerships are more compelling than spiritual communion with God and Jesus, they are entitled to that choice—but which by no means, however championed by socially-enlightened cadres, will ever be sanctioned by God or forgiven by Him.

⁸ If Genesis 4:10 is literally true, the noise in Heaven from the clamoring of righteous victims by papal zealots must be deafening.

⁹ Following Scripture’s potentiality argument, including those nations overrun, colonized, and refashioned in the mold of their conquerors.  India, for example, is not one of these; no matter the Western atrocities perpetrated on her, she retains her ethos; unlike the United States, Central and South America, and Australia, where native populations were dispossessed and made to conform to European norms.  From this perspective, such nations are technically European ‘offsprings.’

   Scripture’s potentiality argument was made by Paul in Hebrews 7:9-10 with his comment that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek because it was potentially present in Abraham’s loins.  This concept also finds expression in the statement that Adam sinned against God and so passed his sinful nature to mankind present in his loins (Isaiah 43:27; Romans 5:12).  Every person will be held accountable for his or her own actions (Ezekiel 18:20; Romans 14:12; Galatians 6:5), but the habitual predisposition to evil in men’s hearts is passed from generation to generation like some defective, spiritual gene.

   It may be that Revelation 7:4-8 furthers this potentiality argument, for we cannot truly believe that the 144,000 first fruits are all Jewish.  In the cross-pollination of the human species, it is possible that some genetic component from descendants of each of the tribes of Israel may be present in these 144,000; so ethnicity, never an issue in God’s Gospel (Galatians 3:7,28), is not the factor determining inclusion in that select group—as Jeremiah 31:33↔Romans 8:10, 11:25-27 [Gentiles included] suggest; and Exodus 12:49, Deuteronomy 29:14-16, and Acts 10:34-25 confirm.

¹⁰ While at it, let us not overlook the symbolic significance of the stone thrown against Nebuchadnezzar’s statue.  As the “cornerstone rejected by the builders” (Psalms 118:22; Isaiah 28:16; Acts 4:11), this stone is emblematic of Jesus.  If the stone is cast against the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue [himself the front-man for Satan, the true King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4-14)], this is a reference to Jesus’ ruling style post-crucifixion from Heaven, as prophesied in Psalms 2:9, corroborated in Revelation 2:27, and depicted symbolically in Revelation 19:11-18.  The toes that the stone rends asunder are nations united by pacts and alliances, as in the case at end-times, but not the norm prior to the Roman Empire.