What's So Special About THIS Generation Anyway - and who is it? Part (Conclusion)
As we discussed last time, a few weeks ago, this post will focus on Reason Five – The Developing Global Religion and Reason Six – The Explosion of Knowledge and after that we’ll get into the discussion of the Rapture (The time is coming when one day millions of people around the world will disappear, at the same time, without a trace) and the Tribulation and what those are, what they mean to everyone on this earth and how you can hope to escape the Tribulation.
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Special Report: Reason Five: The Developing Global Religion
Religion is a hot topic in the news these days. We are in a state of war with al-Qaeda. When three thousand Americans are murdered by people who believe they are doing God's will, it should be cause to put that religion under a microscope.
But something curious happened instead. Rather than putting Islam under the microscope, we elected to lump Islamic killers into a larger religious group called 'fundamentalists.'
In order for the Politically Correct to make that stick, it was necessary to conclude that Islam is really a peaceful religion hijacked by a few Islamic fundamentalists.
It doesn't take too much time to break down this little bit of doublespeak into its component elements.
A religious 'fundamentalist' is one who follows the fundamentals of a religion. If the fundamentals of Islam were peace, then Islamic fundamentalists would be peaceful and violent killer Islamists would be an aberration. That is as plain as the nose on Arafat's face.
It is also worthy of note that a 'religious fundamentalist' and a 'religious extremist' both describe the same thing.
To the dictionary, an "extremist" is 'one who advocates or resorts to measures beyond the norm', whereas a "fundamentalist" is 'usually a religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism."
Clearly, by definition, 'fundamentalism' and 'extremism' are polar opposites, not synonyms. All this double-speak works in the public mind, however, because it is about religion.
An Islamic fundamentalist is one who practices the fundamentals of Islam by rigidly adhering to its principles. An Islamic extremist is one who advocates or resorts to abnormal measures.
Since both describe the 9/11 terrorists, why is the emphasis on 'fundamentalist' and 'extremist' instead of being on 'Islamic?'
Now THAT'S an example of a fundamental question.
Similarly, there are Christian fundamentalists. They are those who rigidly adhere to Biblical principles, are intolerant of any suggestion there is a way to heaven apart from Jesus, and are opposed to secularism, like removing the Bible from public property and removing references to God from the Pledge of Allegiance.
And there are Christian extremists. Like those who blow up abortion clinics to stop the murder of unborn babies or shoot abortionists so they can't abort any more babies.
The polar opposite of a fundamentalist whose adherence to Biblical New Testament principles tells him that judgment against abortionists will be meted out by God, not by the Church.
Note we have two examples of extremism. The kind that can find fundamental religious justification for indiscriminate murder in the name of advancing Islam.
And the kind that can find fundamental religious justification in committing targeted murder in the name of ending the murder of the unborn.
Both are extreme positions.
But the kind of looney-toons that would kill for Christ and think they are following Him makes up a tiny, tiny number that clearly have missed the point of salvation.
And if you were to put them all in one place, it would occupy part of a small-town police department's day to round them all up.
There are enough Islamic extremists for us to have a war with.
Christian fundamentals teach us to love God above all things and love our neighbor as we do ourselves.
Since the worst place anybody can end up is hell, the most loving thing for a Christian to do is to help them avoid ending up there. To most of the world, that is 'hate speech' and is even so defined in some countries, including Canada.
Islamic fundamentals teach that anyone who refuses to convert to Islam is less than a full person, a 'dhimmi' who is without rights and can be persecuted or killed as necessary.
I say all that to say this. The war against Islam continues to morph into a war against religious fundamentalism. Any religious fundamentalism; Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Sihk-- it doesn't matter.
The Bible speaks of the false prophet of Revelation 13 seizing control of the world's religious systems, making them all one religion 'with two horns like a lamb' but that 'spake as a dragon'.
Such a religious system could have no room for fundamentalism, since, to be global, it must be all-inclusive.
It couldn't teach that the only way to heaven is by martyrdom in jihad; neither could it teach that the only way to heaven is the way Jesus said it was.
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6
Under the supervision of the false prophet, John says, "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations."
Clearly, these are the Christian 'fundamentalists' of the Tribulation period.
We are engaged in a global war against Islamic fundamentalism at the expense of ignoring the fundamentals of the Islamic religion that spawned it.
Since this makes absolutely NO sense of any kind in the natural, the only explanation is supernatural. When looked at from the Apostle John's perspective, it makes perfect sense.
Exactly what the final form of the global religion will be is unclear, apart from it being a counterfeit Christianity (two horns like a lamb) but will preach the all-inclusive siren song of the Dragon (Satan). There can be no room for fundamentalism of any stripe in the global, all-inclusive religious system of the last days.
Whatever its final form will be, one thing is clear.
The Bible says anybody who won't join it, worship its leader and take his mark will be declared an enemy of the state, unable to buy or sell and subject to being put to death.
The war on fundamentalism and the developing anti-fundamentalist, all inclusive religious worldview constitute Reason Five in this part of the series, "Six Reasons Why We Believe These Are the Last Days."
Special Report Reason Six - The Explosion of Knowledge
This generation is unique in all human history. Never has humanity been forced to come to terms with so many issues simultaneously -- issues for which we have no historical precedent to use as a guide.
The explosive growth of knowledge has us reeling from what humanist writer Alvin Touffler terms “future shock.” It is only in this generation that last year’s encyclopedia is about as useful as last month’s newspaper.
It has been said that the sum of human knowledge from the Flood to 1850 doubled once. It doubled again following World War II. The doubling of human knowledge increases exponentially. For example, the XT personal computer of 1981 -- a triumph of human technology -- is the world’s youngest antique!
The personal computer made its debut in 1980. My first one, an Amstrad 8088 unit, cost $1700, had an integrated gray-scale monitor, two 5.25 300K floppies and no HDD. It came with DOS and a pre-Windows three-floppy graphical interface. That was sixteen years ago.
The one I am working on now cost about the same, but bears as much resemblance to my old Amstrad as a WWI bi-plane does to the space shuttle.
And my new one was obsolete before you could finish saying, "Dude! You're gettin' a Dell!" I noted today that researchers at Penn State have just developed a new software that can repair damaged and infected systems as they are damaged -- without requiring any human involvement.
Moore's Law dictates that computer processing speeds double every eighteen months. So it is reasonable to conclude that the capacity for human knowledge doubles at about the same time. We are the smartest generation in history. And the most mobile.
The books of Daniel and the Revelation are not as mysterious to this generation as they were even fifty years ago -- in fact, they seem downright obvious, as if they had been taken from today’s newspapers! That is precisely what Daniel recorded as a sign for this generation -- “many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.”
We live in the most mobile society in history. I've spent a significant portion of most of the last ten years bouncing back and forth from the East to the West coast. For longer stays, I prefer to drive. Flying takes six hours. Driving takes three days.
Back in the 70's as a rookie Texas traffic cop, I once stopped an elderly man for speeding. He was over ninety. He was such an interesting character that from that unlikely introduction, we quickly became good friends. He'd sit for hours and tell me stories of the pioneer days in the Texas Panhandle, when the Comanche Indians still ruled much of the area.
He related how he had moved to the Texas Panhandle in the 1890's from Pennsylvania. It took two months by covered wagon. I stopped him for going 70 mph in a 55 zone. From a covered wagon to a Buick V-8 in a lifetime.
The year I joined the Marines, I saw my first eight track car stereo system. Just imagine! Being able to choose the music, just like at home! And to actually hear it in stereo! Who could have ever imagined such a thing?
Over the years, along came microwave ovens (“you won’t believe it, you can cook a hot dog in less than a minute”) audio cassette tape decks, VCR’s, personal computers, cable television and all the other technical advances that have enriched our lives since.
The pace of change is staggering, when you take the long view. Consider this. Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul traveled around Asia Minor on foot, or aboard a wooden ship moved along by wind power caught in the sails.
Fifteen hundred years later, Christopher Columbus embarked for a journey across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a sea route to China. He went to the dock on foot, and boarded a wooden ship not unlike that of Paul’s. Three hundred years later, Benjamin Franklin walked to the dock to board a wooden sailing vessel for his trip to France.
In 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, the pride of the Cunard lines, the latest advance in steamship technology, went to the bottom off the coast of Newfoundland, less than twenty miles from the nearby Californian.
The Californian, a Leyland Line steamer, could have saved the more than 1,500 victims, but its wireless operator had gone to bed and did not hear the SOS signal.
Today there are routine, scheduled flights of the Concorde supersonic airliner that make the trip from New York to Paris in just under three hours.
The last time the space shuttle touched down safely, it didn’t even rate the top news story of the hour on CNN.
Who could have imagined our world in Columbus’ day, or Franklin’s, or even the day the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic went to the bottom in 1912?
While in exile in Babylon, the prophet Daniel was given a vision of the future of Israel, up to the coming of the Messiah. Up to this point in the vision, those things that Daniel saw were relatively familiar, cities, events, people in a context that were not too far removed from his concept of reality. But then he was shown the things to come in the last days.
The angel told him in Daniel 10:14 “Now I am come to make the understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days; for yet the vision is for many days.”
Daniel was so staggered by what he saw it made him faint, verse 18 records that ‘one like the appearance of a man’ touched him, and strengthened him, so that he could go on.
Daniel tried to describe those things he saw using terminology that made sense to him, but it comes to us as a series of baffling symbols, images and beasts. The things he saw terrified him.
Because the visions were so completely removed from his understanding of reality, he was unable to describe them in terms that even he was able to comprehend. And so it remained, for thousands of years.
Great Bible commentators like Calvin and Luther did not even attempt to interpret the books of Daniel, or the Revelation, for that matter, saying they were allegorical or symbolic books.
Matthew Henry, writing in the 18th century, did not fare much better. Even commentators on these books in the early 20th century admitted they had trouble fitting the pieces together. After all, they dealt with a restored Israel, a revived Roman empire, and a one world government. Such things were deemed to be impossible, therefore to be interpreted as allegories.
The revealing angel understood what Daniel did not.
He explained in Daniel Chapter 12, verse 4; “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
Today, Daniel and the Revelation are the favorite books of Bible expositors. Many of the mysteries have already been unlocked and many more grow less mysterious all the time.
The rapidly expanding pool of human knowledge is Reason Six in this part of the series, "Six Reasons Why We Believe These Are the Last Days."
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Nic’s Note: I think that after going back over the last six reasons as well as the signs of the times - or more apropriately "the Times of the Signs", that you may agree that the evidence seems to be in favor of this particular time being the time of the end that was spoken about in the Bible by many of the Bible prophets, the disciples and apostles and even Jesus himself when he gives the "Olivet Discourse" (Matthew 24).
The next post will be rather long. I may try and look for a way to break it up like I did these past posts on the “Six Reasons”. The next post will deal with a subject that has many people debating over it. It is the doctrine of the Rapture. Most people who disagree with it say that the word “Rapture” never actually appears in the Bible. They would be correct about the word not being there. We will discuss the origin of the word “Rapture”, what is the more “Biblically” correct term and what the Rapture actually is.
I know that some of this is a lot to take in at once and to some of you it may seem like a joke, a farce or something along the lines of crackpot theories. That is why I strongly suggest that if you are reading this blog that you print off copies of the information contained herein and study them at your own pace, along with a copy of the Bible (I prefer the King James Version, the Amplified Version or the NIV version (1978/1979 translation) - note!: NOT the "Today’s New International Version" (TNIV) or the "New International Version Inclusive Language Edition" (NIVI)). When the time comes and if you are one of the ones left behind while people you know have vanished – and it is going to happen, you will be glad you did if there is no ready access to computers for a while. These writings will explain to you what in the world is going on, what is to come and what the future truly holds for those on either side of the war between God and Satan.
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NEXT: What is the Rapture all about?
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Special Report: Reason Five: The Developing Global Religion
Religion is a hot topic in the news these days. We are in a state of war with al-Qaeda. When three thousand Americans are murdered by people who believe they are doing God's will, it should be cause to put that religion under a microscope.
But something curious happened instead. Rather than putting Islam under the microscope, we elected to lump Islamic killers into a larger religious group called 'fundamentalists.'
In order for the Politically Correct to make that stick, it was necessary to conclude that Islam is really a peaceful religion hijacked by a few Islamic fundamentalists.
It doesn't take too much time to break down this little bit of doublespeak into its component elements.
A religious 'fundamentalist' is one who follows the fundamentals of a religion. If the fundamentals of Islam were peace, then Islamic fundamentalists would be peaceful and violent killer Islamists would be an aberration. That is as plain as the nose on Arafat's face.
It is also worthy of note that a 'religious fundamentalist' and a 'religious extremist' both describe the same thing.
To the dictionary, an "extremist" is 'one who advocates or resorts to measures beyond the norm', whereas a "fundamentalist" is 'usually a religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism."
Clearly, by definition, 'fundamentalism' and 'extremism' are polar opposites, not synonyms. All this double-speak works in the public mind, however, because it is about religion.
An Islamic fundamentalist is one who practices the fundamentals of Islam by rigidly adhering to its principles. An Islamic extremist is one who advocates or resorts to abnormal measures.
Since both describe the 9/11 terrorists, why is the emphasis on 'fundamentalist' and 'extremist' instead of being on 'Islamic?'
Now THAT'S an example of a fundamental question.
Similarly, there are Christian fundamentalists. They are those who rigidly adhere to Biblical principles, are intolerant of any suggestion there is a way to heaven apart from Jesus, and are opposed to secularism, like removing the Bible from public property and removing references to God from the Pledge of Allegiance.
And there are Christian extremists. Like those who blow up abortion clinics to stop the murder of unborn babies or shoot abortionists so they can't abort any more babies.
The polar opposite of a fundamentalist whose adherence to Biblical New Testament principles tells him that judgment against abortionists will be meted out by God, not by the Church.
Note we have two examples of extremism. The kind that can find fundamental religious justification for indiscriminate murder in the name of advancing Islam.
And the kind that can find fundamental religious justification in committing targeted murder in the name of ending the murder of the unborn.
Both are extreme positions.
But the kind of looney-toons that would kill for Christ and think they are following Him makes up a tiny, tiny number that clearly have missed the point of salvation.
And if you were to put them all in one place, it would occupy part of a small-town police department's day to round them all up.
There are enough Islamic extremists for us to have a war with.
Christian fundamentals teach us to love God above all things and love our neighbor as we do ourselves.
Since the worst place anybody can end up is hell, the most loving thing for a Christian to do is to help them avoid ending up there. To most of the world, that is 'hate speech' and is even so defined in some countries, including Canada.
Islamic fundamentals teach that anyone who refuses to convert to Islam is less than a full person, a 'dhimmi' who is without rights and can be persecuted or killed as necessary.
I say all that to say this. The war against Islam continues to morph into a war against religious fundamentalism. Any religious fundamentalism; Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Sihk-- it doesn't matter.
The Bible speaks of the false prophet of Revelation 13 seizing control of the world's religious systems, making them all one religion 'with two horns like a lamb' but that 'spake as a dragon'.
Such a religious system could have no room for fundamentalism, since, to be global, it must be all-inclusive.
It couldn't teach that the only way to heaven is by martyrdom in jihad; neither could it teach that the only way to heaven is the way Jesus said it was.
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6
Under the supervision of the false prophet, John says, "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations."
Clearly, these are the Christian 'fundamentalists' of the Tribulation period.
We are engaged in a global war against Islamic fundamentalism at the expense of ignoring the fundamentals of the Islamic religion that spawned it.
Since this makes absolutely NO sense of any kind in the natural, the only explanation is supernatural. When looked at from the Apostle John's perspective, it makes perfect sense.
Exactly what the final form of the global religion will be is unclear, apart from it being a counterfeit Christianity (two horns like a lamb) but will preach the all-inclusive siren song of the Dragon (Satan). There can be no room for fundamentalism of any stripe in the global, all-inclusive religious system of the last days.
Whatever its final form will be, one thing is clear.
The Bible says anybody who won't join it, worship its leader and take his mark will be declared an enemy of the state, unable to buy or sell and subject to being put to death.
The war on fundamentalism and the developing anti-fundamentalist, all inclusive religious worldview constitute Reason Five in this part of the series, "Six Reasons Why We Believe These Are the Last Days."
Special Report Reason Six - The Explosion of Knowledge
This generation is unique in all human history. Never has humanity been forced to come to terms with so many issues simultaneously -- issues for which we have no historical precedent to use as a guide.
The explosive growth of knowledge has us reeling from what humanist writer Alvin Touffler terms “future shock.” It is only in this generation that last year’s encyclopedia is about as useful as last month’s newspaper.
It has been said that the sum of human knowledge from the Flood to 1850 doubled once. It doubled again following World War II. The doubling of human knowledge increases exponentially. For example, the XT personal computer of 1981 -- a triumph of human technology -- is the world’s youngest antique!
The personal computer made its debut in 1980. My first one, an Amstrad 8088 unit, cost $1700, had an integrated gray-scale monitor, two 5.25 300K floppies and no HDD. It came with DOS and a pre-Windows three-floppy graphical interface. That was sixteen years ago.
The one I am working on now cost about the same, but bears as much resemblance to my old Amstrad as a WWI bi-plane does to the space shuttle.
And my new one was obsolete before you could finish saying, "Dude! You're gettin' a Dell!" I noted today that researchers at Penn State have just developed a new software that can repair damaged and infected systems as they are damaged -- without requiring any human involvement.
Moore's Law dictates that computer processing speeds double every eighteen months. So it is reasonable to conclude that the capacity for human knowledge doubles at about the same time. We are the smartest generation in history. And the most mobile.
The books of Daniel and the Revelation are not as mysterious to this generation as they were even fifty years ago -- in fact, they seem downright obvious, as if they had been taken from today’s newspapers! That is precisely what Daniel recorded as a sign for this generation -- “many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.”
We live in the most mobile society in history. I've spent a significant portion of most of the last ten years bouncing back and forth from the East to the West coast. For longer stays, I prefer to drive. Flying takes six hours. Driving takes three days.
Back in the 70's as a rookie Texas traffic cop, I once stopped an elderly man for speeding. He was over ninety. He was such an interesting character that from that unlikely introduction, we quickly became good friends. He'd sit for hours and tell me stories of the pioneer days in the Texas Panhandle, when the Comanche Indians still ruled much of the area.
He related how he had moved to the Texas Panhandle in the 1890's from Pennsylvania. It took two months by covered wagon. I stopped him for going 70 mph in a 55 zone. From a covered wagon to a Buick V-8 in a lifetime.
The year I joined the Marines, I saw my first eight track car stereo system. Just imagine! Being able to choose the music, just like at home! And to actually hear it in stereo! Who could have ever imagined such a thing?
Over the years, along came microwave ovens (“you won’t believe it, you can cook a hot dog in less than a minute”) audio cassette tape decks, VCR’s, personal computers, cable television and all the other technical advances that have enriched our lives since.
The pace of change is staggering, when you take the long view. Consider this. Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul traveled around Asia Minor on foot, or aboard a wooden ship moved along by wind power caught in the sails.
Fifteen hundred years later, Christopher Columbus embarked for a journey across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a sea route to China. He went to the dock on foot, and boarded a wooden ship not unlike that of Paul’s. Three hundred years later, Benjamin Franklin walked to the dock to board a wooden sailing vessel for his trip to France.
In 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, the pride of the Cunard lines, the latest advance in steamship technology, went to the bottom off the coast of Newfoundland, less than twenty miles from the nearby Californian.
The Californian, a Leyland Line steamer, could have saved the more than 1,500 victims, but its wireless operator had gone to bed and did not hear the SOS signal.
Today there are routine, scheduled flights of the Concorde supersonic airliner that make the trip from New York to Paris in just under three hours.
The last time the space shuttle touched down safely, it didn’t even rate the top news story of the hour on CNN.
Who could have imagined our world in Columbus’ day, or Franklin’s, or even the day the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic went to the bottom in 1912?
While in exile in Babylon, the prophet Daniel was given a vision of the future of Israel, up to the coming of the Messiah. Up to this point in the vision, those things that Daniel saw were relatively familiar, cities, events, people in a context that were not too far removed from his concept of reality. But then he was shown the things to come in the last days.
The angel told him in Daniel 10:14 “Now I am come to make the understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days; for yet the vision is for many days.”
Daniel was so staggered by what he saw it made him faint, verse 18 records that ‘one like the appearance of a man’ touched him, and strengthened him, so that he could go on.
Daniel tried to describe those things he saw using terminology that made sense to him, but it comes to us as a series of baffling symbols, images and beasts. The things he saw terrified him.
Because the visions were so completely removed from his understanding of reality, he was unable to describe them in terms that even he was able to comprehend. And so it remained, for thousands of years.
Great Bible commentators like Calvin and Luther did not even attempt to interpret the books of Daniel, or the Revelation, for that matter, saying they were allegorical or symbolic books.
Matthew Henry, writing in the 18th century, did not fare much better. Even commentators on these books in the early 20th century admitted they had trouble fitting the pieces together. After all, they dealt with a restored Israel, a revived Roman empire, and a one world government. Such things were deemed to be impossible, therefore to be interpreted as allegories.
The revealing angel understood what Daniel did not.
He explained in Daniel Chapter 12, verse 4; “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
Today, Daniel and the Revelation are the favorite books of Bible expositors. Many of the mysteries have already been unlocked and many more grow less mysterious all the time.
The rapidly expanding pool of human knowledge is Reason Six in this part of the series, "Six Reasons Why We Believe These Are the Last Days."
+++++++++++++++++++++
Nic’s Note: I think that after going back over the last six reasons as well as the signs of the times - or more apropriately "the Times of the Signs", that you may agree that the evidence seems to be in favor of this particular time being the time of the end that was spoken about in the Bible by many of the Bible prophets, the disciples and apostles and even Jesus himself when he gives the "Olivet Discourse" (Matthew 24).
The next post will be rather long. I may try and look for a way to break it up like I did these past posts on the “Six Reasons”. The next post will deal with a subject that has many people debating over it. It is the doctrine of the Rapture. Most people who disagree with it say that the word “Rapture” never actually appears in the Bible. They would be correct about the word not being there. We will discuss the origin of the word “Rapture”, what is the more “Biblically” correct term and what the Rapture actually is.
I know that some of this is a lot to take in at once and to some of you it may seem like a joke, a farce or something along the lines of crackpot theories. That is why I strongly suggest that if you are reading this blog that you print off copies of the information contained herein and study them at your own pace, along with a copy of the Bible (I prefer the King James Version, the Amplified Version or the NIV version (1978/1979 translation) - note!: NOT the "Today’s New International Version" (TNIV) or the "New International Version Inclusive Language Edition" (NIVI)). When the time comes and if you are one of the ones left behind while people you know have vanished – and it is going to happen, you will be glad you did if there is no ready access to computers for a while. These writings will explain to you what in the world is going on, what is to come and what the future truly holds for those on either side of the war between God and Satan.
=================
NEXT: What is the Rapture all about?
posted by Nic at 1/16/2006 12:17:00 PM
1 comments
ELM
