The Clock is Ticking,
http://thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview
I have been out of touch with current events for some time now. Recent world changes and the political scene at home and abroad, have caused a need to set some things in their right perspective. My mind is overflowing with knowledge of current events coalescing into fulfillment of Bible Prophecy. The link above shows some of the issues facing our future. The clock is ticking on the world around us.
There has been a lot of attention given to the year 2012. Armageddon is a household term today. Remember that in the story about the boy who cried wolf, the moral of the story is that the wolf actually showed up one day. We need to look at the predictions in light of world events and scripture, whether it is 2012, 2015, 2020, or 2025, or another year, Armageddon will happen. Even though there have been many false prophets setting false dates, which have come and gone, Jesus did say that there would be a generation when all of these things would be fulfilled and for us to stay alert.
The Universe is 15 billion years old or so, and scientists tell us it is changing and going through the life-death cycle. The birth and death of stars, spinning the debris outward into the galaxy, with a chance that one small piece weighing several thousand tons will hit Earth one day. Just as the dinosaurs disappeared, life today could also cease to exist. The universe could end in a Big Crunch, or a Big Freeze, where everything collapses in on itself, or where the Sun and stars burn out and everything gets very cold. Asteroid 2012 DA14 was predicted to strike Earth in 2012, but has now been cancelled. There are others predicted for February, 2013. Asteroid 20002 NT7 is due to pass near Earth in 2019.
Jupiter helps keep these chunks of rock away from us, but every once in a while one gets by and comes our way. Revelation 8:8 speaks of a mountain thrown into the sea, causing devastation for 1/3 of earth. Scientists say that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite some 65 million years ago. Some of these asteroids are the size of our earth.
There are 13 billion galaxies discovered so far, with depths of trillions and trillions of miles, and with the closest star being some 25 trillion miles above us. The Milky Way consists of 100 to 400 Bullion stars. The Universe is full of beauty as shared from the pictures from Hubble, the James Webb Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, Planck, Kepler, and pictures from the space trips. There are Black holes, with forces that are able to suck everything around it into oblivion. Our own Milky Way has its own Black Hole.
Earth is 4.5 billion years old and is in constant groaning of change. Its plates shifting and rubbing are creating changes, both visible and invisible. There is the forcing of magma outward and upward. It gave us our mountain ranges, geysers at national parks, glacier marks at Kelley’s island, volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis, and many unusual things beneath the oceans. The Pacific Mariana trench, at 36,740 feet deep. The tallest mountain, Mt. Everest, at 29,035 feet.
The circumference of the Earth is 24,901.6 Miles. The Earth spins through space at 67,000 mph. The speed of the Earth at the Equator on its axis is 1038mph. The tilt on its axis around our Sun gives us our climate patterns. Temperature at the Equator is hot with many hours of daylight, because it stays close to the Sun. The gravitational force of Earth and the moon pull on the water of the oceans, creating our tides. The speed of Earth, the distance from the Sun, the pull of gravity all create patterns of weather that help cleanse the oceans, returning water into clouds and then back into rain once again. Constant change from life to death and back to life again…Matthew 24:35 says that Heaven and Earth will pass away.
The Sun throws radiation and magnetic particles from solar storms into space and toward Earth. A thin layer of atmosphere protects us from these dangers.
The atmosphere that is but a thin layer of gases protecting us from the radiation of the Sun and held in place by gravity enabling us to breathe and live in our little bubbled Bio-dome…..
This layer of oxygen and nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide and other gases is around 300 miles thick, but most of our atmosphere lies within 10 miles of the surface of the earth. The Ozone layer is right above this ten-mile mark and helps protect us from the Sun’s radiation. Passenger planes fly around 35,000 feet. Military planes fly 50,000 feet and higher. Military pilots have to wear pressurized suits. (There is no sound in space – because there is no atmosphere)
It is a creation of beauty and wonder with life forms resisting the cycle of death. It is a big and scary world above, below and around us. It is all in balance, ever so carefully, to keep us as comfortable as Goldilocks, not too hot, and not too cold, at 93 million miles from the Sun.
The human body is another wonder in the midst of all else. 23 chromosomes combine with another 23 chromosomes, creating a human being with genetic traces of both parents. There are around 100 trillion cells in a human body. We have around 100 billion brain cells. Our heart beats about 2.5 billion times during our lifetime.
As David beheld the world around him, He exclaimed that we are fearfully, and wonderfully made. Paul says in Romans chapter one that the whole world has the witness of creation attesting the fact of a Creator:
“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”
— St. Augustine (354-430)
Overpopulation:
There is no exact and accurate number for the total that has lived on Earth since it has been in existence, but it stands somewhere between 70 and 110 billion people.
There are over 7 billion people on the planet today.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 361,000 babies are born each day and around 151,000 people die each day. In 1950 there were 2.5 billion, in 1965 there were 3.3 billion, in 1980 there were 4.5 billion, in 1999 there were 6 billion, and now there are 7 billion plus another 210,000 increase each day.
By 2025, there is a projected 8 billion population. (This does not include the 4000 babies that are aborted each day in America, as they are not considered humans by our Supreme Court)
As babies, we need protection while in the womb and for many years outside of the womb; until we are able to know about the dangers of life and make safe choices for ourselves. As adults, we become aware of this data, and are full of wonder, and questions, coupled with an element of fear, mixed with a little respect. We humans tend to ignore the fragility of our surroundings, except for a few activists.
The Spiritual Element:
There is another world around us. This is the ‘spirit’ world.
Ever since man has walked the earth, he has practiced a worship of a spirit being or beings. Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome all had their gods. Native Americans, Aztecs and Mayans have also worshiped a higher power or powers.
Today is no different. There is still one tribe in Indonesian New Guinea, (Korowai) who still practice cannibalism, eating the brain while it is still warm. They believe the universe is full of all kinds of spirits. Most of the world has forsaken eating one another, at least literally, but there is still a wide range of belief about the invisible world around us.
The Church of Satan worships Satan. They practice many blasphemous acts, mocking Christianity. This should tell people that Christ and His teachings must contain some element of truth in them.
The Occult takes on many forms, some openly, some secretively. Covens, Black and White Magic, Astrology, Psychics, Mediums, Fortune Tellers, Zodiac Signs, Necromancy, Palm Reading, Trances, Astral Projections, Levitations, and many more practice forms of the Occult. There are also many Secret Societies practicing Occult Rituals. Skull and Bones is one of these, which some of our presidents have membership in.
Christianity worships Christ as the Son of God or God in the Flesh, and as the coming King of the New Heavens and New Earth. There is the Catholic Church, the mainline churches, the evangelical churches, the charismatic churches, and the cults and extremists. There are 20,000 to 30,000 denominations worldwide.
Hinduism has many variations. They believe in four caste systems. Whatever caste system you are born into, you must obey its rules for living. They believe in Brahma as the creator, and Vishnu as the preserver and in Shiva as the destroyer, with the transmigration of souls, meaning that with good Karma a person may be reborn into a higher Caste. Nirvana is the goal, or a release from the endless cycle of rebirths.
Buddhism has the Four Noble Truths, the Five Skandhas, and the Eightfold Path. They teach that believing in the doctrines about Buddhism is not the point. The point is a method of understanding oneself and the world in a different way.
The Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama, a prince of the Sakya tribe of Nepal, in approximately 566 BC. When he was twenty-nine years old, he left the comforts of his home to seek the meaning of the suffering he saw around him. After six years of arduous yogic training, he abandoned the way of self-mortification and instead sat in mindful meditation beneath a Bodhi tree.
On the full moon of May, with the rising of the morning star, Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, the enlightened one.
The Buddha wandered the plains of northeastern India for 45 more years, teaching the path or Dharma he had realized in that moment. Around him developed a community or Sangha of monks, and later, nuns, drawn from every tribe and caste, devoted to practicing this path. In approximately 486 BC, at the age of 80, the Buddha died. His last words are said to be… Impermanent are all created things. Strive on with awareness.
In Africa, they believe in a supreme God, with many lessor deities. They worship by connecting through their dead ancestors, Witch Doctors, and Voodoo.
When I was in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa, you could feel the different levels of darkness when visiting different areas of the countries and cities. It is not called the Dark Continent just because of the skin color; there is another darkness, a spiritual darkness.
Islam believes in one God, Allah. He has no Son. His Prophet is Muhammad. Jesus was one of many prophets. Muhammad is the last prophet, until the Mahdi. The Mahdi is their Messiah, or the 12th Imam. Islam has good teachings, but with the advent of Khomeini, and since his reinterpretation of the Koran, the goal of Islam is to covert, conquer, or kill. Their Holy War, Jihad, has been ongoing since Muhammad arrived in Iran.
Judaism traces their beliefs back to the Covenant with Abraham from God. They have the same Old Testament as Christians. They call it the Torah, with special emphasis on the five books of Moses, as the ‘Tanak’. They are looking for the Messiah to come and rule on the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem.
Humanism is taking portions from all world religions and creating a set of beliefs that exalts man as a god who is connected to all that is in the Universe and on the Earth. God is not personal, God is just a ‘force’ that permeates everything, and we have to learn to go inside ourselves to connect with this ‘force’. There is no wrong or right, all is relative to one’s personal desires and set of beliefs. Of course, what they do not tell you is that most of these ways used to connect the inner self through the ‘force’ are from ‘Occultic’ practices, thus making Humanism Occultic.
Stressors:
We are born into this vast mysterious universe. We are on a planet that is spinning through space at one thousand mph at the Equator, held in place by gravity, so that we do not fly off into space somewhere. Our protection is a few miles of breathable gases, shielding us from the harmful radiation of the sun, and other debris from space. We live here knowing that if things get off course, than we could burn up or freeze to death. (The Chilean earthquake on February 27, 2010 caused a 3” shift in the Earth’s axis. This is a significant change that shortens days, and causes snow to fall where it has not fallen before.) (NASA shows satellite images of the polar caps losing their ice.)
We know that if we keep overpopulating the earth, and polluting it with our waste products, we could deplete the Ozone layer as well as the purity of the air we breathe and the water we drink and the food we eat.
Then there is information that shows our government is involved with the weather, our food supply, our medicines, our water, the ‘Dumbing down of America’, the brainwashing of our children in schools and colleges to the teachings of the New Age Movement, and population control.
The state of the economy, uncontrolled crime in the streets, the constant threat of Terrorist attacks, and constant war, brings stress into our lives. We therefore turn to all manner of ‘comforters’, resulting in addictions to whatever you can name, from food to drugs.
We know we have something innate within us telling us that there is more to us than flesh and blood and brain cells. We somehow know that we are a ‘spirit’ being, and thus we have so many different ideas about connecting to a ‘spirit’ world.
People turn to Vedas, the Torah, the Koran and the Bible. (Satan worshipers have their own Satanic bible). We practice prayer, meditation, trances, seances, consult tea leaves, cards, Ouija Boards, Dungeons and Dragons, bones, animal parts, stars, smoke, and drugs; sometimes seeking out Shamans, Traditional Medicine Doctors, Mediums and Psychics.
When we are not able to make sense out of it all, then we withdraw and ignore our surroundings, getting lost in our daily life activities. However, we all still age and die.
As soon as we take our first breath we cry at the harshness that now surrounds us. We must be attended to immediately for protection, from germs, disease and harm. This attention must accompany us constantly with tenderness and loving care, until we can learn to care for ourselves and make choices that will not harm ourselves or others.
Babies that do not receive this tender loving care with lots of touching, grow up withdrawn, untrusting, not sure of their surroundings. If this goes uncorrected, they can turn into deviants to society, even into psychopaths.
Turn on the television. Nightly news talks about murder, arson, rape, theft, fraud, sex crimes, scandals, scams, wars, terrorist attacks, meteorites just missing earth, radiation leaks, polluted lakes, streams, rivers, oceans, air, water, abuse of drugs, addictions, racism, natural disasters, and politicians making promises that they know they will never keep.
If these are not enough stressors in life, we add to list: divorce, broken homes, abused children, abused women, children without a Father, or a Mother, sexual crimes, death of loved ones, physical and emotional trauma, unemployment, foreclosures, personal and national debt, cutbacks, layoffs, rising cost of living, accidents and diseases.
The Nuclear Threat:
The world issues around Israel and her neighbors is the tender box of the world right now. Many countries are unstable and discontent with their present status in the world. The list includes Israel, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Russia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, North Korea and China.
Europe and her struggle as the European Union. The United Nations is trying to solve the problems without success. The United States is stepping in everywhere to keep her political interests intact, while taxing her resources. Her efforts are not always appreciated by the world, especially by the Middle East Arab countries. The Islamic Brotherhood is challenging the world to allow them to rule the Middle East, including Jerusalem, with a militant government, and eventually the world.
Matthew 24:4-12 spoke of wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nations, kingdoms against kingdoms, famines and earthquakes as the beginning of birth pangs. There are False Prophets misleading many, with a falling away from church and faith in God, their love growing cold. There is betrayal of one another, without natural affection for loved ones. Lawlessness keeps increasing. We have lost our moral compass, and reverence for anything Godly.
My grandparents lived during the wars with Mexico, Panama, Central America, and then World War I, the Korean War, WWII, Viet Nam, Lebanon, Libya, and Grenada. (1996-2000)
My Dad was two years old when WWI started. He died in 1999 the year of the Kosovo War.
I was born two years after the start of the Cold War. I remember the threats of Nuclear War. I practiced the ‘drills’ in school. I read the ads for Bomb Shelters. There have been about 19 wars since then. There is still the threat of Nuclear War.
Desert Storm, The Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the War on Terrorism, and now the threat of WWIII with the tensions in the Middle East, have occupied the news during my children’s lives.
Since 9/11, there has been an ongoing war against terrorism, with our troops still in Afghanistan. We have troops deployed in over 150 countries today, most as peacekeeping missions as a precaution against the war on terror.
The world is a hostile place. The simple rules they taught us in kindergarten are not working in real life. No one wants to share or play nice. We did that, and we lost our house, our job, our income and our health insurance. We even tried the religion trip and found the same failures in the leaders and members of the churches that we found in the leaders and members of society.
Many have withdrawn from it all into their own little world, shutting out the noise of bombs thousands of miles away, and the noise of guns two blocks over. It is safer to pretend that all is well in my world, then to look out my window and see the heaviness and fear that is taking place all around us, stirring up emotions in us that we do not want to face.
Others have become involved in Eastern Practices of seeking the enlightenment of the inner self, trying to climb beyond the desires of the flesh into an aura of oneness with the ‘force’ that inhabits all things. Their message is that we all are one. We all are connected. We all need to accept each other’s differences. We all need to get along and respect Mother Earth and her four elements. Everything is relative and there is no sin, hence no right or wrong. We are all free to do what feels right to us and it is nobody’s business, but our own.
Others have sought out the occult knowing that they can at least ‘feel’ something supernatural. There are testimonies of many celebrities who sold their soul to the devil.
Christianity is watered down. It is neither hot nor cold as the book of Revelation says. It is more like the world than ever before in the history of the church.
When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s there were clear lines between right and wrong behavior. Today media floods our homes with examples of violent and immoral behavior on a daily basis. We have moved from a strong work ethic to an attitude of entitlement, an entitlement to self-indulgent pleasures without counting the cost. The Bible speaks of calling right wrong, and calling wrong right. Isaiah 5:20.
So what is the answer to all this madness? Is there an answer? Can we just go on as we have been going on, and continue to be able to go on and on? What about Nostradamus? What about the Bible? What about the Mayan Calendar? Is 2012 really a significant year? 2015? 2025? 2040?
America has changed since 9/11. The Patriot Act put things in place for the NSA to spy on us and by authority of Rendition to detain us in FEMA camps here or overseas, just for being a suspected terrorist. Google and Facebook track everything we type on the keyboard. Cameras monitor every movement we make, in and around businesses, and on city streets. Our license plates are scanned unknowingly to us. Our phone calls are tapped. Our text messages are searched.
They now have cameras that have facial expression software that is tied into the national government. If your face matches any unusual activity, you could be arrested as a suspected terrorist. You no longer have a right to the privacy of your own home. They can search and seize anything, anytime they want to, if they suspect you’re connected as a threat to the government.
Echelon is located in ‘Menwith Hill’, in the United Kingdom and our government uses it to monitor billions of calls, emails, faxes, texts, etc., every day, from all over the world. Read the article ‘US Data Whistleblower’ on The Guardian News website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/15/data-whistleblower-constitutional-rights?INTCMP=SRCH
Iran hates Israel and wants to control the city of Jerusalem. Russia and Syria are allies of Iran. Afghanistan, North Africa, and others want Jerusalem inhabited with Muslims. China wants to share the spoils of the oil fields as much as Russia does.
Iran hates America for protecting and assisting Israel. Jihad wants the whole world to be under the control of Islam.
There are 7 million Muslims in America today, with 25,000 Americans converting to Islam each year. Islam is the fastest growing religion in America today.
Obama has childhood experiences under Islamic mentors, and now Romney has Mormon beliefs. Bush is supposedly a Christian, but is very into wealth, and has membership in the Skull and Bones Society, which has Occultic practices.
Each of them seems bent on selling the country short in one form or another. Is it because there are those outside of government who are pulling the strings, for a purpose that is beginning to take shape in a New World Order?
The clock is ticking at a few minutes to midnight, while the majority of the populace seems unaware that time is running out for a normal existence on Earth. Is it because we are so preoccupied with surviving a daily routine of existence and bombarded by unrealistic advertisements from Hollywood, and lied to by our leaders? We just withdraw into our 9 to 5 world and deal with the threat of unemployment, lack of medical care, lack of privacy, lack of security, lack of safety, and lack of hope. We are too busy trying to keep our jobs and our homes and paying our bills, and we escape into all forms of entertainment and pleasure to avoid the harshness of the reality around us. However, the threats do not go away, and the clock does not stop its ticking. Five minutes on a Doomsday Clock can go by quickly.
Did you know that Jerusalem, as far as the Bible is concerned, is the center of the world? Is it a coincidence that she is the center of the world’s attention right now?
A closer look at Israel and its history and at what the Bible says about her can help us understand why the Doomsday Clock is not to be ignored. There is a reason why she is the number one topic around the world today.