The Real End Times

Overlooked by nearly every one, and often forgotten by Christians, is that the end of time is NOT the destruction of the world, nor is it the Battle of Armageddon.

What Jesus told His disciples in Matthew chapter 24 bears repeating:

(emphasis added by me)

Mat 24:3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you.
Mat 24:5 “For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.
Mat 24:6 “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.
Mat 24:7 “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.
Mat 24:8 “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

and then further into the passage:

Mat 24:32 “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near;
Mat 24:33 so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door.
Mat 24:34 “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Mat 24:35 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
Mat 24:36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
Mat 24:37 “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
Mat 24:38 “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
Mat 24:39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. (NASB) (emphasis added by me)

The end time prophecies all point to one critical moment:

The instant that Jesus Christ returns!

All the rest of it is preamble. A terrifying, agonizing preamble to be sure, but nothing more than “birth pangs”.

Every time the end times, Armageddon, the anti-christ and all the associated topics around the tribulation are discussed, Jesus Christ’s return should be mentioned. I fail to do that most of the time, and too often forget that all important point, when I get caught up in the fascination and fear of what might be coming soon.

While there is no more important point than the return of Jesus Christ to earth to rule and reign, the fact that every “incident” that leads to His return is described as giving birth should not be missed.

Birth is the Beginning of Life

All of us think we are living our life right now. We are actually living a pale, and damaged version of the life that God intended for us to live on the day He created the heavens and the earth.

Sin took hold and allowed death entry. That ruined everything.

Jesus Christ paid in full our sins on the cross, and defeated death. He returns as the Light and the Life of the world, puts a stop to time as we know it, and opens eternity to those that believe in Him.

These acts of Jesus Christ — His death and resurrection, and His return, will put everything right.

Easter is a time for remembering that Jesus Christ died for all of us… even those of you that hate every single word I have written.

Remember what he promised in those days:

He will return.

This Way to Paranoia

I messed up the taping of the doomsday show.

I did see the last several minutes where there was a short segment on something called the Web-Bot project. After a Google search I found the web site and got some more information on it. A condensed and edited version is at the end of this post, and includes links if you want to check it out in detail.

This project claims to have predicted 9/11, a Hawaiian earthquake, and a power outage in New York City. Frankly I don’t care much about the predictions. What really got me thinking was the fact that such a project actually exists. And that the Chinese government also has a similar and larger project.

So ….

This Way to Paranoia

The idea behind these “spiders” crawling around the web collecting key words is not at all new. Web search engines do it all the time, as does Technorati and De.li.ci.ous and others. Keywords we attach to our posts get “spidered” by them.

What is bothersome is the fact that governments also do this… apparently China, as well as the United States (can you say Homeland Security?). There is nothing secret about these programs, they are available to anyone with the skill and resources to use them. I doubt if my next door neighbor has the skills, neither do I. But my ex-brother-in-law sure does (he is a programmer and IT specialist). So does Microsoft and others.

What people are talking about in public, is public information. No problem there. But … because I put words or key phrases such as “terrorism”, 9/11, and so forth in a post here means that those words get picked up and added to the data files.

Somebody looks at it… perhaps in ways that do not identify me and my blog specifically, but perhaps something triggers an alert and my blog, my WordPress account, and my ISP suddenly becomes of interest.

We have no way of knowing what might cause a trigger or flag. We don’t know who is gathering the information. We don’t know how they are using it. We don’t know – and that is frightening.

Leaving Paranoia

I can not do anything about what information people collect. In fact, often this sort of data is useful. If used in ways I think are appropriate, it can help me find other blogs, a new video or dvd recorder ( might consider that – given today’s failed taping) and provide an additional level of security in these dangerous days.

The Bible points out that God has a complete record of everything we have done or thought! Now that should really make me nervous. It doesn’t, because I have accepted salvation, and I know God’s character is Holy, compassionate, good, and pure. The Person that knows all about me is trustworthy.

I wish I could say the same about humans and their governments.

I am not changing what I do or write because of a web-bot. However, God’s knowledge gives me pause. What am I doing, thinking, or saying that is offensive to God? Hmmm. Those need to be changed.

Condensed and edited by me from: Urban Survivalhttp://www.urbansurvival.com/

A system of spiders, agents, and wanderers travel the Internet, much like a search engine robot, and look for particular kinds of words. It targets discussion groups, translation sites, and places were regular people post a lot of text. (BLOGS)

When a “target word” was found, … the web bots take a small … snip of surrounding text and sends it to a central collection point. …. The collected data was then filtered, using at least 7-layers of linguistic processing … reduced to numbers and then a resultant series of scatter chart plots …

What becomes obvious when reading about the technology is that it sometimes reads a bit like the I Ching (the Chinese Book of Changes) because the technology doesn’t come out and say “go look for a terrorist attack over there” What it does is gives phrases that would be associated with how people talk about an event, or more accurately, how they change their speech to reflect their thought processes because of an event (after).

The web bot technology apparently taps in to an area of preconscious awareness. It’s here that you run into the ramifications of Dean Radin’s work at the Boundary Institute and the work of the Princeton Global Consciousness Project. (see http://www.boundaryinstitute.org/randomness.htm.)

The Global Consciousness Project registered what appears to have been a disturbance in “the force” or the regularly orderly operation of life associated with 9/11: Supposed “random” numbers generated all over the world appeared to become less random immediately prior to 9/11.

The second point is contained in Dean Radin’s paper at http://www.boundaryinstitute.org/articles/timereversed.pdf (“Time-reversed human experience: Experimental evidence and implications”). The mind-bending evidence in Radin’s work is that in a laboratory, people begin to react to an event as early as 6-seconds before it takes place.

In other words, if you are about to show someone a horribly grotesque picture of something, they will already be physically reacting to it before the picture actually becomes visible. Up to 6-seconds, or so, and in a lab!

In quantum terms, Radin’s work demonstrates that people are physically able to perceive 6-seconds into the future.

We also know that the Chinese have a similar project – because we have swept their source code during our runs. The difference is they are doing larger data samples.

Technorati Tags: bible, privacy, web

Is Doomsday December 21, 2012?

This History Channel program argues that it might be:

Decoding The Past

Episode: Doomsday 2012: The End of Days

There are prophecies and oracles from around the world that all seem to point to December 21, 2012 as doomsday. The ancient Mayan Calendar, the medieval predictions of Merlin, the Book of Revelation and the Chinese oracle of the I Ching all point to this specific date as the end of civilization. A new technology called “The Web-Bot Project” makes massive scans of the internet as a means of forecasting the future… and has turned up the same dreaded date: 2012. Skeptics point to a long history of “Failed Doomsdays”, but many oracles of doom throughout history have a disturbingly accurate track record. As the year 2012 ticks ever closer we’ll speculate if there are any reasons to believe these doomsayers.

It airs Saturday, March 03 01:00 PM eastern time.

I don’t buy it for a second. Of course I do believe the world will come to an end, maybe today, or maybe a long, long time from now. As a Christian, I find end times prophecy fascinating, just as most people do.

I saw part of this show when it aired last night; I plan to watch and tape it. I find it odd that so many predictions of this type capture the public fancy, yet the same public will completely ignore the Biblical view.

The key word in the ad blurb above is “speculate”. That is the only possible source of any date for the end of time, the end of days, or whatever term you want to use. No one knows what is coming or when.

The producers of this show, or at least the advertising blurb, suggest that the Bible record in the book of Revelation predicts this date. Wrong!

No where in the Bible is any date given. Fact is Jesus himself stated that no one knows the hour or the day that the end will come except the Father.

It should be an interesting hour of television. I will let you know what I think after I evaluate the program and its sources.

Jesus Walks on Ice!

Why we should be cautious believing everything we Read.

Jesus Walks on Ice!

According to Prof. Doron Nof anyhow:

Jesus May Have Walked on (Frozen) Water, Scientist Says

Thursday, April 06, 2006

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Jesus walked on water, according to the Bible, but a Florida State University professor says he may have actually walked on a hard-to-see patch of ice.

Doron Nof, a professor of oceanography, said a rare combination of water and atmospheric conditions in the Sea of Galilee 2,000 years ago may offer a scientific explanation for one of the miracles recounted in the Bible.

Nof said a patch of ice floating in the Sea of Galilee — which is actually a freshwater lake — would have been difficult to distinguish from unfrozen water surrounding it.

Typical of the “scientific” nonsense that is published with blazing headlines as “News”. Professor Nof is careful to say he is merely explaining physical facts about the Sea of Galilee and not proposing a theological argument against the miracle recorded in the Bible.

Oh really Professor? Sure sounds like a theological argument to me.

I may be a bit too hard on the good professor. It is possible that he was misquoted, or misunderstood. Unfortunately for all of us, it is absolutely certain the TALLAHASSEE, Fla. paper placed the headline on it!

Sensationalism means Sales is the cry of all yellow press from the very beginning of a free press in this country. From William Randolph Hearst to Rupert Murdoch; from ABC to CNN to Fox as well as numerous blogs — its all about the numbers. And numbers equal money.

What does this have to do with the Bible?

Simply put — I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. NOT because I am blindly following a preacher or evangelist or even my own mothers’ teaching, but because I have studied the bible on my own.

I believe, because I have dug deeply into many questions, even to the point of studying non-believers views. Yes that includes scientists like Professor Nof.

I believe, because I found that evidence for the Bible is clear.

I see too many of us accepting the “truth” promulgated by an expert… scientific, spiritual, political, financial, or social… with “blind faith”.

As Christians we owe it to ourselves to evaluate scripture prayerfully and with a clear mind. To that end, a study aid such as the e-Sword program is helpful. Comparing different versions helps .
However you do it — do it!

It wouldn’t hurt to evaluate the News stories we see and read either.

Spy Glasses and Fog Horns

Well I finally did it. Got a blog to let me vent, discuss, and ramble about various things that excite or irritate me.

I have retired too early due to health, and find myself alone during the day, arguing with the television, newspapers, commentators et.al. Now I will comment here, and perhaps someone other than my cats will hear.

I am a conservative Christian — though probably not the type the media would have you expect… I don’t “blindly follow” anyone, not even the Bible! I investigate carefully then decide for myself. What I decided about God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible led me to the place I am today — born again, and believing the Bible is in fact the Word of God.

I am an old sailor — hence the title. Spyglasses are used to spot trouble, find safe passage, and get a closer look at anything of interest. Fog horns warn mariners of dangerous shoals that can’t be detected due to fog and stormy weather. The Bible is the Christians’ spyglass and foghorn.

Much of my commentary will contrast the common world view with the Bible view. Quite different views.