Apocalypse
discussion reaches from US
President to legislators
Hurricanes,
tsunamis, earthquakes, the threat of
a deadly flu pandemic and now the
Real ID: Are global events unfolding
something bigger?
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"And
there shall be signs in the sun,
and in the moon, and in the stars;
and upon the earth distress of
nations, with perplexity; the sea
and the waves roaring" (Like
21:25).
Several
years of epic events have witnessed
a growing number of the world's
population wondering if something
prophetic is transpiring.
First
came 9/11 and the beginning of the
war on terror. Then a tsunami in
Asia killed approximately 250,000
people. Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma,
and an earthquake In South Asia
followed, which claimed tens of
thousands more lives. 2006 witnessed
leaders of countries referencing
terms like "Apocalypse"
and "Armageddon" to
describe the uneasy times. 2007 has
started out with record snowfalls in
parts of the US, the national
weather service is predicting even
more blizzards, experts warn that a
deadly avian flu virus could pass
over to the human population at any
time in a full-blown pandemic,
potentially bringing global markets
to their knees, and now the US
Congress has erupted in a debate
about the biblical "Mark of the
Beast."
It's
enough to make anybody wonder what
in the world is going on.
For
many folk, these are the signs of
the End Times.
Over
at Endtime.com, a popular website
that serves as a daily news
aggregator of a wide variety of
world events based on reflection to
Bible prophecy, Irvin Baxter Jr.
runs the most widely circulated
prophecy magazine in the world,
hosts a daily radio broadcast called
Politics and Religion, and is the
author of several prophecy books and
Bible studies. Recently his Endtime
magazine reached national exposure
when the Associated Press ran a
feature story on Sen. Ruth Whitaker,
whose resolution opposing the Real
ID Act of 2005 passed the Arkansas
Senate. According to the report,
resolutions "in Arkansas,
Georgia, Maine and Missouri were
offered after legislators read
materials, spoke to or had indirect
contact with Endtime Ministries of
Dallas, whose magazine, radio show
and outreach examines current events
through the prism of Christian
apocalypse." (1)
At
issue is whether national ID numbers
given to residents could become the
mark of the beast, the 666 from the
Book of Revelation.
"Congress
hopes to reduce identity theft and
boost national security by requiring
people to use Real IDs to board
airplanes, enter federal buildings
and open some bank accounts,"
the article went on to say.
"Those who dabble in biblical
prophecy say the new
government-issued numbers mark the
beginning of the end."
"People are very concerned if
the federal government gives you a
number, it will be the mark of the
beast," said Missouri Rep. Jim
Guest, the sponsor of a resolution
similar to Whitaker's. "There
are everyday people who get the
connection to 666."
A
new book that hit #1 Google News
Search the same week it was released
also purports
to explain current global events as
the fulfillment of ancient prophecy.
Published by Anomalos
Publishing, Apocalypse
Soon: The Beginning of the End
documents recent history in light of
the books of Revelation, Ezekiel,
and Daniel, and concludes that the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have
started their destructive ride. The
book is already the subject of two
made for television documentaries.
So
close is the correlation between
recent events and end times
prophecy, that even President George
W. Bush was asked last year
following a speech on the War on
Terror whether he believed the war
in Iraq and the rise of terrorism
were signs of the Apocalypse. Bush
said he hadn't thought of it that
way, but author Bob Woodward noted
in his book Bush at War, that
just three days after 9/11, the
president during the National Day of
Prayer and Remembrance at the
National Cathedral in Washington
seemed to act as if he had found
himself within a fantastic cosmic
scheme, declaring that the
nation’s responsibility to history
was already clear: "to answer
these attacks and rid the world of
evil" (2).
By
taking up the language of "good
vs. evil," Woodward said, the
president was "casting his
vision and that of the country in
the grand vision of God’s master
plan" (3).
According to Woodward, the prophetic
context for war in the very land
associated with future Armageddon
(and against Saddam Hussein, no
less, the man who claimed to be the
reincarnated Nebuchadnezzar) held
for Bush the Manichean language
necessary to play out a "divine
mission" while earning him
admiration from certain supporters
who saw the reconstruction efforts
of Babylon under Saddam Hussein --
followed by the War on Terror -- as
signs pointing to the Apocalypse.
Biblical
scholar Bruce Lincoln’s
examination of a speech delivered by
Bush to the nation on October 7,
2001, announcing the U.S. attack on
Afghanistan (4) produced redundant
references from Apocalyptic books of
the Bible concerning the End Times.
Lincoln's research seemed to support
Woodward's claims, that the
president's word craft was a
strategy "of double
coding" to secretly appeal to
people who saw Bush as a devout
Christian standing up to the enemies
of God in an unfolding event in the
Middle East, which they believed was
foretold in the books of Revelation,
Isaiah, et al.
Of
course George W. was not the first
American president to use language
associated with end times prophecy.
Who can forget Ronald Reagan’s
view of the Soviet Union as the
"Evil Empire" and his
feeling that war in the Middle East
might draw "Gog" into
nuclear war and fulfill biblical
prophecy. In his 1984 debate with
Walter Mondale, Reagan admitted,
"No one knows whether those
prophecies mean that Armageddon is a
thousand years away or the day after
tomorrow."
Democrats
too have been known to employ
language that could be seen as
"coded" to appeal to the
beliefs of devout persons or
patriots. When Rep. Nancy Pelosi on
January 4, 2007 assumed her roll as
speaker of the House at the opening
of the 110th Congress, she stated
that the founding fathers were so
confident in "the America they
were advancing, they put on the
seal, the great seal of the United
States, ‘novus ordo seclorum’—a
new order for the centuries."
The new speaker did not go into
detail as to why the phrase "Novus
Ordo Seclorum" was important
dialectic during the momentous
changeover of the control of
congress. Nor did she explain why
"Novus Ordo Seclorum"
exists beneath the unfinished
pyramid and the All Seeing Eye in
the Great Seal of the United States.
Her reference may have been a simple
coincidence, but the origins of the
motto "Novus Ordo Seclorum"
and the use of it in this historic
speech was interesting in light of
possible prophetic events happening
around the world.
The term "Novus Ordo Seclorum"
(A New Order of the Ages) was
adapted by Charles Thomson in 1782
when he was designing the Great Seal
of the United States. According to
the official record, Thomson created
the phrase from inspiration he found
in a line in Virgil’s Eclogue IV:
"Magnus ab integro seclorum
nascitur ordo" [Virgil's
Eclogue IV (line 5)], the
interpretation of the original Latin
being, "and the majestic roll
of circling centuries begins
anew."
Ironically, Christians since the
middle ages have held that the
Cumaean Sibyl of Virgil’s Ecologue
IV prophesied the birth of Jesus
Christ and that it was this arrival
of the Savior that gave rise to
"the majestic roll of circling
centuries begins anew," or New
Order of the Ages. Virgil himself
was believed to be a prophet in this
regard, and that is why Dante
Alighieri selected him as his guide
through the underworld in The Divine
Comedy. The Cumaean Sibyl is also
prominently featured alongside the
Old Testament prophets in
Michelangelo’s paintings in the
Sistine Chapel. Some say this fact
played a role in Thomson’s
"inspiration" for "Novus
Ordo Seclorum" taken from
Virgil’s Ecologue IV. (
story continues below )
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Yet
upon reading Virgil’s text, the
divine son that comes of the
Sibyl’s prophecy is a savior
unknown to Biblical theology.
"He" is to be spawned of
"a new breed of men sent down
from heaven" who receive
"the life of gods, and see
Heroes with gods commingling."
According to the Sibyl’s
prediction, this "messiah"
would be the son of Jupiter and come
when the Roman god Saturn returned
to reign over the earth in a new
golden age (the Novus Ordo Seclorum),
when Apollo rises again through
mystical "life" power
given to him from the gods.
From the beginning of the poem we
read (5):
"Now
the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
Has come and gone, and the
majestic roll Of circling
centuries begins anew: Justice
returns, returns old Saturn's
reign, With a new breed of men
sent down from heaven. Only do
thou, at the boy's birth in whom
The iron shall cease, the golden
race arise, Befriend him, chaste
Lucina; 'tis thine own Apollo
reigns. …
"He shall receive the life of
gods, and see Heroes with gods
commingling, and himself Be seen
of them, and with his father's
worth Reign o'er a world…
"Assume thy greatness, for
the time draws nigh, Dear child of
gods, great progeny of Jove! See
how it totters- the world's orbed
might, Earth, and wide ocean, and
the vault profound, All, see,
enraptured of the coming time! Ah!
might such length of days to me be
given, And breath suffice me to
rehearse thy deeds, Nor Thracian
Orpheus should out-sing me then,
Nor Linus, though his mother this,
and that His sire should aid-
Orpheus Calliope, And Linus fair
Apollo. Nay, though Pan, With
Arcady for judge, my claim
contest, With Arcady for judge
great Pan himself Should own him
foiled, and from the field retire.
Begin to greet thy mother with a
smile, O baby-boy! ten months of
weariness For thee she bore: O
baby-boy, begin! For him, on whom
his parents have not smiled, Gods
deem not worthy of their board or
bed."
Therefore
according to the Sibyl, the New
Order of the Ages occurs when a
special "son" is born on
earth, a new messiah who comes of
"a new breed of men sent down
from heaven" when
"heroes" and
"gods" are blended
together. This sounds eerily similar
to what the Watchers did during the
creation of Nephilim; to what
scientists are doing this century
through the creation of transgenic
human-animal chimeras, and to what
the Bible actually describes as the
Antichrist being the "son"
of perdition" (2 Th 2:3, Apoleia,
from which we make Apollyon,
the demon destroyer). Note the
similarity of the names Apollo and
Apollyon.
Patrick
Heron believes the pagan Sibyl may
actually have pointed to a false
Christ who appears during the end
times Apocalypse, and that the Novus
Ordo Seclorum prophecy of a coming
special "son" who leads
mankind to a New World Order could
be fulfilled anytime. According to
scripture, Heron says, the near
future will produce a man of
superior intelligence, wit, charm,
and diplomacy who will emerge on the
world scene as a savior. He will
seemingly possess transcendent
wisdom that enables him to solve
problems and to offer solutions to
many of today’s most perplexing
issues. One of his most important
accomplishments at the very outset
will be to broker a peace treaty
between the Jews and Palestinians.
He will also lead the charge in
rebuilding the long awaited Jewish
Temple. This is especially
interesting given that, just this
month, an Israeli archaeologist and
Hebrew professor claims to have
pinpointed the exact location of the
original Jewish Temple, a
potentially important step toward
the fulfillment of the Temple
reconstruction prophecy.
According to some, this Antichrist
will appear at first to be a man of
distinguished character, but will
ultimately become "a king of
fierce countenance" (Dan.
8:23). With imperious decree he will
facilitate a one-world government, a
universal religion, and global
socialism. Those who refuse his New
World Order will inevitably be
imprisoned or destroyed, until at
last he exalts himself "above
all that is called God, or that is
worshiped, so that he, as God,
sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God"
(2 Thess. 2:4).
When
asked why he believes prophetic
signs at this point in history could
be pointing to the Antichrist and
the end of times, Patrick Heron
says, "I believe God is warning
people, giving them one last chance
to believe before the judgments of
God, as revealed in the Book of
Revelation, begin to fall on
earth."
Grizzly
Adams Productions, a well known
producer of family-friendly
television shows who has created
original programming for Discovery,
PAX, NBC, 
CBS, the Learning Channel and
other networks, found the insights
presented in Heron's new book, Apocalypse
Soon: The Beginning of the End
engaging enough that in 2006 they
acquired the worldwide television
and DVD rights to the work. Their
first documentary based on the book
was titled, "End
Times: How Close Are We"
and was broadcast nationwide during
sweeps weeks in 2006. The show
connected with viewers, and the DVD
has become the all-time bestseller
at such places as WorldNetDaily.com. A
second documentary based on the book
-- "Apocalypse
and the End Times" -- aired
in October and has done equally
well.
"Throughout
human history, cultures from the
Hopi Indians to biblical prophets
have shared stories about the end of
the world," notes David W.
Balsiger, a producer on the
"Apocalypse and the End
Times" special. "We sought
to examine these legends and look to
modern scientific findings to get to
the truth behind current events and
these ancient stories."
| Even
the mainstream press picked
up the
"Apocalypse" theme
in 2006. CNN, MSNBC, The
Washington Times, BBC and
others ran feature stories
on the US presence in the
Middle East, focusing on the
possibility that it signaled
the End Times Armageddon
spoken of in scripture. |
 |
|
Paula
Zahn asks, "Is it the
end?" (Video)
|
CNN
devoted several entire news segments
with Paula Zahn concerning the
possibility that the biblical
Apocalypse might actually be here (Watch
Media Matters Video).
More
recently, however, language of the
Apocalypse was raised again when the
Doomsday Clock was pushed forward at
The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists by two minutes, marking
11:55 before midnight, five minutes
before the figurative end of
civilization.
Like
Judaism and Christianity, Shiite
Islam also gives credence to an end
times event involving the
reappearance of the Twelfth Imam.
Devout believers in Iran assume the
reappearance of the Twelfth Imam
will occur when he emerges from a
well at the Jamkaran mosque. Iran's
president, Ahmadinejad gave $17
million of government funds to
support the shrine and has said that
the mission of the Islamic
Revolution is to pave the way for
the coming of the Twelfth Imam. Some
believe Iran is on the verge of
obtaining nuclear weapons and that
Ahmadinejad has little inhibition
about using them to start
Armageddon. President Bush has
reaffirmed his commitment to keeping
Iran from possessing nuclear
weapons, and he has not ruled out
using force to accomplish this goal.
Students of prophecy see this as
potentially more than saber rattling
between the two countries. They
believe it could trigger the final
Apocalypse.
As
for Dr. Heron, he begins in Apocalypse
Soon by focusing on
scientific evidence showing a sharp
increase in bizarre weather patterns
including a 500 percent increase in
tornadoes last year, record-setting
earthquake activity, the threat of a
worldwide bird flu pandemic, growing
famine, disease, and the
exponentially higher risk of all-out
nuclear war involving lands
identified in the Bible as central
to End Times prophecies.
In
the middle of his book, he analyzes
this data and determines that it
aligns perfectly with the ancient
prophecies, which he believes points
to the imminent appearing of the
great man of sin, the Antichrist.
Finally,
Heron concludes with America and
Europe in prophecy. He looks at the
famous dream of the ancient king of
Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who saw
what many believe to be the final
global kingdom -- a revived Roman
Empire. But "a careful
examination of the prophecies
relating to this future government
specifically state that it will be a
global confederacy," Heron
says. "It is not confined to
one geographic area. It will be a
club of ten members ruled by ten
kings who will serve the interests
of the Antichrist. I have no doubt
that Europe and the USA will play
prominent roles in these future
alignments."
>>NEXT
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PRODUCTS
RELATED TO THIS STORY:
Apocalypse
Soon: The Beginning of the End
End
Times: How Close Are We
Apocalypse
and the End Times
WEBSITES
RELATED TO THIS STORY:
Endtime
Website
Anomalos
Publishing House (looking
for new authors!)
(1)
Jon Gambrell, Biblical prophecy
finds way to legislators in battle
over ID plan, Associated Press,
March 11, 2007
(2)
President's Remarks at National Day
of Prayer and Remembrance, Office of
the Press Secretary, September 14,
2001 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010914-2.html
(3) Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2002),
p. 67
(4)
Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors
(Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2003), pp 30-32
(5)
Translation by John Dryden, as
published by Georgetown University, http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/
irvinem/gendersextexts/texts/eclog4.html
