“For more than a century, a point on the top of a hill in south-east London has been recognised as the centre of world time and the official starting point of each new day. Now the supremacy of Greenwich Mean Time is being challenged by a gargantuan new clock being built in Mecca, by which the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims could soon be setting their watches. Due to start ticking on Thursday as the faithful begin fasting during the month of Ramadan, the timepiece sits atop the Royal Mecca Clock Tower which dominates Islam’s holiest city. … Islamic scholars hope the clock’s influence will stretch far further than the sands of Saudi Arabia, as part of a plan for Mecca to eclipse the Greenwich Observatory as the “true centre of the earth”.” Article and photo source: UK Telegraph
Big Ben (L) and the Mecca Clock Tower (R) are now in competition to be recognised as the centre of time.
In Daniel 7 quite a bit is revealed about the antichrist. We know that he will emerge from the 4th of four great world kingdoms as described in Daniel 2’s statue of Nebuchadnezzar, the 4th being the iron legs of the statue. The Roman Empire was split in 330AD to include two capital cities, Rome, and Constantinople. Constantinople was later renamed Istanbul. Istanbul is in Turkey, which is 99.8% Muslim. It has been my theory that the antichrist could be a Muslim (or seeming-Muslim.) In any case…
In Daniel 7:25 we are told the antichrist will do some things:
“He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, Shall persecute the saints of the Most High, And shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time.”
Changing the times…likely means the appointed times of God’s Holy Days and Feasts, as the antichrist will never cease oppressing the saints as they try to worship. But could a first step of that coming oppression and hindrance against the saints in the path to obliterating the Judeo-Christian ethic be an attempt to change the time? Is one way to do that by Islam insinuating itself in supremacy and control of a basic reality under which we all operate: time itself? This challenge by Islam is in any regard an aggressive one, and something sad to see as we view Christianity declining, as the bible said it would in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
We can feel the changes ahead, see the prophetic puzzle pieces coming together. We can peek around the prophetic corner and know that soon, our Messiah will be calling us to “COME UP HITHER!”
Nano-technology is here? So what’s nano-technology?
The ability to construct machines at the sub-atomic level is Nanotechnology. It is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. Molecule by molecule you can build something from the bottom up. It is already being applied in medicine and environmental technologies. This theoretical capability was envisioned as early as 1959 by the aforementioned renowned physicist Richard Feynman. He wrote: “I want to build a billion tiny factories, models of each other, which are manufacturing simultaneously. . . The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big.” — Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner in physics. Nanotechnology is also known as molecular manufacturing.
Here is a 1-minute news spot from June 2009 of tech students experimenting with nanobots.
Above, a nanotech robot
There are four generations of nano-technology development.
–In 2000, the first generation was successfully passed: passive nanostructures, materials designed to perform one task at the simple level. We are now routinely using nanotechnology to make colloids (gold), aerosols, coatings, polymers, and ceramics. –The second phase, which we entered in 2005, introduces active nanostructures for multitasking; for example, bio-devices, drug delivery devices, 3-D transistors, and amplifiers and sensors. –The third generation is expected to begin emerging around 2010 and will feature nanosystems with thousands of interacting components such as robotics or 3D networking (like a 3D internet-grid, and more advanced virtual reality like Wii…). –A few years after that, perhaps by 2015-2020 the first integrated nanosystems, functioning (according to Roco) much like a mammalian cell with hierarchical systems within systems, are expected to be developed. Meaning, by then, man would be able to create another biological being. Like God. That is the path, and that is how close they are. It is not cloning, that is a simple replication. It is creating.
Shortly after this envisioned molecular machinery is created, and it will be, and the assembly issue is resolved, it will result in a manufacturing revolution, probably causing severe societal disruption. It also has serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications. This tipping point is known as The Singularity, or Techno-rapture.
You see the implications! Once man can create from the atom, up, we become gods. Humankind will settle for the notion on a grand scale that we do not need God because we have solved all our biological, social, environmental, and military issues. The Techno-rapture is the moment when humankind, in my opinion, ceases to be the beings God intended and the final result of evolution-thought begins.
I think we are at a precipitous moment!! We are on the cusp of purposefully evolving away from human creation in the pure biological sense, toward a techno, transhumanism, in other words, enhanced beings merged with technology in one body, including neural implants to change brain function.
Here are the biblical implications: first, the gold! This was cool.
In my research, I found that nano-gold is THE hottest topic since amazing discoveries were made 18 months ago. Scientists have discovered that as the gold particle size is decreased, there are many intriguing phenomena.
I see in one discovery if you shrink gold down to a nanoparticle, its properties change dramatically. Its color changes, it becomes a very good catalyst, and is no longer a metal – instead it turns into a semiconductor.
Even today, ultra-thin gold is being used on buildings and air craft windows – thin film of gold display some unusual characteristics. When processed with ultra-thin sheets, gold becomes transparent. It allows green light waves to pass through but reflects infrared lights. Windows coated with gold admit light but reflects heat. Therefore, the cockpit windows of modern aircraft are coated with gold, as well as the windows of many new office buildings. On the nanoscale, gold becomes a potent catalyst, exhibiting new and surprising, chemical, mechanical, electrical and magnetic behavior, which could not have been extrapolated or predicted on the basis of our knowledge about this substance in the bulk form. WE didn’t know, but GOD knew! He knows what He is doing with gold!! In general, bulk gold is not transparent in visible region, but the nano-gold may reflect efficiently near-infrared rays and can maintain the transparency.
–The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. –The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. (Rev 21:21)
LOL, I guess we will need those special properties of gold to help reflect GOD’S GLORY!! 🙂
Rev 21:18 The construction of its wall was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. Rev 21:21 And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
WOW!!
Next biblical connection: The Techno-Rapture:
Although technological progress has been accelerating, (no, it’s not your imagination!) progress is limited by the basic intelligence of the human brain, which has not changed much for millennia.
However, people are able to work on discrete problems independently and in parallel at speeds that modern global communication permits. They can also work with the increasing power of computers and other technologies, it may be possible to build a machine at some point that is more intelligent than humanity. Wikipedia: “Theoretically, if a machine built by humans could bring to bear greater problem-solving and inventive skills than humans, then it could design a yet more capable machine. If built, this more capable machine then could design a machine of even greater capability. These iterations could accelerate, leading to recursive self improvement.” I. J. Good described this as an “intelligence explosion”. So the knowledge increase at a certain tipping point would be exponential. It is quite different from normal technological progress because the underlying driving force is increasing quickly, causing exponential growth. The term Technological Singularity or Techno-Rapture reflects the idea that the change may happen suddenly, and that it is very difficult to predict how such a new world would operate. Toffler wrote about the societal imbalances of sudden knowledge explosion in his seminal book Future Shock.
See graphs. It is happening now. Already within the past sixty years, life in the industrialized world has changed almost beyond recognition except for living memories from the first half of the 20th century.
DANIEL 12:4- “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.”
You see how close we are?
–The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. –The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. (Rev 21:21)
A youtube video showing you the Rapture and Tribulation. The end is nigh. Get right with Jesus if you have not already. Ask Him to forgive your sins. What you see in the video WILL occur, and soon. You can be with the traveling lights streaming off-earth seen at the beginning, or you can be among the people seen in the rest of the video…Jesus leaves it up to you.
Please pray for missionaries, relief workers, and charitable organizations in the hot zones! Christians, we are hated, and it is only the start. “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” (Matthew 24:9)
Stay strong! Every mention of the Gospel counts. As for these precious ones, they are in glory now…
From Yahoo Health News: “Ten members of a medical team, including six Americans, were shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages in northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the team said Saturday. Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, said one German, one Briton and two Afghans also were part of the team that made the three-week trip to Nuristan province. They drove to the province, left their vehicles and hiked for hours with pack horses over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province’s northwest. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that they killed the foreigners because they were “spying for the Americans” and “preaching Christianity.”
“Frans said the International Assistance Mission, the longest serving nongovernmental organization operating in Afghanistan, is registered as a nonprofit Christian organization but does not proselytize. “This tragedy negatively impacts our ability to continue serving the Afghan people as IAM has been doing since 1966,” the charity said in a statement. “We hope it will not stop our work that benefits over a quarter of a million Afghans each year.” The team, made up of doctors, nurses and logistics personnel, was attacked as it was returning to Kabul after the two-week mission in Nuristan, Frans said. They had decided to travel through Badakhshan province to return to the capital because they thought it would be the safest route, Frans said.”
Ann Rice is famous for her vampire series of books, her bi-sexual erotica, and her very public conversion to Catholicism ten years ago. Her announcement this week that she is quitting Christianity is, of course, just as public. She said:
“Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out,” she wrote. “I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group. For 10 years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else…. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”
Rice wrote that she cannot get behind a religion that is “anti-gay”. The culture of our times, here in the last days before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, is such that man’s personal choices and ideas always trump God’s. His standards for morality and purity are that His men and women refrain from sexual indulgence until marriage, that they stay married, that they remain faithful until they die. This notion is mocked and scorned today. The literati firmly claim that it is hopelessly outdated. Even Federal Judge Walker said that the notion of opposite-sex genders as the only qualifiers for marriage is an “artifact from a past time” when he overturned the California constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Equally, the notion that God renders consequences on those who choose to set aside His standards is anathema to today’s culture. No one wants to be held accountable and no one wants to think that anything they do has any consequences whatsoever. Ann Rice’s renunciation of the religion, the bible, yet claims of remaining faithful to Jesus are just another example of the tendency for fallen humans to pick and choose ideals with which they can remain fleshly and indulge in their favorite pastimes.
It is particularly poignant that she states that she remains “committed” to Christ but quits adhering to His standards, and in His name, no less. One cannot remain committed to someone or something after you selectively decline so many precepts the entirety looks like a foundation-less house. It is not possible to remain “committed to Christ” and repudiate His Word and His standards for purity, marriage, life, and culture. It is simply not possible.
Further, her statement reveals just how little she understood genuine conversion. Upon renunciation of your sins, seeking forgiveness of Jesus for them, and last, submitting to His will for your life, The Holy Spirit then enters and seals you. Thinking that even for a minute that man can tell the Spirit to come or go is ridiculous. Thinking for even a minute that man has the power to break a seal that God Himself set is even more ridiculous. And Jesus promised that the gates of Hades will not prevail against His church. Ann Rice never was a Christian. You can’t leave something you never went to. And sadly, Ann Rice believes she is a friend of God, has the power to break His seal, and can select at will the precepts to which she will adhere. This attitude is prevalent today, held not just by author Rice, but many, even most, Christians and non-believers.
Of course there is no such thing as an ex-Christian. But it speaks to how far we have fallen and how blinded we have become to even say such a thing with a straight face. The only thing left in Ann Rice’s spiritual landscape is the name of her Savior; the very God who hung on the cross so that she would be allowed to claim Him as savior- or reject Him. Unfortunately, Rice, and all of who believes as she does, will discover the devastating choice she made when Judgment Day rolls around. She can refuse to be anti-gay, anti birth control, anti-feminist all she wants. And she, and all who refuse the Way of Jesus will hear this: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
Christian, if you have the Spirit in you, your walk should be closer each today to Him. If you wonder whether you are saved (or are considering “leaving Christianity”), then pray, pray hard and do a heart-check. Appeal to Him to forgive your sins and then repent, which means turn away from temptations and lifestyles that draw you back into lawlessness. It’s now, or then. And for eternity’s sake, turn from lawlessness NOW.
Rocket and sniper attacks over the last four days in Israel. More below
Lebanese snipers pick off IDF soldiers inside Israel’s border Israel has confirmed that a battalion commander was killed in clashes with Lebanese troops that also claimed the lives of two Lebanese soldiers and a newspaper reporter. The casualties occurred after Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire at a border location that the Israeli Defense Forces described as being west of the Israeli town of Misgav Am…. the Lebanese troops shot inside Israel without provocation. He said Lebanese snipers shot Israeli officers standing more than 300 metres from the fence, as opposed to the soldiers removing bushes by the fence.
Sderot children and veteran’s rehabilitation center decimated by rockets The upgraded Kassam rocket on Sderot Saturday night scored a direct hit on the ceiling of a children’s hydrotherapy rehabilitation center in the heart of Sderot’s Sapir College, bringing to nearly 400 the number aerial attacks launched from Gaza since the ceasefire which halted Israel’s Cast Lead counter-terror campaign in Gaza in January 2009.
Rockets hit Southern Israel/Jordanian border towns, Egypt denies Reuters reported from Radio Israel that preliminary information by Israeli police revealed that at least three rockets fell on the Israeli southern port city of Eilat and nearby areas on Monday morning, causing no casualties. A GRAD missile fell in the southern Jordanian port city of Aqaba Monday morning, injuring four people, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Ali Al Ayed said.
Of course, when rockets hit Israel, the world blames Israel. When one of them misses and hits Jordan, the UN calls it terrorism and demands justice. All week, Israel suffers attacks and the UN looks the other way. Snipers pick off soldiers well behind the border fence. UN looks the other way. Childrens’ hospitals are destroyed, and UN looks the other way. But a resort in Jordan gets one accidental rocket wandering over the border, once? Ban Ki Moon is all over it.
Secretary-General condemns deadly rocket attack in southern Jordan Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned this week’s rocket attack that killed one person in the southern Jordanian town of Aqaba and urged countries in the region to work together to bring those responsible to justice.
I hope the above map of Israel and the arrows showing rockets falling on the nation from top to bottom over the last 4 days makes an impact. The tiny, beleaguered nation, has the Almighty God behind her. O, if she will only look UP! Pray for the peace of Jerusalem
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you. “May peace be within your walls,
And prosperity within your palaces.” For the sake of my brothers and my friends,
I will now say, “May peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
“There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.” (Luke 21:11)
Famines take a long time to emerge. They are a slow catastrophe, requiring years of drought and other adverse agricultural conditions to set them up. They are also complex, taking into account variables such as food distribution, crop type, agricultural failure, water conditions, population growth, stresses on land, development, and weather. In America, we have plenty of food, but increasingly, people are unable to afford it. In some African nations, donated food is plentiful, but it is not correctly or widely distributed. But simply put, famine is scarcity of food.
Not only will there be famines, because Jesus told us there would be, but Revelation shows us what some parts of that upcoming famine will look like. The Third seal is Famine itself, the first being the Antichrist and the second, War.
The Third Seal–Famine
When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come ” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” (Rev 6:5-6)
It will cost a day’s pay for bread, but the luxury items of oil and wine will still be available, indicating there will be people still able to afford it. This is confirmed in Revelation 18:3b
“the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries” and then a bit later in Rev. 18:12-13 those luxuries are listed:
cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.
The Restrainer has been taken away (2 Thess 2:6-7). The one who Restrains is the Holy Spirit and though His ministry of restraint will end, He will still be present on the earth (Gen 6:3). However, because He no longer retrains, the rich hardly care that people are in such need that their children die from lack of bread (2 Tim 3:2-5).
We read the news today about an incredible and sudden jump in wheat prices.
Wheat Soars; Rogers Sees ‘Much Higher’ Food Prices The July rise in wheat prices, the fastest in 51 years, indicates that shortages in agriculture are coming, Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC.com Tuesday. Wheat prices in Europe hit their highest level in two years, rising almost 50 percent since late June as Russia’s wheat crop was affected by drought. “That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Rogers, who has been warning about shortages coming in the agriculture sector for a while, said in a telephone interview. “We’re going to have much, much higher prices over the next few years,” and this from the UK, BBC News: Wheat prices reach 22 month high. Or this headline also from today: Drought Strains Russian Wheat Supplies: “extreme heat and drought had decimated roughly 20 percent of the country’s winter crop…”
A denarius was about a day’s pay for Romans, or 22-25 USdollars. Are you ready to work all day for a loafof bread shared among your entire family? Because the conditions that will spring onto the scene after the rapture in the Third Seal of the Tribulation are coming. If you recognize that you are a sinner and worry about those sins, or wonder about after-death and accountability to God, then pray to Jesus. Ask Him to forgive your sins and to change your heart and your life. Make Him Lord in the sense that He knows best for you (after all, you sin, right? He doesn’t, so He knows better!) and allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit into a changed life. And the best part is you will be worshiping Him in person when the Tribulation unfolds down below, on a lost and dying world.
Good Old Faithful Spaceweather.com reported on another sun-eruption from massive and growing Sunspot 1092:
SPACEWEATHER.COM– “On August 1st around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was sunspot 1092. At about the same time, an enormous magnetic filament stretching across the sun’s northern hemisphere erupted. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action:”
“The timing of these events suggest they are connected, and a review of SDO movies strengthens that conclusion. Despite the ~400,000 km distance between them, the sunspot and filament seem to erupt together; they are probably connected by long-range magnetic fields. In this movie still, a shadowy shock wave (a “solar tsunami”) can be seen emerging from the flare site and rippling across the northern hemisphere into the filament’s eruption zone. That may have helped propel the filament into space.” The UK Telegraph called it a solar tsunami, “The explosion was aimed directly towards Earth, which then sent a “solar tsunami” racing 93 million miles across space.”
“In short, we have just witnessed a complex global eruption involving almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun.” Moreover, “Sunspot 1092, a key player in yesterday’s Earth-directed eruptions, is big enough to see without the aid of a solar telescope. Oleg Toumilovitch “spotted” it on July 31st rising over Blairgowrie, South Africa:”
Jesus said that there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. Those are mostly for the Tribulation, but we can see the sun and stars ramping up their activity. I have not seen much in the way of signs on the moon but the planets and certainly the sun has been active. Even the sun’s non-active period was a sign in itself, being unusual for so long. A major Coronal Mass Ejection would indeed be devastating because the magnetic storm arriving on earth would interrupt electronics. We rely so heavily on electronics now, for satellite entertainment, banking, maps/directions, and plain old energy that an X-class CME would truly hurtle us into the stone age. M-class CME would do damage, and even the smallest class, C-class coronal mass ejections, would disrupt things. (But also put on a pretty display of Northern Lights!)
Sun storm promises Northern light show extravaganza “Astronomers are predicting that a huge Sun storm over the weekend will produce a spectacular Northern Lights, or aurorae show in the night sky this week for many areas that do not normally seem them. According to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Aurorae usually are visible only at high latitudes but large geomagnetic storms such has the one that just occurred can light up the sky at lower latitudes. Sky watchers in the northern US and other countries should look toward the north on the evening of August 3rd/4th for rippling “curtains” of green and red light, the group stated.”
They’re talking about Sunspot 1092 here, the one that just erupted in tandem with the filament eruption. The article continues,
“This eruption is directed right at us, ” said astronomer Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “It’s the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time.”
The article did not state just how far south those in the northern hemisphere can expect to see the Lights, but even though I’m in North Georgia, I’m going to go outside tomorrow night just in case!
During the Tribulation, the sun gives many signs:
Revelation 6:12 – “I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red,”
I wrote earlier about this sign of the sun, that the earthquakes likely trigger massive volcanic action, which in turn spews ash into the atmosphere, darkening the sun. More here. In any case, it’ll be cold.
Revelation 9:12 – “When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss…” Can you imagine a smoke chimney so large that it blots out the sun? The next 2 verses in Revelation say that not only was the sun darkened by the smoke escaping from the abyss, but “…out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (Rev 9:3-4).
“One of the most remarkable of day flyers was the Passenger Pigeon. At times several days were required for the migrating hosts to pass a given point. The procession stretched from horizon to horizon and was a mile or more in width. Often the sun would be obscured by the clouds of flying birds. In 1808, Alexander Wilson, America’s pioneer ornithologist, estimated that during a great flight of Pigeons which he saw in Kentucky, 2,230,272,000 birds passed in four hours.” If the flock of demons escaping the abyss is even close to as large as the passenger pigeon flocks, there will be two billion, two hundred thirty million, two hundred seventy-two thousand demon-locusts on earth. You really don’t want to be here then.
Revelation 16:8 – “The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire” Can you imagine a sun so hot you spontaneously combust just by going outside?
Acts 2:20, Joel 2:31, Mt 24:29, Is 13:10 all talk about the sun going dark and stars falling from the sky, just before the LORD returns. The sun will be doing some crazy things, and all at the behest of the One who made the sun.The sun has no free will. It cannot refuse, rebel, or even pout. It simply is part of creation and its molecules obey the Lord. Just as the sea parted and the rocks would shout with joy, the sun shines or doesn’t shine at the behest of the Lord Almighty God. And today, it hiccuped.
the-end-time.org 