Random thoughts: Prophecy, the emptying of a documentful of text, wonderful quotationables , &c. ---

St. John The Baptist Preaching
In The Wilderness, by Kazuya Akimoto

Excellent quote:

“As I have learned, the Bible has about 10,000 prophecies. Nearly one-third of the Bible is directly or indirectly related to prophecy. This endeavour led me into far more research than I could have suspected. One thing needed, was to determine when the Bible was actually written. Because of this, a study of biblical history and archaeology was necessary. I found the Old Testament was indeed written before the coming of Jesus, as the Dead Sea Scrolls (containing parts of the book of Isaiah) were proven to have been written before Jesus came. The book of Isaiah includes forecasts of Jesus. Thousands of clay tablets have also been found, which confirm many accounts in the Bible. Later, there were people who would show me what appeared to be contradictions in the Bible, yet these were not contradictions at all, but only a lack of research on the part of those that said these things.”

The Bible states that the Anti-Christ will come out of the region of Europe (perhaps Rome or in this area), and that he will make a covenant with Israel (Fake Israel-Palestinian ‘peace’ treaty) and break it, that he will re-build The Temple Mount (Plans are already been reviewed), that he will be gay (bisexual?) (Daniel 11:37), and that he will be satan incarnate.

“There have been hundreds of books written on the subject of the evidences of the divine inspiration of the Bible, and these evidences are many and varied. Most people today, unfortunately, have not read any of these books. In fact, few have even read the Bible itself! Thus, many people tend to go along with the popular delusion that the Bible is full of mistakes and is no longer relevant to our modern world. Nevertheless the Bible writers claimed repeatedly that they were transmitting the very Word of God, infallible and authoritative in the highest degree. This is an amazing thing for any writer to say, and if the forty or so men who wrote the Scriptures were wrong in these claims, then they must have been lying, or insane, or both. But, on the other hand, if the greatest and most influential book of the ages, containing the most beautiful literature and the most perfect moral code ever devised, was written by deceiving fanatics, then what hope is there for ever finding meaning and purpose in this world? If one will seriously investigate these Biblical evidences, he will find that their claims of divine inspiration (stated over 3,000 times, in various ways) were amply justified. The remarkable evidence of fulfilled prophecy is just one case in point. Hundreds of Bible prophecies have been fulfilled, specifically and meticulously, often long after the prophetic writer had passed away.

For example, Daniel the prophet predicted in about 538 BC (Daniel 9:24-27) that Christ would come as Israel’s promised Savior and Prince 483 years after the Persian emperor would give the Jews authority to rebuild Jerusalem, which was then in ruins. This was clearly and definitely fulfilled, hundreds of years later.”

“There are extensive prophecies dealing with individual nations and cities and with the course of history in general, all of which have been literally fulfilled. More than 300 prophecies were fulfilled by Christ Himself at His first coming. Other prophecies deal with the spread of Christianity, as well as various false religions, and many other subjects. There is no other book, ancient or modern, like this. The vague, and usually erroneous, prophecies of people like Jeanne Dixon, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and others like them are not in the same category at all, and neither are other religious books such as the Koran, the Confucian Analects, and similar religious writings. Only the Bible manifests this remarkable prophetic evidence, and it does so on such a tremendous scale as to render completely absurd any explanation other than divine revelation. The historical accuracy of the Scriptures is likewise in a class by itself, far superior to the written records of Egypt, Assyria, and other early nations. Archeological confirmations of the Biblical record have been almost innumerable in the last century. Dr. Nelson Glueck, probably the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology, has said:

‘No archeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.’”

“Another striking evidence of divine inspiration is found in the fact that many of the principles of modern science were recorded as facts of nature in the Bible long before scientist confirmed them experimentally. A sampling of these would include:

* Roundness of the earth (Isaiah 40:22)
* Almost infinite extent of the sidereal universe (Isaiah 55:9)
* Law of conservation of mass and energy (II Peter 3:7)
* Hydrologic cycle (Ecclesiastes 1:7)
* Vast number of stars (Jeremiah 33:22)
* Law of increasing entropy (Psalm 102:25-27)
* Paramount importance of blood in life processes (Leviticus 17:11)
* Atmospheric circulation (Ecclesiastes 1:6)
* Gravitational field (Job 26:7)
* and many others.”

(this being, of course, many, many years before scientists began “experimenting” with theory, &c.) — “The purpose of education today is man's welfare; the purpose of science is man's pleasure; the goal of entertainment is the good life for man. Hedonism says it all. The world is crowded with Antichrists presently.” — ‘Some of the greatest minds in history were “self-taught” men and women’ which explains my own “education,” I suppose. It just takes an open-mind!

God is also has a great sense of humor. Once, Mother Teresa was telling a story (an example of God’s excellent sense of humor) about how she needed the money to fix this HUGE hole in the ground so that she could (I believe) build something in that particular spot (for her organization, or something such as this), and she prayed to God to send her/them the money to have it fixed, because they would have never had enough. So, she prayed to God, and of course, God always answers prayers. So, the next day (or a couple days later — wasn’t long afterwards) a man came walking along this path where the hole was located (obviously an angel) and he stopped, looked at the hole and said: “Ah! Looks like you’ve got a hole here, don’t ya?!” (said in a funny way, of course). Come to find out, this man (angel) came up with the money to get the hole filled.

That said, another excellent quote [written sometime in 2007]: “We are living in a time where prophecy is being fulfilled every day. 9-11 was prophecy. It was the first thunder of the sixth seal of revelation which started the “labor pains” of revelation. Natural disasters, war, pestilence, famine, and many other things of revelation are being fulfilled as “labor pains” right now. Only when the 7th seal is opened will the labor pains turn to birth pains. The final 3 1/2 years is going to be here soon. Start counting months, or weeks. Not years anymore. World War 3 is upon us. Just wait ‘til the great world stock market crash and the fight for oil against Iran. America is doomed and don’t think we’ll get a new president. (...) wars on terror have created a domino effect in the way other nations see us. Instead of leading the fight for democracy by example through our own prosperity, we are leading by preemptive war which is what the dictators and communists did to spread their way of governing. The death of Saddam Hussein was predicted in the bible as the “King of New Babylon.” The first seal of revelation was opened on Dec. 17, 1994 and the sixth seal was opened on Sept. 11, 2001. Once the 7 thunders of the sixth seal are completed, the seventh seal will be opened which will trigger the final 1260 days of man’s reign on earth.”

Notice that this was written in 2007, and notice that he said “just wait ‘til the great world stock market crash” (which, at THAT time [2007] hadn’t happened yet, but was predicted in the bible would occur), and of course, it came to pass.

Found this excellent too:

“It’s that it’s maddening to spend hours or even days and weeks (yes that is literally how long it will take to explain it all) only to hear things like ‘It doesn’t matter because the Bible is fake’ or ‘It’s all just self fulfilled.’ I know you didn’t do that but those are the two most common objections. The thing is, most students of Bible prophecy have been studying this for 30, 40, 50 years. I myself have been studying it for 5 years and know enough that it would take me a couple of weeks to type out. — The European Union, Israel as a Nation, the Islamic coalition, etc., are all precise Biblical predictions mentioned for the end times. Not only that, but there was a specific way for them to be fulfilled – not the fact that they would simply exist. Then there are about 100 prophecies that have been fulfilled during the last century that no other generation has ever witnessed in the history of man. This isn’t even considering the prophecies fulfilled in antiquity. So, you can see it is an exhausting process to type it all out only to hear things like ‘It was self fulfilled.’ — ** In order for it to be self fulfilled, we would have to assume Europeans, the Jews, Muslims, international associations, inventors (due to the prophecies regarding technology), and even society (due to the prophecies regarding society) were all in cahoots with each other to make it happen. And let’s be honest, can you really get the Jews, Muslims, and Christians to agree on anything? No! (...) They all have their own end time prophecies that differ greatly so it makes no sense that these people (not to mention regular citizens, scientists, and inventors) have all been a part of the conspiracy. — There is a book called Every Prophecy of the Bible that collects, dissects, and explains over 1,000 Bible prophecies fulfilled past, present, and future. It uses plain English and breaks everything down into very easily understood terms. Here are a few:

A). Israel would be reborn in one day (this happened).

B). The Jew would slowly trickle in (this happened).

C). Israel would immediately be surrounded by enemies (this happened).

D). The precise names of the countries who would be Israel’s enemies were given by name (this coalition now exists).

E). Israel would regain Jerusalem (this happened).

F). There would be no king (this happened- and a prophecy stating a country without a king was preposterous in the age of monarchies when this prophecy was given).

G). The land would blossom (since its occupation the desert has become a type of oasis in the ME).

H). There would be attempts to divide the land (this is currently happening with the Palestine issue).”

Rembrant Harmensz. van Rijn (Holland, Leiden, 1606-1669)
The Raising of Lazarus (1630)