Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Obama and Book of Revelations
In an earlier post, I indicated that Steven Paul interpreted certain symbols and the sequence of events in the Book of Revelation such that the likelihood that THE Antichrist is Barack Hussein Obama is very small if not impossible.
As you read The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter, by Steven Paul, you may be puzzled by how some of the events could take place given the current geopolitical alignment. For example, how could massive armies gather and head towards Israel without the US and its vast arsenal stopping it? How could the battle of Armageddon come about at all given that so many Christians still read The Book of Revelation and look for signs of its consummation? And how could a man actually call himself by a name so obviously associated with the prophecy of Antichrist and the number six hundred sixty six?
Well in just a few short months we've seen a radical shift in the posture of the United States towards friend and foe alike. The overtures to Islam and the change in tenor towards the nation of Israel do not portend well for the future.
As well, the continuous attack on Christianity and the falling away from the faith, the move towards relativism inside and outside the Church, all signal a weakening of God's people, politically, militarily but especially morally.
At the current pace of "change" it is not as hard to believe that Israel will be on its own and the United States more ambivalent about continuing the strong alliance with traditional western allies.
And more ominously, the table is being set for someone so diabolical as to have no problem with callng himself by the number of the name.
Once in a while, there are signs that God wants you to pay attention to secular affairs. I don't pretend to know the Divine Mind. But after reading The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation, I pay attention to numbers and symbols.
The terror attacks of 9/11/01 was one of those times. I saw it as an attack on financial and military superpower, a humbling of a great nation that has lost its way morally. When the towers came down, all that was left was a cross on top of the pile, much like a grave marker. But in the shadows of the rubble stood the little chapel of Saints Peter and Paul with nary a cracked window.I saw this as a sign that god is in control, not the terrorists and certainly not the government.
During the Middle Ages, it was customary that the tallest structure in a town was a church. As a sort of divine zoning plan, no other structure was permitted (or desired) to be taller. On 9/11/01, the tallest building in NYC was a financial building. Money had replaced God in order of importance. But God has a way of using secondary agents to accomplish His will in secular affairs. And 19 terrorists with box cutters brought the financial and military hyper-power to its knees.
But as it says in the Apocalypse, "they did not repent of the works of their hands". And so like ants, we rebuilt not the physical towers but the financial ones. We created towers of fraudulent paper built on the dreams of poor people yearning to own homes. The greedy power brokers saw a way to inflate balance sheets and investment portfolios. Corrupt politicians saw it as a way to appear beneficent while lining their own pockets with campaign contributions from massive financial institutions. Any attempt at reform was rebuffed with cries of 'discrimination".
But the Great Equalizer once again has brought the towers crashing down. His sign this time is a number and the number is 777, the number of points the stock index fell in one day. 7 is the biblical number for perfection and completion. Certainly the stock market drop was neither complete nor perfect. But God's plan for us is perfect and complete though only known to Him. Once again, we will fail to "repent of the works of our hands" and we will again build towers on the backs of the poor.
But do not despair. As always, God is truly in control. And that is the message of the number.
Note: I don't mean to be alarmist about the movement of large numbers of Muslims to the U.S. or event their attempts at political activism. What is more alarming is the drift away from the Catholic faith by Christians and the inactivity or even activism against Catholic faith and morals by nominal Catholics. 90% of Catholics in the U.S. practice birth control and 50% approve of abortion. Divorce rates are lower for "practicing" Catholics, but almost the same as the general population when all baptized Catholics are counted as Catholic. It will be in another generation when Muslims have assimilated to the degree that they also no longer adhere to their faith according to "The Enemy at Home" by Dinesh D'Souza. The question is whether or not Catholics we'll still be here. The best defense against having to adopt another culture's customs and values is to strengthen your own. To do so requires that you practice and value them. Has that train left the station for good in the west?
Amerabia: The Islamicization of the U.S. By: Center for Security Policy
Even Americans knowledgeable about Europe's growing accommodation to the totalitarian ideology, known alternatively as Islamism, jihadism or Islamofascism, tend smugly to believe the same thing can't happen here. Think again.
Every day, new evidence appears of similar acts of submission — the Islamists call it "dhimmitude" — on the part of the U.S. government, judges, the press and leading corporations.
Eurabia, meet the United States of Amerabia.
The Agenda, Loud and Clear
On May 4, an ominous alarm was sounded in a Pajamas Media column by Youssef Ibrahim, a former New York Times reporter. Ibrahim is an astute critic of the Islamists' steady, tireless and increasingly effective efforts to impose, on Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the repressive theo-political-legal agenda they call Shariah law.
He warned that "In the very real war on terror, a noisy squabble over 'fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here' clouds a simple truth: namely, that 'they' are here already. Indeed, Islamists are busy constructing a wing of jihad in America's backyard."
Among the most worrisome of the "they" now operating inside the United States are various front organizations systematically established by the Islamist organization known as the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood. During last year's federal trial of the Holy Land Foundation on terrorism-financing charges, the government introduced into evidence the names of many scores of such Ikhwan fronts.
Identified also as unindicted co-conspirators were virtually every one of the most prominent Muslim-American organizations, including notably the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
Prosecutors also presented what amounts to a Brotherhood mission statement. According to a memorandum produced by the group in 1991: "The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers."
To be clear, this is not the agenda of all Muslims, certainly not all American Muslims. Yet, we cannot safely ignore the fact that followers of the Muslim Brotherhood are among those who do have such an outcome as their goal — let alone allow our "hands" to contribute to its realization.
Writing about this Brotherhood manifesto in the Dallas Morning News last September, columnist Rod Dreher observed: "The entire 18-page platform outlines a plan for the long haul. It prescribes the Muslim Brotherhood's comprehensive plan to set down roots in civil society. It begins by both founding and taking control of American Muslim organizations, for the sake of unifying and educating the U.S. Muslim community — this to prepare it for the establishment of a global Islamic state governed by Shariah."
Inside the Gates
Unfortunately, in the past 17 years, the Ikhwan has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams. Groups like CAIR, ISNA and MPAC not only made great strides in what Ibrahim calls "the common task [of] instill[ing] the notion among Arab-Americans or European immigrant communities of Muslim countries that they are not part of secular multicultural societies." Brotherhood fronts have also penetrated and exercised enormous influence over U.S. government agencies responsible for understanding and countering the Islamist threat.
Space limitations preclude more than a handful of examples: The FBI allows CAIR to provide "sensitivity training" for its agents. U.S. intelligence actively recruits at ISNA and other Ikhwan front conferences. One of ISNA's highly placed admirers, Pentagon deputy chief Gordon England's consigliere Hisham Islam, was allowed to purge the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Islamist expert, Steven Coughlin, for warning against such practices. Most recently, two key federal agencies, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, encouraged American officials to eschew, when describing our enemies, the use of such terms as jihadist, mujahedeen, Islamic terrorist, Islamist, holy warrior and Islamofascism. According to an Associated Press report, the government is supposed instead to "use the terms 'violent extremist' or 'terrorist.'
Both are widely understood terms that define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy." (Evidently, President Bush has not gotten the word as he used what Andy McCarthy calls the "J-word" in his press conference last week.)
The Bottom Line
This astounding act of dhimmitude confirms Steve Coughlin's thesis: The enemy has so thoroughly gotten inside our decision-making as to preclude us from understanding his true nature and threat doctrine. By affording the Ikhwan such an opportunity, we have rendered this country, as a practical matter, incapable of countering our Islamist foes abroad — let alone here at home.
Fortunately, a courageous legislator, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., has come forward to challenge the emerging Amerabia. She has unveiled a 10-point program that calls for, among other things: investigations of Ikhwan penetrations of our prison and military chaplain corps; an inquiry into the legitimacy of CAIR's tax-exempt status; corrective actions with respect to numerous ill-advised policies vis a vis Saudi Arabia; and addressing the seditious nature of Islamist threats to our government and people.
For her exemplary leadership and determination to resist national dhimmitude, this column recognizes Congresswoman Myrick with its coveted "Horatius (or, for the first time Horatia) at the Bridge" award, for her willingness, like the legendary Roman, to take on singlehandedly the enemy hordes and try to save her country.
We hope she will add to her list and secure the broadest possible support for her efforts.
The difference between how the Pope is treated in Europe compared to the cheering crowds and affection he finds in the USA has been on full display this week.
Only a few weeks ago, a university in Rome that was founded by a past pope effectively protested his impending visit there. Pope Benedict XVI cancelled and stayed home. And while there have been a few protesters along the route or outside the different venues this week, they have been few and largely marginalized.
In a particularly decent gesture, the Pope met with five people who had been caught up in clergy sexual abuse in Boston. He did so out of the spotlight and as a pastor and shepherd. It was no media event and was not announced ahead of time.
His meeting with Catholic college presidents likewise was much anticipated, especially by moretraditional catholics who have lamented for some time that the Catholic colleges had drifted too far from orthodoxy and actually were stunting the growth of religious faith. Details on that can be found at our sister site Ivory Tower Heretics and at The Cardinal Newman Society web page.
Everywhere the Pope went, you could hear affection from the crowds, from the thousands at the White House singing Happy Birthday, to the huge crowd at Mass at National's Stadium.
Contrast that with the reception he receives in Europe. When the Pope speaks there it is met with a yawn, indifference or scorn. Europe has lost its soul. The most striking rebuke was when the European Union Constitution was written and credited Greek and Roman civilizations for their contributions but omitted all mention of the Catholic Church and her 2,000 year imprint on Europe.
In the book Apocalypse - Letter by Letter, by Steven Paul, the author describes how the Book of Revelation speaks of a time when the forces of Antichrist will close in on the Vatican in Rome forcing the hierarchy to flee. She is the "Woman Clothed With The Sun." The "Woman" flees with the aid of the "Two Wings of the Eagle, The Great One" to the "Wilderness."
Paul explains that wilderness is a term for a non-Catholic country. Why would the "Woman" flee to a non-Catholic country? Perhaps because the Catholic countries have either apostatized or are under the control or influence of Antichrist.
This week's events make it seem more plausible that the USA would and will perform such an act of mercy as the rescue of the Woman. That team helped end Soviet communist domination over a billion people and will work again to keep the world free.
Note: The book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation", by Steven Paul essentially makes the same claim as this wacko from Hamas, that Rome will eventually be overrun by the kingdom of Antichrist and the Church will have to flee for safety. Isn't it ironic that this member of the Palestinian Parliament, an sort of oxymoron, sends this message while the pope is in the US?
Hamas Cleric Predicts 'Rome Will Be Conquered by Islam' Monday , April 14, 2008
A sermon last Friday by a prominent Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament openly declared that "the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital," would soon be conquered by Islam.
The fiery sermon, delivered by Yunis al-Astal and aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV, predicted that Rome would become "an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe."
"Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion," al-Astal preached, "so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world. "Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad," he added.
Al-Astal last June preached how it was the duty of Palestinian women to martyr themselves by becoming homicide bombers.
"The most exalted form of jihad is fighting for the sake of Allah, which means sacrificing one's soul by fighting the enemies head-on, even if it leads to martyrdom," he said in a June 23, 2007 interview.
"When jihad becomes an individual duty, it applies to women too, because women do not differ from men when it comes to individual duties," he said, calling Jews "the brothers of apes and pigs" who should "taste the bitterness of death."
Friday's rant repeated that theme: "Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam.
"I believe that our children, or our grandchildren, will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and, Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them.
"Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls – and by means of the mosques and the Koran books, and the history of our Prophets, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire at whose brink they stand."
On this fourth of July, America, the greatest nation on earth, celebrates its founding. Though a non-Catholic country, it remains a mostly Christian one and Christian principles still are valued.
In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 12, a woman is forced to flee to the wilderness. She is aided by the two wings of the eagle, the great one. Providence ensured that the national symbol of the United States of America would feature a great eagle. In the Bible, the eagle is used in prophetic writings to symbolize a nation. And as explained in a previous post, the woman is the Church, the Roman Catholic Church.
The Eagle will come to the aid of the woman because they share common history and values, as well as a common enemy.
At times, it seems as if all goodness is being sucked out of our great nation. But Providence has made it that the United States will come to the aid of a persecuted Church hierarchy and evacuate Rome using two military transports - the two wings of the great eagle.
This is all explained further (and better) in The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter. All that remains to be seen is if enough good people will be left in government to do the right thing when the time comes.
