At any rate, being as the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993,
these American shepherds did the simple math and concluded
that Jesus would return seven years later in the year 2000,
and that is what they told their flocks. What a terrible
mistake it was!

This deception was compounded by the fact that, as we saw a
moment ago, based upon their interpretation of Jesus' words,
as found in Matthew chapter twenty-four, regarding the fig
tree, these same spiritual leaders convinced themselves, and
erroneously taught their flocks, that Endtime prophecy finds
its anchor point in the year 1948, when Israel was declared
a nation on May 14th by the World Jewish Congress, under its
then-president, Stephen S. Wise. It may interest you to know
that literally within minutes, the government of the United
States of America officially recognized the State of Israel.
This is an obvious reflection of how much Zionist power had
already influenced America's policy makers. Imagine how much
worse it is today. It comes as no surprise then, that on one
occasion, Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister of Israel,
boasted on Israeli radio, that there was no need to worry
about American policy makers, because the Jews have America
in their pocket.

However, given today's political climate in the Middle East,
what may surprise you, is the fact that the second nation to
officially recognize the State of Israel was Iran. You see,
sixty years ago, Iran was ruled by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who
was the second monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty, as well as the
last Shah of the Iranian monarchy. The dynasty was begun by
his father, Reza Shah Pahlavi, who, among other things, made
the controversial declaration on March 21, 1935, that Persia,
as it was then known, should be renamed Iran. In actuality,
in the past, the country had been previously known as Iran,
which means the "land of the Aryans"; however it was changed
to Persia due to Western influences, such as the Greeks and
the Romans.

The Iranian monarchy had ruled continuously for 2,500 years,
since the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great.
As I explain in other articles, Cyrus, or Koresh, as he was
known in Persian, is clearly mentioned in the Bible, and was
responsible for giving the Jews permission to return to the
land of Israel, following their Seventy Years of Captivity
under Babylonian rule. It is interesting then, that almost
2,500 years later, another Persian/Iranian leader would be
the second world leader to recognize the State of Israel.

Pahlavi was well known for his pomp and ceremony. In fact,
the title "Shah" is a shortened version of the Iranian word
"shahanshah", which is interpreted as "king of kings". But
what is important for our discussion is that Pahlavi was an
American ally, and you might say, puppet; which explains in
part why he may have been so quick to recognize the State of
Israel in 1948.

It was precisely because of the fact that the Shah supported
Israel, and allowed Western influences to penetrate Islamic
society in Iran, in both a political and moral sense, as well
as the fact that his government was known for its corruption,
and the oppressive tactics it employed, via the secret police
known as SAVAK, to control Iranian society, that the Iranian
clergy turned against him. Pahlavi was overthrown during the
1979 Iranian Revolution, which had been orchestrated by the
exiled Shia, (or Shi'ite), cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, who became Iran's so-called "Supreme Leader".

As I have noted before, the Supreme Leader is the true ruler
of Iran, and has even more power than the Iranian president.
This system has continued with Khomeini's successor, Grand
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, an Islamic conservative who
is adamantly opposed to the existence of the State of Israel,
as is the rather vociferous Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current
president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As a matter of historical record, the Soviet Union did not
acknowledge Israel as a nation state until three days after
the May 14th declaration had been made. Other nations slowly
followed suit; however, even to this day, due in large part
to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jerusalem is
still not officially recognized as the capital of Israel by
the international community; which is why most nations have
their embassies in Tel Aviv. In fact, as you will probably
already know, some Arab/Muslim nations, such as Iran, don't
recognize Israel's legitimacy whatsoever. As I explain in
other articles, it is this anti-Israel attitude amongst the
Arab nations which may in fact lead to the pivotal war that
many Christians know as the Battle of Armageddon. Consider
these verses:

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great
river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that
the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I
saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth
of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of
the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of
devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of
the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the
battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as
a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his
garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he
gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew
tongue Armageddon."
Revelation 16:12-16, KJV

This place, Armageddon, or Har Megiddo/Har Megiddon, meaning
"a place of crowds" according to the Hebrew lexicon, can be
found on the southern rim of the famous Plain of Esdraelon,
about six miles from Mount Carmel, and eleven miles from the
town of Nazareth, in northern Israel. This plain has been
the site of a number of historic battles, and it will be the
site of another great battle sometime in the future; the
long-prophesied Battle of Armageddon.

The main reason why I am sharing these historical facts with
you, is so that you can better understand how these American
shepherds arrived at their erroneous conclusions regarding
the Second Coming of our Lord. As the person who wrote to me
mentioned, these spiritual leaders arrived at the consensus
that a Biblical generation must represent about fifty-two
years. Because of their misinterpretation of the Scriptures
in Matthew chapter twenty-four, they added 52 to 1948; thus
arriving at the wonderful year of 2,000 as the time when the
Lord would arrive. As we have already seen, based upon the
work of Bishop Ussher, this event, (if it were true), would
occur just as the world would enter its Seventh Millennium,
which made this false doctrine seem all the more believable;
at least to certain gullible Christians.

As I explained earlier, convinced of this year 2000 doctrine,
it must not have been very difficult for them to then factor
in the "Declaration of Principles" of 1993 as the prophesied
seven-year Holy Covenant, in order to further strengthen the
claim that 2,000 would be the year when Jesus would return.
Tragically, these misguided shepherds shared this "evidence"
with their congregations, who excitedly believed every word
of it.

Well, they may have been excited by this news, but I most
certainly wasn't. I was absolutely convinced that they were
wrong, dead wrong. I had no anticipation whatsoever of Jesus
arriving in 2,000. At the time, I was more concerned about
the potential negative effects of the Y2K glitch; and I wrote
several articles in which I advised my readers how to prepare
themselves spiritually, and physically, just in case Y2K did
result in a serious disruption of government operations and
local services. Thankfully, the fear which had been created
proved to be greater than what actually occurred as millions
of computer clocks around the world struck the new year. Of
course, some technical flukes were reported here and there,
but it was nothing like what the profiteering mass media had
described. I don't doubt that the freeze-dried food industry
and other businesses which cater to survivalist needs, must
have made themselves quite a profit during the time leading
up to the year 2,000.

As I partially pointed out earlier, the reason why I was not
excited by the possibility that Jesus might return in 2,000
was because, in a word, based upon my personal understanding
of the Scriptures, particularly those verses which deal with
eschatology, or Endtime events, I was absolutely convinced
that there was no such possibility. As I explain in a number
of my articles, according to the Scriptures, there are some
key Endtime events which must transpire, (such as the seven
year Holy Covenant that we discussed earlier), before Jesus
Christ will return. In 2,000, none of these events had yet
occurred; and to this day, (January, 2008), to my knowledge,
they still haven't happened. Thus, until these major events
do begin to occur, I remain convinced that  we have at least
seven years to go before the Lord will return. In short, I
am not, and have never been, one of these "at any moment"
folks. In my view, Christians who have embraced this false
doctrine simply do not know their Bible as they should.

Being as I amply discuss these events in other articles, I
will not be rehashing them here. If you are hungry for the
truth, and are a persevering student of God's Word, then I
encourage you to delve into the many articles which can be
found in the "Endtime Prophecies" section of our web site.
Trust me; you will find a lot of interesting/challenging
material to chew on and ponder. You may not agree with all
of it, but it will get you thinking, and will motivate you
to more closely examine your own beliefs, and perhaps even
cause you to question why you believe some of the things
that you do. But this is a good thing; because we shouldn't
believe certain things just because, or because we've been
spoon-fed by someone else. Our foundation of faith should
be firmly based upon our understanding of God's Word, and
not upon the opinions of other men, not even my opinion, if
those opinions are not fully in agreement with God's Word.


Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Download Center 4 Mac BBS Software & Christian Files.  We Use Hermes II


--- Hermes Web Tosser 1.1