just something to share

[threeangels]

I know war has been a lot more on many minds lately. I found this sight and wanted to share it with anyone who is interested.

I also want to say that any mumsnetters who have any family members going to war along with everyone else in the world will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Are We Nearing the End Times?
Did you know all the signs Jesus said would signify His second coming are occurring in our time?
The Rev. Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II and numerous Orthodox Jewish rabbis have all said they believe that the coming of the Messiah is very near. Why? Because so many Bible prophecies are being fulfilled.

When Jesus' disciples asked what would signal His return, He gave them several signs to watch for. He also taught that the time immediately before His coming would be known as the "beginning of sorrows" (Matt. 24:8), which in English means the "onset of labor pains."

Jesus was saying the signs of His coming would start out as mild pangs spaced widely apart like human labor and then gradually become closer together and more intense, like the birth process, until this seven-year period of suffering and judgment would culminate in the coming of the Messiah.

The Signs
Consider the signs that Jesus said would be the prelude to His return and notice how they've begun to occur in our time:

False Christs The past few decades have witnessed a huge upsurge in charismatic leaders claiming to be Christ or the Jewish Messiah, including the Moonies' Rev. Sun Moon, the Buddhist Dalai Lama, the Hindu Krishnamurti, and the Bahais' Baha Ullah, to name a few. Collectively, their followers number in the u millions. . Jesus replied to them, "See that none misleads you; for many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many." Matt. 24:4,5
War War in the original Greek of Matthew 24 is ethnos, meaning ethnic or racial war. A recent editorial in Time magazine reported there are presently 67 wars being fought around the planet and most of them are ethnic wars, including the recent slaughter in Rwanda and Bosnia. According to the National Defense Council Foundation, conflicts around the globe have doubled since 1989. "... you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars..." Matt. 24:6,7
Famine The LA Times reported recently that more than one billion people suffer from serious malnutrition, exacerbated in the past months by worldwide drought. More than 35 million people living mostly in the southern states of Africa suffer from acute hunger and are threatened with imminent death. "There will be famines..." Matt. 24:7.
Pestilence The rate of infectious diseases has increased 58% since 1980, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Diseases once considered conquered are now reappearing, sometimes in drug-resistant forms. AIDS has become a worldwide scourge, and viral diseases such as Ebola pose an international threat because of transcontinental flight. "There will be pestilences." Matt. 24:7.
Earthquakes The number of dangerous earthquakes measuring 6.0 or greater on the Richter scale has been steadily increasing since the 1950s when there were nine. In the 1960s, there were 13. In the 1970s, 51. In the 1980s, 86. In the 1990s more than100 such serious earthquakes have already been recorded, according to the LA Herald Examiner. "There will be...earthquakes in various places." Matt. 24:7.
The Seas and Waves Roaring The Associated Press reports that the most recently completed Atlantic hurricane season produced 11 hurricanes, 8 tropical storms, and $7.7 billion in damage. Serious flooding has also occurred recently in the U.S., Russia, Japan, Mexico, China, Europe, Korea, and the United Kingdom, according to Barron's. "There will be bewilderment at the roaring of the sea and waves." Luke 21:25.
Great Signs in the Heavens The 1994 comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, a string of 21 space rocks that slammed into Jupiter with the power of thousands of nuclear explosions, could be a heavenly sign. Jupiter is the mythological king of the planets and in Christian symbolism it is a representation of Christ. The 21 explosions are reminiscent of the 21 judgments that will befall Earth during the seven-year period that ushers in the coming of the Messiah, according to the Book of Revelation. The comet Hyakutake has recently lit up the night sky, and what promises to be the spectacular comet Hale-Bopp, first sighted in 1995, is scheduled to come nearest to our sun in the spring of 1997. "Great signs shall there be from heaven." Luke 21:11.
Violence Since 1960 violent crime has increased in the U.S. by 560%, according to FBI statistics, and the number of reported cases of child abuse in the U.S. has risen from 670,000 in 1976 to nearly 3 million in the 1990s. Other nations are experiencing similar dramatic increases in violent crime, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. "...as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Mt. 24:37. ("And God said unto Noah, '...the earth is filled with violence...'" Gen. 6:13.)
Gospel Preached to the Whole World Pope John Paul II has traveled to 70-plus nations during his pontificate, preaching the gospel to millions. The Rev. Billy Graham recently conducted a week-long crusade from Costa Rica translated into every language on the planet and broadcast via satellite around the globe. With Communism's collapse, Christian radio and TV are now reaching into almost every nook and cranny of planet Earth. "...and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to the whole world and then the end shall come." Mt. 24:14.
All of the signs that Jesus said would precede His return seem to be occurring in our time.

Other Prophecies Fulfilled
Other prophecies relating to this seven-year period of judgment, coming from many parts of the Bible, have also begun to be fulfilled:

Israel reborn as a nation in 1948 (Ezek. 4:3-6, Lev. 26:18)
Israel surrounded by hostile Arab countries (Psalm 83:4-8)
Jerusalem inhabited by the Jews (Luke 21:24)
Israel negotiates a peace treaty with her enemies (Daniel 9:27)
Doomsday weapons threaten earth (Joel 2:3)
Ecological devastation occurs (Rev. 11:18)
The Roman Empire revives as the European Union (Daniel 2:40-44)
Heresies become widespread (II Thess. 2:3)
Russia rises as a military power (Ezek. 38:1-12)
A hole in the ozone layer develops (Rev. 16:8.9)
TV communications are global (Revelation 11:9,10)
Satanic and cultic activity arises (I Tim. 4:1)
Sub-dermal microchips for identification purposes proposed by the U.S. military (Rev. 13:16,17)
Massive increases in wealth occur (Jas. 5:3)
GATT and World Trade Organization become possible forerunners of a world government (Rev. 13:7)
Asia possesses resources for a 200-million-man army (Rev. 9:14-16)
The Euphrates River can be dried up (Rev. 16:12-v 14) and a military highway linking Asia to the Middle East is being completed (Rev. 9:14)
Knowledge vastly increases (Dan. 12:4)
Russian and Ethiopian Jews return to Israel (Jer. 23:7,8; Zeph. 3:10)
The Hebrew language is recovered (Zeph. 3:9)
Jerusalem is rebuilt in nine specific directions (Jer. 31:38-40)
Levites and priests train for Temple service (Ezek. 43:14,15)
Israel's rainfall increases dramatically (Joel 2:23) and the country becomes fertile and blossoms (Isa. 27:6)
Men become more selfish, arrogant, abusive, ungrateful, fierce and treacherous (II Tim. 3:2,3)
Where We Fit In
Referring to these signs, Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." (Luke 21:24-28).

If we are approaching that seven-year period that precedes the second coming of Christ - and all the signs indicate we are - the Bible tells us those years of judgment upon the earth will be accompanied by untold human suffering.

But believers in Christ who have sincerely placed their trust in Him can be certain of the redemption to which Jesus referred, for He promised His followers that "God has not destined us for wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9).

So where does that leave you? Are you one of God's children who's been called to believe in His Son but has rejected each invitation? Where are you going to spend the seven years of God's wrath? And the rest of eternity?

Jesus told us that "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John. 3:16). But He went on to say that "...he who does not believe is already condemned because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John. 3:18).

Is it too late for you to find salvation?
Not yet. God designed an "escape hatch" for us by offering His only Son to die a miserable death on a cross so that our sins could be blotted out in our Creator's sight and we could be reconciled to Him.

All we have to do is accept His Son as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. By doing this our loving Father promised that, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart imagined the wonderful things God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Cor. 2:9).

Would you like to receive those "wonderful things" in the everlasting life Christ promised His followers? Do you want to know how to accept God's Son? It's simple. All you have to do is sincerely pray this prayer: "Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and need Your forgiveness. I believe that you died for my sins and I want to turn away from my wrongdoing. Right now I'm inviting you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You, making You my Lord and Savior. Amen."

What Next?
If you prayed this and meant it, you need to start talking to God through prayer, reading the Scriptures daily to get to know God better, and find a church where Christians like you worship Christ and where the good news of the Bible is being preached.

Remember, you are now Christ's representative to a needy world that appears to be embarking upon the period of unimaginable suffering that precedes Christ's second coming. You can help lead others to the Truth you've discovered and enable them to avoid the agony to come. Don't put this off. Today is the day of salvation. Tomorrow may be too late. God bless you on your journey.

If you would like to pursue a more in-depth study of Bible prophecy, books by Hal Lindsey, Grant Jeffrey, Jack Van Impe, Peter LaLonde, and John Walvoord among others are available at most Christian bookstores.

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Other Christian Information Sites on the WWW:
ICL Net: Christian Literature on the Net
Bible Gateway
Christian Coalition Home Page
Jewish and Christian Links
Lions Den
Jack Van Impe Home Page
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Jimjams, your dad sounds wonderful! I think in Britain non-belivers have a relationship with churches that is not hypocrisy, more to do with heritage - I know I certainly do - that some other countries find hard to understand.

How come if any non-Islamic country attacks a (predominanetly, but not exclusively) Muslim country, the non-Islamic country is automatically in the wrong? Do we have any Muslims in our midst? I'd like to know why Islam is so black & white on that one.

Come on threeangels, you can't throw all your toys out of the pram because people disagreed with you. I found your insistence that your particular god was the one true one very offensive to anyone with other faiths. You can't insult them then go off in a strop.

I don't think you're a minority on mumsnet, there are plenty of other christians out there in the ether. The difference is that they are prepared to listen to other people's views, even if the don't believe in the same thing.

My major beef with religion is the hijacking of "truth". The 'my truth is the only truth and those of you who don't share it are dammed forever' type of thing. Grrr....grow up!

Slug (BA Hons Religious Studies)

slug - thank you. That is what I really wanted!

hee, hee zebra 'proesthethetizing' , or whatever you said - I had images of us all walking around with extra false limbs, big cyrano de bergerac style fake noses and several ruder appendages

I think you mean proysletising (although I know that's not the spelling either.)

I'm fascinated - threeangels: are you still reading? are you out there?

Slug it is that that was the final nail in the religous coffin for me. I tried to discuss with my school chaplain why it was that the religion you were was almost an accident of birth- couldn't it be that we were all worshipping the same god under different names? he said no definitely bot and all other faiths were false and dammed to eternal hellfire (or words to that effect). At which stage- and realising that that was what Christianity was about - I stopped being a Christian.

As I'm growing older and having had kids I'm becoming more spiritual again- having spent some years at the Richard Dawkins scale of disbelief- but Christian? no thanks.

oops, should have added 'to say'

JimJams, your school chaplin was ignorant. Actually Christianity, Judaeism and Islam are all part of the Judeao/Christian tradition. They share the same history, prophets and traditions. Abraham and Jesus are as much a part of the Islamic canon as the Christian one. The major point where they differ is which prophet had the 'last word'. For the moslems, Mohommed was the prophet with the final word from God and Jesus is a prophet, but not divine. So yes, they do all worship the same god just under different names.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is something completly different and fulfills a basic human need. Some of us find it in science, some in our relationships,, some in a philosophical system of beliefs and others in a belief in a higher power.

I don't have any problem with religion per say. My issue is with dogmatism and the hijacking of a belief system that gives comfort to many to impose a social order that excludes some, demonises others and keeps large sections of the population (predominantly women) in subservient positions.

Jimjams - it's a shame that Christianity has become corrupted in your eyes because of the remarks of one, unspiritual and ill-educated person.
As for believing in the one God, well most religions these days have one Deity, whether or not they have lesser-gods, or believe in Jesus, or whatever, their God is still 'our' God. They have the same scriptures, but they also have different prophets, such as Muhammed, and Buddha. The message of their religion is also the same as ours, peace and love, tolerance and wisdom. But words, even God's word, can be twisted and re-shaped to suit almost anybody's needs.
I am a Catholic but I rarely say that these days, I call myself a Christian as I believe in an ecumenical religion, which is surely the way forward?
I also agree with Custdy (for a change!) that religion means nothing by itself. Faith means everything. Those people who profess to have a religion, but who come out with hate-filled statements are lacking in faith. In Jesus' day these people where the Pharisees, who would pay lip-service to the temple, but were cruel and intolerant, they also lived a life of great wealth. Jesus said some whopper things to them, but can't be bothered going downstairs for my Bible so you'll just have to look it up yourselves! My point being, don't blame religion for all the world's ills, or accuse it of being sexist, intolerant, and so on. Religion in it's pure form is not like this at all, those words have come from the mouths of men, not God.
I also don't think you have to belong to any kind of religion to have faith. And I think the Pope digs!

Must agree with slug, as an ex-catholic myself, what took me away from religion was the fact that every religion states to hold the truth but then teach different things, and how can they all be right at the same time????

that to me was proof enough. that and the fact that there is so much evil in men. the story about god giving us freedom never convinced, if he was good and really powerful as he is supposed to be he wouldn't let innocent people die, children especially. (oh yes but they go to a better life, well that seems cruel to me, to put people through trial to see if they deserve heaven).
As you can see this is a hot topic for me too. so I now rest.

As far as schools are concerned, I too think that state funded religious schools are not fair. I pay taxes but will have to send dd to a private school, as the local state one is crap, the others are COE or RM, and the good state schools too far away to accept dd probably (I'll try anyway but hold few hopes). Well at least we're lucky to be able to afford it.

I think he was happy enough for the other prophets to be prophets- but I think it does say somewhere in the Bible that you can only enter heaven by believing in Jesus (or rather that he was the Son of God) and he was pretty insistent on that point.

Personally I like the Life of Brian version!

the pope digs? WTF does that mean!! - if its a hole in the ground then i will be happy to push him in?

Well. I go away for a lovely playgroup trip in the sunshine and come back to all this. No wonder mumsnet wants to publish books, this stuff is riveting. I have been ROFLMAO thanks to manna (the limbs!) and custardo. Thanks for cheering me up.
And jimjams and slug have said just what I meant, only infinitely more eloquently.
A lovely end to a perfect Friday.

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all of this is fascinating and I am glad that we mumsnetters are eloquent and have brains !!!! it seems to me that generally what people are saying is that theytend to have some kind of faith or belief system evenif they aren't religious as such, and also that a nimber of terrible events over the centuries have been done in the name of religion, fanaticism I guess. Interesting telly prog on last night about the short eign of Bloody mary, after Henry 8 and before Eliz 1 ; she was a devout Catholic and truly believed that by burning Protestants she was doing good, so I guess she is a perfect example. One thing I find helpful to remember as a Christian which enables me to make better sense of these sorts of things is that God gave man free will - in other words once you're born it's up to you and you choose your own path of being a nice person or a mass murderer if you want, so in that sense you can't blame wars, murders etc on God - it's the men ( rarely the women !) who do it and I suppose it's convenient to use religion as a flag as a legitimising factor. Saddam is widely criticised as someone who has found it convenient to adopt the cause of Islam as a means of justifying the things he does, apparently even Bin Laden has called him a false Moslem. Not that Bin Laden is a preferable alternative......anyway I am rambling and cannot even recall my initial point so I guess I\d better shut up and do some ironing or something !

I knew someone would come up with that about Japan bloss so I've been pondering it myslef. It certainly is a country with a difference, and not at all how I imagined it would be. I think living in a place where morality isn;t based on Judeo (sp?) Christina values actually turns everything we have ever accepted as being "right" on its head. For example whilst I was working there one of my foreign students (a catholic- and it is relevant to this discussion) became pregnant. She asked me to accompany her to the clinic and we were driven there by a Japanese teachr. On the way there he was having a real go at her saying it was totally wrong for her to have a child when the father would not be around (he wouldn't- there was no chance of that). He was really cross - and you could see that he meant it. He really thought it was wrong- far worse than having a termination. She tried to explain to him that as a catholic life itself was more important. Complete clash of morals.

In the same way I knew several "happily" married couples who seemed to follow the same pattern. They got married, they had 2 kids then the woman refused to sleep with the husband anymore and told him she was going to have affairs and he would be welcome to as well. In all cases I knew of it was the woman. This was all fine providing it was dine discreetly without embarrassment to the family. The family staying together was far more important than what went on between dh and dw.

When I said a greater sense of morality I guess what I meant was there is a greater sense of how individula actions will affect pother members of society. Which isn't the same thing as morality. I think I was just getting at the point that you don't need ot be hugely religious to live in a decent society. I lived in rural Japan and I have to say it was a pleasanter place to live than the UK in terms of being able to leave the front door open, people looking after you when you were ill (it was like neighbours- bad cold and I had meals turning up at my door). of course there were trade offs. I had to go though the charade of pretending that dh (then dp) wasn't staying with me when everyone knew he was.

It's really interesting to live somewhere where many things you've accepted as being universal turn out not to be.

Judeo christina- now that's a new one- you know what I mean!

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bloss, I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Possibly it's been a long time since I had to actually use my brain and the cobwebs are showing.

I'm an athiest through and through. For me belief in god is akin to belief in fairies. I accept that there are some things that cannot be explained by the knowledge that we posses at this point in time, but I don't accept that these things can be explained by the existence of a supernatural being that has a personal interest in our lives. It's an argument that I often have with my muslim students. They cannot understand why, having read the Koran, I am not a moslem myself. My point to them is that without a belief in the afterlife or in a god, the whole thing just falls apart. Nice stories, but nothing else.

HOWEVER, I also accept that religion brings comfort to a large section of the population. If it makes you happy to believe in god, then who am I to try and dissuade you? Whatever floats your boat I say. Religion must fulfill some basic human need, otherwise it would not be common to all human societies. It certainly has been used to justify a social order in times past. Societal rules and laws have traditionally be bases on a system of belief. These sorts of constraints can be very powerful, after all who can argue with god? My objection is where the access to the higher authority is restricted to the hands of a few who can then use that power to sustain their position and subordinate others. I always suspect that the beginning of the decline in the power of Christianity in the West can be traced to the translation of the bible into the vernacular. In many ways Islam still has this restriction. I am constantly being told by my students that my understanding of the Koran is invalid because I read it in English. I point out to them that they read it in Arabic, as it should be, but they don't understand what they are reading as they have no knowledge of Arabic as a living language. Consequently their understanding of what they read is controlled by those who interpret it for them. And in many cases these interpreters have agendas to follow.

Most religions have a morality which is broadly consistent with mine. So I am in a live and let live position. It's when people try and insist on something that is inconsistent with my morality and justify it from a religious viewpoint that I get angry. I don't claim to possess the whole truth, far from it, I just don't believe in god.

slug - did you see the progamme the other night (I didn't) which apparently attempted to explore the 'fact' that there was a part of the brain that, when stimulated, produced 'a religious experience' Of course, scientists used this to explain that the notion of god was all in the mind etc, and religious figures argued that it was god who put it there. It's all in the interpretation. At school I questioned why Mary's power of speech wasn't taken away when told she was pregnant (as John the Baptist's dad had). The priest just resorted to 'a fault in the translation my dear' which didn't quite satisfy me.

Isn't the virginity of Mary a fault in the translation as well? "Young woman" was mistranslated as "virgin"???

bloss, you said

I hope that doesn't really mean, as it appears to, that you believe that, not having "come to trust in Christ", they will not be joining you in paradise?

(This is one of the things that has always infuriated me most about born-agains I have spoken to - that a really really morally good person who has not been born-again will go to hell, and - even worse - vice versa.)

Tinker, regarding Mary's power of speech not being taken away - I don't believe that God operates in the same way every time. The apostle Paul's eye sight was taken away from him for a few days after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In the old testament, people also experienced different encounters with God, and if you read the new testament, Jesus also healed people in different ways. I think it is probably characteristic of God not to do things the same way all the time - if he did, he'd be too predictable, wouldn't he?

I didn't see the programme, but it's a well researched area of the brain. It's known and "the god spot" and apparantly people who suffer seizures in that part of the brain commonly report religous experiences when they recover.

As to whether or not god put it there, again it comes down to a matter of faith. I have no faith in the existence of a supernatural being with a personal interest in my welfare, which he may or may not intervene in as he chooses. Therefore I'll take the scientific explanation thank you.