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See 8/28 update below.
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UPDATE: Really interesting story at the very end of Jan Markell's radio show, about a Jewish couple who'd spent their lives in America, both waking up one night with the strong impression that they were to "go home," meaning to Israel. They are not believers, and they dismissed the idea, but when it kept nagging at them they pulled up roots and headed to Israel. Now that is an amazing sign of the times. Scripture says that in the last days God will draw the Jewish people back to their homeland from all the places in the world where they had been scattered. Many have returned over the last century, but this kind of direct calling from God to go is a supernatural hint that the Grand Finale is at the very door.
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I like Jan Markell, I like the messages on her radio show Understanding the Times, and for the most part I think the end times prophetic viewpoint supported at her site is probably right as far as the timeline goes. Nevertheless I keep having objections to some parts of that end times viewpoint. Some things they think are yet future I think were finished in the past, and yet I'm not a Preterist who thinks it's all in the past. And what I think is in the past is continuing intot the future anyway, to become a big player in the future end times finale. THAT IS, I do believe the Antichrist has been known since the Bishop of Rome became supreme Bishop over the other bishops of the Christian Church in the seventh century -- or the sixth depending on which historical event is the pivotal one and I don't know for sure. The Great Apostasy which is also considered to be yet future in the currently popular end times scenario was the apostasy of the Roman Church which dominated the Middle Ages and persecuted the true Biblical Christians who tried to survive outside that institution. So I'm not expecting some revelation of an unknown Antichrist, he's been here in plain sight for centuries, the Apostasy has been roaring along for all those centuries as well, though clearly spreading in our time now, which is a sign that the end is very close.
The Pope is a political leader too, since the Vatican is a sovereign nation unto itself, or there way also be a Hitler type figure who will emerge as world leader. The Pope may be the False Prophet rather than the Antichrist, but his credentials are just so amazingly perfect for Antichrist that's a hard one for me to entertain. Oh and the Revived Roman Empire this current eschatology is looking for as a future development, that was the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, and it was certainly a different kind of Empire as scripture says it would be, run by a religious figure and made up of "Christians." But that too has a future form as the European Union shapes up. But all these things are continuations, they are not new developments. The EU will be "The Fourth Reich" following Hitler's Third, all these Reichs being versions of the Roman Empire that has had some existence since the Empire of the Caesars came to an end.
And when a teacher on Jan's show talks about the removal of the Restrainer, that person who keeps the Antichrist from coming to public prominence, identifies him as the Holy Spirit I just think how silly that idea is. God has been known to abandon a sinning people who have gone to far, there is no special "standing aside" to be mentioned, it's happened before. In this case the scripture is not talking about God the Holy Spirit, it is talking about a political figure who would be essentially displaced by this coming Man of Sin, and that was the Caesars. When that line of emperors was at an end then the Bishop of Rome came to prominence as the religious and political head oover the Holy Roman Empire.
-- UPDATE -- Added by edit 8/28: I didn't get the main point said, which is that there would have been no reason for Paul not to name the Holy Spirit as the Restrainer if that is what he had in mind. AND there is no reason that the Holy Spirit would have to be "out of the way" in any sense whatsoever for the Antichrist to be revealed. He didn't have to be out of the way for Hitler or any of the other antichrists to be revealed and there is no reason He'd have to be out of the way for the final one to be revealed. The reason for Paul's reticence has to be some threat to an earthly power by the revelation, and it makes sense that someone who purports to be the ruler the "Roman Empire" would threaten the Caesars, and however weak the rulership that is what the Pope supposedly was. Even to suggest the possibility would put Paul and the churches in jeopardy. They were being persecuted by the Caesars already anyway.
THE CHURCH WAS MARTYRED BY THE RULERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ROMAN EMPIRE, IT WAS MARTYRED FOR CENTURIES UNDER THE "CAESAR" OF "HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE" OF THE MIDDLE AGES" --- AND, according to many of the writers I list on the Catholicism blog, the antichrists that have risen since then have also been inspired by the Inquisition and in fact I believe ALL of them have either been Roman Catholics or influenced by Jesuits. Hitler himself said he modeled the Holocaust after the Inquisition. "Mein Kampf" was written by a Jesuit. Even Communist China made use of the dunce cap which is a relic of the Inquisition. The persecutions under Ceaucescu in Romania made use of the iron maiden which is a torture device from the Inquisition. The slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda was provoked by the smear campaign against them conducted over the radio by a Catholic priest, and the slaughter of the Serbs had the same Roman Catholic origin. In some sense the Inquisition never really stopped. The dungeons of the Inquisition were discovered in Rome by Garibaldi, a nun escaped from such a tortured life not too long ago though she disappeared afterward, there are still persecutions of Protestants going on in Catholic South American countries. I've pointed these out here and there, on my other blog for one.
< IT IS A STRONG POSSIBILITY THAT WE WILL AGAIN BE MARTYRED BY THIS SAME "CAESAR" BEFORE GOD'S WRATH FALLS ON PLANET EARTH, BECAUSE WE HAVE LET OURSELVES BE DUPED BY TGHE ANTICHRIST'S PR. Up until the first part of the last century there were still Protestants and others warning about the plots of the Jesuits to take back the power Rome lost to the Protestant Reformation. Then those voices stopped. The Jesuits had succeeded in silencing them. Now we even have "Protestants" who treat the Roman Church as just another demonimation. Even those churches that know better are not treating it as the threat it still is, just biding its time until conditions allow it to reclaim that role in the world. WAKE UP CHURCH!!!!!
NO I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT CATHOLICS AS SUCH, MOST OF THEM HAVE NO IDEA OF THIS HISTORY AND THEY ARE VICTIMS OF THE SAME FORCES.
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NEVERTHELESS I think the basic timeline for the very last days must be correct. At least I don't know yet how it isn't. I'm expecting the Rapture of the Church followed by the Day of the LORD or Great TRibulation and I'm expecting the Antichrist Pope to ascend to world leadership. He's already up there with them all anyway. He's part of the Great Reset which is the current ambition of powerful globalists such as Klaus Schwab, Prince Charles, even Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci. There are lots of Roman Catholics in such positions, Gates and Fauci for instance, with Jesuit influence, the scenario looks to me like it's all coming together for a renewed Inquisition headed by the Roman Church in concert with Islam, all followed by all the false religions of the world. After the true Church is gone.
I still think the basic scenario makes sense.
Um, with a reservation or two. The idea of two separate bodies of Christ, and two separate sets of martyrs of the Inquisition, which is implied in the current timelines, really does not make sense.
HOWEVER, after all that I want to post Jan's latest radio show and point out some highlights. For isntance, she plays an excerpt of a racent program with Michelle Bachmann who identifies forced vaccinations as the looming threat to America as we've known it. That starts about 12:30 on the counter. Goes for about four minutes. Then Jack Hibbs talks about the California recall of Governor Newsome, how the election to replace him has already begun and how ballots marked for Larry Elder are being found trashed in great numbers. Gosh, the Left is so democratic aren't they? So respectful of the right to free speech. The program goes on to more current events such as Afghanistan, related to the closeness of the very last days.
You don't have to go through it. You can recognize that Christ died to pay for the sins of all who believe in Him, repent and give yourself to Him and escape the coming tribulation.
