Enter Stage Left, Right, Above, Beneath, Front, Rear and Center: Antichrist

Seems like just recently, a matter of mere months maybe, I've become aware of developments in the world and the church that are all moving toward the final stage setting for the Day of the Lord, the last act of the great drama of Planet Earth. The internet radio ministries I've linked on the right margin are my main sources of this information and anyone who wants to follow all this only needs to go and listen to as many recent broadcasts as you can. Also go to You Tube and watch Chris Pinto's films. [Actually, older broadcasts are as good as the recent ones].

I get the feeling that these events themselves have in fact been proliferating, and that may well be the case. It's like watching the stage hands rushing to get the props in place just before the curtain goes up on the final Act. But on the other hand it may only be that I've become aware of them. The movies by Chris Pinto, for instance, have been out for years and deal with historical events going back centuries, but I've only been learning about them recently.

The main movement is in the direction of the Catholic Church: "Protestants" who are really Catholics (the Archibishop of Canterbury), and Protestants who are leaning toward Rome. Emergent Church tending in that direction. Glenn Beck is a Mormon but there are Christians who say he is a Christian nevertheless, David Barton being one of them. Beck has been getting together with the Pope, and his wide audience gets a pretty heavy dose of ecumenical philosophy, the hope of bringing all the religions under one worldwide religion. Which will of course be headed by Rome.

I've been hearing a lot about the Jesuits recently, who are engaged in all kinds of intrigues on behalf of Rome, political as well as church-related, who apparently even pretend to be Protestants, or whatever seems to be required, all in the service of bringing as many as possible under the Pope.

I've believed for years that the papacy is the Antichrist system. I haven't been completely convinced that the final Antichrist will be the last Pope though that is still a very strong possibility* -- at the very least the Vatican is going to have some kind of dominating position in the finale of Planet Earth -- but lately I feel like I'm watching the machinery in operation to bring about a one world religion with the Pope at its head, whereas previously I just figured it would all come together somehow or other.

What we thought were solid trustworthy Protestant organizations have shown themselves to be soft on Rome. Billy Graham used to seem like one of the most solid evangelicals, but it became apparent years ago that he's been feeding people who convert in his crusades back into the Roman Church if they identify that as their church, directly consigning them to Hell. Then there's Pat Robertson. It's not that I'm a great fan of his but he's a prominent evangelical, and I recently heard a snippet of a program of his in which he claims that the Catholic Church is a Christian Church.

He's also a Mason, and that's another line of influence on the church and the world that I've been learning a lot about recently.

Maybe the most startling revelation for me recently was that George Washington was not only a high-degree Mason -- it's not that I didn't already know that but I've learned a lot more about implications of that fact -- but converted to Catholicism hours before he died.

Then there is this recent revelation that Wycliffe Bible Translators, which works all around the world bringing the gospel to unreached peoples by giving them a Bible in their own language, has been changing the wording of key theological tenets of the Bible in order to make it more acceptable to Muslims. Not "Son of God" for instance because Muslims always think in carnal terms about that. Well, of course, so does EVERYBODY who doesn't believe the word of God. The virgin birth was one of the main objections of the American founders, as it is for oh lots and lots of Bible rejectors today as well, figuring in most debates with the big name atheists for instance. The Mormons simply blasphemously embrace the carnal notion of God being a man who physically impregnated Mary. So there's no excuse for changing the wording, it only falsifies the gospel message and in doing that they deprive the Muslims of the true gospel, the gospel that people down the centuries have been willing to die for, the gospel that would actually save them. This way the Muslims can consider themselves to be "followers of Isa," their false version of Jesus, and continue in their Muslim rituals, and not put themselves in a compromised position within their Muslim community. By doing this, the once-venerable missionary organization is now making the sort of soft converts to a lifeless "Christianity" that would easily put themselves under Rome. That hasn't been suggested in anything I've heard so far, it simply hits me as a likely development as so many other political and religious streams are flowing in that direction these days.

Then there is our President Obama with his leftist and Muslim affiliations, and most of all his lack of a verifiable claim to be qualified for his office, the latest indication in that direction coming through a mailman from twenty years ago who recognized him as the "black foreign student" the Ayers family were putting through school, who also told him that he was one day going to be President of the United States. He also ran for office with a chorus of messianic type adoration behind him (which I blogged on at Faith's Corner). Doesn't scripture say the Antichrist will come to power by "intrigue?"

And then there are all the secret societies I couldn't take terribly seriously until Chris Pinto's films put enough historical fact to their existence and their nefarious plots to convince me. The Masons first of all, the Illuminati -- oh you can just name the usual suspects, they're all there and all working in cahoots to bring the world under a "benevolent" dictator or one world political system and a universal religion. The Jesuits are a secret society too.

Oh and check out the "Georgia Guidestones" if you want to see the plan spelled out in so many words. Number one suggests a lot of bloodshed.

And then there are the warnings of a possible imminent disaster in the US I also recently blogged on. And the Middle East situation COULD soon turn into World War III which is also on the agenda.

We're almost eleven years from 9/11 and I'm not up on God's timetable for His judgments against a nation or at least against America, but the only way we could escape would be with a massive movement of repentance by the churches and that isn't happening.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

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* According to an ancient prophecy by "Malachy" the last Pope is to be the very next one, after the current Benedict, and he's to be called "Peter the Roman" (which I blogged on some time back at Faith's Corner). Such a prophecy doesn't have to be taken seriously, of course, but it's interesting to consider that there might be truth to it, and the timing is certainly right for the emergence of the Antichrist, which makes this Peter the Roman a fine candidate for the role. I understand that the Catholic Church has been trying to spin this prophecy to claim that this Peter the Roman may well be the Antichrist but that in that case he'd have become Pope through the machinations of anti-Catholic Masons. However, the prophecy itself makes Peter out to be a hero who will suffer great persecution, and Malachy was a good Catholic himself.

Israel & Replacement Theology: "What about 'forever' don't you understand?"

I think I've made it clear that politically I'm on Israel's side and consider the "Palestinian" claims to be trumped up by the leftists.

However, I'm not as clear on the theological question of "replacement theology." I do know that some who are on Israel's side object strenuously to the idea, understanding it to mean Israel has been replaced by the Church, thereby negating Israel's claims to the land. They base much of their argument on the scripture which says the covenant God made with Israel was everlasting.

Gen 13:15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

Gen 17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

The relevant passages do read as if the land was given forever, but obviously this can't be since the earth itself isn't to last forever:

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

I assume they have some way of reconciling this, but it seems to me the only sufficient way of reconciling it is to understand that the everlasting covenant with Abraham didn't refer to the literal physical land but to spiritual Zion:

Hebrews 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God.

Hebrews 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.

The New Testament teaches that those who are of faith are children of Abraham and inherit God's covenant with him. The flesh does not inherit, only the spirit. We look to the spiritual Zion, the city whose builder and maker is God, not to earthly Israel.

Just as did Abraham, as Hebrews 11:10 says. He "sojourned" in the "land of promise," living in a tent, never as a resident of the land, never receiving the fulfillment of THAT land, although God had promised it specifically to him, as well as to his descendants. This alone hints that the land is a symbol or a type of a better "land," which the New Testament brings out more clearly.

HOWEVER: Insofar as the promise pointed to the physical land there is no doubt that God did give it to Abraham and his descendants and therefore nobody else has a claim to it. The covenant with Abraham, unlike the covenant that came through Moses, was unbreakable. The Israelites broke the covenant through Moses but the Abrahamic covenant is everlasting and unbroken. So it's perfectly reasonable to argue that the literal physical land of Israel which was given literal geographic boundaries by God, does belong to the Jews. Even though that land isn't going to be everlasting.

But now we are not talking about the heirs of the promise to Abraham, but to "Jacob," ("supplanter, layer of snares", says Strong's Concordance, the descendants of Abraham "after the flesh" and not after the spirit. Jacob was his given name, but God renamed him "Israel" ("prince with God") after he had finally come to the point of complete dependence on God.

Christians, who inherit the heavenly Jerusalem, have no interest in earthly Israel, and that includes saved Jews as well. But scripture speaks of a "time of trouble" for "Jacob" which many interpret to be yet future, and it is "Jacob" who now lives in Israel, earthly Israel of the flesh.

The point is there CAN'T really be a "replacement" of Israel by the Church because these are two different things, or two different levels. The Church is of heavenly Jerusalem and this world is "passing away." HOWEVER, the Old Testament dealt with a literal fleshly people and a literal physical land, and although the fulfillment of the promise of God is in reality a spiritual or heavenly fulfillment, it may well be that God has further plans for Jacob and for earthly Israel. The point would be that the entire earth belongs to God and His dealing with Israel and in fact His whole plan of redemption, are meant to bring honor and glory to Himself on this Planet Earth, even through all the heathen of the world who are at enmity with Him, and THAT part of His plan is not yet finished.

1 John 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Paul writes poignantly of the temporary blinding of Israel so that the Gentiles might be saved:

Rom 9:2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. Rom 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:Rom 9:4 Who are Israelites; to whom [pertaineth] the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service [of God], and the promises; Rom 9:5 Whose [are] the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ [came], who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Rom 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they [are] not all Israel, which are of Israel: Rom 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Rom 9:8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these [are] not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Rom 10:2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. Rom 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

And this tells us that besides showing the whole world who He is and that He reigns over all things, He WILL also save "all Israel," and clearly all this is yet future.

But it is ALL tending to this point: Those who are saved are saved to the heavenly Jerusalem. Flesh cannot be saved in its current condition. Those who are not born again, who remain flesh, remain unsaved and can only be destined for the lake of fire.

So all those scenarios I keep running across about an ULTIMATE separate destiny for earthly Israel and the Church just don't make sense. Salvation of Jew and Gentile makes us both part of the Church AND part of the heavenly Jerusalem. It may be that there will be a period -- even the Millennium? -- in which Jesus reigns over earth from earthly Jerusalem -- but this can only be a temporary dispensation.

But then there is also to be a new heaven and a new earth and I've never been sure how to fit all these things together:

Revelation 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I'd like to see these points addressed by those who defend that point of view.

"Replacement theology," Israel and the Antichrist

Listening this morning to a talk at a conference in Israel, a conference of mostly pro-Palestinian / anti-Israel Christian leftists, in which this talk was apparently the only one from the opposing point of view.

Apparently the leftist Christian position is based on what is called "replacement theology," the idea that the church has replaced Israel, from which theology the leftists get their hatred of Israel, their arguments that Israel is an apartheid state mistreating the Palestinian people who are the true heirs of the land and so on and so forth.

I don't see the connection. The leftist position, Christian or non-Christian, is just obviously wrong historically and ethically quite apart from whatever theology they appeal to.

There never was any Palestinian people, that is an invention of the haters of Israel. The settling of what eventually became the Jewish state began back in the 19th century when the area known as Palestine had no national identity whatever and no population indigenous to it. Mark Twain visited it and described it as a desolate wasteland. There were a few scattered Arabs and there were also some Jews, mostly in Jerusalem, who had been there from time immemorial. If occupation of the land at that time has any bearing on the argument the Jews have a better claim to it than the Arabs.

The Jews who moved into the area from Europe set about building up this desolate wasteland. What became known as the Palestinian people were Arabs from many of the surrounding Arab nations who came to work for the Jews in this building up. As the Jews succeeded in making the area livable they became the targets of growing hostility from the neighboring Arab nations. When these nations declared war on Israel just as it became a state they simultaneously warned the Arabs living there to escape for their own protection. They did escape and they became the refugees that were ultimately renamed "Palestinians." A whole bogus supposed history was bestowed to make them appear to be the legitimate heirs of the land that had become the Israeli state, and I have the impression that some of them even believe their own lie. Their own Arab people would not absorb them but left them as refugees in order to be a thorn in the side of Israel. Attempts to resolve the situation keep failing because the "Palestinians" have always refused whatever concessions Israel has made to their demands for a state. The reason they refuse is that they hate Israel, period, and want Israel gone, period.

I've written about this more in other posts. The point is that the leftists are motivated by hated of Israel and have no legitimate basis for their hatred and their support of this bogus "Palestinian people." What they call apartheid tactics against the Palestinians, such as a wall that keeps them out except at certain guarded checkpoints, are nothing but attempts by Israel to defend themselves from repeated attacks by the "Palestinians," rockets they fire daily into Israel among other acts of hostility. The whole Palestinian / Leftist claim is a big fat lie. Yet somehow they've managed to make most of the world believe it.

But what does any of this have to do with "replacement theology?" Those who argue against this theology, as the speaker does I've been listening to this morning, emphasize the idea that God's covenant with Israel is still in force because it was everlasting, and it's a covenant that entitles them to the land as well as a covenant to make them the people who will bless the whole world as carriers of the word of the true God and His Messiah.

I have to admit that I don't have a thorough understanding of the scriptures in this situation, but from what I think I understand about it I'm not on either side theologically. I could change my mind but for now it goes like this: I do not believe the church has "replaced" Israel, but I do believe the church is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant God made with Israel. We ARE the "new Israel" through the Messiah, the people of God. The Messiah Himself is the fulfiller of the covenants, He is the blessing to the Gentiles God wanted Israel to be. All that is fulfilled. The land promised to Israel is the "other country" Abraham and others looked to according to Hebrews 11, not an earthly land.

This does NOT mean that God doesn't still have a role for Israel the literal physical land. At the very least we know that scripture promises a huge conversion of Jews to Jesus Christ at the very end of time. But beyond that, it is utterly impossible that the Jews could be on the land and it not be God's will, even though they are still not IN God's will themselves. That physical land is clearly going to be the center of the end times scenario that is probably going to play out very soon. It's most likely going to involve a huge war, a bloodbath, out of which will emerge, if he doesn't preside over it from the beginning, a personage known as the Antichrist who will have the worldwide rule that was coveted by the earlier antichrists such as Hitler.

I don't know what to make of the various theologies that give separate roles to the Jews and the Church. I don't see scripture for that myself. I see scripture saying we are one people, Jew and Gentile, we are all the Church and we are all Israel.

And yet it does seem to be that God may have separate dealings with his original chosen people as these end times unfold. I get this probably more from the current world situation and history than from scripture, though I'm sure there is scripture for it, I'm just not adept at exegeting it.

The leftist position is evil, period. Israel is in the defensive position, not the aggressor position. All this is simply setting the stage for the grand finale showdown between Satan and Christ. It's not going to be fun, there will no doubt be millions of martyrs, but the end result will be the worldwide rule of Christ.

No doubt there are plenty of specifics that I'm overlooking, though I think my position is general enough that they won't contradict anything I've said. I could be wrong.

"Replacement theology" is skewed, there is no replacement but there is fulfillment in the Church, which includes both Jew and Gentile. But nothing in this way of looking at it denies the right of Israel to exist, or that the Jews are still God's people in a historical sense, and it certainly doesn't justify the lying claims for this bogus "Palestinian people" which is just an invention of Satan in his neverending quest to destroy God's people and plans. The leftist "Christians" are just going to be part of the Antichrist's worldwide religion in the end.

Coming Soon to a Planet Near You

When the Antichrist comes will he be like the traditional Maitreya, the messiah expected by the Buddhists, who looks like an Asian with kinky African hair?* Or more like a Middle Eastern man as one would expect of the Imam Mahdi, the messiah figure expected by the Muslims and heralded by Ahmadinejad? Which is also what Benjamin Creme's long-heralded Maitreya more or less looks like, as well as a familiar false image of Christ.

Whatever, he's got to be just about to appear. I suppose he'll mostly be known by his occult powers rather than his looks, but his looks must figure in there somewhere.

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*The feature of kinky hair plus black skin, which is also a characteristic of many painted Maitreya images, links him to Krishna (which means "black") and most particularly links him all the way back to Nimrod, son of Cush, who was identified by Alexander Hislop in his Two Babylons as the first Antichrist and the type of all the gods of the world since then. Hislop brings it all down to the Roman Catholic Church as the channel for all the old pagan religions, Mystery Babylon. The "Virgin Mary" demon (who has appeared all over the world this last century) is his candidate for The Beast. And the Protestant Reformers identifed the papacy as the Antichrist system. So we have no shortage of sources for the final evil leader of the world, Satan's masterpiece. Whoever it is will no doubt have to be able to unite all the various messiah expectations under one banner somehow or other.

Some of my old posts at Faith's Corner on this general theme are here.

End Times themes on internet radio

I've been listening more often lately to Brannon Howse's Worldview Weekend radio broadcasts, and found this recent interesting series:

...20 similarities between the false church in Nazi Germany that laid the foundation for the acceptance of Hitler and the rising global false church that will lay the foundation for the acceptance of the antichrist.

Howse is a sharp defender of the true gospel against the growing apostasies that have been infecting the churches, including today's tendency for American conservatives to choose political goals over gospel goals, and including the influences of the cults, the Roman church, Mormonism, etc.

He's certainly not the only one sounding the trumpet but for some reason he's been attracting what seems like an unusual amount of hostility. All I can say is good for him.

Another good one on similar subjects is Chris Pinto's Noise of Thunder radio program.

Another is Jan Markell's Understanding the Times broadcasts.

The Rapture scenario continues to elude me

Just a quick report. I'm struggling through Hal Lindsey's book of 1999, Vanished, which was recommended to me as a help to resolve my ongoing inability to settle the questions involving the idea of a premillennial Rapture. Well, it doesn't resolve it. Yet. But I am having a very hard time reading it. Something about the way it is organized makes it hard for me to follow, and he spends too much time, for my purposes anyway, answering other interpretive schemes that don't persuade me at all anyway -- Dominionism and Reconstructionism for instance. For some time I've found the premillennial interpretation to be the best of the field at elucidating the scripture, just not entirely convincing to me yet.

I'm MOSTLY convinced that scripture does describe the return of Jesus in two different sets of terms such that the idea of the Rapture of the Church's occurring separately from His return to earth as conquering king is a reasonable interpretation. That is not completely resolved for me either because I'm not entirely sure which references apply to which event, and there's one that's taken to apply to the Rapture that has the Lord appearing with a "shout" that hardly sounds like a quiet snatching-away of His people. BUT overall the two-stage return of Christ is plausible. And there is precedent for such a division into two in the fact that Jesus' first advent only fulfilled the Suffering Servant prophecies of the Old Testament, leaving the prophecies of his return as triumphant warrior king for the Second Coming, which wasn't clearly understood until after His resxurrection and ascension. So as we approach the last of the last days it seems perfectly reasonable that a more precise outline of His return should also begin to appear, and also to expect that it too won't be fully understood until it is upon us or even later.

Unfortunately it's hard to point to exactly what it is that gives me the most trouble with Lindsey's presentation. Cobra helicopters are the least of the problem though. There is one place Lindsey makes himself utterly untrustworthy it seems to me, when he brings up Jesus' likening the kingdom of heaven to leaven gradually worked throughout a lump. Lindsey simply insists that scripture ONLY uses "leaven" to refer to sin and evil, without explaining how on earth he can treat its use to represent "the kingdom of heaven" in the same way. The Dominionists no doubt misuse that passage to support their cause but that's no excuse to try to make it refer to something else it obviously doesn't refer to. That lost me completely and shakes my faith in Lindsey's thinking. But it's a minor point in the overall interpretive scheme.

One thing I've always had a problem with concerning Rapture scenarios that put a great emphasis on the completion of God's dealings with Israel, is how to view the covenant of the land God gave to Abraham. Certainly it was given without condition and forever, but there is also the passage in Hebrews where we are told that Abraham was not looking to an earthly land but to an eternal abode -- unless I've utterly misunderstood that passage.

Hebrews 11:8-16: By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as [in] a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, [so many] as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that [country] from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better [country], that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

I see present-day Israel on the earthly land and can't help but attribute that to God's own purposes -- what other option is there? But does that make that earthly land the fulfillment of the covenant promise? Aren't Christians also "heirs of Abraham" and as such also heirs of that unconditional covenant, and doesn't that put the covenant on a New Testament footing that changes how we are to understand it? We are to read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, that's our primary directive for Biblical exegesis.

Yet it's not impossible to my mind that some -- a few -- of the promises to the Jews may not be completely fulfilled in the New Covenant and remain to be fulfilled -- or that there is a double fulfillment in the Church and earthly Israel both. Of course I can't go with any interpretation that seems to imply that the Jews are not to be saved by the same means as all the rest of us, through the death of Christ. Lindsey doesn't seem to make that error but he's a tad ambiguous on that point, and others of his basic persuasion do make that error.

One thing I am very sure of is that there remains a "week" or seven years left over from Daniel's prophecy of the time required to completely fulfill God's plan for Israel, the "seventieth week of Daniel" left after the first 69 were fulfilled in the first coming of Christ. I'm just not completely sure how to understand its purpose. Apparently it includes, or is synonymous with, the Day of the Lord, the time of the Antichrist, a time of unprecedented evil on the earth, also known as the Great Tribulation, during which time the vast majority of believers will be martyred. This idea of the fulfillment of God's plan for israel is hardly a happy one.

This period is also foreshadowed in Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, the first verse of which Jesus read in the synagogue to announce His Messiahship, leaving out the second verse which refers to the Day of the Lord, now clearly to be connected with His second coming:

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

It appears that it isn't primarily the Rapture itself that's the problem for me, it's the whole scenario in which the Rapture occurs, and especially what supposedly happens AFTER the Rapture. Of course a different understanding of all that could change my acceptance of the timing of the Rapture itself too.

But overall I'm still where I was when I began this book by Lindsey. Well, I'll keep reading and perhaps reread the book, since I don't feel I'm getting anything very clear out of it yet.

The "Locusts" of Revelation 9, what are they?

As I came to the end of Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit I turned to a book by Hal Lindsey, Vanished, that had been recommended to me as possibly able to resolve my ongoing vacillations about a Pretribulation Rapture. I wouldn't ordinarily have sought out a book by Lindsey because he's so often ridiculed for some extreme positions he's taken, but I figure it's worth a try since I appreciate the ministry that recommended it.

One of his far-out positions was his interpretation of the "locusts" of Revelation 9 as possibly Cobra helicopters. This seemed so nutty to me too that I pretty much gave up on Hal Lindsey as any kind of trustworthy exegete of the Bible.

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts [were] like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads [were] as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings [was] as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power [was] to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, [which is] the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue [is] Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath [his] name Apollyon.

Lindsey mentions this in Vanished:

The most common criticism leveled against me by my adversaries is that I see "Cobra helicopters" as possibly being described in Revelation 9:5-10. This was presented as an opinion in my book The Apocalypse Code, in which I gave a detailed explanation for it. Whatever this passage means, it is a composite desription from may different things that is obviously intended to be symbolic. There is no insect, beast, or man in nature that fits what is described. Ample evidence can be found within the Book of Revelation to establish that John wrote about things he saw and heart while projected into the future. I believe John actually saw and heart things by Direct Divine revdelation that wree centuries future to his own time and still future to us. He was commanded to write about what he had seen. He therefore had to describe very advanced scientific creations of a much lateral time ihn terms of his first-century knowledge and experience. This is my opinion, and I believe it makes good sense. If you don't buy that, it's okay with me; show me something better.

There seems to be a problem here with an assumption that what John saw was necessarily an "advanced scientific creation." That's not the first thing that comes to my mind when I read the passage. I think of some kind of demonic creature from the deep abyss with special characteristics and special powers. I haven't read Hal Lindsey's argument for helicopters, though, and perhaps he should be given the benefit of the doubt that he finds something in the scriptural passage that fits his interpretation of a machine of some sort.

But then I as I picked up his book today and reread this description it reminded me of something I'd just read in Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit that might actually vindicate Lindsey's interpretation somewhat, not entirely but somewhat.

Eckart Flother is describing some strange supernatural occurrences he experienced in Poona, India, at Rajneesh's ashram.

"And I was getting paranoid after some time. I was not so much getting paranoid, I was asking the people around me, 'Do you see this?' ... And the peak event was when I was standing with several people and we were going to cross the street. And there was something, an 'Entity,' I don't know what it was..." He laughed in irony.

"Go on," I said.

"It looked like a mixture of a big truck but with a lot of lights approaching at high speed, two hundred kilometers per hour, or about one hundred and twenty miles per hour. It also looked a little bit like a dragon. And this entity or whatever came down the road like ... 'whhhhshhhh' ... and I was standing there ... "

I had to ask just to make sure, "Were you stoned at the time?"

"No, I was straight," Eckart replied in earnest. "I was stoned occasionally, but in all these major experiences I was straight".

"When you say Entity, it was alive?" John and I asked.

"It was very tangible and in the first place the image was like an old locomotive, chugging, but the interesting thing was a lot of light all over it."

"You never find anything on an Indian street going two hundred kilometers an hour. That's an impossibility." My years in India were surfacing.

"And you see the interesting thing was it was like ... normally Indian roads are full of people ... and this street was empty, a perfect set-up."

"What was the feeling you had when it went by."

"It was a mixture of entertainment and being a bit frightened... I couldn't see it properly. But nothing flies down a narrow INdian road at two hundred kilometers an hour. It is physically impossible. This was very tangible... So I had the feeling that something was going on, especially at the Poona ashram."

"It's an evil city," I said. "A lot of these gods in temples actually look like locomotives. I remember the huge Kali form in the temple in Calcutta ... looked just like a locomotive. And the Bible speaks of the forms that idols are based on as being elemental spirits that are demonic."

Certainly what Eckart had seen fit the pattern. I was convinced, with Eckart and John, that it was a rare demonic manifestation. It sounded like a massive collective entity.... [p. 180-1]

As, in a way, do the "locusts" of Revelation 9, or in their case separate collective entities, each made up of multiple parts.

And although I don't see much of a mechanical component in those locusts it's interesting that Eckart's entity had such a component, first seeming like a large truck, and also like a locomotive, but it was also like a dragon and had a quality that suggests the whole thing was alive in some sense.

It's also possibly relevant in this regard that Ezekiel describes in his first chapter a vision he had of four creatures that together could appear to embody something like a chariot with four wheels, and the wheels have a living spirit in them.

So if Lindsey is right to find anything resembling a Cobra helicopter in the locusts, it would most likely not be the actual machine itself but something along these lines, a living creature or composite living creature with attributes of a machine as part of the composite.

And of course all this also reminds me of speculations about the increase in UFO phenomena as a clue to a likely last days major UFO invasion of sorts in which they are to contribute to the mass delusion of the Antichrist, and probably make a handy excuse to explain away the Rapture of the Church if it does occur. While as far as I know nobody has yet suggested the UFO "vehicles" themselves could be alive in the sense the truck entity appeared to be or Ezekiel's wheels, the fact that they don't behave according to any known laws of physics, and that we (Christians) know the whole UFO phenomenon to be a demonic manifestation, makes something like that also a possibility -- a composite demonic creation of some sort, as Tal suggests.

Such possibilities make my old bones ache to get off this planet, but I can't be very happy thinking of all the people who may have to experience such demonic manifestations and worse if they live into the very last of the last days.