Things are getting out of control every which way in our world. Don't you feel that? The kids are going crazy. The storms are wrecking havoc all over our land with news again today of another state being declared a state of emegency. The food, gas and oil prices continue to increase and now the utilitiy companies are starting to announce higher electric bills are on the horizon. This is just the beginning.
It just seems physically, emotionally, globally, religiously, economically, politically and every which way we are in turmoil. All over the world.
From a Christian POV I do believe it's not going to go on much longer. I think we are at the "birth pang" stage and it's not going to be that much longer for the world as we know it. Many Christians who have studied the signs of the times for years are pretty much in agreement. "Keep looking up" they say as they end their correspondence with each other.
I'm reading a book "EpiCenter" by Joel Rosenberg which is quite an eye opener as he puts these things all together looking from the lens of scripture. He has already been on the New York Best Seller's List with his works of fiction so he was asked by the publisher to write this, a non-fiction book, to help put all the pieces of the end time puzzle together. He has an uncany knack for predicting things ahead of time via his writings that are eerily very close to reading the newspaper. So he's been questioned. Over and over again. "How do you know this is going to happen? How can you write about things that haven't happened yet?"
Easy. He's looking at prophecy and making some pretty good educated guesses and he's hitting the bullseye.
He's been on every radio and TV station out there for the most part as well as interviewed by the UN and CIA. This is pretty big stuff he's writing about. Poitics, Russia, Islam, Iran, Israel and how the stage is being set for what is called the war of Armageddon. The countries are lined up exactly as written 2,500 hundred years ago. He even had a bible study going in the UN because they wanted to read and understand what he was referring to. Pretty cool. The UN reading the Book of Ezekiel. He himself was pretty amazed at even that one.
One of the things he says to watch out for, and I've known this before, is to watch for Oil to be found in Israel. Now that will cause much turmoil. Good for us perhaps? But bad for the Arabs in the surrounding countries I'm sure. Israel is known to be the only middle eastern country with no oil. They have been surrounded by countries dripping with oil, but they, up until now, have not been so fortunate. It will happen.
In Rosenberg's fictional best seller "The Last Jihad" he wrote about a fictional oil strike in Israel discovered by a fictional American investment company run by a fictional Russian Jewish petroleum engineer.
Just days before his novel was released in 2002 a newsflash came across the wires "Israeli Geologist Drills for Oil Based on Biblical Guidance." The article was about an Orthodox Jew born and raised in Russia who became convinced while studying the bible that there was black gold buried in Israel. So convinced he moved to Israel and has conducted much research into this and had concluded at first that there are 65 million barrels of oil in central Israel alone. But he was wrong.
A year later the news broke that this guy, Tovia Luskin and his collegues, had discovered oil reservoirs at their drilling site holding not 65 million barrels but 100 million barrels. A few months later came more news. New testing revealed that the site contained upward of a billion barrels leading the AP to report "An Israeli oil company has made the largest oil find in the hisory of the country."
Here are some headlines around the world since then:
NATURAL GAS, OIL FOUND IN DEAD SEA-Jerusalem Post, April 1, 2004
ISRAEL STRIKES BLACK GOLD-Arutz Sheva, May 4, 2004
OIL BARON SEEKS GUSHER FROM GOD IN ISRAEL-Reuters, April 4, 2005
IN ISRAEL, OIL QUEST IS BASED ON FAITH-Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2005
HIS MISSION: SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND OIL-USA Today, May 19, 2005
A VISION OF OIL IN THE HOLY LAND-Newsweek, June 12, 2005
MOSES' OILY BLESSING: WILL ISRAEL FIND OIL?-The Economist, June 18, 2005
IS ISRAEL SITTING ON AN ENORMOUS OIL RESERVE?-World/Net Daily, Sept 2005
They say history repeats itself. Will we ever learn to listen and read the world thru the lens of scripure? Probably not. But just as the bible told us the world was round and not flat and that the earth was suspended on nothing so too does the bible indicate who the major players will be in the greaestt battle of all times and that there will be peace in Israel once again.
"See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying "I am the Christ" and they will lead many asray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and thre will be famines and earthqueakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake." Jesus in Matthew 24
Keep looking up!