Posted on 11/27/2001 5:15:03 PM PST by crystalk
St Paul, after his conversion in Damascus, spent a period in exile in Arabia. This is usually given as five years; surely it was between 3 and 7 years. The reason given for this period of study, meditation, and contemplation is usually that he had a price on his head set by the religious authorities in Jerusalem on account of his conversion to Christianity in AD 37. Conventionally, he is said to have re-emerged from Arabia to live in Antioch (present Antakya in Turkey at NE corner of the Med) for the next period of his life, using it as a base for his famous missionary journeys and then (in 59-60) saying farewell to it forever when he was sent to Rome as a prisoner.
It is because of Paul's experience in Arabia that he is able to tell us that Sinai, the Mount of God, is located there, not in the so-called Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. He also visited Mecca, which even then was the shining star of the entire Arab people and peninsula, home of the shrines and mystery cults to the goddesses of the Moon and Venus; even then centered at the Black Stone of the Ka'aba, the Stone that Fell Down From Venus.
We know that this cult is very ancient, and from the point of view of the Jews, very Satanic. Some 4000 years ago, Abraham's first-born son, Ishmael, had become a priest of that cult, and he lived out his days as such there in Mecca. This despite Abraham's visiting him there to try to talk him into returning to worship of YHWH. The prophet Daniel, writing in the sixth century BC (yes, yes, I know the rabbinic committees kept redacting him, deleting material, revising...until BC 162, but that is a purely literary process. The prophet died in 529 or 519 BC, according to two differing traditions.)...Daniel called this cult the Abomination of Desolation, or the Abomination that will Make (the Land) Desolate...for by its murder and lawlessness it will cause the depopulation of the Land...
Jesus tells his incredulous listeners on the Mt of Olives that this desert abomination of the Arabs would be set up right there, right before their eyes as it were, on the Temple Mount! This happened after the Islamic conquest of 638, the Dome of the Rock's dedication in 691, and el-Aqsa's dedication in 707. As Jesus said, Christians were to flee for their lives from the land when they saw this. In 638, 4 million persons lived in Israel. In 1798, when Napoleon visited he found just 45,000 persons living in the entire country, two-thirds of those in the city of Jerusalem, and all desperately poor. The Abomination had caused the Desolation.
Even now, that Abomination still stands in the Holy Place in the person of the Dome, showing Christians that (A) they are not to seek to domicile themselves in that Land, in fact they are to flee it for their lives!...and (B) that the Times of the Gentiles, also known as the Indignation or Wrath of God, against Israel in this world for its sins, is not yet over. Yet that wrath is someday to end, someday soon. The prophetic numbers are given, but that is another subject.
In 2 Thess 2, Paul having returned from Mecca tells us that (a) the Mecca cult, also known as the Mystery of Iniquity, was already in operation, up and running. No one restrained it from taking over the World, except the Roman (European) power, and no one but that power ever would restrain it. When that power (of Rome) was taken out of the way, then the Man of Sin (Mohammed) would be revealed, the son of perdition, whose cult would set itself up in the place of God, and show itself off to the entire world as if it WERE God. Never would we be entirely free of the Mecca cult, Paul warns, until the Second Coming of Jesus, at which time the brightness of Jesus' coming would destroy it. We can know that Jesus has not returned, the eschaton has not happened, because Mecca still flaunts its demonic self in God's place.
Paul thus warns us explicitly against preterism, for he says that fraudulent letters in his name and those of the other apostles, were already circulating in his own day, to the effect that the Second Coming would occur in that time (1st Cent) or even already Had Occurred! (!)
But Paul will have none of it. No, no, he says, the End will not come until there is a falling away (from truth and religious observance, on the part of Christians and Jews) and that Man of Sin (Mohammed) been revealed, the final display of whose cult we may not yet have seen, for some teach that the Black Stone will actually be brought from Mecca and placed there on God's mountain, along with His White Stone.
May that not occur, may the Mecca Cult speedily be brought down in our days, May the Temple speedily be rebuilt in our days, and May the Prophecies speedily all be fulfilled in our days, is my prayer.
PS. In Rev. 3, Jesus tells us (but specifically the Eastern (orthodox) churches, who dwell there facing the Mecca cult, where Satan's seat is...that if they can overcome it, Jesus will give them a share in His Own White Stone, the eben shetiya atop the Temple Mount-- a dramatic contrast with Satan's Black Stone in Mecca.
I am going to say it again:
THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS A PALESTINIAN IN THE CURRENT SENSE OF THE WORD AS MEANING A SUBSET OF ARABS WHO LIVE IN, OR WISH THEY DID, THE LAND OF ISRAEL, UNTIL THE LAST THIRTY TO FORTY-NINE YEARS!
May those words echo in the minds of even those who think all of Christianity, much less my original post, is meritless.
Who says I believe in "moderate Palestinians?" What does that have to do with your hallucinations?
Nevermind, I realize your prescription has run out.
We must start thinking outside the box of our traditions.
The French women will be the first bringing it in as fashon chic then every woman will want it.Halston, Channel, and Ralph Loren will all make a fortune.
It has been very gratifying to me to see so little hate and vitriol, and so much encouragement and support, on this thread, and the some 16 private mail messages are also very kind and encouraging --if a little heartbreaking at times, to see how little Christians knew about their mortal Enemy --until September 11...
Actually, considering that your previous irresponsible use of Paul is demonstrably false, I feel quite justified in lumping you among those against whom Paul warns us.
The writers of the fraudulent letters, and the letters themselves, are long gone now, but Islam lives and is about to bite you.
What you have done is take a little history and speculation about Mecca, hypothesized that Paul went there, and then extrapolated some suppositions into 2 Thessalonians -- which says nothing at all about Mecca. Nor does it say anything about Muhammad or Islam(unsurprising, given that they didn't show up for another 500 years). And then you come up with "Paul warned us that Islam is the anti-Christ."
Other than some tenuous suppositions on your part, there is nothing in 2 Thessalonians to support your contentions.
And as a matter of fact, neither Islam nor Mohammed even fit the description that 2Thess. provides: Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
Regardless of whatever other problems Islam has, it cannot be said to have placed itself, or Mohammed, above God.
One can much more easily apply the description to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Bill Clinton, or Madeline Murray O'Hare.
The writers of the fraudulent letters, and the letters themselves, are long gone now, but Islam lives and is about to bite you.
I hate to say it, but your essay seems to fit the description rather well. My assessment of your position is this: you're suspicious and fearful of Islam-inspired unrest, and are looking for Biblical confirmation of your views. It is your desire to find it, that causes you to make the unfounded connection between 2 Thessalonians and Islam. Peter spoke to that as follows:
First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (2 Pet. 1:20-21)
Prophet Isaiah is considered to be one of the major prophets of the Old Testament. In the Book of Isaiah there are several prophecies about the coming of the Messiah.
In chapter 42, Isaiah begins with a prophecy for the coming of prophet Jesus.
After verse number nine, God declares through Isaiah, the "new things" that are to "spring forth" in the Land of Kedar.
(" . . the villages that Kedar doth inhabit ISAIAH 42:11 Kedar being Ishmael's offspring. "Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar. . ." EZEKIEL 27:21 )
In the Bible there is only one personality called Kedar.
He was the grandson of prophet Abraham, through his son Ishmael (see Gen. 25:13). Kedar's descendants had settled in Paran (Syno-Arabian dessert). In the Rabbinic literature Arabia is called the "Land of Kedar". Prophet Muhammad was a descendant of Kedar.
God declares through Prophet Isaiah;
"Behold, the former things are come to pass, and the new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them. `Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth'. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voices, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord, and declare His praise in the inlands." Isaiah Chapter 42, Verses 9-12.
PS Seen in shop window in JQ, Jerusalem: "Will Rogers never met a Palestinian."
I only hope that the prophecy you give is fulfilled soon, but other passages of Scripture leave me gloomy on that, making me think that it will only be at the very Second Coming that the Mecca cult is at last destroyed. 2 Thess 2 is one of those passages...
If the comforter is the Holy Ghost then how many Holy Ghost's are there?
The word "another" is significant. We have already seen how this term is applied to Jesus himself. In English, "another" may mean "One more of the same kind" or "one more of a different kind."
If the latter were the one intended then the current Christian interpretation might bear some merit. However, if "One more of the same kind" was what was intended then this is positive proof that the coming Paraclete would be just like Jesus, a human being and a prophet, not a ghost.
The actual Greek word used was the word "allon" which is the masculine accusative form of "allos" {al'-los}: "Another of the SAME kind." The Greek word for "another of a different kind" is "heteros" {het'-er-os}.
What vanity and arrogance to state that you know God sent no messenger to the other sons of Abraham.
So now you're a prophet? (sighs. rolls eyes.)
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