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.
Admit it, you all know I am right, you just don't want to be politically incorrect by opposing Islam.
Or, you don't want your Muslim neighbor to shoot you.
Whichever is the case, the NT foresees many, many more things than are dreamed of in your philosophy, as does the Tanakh.
The abomination of desolation (or little horn) is a dual event, as is most major prophecy. - until you understand that principle you would do better to lurk here and read; there are some really brilliant contributors here at FR (and I don't mean myself :-) that can teach you a lot.
Furthermore, if Mohammed and his Muslim armies of fanatics, not yet extinct by any means, are not world leaders/dictators, what then ARE they? The Antichrist (Mahdi) is just a future epitome of fanatical demonic Islam...
You just never read anything here, do you?
I would think that this was humor if you weren't "foaming at the mouth" in your replies.
I notice you say nothing to apologize for three stated or implied outright falsehoods:
A. That the A of D might have been Antiochus, when you know Jesus says that ALL/both applications are future.
B. That the Hebrew word "shamam" can (you say) mean a dirt or stain, etc. rather than a wasteland, a desolation, wilderness, desert...Either you have no Hebrew at all, or you were intentionally attempting to mislead.
C. You also imply (and nearly SAY) that the A of D is mentioned in Revelation, when you know that it is not. You also say that it there represents a world political leader such as a dictator, which it might sometimes be, perhaps, but cannot do so in Revelation for there it never appears.
Oh, no, I have not lost it. I am onto every trick.
Interesting post. Speculative at a number of places but thought provoking.
I cannot point you to published sources, of course. Why? If you think Salman Rushdie got into trouble, what do you think would be done to any publishing house or published author who published THIS?
Just go stay a week or two in a Serbian Orthodox monastery, and study with the good brothers there, and you will learn much about Islam, much more than even I (a mere babe by comparison) know or have suffered...
Please explain why specifically the Eastern Orthodox churches. Where did this come from ?
Bah! Muslims will have them all for lunch, will kill them sooner than they will me.
Walvoord was president of Dallas Seminary for many years and taught me biblical prophecy. He is a recognized scholar on the books of Daniel and Revelation.
Walvoord was president of Dallas Seminary for many years and taught me biblical prophecy. He is a recognized scholar on the books of Daniel and Revelation.
Paul and Abraham were both rich, they both toured Arabia, they both had a flair for publicity and would never have turned down the opportunity to visit the largest (and one of the few then) cities IN Arabia, and get the title of Hodge thrown in for free!
Do you seriously think that a millionaire tourist visiting America in 1899 would not have seen Niagara Falls? Saratoga? Grand Canyon, maybe Yellowstone>
But those are very UNlikely. That Paul and Abraham visited Mecca is like saying those tourists visited New York City!
Besides that, of course, we are told in Qaballah that they did so visit anyway. Muslims themselves admit they visited, and have legends about it.
Were there any other incidents where Christians were being killed as a service to God?
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