Dear friends and readers,
The subject of todays article is Biblical prophecy. Several questions present themselves where prophecy is concerned. First, can it be relied upon? Second, is there actual proof that Biblical prophecy has been fulfilled? Third, do we really have any accurate idea about where we are in relationship to the end times?
Frankly we do have some fairly accurate information but there is also a lot of speculation that is merely that---speculation. In fact there is so much speculation that it represents a very large suitcase full of a combination of fact and fantasy.
Today I intend to unpack that suitcase.
Lets take them in order; 1). Can Biblical prophecy be relied upon? For the answer to that one must ask themselves a question? Do I accept the Bible as written? Do I believe what it says? If you can say yes to both of those then the answer is found in Amos chapter 3 verse 7 (God speaking through His prophet) "SURELY THE LORD GOD DOES NOTHING, UNLESS HE REVEALS HIS SECRET TO HIS SERVANTS THE PROPHETS"! Bottom line is that God says exactly what He means and means exactly what He says. Yes, the Bible can absolutely be relied upon and that has even been proven repeatedly through historical research and in many cases scientific study.
2). Is there actual proof that Biblical prophecy has been fulfilled? The answer? WOW, yes in deed there has.
Long standing Hebrew theology states that a Biblical Messianic prophecy (having to do with the identity of the Messiah) must be fulfilled at a rate of 100% accuracy in order for any person to be recognized as Messiah. It should be noted here that depending upon which scholar you are reading, estimates range from 63 to over 300 Messianic prophecies recorded in the Bible. Having reviewed them all, I personally believe that 63 are absolutely clear and up to 100 are valid with sufficient study. Above that figure some of the prophecies that are sometimes attached to Messianic fulfillment are nebulous at best.
AN EXAMPLE: One must ask themselves how many people since creation have ever been born of a virgin mother? In the town of Bethlehem? Well lets see now, actually I can only think of one, how about you? Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel and the head of the church. See Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2 for verification.
In forensic science, when examining the DNA of any particular person, the mathematical odds of any two people (of different family groups) having the very same DNA is said to be less than 1 chance in several billion. There is a Professor named Peter Stoner who came up with an example that was verified by the American Scientific Association. You may have heard this example used elsewhere; His group was calculating the odds of one individual fulfilling ALL the conditions of one single Biblical prophecy. In this case a person being betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver, (Zechariah 11:13, prophesied about Messiah in 487 B.C. and fulfilled in 30 A.D. Matthew 26:15).
Professor Stoner calculated the odds of one person exactly fulfilling this one prophecy plus 7 more Messianic prophecies as follows; An astronomical amount of one in ten to the 21st power (10/21). He illustrated that with an inspiring example. First blanket the entire earth land mass with silver dollars 120 feet high which would be several Trillion coins. Mark only one of these dollars with an X and randomly bury it somewhere within that immense pile of coins. Blind fold one person and ask them to travel the earth and find that one single coin marked with an X. Yes, you are correct, that would be impossible.
That is the chance mathematically of one single person exactly fulfilling just 8 Messianic prophecies.
Now lets proceed to a single person exactly fulfilling just 63 Messianic prophecies (which Jesus did plus some). That would represent one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion. That's right, 1 chance in 13 trillion.
To sweeten the pot for you; How much is 1 trillion? It is 10 hundred billion, and 1 billion represents 10 hundred million. Another example you may have heard; If you were alive when Christ walked the earth and someone gave you one trillion dollars and every single day of the past 2000 years you gave away 1 million dollars, you would still have money left over today! From only 1 trillion and Jesus fulfilled a minimum of 1 chance in 13 trillion.
But that's not all; The modern nation of Israel once again becoming a reality on May 14, 1948 fulfilled a minimum of 10 Biblical prophecies (I can actually pinpoint far more than that).
The Jewish people returning back to Israel from all the nations of the world they were once dispersed to represents an additional 85 Biblical prophecies which are still in the making. This would, when complete also represent a fulfillment of Ezekiel chapter 37, the "Dry Bones" prophecy of Israel's restoration.
Have any doubt now? Yes, very much Biblical prophecy has been fulfilled already and we have solid proof. AND there is a huge amount of Biblical prophecy yet to come and will do so all the way through the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
At this very moment calls have been put out by key Islamic leadership throughout the Middle East to assemble an army of MILLIONS of Muslims to march on Israel and destroy her once and for all. If that huge army becomes a reality could it be a fulfillment in the near future of the war listed in Psalm 83?
Russia, Persia (Iran) and Turkey are all working together with Syria on or near Israel's northern border of the Golan heights in a bid for total Middle East dominance. Could that represent a runup to the Gog from the land of Magog war listed in Ezekiel chapters 38-39?
Hezbollah the terror organization who has all but taken over Lebanon, currently has an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles pointed at Israeli cities. Israel is currently building up to an all out war footing for a war with Hezbollah.
Hamas, another terror group currently in charge of the Palestinians living on the Gaza strip are bitter enemies of Israel and are once again being armed by Iran. Could wars between the Syrian coalition, Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel result in the final total destruction of the ancient Syrian city of Damascus as prophesied in Isaiah chapter 17?
All of these things and more may well be on the immediate horizon not to mention ongoing extreme tension between the fanatical religious leadership in Iran and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who has loudly declared that if the United States and other world powers do not (SOON) deny Iran's desire to obtain nuclear weaponry, then he (the Crown Prince) will also!
I will be writing an article next week surrounding the upcoming Biblical feast days of Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits. That time frame begins just 10 days from now on March 30th.
Why would that be important to followers of Christ?
First, Jesus is and always will be the Messiah of Israel.
Second, Jesus chose to give His life (for the atonement of mankind sins) exactly on Passover.
He was buried precisely on Unleavened Bread.
He was risen from the grave precisely of First Fruits.
Some theologians believe the rapture of the church could happen some year during the 40 day period following the feast of Passover and just prior to Jesus ascension to heaven. According to many (not myself by the way---I do not set dates), the rapture could happen on or before the traditional date of Jesus Ascension to heaven which on the Gregorian calendar this year is sometime after sunset on May 10th.
Personally what I do know is two things: First, the rapture is an IMMINENT event and requires no Biblical prophecy to be fulfilled prior to it happening.
Second, I have no idea when the rapture will occur but I do know that the world is currently in the greatest mess it has seen since World War II and becoming more and more dire by the day.
Biblical prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes at an unprecedented rate. To answer the third and final question, are we in the end times? I believe so. What do you think?
Prophetically speaking, what time is it for the world??? You decide!
God bless,
Pastor Rance.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Why Jerusalem is not Islam's 3rd holiest site
Dear friends and readers,
Peace and grace to all of you in Jesus Great name!
Periodically I find an article by another author that I realize says it all and I could not do a better job. This weeks article is about truth. I have received permission to reprint the article listed above written by a well known author by the name of Joseph Farah. Further I sincerely recommend that my readers subscribe to this mans work.
If you really want to know how important the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is to the Muslims/Islam this article will tell the tale.
Link to the Original Article by Joseph Farah at WND.com: http://www.wnd.com/2018/02/why-jerusalem-is-not-islams-3rd-holiest-site/
You’ve undoubtedly heard that Jerusalem represents the third holiest city in Islam.
That is provably untrue.
Or, perhaps you’ve read in Wikipedia or heard on CNN that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest place of worship in Islam.
That, too, is a provable lie.
Or, maybe you heard about the vote by UNESCO in 2016 that denied any Israeli connection to the Temple Mount, referring it only by the Islamic name, “Haram al-Sharif.”
Before I get to the history of these myths, these aberrant legends, these anti-Semitic fictions from hell, let me tell you why anyone with a clear head and objective, rational mind can see the truth in spite of the powerful delusion that has cast a spell upon the world – deliberately, with political purpose and very recently, too.
Everyone should recognize the No. 1 holy site in all Islam is Mecca, the Qaba, which draws millions of pilgrims annually – perhaps more than any other religious shrine in the world. For instance, while some 5 million visit the Vatican City every year, 18 million Muslims visit Saudi Arabia and, almost all of them, go to Mecca, which doesn’t allow non-Muslims to enter the city. The annual five-day Hajj, alone, attracted more than 2 million in 2017.
Spiritual pilgrimages are a big deal in Islam, and the No. 2 holy site in all Islam is probably Medina, where Muhammad is buried.
But after Mecca and Medina, there is actually much dispute, even among Muslims, as to which would be Islam’s third holiest city. Why? Because while Mecca and Medina are considered holy to all Muslim followers of Muhammad and Allah, not all of them are Sunni. Sunni Islam adherents represent about 80 percent, or roughly 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. But another 20 percent are Shia, representing as many as 300 million. And Shia Muslims revere shrines in two other cities in Iraq – Najaf and Karbala.
How many make pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala annually during the Shia Arba’een Pilgrimage? Hold on to your burqa or keffiyeh. Some accounts put it at 30 million from as many as 40 countries, often braving attacks from Sunni terrorists and usually traveling barefoot. That’s right. This Arba’een Pilgrimage, is a much longer one than the five-day Mecca Hajj and, according to many sources, much larger in sheer number of participants.
Now let’s consider Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem.
How many Muslims make pilgrimage to Jerusalem? Israel hosts a total of about 2 million tourists from all over the world every year, but only a tiny fraction are Muslims. Israeli tourists are diverse ethnically but almost all Jewish and Christian. And please don’t tell me Muslims are not welcome, because they are. In 2014, the latest statics I could find, showed 26,700 tourists from Indonesia; 23,000 from Turkey; 17,700 from Jordan; 9,000 from Malaysia and 3,300 from Morocco. And those were the biggest numbers.
And maybe you think Muslims stopped coming to Jerusalem, their “third holiest city,” after Israel reunified it in 1967. Quite the opposite. There was scarcely any interest in Jerusalem when Jordan controlled Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Even King Hussein never visited Jerusalem during the time he controlled part of the city for two decades.
If you want to go back further, before the first Zionist Aliyah, you can see what the Dome of the Rock circa 1875 looked like – abandoned, in total disrepair, unvisited. In fact, it didn’t get its famous gold-plated roof until the 1950s under Jordanian control, and it had to be redone in 1993 under Israeli authority.
While we’re starting to travel back in history, let’s look for Jerusalem in the Quran. Let me save you some time. You can stop looking. You won’t find it. It’s not there, though a passage we read in the Quran did indeed inspire the building of Al-Aqsa.
The Muslim “claim” to Jerusalem is based on what is written in the Quran in Sura 17:1, which says, “Glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Furthest Mosque.” How did this “Furthest Mosque” become the one visited by Muhammad in a dream in which he rode a flying camel or horse?
In Muhammad’s lifetime, Jerusalem was occupied by the Byzantine Empire. While Muhammad died in 632, Jerusalem was captured by Muslims in 638. When they came, of course, there was no mosque and no Dome of the Rock anywhere in Jerusalem, only churches. One of those churches is believed to have been built atop the Temple Mount. It may have even been converted into the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In fact, both the dome and the mosque display undeniably noticeable Byzantine architectural influences.
When rivals of Muhammad’s successors captured Jerusalem from the Christians, they first built the Dome of the Rock, a shrine the conquerors believed to have been the site of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 A.D. The dome was completed in 691 and the Al-Aqsa Mosque some 20 years later, or some 80 years after the death of Muhammad. The “ascension” of Muhammad from the rock under the dome is believed to have been conjured during this period by Khalif Omar, who sought to construct a new holy site to rival the one in Mecca.
Nevertheless, the idea of establishing this shrine and the Al-Aqsa mosque atop the old Temple Mount as permanent Islamic holy places did not catch on, as we can see by comparing them to others in Mecca, Medina, Najaf and Karbala.
In fact, not through the entire time of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which controlled Jerusalem until World War I, and not until 1929, did the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque stir any passionate interest in Islam. And that was thanks to Adolf Hitler’s Muslim friend, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who reminded his radical followers of Muhammad’s “Night Journey.” He stoked the myth to initiate riots that year.
Then, another dreamer, after the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel reunified Jerusalem under its control, Yasser Arafat, used the shrines to stir Islam’s claim to the city, which he called “Al-Quds.” Arafat also launched the lie that no Jewish Temple ever rested atop the Temple Mount, though that is precisely why both the dome and the mosque were built there on what Omar believed to be the Temple’s very foundation.
On one level, the propaganda coup has fooled most of the world – to such an extent that most Muslims believe the Al-Quds myth. They riot for it all over the world. They commit terrorism in the name of “liberating” it. They boycott, divest, impose sanctions, throw stones, launch missiles, start intifadas and more.
But, one thing they don’t do? They don’t visit. They don’t do pilgrimages. Go figure.
Get a glorious preview of the coming kingdom of God from Joseph Farah in his latest autographed best-seller, “The Restitution of All Things: Israel Christians, and the End of the Age”
Thanks again to Mr. Farah for this most excellent article.
God bless,
Pastor Rance.
P.S. My ministry of PSI receives no royalties for printing Mr. Farah's article. We are doing so here simply because he is an excellent author and is telling the truth.
Peace and grace to all of you in Jesus Great name!
Periodically I find an article by another author that I realize says it all and I could not do a better job. This weeks article is about truth. I have received permission to reprint the article listed above written by a well known author by the name of Joseph Farah. Further I sincerely recommend that my readers subscribe to this mans work.
If you really want to know how important the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is to the Muslims/Islam this article will tell the tale.
Link to the Original Article by Joseph Farah at WND.com: http://www.wnd.com/2018/02/why-jerusalem-is-not-islams-3rd-holiest-site/
You’ve undoubtedly heard that Jerusalem represents the third holiest city in Islam.
That is provably untrue.
Or, perhaps you’ve read in Wikipedia or heard on CNN that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest place of worship in Islam.
That, too, is a provable lie.
Or, maybe you heard about the vote by UNESCO in 2016 that denied any Israeli connection to the Temple Mount, referring it only by the Islamic name, “Haram al-Sharif.”
Before I get to the history of these myths, these aberrant legends, these anti-Semitic fictions from hell, let me tell you why anyone with a clear head and objective, rational mind can see the truth in spite of the powerful delusion that has cast a spell upon the world – deliberately, with political purpose and very recently, too.
Everyone should recognize the No. 1 holy site in all Islam is Mecca, the Qaba, which draws millions of pilgrims annually – perhaps more than any other religious shrine in the world. For instance, while some 5 million visit the Vatican City every year, 18 million Muslims visit Saudi Arabia and, almost all of them, go to Mecca, which doesn’t allow non-Muslims to enter the city. The annual five-day Hajj, alone, attracted more than 2 million in 2017.
Spiritual pilgrimages are a big deal in Islam, and the No. 2 holy site in all Islam is probably Medina, where Muhammad is buried.
But after Mecca and Medina, there is actually much dispute, even among Muslims, as to which would be Islam’s third holiest city. Why? Because while Mecca and Medina are considered holy to all Muslim followers of Muhammad and Allah, not all of them are Sunni. Sunni Islam adherents represent about 80 percent, or roughly 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide. But another 20 percent are Shia, representing as many as 300 million. And Shia Muslims revere shrines in two other cities in Iraq – Najaf and Karbala.
How many make pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala annually during the Shia Arba’een Pilgrimage? Hold on to your burqa or keffiyeh. Some accounts put it at 30 million from as many as 40 countries, often braving attacks from Sunni terrorists and usually traveling barefoot. That’s right. This Arba’een Pilgrimage, is a much longer one than the five-day Mecca Hajj and, according to many sources, much larger in sheer number of participants.
Now let’s consider Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem.
How many Muslims make pilgrimage to Jerusalem? Israel hosts a total of about 2 million tourists from all over the world every year, but only a tiny fraction are Muslims. Israeli tourists are diverse ethnically but almost all Jewish and Christian. And please don’t tell me Muslims are not welcome, because they are. In 2014, the latest statics I could find, showed 26,700 tourists from Indonesia; 23,000 from Turkey; 17,700 from Jordan; 9,000 from Malaysia and 3,300 from Morocco. And those were the biggest numbers.
And maybe you think Muslims stopped coming to Jerusalem, their “third holiest city,” after Israel reunified it in 1967. Quite the opposite. There was scarcely any interest in Jerusalem when Jordan controlled Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Even King Hussein never visited Jerusalem during the time he controlled part of the city for two decades.
If you want to go back further, before the first Zionist Aliyah, you can see what the Dome of the Rock circa 1875 looked like – abandoned, in total disrepair, unvisited. In fact, it didn’t get its famous gold-plated roof until the 1950s under Jordanian control, and it had to be redone in 1993 under Israeli authority.
While we’re starting to travel back in history, let’s look for Jerusalem in the Quran. Let me save you some time. You can stop looking. You won’t find it. It’s not there, though a passage we read in the Quran did indeed inspire the building of Al-Aqsa.
The Muslim “claim” to Jerusalem is based on what is written in the Quran in Sura 17:1, which says, “Glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Furthest Mosque.” How did this “Furthest Mosque” become the one visited by Muhammad in a dream in which he rode a flying camel or horse?
In Muhammad’s lifetime, Jerusalem was occupied by the Byzantine Empire. While Muhammad died in 632, Jerusalem was captured by Muslims in 638. When they came, of course, there was no mosque and no Dome of the Rock anywhere in Jerusalem, only churches. One of those churches is believed to have been built atop the Temple Mount. It may have even been converted into the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In fact, both the dome and the mosque display undeniably noticeable Byzantine architectural influences.
When rivals of Muhammad’s successors captured Jerusalem from the Christians, they first built the Dome of the Rock, a shrine the conquerors believed to have been the site of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 A.D. The dome was completed in 691 and the Al-Aqsa Mosque some 20 years later, or some 80 years after the death of Muhammad. The “ascension” of Muhammad from the rock under the dome is believed to have been conjured during this period by Khalif Omar, who sought to construct a new holy site to rival the one in Mecca.
Nevertheless, the idea of establishing this shrine and the Al-Aqsa mosque atop the old Temple Mount as permanent Islamic holy places did not catch on, as we can see by comparing them to others in Mecca, Medina, Najaf and Karbala.
In fact, not through the entire time of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which controlled Jerusalem until World War I, and not until 1929, did the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque stir any passionate interest in Islam. And that was thanks to Adolf Hitler’s Muslim friend, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who reminded his radical followers of Muhammad’s “Night Journey.” He stoked the myth to initiate riots that year.
Then, another dreamer, after the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel reunified Jerusalem under its control, Yasser Arafat, used the shrines to stir Islam’s claim to the city, which he called “Al-Quds.” Arafat also launched the lie that no Jewish Temple ever rested atop the Temple Mount, though that is precisely why both the dome and the mosque were built there on what Omar believed to be the Temple’s very foundation.
On one level, the propaganda coup has fooled most of the world – to such an extent that most Muslims believe the Al-Quds myth. They riot for it all over the world. They commit terrorism in the name of “liberating” it. They boycott, divest, impose sanctions, throw stones, launch missiles, start intifadas and more.
But, one thing they don’t do? They don’t visit. They don’t do pilgrimages. Go figure.
Get a glorious preview of the coming kingdom of God from Joseph Farah in his latest autographed best-seller, “The Restitution of All Things: Israel Christians, and the End of the Age”
Thanks again to Mr. Farah for this most excellent article.
God bless,
Pastor Rance.
P.S. My ministry of PSI receives no royalties for printing Mr. Farah's article. We are doing so here simply because he is an excellent author and is telling the truth.
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