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Former President Ronald Wilson Reagan – 1911-2004
The BibleSearchers Reflections
Reflections on the Time of the End
May - June, 2004
By Robert Mock MD
robertmock@biblesearchers.com
www.BibleSearchers.com
Topics
World Mourns the Death of the Great Communicator, Ronald Wilson Reagan
The Footsteps of the Master – “Faith to Walk in God’s Footsteps”
World Mourns the Death of the Great Communicator,
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1911-2004
The fading sun was shimmering in brilliant gold as it set over the rolling hillside of Simi Valley. The Seventh-day Sabbath was about to begin in honor of the Creator of all. One of God’s noble sons, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States was being laid to rest.
In a week of high drama, the nation mourned the man with a great smile and the large heart, who won the hearts of his bitterest international enemies and for a moment of time, he brought Pax Americana to the world. With the fading strains of “Amazing Grace” by the Irish bagpipes and the warbling of a wren in the background, the tears of Nancy Reagan spilled on the casket of her beloved while Mike, Ron and Patty enclosed their arms around her.
Was it not interesting when America and her president, George Bush, was hitting a low of international respect and isolation, Europe was in full rebellion with the international politics of America, that the moral vision and the warmth of the great peacemaker, called the “Great Communicator” was resurrected by his dying breath.
Suddenly the winds of tide changed. Within a week, France had commemorated and applauded the 60th year of the landing of America’s forces when their country was saved from the tyranny of Nazism. For months, French had little good to say about America, and now with open arms joined with other international leaders and American at the Sea Island G8 meeting to celebrate the global embrace of the new U.N. resolutions. They are now seeking in global unity for peace to the Middle East and resolution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. The Eternal One works in mysterious ways. The will of the Lord will be done, in His own way, and to the march of His own drumstick. Reagan died on the Lord’s Shabbat and was buried at the setting sun heralding the next Sabbath
Mourning in America: Ronald Reagan Dies at 93 – Saturday, June 5, 2004
FoxNews - Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died Saturday at his home in California. He was 93 years old and had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. "My family and I would like the world to know that President Ronald Reagan has passed away after 10 years of Alzheimer's disease at 93 years of age," Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said in a statement. "We appreciate everyone's prayers."
In Paris, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said President Bush was notified of Reagan's death in Paris at about 4:10 p.m., EDT, by White House chief of staff Andy Card. Bush offered his condolences to Reagan's widow shortly thereafter.
"He always told us that for America the best is yet to come," Bush said of Reagan. "We comfort ourselves by telling ourselves that the same is true for him. ... We know a shining city is waiting for him." The United States flag over the White House was lowered to half staff within an hour.
Reagan's body was expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley, Calif., and then flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was expected to be at the National Cathedral, an event likely to draw world leaders. The body was to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library.
Reagan, known as "The Great Communicator," was elected to office in a landslide victory over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 and is credited with revitalizing the country's stagnant economy and forcing the end of the Cold War during his two terms in office from 1981 to 1989.
His charismatic personality and staunch conservatism led the nation in a Republican resurgence that kept the GOP in the White House for 12 years. Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani described Reagan as "the most dominating president of the 20th Century. He changed the map of the world. He defeated communism. He destroyed the Soviet Union. He tore down the Berlin Wall and he fought for the rights of the individual." (Read entire article)
Eulogies at the National Cathedral, Washington D.C.
President Bush eulogizes Ronald Reagan
Margaret Thatcher's eulogy of Reagan
Brian Mulroney's eulogy of Reagan
George H.W. Bush's eulogy of Reagan
He
brought Big Government to its knees and stared down the Soviet Union. And the
audience loved it - April 13, 1998
Time 100 - by Author Peggy Noonan, Special Assistant and speechwriter for President Reagan
Clare Boothe Luce famously said that each President is remembered for a
sentence: "He freed the slaves"; "He made the Louisiana Purchase."
You have to figure out your sentence, she used to tell John Kennedy, who would
nod thoughtfully and then grouse when she left. Ronald Reagan knew, going in,
the sentence he wanted, and he got it. He guided the American victory in the
cold war. Under his leadership, a conflict that had absorbed a half-century of
Western blood and treasure was ended — and the good guys finally won.
It is good to think of how he did it, because the gifts he brought to resolving the conflict reflected very much who he was as a man. He began with a common-sense conviction that the Soviets were not a people to be contained but a system to be defeated. This put him at odds with the long-held view of the foreign-policy elites in the '60s, '70s and '80s, but Reagan had an old-fashioned sense that Americans could do any good thing if God blessed the effort. Removing expansionary communism from the world stage was a right and good thing, and why would God not smile upon it? He was a historical romantic, his biographer Edmund Morris says, and that's about right. He was one tough romantic, though. When Reagan first entered politics, in 1964, Khrushchev had already promised to bury the U.S., Sputnik had been launched and missiles placed in Cuba. It seemed reasonable to think the Soviets might someday overtake the West. By the time Reagan made a serious run for the presidency, in 1976, it was easy to think the Soviets might conquer America militarily.
President
won Cold War, reinvigorated U.S. morale – June 5, 2004
WorldNetDaily – by Mary Beth Brown, author, "Hand of Providence: The Strong and Quiet Faith of Ronald Reagan,"
At the age of 93 – he was the nation's longest-living ex-president – Ronald Wilson Reagan died today. Ailing from Alzheimer's disease, the nation's 40th president's health had been widely reported to be deteriorating over the past week.
One of the most beloved presidents in American history, Reagan passed away at his home in California. His body is expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley, Calif., reports the Associated Press, before being flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The body will then be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library, according to AP. Reagan's funeral will likely be held at Washington's National Cathedral.
Earlier today, Nancy Reagan told reporters the end was near when she said, poignantly, "This is it."
The former first lady, Reagan's wife of 52 years, fiercely protected the privacy of her ailing husband. But she did communicate with the public about the ex-president's condition, last month acknowledging that he had deteriorated dramatically. "Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him," she said. In November 1994, five years after the end of his second term as president, Reagan revealed very publicly that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, saying with typical wit and good humor that he had begun "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."
One of the most popular presidents of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan is widely credited with winning the Cold War, crusading to limit the size of the federal government, revitalizing the country's stagnant economy, and inspiring hope again in the nation after the "malaise" of the Jimmy Carter era. Indeed, Reagan loved to say, "It's morning again in America." (Read entire article)
40th anniversary D-Day Speech by Ronald Reagan, Normandy, June 6, 1984.
Reagan lauded heroism of D-Day
Rangers - 'You risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it?' – May 29, 2004
Insight Magazine – by
Stephen Goode, senior writer for Insight Online.
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is no doubt the most eloquent testimonial to the courage of American soldiers ever penned by a U.S. president. But Ronald Reagan's words on June 6, 1984, are likewise profound and beautiful.
President Reagan was speaking at the World War II Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument, which overlooks Omaha Beach in Normandy. It was the 40th anniversary of the attack made by the 2nd Ranger Battalion led by Lt. Col. James E. Rudder up the steep cliffs at the beach on that momentous day. Loss of life was very high.
"We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty," said Reagan. "For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. ... The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers on the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. ...
"Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here," Reagan said to the elderly men who had come from their homes in the United States to mark this anniversary. "You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. (Read entire speech by Reagan at 40th anniversary D-Day invasion)
Reflections
of Reagan – June 5, 2004
CBN – by Gary Lane, CBN New Sr. Correspondent
What qualities does the former president possess that are so appealing to American?
Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America," died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
CBN News was granted a rare glimpse of the president's private life when the Young America's Foundation gave us a tour of the Reagan ranch, in the California hills high above Santa Barbara.
To really learn about a man, you must not only visit his past, but you should examine his bookcase.
"His books I think say a lot about him as well," said Marc Short of Young America's Foundation. "You'll notice Arizona Highways, Cowboy Life - very much average reading it's why this ranch was so much a retreat for him. Treasury of Modern Humor, yes, there's a lot of signs of the president's humor here at the ranch as well."
Radio talk show host Michael Reagan says his father's sense of humor is one of his greatest qualities. "He was able to laugh at himself too. He wouldn't just laugh at other people, or laugh at things, he was always able to laugh at himself. He knew when you weren't at ease and he could put you at ease so easily with his humor," Reagan explained. At times, President Bush seems to struggle with public attempts at humor, but not Reagan. Rarely would the President address an audience without throwing in a good joke or two. In one speech before the National Association of Evangelicals, Reagan told of a pastor and a politician greeting St. Peter at the pearly gates. The pastor was given a humble, small room in which to live. The politician questioned why he was given servants and a mansion... (Click to finish article)
Ronald
Reagan’s Rainbow
- To his
eternal ranch – June 5, 2004
National Review by Paul Kengor, author of God and Ronald Reagan, professor of political
science at Grove City
College and a visiting fellow with the Hoover
Institution.
Ronald Reagan was a man who had it all. It is difficult to identify an American who lived a fuller, or greater, life — what he understatedly called "An American Life." In nearly everything he did, Reagan succeeded wildly. When he left his parents' home in 1932, he landed a coveted job in radio. Then came the movies and television, in the heyday of each medium. In the 1930s, when most of America suffered, Reagan soared. By the 1940s, he was one of the top box office draws in Hollywood and received more fan mail than any actor at Warner Brothers except Errol Flynn. His hosting of the number-one rated television show GE Theatre from 1954 to 1962 made him one of the most recognized names in America.
Of course, after that, he entered politics and twice won the governorship of the nation's largest state and the presidency of the world's most powerful nation. And I'm certain that his epitaph will be that he was the president who won the Cold War. Where did this record of achievement begin? It started with humble origins: at the Rock River at Lowell Park in Dixon, Illinois, where a teenage Reagan life guarded seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours per day, for seven summers. He was the rock at the Rock River, always watching. He saved the lives of 77 people there: "One of the proudest statistics of my life," he said later. Saving a drowning victim is not easy under any circumstance, but it was especially difficult in the treacherous Rock River, where the swirling water is so deep and murky that swimming there today has long been banned….
On November 5, 1994, Ronald Reagan handwrote a letter informing the world that Alzheimer's disease was riding him into "the sunset of my life." That choice of words was astonishing: Alzheimer's is a horrific disease that robs memories. In just a few years, Reagan wouldn't even remember the White House. How could he refer to that impending doom as the sunset of his life? Was he ignorant of the disease? Not at all. As president, Reagan made eight separate statements on Alzheimer's — an average of one for each year in the White House. It is chilling to read those words today. Alzheimer's, said Reagan, is an "indiscriminate killer of mind and life" — a "devastating" sickness that "deprives its victims of the opportunity to enjoy life." (Read entire article)
Reagan's
Greatness - Giving a president his due – November 10, 1997
Weekly Standard by William Kristol
RONALD REAGAN is today a president without honor in his own country, a
Republican without imitators in his own party, and a conservative without
followers in his own movement. This is so despite some superficial appearances
to the contrary, and it is odd. After all, Reagan was the most consequential
president since Franklin Roosevelt, the most successful Republican leader since
Theodore Roosevelt, and the first true conservative to reach the apex of
American politics since Coolidge. Reagan won the Cold War almost without firing
a shot; he laid the groundwork for the GOP to escape half a century of minority
status; and he decisively vindicated the claims of conservatism. Feared by the
Communists, patronized by the Democrats, loathed by the Left, Reagan vanquished
them all. Yet who today is a Reaganite? (Continue)
Affable right-winger became the most popular president in history – June 6, 2004
News.Independant UK – by Andrew Buncombe in Washington
It was a decade ago that an ageing Ronald Reagan revealed to the American people he had served as president for two terms that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. At that time, he said in his so-called "Letter to America", he felt fine but he knew a time would come when he did not. "When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future," he wrote. "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright new dawn ahead."
Although America had long known of Reagan's decline, when the end came yesterday afternoon at his home in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles - not out of the blue by any means - it still appeared to shock many. As the White House started making preparations for a state funeral for the former president, Reagan's friends and supporters - along with his critics - sought to determine just how he will be judged by history.
For most Republicans and conservatives, Reagan's legacy is already fixed. To them, Ronald Reagan - considered the first truly right-wing US president for 50 years - is the man who returned confidence, pride and energy to the White House after the lackluster years of Jimmy Carter and who ended the Cold War by standing up to (and by greatly outspending) the Soviet Union. Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan, a cheerful optimist with a generally sunny demeanor, reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative image as he focused his attention on the demise of the Soviets, cutting taxes and greatly increasing spending on national security programmes such as the "Star Wars" missile defense plan. He was also happy to exude a simple and unabashed patriotism.
"Government is not the solution, it's the problem," he said when he assumed office, though analysts pointed out that reducing the size of government proved to be harder to carry out in reality than it was to promise. Reagan came to office late. He was 69…. (read entire article)
How
they misjudged the Reagan I knew – June 6, 2004
Opinion.
Telegraph UK – by Richard Perle
In a hot, crowded room in a turn-of-the-century house overlooking Reykjavik harbor, the President of the United States listened intently to his advisers. A few hours earlier, after a day and a half of intense negotiation, Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed to accept American proposals to slash nuclear arsenals - but only if Ronald Reagan would confine his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to the laboratory, effectively killing any chance it could be built. The question was whether to accept Gorbachev's offer and abandon SDI, or reject it and return home without an agreement, leaving the US free to continue work on a defense against ballistic missiles. As happened often, the president's advisers were divided. Reagan asked his chief of staff, who was among those urging him to accept the Soviet proposal. "If we say 'Yes', won't it be just so we can leave here with an agreement?" It was a rhetorical question. The President had made the most consequential decision of his political life.
Thus did Ronald Reagan's "No" to Gorbachev end the 1986 Iceland summit. Immediately, a breathless world press reported the apparent failure at Reykjavik. Without an agreement, the rebuilding of American defenses, including SDI, would continue. Relations between the US and the Soviet Union, already deeply strained, would surely worsen…. (Good article)
World Pays Tribute to Ronald Reagan – June 5, 2004
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Political leaders and other prominent
figures paid tribute on Saturday to former President Ronald Reagan, who died at
his Los Angeles home at the age of 93. Here are some of their remembrances:
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
"It's a sad day for America. A great American life has come to an end. He leaves behind a nation he restored, and a world he helped save."
FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON AND SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, who called Reagan "a true American original."
"Hillary and I will always remember President Ronald Reagan for the way he personified the indomitable optimism of the American people, and for keeping America at the forefront of the fight for freedom for people everywhere.
"President Reagan demonstrated his strength and resolve after leaving office when he shared his struggle with Alzheimer's disease with the world."
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER BILL FRIST
"President Reagan's bold leadership in difficult times provided Americans with tremendous strength and inspiration. Above all, he was a true patriot, whose endless optimism inspired America's continued ascent to greatness. Undoubtedly, Ronald Reagan has left an indelible mark on our country and our global community."
SENATE MINORITY LEADER TOM DASCHLE
"America has lost an icon. Ronald Reagan's leadership will inspire Americans for generations to come. His patriotism and devotion to our country will never be forgotten."
FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER MARGARET THATCHER
"President Reagan was one of my closest political and dearest personal friends. (Gontinued)
Tributes to Reagan
Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation
Read tributes by George H.W. Bush, Tony Blair, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Mikhail Gorbachev, Vincente Fox Quesada and others. (Start)
Traditions and pageantry - Washington scrambles to prepare for a Ronald Reagan-style farewell – June 8, 2004
Star-Telegram – by
Elisabeth Bumiller and Elizabeth Becker of New York Times
Nothing has been left to chance in the 300-page funeral plan for Ronald Reagan. A riderless jet-black horse will walk with Reagan's riding boots turned backward, as Nancy Reagan requested. F-15 fighter jets will streak above Constitution Avenue in the missing-man formation, as the family wanted. And Reagan will be buried at his presidential library in the Simi Valley hills in time for the golden light of a California sunset, a burial that he himself planned.
But Washington was scrambling frantically Monday to prepare for the first presidential state funeral in more than three decades -- an inaugural in reverse -- pulled together in five days instead of 10 weeks. Many of the rites for the last production of the man who was the best-known practitioner of presidential stagecraft will be dictated by history and military custom, because all American presidents are entitled to state funerals. But the details were adapted to meet the Reagan’s' personal wishes and have been reviewed yearly by Nancy Reagan. The result is to be pageantry reminiscent of what the Reagan’s first brought to Washington nearly a quarter-century ago.
"This is the way he would have wanted it," said Kenneth Duberstein, Reagan's last White House chief of staff. The four living former American presidents are expected, as are leaders and dignitaries from as many as 170 nations, which may be one of the largest gatherings of top foreign officials ever in Washington. Reagan's body will arrive Wednesday in Washington from California and proceed by horse-drawn caisson up Constitution Avenue to the Capitol Rotunda, where it will lie in state through Thursday. On Friday, there will be a funeral service at Washington National Cathedral, where President Bush will deliver a eulogy. (More)
Reagan
Remembered as Kind, Hopeful, Caring -
June 09, 2004
Fox News, Washington - Stealing a few moments before she turned over her husband to the masses waiting to say their final goodbyes, Nancy Reagan rubbed her hands across the casket of Ronald Reagan, her lips moving, uttering unspoken words. But aside from a slight glistening in her eyes as she whispered to her husband, lying in state beneath a U.S. flag, the former first lady publicly remained totally composed throughout Wednesday, a day that saw her late husband carried across the nation and then remembered in a memorial service at the Capitol, where he will remain until his state funeral on Friday.
During a service attended by hundreds of Washington dignitaries, the vice president and congressional leaders praised the 40th president for his humility, charm and never-ending hope.
"Knowing this moment would come has not made it any easier," said Vice President Dick Cheney, referring to the 10-year-long struggle the former president suffered with Alzheimer's disease. "In this national vigil of mourning, we show how much America loved this good man, and how much we will miss him. Ronald Reagan spoke of a nation that was hopeful, big-hearted, daring, decent and fair. That is how he saw America, and that is how America came to know him. There was a kindness, simplicity and goodness of character that marked all the years of his life." (Entire article)
Why
Reagan Was 'The Great Communicator' – June 6, 2004
CBN - “Perhaps the era of traditional virtues is bygone for some on
the left, but for millions of Americans who mourn the passing of 'The Great
Communicator' these values are part of our every day lives -- and they are very
much a reality in this time where we must continually combat the same moral
relativism that Reagan grappled with throughout his political career."
"Wasn't that amazing?" One of my students at the writer's conference stopped me in the hall after we learned that Ronald Reagan had died. "At the very moment of his death, you were telling our class what a profound impact he had on you as a communicator." Looking across the Wheaton College campus where the conference was held, I noticed that the flags had already been lowered to half-staff. "The Great Communicator," I repeated. It was, and is, an appropriate title for one of our most beloved presidents.
During his life though, Reagan downplayed the designation. In his farewell address, in typical humble fashion, he redirected the praise:
In all of that time I won a nickname, 'The Great Communicator.' But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries.
These were the values that Reagan believed in, and that shaped his decision making as president. And through these bedrock concepts he became a towering figure in American history, pulling this nation from the malaise of the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, and inspiring many to return to the biblical values that made this country the great bastion of freedom that it is.
In that final speech he spoke of this phenomenon:
They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.
As the nation mourns the death of Ronald Reagan, many on the left still can not comprehend such enduring values -- the unchanging moral compass that helped guide Reagan throughout his life. In their relativistic worldview they see Reagan's philosophy as a quaint expression of an archaic way of thinking. (Complete article)
Learning from a
Master –
George H.W. Bush memories of friend Ronald Reagan – June 6, 2004
"I learned about principle, I learned about kindness, I learned about
humor. Ronald Reagan was unfailingly courteous to the people around him,
thoughtful to the little guy, the elevator operator, the butler at the White
House." …
Bush shapes a private picture of a man he learned to love and admire, and the one he finally felt comfortable calling Ron. But in the 1980 Republican presidential primaries, the two men sparred, with Bush landing a punch by labeling Reagan's supply-side nostrums "voodoo economics." And then the vagaries of high-level politics put them in harness for the big campaign. "I remember in Reagan's debate with Carter, when Carter said about me, 'Here's your man, and he calls it voodoo economics, so what are you going to do?' Reagan looks over at me and gives me this big wink and then gave Carter some kind of brush-off." ….
The Great Communicator was also a tutor. "I was in awe," says Bush. "President Reagan went to Normandy and gave those great speeches. When he came back, I asked him, 'How did you ever get through those speeches without breaking up?' He said, 'Here's what you do. You write it out yourself, and then you say it over and over again. And by doing that, it is still personal the way you say it, but you don't feel that you are apt to choke up.'"
Bush notes how Reagan's warmth and humor could reshape his positions without creating the impression of inconsistency. "He sent me off to see [Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev. I guess I was the first one of any authority to meet with him. I wrote out the cable of that meeting and sent it back saying this leader was different…. (Read entire article)
Ceremony,
funeral procession honors Reagan – June 9, 2004
Washington (AP) - Some of the thousands stood in silence,
others cheered former first lady Nancy Reagan as the funeral procession for the
40th president moved toward the Capitol.
Former President Ronald Reagan's flag-draped casket was carried up the steps on the west side of the U.S. Capitol.
That was no small feat. The casket weighs more than 400 pounds and there are more than 100 steps at the West Front of the Capitol -- the same place Reagan was inaugurated in 1981.
An honor guard stopped halfway up the stairs and set the casket on a stand. A second group then carried it the rest of the way.
At the top of the steps, Nancy Reagan waited. She kissed her hand, and as her husband's casket passed, she reached out and touched it.
Reagan's body was brought from California earlier Wednesday aboard a White House plane to Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Washington.
After
winding its way to downtown Washington, the flag-draped casket was placed on a horse-drawn caisson
It was accompanied by the somber tones of a military band playing “Hail to the Chief'' and the mournful figure of a rider-less horse. A pair of boots were reversed in the stirrups of the saddle to symbolize that the warrior will never ride again.
There was a deafening flyby of military planes in a missing man formation. The ritual also included a roaring flyover of 21 Strike Eagle fighter planes and a 21-gun salute…. (More)
Thanks From a Grateful Country, For a man who changed the world,
Ronald Reagan sure was modest – June 7, 2004
Opinion Journal by Ms. Peggy Noonan, contributing editor of The Wall Street
Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag".
He was dying for years and the day came and somehow it came as a blow. Not a loss but a blow. How could this be? Maybe we were all of us more loyal to him, and to the meaning of his life, than we quite meant to be. And maybe it's more. This was a life with size. It had heft, and meaning….
His story was classically, movingly rags-to-riches; he was a nobody who became a somebody in the American way, utterly on his own and with the help of millions. He was just under 10 when the Roaring Twenties began, 16 when Lindbergh flew the ocean; he remembered as a little boy giving a coin to a doughboy leaning out a window of a troop train going east to the ships that would take them to the Marne and the Argonne Forest.
Ronald, nicknamed Dutch, read fiction. He liked stories of
young men battling for the good and true. A story he wrote in college had a
hero arriving home from the war and first thing calling his girl. Someone else
answered. Who is calling? "Tell her it's the president," he said. He
wrote that when he was 20 years old. Many years later, in middle age, he was
visited by a dream in which he was looking for a house. He was taken to a
mansion with white walls and high sparkling windows. It was majestic.
"This is a house that is available at a price I can afford," he would
think to himself. And then he'd come awake. From the day he entered the White
House for the first time as president he never had the dream 
again. (More)
Reagan and Israel - June 10, 2004
The Lekerev Report - The 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, is being buried tomorrow and in the Middle East, Israel has been the only country to pay him tribute as a fond friend. "President Reagan was a friend to Israel," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said in a statement, "and during his presidency, relations between the two countries were based on both understanding and cooperation."
On Sept. 17, 1982, Reagan made an important speech in which he said, "The United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. The final status of these lands must, of course, be reached through the give and take of negotiations. But it is the firm view of the United States that self- government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offers the best chance for a durable, just, and lasting peace. We base our approach squarely on the principle that the Arab-Israeli conflict should be resolved through negotiations involving an exchange of territory for peace."
If indeed, as many are saying, the Reagan presidency is a model for the current Bush Administration, this one statement above must certainly be critical. "The United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza." Will this part of his legacy endure?
Reagan, Begin, and Israel – June 7, 2004
FrontPage magazine – by Ariel Natan Pasko, independent International Relations and Policy Analyst.
With the passing of former American President Ronald W. Reagan, another element from a bygone era gains closure. The "Cold War" is just a distant memory, the "Evil Empire" he worked so hard to bring down is no more. That legacy, no one will be able to take away from him. Many in America and Israel have written about his close relations with American Jews, and his fond feelings for Israel, all true. But truth demands, that we look at a man in his completeness, warts and all. (Insightful)
Ronald
Reagan and the Jews – June 11, 2004
Jewish Press - "Reagan I could trust." - Yitzhak Shamir
"He was unshakable; a staunch supporter." - Shimon Peres
For most of the 1980's, Ronald Wilson Reagan dominated the American political landscape as no man had since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The attitude of most Jews, however, was that Reagan's presence in the White House was a not altogether pleasant fact of life, something about which they could do nothing and for which they bore little responsibility…..
Ronald Reagan had an instinctive affinity for Israel that Jimmy Carter plainly lacked. As an actor who spent decades in the heavily
Jewish environment of Hollywood, and who counted scores of Jews among his
friends and colleagues, Reagan moved easily in pro-Israel circles. Both as a
private citizen and as governor of California he was a familiar sight and a
favored speaker at various functions for Israel. When asked about his immunity
to anti-Semitism, Reagan would credit his parents, often relating the story of
how his father, a traveling salesman, was about to check in at a hotel in some
remote area late one night when the desk clerk casually remarked, "I'm
sure you'll enjoy it here; we don't allow any Jews." Whereupon Jack Reagan
brusquely informed the clerk that he most definitely would not enjoy it there,
grabbed his bag and walked out the door. He spent the night sleeping in his
car.
Few experiences touched Reagan as deeply as did his viewing of Nazi death-camp
newsreels. "From then on," he said, "I was concerned for the
Jewish people. The newsreels of the death camps he had seen in 1946,'' wrote
Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, "were such a vivid part of his memory that
he was able to imagine... that he was actually at the site of the concentration
camps when they were liberated by the Allied armies.'' … (Read this
thoughtful article)
The Reagan Revolution Continues - A Behind the Scenes Look at what his Death means Politically – June 12, 2004
Koenig’s Eye View - In 1984, America spoke. No president other than Ronald Reagan has ever won reelection with such a mandate—a 49-state majority victory. This happened, despite a constant barrage of criticism from a hostile news media and an angry liberal Democrat Party. Now, after nearly 20 years of trying to rewrite history, even Ronald Wilson Reagan’s staunchest opponents have admitted his greatness, albeit with a number of qualifications.
Liberals are beside themselves with coverage of the Reagan funeral aired on television nearly 24 hours a day during the past week, replete with accolades of ending the cold war decisively over the Soviet Union without firing a shot, setting the nation’s economy back on track by ending double-digit inflation and unemployment, and restoring confidence in a nation weakened by a dismal era of back to back corruption and incompetence in the Oval Office. At first, Reagan detractors played straight the role of respect for the dead and the grieving family. John Kerry suspended campaign operations, including two fundraisers. Some liberals took the lead in praising the fallen president for his good humor, strong character, and optimism. But by mid-week their hatred had gnawed through the bars of respect and good manors were being ravaged by common nature. It started with reports that Kerry’s campaign was only too happy to suspend the fundraisers because they were failing to attract a healthy crowd. Mr. Reagan’s death gave the perfect excuse when more time was needed to organize better attendance.
'God's plan' guided Reagan's life – June 7, 2004
Washington Times - Ronald Reagan -- who endured an alcoholic father, a poor childhood, uncertain college prospects, a failed marriage, political isolation in Hollywood, a declining movie career, a failed presidential bid and an assassination attempt -- found solace to help him endure life's trials. It was his faith. Though he was criticized during his presidency for not attending church services regularly, Mr. Reagan's unfailing faith in God -- and what he knew in his soul was God's plan for him -- never wavered, and gave him strength to the end, according to biographers…
The one
word that underpinned Mr. Reagan's political philosophy -- other than
conservatism -- was optimism, and Mr. Reagan believed that optimism was
"God-given" to all people. "The man even looked at Alzheimer's
optimistically," Mr. Kengor said. "Reagan believed that Alzheimer's
is what God had chosen for him. It was God's plan for how Reagan would die and
he believed that we have no reason to question God. "Reagan truly
believed that even something that negative could be part of God's plan,"
he said. "We don't quite appreciate how eternal his optimism was."
One of Mr. Reagan's favorite metaphors for describing the America he loved was a "shining city on a hill." This is a paraphrase of Matthew 5:14: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." Using it as a metaphor for America, Mr. Reagan cited Puritan leader John Winthrop's 1630 sermon before the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: "We will be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." (Entire article)
Conservatives now realize Reagan was really 'right' – June 9, 2004
Washington Times - As president, Ronald Reagan
did not always please his conservative supporters, but with the benefit of
hindsight, they say his leadership was vital to the success of their movement. "He
was not God, but he did have convictions that were 'unlobbyable' and a vision
for America, which obsessed him and drove him to success," said the Rev.
Jerry Farwell, founder of the Moral Majority, which supported Mr. Reagan in
1980 and '84. "He put the moral and social issues of our time on the front
burner, where they have stayed."
One common
conservative criticism of the Reagan presidency is that the Republican
administration failed to cut spending and reduce the size of the federal
government, which had been key campaign promises for Mr. Reagan in 1980. "A
lot of conservatives say they wish he had done more to cut the size of
government," said Bob Heckman, who headed one of the largest pro-Reagan
political action committees in the 1980s. (Continue)
State
Funeral for Reagan Brings a Soaring Farewell – June 12, 2004
Nancy Reagan was comforted by Mike Reagan, Ron Jr. and Patti Davis as they stood before the casket of former President Ronald Reagan.
ASHINGTON, June 11 — In a soaring cathedral on the capital's highest hilltop, world leaders past and present came to remember Ronald Reagan on Friday as the perpetual optimist who saw his nation as a shining city on a hill, then sent him home to California for the final scene of what President Bush called a "great American story." "Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now," Mr. Bush told a gathering of nearly 4,000 mourners at National Cathedral that included all four surviving ex-presidents, former British and Canadian prime ministers and an eclectic collection of former Reagan aides and friends from around the world. "But we preferred it when he belonged to us."
Hours later, and a continent away on the grounds of his presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., Mr. Reagan's children — Michael, Patti, and Ron Jr. — spoke in hauntingly raw and personal terms of their own love for the father the world also claimed. “He is home now, he is free," Ron Reagan Jr. said, minutes before his mother, Nancy, lingered at her husband's coffin at the grave site, as if unable to say goodbye, until all three children — each in the past by turns at odds with their family — gathered to lead her away.
The state funeral capped six days of national
mourning for the 40th president, who died last Saturday of complications from
Alzheimer's disease. But it also amounted to a living tableau of recent
history, and a last reunion for the now-grizzled Reaganauts who took Washington and the world by storm two decades ago. "His politics had a freshness and
optimism that won converts from every class and every nation and ultimately
from the very heart of the evil empire," Mr. Reagan's old comrade Margaret
Thatcher said in remarks videotaped late last year because of her own failing
health and played to the congregation on large flat-screen televisions together
with a celebratory silent montage of images from the Reagan era.
A military honor guard carried the casket of former President Ronald Reagan from the National Cathedral in Washington today
Reuters
As if in proof of her words, Lech Walesa, the onetime shipyard welder who led the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland, and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the onetime communist leader who presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Union, sat in seats of honor as Mrs. Reagan followed her husband's coffin down the cathedral's center aisle. At Mr. Reagan's request, Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he appointed as the first woman on the Supreme Court 23 years ago, read from one of his favorite statements of the American creed. She quoted John Winthrop, the Massachusetts Puritan, who preached in 1630, "We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill," and whose direct descendant, a would-be president from Massachusetts named, John Kerry, sat with his fellow senators in the cathedral's south transept…
The cathedral's deep Bourdon Bell tolled 40 times in honor of his place in presidential history, and the procession headed down Mount St. Alban toward Rock Creek Parkway, the waiting plane at Andrews Air Force Base and the last journey home to the rolling California mountains Mr. Reagan loved. (Finish)
'Country
he loved' mourns Reagan – June 12, 2004
Washington
Times - Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, left
Washington for the final time yesterday after a moving state funeral in the
National Cathedral, where he was remembered as the man who defeated Soviet
communism and restored America's belief in itself. "Ronald Reagan belongs
to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us," said
President Bush, who joined three former world leaders to give eulogies that
also honored the former president's widow, Nancy, seated in the front row.
After the service, marked by a mixture of tears and laughter, Mr. Reagan's body
was flown back to California for a private burial at sunset atop a hill at his
presidential library in Simi Valley. "With the lever of American
patriotism, he lifted up the world," former British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher said in her eulogy, which she videotaped months in advance
because of her own ill health.
"And so today the world — in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself — the world mourns the passing of the great liberator and echoes his prayer 'God bless America,' " she added.
Mrs. Thatcher's soft voice echoed off the walls of the towering cathedral, where she was seated among thousands of invited guests who arrived under gloomy skies and a misting rain. Outside, mourners who had gathered to watch the arrival of the funeral motorcade kept vigil. Some had been among the more than 100,000 who bid farewell to Mr. Reagan during the 36-hour public viewing in the Capitol Rotunda. (Entire article)
The long
goodbye comes to an end – June 12, 2004
Boston
Herald – Washington – Amid
an outpouring of tears and tender tributes, Ronald Reagan was buried in his
beloved California hills as the sun faded into the Pacific Ocean last night - a
poignant parting scene in America's final farewell to its 40th president.
``Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us,'' said President Bush during funeral services in the nation's capital. Bush noted solemnly that Reagan's passing marked the close of ``a great American story.'' Reagan's final exit from the public stage - rich with pageantry, but forever etched in sorrow - spanned the breadth of the country. The day began under gray skies and morning drizzle as 4,000 world leaders and dignitaries packed Washington National Cathedral for a formal state funeral. It ended nearly 12 hours later on a softer, more intimate note with private burial services at an oak-shaded plot near Reagan's sprawling presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., as twilight fell….
With sweeping views of the coastal mountains and the rolling Pacific beyond, the burial site was chosen over a decade ago by the Reagans, who made California's rugged hills their adopted home. (More)
Then
the hand of the Lord swept over his people as they fled with their lives.
Sheltered in the palm of His hand, the Israelite population saw a cosmic vortex
descending down from the stratosphere. There it radiated with thundering and
lightning as it led the massive throngs of people along the shores of the Red
(Reed) Sea by day, shielding them from their enemies. It remained as a
sentinel hovering over them with protective guardianship by night. During
these fifty days, from the moment of escape in Egypt to the rapture of hearing
the voice of the Lord from the peaks of Sinai, the children of Israel were taught
by their Lord the ways of Torah or how to ‘walk with your Lord’. Practical Torah
101 was over and it was time for graduation. There the massive throngs of
Israelites stood before the Mount of the Lord listening in transfixed silence
as the “Voice of Many Waters” spoke in the 70 languages of the world and the
“Word” of the Lord 
resonated throughout all
the earth. These fifty days on their way to Sinai were the Days of Omer. Yet
a new revelation had begun when the God of Abraham taught His people to Count
the Omar and make the Omar count
Catastrophes at the Time of the End Series Posted on BibleSearchers
The March issue of BibleSearchers we highlighted the month with an article “The Passion of The Christ” featuring the mega-movie by Mel Gibson which opened on all the movie houses. Associated with this lead article, BibleSearchers began an investigative study into the earthquake that was associated with the death of Jesus. The concluding evidence of this three part study in this month’s Reflections suggests that the earthquake was not just a coincidence but carefully planned by the Eternal One prior to the creation of this earth. It would be a divine clue to the ‘chosen ones’ and ‘saints’ at the time of the end that will endure tribulation and the plagues of God. Will the two earthquakes three and one-half days apart during the death of resurrection of Yahshua be a shadow picture of the two ‘great earthquakes’ between the 6th seal and the 7th trumpet of the 7th seal? We include Part Three in the following and the following three articles will be posted under “Catastrophes and Biblical Eschatology” at BibleSearchers.com.
Part One - Jesus’ Death, the Earthquake and the Omens to ‘The Jews’
Painting by Elyah Succot
- V'Havie'aisim el Har Kodshi (And I Will Bring Them to my Holy Mountain)
Catastrophes and the Time of the End
Translation by the New King James Version
By Robert Mock MD
robertmock@biblesearchers.com
www.BibleSearchers.com
June, 2004
Part Three
Topics
The Coming of the Messiah is associated with Major Planetary Crustal Change on this Earth
Are You Ready for the Coming of the Messiah?
I remember the day when I stood in my examining room talking with an elderly grandmother. The heart was rent by the scandals and the destructive sibling rivalries that her children were acting out. In a moment of anguish she blurted out, “O Lordie Jesus, please come quickly, I can’t stand this mess any longer”.
Have you every thought what a global earthquake would be like? A global earthquake is not one that we watch on TV in Washington D.C. while California rumbles. A global earthquake will be the time with all the seismographs around this world will go into hyper seismic vibrations. Well John the Revelator saw a global earthquake and this was his testimony.
Revelation 6:12-17 - And I looked and He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood; and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs, when it is shaken by a mighty wind.
And the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, and every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
What an
event! Look at each of these events. Every one of them, the Lord of hosts
has total control of their occurrence and man has no control. These are
truly ‘Acts of God’. What we also know by this great earthquake is
that it marks the end of 
tribulation. How so you exclaim? Right after
the six seal we see the 144,000 and the angel of the Lord who explains:
Revelation 7:1-4,9 parts – “After these things (the great earthquake of the sixth seal), I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth…then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice…”Do not harm the earth and the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand…And after these things I looked and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all the tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb.”
Look over each of the six seals and understand that the global effects of these seals were originated by Satan and his forces of evil. This is the time of Satan’s wrath. Yes, the destructive effects of these seals will be done by the permission of the Eternal One.
Zechariah 14:3-4 – “Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.”
Zechariah 14:6-7 – “It shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light; the lights will diminish. It shall be one day, which is known to the Lord. Neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen that it will be light.
Can you imagine one day in the future, a great earthquake in your city or town is collapsing buildings all around you? You turn on the radio and find out that catastrophic earthquakes are occurring not only in your state but in every state in the United States and in every country of the world?
Then you watch CNN or Fox News. A news reporter is giving an evening report from the land of Israel on the destruction on the Temple Mount. As the camera positioned on the Mount of Olives pans towards news reporter, we see the collapsing walls of the Temple Mount. Silhouetted behind is the setting sun in the western sky. Then you notice a strange phenomenon. The sun as it slips down below the horizon begins to rise from the same horizon as though it were a new day.
The camera crew suddenly goes into confusion. Yes the sun is arising from the west and the earth has just experienced a complete physical pole reversal. We will literally be seeing what the prophet perceived in vision when he wrote these strange and mysterious words,
Zechariah 14:7 - “But at evening time it shall happen that it will be light.”
There are many reasons why neither “the day nor the hour” will be known when the Lord returns back to this earth. When you calculate the festival seasons by the ‘lunar calendar of the Lord’ that he gave to the Hebrews, you cannot print a yearly calendar. The festival year of the Lord does not bring in the spring until the day of the sighting of the New Moon over Jerusalem and confirmation that the barley is ripe in the fields around the temple of the Lord. The new moon sighting may vary by two days and if the barley is not ripened, the festival seasons are delayed for another month; that is Passover, Pentecost, Rosh Hashanah (Sounding of the Trumpet in the 7th month, Yom Kippur (Day of Judgment) portraying the day of the coming of the Messiah, and Feast of Tabernacles (Succot), when the Lord comes to dwell with His people will be delayed by a day or two or even a month.
In this sequel in which ‘no man knoweth the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh’, it suggests that a polar rotation on this earth just preceding the coming of Yahshua (Jesus) will occur. All the sequences of time will be altered. Is it any wonder that we must ‘watch and wait’? Here we also have a suggestion of surprise associated with a time in which there will be the absence of light in the ‘day…known to the Lord’. It suggests that the messiah will come ‘as a thief in the night’. (Matthew 24:36) Count on it! When the Lord of hosts decides to change times and seasons, the whole earth will be in confusion.
And then, the prophet Zechariah adds, “But at evening time it shall happen that it will be light.” (Zechariah 14:7) In all cultures of the world the ‘day’ and the ‘night’ have certain expected and anticipated cycles. To the Jews, the ‘day’ begins at the setting of the sun with the approach of nighttime and then the daylight hours arrive. To the Westerners, the ‘day’ begins with rising of the sun and ends with the nighttime hours. Even so this ‘day’ will confound and perplex all the inhabitances on this earth. If on the Day of the Lord we add the potential that the natural forces on this earth will go in reverse, then we have added a new element to this Mysterious Great Day of the Wrath of the Lord.
The Coming of the Messiah and
Major Planetary Crustal Changes on this Earth.
The final days at the time of the end many catastrophic changes will occur on the face of this earth. The hints and the visual imagery in Isaiah and Revelation we can now reshape with our knowledge on the astrophysical, geological, tectonic and the magnetosphere of the earth. We can visualize literal images of the catastrophic changes that will occur on this earth. One of the major clues in the following text is what will be happening to the mountains and islands on the face of this planet earth.
Revelation 6:12 – “I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops it late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place...for the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
The ‘sun’ becoming black like sackcloth and the ‘moon’ becoming like blood are signs known to scientists as signs of global volcanism. The grey and black sky of atmospheric ash can actually hide the sun and turn the moon a ghostly bloody orb. The stars of heaven falling to this earth could be; a super active Leonid Shower, the planet earth moving through a cometary field of debris, a polar shift in which the earth rotates forward quickly ten degrees or a polar reversal in which the earth flips over in its orbit. In the context of a fixed star-field, and the earth quickly reversing its poles, the stars will appear to be falling down below the horizon.
For mountains and islands to be “moved out of place”, suggests that the tectonic or continental plates will be shifting and moving under the crust of the earth. A whole new era of catastrophic changes not seen since the days of the patriarchs of old is about to begin. The earth will truly be moving and shaking.
The great earthquake of the Sixth Seal has been estimated by scholars to be at least a magnitude of 10 to 12 with world wide catastrophes in all the nations of the world. The great cities will collapse and the pangs of childbirth will be felt by all the nations of the earth at one time. Fear and calamity will settle over all the inhabitants of the globe as the earth groans under the terrestrial strain of crustal shifting, colliding and separating continents and magnetic and polar reversals.
Did not Isaiah, the catastrophic prophet mention:
Isaiah 13:6- - “Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will be limp, every man’s heart will melt, and they will be afraid. Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them; they will be in pain as a woman in childbirth; they will be amazed at one another; their faces will be like flames.
Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine...I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir.
Therefore I will shake the heaven, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger. It shall be as the hunted gazelle, and as a sheep that no man takes up every man will turn to his own people. And everyone will flee to his own land. Everyone who is found will be thrust through and everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.
Have you ever seen or heard of a global earthquake? They do occur. I’m sure you have always thought that you will find a place on this earth that will not be affected by earthquake. In an era of uniform laws of nature that is true. Yet the Bible suggests in the prophecies of the prophets that the era of uniformitarianism is about to end.
Once again in anticipation for the coming of the Messiah, an era of catastrophes will usher this great event. We as BibleSearchers also believe that the hand of the Almighty One will use a series of catastrophic events to remodel this earth back to the days of Eden, when Torah and how to walk and talk with the Eternal Father will be taught to the nations. This time of education will be done by the Messiah Himself.
Take a side trip and learn about the ‘Causes of Global Earthquakes’.
Visit the Live Internet Seismic Server when the “Whole Earth experienced a Global Earthquake on March 17, 2003”
USGS Live Internet Seismic Servers.
Out of this entire calamity, great things will begin to happen. All of our selfish plans will suddenly be swept away. The evil and wicked, whose life goal on earth was to use power, greed and control, will be destroyed by the presence of the Messiah. In that Day, we will have only two choices in life, curse God and seek to wreck as much personal havoc in our own sphere of influence and dominion or turn our hearts to the Lord of hosts and as such the Spirit of the Almighty will be poured upon the land.
Joel 2:28-32 – “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth; blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant that the Lord calls.
Great and momentous decisions will be made. The power of the Holy Spirit will be shedding the light of truth on exposing corruption, power and greed around this globe.
The United States will turn its back on the acknowledgment that our founding fathers truly did believe that our nation was founded under the principles of the Almighty One. One by one the monuments of testimony testifying to the simple faith of God will be torn down. The Nativity Scenes will be gone, the Bibles in the courtroom will be gone, and the angelic messengers on the spires of churches will be torn down. We will be exposed more and more to power and greed in the churches of our nation while denominations will merge into a near monopoly of religious ideology. The vast populations of the world will all be facing the ‘valley of decision’.
Joel 3:14-17 - Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision! The sun and moon will grow dark and the stars will diminish their brightness. The Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion My holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy, and no alien shall ever pass through her again.”
Tribulation will now be over. The time of the wrath of Satan will be ending. The time of the Wrath of God will just be beginning. The cosmic powers will be at war as Satan’s final hour is about over. Over and over, the Prince of Darkness will be demoted from one sphere and dimension of the heavens after another until he and the forces of evil and darkness will become trapped in our three dimensional world.
According to ancient Hebrew lore, many of these angelic powers were guardians over the natural forces that guided and protected the stars and planets of the universe. Whereas in the Hebrew thought, the stars of the heavens were also known as angels, so when the rebellious angelic forces make their final assault on the forces of Michael, the Archangel, the heavenly spheres will be thrown in chaos and the “powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
Matthew 24:29-31 – “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven and the power of the heavens will be shaken.
Then the Sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other.”
What is this “Sign”? Let us not forget that prophecy is Israel-centric. What will happen in the heavens that will cause all the tribes of the earth to mourn? Why do some not rejoice? Yes, the sign will be when the Son of Man will come and gather His elect. This was the same Son of Man who said on the Judean roadways, “I come to save the Lost Sheep of the Tribes of Israel”. He did not say that he was coming to save the Christians of Antioch for there were no Christians in Antioch at that time. All the followers of ‘The Way’ were Jewish followers of Yahshua and known as Nazarenes. Yet Yahshua knew that the day when the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel would be redeemed would be the day in which salvation will be given to all the Gentiles of the earth who have faith in Yahshua and His ministry for His Father.
The ministry of the ‘Two Witnesses’ will be the Lord’s final stand with those chosen to be His own. Is it no wonder that the final scenes at the time of the end will be in Jerusalem, the capital of the Lord of hosts for the whole universe. No movie drama will ever be able to capture the suspense that will occur when it appears that the forces of the Antichrist and the coalition of world forces will final capture the Land of Israel and will be closing in on the city of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem we will see at that moment will not be a “city set on a hill” with rays of light and hope to all mankind. It will not be a city in which God’s chosen and covenanted people will be a radiant light of goodness and truth. The prophet of Revelation states,
Revelation 11:8 – “When they (two witnesses) finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”
Here is the one spot on this planet that the Lord of hosts has given custody to His chosen people. History has repeated itself over and over, whenever, the children of Jacob have control of the city of Jerusalem and follow the precepts of their Lord, the land prospers and grows. Whenever the Jews and all of their ancestors choose to rebel against the Lord of hosts, the productivity of the land declines and exile soon takes them away from their land.
Over and over, the echo of their past haunts them as they hear, “If the Lord be your God, follow Him”. They were not to negotiate God’s will for the nations of the earth to decide their fate and the fate of their land. They were to follow the Lord. The Nation of Israel is at the brink of that same decision today.
The slavish will of Prime Minister Arial Sharon to follow George Bush instead of the will of their God will cause future judgment upon Israel and the Land. God’s will was not to be determined by the Hellenistic doctrine of democracy. They were not to seek justice in the international court of opinion. They were to be ‘just’ as their Lord had commanded. Will God’s chosen people ever get it together and follow their Lord?
Many are praying for an answer to that question. The fate of the Nation of Israel appears to be in the balance. The tide of redemption and destruction will swing back and forth. In the future, we will see the global telecommunication networks as they focus all of their resources to capture the ongoing struggle between the ‘two witnesses’ and the forces of globalism. These two witnesses appear to have such formidable inter-dimensional power and then… their lives will be final snuffed out. The tantric dancing of Islamic terrorists over the charred remains of a construction worker in Iraq are only a foretaste of what is coming in the future.
Here were two of the ‘chosen ones’ of the Lord who have every power to command the elements of the heavens to rain down upon their enemies. Lightning and plagues were at the stroke of their fingertips. If they could not stop the march of global control and oppression, who can? All hope appears to be gone.
With the bodies of the two witnesses lying in state in the streets of Jerusalem for three and a half-days, the ascendant power of satanism, universal religious control, and global political oppression appear to be complete. Satan may have lost his war in the heavens but by all physical appearance, he has won control of this planet earth. Then the finger of the Lord intervenes again;
Revelation 11:11 (The Seventh Trumpet of the Seventh Seal) - “Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, (resurrection of the two witnesses) and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. In the same hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The second woe is completed and the third and final woe will come quickly.
Revelation 11:15 – “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying,
‘We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward your servants the prophets and the saints. And those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth.’
“Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple and there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.”
The Oracle of Habakkuk will be pronounced upon God’s people;
Habakkuk 2:2 - “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who read it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end (a destined time) it will speak (in breathless haste), and it will not lie, though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
The Lord of hosts was speaking of a future appointed time in which a certain message was to be engraved and preserved in stone.
Habakkuk 2:4 – “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith. Indeed because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man. And he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell and he is like death and cannot be satisfied. He gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples.
It is time to take personal inventory. Are you proud, insolent, stubborn or devoted to righteous indignation? Does your stubbornness center on ‘the bottle of wine or strong drink’? Does your ‘restlessness’, dissatisfaction, ‘never at peace’ keep you away from ‘home’ where relationships are set up, protected and nurtured? Does your life have the aura of ‘greedy hell on earth’, ever longing and never getting? Do you seek to gather more power and control, seeking solace in bars, country clubs, resorts, executive boards, institutional and national cloakrooms of power and authority? Then listen to the five woes!
Habakkuk 2:6, 9, 12, 15, 19, 20 -
- “Woe to him who increases what is not his…
- “Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house that he may set his nest on high that he may be delivered from the power of disaster!”…
- “Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, who establishes a city by iniquity?”…
- “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look upon his nakedness!...
- “Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ to silent stone, ‘Arise! It shall teach!’ Behold it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet in it there is not breath at all…
“But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
When you sit comfortably in your church pew preparing to doze during the sermon, remember while you are singing the traditional doxology, that the words of the doxology were preceded by five woes given to the prophet Habakkuk.
Will your conscience be pricked? Did the 20% annual increases in your pension plan mesmerize you that the Lord was blessing you and that easy money was now for yours to keep? Did it ever suggest to you that it would eventually lead to a collapse in the stock market? What about that great investment that beat all monetary returns in the marketplace? Did it not suggest to you that it could be fraudulent and feeding the hands of the terrorists in the world today?
Do you sit in the councils of cities, states or at our nation’s capital while laws of oppression are enacted upon the poor? Does your desire for inexpensive gas give our nation justification to create nations out of bloodshed? Does your desire for wealth give you justification to wreck the environment and rape the natural resources of our planet earth? Does your desire to pamper your emotional and sexual life with music, alcohol and immoral sex with amoral relationships help to elevate your spiritual life? Does your BMW, country club card, feathered ivory towered degree become the center of your life and existence? Does your gold gilded position on a church or institutional board let you preen your feathers that you truly are creating goodness in our progressively evil society?
The Lord of hosts has only one request: come silent before Me and watch! Come silent before Me and listen! Yet do we only doze and slumber?
Matthew 27:45-54 – “Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, “This Man is calling for Elijah!” Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink.
The rest said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.”
“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
First Earthquake
“Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;
Second Earthquake
“And coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
So when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying. “Truly this was the Son of God!”
In Part One of this series, published in BibleSearchers Reflections, Jesus’ Death, the Earthquake and the Omens to ‘The Jews’, I wrote,
BibleSearchers Reflections - “The angelic hosts bowed their heads in shame and sorrow as they watched first the prophet of Israel addressing the daughters of Jerusalem of their impending and future sorrow. There they saw him as the future high priest and tzaddik, an advocate for His people as Yahshua plead with His Abba (Father) to forgive His murderers of their deeds. As a son of Man, He tenderly sought to provide a guardian for his mother Mary to protect and shelter her through her grief and sorrow. They also saw Him as a loving Savior who through Him forgiveness would be given not only for the sins of a sorrowful and repentant thief but for the sins of all mankind throughout the ages.
Revelation 16:17 (The Seventh Vial or bowl plague) – “Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth.
Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great. “
Are You Ready for the Coming of the Messiah?
This has been a long journey yet a fulfilling one. We start with the first coming of the Yahshua the anointed one and end with the second coming of the Son of Man as the Moshiach (Messiah).
Do we have to be apologetic because these are Christian concepts? No! They did not originate with the Gentile Christians. All the typology, shadow-pictures and concepts concerning the first and the second messiahs are Hebrew-Judaic concepts. The authors of every oracle and prophetic book of the Tanakh (Old Testament) were Hebrews of the House of Jacob. The authors of every book in the New Testament (Brit Hadassah) were written by Jewish members of the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia. They were orthodox halachah observing, temple worshipping, Torah observant, Tanakh (Old Testament) believing, festival observing Jews.
The Christian concept of the coming of Yahshua is not a Gentile Roman concept. It is a Jewish Essene-Nazarene concept. To understand the coming of the Moshiach (Messiah) must be done in the context of the Torah and the life, culture and traditions of the Jewish people.
As such we appeal that the earthquake that occurred upon the death of Yahshua (Jesus) and the second earthquake that occurred upon the resurrection of Jesus were but shadow pictures of the two much larger earthquakes that will occur at the time of the end; in the days of the Sixth and Seventh Seal of Revelation.
The Bible is replete with stories, illustrations, repetition of numbers, symbols, and through it all the Lord of hosts invites us to have ‘ears that can hear’ and ‘eyes that can see’. He also asks us to watch and be ready.
At that Calvary scene, Yahshua was hanging on the cross, where he was hung by his own spiritual leaders in the land of Judea. In spite of the physical pain that He was suffering, His mind was at peace. His physical being was in the hand of His Father whom He knew to be infinite in Power, Presence and Knowledge. Yahshua had struggled with the tormented desires of His own personal being. As a human, He was no different than you and I. As the Son of God, He was in constant communication with His Father in heaven. He wanted to revolt from the idea of subjecting Himself to pain, suffering, deprivation and spiritual torment. He knew that He had to suffer through the awful isolation of spiritual separation from His Father, while He was at the mercy of the powers of satanic darkness. He knew that His Father’s presence was very near but by the very presence of the arch-terrorist who had rebelled from His Father, Yahshua was now enveloped in a shroud of oppression.
Yet the faith of our Lord was secure. He had walked and talked with His Father no different than Adam and Eve had walked and talked with their Maker in the Garden. The focus of Yahshua on His Father was intense. He was not here to pursue His own will, to pamper His own feelings, to create glory in His own name, or to create a Davidian dynasty in 1st century Judea. He was here to do the will of His Father. He gave to us a living example of how we shall live in the final moments of this great and intense struggle ahead for the total domination and control of this earth.
Most of us live in a world in which our lives are centered on our own personal and physical preservation. Think of it seriously, we are not much different than the Jewish people of old. We fight to preserve our own religious traditions, rituals and the symbols of spiritual life left to us by our forefathers. More and more we feel that we are on the verge of annihilation and extinction. Three months without a job, our house mortgage will be in default, our security blanket with layers of catastrophic insurance, liability insurance, life insurance, and personal identity insurance keep a façade of depleting security around our lives.
Getting old physically is easy compared to the existential fear of losing our home, our friends and or family. We feel our lives being stripped away. Our security shield is springing leaks and our carefully wrought ‘purpose’ in life with all its dreams slowing fading into a void of darkness.
Yet for others, this physical world becomes more transparent, revealing its moth-eaten depravity and decay. All men can perceive the full weight of men’s depravity as they seek to destroy God’s earth and the people who call upon the name of the Lord. The increasing evidence of satanic control is ever more evident. As we read in the second seal of Revelation, the peace has been taken from the land. During this time we will learn to keep our minds focused on our Lord and Redeemer. As we do, our souls become more at peace with our Maker.
We begin to understand that our ideals of a personal utopia were not that grand. Our visions of becoming that great spiritual guru, a master physician with the secret to the elixir of life, dream of that physical ‘make-over’ that will vault us to the echelons of the ‘beautiful people’, and our intense longing for our own ‘Walden Pond’ where peace and joy can surround us are now fading in a misty fog. Is there only a void in my future or is there a hope for a new beginning?
The desire of all mankind has been linked to a dream of that pleasant land called paradise: Eden, Heaven, Promised Land, Shangri-la, Elysian Fields, Valhalla, Golden Age, Land of Enchantment, or the Land of Camelot. Some of us have that nihilistic urge to grab it all now for ‘tomorrow never comes’. Many visualize a paradise whether it is with ‘seventy virgins’ or a ‘mansion over the hilltop’. Is this paradise centered on our own personal desires to be a ‘god’ and force our dream of omnipotence on everyone else? Are we rather prepared to be ‘one with the Father’ and give up our dreams with the faith that His will is not just sufficient but will surpass not just our fondest but our grandest dreams?
The vision the Lord left us for our future is one in which either we will trust in His Father and become ‘bondservants’ with Him or trust in our own Machiavellian machinations of life and find our empty house filled with demonic spirits. This polarity is so contrary to the ideals of democracy and competing negotiations which our world today considers ‘idealism’. We want to negotiate our way to utopia. We have lowered our dreams and ideals of goodness and greatness and have entered the courts of compromise. You take a little and I’ll take a little and we will both seek happiness with a glass half full.
But the Lord of hosts appeals to us, ‘Trust me!” “Your ways are not My Ways. I am who I am and there is none like Me. Your idealism cannot match my “Ideals” for you.”
You want to preserve an otter in an oil soaked sea but I want to restore for you a renewed earth. You want to negotiate between extremists to find ‘negotiated peace’ for everyone’s satisfaction, but I am telling you, I will withdraw My Spirit of protection from this earth and let man’s personal desires of domination and control to be revealed and felt in their fullest extent. In the final end, you will have two choices, submit yourself to the powers of evil or submit yourself to the Eternal One the Author of goodness and righteousness.
Do you believe in a Lord of the universe whose only goal is to swoop down, as a saving Savior, upon this earth and snatch up His chosen ones? Are we looking for redemption and restoration or just a grand divine rescue operation? Does God not have the power and authority to redeem and restore His people and His land that He calls His own? Do you believe that Jesus will let the earth and all the creatures He created with His goodness be destroyed and annihilated by His presence?
Do you truly believe what His prophets of old have repeatedly stated over and over, that the Lord of hosts will come to rule with a rod of iron? If all the inhabitants of this world are transformed into celestial and immortal beings, for who is the Lord to rule over? The Lord of hosts consistently asks us to ‘watch and be ready’ but what are we to watch for? If there is a God of order and not a God of chaos, then what are the patterns of His order?
Yes we will watch. In fact the whole world will watch. Time will appear to be out of our control. Our physical reality will appear to fade away. The hour of God’s judgment will have come. If you have been watching and listening there will be a certain quiet quivering of excitement that resonates throughout your body. Anticipating the coming of the Messiah will come also with an inward feeling of awe, excitement, relief, anticipation and mourning that you could have not done.
And then the seventh shofar of trumpet of the Lord will sound and echo around the globe. The voice of the Lord of hosts will shout out in the seventy languages of the earth, “It is finished”. A great panorama will begin to unfold before our eyes.
It will be surreal yet the force of its impact will sink deep into your soul. The islands of the sea will begin to sink below the waves. The mighty civilizations on the islands of the sea: Japan, the Philippines, Hawaii, the Aleutian Islands, Great Britain, Cypress, Madagascar, Cyprus, and Taiwan will disappear and carry their civilizations with them.
Yet the impact will not be as great as when the great mountain chains around the earth begin to collapse: the Rockies, the Andes, to the Himalayas. The continents will begin to creak and groan with a horrible din that will continue for days. The continental tectonic plates will begin separating. The vast subterranean crustal plates which were pushing against each other with unbelievable forces will begin to return the continents back home to the land that it once was, Pangea. The Lord of hosts will be rearranging His house that was destroyed in the Great Flood of Noah. God will be redeeming His people and restoring His land.
The land of Pangea, the former Garden of Eden, will once again be restored. The eastern coast of the United States will be suddenly moving closer to the western coast of Europe. The Mediterranean Valley will experience a massive uplift with the peak uplift in Jerusalem which will become the highest mountain in all the earth.
What will your response be to listen to the breathless stammer of an anchorman on international T.V. We will be informed that imminent scientists are watching closely the two main continental plates of America and Euro-Africa as they are moving closer towards each other in meters per day? During this time, the Atlantic Ocean will get smaller and smaller.
The mighty forces of the tectonic plates that collided against each other with massive uplifts are suddenly relieved of that vast continental pressure. As the tectonic plate pressure is relieved the mountains will settled down, thousands of feet at a time.
Where will we be during these days? Will these events all end in
the destruction of all mankind? The geologists speak of several global
annihilations of all species. The Bible does not except the destruction of
this earth in one great global catastrophe by the floods and water in the days
of Noah?
The Super-continent called Pangea – drawing by Robert Mock MD
Maybe it is much easier to think that we will be sent on an interplanetary journey. Yes, we will be caught up into the clouds to be with our Lord, but the text doesn’t say where we will go afterwards. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)
When Christ arose from the grave in His glorified body, He was still living on this earth. He ate fish in the Upper Room and ministered to His disciples in Galilee. Oh yes, He could walk through walls and went to visit His Father in heaven. Yes, He was a glorified inter-dimensional Being, not tainted with sin and the curse of being trapped in this three dimensional world. His disciples could perceive the majesty of His glorified Being. He bade them to follow His example. His commission to them was not to conquer the world in My name but to make disciples of every nation and tongue and people.
Here we see the grand design of the plan of salvation: Paradise Lost à Paradise Restored. We see this restoration unfold literally as spoken by the prophet of old.
Isaiah 66:14-16, 18-20 - “For behold, the Lord will come with fire and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword, the Lord will judge all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many….”
“For I know their works and their thoughts. It shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles.
“Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, “as the children of Israel bearing an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.”
The earth renewed, the New Earth, will still be in the future, a future place that will remain before the eyes of our Lord.
Isaiah 66:22 – “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the Lord. “So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,” say the Lord.
The earth will be restored and returned to the era of the golden age, Pangea. We will celebrate the New Moons and the Sabbaths (Shabbats). These will include the festival and the seventh-day Sabbath. Yes the hierarchy of the solar system, the sun, the moon and the stars in the heavens will remain the same.
We will learn the way of the Lord, Torah. We will learn to walk the walk with our Lord, halachah. We will learn and experience how to keep the festivals of the Lord, this time from the Creator of the festivals.
Lest we forget and seek to walk in our ‘old’ ways and re-live the former life of power, greed and control that had control and oppressed our world, the Lord of hosts will leave for us a visual reminder of a past that we do not want to repeat;
Isaiah 66:24 – “And they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
In the age of the Messiah, we will learn to walk the life of Torah and we will learn it directly from our Lord and Savior, the Son of the Living God, who will teach us with the rod of iron or the two edged sword between His mouth. The life of cause in which the effect will be instant will teach us quickly right from wrong.
This is not an era of eternal bliss with the pampering of the physical body, but an era of true freedom. Man will learn to become responsible for his own actions. This will be an era in which knowledge and wisdom will merge. Gone will be the days in which wise men with minimal knowledge lived. Gone will be the day when scientists, philosophers, economists, sociologists and theologians will have great knowledge but no wisdom.
The Lord of hosts and the God of Abraham, Isaac and God invite us:
Isaiah 1:18 – “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken…
The Lord of hosts invites all of us to have a vision of the latter days. God’s holy land will be restored. The land of oppression and war will be transformed.
Isaiah 2:1-4 – “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it.
“Many people shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law (Torah) and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plow shares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nations; neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord.”
The Moschiach of Israel to the Jews and the Second Coming of Jesus to the Christians, the Lord of hosts will come to dwell with His own on that season of Succot. What a grand reception that will be. Yahshua will be the ruler of this world and Israel will become the international teaching center on Torah; how to walk and talk with the Father of our Lord, Yahshua ben Yosef.
From the preparation day of Passover, April 5, (14 Nissan) to the 56th year celebration of the Nation of Israel (April 20, 2004 29 Nissan 5764), who won their independence on May 14, 1948, the tumultuous events in America and the Middle East give pause to BibleSearchers. What is the intent of the Divine One who is arranging all the nations in preparation for the coming of the Moshiach (Messiah)? (Open to connect to entire Gleanings on Global News)
The Footsteps of the Master –
“Faith to Walk in God’s Footsteps”
1 John 3:2 – “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
It is always nice to know that Jesus walks in our footsteps. In fact, in moments of trials and tribulations, if our eyes are open to spiritual discernment, we can actually perceive that that we are no longer walking but are being carried in the shelter of His arms in pathways that we do not dare trod. But what about walking in the footsteps of the Master?
This is presumptuous you exclaim. The Lord of hosts is so much more powerful and knowledgeable than I. How can I presume that I can walk in His footsteps? He knows the future, he knows the past, and in His eternal awareness who am I to walk in His pathway?
When we start to chart our life into the mystical unknown, our lives become uncertain. We struggle to cope with uncertainty and with our best efforts, we create a known certainty for our future, the calculated best pathway for us to follow. It is the natural inclination of man to precisely chart our future and then charge towards it with determination and courageous effort. It is important to focus our lives on some future goal. Yet to have a ‘vision’ or an ‘epiphany’ of our future life is not the same as taking the best pathway to that vision.
There is the wide road, easy to travel and with minimal safety hazards. The wide and paved road makes us feel ‘certain about our certainty’. There are few calculated dangers, and we can travel easy on auto-pilot; experiencing and learning little. Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life. We can precisely plot out our pathway, and in every contingency that we might expect to face. Then we revel when we reach a pre-determined goal. Our joy is in getting to the destination not in traveling to that destination. For us, it is important to know the outcome before we are willing to risk the effort to travel. This is the pathway where we lay down guideposts where we have been and establish firm and deep roots. Don’t ask me to explore outside the wide and comfortable road. Overall life is pretty good. This is the natural life.
There is the straight and narrow path. This path may have many hazards and appears treacherous. The struggle self-assures us that the road less-traveled must be the right way. We revel in the struggle as if supreme effort will reward us in the end. We learn self-reliance, self-fortitude and all those other virtues applauded of the self-made man. Sometimes we perceive that this is the righteous pathway. If it is difficult with many trials and tribulations, then it must be the pathway of the Father.
There must be some spiritual meaning why my life is always so difficult. Yet we keep having nagging doubts. Am I making the way arduous and difficult? Why do we have so many trials? Are personal trials supposed to be spiritually uplifting? Many perceive that this path is a path of spirituality, but many travel this road because it is narrow and isolated but not because it is spiritual uplifting. We are uncertain about our certainty.
Have you ever driven down a foggy mountainous road with about ten feet visibility? You do have a comfortable certainty because you a following a friend in a car ahead who is guiding you as he drives with a night vision fog scope? You feel assured because your friend was a company commander of a group of Green Berets and highly decorated for guiding men down treacherous pathways. What you have is certainty about your uncertainty.
To have a certainty about our Lord give us a certainty about whom we are following. But we have a gracious uncertainty about where we are going. Of the three pathways, this is the pathway of the spiritual life. When we have certainty in the Lord of our lives, we also are uncertain about where we are going. Why? We are not uncertain about our Lord but we are uncertain about His plans for our lives.
This uncertainty in following our Lord is not filled with dread, fear, or even sadness. Understanding and believing in the immense capability of our Lord also gives us a certain feeling of awe and breathless expectation. It is exciting and exhilarating to expect the unexpected. But we always having the certainty of Whom we are following.
We begin to live a life of certain abandonment as we give our lives over to the Lord of our lives. We are willing to do the tasks He has places before us and allow Him to put the surprises in our pathway. Life is a continuous ‘treasure hunt’.
Yet if we begin to calculate our lives, promote our lifestyle, or defend our own pathway, we suddenly experience death to part of our being. Instead of following God, we begin to believe in ourselves. Or, we begin to believe we know the way better than God. Maybe we believe in our “belief” and refuse to let God lead us. We think that we are maturing but the Lord puts His hand on our shoulder and says, “Unless you…become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 18:3)
The spiritual life is a life of a child. Remember what life was like when you said, “Daddy, let’s go somewhere!” You did not know where you were going, daddy knew. You did not know how to get there, but daddy knew. You did not care what route you were going because daddy knew. You also had certainty that where daddy was going was going to be a place that you would find joy and happiness because you were with daddy.
When we think we are maturing and getting older, we begin to lose our certainty about daddy. We become uncertain about what he is going to do next. If we feel certain about our Heavenly Father because we are certain about our ‘beliefs’ in Him, then we believe in our ‘beliefs’ and not in Him. This is the path of self-righteousness. Our Father cannot even show us anything new about Himself, because any deviation we are expecting deception, fraud and biblical error.
If our certainty in our Heavenly Father lies in our certainty about our expectations concerning what He is doing for our lives or how our Father is governing the universe, we become spiritual tyrants. We become demanding, impatient and act like we are spoiled. God, you are not running the events of our world properly. We are overly critical and our world view is limited to only how it affects me.
When we have a certainty in our Father that His wisdom and knowledge knows what is best, our lives become full of spontaneous surprises, joyful in unexpected turn of events and thankful providences that He does for our lives.
As we move into an era where the only certainty we have is a life of uncertainty, put your life in a restful peace in the omnipotent power of your Father in heaven. Leave the future of our world in His hands and begin to watch with awe at the glorious providences of His Majesty. Remember these providences in your life and you will come to an exciting revelation, you are following your Lord and Master. Yes, you are walking in His footsteps.
Robert Mock MD
The Ministry of BibleSearchers Reflections
BibleSearchers Reflections is a spiritual ministry of Robert D. Mock MD and the ‘BibleSearchers’ as we build ministries with all who are seeking the return of the Messiah or Moshiach of Israel. We seek to speak with all the children of Abraham, whether Jew, Christian or Muslim. The restoration of Israel and redemption of the saints are all part of the message of the prophets. We are but BibleSearchers searching for literal clues to the unfolding Drama of the Ages that is upon us at the ‘time of the end’.
We hope you will let us share our Biblical research ministry with you. If what we are sharing is valuable to you and your life and you wish your friends, relatives or pastors to participate, you may give us their email addresses and we will invite them to join, BibleSearchers Reflections.
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