Both before and after the Cross, God 'mirrors' time back to us for the same reason He mirrors Himself: to teach. See, we need to have someone show us where we are wrong or right, and God's method is to measure back what's wrong or right, so we can see objectively: principle is most succinctly stated in Matt7:1-2. So if you have a spiritual problem, you'll have a mirroring physical circumstance. So if the world has a time problem, it has a mirroring time segment to go with it. Loss, or gain. And any gain or loss is balanced either prior or later, with a matching time segment of like kind.
More fundamentally, God 'mirrors' time like an accounting transaction, so that everything balances ("for every thing, there is a season" and similar verses). He does this in 490-year segments, starting with Adam. Mirroring.htm shows the tracking of these segments through 70AD, and needs some refining; however, you will see enough proof from the methodology and dates you can check, to see this is a Real Accounting In Real Time, so only Real God can be doing it. There's nothing like this on the internet, so keep your skeptic's hat on, and breathe 1Jn1:9 as needed.
The basis for all this mirroring, moreover, is solely, the believer. We are used to buy time for the world. It's not a figure of speech, but literal, and has been God's Justice Criterion since Adam. So, in Mirroring.htm, you can prove that God grants the Earth 490 more years based on the DDNA of an individual, starting with Adam. Further, these grants of time STACK, if more than one individual alive at the same time, receives it, which greatly improves the prosperity of the Time the Earth gets. However, Mirroring.htm only traced the proof of those grants, to 70AD. Due to the Cross, it seemed as though the 490's terminated or changed. Well, now I realize the 490's are still God's policy, and are still granted. Still as result of DDNA God built in the believer; still means God grants time to at least one believer sufficient to justify continuing Earth's existence for another 490 years. Because, you can prove it still happening on a corporate level, though you can't prove identity of the individual(s).
This DDNA production is the fundamental reason why we can't date the Rapture: DDNA is Sovereignly conditioned and produced, based on believer positive volition, as a gift from Father to Son and vice versa, per Isa53:10-12. That contract means the development of His Son's Soul in the souls of believers in Church, is something only God can know. It's an open-ended contract, as you'll see when you review Isa53trans.htm (which includes ALL the text in the original verses 10-12; all translations leave out the LXX text which is missing from the BHS, and should have been included, since we know text is missing). Isa53.htm also shows all the text, and explains the problem.
Point is, it's a CONTRACT which Father is completing for Son. There was an initial deadline for that contract, but due to Israel's refusal of Messiah, the contract (which itself is open, the deadline came later) got extended. That's the only reason why there is a Church. We'd not be here but for Israel's refusal, so we owe Israel much. Flee anti-semitism like the poison it is.
And mankind had already degenerated too much, almost 1000 years ago. So the only reason Earth continues NOW, is due to God being legally authorized by believers on earth, to bless the people on it; and, to provide added blessing due to Bible contract clauses for past believers' post-mortem blessing benefits ("Perfect Actuary" section of LvS4b.htm). For if you read LvS4a.htm, you can reasonably prove mankind is already in an overtime round, as history was supposed to end 1144AD: the originally-planned ending of history (1094AD end Mill+50 year voting period), had Israel accepted her Messiah during the First Advent. Because she did not, she gets a double dose of tribulational sevens: the first one resulted in Messiah dying seven years earlier, because time literally ran out (see "David" link in Mirroring.htm for the math); so that seven years was played to end the 40 year period ending 70AD. Thus the 7 years of the Tribulation, now vested in Christ (to pay Him back for the years He gave up down here), are reserved. [See "Two Stone Witnesses" intra-page link in LvS4a.htm, or "Trib Mill" Link in Mirroring.htm for the initial countdown and its expected variations due to Israel's rejection.]
So this race for time is now a sudden-death round, and can end at any time; for the last 1057 years of history must occur; God will Rapture us up first, so that those years will occur. But, we have options, too: and woe to us, if we refuse His DDNA offer (see "God's Soliloquy" table in DDNA.htm).
So if He would even orchestrate time for the sake of the whole human race, and that, based on the positive believer, whoa -- then you know for sure that you'd better get in and stay in His System, kissing good-bye all that folderol which usually passes for 'Christianity'. Only God can orchestrate Time; the doctrine of the 490's is Scripturally and mathematically provable, so you cannot hallucinate this major doctrine in Bible; so you know you have to learn it; it's very serious with huge impact on mankind, so you know you're not supposed to slobber about the "end-times, brother." So you know you need to grow, because you are essentially refusing God's making you into a '490' person like He did Noah et. alia, if you do not stay in His System. Whoa.
Clearly no human works can create or extend time. Clearly, then, the Work God Wants is to make the Believer like His Son. We are the Work, made wholly BY God, Eph2:10, the quintessentially witty NT statement on DDNA (in Greek, not English). [Ionic dative of purpose of epi right next to "Iesou" (Jesus) is priceless wit, since "Ion" was the legendary founder of the Greek sea peoples to whom this epistle was circulated. Ion was supposed to be half human, half god, and "Ion" means "venom" (euphemism for semen). So Paul is direct about DDNA being our origin, and wryly so!]
So we're not who we think we are: we are Royal Family of God. Hence we no longer have a personal life. Even human royalty is trained from the cradle to give up its own personal life for the sake of ruling: since one never rules well, if his personal life 'competes'. Rank has its responsibilities: as Royal Family forever we are responsible for the well-being of the world, by Divine Design. So the quality and quantity of Time itself is ruled by how we grow or retrogress in Christ. ("Thinking" series covers that fact in excruciating detail.) So you are to become a '490', yourself. As befits your Royal Station legated to you from Christ. So if things go bad, blame yourself. If you are growing, you are being made part of the solution. My pastor commonly quips, "as goes the believer, so goes the client nation to God." And, so goes the world which Needs that client nation, to prosper.
The relay-race of historical 490's running since 30AD follow two primary tracks: one dating from the Crucifixion (i.e., 30+490+490+490), and one dating since the Destruction of the Temple (i.e. 70+490+490). God tracks from the Crucifixion: so His "AD" means "After Death", and His "BC" means "Before Crucifixion" (which was 14 Nisan 30AD, tantamount to our 3 April). But oddly enough, Satan appears to derisively target the 490 from Temple destruction. Satan's been obsessed with the Temple since it was destroyed, because the Lord warned everyone to never come back once it got destroyed (i.e., in Matt24 which applies Daniel 9:26). So Satan's been messing with the Temple Mount, ever since. The GeneYrs.xls worksheet mentioned in the "update note" at pagetop illustrates his regular gambits which 'just happen' (yeah, right) to magnetize within 140 years or so of the ending of a 490-year period; Part IVa spends a lot of time on them as well.
Since both tracks unite backwards at the Exodus of 1440BC, the ongoing 490's post-Cross, thread together. So these two 490 tracks run in syncopated tandem. That makes for very intense historical experience, within the last four generations of The Crucifixion 490. In the table below, the ending dates of each of these 490s are listed, so you can see how they overlap.
| Ending Dates |
| Cross 490s | Temple 490s |
| 520AD | 560AD |
| 1010AD | 1050AD |
| 1500AD | 1540AD |
| 1990AD | 2030AD |
Historical 490s aren't quite the same as the above dates. The above dates are non-intercalated, but the historical 490s are intercalated with voting periods. Mankind in aggregate must want God enough for time to be justifiably continued; every 490 years or so, that voting is critical to the continuance of the world (i.e., as it was back between 586-516BC). The 490s are housed inside a 1050-year unit, like this: 1000 (qualifying unit for believers) +50 (voting unit) = 490 (qualifying unit for believers) + 70 (voting unit for believers) + 490 (qualifying unit for believers). The 1050 'houses' the 490+70+490. This relationship is explained in more detail in Mirroring.htm's "1050" link. Point is, you'll see in the GeneYrs.xls that the historical play of this 'intercalated' structure of time makes for later benchmarks than is shown in this page. So technically, the above dates in the table, are the dates by which someone must QUALIFY to be awarded a 490. In actual time, the voting period next follows. Then a new qualifying 490 must be awarded. Else time ends. So the GeneYrs.xls plots the actual historical benchmarks, whereas here we're only reviewing the qualifying 490s, which are non-intercalated.
The Seven Characteristics of each 490's completion follow below. After that description, you'll find an "A-D" historical review, which seeks to identify what historical evidence supports the characteristics (as a test in diagnosing what 490 goals were met). The "A-D" is sketchy (and sometimes confusing), right now. Further, the description doesn't distinguish between the two 490's. So you'll need the above table, to see which of the above 490s is being measured, in "A-D". Later I'll fix the "A-D" description to be more specific. (This is a new (June '05) discovery, and I need more time to think over its significance and how to write about it.) The conclusions nonetheless ought to be provable; it's just a question of better discerning the relative roles between these two tandem 490's. So just skim through the "A-D" to get the idea: this page will need to undergo many substantial revisions, given its import. GeneYrs.xls is a better tracker, with many more historical entries from the Cross forward.
The Crucifixion redeemed time, as was its purpose, as Part II's "opportunity cost" table, and as PartIVa's "LEGAL Precedence" section, explain. It redeemed time backwards and forwards, in essence justifying all of creation. But the continuation of time is still a justice issue, now in a different way: how much time is it just to provide, considering that man is devolving. For in anything there comes a time when you must STOP: to continue further, will become destructive, not constructive. So if God is not judicious about how much Time He allows, then HE is unfair. That will never happen. Hence the need for at least one believer to be so spiritually developed that the thinking of that believer justifies another 490 continuance. There must always be a balance between the thinking patterns, analogous to the reason for the sacrifices in the OT. Concept of compensation: God is not compensated by suffering or sacrifice, and in fact needs no compensation at all. But It's A Justice Issue That Compensation Be Paid. Isa53:10-11 is the contract of compensation, Christ's Thinking for our sins. Hence, that same thinking compensates for all the bad thinking God must hear -- so the goal is, to deposit that thinking in enough quantity to justify all other individuals' thinking during the same time period -- and really, during up to a whole 490 years for the entire planet.
So the Cross 490s' continuation, depends on that Deposit Goal being achieved, and there must be at least ONE individual who gets so high a deposit, all the others have time to grow during the next 490. #1 Characteristic (below) is therefore the rollout of Scripture, since that is the Source of the Deposit, the God-breathed Word, Christ's Thinking (as God, OT; as Human, NT).
The Temple 490s' continuation criteria are a bit harder to diagnose, just yet. I only know I can prove it's running, and its significance is a kind of anti-type Satan uses. Historically, in each of the last 100 years of the Temple 490s, 'something' with respect to that destroyed (2nd) Temple, happens in history. Satan seeks to focus attention ON the Temple (hence ON Jerusalem), to motivate gathering, Temple building.. and hence, war. That's his strategy post-Cross, as Revelation Chapters 11-17 reveal.
Needless to say, I can't find anything remotely like this page, on the web. People notice that there is an orchestration of time; but they use the wrong dates to track it e.g., going by astrology or other planetary phenomena. For Bible forbids astrology, so God would not be using it Himself i.e., NO Star of Bethelehem, since astrology was punishable in Deut 18:10-14 (the person was to be cut off, looks like capital punishment). Or, someone interprets the 1260 days in Daniel to mean 1260 years -- nope); or, they truncate the tracking at the 70AD destruction (I made that mistake, too), not recognizing that the 490's begin with Adam, so predate Israel. Most just treat the 490 of Daniel as the SOLE 490 operating. That mistake is common, and I'd have made it too except for a fluke when analyzing that 490 (yeah, no flukes in a Christian's life).
So as you read what follows, pay particular attention to the Seven Characteristics, but skim over the historical analysis solely to understand the Characteristics' meaning, better. I'll have to revise the historical analysis substantially, because it doesn't show the tandem tracking, just yet. Prepare to be awestruck by the confluences, just the same...
So a historical 490's successful end seems to have at least ALL of the following characteristics:
For the most important point to get about God is this: God is indeed omnipotent, but He will only choose to use His Power consonant with LOVE. Love is above all, a stasis, an Absolute Attitude. Hence, Absolute Justice. Hence, A Contract Of Love. Which Absolute Love will Absolutely Defend and Honor. You accept the terms or do not, but God will never abrogate His Love for you. If you reject this Contract there are consequences, because those same consequences would obtain if God Himself rejected Love. God is free to reject, consummately so. And the consequences would be exactly the same -- but at an Infinite Level. Since we are living, we know He will NEVER abrogate His End of the Contract. So it remains for us to learn the Contract, and decide how much, if any, we are willing to accept. For, Honor is the highest form, the Expression of Absolute Love. And God will thus absolutely and always honor His Contract. Which contract, was sealed on the Cross forever, Isa53:10-12 (again).
Hence, the most important indicator of the ending of a 490, is some unusual new availability of Scripture; be it availability of the original-language texts, good teaching (which is always rare and quiet), or some convenience aide; because such unusual availability, means Contract Disclosure is Peaking. Which peaking, signifies an unusually-large number of humans (at that time or upcoming within four generations) who want to know God better. For example, in the 1100's, the College of Paris invented the Chapter and verse system we have today (original Scripture has no punctuation or even spaces between words). That was a convenience aid of some magnitude: the ability to learn, remember and discuss Scripture was exponentially increased, causing no end of hassle for the Catholic Church, since friars were enthusiastically teaching people the Bible that way; which disclosure, freed people from Rome's stranglehold as never before. Quietly. Learning Bible frees you from all the tyrannies in your life, and Our God is the God of Freedom, John 8:32, Gal5:1, John 17:17. Even more gigantic, was the invention of moveable type, by Gutenberg, in the 1450's. There'd have been no 'Reformation', without it.
The biggest rollout of Scripture original-language manuscripts (aka "MSS") in history, began in the 1850's. It's downright astonishing that so many men from all over Europe at the same time, got it into their heads to go searching for the original language manuscripts, and to collate them. Knowing that the manuscripts were in the thousands, the hunt and the comparison (to test for copyist errors) was an operation of such magnitude, you can't even imagine the scale. Yet these individuals all sacrificed their lives for it. The process took most of the century, and there was true collaboration. Frankly, the rollout is the most significant event in the history of the world since the New Testament Canon was completed circa 96AD. For translations of the Bible were not written by the God-breathed authors. And you always lose between 20%-100% of the meaning of a sentence, in translation. Can't avoid it. Can't ever want to see the Word in translation again, once you see it in the original language texts: the two are like apples and oranges.
For God prepared long in advance, for this rollout: He provided teachers to teach this most-precious find, and many of those teachers were the ones who engaged in the collection, collation, and comparison of the texts. They passed on their knowledge to others. In the 19th century, every 'gentleman' was fluent in Attic Greek, Latin, and usually in Biblical Hebrew (the first two languages were long used in science, as well). So God prepared men to pass on what they learned; to copy carefully the ancient manuscripts, so the material could be widely disseminated. So forget the "Industrial Revolution", it pales in importance. Anyhow, it was needed to make Scripture easier to produce and distribute. So this rollout is THE Revolution, back to what God originally intended: the original-language texts, taught deeply to people who wanted to live on those texts. Just because. This revolution is ongoing still, and it has many enemies.
God does a #1, only when enough people want it, because of the liability. If Scripture is hidden or too hard to read/access, and you wouldn't want it were it easier to get, then.. even though you remain liable for your own negativity, God didn't add to your liability. Conversely, if you did want Scripture and He didn't give it to you, then He is at fault. Just because God can bing anything, doesn't mean He chooses to be unjust. Love isn't ever unjust, and it's always unjust, to coerce (which is why hell exists); and Righteousness never operates apart from Love. Sovereignty wouldn't have it, any other way.
Christianity perennially gets it wrong about God's Attitude, so perennially misses the awesomeness of His Nature. Because He is omnipotent, He can bing anything He wants and it is so. Therefore what He wants, is to condition on others' wants, the existence and shape of a thing. Because, the one thing God 'can't' do because He is Love.. is to coerce. So it's wonderful, in His 'Eyes', especially knowing us as He does -- that we would want Him. Not that He doesn't deserve it, but that we cannot understand Him; that we are not compatible with Him, so want antithetically. So to Him it's utterly amazing that His Son's Humanity would want and would go through the Cross, despite all that was thrown at and on Him -- even, our sins. Even, judging our sins. Sovereignty is all about, Free Will, and would never accept anything else. Because anything else, God can do in a nanosecond. Because anything else, is not a Relationship. John 17 is all about, Relationship. And hence, Free Will. Sovereignty wouldn't have it, any other way.
Consequently this biggest Scripture rollout occurring in the 19th century, means many people are interested in God. So, then: if He did provide and then we refuse to learn what He provided, our liability is far worse. Why else to you think history's conflict has accelerated so much, since the 19th century? Modernization made Bible more convenient to have, and we got the original manuscripts; and we have (albeit few) qualified pastors in every country on earth, many of them providing taped classes, so you don't even have to leave the house; and we have the easiest and most prolific adjunctive study tools (i.e., like BibleWorks and other software): all these, at the highest levels ever in history. Because God Exercises His Sovereignty, to preserve free will and hence freedom itself. And all freedom, completely depends on believer spiritual growth, since Church began in June 30AD (Eph4:5-11, Eph1).
1983-1990/1990-1997 appears to be the nexus, with "/" as the juncture of the two 40-year periods; yet the characteristics could mean something else, or the period is different (i.e., 1990-2003). For now, let's presume 1983-1997 correct. 1990 ended the latest qualifying 490. The "1990" intra-page link will tentatively examine the year.
So if that nation now happens to be the United States (most likely candidate): if it doesn't wake up to God by 2030, if it doesn't rid itself of the Christian right in politics -- watch it spectacularly decline. If you are an American Christian, you can help prevent your nation's demise: get in and stay in God's System. This is not a public thing you do, but a quiet learning; you will get no kudos from anyone, so unless you really want to know God, don't do this -- you won't make it. However, the impact you could have, is extremely high: one person of any denomination, might be enough (when added to the very few others who are doing it, each one unknown to anyone). Certainly a few might be enough. Meanwhile, if enough pray for God to save our country, He just might do it anyway, 2Chron7:14. But no prayer outside God's System, gets an audience. Since nearly 100% of 'Christians' don't get the Gospel right (so are they even believers) -- very very few even know how to pray (GodSystem.htm's #5, or PrayProc.htm list the mechanics). The foregoing sentence can be tested and proven, and you should do both.
The 1990 watershed has worldwide characteristics, so maybe not only the longevity of the US is at stake. Whatever nationality you are, Grow in God's System. That way you will be caused to (invisibly!) help save your own nation. As a believer, you are a Royal Priest before Father. So this is your JOB. It's not a joke, it's not something to make you feel important (lol, you already are important); it's not a wild-eyed "end times, brother" statement. It's God's Justice Accounting for Time, and it has precedence: as noted with respect to Joseph, above.
The purpose of diagnosing a bellweather or benchmark is to encourage internal motivation. Not, to run around warning other people (who don't know Bible as well, so will think the warning, wacko). Think of it as an investment opportunity you'll wish you didn't miss.. at the Bema.
The popular hunger for Bible proved to be politically de-stabilizing for the Protestants, as you might imagine; Gutenberg's Bible likewise proved the undoing of the Catholic Church. Now people could know what God had written; God, not a pastor or translator with a religious agenda. So marked is this hunger, you can't take a course in American history without the historian being obliged to cover it. From the last half of the 1800's through about 1930s, everyone and his brother was talking about 'new' doctrines. Of course, there was a lot of nonsense (i.e., ideas as alike yet diverse as Spiritism and getting-the-Ghost movements). But also, a lot of serious Bible scholarship -- for we had the original-language texts to see. Then, these various 'new' ideas settled into denominations of their own, and from the 1930's to the 1950's you saw a decline of interest. Then, it rose again, from 1950, going through a series of peaks and valleys. But during this time, it branched out all over the world, kinda like a virus. Hunger for Bible, as a virus? Yep.
So we're looking at a groundswell, here, not a happy thing for the entrenched religious elites who'd become just as dogmatic about their own power, as any Pope of the dark ages. Among these elites, though, were a few very happy campers, who longed to teach their congregations/students that Beautimous Word. The discoveries at Qumran blew the lid off public curiosity, for both Bible huggers and debunkers alike had old stuff to compare to their translations. Those elites who wanted to teach original-language Bible now had even more justification to break away. Which, they did.
They were of varying denominations or no denominations. There were goofballs among them, and some of the most brilliant scholars, too. They spread geographically, mostly out from the US and Europe, but even in Asia the movement grew (i.e., Watchman Nee). The post-war environment of exhaustion and the usual why-did-God-allow-the-war, fueled interest from Sao Paolo to Nova Scotia to Djakarta. As the fallout from WWII also left many a nation hankering for political freedom, the idea of freely knowing Bible for yourself was of even deeper interest. For one of the less-salutary effects of WWII, was that everyone was tired of the 'old' pre-war authority structures -- after all, didn't those folks get us into the war? So a dark undercurrent of interest accompanying genuine interest in Bible, was.. iconoclasm. So we overthrew our monarchs and opted for new-fangled ideas of governance (which ideas began a century prior). Thus the goofballs spouted original-language Scripture, too...
The better-qualified teachers were in the minority, however: they were not popular among their other elite brethren, for dissenting with 'tradition'. Kinda hard to agree with Roman Catholicism, when you have a Bible which contradicts it; kinda hard to agree with any of the denominations, when you see in Bible how they've mangled the translations/teaching. So of course, the movement became quite political, right away -- mostly, the opposition politicized the movement, and assigned to the break-away teachers, nefarious motives. That's pretty typical: back in the 1500's, neither Luther nor Calvin sought political power. Calvin was busy trying to evangelize the French King, and Luther was trying to get a discussion going by posting his 95 theses. So it was the opposition then, as well as the opposition now, which politicized everything. Satan has to play the Rev17 harlot against a back-to-the-Bible movement: it's all he has, to offer.
The only dampening in the 1950-90 groundswell, was the discovery by your average joe Bible student, that it's rather time-consuming to study Scripture this way. So the wheat and chaff, separated: since it had become fashionable to know original-language words, shallow treatment of those words became popular -- and easier to claim one 'knew'. But the wheat, grew on more substantial stuff. So did the opposition grow: they could play off arcane Greek-geek and Hebrew-geek explanations, and use their degrees to claim superior competence. But that didn't deter the break-away teachers. And they became, some of them, popular: the groundswell, mostly through word-of-mouth, passed on the information. It doesn't appear that the teachers were promoting themselves, so much as inundated by people who wanted to hear them teach. [Example: though Watchman Nee travelled quite a bit, it wasn't to promote himself so much as to save people via the Gospel, given the tenor of his writings. People all over the Western world wanted him to come speak to them, and so the poor guy had very little time to himself. Parallel phenomena occurred at the end of each of the prior 490's, with respect to evangelism and teaching, and is not so easily traced (but the travelling and geographical spread has been documented). But no prior 490 had original-language Scripture so widely available.]
So the period 1950-1990 was fertile for believers being added to the Body of Christ, and believer spiritual growth. The salient question of enquiring minds during this period seemed to be, how do we really learn Bible and really LIVE ON it? For that's what most of the teachers, were trying to address. The seekers were aware that ritualized religion and works weren't 'it'. At the beginning of the 1900's, they'd tried emotionality, and by now it had paled. They wanted meat. There were pastors to cook it for them (well or badly, isn't so much the point, as the demand for real Bible info).
Hence there was a lot of opposition to these 'new' teachers and to the local churches they established. Technically, the movements ran in defined 'waves': 1850-1930; 1950; 1970, and the current one, 1990. The period 1950-1990 was also remarkable in that widespread negativity to the idea of God at all, grew exponentially. So society the world over, polarized over God Himself during those 40 years like no other time in history, so far as I can tell. So the religious crowd was fighting against these teachers, and Christianity fragmented; but also, a fast-rising segment of the world's population who just flat decided God was 'dead', opposed the teachers by lumping them in with the religious crowd. The latter managed neatly to garner definition as the spokesgroup for Christianity, such that even in movies today, what passes for 'Christian' is really a quasi-catholic wash or a Pentecostal rolling. As ever, the quiet-but-competent Bible teacher, the REAL core of God's System ("haphe", in Eph4:16), gets no press, and wants even less than he gets (for what he gets, is opposition).
That's but one example which I understand from 'both sides' of the question. But you'll find many pastors who are opposed or 'analyzed' using lawyer's tricks as just mentioned -- by those who have an agenda. Pro- or con-, an agenda. Bible is its own agenda -- but hey, Bibles are only for show, right? Thus the opposition is herded by Satan&Co. to focus on people-people jealousies, controversies -- so the BIBLE goes safely back into the closet. This is a hallmark tactic of Satan&Co., during a BTTB (Back-to-the-Bible movement).
So does this kind of nonsense by the opposition always occur, not merely in the case above? You bet it always occurs. And as stupidly, too. Phenomenon: the same weird lack-of-homework, characterizes criticisms against other targets both in this period and prior (like the Reformation, and the 1st century AD). Read up on the contemporary opposition to Calvin, Luther, St. Patrick, the Columbans, Waldo, the Cathars (oh -- and tell me how the St. Lyons Ritual is 'gnostic', k?) or any other back-to-the-Bible movement you look at. Never mind how correct they might be in their doctrines, since until they have enough time IN Bible, they can't BE correct. Dunno why opposition is so consistently slipshod, asserting its arguments absent backup. Makes those they excoriate, look good. But it's great for diagnosing who are the good teachers of a #2 era. So, for your period of interest, follow the criticism 'trail' -- and try not to laugh too much at the opposition's carelessness? For the opposition is patently as political, cheesy and silly, as those counterfeit 'Gospels' of the first and second centuries.
Which is why so much political change occurred during these 40 years, and why so much unusual political breakup attended the completion of the 490, by the end of 1990. The two world wars did not happen by accident. As usual, Satan was trying to prevent the completion of a 490 (he's always angling for Armaggedon, which is why Jews shouldn't have returned to Israel); but God grew enough folks spiritually to justify its completion (nearly at the last minute, as has been usual since Noah). Sure, the pastors within the structure vary widely in quality of teaching, but the basic right structure of teaching Bible from its original languages, is God's System. From 1950-1990, that re-established structure became mainstream in Christendom. Finally. [LvS4a.htm covers at length why the "shub" (return) to Israel is not God's Will. Doesn't mean we should abandon Israel -- quite the contrary, we should defend Jews everywhere with our very lives! -- and does mean there will never be peace in the Middle East until the 2nd Advent. Isaiah Chaps 61-63, and the last few chapters prior to Eze39:1 give you that story in kinda gory detail.]
Political power shifts are designed to free up people so they can GET this teaching. Whether they are negative or positive, the structure being available means enough political freedom must be made available. When interest in Bible is too low to justify such political freedom, God uses other means. We know a huge amount of interest in Bible exists, that God would so provide both the texts, and the teachers. Of course, all you have to do is look at the current hunger-for-Bible in China, Korea, India, Russia; in Latin America (Brazil being one of the bright stars) -- and especially in Africa -- to see WHY God would do this. We didn't get the discoveries leading to computers and the internet for no reason.
Africa's interest is the most poignant. Every time I see a program on Africa by Frontline, whether it's Angola, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, you name it -- there's this at-the-village-level of Bible interest. I think it was Angola where an election after their long civil war, was held: do you know, the people campaigned on Bible ideas? One lady who was running for what we'd classify as 'Congress', was talking to a crowd of people who probably didn't have five cents between them, making an analogy to Deuteronomy 28 -- and she didn't even have to cite where in the Bible it was! She just talked about how there was no reason why Angola (?) couldn't become a great nation, since God would advance the nation if the people were faithful and called on Him -- which is the point of the Deut28 contract. And the villagers listening to her understood what she meant! Poor, dusty, living on less than 10 cents per day.. they understood?! Yeah, who in America would understand? You watch Africa. There's real Bible hunger, there. Pray for them. [There's a difference between campaigning on Bible ideas and trying to unite religion and politics. Any political campaign must be about ideas. Here, the point is what ideas were used. It wasn't a religious pitch. No particular religion was espoused. Which means, vast numbers of Africans in that country shared those ideas. I'm awestruck. These people have nothing, but they have Everything: Him.]
This phenomenon and its opposition, isn't at all restricted to religion. You can find it in every discipline, for the entrenched 'order' never brooks change unless the proposer grovels and curries favor from those hoary entrenched. The so-called Atkins Revolution, for example, began with a lot of doctors pooh-poohing the idea of good and bad cholesterol. But today, everyone treats HDL and LDL as normative medicine. Same for Galileo; for Socrates; for anyone who differs from the mainstream, at a time when the mainstream is wrong. When the rank-and-file among the people side with the 'heretic', eventually the 'mainstream' must either fight vociferously (which it always does, at first); or, 'compete', by aping the 'heretic'. This, of course, is how the Reformation occurred. I submit we are in the midst of a fourth 'reformation', going back to how God originally intended Scripture to be learnt. (You of course, will draw your own private conclusions.) [Nerd Note: that wasn't a plug for the Atkins people, whoever they are. It's just an example which quickly came to mind, k?]
I just learned from someone else, that many others have detected the phenomenon of another 'reformation' brewing, so you should find stuff in print and on internet, about what others think of the period. I define 'reformation' in terms of God's Revealing His Word, not according to the religious conventions, since it's God, not man, Who matters. So we see four 490s, and at the end of each of them, is a kind of reformation: by 520-560, you see the demise of imperial religion, with nation-states taking on that mantle. Hence the progressive fight with the Catholic Church in the next 490, and by 1054 (just after the 2nd 490 post-Cross) what we now call "European" nations won sufficient independence to develop on their own. By 1540, the idea that secular rule is separate from religion even in nations was born, but again, mostly confined to European peoples; but by 1990, individual pursuit of spirituality no matter to what culture or nation you 'belonged', became a mainstream idea worldwide. It is still playing out, but you can see the huge impact on the Asians and Africans -- and now on the Arabs, who historically have been the most reluctant to modernize, advance beyond their culture and tradition to the idea of impersonal secular law. Meanwhile, also in four reformings, you see the idea of (gradual) rejection of institutionalized observance and the (gradual) adoption of personal study of Bible, maturing.
Overt rebellions of Back-To-The-Bible were thus rare; but when they occurred, they were traumatic. More often, it was the Catholic Church who demanded allegiance, and when it wasn't forthcoming, the 'heretic' brand was applied. Generally, the folks rebelling did hold goofy beliefs, but so did the RCC -- but the rebellers sure were right to claim religious independence from the Pope. The rebellers were only persecuted for their claim of independence; all else was an illegal charge. For no one has the right to tell you what to believe. Still, it was (and remains) an evil time: so the more savvy who were positive to Bible, found the monastic (or similar) route. God isn't a God of loud rebellion. You could get in and stay in His System, be you a serving wench or a Wenceslas the King. God is never restricted. God never says "no" to anyone who wants Him, and will move heaven and earth to make sure no one dies without the fullest disclosure. Period. Don't ever think God would waste His Son's Precious Thinking 'blood' by doing anything less!
The harlot never learns. By now, you'd think that ecumenical religion would have begun to re-examine its doctrines and premises in light of the Bible. Instead, it uses the Bible to justify the past. Some of the most convoluted uses of Bible you'll ever see, are in ecumenism. Almost as bad, as how the pro-Grail people misread Bible. So expect that the same arguments as made back in the dark ages will be played again, with as much seduction or force, as can be mustered. Learn whatever God intends you to learn from them.. and just walk away. They can't hear.
Satan plays decoys, always. So he also has to set up another decoy to make the one he sponsors, look holy. So, since there is always opposition to entrenched religion for political reasons, he'll sponsor one or more groups to unfairly oppose the entrenched religion, to foster sympathy for it. When Rome and Persia lay exhausted in 600AD, Persia couldn't be used anymore, to make Rome look good. So Satan had to 'save' Rome by giving it a new common enemy, Islam. This marshalled Europe back to the Roman fold for some time, culminating in the Crusades. So interest in Bible tanked again, in favor of someone human you could fight and thus feel holy again. Same gambit has been played, ever since. The gambit's success doesn't last; but while it does last, at least most of the masses learn Bible less, and many never learn it at all.
Africa is a real good example of this phenomenon playing. The interest there is bald. And there's no supporting infrastructure. So it's being created, and the interest is 'financing' that creation, from the Divine Justice Point of View. On the ground, it's a very rough time for them. But they keep on believing, much as Israel did during her slavery period in Egypt. Funny thing is, they seem to know that. Hope that interest, remains. Then when God delivers them, humans that they are they'll lapse due to the prosperity of the deliverance, just like we all do. Just like Israel did. But the meanwhile, some among them will grow up spiritually, and thus hopefully those gains will result in a kind of stability so the next generation(s) can learn too. But each generation makes its own decisions. Each one of us makes our own decisions. As goes the believer, so goes the nation in which he resides, as my pastor liked to say.
The increase in scope can be direct, or caromed. Islam, for example, ends up serving as a kind of caroming device to spread Christianity. Every time Christians and Jews stop looking at the Middle East, Satan plays a game with the Moslems to make Christians and Jews look at the Middle East. For Satan must generate an urge to rebuild the Temple -- on his timing, not God's. So when we rest in our faith that God is handling things -- or, when too disinterested, lol -- then Satan has to do something to whip us up. However, if you look back at the historical results, his success resulted in the spread of Christianity, despite itself. No, we shouldn't have gone on those Crusades. But as a result of being there, lots of folks IN the Middle East got exposure. The positive ones left or otherwise started learning Bible. They'd not have had that opportunity, had Satan not whipped us Christians and Jews up to look at the Land.
It is ever the wont of human nature to arrogate to itself, someone else's merit. That's a type of theft. So when you hear people counting themselves important due to their faith or nationality or past history, arrogance is on parade. The truth is, GOD makes this work. We prove ourselves to be idiots, the meanwhile. But then, that's what His Grace is all about, saving all the idiots: all of us humans, in any generation.
As mentioned earlier, this webpage employs non-intercalated benchmarks. The intercalated-for-voting time runs 490+70+490=1050=1000+50. So the "100+" years toward the end of a 490 works out more often to be something like 120-160 years. It's still a 4-generation measure, fitted to the actual historical 490 playing with the intercalation, factored in. To see the difference, load GeneYrs.xls and track the gold rows versus the historical events between them. I've not yet posted enough events, but you can see the ideas.
Now let's test the foregoing with a sketch of what 490's we have. The purpose of the sketch is to show methodology, and test the above-listed characteristics. I'm typing from memory, so some of the data and their dates might be a little 'off'. Data and their interpretation can always be disputed; but even the right data can't prove a thing if the methodology is wrong; if the characteristics aren't the right ones. Note in the dates below, that the ending year is the same as the beginning year of the next 490. Scripture dates have this piggybacking quality about them (i.e., the next day is measured from the night of the previous day, in the Law); so there often seems to be "1" too many or too few, when you work with the dates. For, in real life there is no zero: the beginning and ending are always the same moment. Unity, hupostasis. Also, since this is a living history, the characteristics won't neatly stop, but spill over into the beginning of the next period. Still, you should be able to observe these Seven Characteristics within the last four generations or so of a 490, and the scope/degree will be higher, unusual.
So we've seven 490's since 1440BC (the Exodus), and four 490's since 30AD (the Crucifixion), both resulting in 1990. So just we've just begun a new qualifying 490 rather spectacularly: let's call the ended ones, "A-D" and provide a too-brief sketch of them, so you can see the idea (whether I'm right in what variables picked, doesn't matter right now):
This was the period of the NT's formation and distribution. Technically, it overlaps the ending of the old Adamic historical 490 and resets with Christ's, so its beginning is an ending, such that the 4-generation window plays twice. Here we see God's corporate goals for a 490, playing the same as He demonstrated pre-Cross. The goals are always to Get the Word out. Prior to Christ Himself, the goal was provide for His Coming, so that when He came the world would accept Him. That meant Getting the Word out via developing a bloodline and then a nation to 'house' it, so that the world would have a place to vote with its feet, to Get the Word. Again, infrastructure is needed to support positive volition to God, so one can learn in peace (and war, when ready for it). Here we see the preparation for dissemination of the NT, and its infrastructure goals.
The 4th 1050 would end 4200 years-from-Adam's-Fall, our 94AD; however, the voting period of our 44-94AD required Christ to be completed before it even begin. Problem was, David's underlying time grant of 1000 years based on his death -- which justified the world continue -- ended in Year 4143 (which is why 7 years is walled off in Daniel 9:27). Due to Israel's rejection of Christ, that Davidic deadline couldn't be used, since it was a voting for David to BE king via the Last David, who presented Himself. Hence Christ had to die another 7 years PRIOR, which was the 1000th anniversary of David's Abdication of Kingship. That anniversary was based on DAVID's own election, so it was unimpeachable (Israel's negative voting, couldn't nullify it). Hence Christ died in 4136 (our 30AD).
Israel knew this accounting system; wasn't too hard to count from David. So during what we call 44AD-94AD, everyone expected the Rapture, Trib, and Mill to all begin, because that period technically was a voting window. But it was also a brand new 1000, since Christ had successfully paid for sins. Hence the goal for that period was to Get The Word Out, even as it had been for the "seven weeks" piece in Daniel 9:24-27. OT Canon's distribution finished then (446-397BC): notice how it's a 50-year window.
So just as the 490 granted in Daniel 9 had the agenda of disclosing Messiah and getting the Word out with very specific subgoals and components, like the rebuilding of the Temple and Jerusalem -- here post-Cross, the same overall agenda plays. It's got different subcomponents, but the same Disclose-Messiah-and-Build-the-Temple-of-His-Body-the-Church, remains. That requires a lot of secular building, training, etc. Hence you see all seven trends.
So, by the time of this 490's ending in 520AD: #1 is the distribution and translation of the original-language texts. By this ending, many of the texts were in hiding, unavailable to the common man. Knowledge of Bible was almost zero; it was so bad, people who HAD Scripture couldn't even read it: you don't need to convene a Council to determine whether Christ is God or whether a Book is Bible, if you can read the Bible. Bible is plain. But negative volition can't read it. So the elites had taken over, imposing their views, full of their self-importance; and the common guy had nothing for comparison. So Constantine convened Councils -- he himself couldn't read Bible, either. But wanted to. As you read the Church Fathers' writings, you'll see how wacko they all were. Some great moments and understandings punctuate their stuff, but oh -- how much nonsense, how many lies were pandered. It's embarrassing. Take Pepto-Bismol as you read the Church Fathers. And be glad if we never have to go back there, again.
For by this ending, the Bible itself had been kidnapped by the elites. So Jerome, who disputed with the Catholic Church and everyone else quite a lot, had sequestered himself so he could translate from the manuscripts he was lucky to find; but the RCC didn't like Jerome's contemporary Latin; so his translation was sequestered for another 400 years, finally being adopted as the (newer) Vulgate sometime in the 800's AD, nicely anachronistic. #2-#4 is evidenced by all that missionary activity by St. Patrick and the Columbans, who weren't exactly on good terms with the Catholic Church either (the winner of a conflict gets to rewrite history, so you have to dig deeper than normal, to see these were back-to-Bible movements). Of course, #5 is kinda obvious, what with the Visigoths and all. #6 "old" is the death of Rome, obvious. #6 "new" was the Franks under Clovis, at least. Looks like more than one client nation got born/established at this time. #7 is obvious: the geographical 'virus' of Bible hunger spread from Palestine, outward and everywhere, but it took deepest long-term positive root in what we now call Europe. Not to worry. So long as there is a base for expansion -- which here widened considerably -- people can vote with their feet. Thus you see the Rise of Europe: not because of Christianity, and certainly not because of Europeans, who were largely abusing Bible -- but because of God.
This is a complex period. God's goal, as always, was to rescue Bible from the clutches of politically-entrenched religion, so the common man could get it. Hence there is a lot of warring and development of new infrastructures, as old institutions break apart and give way to new ones. It's almost easier to demonstrate the 490's ending by all the schism and dissent which characterized the new 490 which began the same year. #2, Beginning about 100+ years prior to the end, you had the quiet revolters, the bizillion monasteries (Cluny and Cistercian monk BTTB movements, since that was the only reliable way to GET time in Bible); the louder revolters, like the Cathars, etc., began at the end; of course the Great Schism occurred in 1054. All these were ways of (however heretical in belief) insisting that Rev17 was wrong, and study of Bible was right. Since the Bible was under lock-and-key, if you were interested in it you pretty much had to become a monk or a heretic armed with a Bible. If a monk, you could secretly study by becoming a copyist or servant of one. If a heretic, you must have gotten a Bible somewhere. Which is why the confiscation of Scripture, which began in the 90's AD, peaked during this 490. God being God, well -- sorry, people who wanted Bible got it anyway. Notice how Islam 'rises' so timely, to give the final blow to Byzantium, and to give the new #6 folk some spiritual exercise, at the beginning of a 490 (the completion of which Satan is always out to prevent).
#1, Codex Amiatinus (inter alia) was pretty important, for the RCC had ordered it collected, burnt, and forbid translations, circa 900+AD (if I remember properly) -- so you had widespread translations going on, and dissemination of that text, which would explain why there could be so much dissent (can't dissent over Bible, if you don't have one). #3-4 are pretty obvious. #5 is obvious. #6, the client nation dying is the Holy Roman Empire, but #6, post-Charlesmagne the same territory became a clump of client nations on the ashes. Charlesmagne was big on getting the Word out, and well.. it kinda undid his sons' reigns when they tried to reign in the people; so the "Holy Roman Empire" was one in name only; even the kings had to be elected. Frankly, the kings themselves wanted their own independence from the Pope, as well. That's why so many folks were receptive to Islam's resurgence in the 900's: no Pope behind the king.
The Pope himself wasn't doing too well, either, and for the same reason; so the Great Schism of 1054 was to be expected. Splintering, all triggered by the kidnapping of Scripture people came to want for themselves. Everywhere everything had broken up by 1050, and the foundation for our modern nation-states, began. All due to people wanting Bible not religion, whaddya know. Notice how the #7 trend of geographic 'virus' spread to encompass the Russian landmass, and good portions of Africa, in part owing to the up-again, down-again 'play' of Islam. So just after this 490 ends and the Great Schism begins, Islam will resurge again, take over Byzantium, and thus encourage the evil of the Crusades. That served to widen exposure to Bible even more, however much it was still sequestered by the elites. People talk as they walk or eat, as they rape and pillage.
It's fashionable in Protestantism to say how vile the Catholic Church was -- but honey, it could have been any denomination, and the same bid for power would have resulted. Today there are many popes. So we should see how we've aped those Dark ages, covering up Bible just as much as any prelate ever did, even still repeating the bad translations and interpretations of that particular harlot, but pretending here in 2006, that the translations are 'fresh' and 'scholarly'. Balderdash. So who's the harlot now?
Man has this goofy idea that his agreement is worth something to the other person with whom he agrees. That this other person, is somehow done a 'favor' when he receives agreement. So, man projects that idea on God, too. Hence history is a constant choosing between whether agreement with mere people matters more to you, than agreement with God. Sooner or later a burgeoning interest in God will require one break off with people. This breaking doesn't have to be obvious; it can take the form of isolating oneself. That's what happened to every Bible hero: each one "saw Him Who is Invisible" (said of Moses in Heb11, as a paradigm). Then, they made those choices. You can be isolated as a shepherd or a king, like David was. Leadership isolates. Then, there's the more-obvious isolation of going somewhere alone, like Abram's peregrinations, Moses in the wilderness, David as shepherd, the Lord in the mountains, Paul in Arabia. For at some point, one must choose it.
That's partly why so many monasteries flourish during this 490 period. We owe them much.
This is the most obvious 490, which of course neatly ends with the 'official' Reformation itself, which caused the map of Europe to be redrawn (particularly with respect to Germany and France). It's no accident that Elizabeth I is born toward the end of this period -- and trained in reading Scripture's Greek, a Protestant by upbringing. England will become the true spearhead of back-to-Bible movements from this time forward, as the Reformation fizzles into state religion.
So it's no surprise that #1 began its peaking with the technology of making what became known as the "Gutenberg Bible", about 100 years prior (movable type -- poor Gutenberg went bankrupt circa 1455). Notice how God provided a way for the Bible to become more available than ever by the time people would want and need it: you'd not have had an 'official' Reformation, without it. So there were a number of back-to-the-Bible movements during this 490, abounding in translations, etc. Many client nations reformed on the ashes of their predecessors, and usually in the name of religious war. You should be able to see #2-#6 pretty easily. There are many of them, all overlapping, from 1450 or so.
Satan knows all about the 490's, so he kindly managed to prepare in advance our friend Osman and his dynasty to take over Constantinople in 1453, so Islam could compete for attention with that new-fangled invention of Gutenberg: you know, choose between Bible into the common-man's hands, or attacking the infidel. So by 1540, naturlich, the Ottoman Empire was at a peak. Gotta have some kind of reply to God's freeing up Scripture in Europe.. just like 560, and 1050, Satan counterplays to match God. You can set your watch: he does this in the last 100+ years of a 490 ending, to counter the Scripture-availability peaking; well, he missed that timing goal somewhat when he started up Islam, but managed to get it going in the first 100 years of the new 490 that began in 560; so he used the Persian (Khosrau/Chosroes) Parwiz instead, during the prior 100 (460AD+), and kept him going until Mohammed could take his place (6 year overlap between 622 and 628).
Circa 950AD, he had rolled out Islam again, and when that didn't work by 1050 he rolled out Islam again, getting the Seljuk Turks to capture Byzantium in 1071. Which started, the Crusades. Since history was supposed to end 1070AD-1144AD (range of dates given Israel's rejection versus her acceptance), it looks like Satan was really trying to get it to end, for this period approached a war-everywhere period -- chiefly, with Islam as the counteragent. Seljuks took over 1071 (cute play on the 1070 expectation); Crusades began 1096 (cute play on the original design to end Millennium in 1094, cuter on John's Revelation which came out 96AD). As always, the aim was to move the focus back to the Middle East. When it didn't work yet again, he use Islam to re-take Byzantium in 1453. Note the usage of Islam (again, except the first time, because Satan was using Byzantium and Rome to kill each other, and then Persia to deliver the final blow -- which didn't work out).
Else, the identities of #1-#6 are quite obvious. The Reformation itself was a Back-to-the-Bible movement, and had many facets, not merely the Calvin and Lutheran ones. It's interesting that both Luther and Calvin got caught up with the movement, weren't really interested in politics, at first. Satan neatly managed to arrest both of their adherent groups into state religions: little popedoms. And they've not advanced in their theologies, ever since. Pity.
Even so, the raging in Europe was coupled with unprecedented exploration and migration -- the many pogroms of the Jews, in particular -- and here you see the globalization begin in earnest. So #7 widens, usually with a tyrannical or seductive banner, hitting on far-flung coasts of the Americas, Africa, and China. The 'virus' is no longer contained. When you look at the many European voyages then going around the world, it's almost as if they were in a hurry to get their missions done in time for the Reformation, which technically hadn't yet begun! Spain and Portugal were racing with each other, ostensibly. But God had other goals. So the race begins the end of the 1400's, just in time to deliver the new printing-press Bibles, to their destinations (i.e., the Portuguese reach even Macau by 1514). Over and over, wave upon wave from the West. So by the end of this 490, the base of operations was worldwide. Just in Time.
This period is usually classified "modern history" in high schools. Its seven trends are obvious, too; its #1-#6 components should be readily identifiable. God's main purpose for the Reformation was to completely free Scripture. It didn't happen right away, but the idea it should, did happen. So the desire to know Bible qua Bible just couldn't be checked anymore, and you have a proliferation of back-to-the-Bible movements, competitions, resurgences of institutionalized religions, everyone calling everyone else a heretic, and oh -- two world wars, preceded and followed, by many civil ones. When interest in Bible breaks free, polities free up, as well. Spiritual maturation produces a kind of secular maturation, so man can handle freedom better. So it's never a political problem when a polity is not free. It's a spiritual problem. So you learn God, instead of crusading for political change. And if it's God you want, you won't even think about trying to get political change: you'll be too busy, learning HIM.
Notice how the baton keeps switching back and forth among France, Germany, and England: when one of them loses interest in Bible (i.e., France under Louis XIV, who revoked the Edict of Nantes), others rise (i.e., Fredrick William took in the Huguenots evicted by Louis). Finally, the US (an offshoot of England) was founded in order to have freedom from state religion, specifically. If you read John Hyde Preston's A Short History of the American Revolution, and specifically its report on the sorry state of the Revolutionary troops at Valley Forge due to the abuse by Congress and other Americans, you realize that only God made America the victor in that Revolution. And solely due to, the faith of a few, in Him. Him, not religion. (Let us never be so arrogant to think we Americans accomplish a thing. God And God Alone is the source of our prosperity. God, not religion. God, never mankind! Read how Moses keeps reminding Israel of that fact, beginning around Deuteronomy 4, repeating the fact every 10 verses or so.)
#1 is extremely interesting, during this 490's span; you have many manuscript finds during this period -- in fact, most of the MSS we know of today, were found since 1540, with the most important one, Codex Vaticanus, being force-published in 1889: because Tregelles had a really good memory when he was allowed to look at the original Codex but not touch it -- so memorized and published what he'd seen. Note the direct correlation between, say, the intense gathering and miraculous discoveries of Bible original-language texts by the likes of Samuel Tregelles (1844+, if I remember -- see www.bautz.de) and Count von Tischendorf, the guys who got Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus out from centuries-long sequestration, to mankind; compared to counter-trends at the same time of fake religious texts like the Book of Mormon (1844?), Marxism (yes, a religion, billed as if rational and political), Darwinism (yet another religion in disguise, animism), etc. Then there were the many philosophers (yet another disguise, man worshipping himself). Of course, Islam enjoyed a nice resurgence beginning about the same time.
Of course in 1950, when back-to-the-Bible was mainstream in the US, God rolled out some Greek grammar texts (from Qumran or somewhere), so everyone had to start over rethinking what they thought the MSS words meant. Then, everyone in the US promptly lost interest in Bible (a counter trend beginning intermittently during the 1930's). By the late 1970's, everyone decided God was dead, and the religious crowd were falling all over themselves with various apologetics and wimpy Madison-Avenue games. Rather than MSS'ing, they were missing their brains; so viral-RNA morphing. The Social and Political Gospel has replaced the Real One; who needs God, when one can call Caesar, 'God' and get away with it? Just turn on any 'Christian' TV station at any hour, see for yourself. In six months of watching 'Christian' TV almost continuously in 2004, I didn't even hear one (including the famous speakers) correct Gospel message. Not even one. Was listening for it. Not even one. So whoever gets saved by watching that stuff?
By stark contrast, do you see the proliferation of back-to-Bible all over the world, now? It's commonplace: www.bf.org begs for even torn portions of Bibles, so they can get them out to folks who don't have them -- yeah, and who in the US is that hungry for the Word, anymore? Do you see the RCC trying to 'unify' other Christian denominations to itself? It's commonplace. Do you see how we are doing what every other people at the end of a 490 are doing? We learn from history that we learn nothing from history, and we learn from history that God keeps on being faithful.
He is faithful to get the Word out to anyone who wants it. Satan is 'faithful' to reverse-substitute, obfuscate and imbalance God's 'effort'. If you love your home country, Get In And Stay In God's System. You honor the Lord, you honor your country, and you fight for its freedom that way. Stay out of politics and all other manner of satanic, crusading substitutes for God's DDNA System. And at the Bema, you will be a hero, and heartily grateful for all the DDNA the Holy Spirit Alone can make from you. And so will everyone else be grateful -- especially those believers who were hostile/indifferent to God, down here.
So #3 is at an all-time high, during this 490. Hence #4 takes on the new form of "scientific" and "philosophical" thought as counter-religions, especially in the 19th century; God wasn't dead exactly, but He sure was to be questionned. This was an iconoclasm movement. After all, institutionalized religion took a beating during this 490, so something else was needed.
Of course, another #4, Islam, has been up and happening (but only as needed) all over again; timed nicely with the breakout of Bible in the mid-/late 1800's: that was when the Ottoman empire underwent substantial 'reform'. Then again, Islam countered when Bible teaching from the original languages started becoming commonplace in the US circa 1950+, with Arab independence movement and the establishment of Israel: a Satan-sponsored thing, just as the Crusades were. Gotta get our eyes on something in the Middle East in the name of God, so we can take our eyes off new/better Bible availability! [Israel should be protected, but God didn't want her going back to the Land. Christ warned about it in Matt24, as did Daniel, back in Dan9:25-26. LvS4a.htm explains this problem in great detail. We should never abandon Israel, never be anti-semitic, unless we want to end up in the dustbin of history, like Hitler did. But the Jews were not supposed to 'shub' (return) -- Dome Of The Rock is the living Matt24 warning to STAY AWAY. Who listens? No one.. as usual. So we should be in Iraq for Israel's sake, even if it weren't simple good sense. Sheesh: here we rescue a people from a Hitler-like tyrant, which we should have done in 1990. And we are excoriated for it by the world. Bush got it right on 'invading' Iraq. No one can get the execution of policy right, but God will bless it, you wait and see.]
Of course, it's to be expected that both Roman Catholicism and Islam revved up as 1990 approached, and are continuing to do so, still. Hence all the press attention, and the slavering over both. They aren't by accident the two fastest-growing religions in the world right now. The latter are "the kings of the south" in Revelation, and the former is exactly described in Rev17. Right down to the colors of the clothing and the barnacling on of false doctrine from other faiths, to sell itself as 'the' voice of Christendom. What amazes me is that all these centuries have passed, and Rev17 must be going unread. You can't mistake what church is depicted; you can't mistake how evil Christian activism is. For we have so many Rev17 harlots, now. The RCC is by no means, alone.
True believers can be in any denomination, so you don't go bashing them. But when both RCC and now most Protestant denominations commonly teach false gospels, well: who among them, is really saved? The "Lord, Lord" verse in Matt 7:21-2, a chapter on false teachers, comes to mind (see also Luke 6:46, Mat25:11, Luke 13:25 -- these are different occasions). [You are NOT saved until and unless you Believe In Christ Alone, John 3:16. Even common sense should tell you that His Death would be in vain, else. Even common sense should tell you that getting wet won't save you from soul sins. Can't clean a body from a soul problem -- hence the need for Him to pay for ALL sins, past present future -- on the Cross. ALL sins. Else God is being shorted. Which we know would never happen, so it's impossible to lose salvation.]
But here's the complication, and I can't find its like in any other 490 except Egypt under Joseph, and Daniel 9: the US appears to have gotten a second 40-year warning. Hence the initial explanation regarding a nexus of 7 years, in #2 above. Hence those of us learning Bible must take responsibility for 9/11, since if enough of us grew up to Pleroma (Eph3:19) stage, there wouldn't have been another deployment of Islamic terrorists. It's not the 'infidel' who causes the downfall of a nation: read Lev26 and Deut28 and 2Chron7:14. That gives US until about 2030 to wake up and smell God's coffee. But only a few of us need to make it.
Meanwhile, other nations who have not been interested in Bible, might be carrying our baton, as #6 new client nations: China, India, Brazil, Korea and maybe some country in Africa (Cameroon?) will take over. God knows. Would that they all became client nations, and that the US would wake up as well. You can set your watch: a rise of interest in Bible for itself results very quickly in a rise of prosperity in the region/country wherein that interest resides. There might be a one-generation lag, and if the interest doesn't sustain over three generations you might not have enough time to recognize a blip of prosperity increase; but generally, the rise of properity is swift. American belief in Bible surged in the aftermath of the Civil War; and by 1900 we were the most significant of the Industrial Revolution countries. So it happened IN that generation. Same thing seems to be happening in China and India, now; a rise of Bible interest seemed to happen to Brazil, soon after Goulart ('guessing). Korea's interest is so strong in America, you can't hardly go a mile anywhere in a metropolitan area, without seeing a Korean Bible church. Many of them have tape ministries, too. God bless 'em all!
Looks like God's goal back when the Spanish and Portuguese were racing, got realized for the distant races, huh. Just when they'd need the information and were ready for it en masse, God sent out explorers, to set up bases for distribution. Sure, it has always been true that if you wanted Bible, no matter how isolated you were, God would bring it to you or you to it. Trade routes have always been all over the place, and of course Israel is in the middle of three continents. But what all the exploration and travel en masse tells us, is that there were distinct periods in history when a whole mass of people in a geographical area, wanted the Word At The Same Time. So, God provided it.
The travellers themselves were few in number; those they met, were few in number. So the converts were few in number, but they dispersed. Technically, God would deliver an entire nation for the sake of one person (Israel, due to Moses or David). The whole world is delivered for the sake of Christ. At the same time, people are all connected, so one person's information can disperse across a very wide area. What people do with that information, is up to them. But the word-of-mouth system is very effective. People like to repeat information.
Now think: don't you see how He's doing the same thing for the Middle East, via the Americans in Iraq? What, do you think we're there for our reasons? Guess again! God runs history. Not, puny man.
Regarding #7, notice how the geographical span at the end of each period, is so much wider than pertained prior to the ending of the previous 490. In "D" we have worldwide span, compared to "C" which was worldwide exploration (setting up for "D", if you check the dates of Columbus, De Gama, etc). So today's client nations are potentially many, not few, owing to the spreading geographical span of interest in Bible. Hmmm. God DID promise to get the Word out. Looks like His record is rather good, doncha think?
While I don't agree that the US is directly referenced in the "eagle" prophecy -- which is instead, SPQR -- the US is yet another legatee of Rome's demise at the end of the first post-Cross 490. What distinguished SPQR from all other polities was the eclectic nature of its state religion. It was a state religion that you honor the "gods", but what gods you honored, was a matter of personal choice. Rome only prohibited claims that 'your god' was the only one; so Rome serially persecuted both Jews and Christians. Eventually the persecuted became the rulers, as happens so often in history; that was Satan's goal, not God's. But then God used that outcome to return back to God's version of the SPQR freedom-of-religion policy. Since, that is the First Commandment (can't pursue the First Commandment if freedom-of-faith is curtailed). So you see the breakup of Rome, and Europe formed out from its ashes.
So the US, is a 'descendant'. And, we have a very similar political structure to SPQR. Hallmark characteristic of the US is separation-of-Church-and-state, which separation principle was indissoluble from the very founding of the US (however much the Christian right, ever unable to read anything, ignorantly contend otherwise). The idea of this separation is that Personal Freedom Of Faith should never be a thing government 'touches'. Our current government is misguided (or even traitorous, due to the prolife idiots) to our founding purpose, but there's no need to take revenge or crusade, since God founded the US, so God will handle the necessary correction.
And you know God is the author of the US, because literally every country in the world feels constrained to adopt at least some of the US 'model' of government. That doesn't mean 'democracy' is universally right: in fact, the US is not a democracy (would anyone bother to read the Constitution), but a "republic". Meaning, elected representatives are the rulers, not the 'people'. Same model, as SPQR. Deliberately (if anyone would bother to read the Federalist Papers and like material).
So, what are other nations doing? Well, everywhere you see an increasing attention reluctantly paid to freedom of opinion/faith. Even Saudi Arabia is holding elections; even Egypt is paying more attention. While those movements are secular, not about faith, the underlying idea is freedom-of-opinion being necessary. So if freedom of secular opinion is necessary for good government, then soon freedom-of-faith can flourish better. That is the significance of our being in Iraq. Not to 'bring democracy' there, since not even the US is a democracy (fifth-century BC Athens was a democracy, and it didn't work out too well). But rather, to bring about some kind of freedom-of-opinion as a valid institution in a polity. Which type of institution, nations are deciding. But not a country on this planet, is unaffected by the American idea of freedom-of-faith (hence freedom-of-opinion, its root). So clearly God is freeing the world: currently, via America.
GOD is doing it, not US. We are contributing the problem, as usual. Man contributes the problem, God makes the doo-doo into Diamonds, and Satan tries to make the Diamonds defeat Deus. That's the plotline of history; so here in #7, you see that plot widen geographic distribution to its widest extent, in the latest (and maybe last, who knows) 490.. the one we are in, potentially ending 2480AD if the Rapture doesn't occur first.
As explained in LvS4b.htm and even more in LvS4c.htm, the Rapture being based on believer growth or retrogression, cannot be predicted. Further, retrogression will be the ostensible trigger for the Rapture to occur; God having finished His Trial Rebuttal will let time run its natural course, as usual. Which means, as usual, believers will not grow beyond spiritual age 8; so, will retard. So will be called home in shame, with Satan exulting at finally being able to get rid of us. For he won't buy that God's Trial Arguments were right. Instead, he'll think he has finally manipulated time himself, to his advantage.
Since we are still in a 40-year grace period, the US will probably limp along: Americans don't own much of their country's economic assets, anymore, so we're almost "America" in name only, here in 2005 -- perfect description of the last two 'cycles' of Divine National Discipline in Lev26. (There's more than one way to be under seige.) The world will probably limp along, too. So if interest in Bible within the US doesn't experience a resurgence whereas the other nations' interest in Him increases, you'll see a shift in the balance of power to the nation with the most interest. Many would argue it already began about 20 years ago. How long it will take for the new balance of power to result in war, I'm not sure. Newly-strong nations will be challenged, and they want to stretch their muscles: expect alliances to change in surprising ways. But the desire to fight economically rather than militarily, is the norm. Only the Middle East could trigger a real military conflict, if nations take sides. And they are, so the danger is real enough. Satan's always angling for Armaggedon, especially when interest in Bible is high, and he'll 'match' religion to religion, to get our eyes off Bible in the name of God. Of course, we can see that trend every day, since we live in the wake of 9/11. It's real significant that both the Roman Catholic Church and Islam are being promoted. Not sure yet how they will be used.
The US will die very quickly if our anti-semitism keeps on rising. Here in 2006, after Israel entered Lebanon due to the unprovoked attack by Hezbollah, the incredibly-negative-to-Israel reaction by Christians and unbelievers presage a dark turn in our policy with respect to Israel. Most of their negativity is a way to be negative to President Bush; so they react against Israel, to 'get back' at him. How bizarre. Imagine turning against another innocent country because you don't like your own nation's president, who favors that country. How satanic. So it's frightening how no one bothers to look at the facts of Hezbollah's evil, which for a change the media were correctly reporting (though slanted pro-Arab, as usual). So if we turn anti-Israel en masse, that's the end of US. Hitler's regime didn't last but what -- 12 years?
When Nebuchadnezzar invaded Israel, he took back with him the best individuals, put a puppet king on the throne, and left. Two more times he'd return, and the final time in 586BC, he razed the Temple and melted down the Ark. You can read this in 2Kings and 2Chronicles, toward the end of each book. God then picks up the story with Jeremiah, using the latter to explain how God pulled out the yet-good figs (believers) into Diaspora, leaving the rotten figs (again, believers) behind to suffer. Of course, He had done the same thing prior with Noah, delivering him and his family who'd also voted for God. He'd done the same thing in 70AD. In short, when God removes His Protection due to a nation's apostacy, the believers are delivered. But those left behind, get the punishment due, so they too can wake up and smell God's coffee. You'll see that pattern in Bible again and again. Well: it plays in history, too. Looks like by 2030 or sooner, it will play yet again.
1990 was undeniably a watershed year. Technically, it was the end of a qualifying 490, an off-calendar, running contiguous deadline by which some believer on earth must RECEIVE the grant. The historical 490 ends in 2130. But unless someone GOT the 490 award during the qualifying 490 which ended in 1990, time would end in 2130. You'll see these qualifying 490s in GeneYrs.xls, mapped in a lighter, cross-hatched gold (versus the solid gold of the historical 490s). Someone got the award, so as usual God readies mankind for a massive housecleaning and Bible rollout, to terminate the last 120 years of the historical 490. Additionally, 1997 was the close of the 2000th anniversary of His Birth, which usually God tracks as a kind of warning. But it's not a qualifying 1000 (which runs 30, 1030, 2030, etc). An unusually-successful ending of the 490 means an unusually-polarized new 490 is in the making (as a counter, trying to undo the success and force the Rapture). Seems like Thomas Friedman just has written about 1990 being a watershed year (according to his early May interview on Charlie Rose, April 2005) -- not attributing the nexus to Bible interest, of course.
So examine what else happened in 1990. That was the year the official 'downfall' of the Soviet Union began. The significance of the downfall of Soviet Union is that Freedom Of Opinion (and economy) can flourish there. It's been a tumultuous place to live, with fantastic highs and lows, ever since.
1990 was also the year China began its breakup as well, though to the world it looked like a resurgence: economic breakup leads eventually to freedom, and in China the Great Communist Experiment also failed. (But then, it never really was about communism in China, but about modernization against foreigners, a centuries-old goal.) In that year, China became the biggest economy (in terms of people), with everyone outside China, slavering to serve it. Of course, Deng Shiao-Ping (Xiaoping, new spelling) began that reform to economic (and hence related) freedom, about seven years earlier; once ostracised because he was practical, Deng got the last laugh over his former arch-rival, Mao; the latter having died in 1976(?), Deng quietly began to consolidate power enough to cause the reform simply by announcing it, beginning about 1983. Encarta notes that due to Deng's announcement in 1990, it "touched off" rapid economic growth, though Deng was officially (but not really, k?) out of power, by then.
Next, the breakup of the Middle East began in earnest in 1990, though it's not as obvious. Terrorism in the Middle East has two basic roots: a) anti-semitism, which is a 4000 year inheritance quarrel (Isaac got the inheritance, not Ishmael). Then b), Islam is a terrorizing religion (unfies church and state) which thus keeps its people backward economically -- and the rest of the world has passed it by, so lots of Arabs are becoming disaffected with Islam. The backlash of terrorism neatly gives Arabs an excuse to think they are still superior. Hence, in that same year 1983, our friends the Muslims managed to decimate Lebanon and turn the conflict there into a full-scale terrorism campaign against the US. The world began to be under seige, then. By 1990 Lebanon ended its civil war, so Saddam Hussain started a new one. All the while, Israel was increasingly involved, so terrorism stepped up, and given Saddam being such a problem, what with invading Kuwait and all, Israel and the US caved into negotiations with the Palestinians who sponsored the terrorists -- negotiations which went nowhere, except to get Rabin killed.
While Soviet Union, China, and the Middle East began breaking up due to their failed economic and political policies, Germany, Europe and other groups were unifying during 1990. Germany was split post-WWII to prevent it from ever being able to wage war again, and now its erstwhile conqueror, is the one conquered. Of course the end-timers went even more wacko when the European Union was started, but that was also a natural outgrowth (starting some years earlier) in order for Europe to compete with its larger geographical competitors. That's actually more why places like Angola and Serbia were troubled, due to losing the Soviet Union's patronage; Eastern Europe itself had nothing to hold it together now. Of course, the conflict in Afghanistan began in 1990 for the same reason (civil war fallout from the Afghan-Soviet war). Of course, 1990 was the first year Al-Qaeda was on its own.
Beneath these political developments of the 80's and 90's, is a deeper spiritual ennui, and it has two sides, as well: emotional, and genuine. For, man now has an increasing awareness that there should be something 'more' to life. You can easily find commentaries on the rise of religion, which characterizes the period: people SEARCHING. God isn't dead, anymore. But its emotional side quickly devolves into goofy conclusions (the intifada and Bin-Laden versions, being obviously destructive, but the tongues movement is just as destructive, even worse than drugs). Hence the now-worldwide popularity of the tongues crowd and all manner of emotionalism in Christianity, which -- also begun about 1983 -- had fully embraced Revelation 17 as if it were spiritual. Now no one bothered to read the Bible, so could ignorantly claim whatever, and the stupid 'prolife' movement passed for God's Will -- we even elected a President (Reagan) who espoused it (otherwise a great President). So it's all downhill beginning in 1990, and by 1997, well.. ministers crusade on political topics in their pulpits; one even ran for President. What happened to teaching Bible? Some talk techie using buzzwords from the original-language texts.. but tell you to pray to Jesus or the Holy Ghost; they tell you to invite Christ into your heart to be saved (which is nowhere in BIBLE, and doesn't save you); they preach emotion and thumping the Bible, and cruises and retreats; and they teach God is emotional, for crying out loud. Guess all those techie words they use, they just use for show. Even John 3:16 in translation, isn't taught or remembered anymore (whereas in 1949+, practically every non-Catholic schoolchild and parent in the US, knew it by heart). Sheesh.
An offshoot of that are all the 'survivor' type programs and this really-weird love of crime programs. You almost can't find a program in prime-time which isn't on the topic of murder. That depicts a judgemental mindset, a fearful mindset, one which just itches for a crusade. Man is fed up with trying to be good, and fed up with seeing 'bad', win. Where's the pea under the walnut shell? Nowhere. Morality without first knowing God, is like that.. empty.
So expect demagogues to arise in the next 10 years. There's a strong market for a repeat of last century's Mussolinis, Francos, Perons, Hitlers. Satan&Co. can empower someone to become a demagogue in less time than it takes me to finish typing this sentence. You saw the slavering at the Pope's funeral and at Princess Diana's funeral.
Look anywhere you like, use any mental-attitude index you think elucidating, and you arrive at the same conclusion: we're a world of emotional wrecks! Do you realize, that as of 6/05, Argentina had to pass a law regulating that shops carry larger sizes of women's clothing, to combat teenage bulimia? That was on BBC News, 6/04/05. BBC! not local podunk tell-any-news-to-fill-the-time! So what must be the problem, in other countries? Which is worse: the tyranny that the kids cannot buy the fashion they want because they aren't thin enough, or the tyranny that a law must be passed to force sales? Wouldn't a normal business want to sell to its market, so make clothes to the bodies in that market? So wouldn't need a law to force it to do what makes a profit? But what normal teenagers should starve to fit clothes which make them look like Auschwitz victims? Of course, why would it be fashionable to look starved and ugly? Is this a sane fashion standard? See how wacko we all are?
The 6/05 rejection by French voters of the new European Constitution is your harbinger of mindset, too: fear of elites causing a loss of jobs, if countries in Eastern Europe are added to the list of EU members. Never mind, that addition increases the whole economy of Europe, so everyone will eventually work more. But then, France is the home of the 35-hour workweek (what insanity), another stupid law. See how wacko we all are? Watch: demagogues will arise to tap all this emotionalism, all this resentment. We're just begging to be herded.
Read the first 10 verses of Isa28, and Lev26 for the mindset of escapism and mental illness. Then compare what was said to what you see 'out there' in the world. Abnormal minds go to demagogues.. and then, to war. You can set your watch.
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Meanwhile, during this same period, teaching on Bible by a few reaches an all-time-high in quality, as teaching it from the original languages, matures. The quest to have a personal spiritual life living on Bible, as distinct from herding within institutionalized religion, becomes a mainstream Christian pursuit. The US led this trend, and many in Europe find US odd because of it. Of course, by 1990, it became the dominating focus in Asia (esp. China), Latin America (unevenly), Africa. If you ever get a chance to watch Frontline World or Wide Angle on Africa, notice how this focus plays at the grass-roots level. Alongside some of the newly-taught goofiest ideas in Christendom (like 'Lordship' salvation, life-in-womb, and God is emotional), some very few pastors worldwide had true breakthroughs which enabled folks to finally get a grip on how to live the spiritual life, daily. Real hands-on concepts you can breathe while you do dishes, writhe in pain, exult in happiness, stand in line, move your mouse, drive somewhere, use at the office. 24/7! For it's during this period that Bible Doctrines long neglected or covered up for centuries, begin to be comprehensively explained or proven from those dusty original-language texts. Several types of systematic theologies arise during this time, as a result; they don't necessarily agree, nor are they alike accurate, but the sheer fact they are there and nearly all of one focus -- how does the believer really live ON Bible -- is of epic importance. If you go back to Adam, you'll notice the macro rollout: from Adam through the Flood, the objective was to get the Word out that the Savior was coming, and to develop a bloodline for that Savior. Note how deft: the evidence He was coming was in the evidence that people you could see, were to be the progenitors of the One you could not see. So the ones you could see, would be charged with the message He was coming. People in Genesis 5 all knew they were the progenitors. That is the Promise they lived on, since they would never live long enough on earth, to See Him Be Born. At the end, only Noah and his family cared about that Promise of a Savior. So they were delivered. From them we all derive. From them, eventually Abraham derived. From him, came that bloodline. With the bloodline, a secular nation was needed, with the potential Promise (Contract, really) of becoming a Priest Nation for this Messiah, when He came. That bloodline and the nation coming from it -- Israel -- were given a Written Word gradually rolled out, to learn and teach anyone else who wanted to know it. That way you had both A People And A Book, To See The One You Could Not See. So you also had little rituals which aped common, everyday tasks, such that when you even did the mundane, you were reminded of the Divine. So the Word and the ritual could be 'married' in your mind, such that nothing you ever did, would BE mundane. But look: that Word kept on getting LOST, right inside God's House! Samuel found it while wandering around, sleeping in the Holy of Holies. Then later, when the Temple was built, it would go lost again, though right inside: some king would find it, and weep when he read it; some priest or prophet (like Jeremiah) would find it, and would also weep. Weep, weep, read, then lose it again. Meanwhile, the disclosure kept on being added by God. Then, finish. Then, Messiah comes. Then, He is rejected. Then within only 66 years, this time -- the entire NT is reduced to writing. Which it had to be, since the fourth 1050 was ending. So in the 1st century, Canon got completed, by the end of the voting period. Then it's quickly lost again, kidnapped by religion -- the Rev17 harlot, right on time, began. It goes lost for the better part of 18 centuries, slowly broken out in pockets, available only in pieces -- a Psalter or one of the Gospels -- so far as the macro history is concerned. Theological development was most childish and legalistic. Until the 1850's, the Reformation was the largest of these breakouts, but look how kindergarten its focus, for what was the big issue in the Reformation? What's salvation, and whether you need some pope to tell you how to be spiritual. Very baby focus, that. See how much we didn't know? How is it, we didn't even know what salvation was? Well, look: by the 4th century, even the Bible experts didn't know if Christ was Divine; thousands of people died over this question. How so? Why couldn't they even read a simple Gospel verse like "Before Abraham was, I AM"? They all knew Greek well enough to read that in the original-language texts. Verse uses the Greek version of the OT Sacred Tetragrammaton, leaving no doubt that He's God. John's extremely popular Gospel starts with the explanation that He's God, making very clever wordplay on Exo3:14's LXX. So how did they not know? Yet even the experts couldn't read that, else they'd not be debating and denouncing slaughtering each other. They couldn't read Matt4:3, where Satan admits He's God. They couldn't read any of the OT, obviously, since all over the OT it says He's God. So they convened Councils, instead. Blind leading blind. You don't need a Council to tell you He's Divine, and you don't need a Council to tell you if a Book is from God or not, because God will make that clear, and a Book from Him will be provably from Him. So look: there was also a frequent street joke that if you needed your shoes fixed, the shoemaker would tell you whether He was Divine or not; when you got your daily milk, the milkman would give you a treatise on how He was God and Man. So the popular interest in Him was surely there. So the Councils were there. Someone in those Councils was deployed who could read the Bible, so that the people could get a whole Bible -- since the experts themselves, were too dang blind to teach it! God accomplished that. God: not, stinking human consensus. ["Stinking", in that so many today arrogate to themselves a claim that they determined what the Bible is. I'm reasonably certain that at the time of the Councils, a whole lot of people genuinely didn't know, and wanted to. So it was like this humungous Bible study group, and among them were a few who actually knew 1Jn1:9 and could therefore teach the others, how to read the requisite verses, etc. So probably the group ended up being temporarily positive enough, to read properly. But later generations of religious who look back on these Councils to arrogate to themselves a mantle of being right -- that stinks, sorry.] So God managed to get His Word out, despite us. And here in 1990, we are back to the first and third centuries. Full circle. For the majority of our experts debate the same things, having learned nothing in 20 centuries. Same old debates clog the chat channels: how many is God, is Christ Divine, what's salvation, can you lose it, what is the spiritual life, and on and on and on. You'd think we never had a whole Bible, either. But a few among the experts, have been deployed with sound knowledge, too. So we can get Understanding to go with this now-fully-rolled-out Bible, we have. So while traditional theology remains extremely childish and even anti-Biblical -- new theologies of much greater depth and accuracy are taking their place. Hence all the iconoclasm against the 'traditional' denominations. "They teach as if we were in 200AD", my best friend quipped a few days ago. Yep. For God's always been about FREEDOM. That has two ends: the evil, stupid, and its other apex, Seeing God. Seeing God, not seeing religion. The problem isn't sin; sin is a symptom of the problem. The problem, is that God is Infinite but we are finite. Sin irrevocably complicates our finity, hence the need for the Cross. After which, it's a question of spiritual growth, to get His Head in Our Heads (witty Greek theme of Paul's letter stated of 1Cor1:5, always mistranslated). We have to grow beyond our human nature, not just our sin nature, to have a true soul oneness with God. That's impossible. But with God, nothing's impossible. His Son's Humanity grew to Complete Oneness with Father, due TO the Cross. You don't think Father put Him on the Cross without that purpose, do you? God is Omniscient. So that means all the highs and all the lows -- to have Complete Rapport. So that's His Goal Through His Son's Soul, for us: that goal is actually a Contract in the BHS and LXX texts of Isa53:10-12, and forms the basis for the Book of Hebrews as well as all the NT.
Thus by 1990, a few pastors caught on to this as God's Goal, caught onto what's the real spiritual life, and they began teaching it. Not all of them taught it as well, not all of them understand it as well, but there came to be a large enough group to get that point across: spirituality is Someone You Learn. And we've heard that point, got that message, for look: nearly every Christian in any denomination will tell you the spiritual objective is to be "Christlike." Problem is, what does that term mean? Aha: this is the point of the new 490, to explain that being like Christ, is learning to Think Like Christ. We all kinda know that. But we need to get those Spiritual Dendrites. And enough pastors worldwide, have enough information now, to impart. 1983-2003 is probably the most productive period of Bible doctrine recoveries -- all due to and made in, those original-language texts, not translations. That phenomenon bespeaks a sustained (not merely temporary) hunger to really know God, not religion.
The prophets were forever warning Israel not to misuse the Law as a set of rotenesses. Isaiah made fun of them in Isaiah 28, with his famous "tsav latsav" speech, imitating a drunk who just says the same thing over and over -- the wordplay is usually translated "line on line". Double-entendre: instead of learning one item at a time, you guys just chant it, repeating your rituals as if you were drunk or sleepwalking. Thus it was for Israel, and thus we inherited the goofy idea that the Law and all those rituals, were somehow magic in themselves, something you did to get a blessing. Never mind it was stupid. So they didn't notice the rich metaphor of the tfellin, the sacrifices, the washings. Learning intensifies if you use tools to signify the doctrine behind them. But if you don't know that doctrine, then.. it's tsav, latsav, just so much drunken shuffling. Leaving you with a hangover.
Hence the most popular dicing-the-Bible manipulation method Satan employs is TRUNCATION. Soundbytes for bored minds. So the Bible looks like something no cool person would actually read, but instead, would nod at. Hence the translations are awful. If the original-language texts of Bible said, "The Maserati sped down the Autobahn", then the translation of that 'verse' is "the vehicle moved down the path". Notice how fuzzed over is the translation, merely by 'clipping' down the meaning of each word, to vague generalities. Now you know why you fall asleep whenever you try to read Bible. Now you know why it's so easy to misuse Bible. Now you know why God rolled out the original-language texts of Bible in the 19th century. The dead giveaway of a satanic truncation going on, is the promotion of herding. Herding activities (you know, those rallies where everyone sings how they love Jesus), herded ideas. Away from individual responsibility, and toward a Group Identity on an issue, on a doctrine, something. People in crowds stop thinking, because the 'feel' of the crowd is so comforting to them. That's when Bible gets thumped. Thus the Bible's own words can be read, and only the truncated meaning assigned at the Group Identity level, will be heard. Soundbyte Christianity. So now you know why people pretend to know those texts, but still dice Scripture. The conclusive evidence of a satanic interpretation is that it stresses man, not God. Man's doing something. Man's being something. God nicely gets chopped down to Petty Judge/Sugar Daddy level, that way. Gracelessness is Satan's #1 love. So will be lovingly patent in all false pitches re Bible. We are to blame, not Satan&Co., because we don't check Scripture, but just love how the shaved/diced 'truth', feels. Especially, if emotional (asceticism is very emotional, just like the tongues crowd). Kinda like the prolife movement: anyone involved in it has lost his mind, hates Bible, never even cracks open the original-language texts to notice that every "womb" verse is REVERSED in translation (e.g., says "in the womb" in translation, but "from BIRTH" in the inspired text). [There are hundreds of verses saying human life is not in the womb, and you need to know that, to know how the spiritual life really works. See NoWombLife.htm and Caveat #4, both accessible from the Home Page.]
Satan thus masks the quiet, accurate teaching this way; he hopes to mask any other accurate teaching even by prolifers, by stress on a human thing, so to mask information about God. Always, the substitution of man for God, in the name of God. I could quickly name at least three pastors who fit the 'prolife' category of Bible abuse; who have developed their own (sometimes quite brilliant) systematic theologies; who are very engaging to hear.. and thus who are quite popular, too. Pray using God's System of protocol, for these pastors to wake up and smell God's coffee, because they don't need to keep on serving Satan's chicory chicanery, Eph4:14. It would be a real shame for these guys to lose out at the Bema, because this falsehood will bring down all their other insights. A pastor's job is the worst on earth, and who among us wouldn't want to see those who give us our very food, the most blessed? There are also some popular back-to-the-Bible movements which fail God's System, in that they reject the doctrine of Right Pastor, Eph4:11-16's Greek (which explains how Isa53:11-12 function for Church). Yet they too are recovering certain truths which have long been in front of our very eyes, unseen -- their writings are prolific, and are likewise worldwide. Would that they understood the need of a pastor, too, since for all their recoveries, they will not profit by growing spiritually, absent function within this Element of God's System. [As you can hopefully see, I'm trying to avoid naming names. Today's failures might recover and become tomorrow's spiritual successes. There are at least three groups of folks, each numbering in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions), who believe and understand God's System Element #5's structure, but refuse #4. So they are growing fitfully, God orchestrating what they learn to get the message to get into #4. Meanwhile, sometimes you'll see quite brilliant conclusions by folks in these movements, and some of their stuff is a joy to read. They claim to retranslate the Bible, and have crafted their own full versions. But instead of true retranslation, they just rehash the old translations -- still egregiously wrong in the same places as the traditionally-accepted translations (i.e., James 4:5, Gen1:2, Gen3:11, 1Cor1:5, James 2:22, Heb11:1, etc). See, if you don't know the doctrine being covered in a verse, you'll mistranslate it. And you can't learn the Doctrine if you're not in God's System (#4 of the System, here begin rejected). We're all learning!] These are but two of many examples, the prolifers and the no-pastor-wanted crowd. Here's the gain for Satan: both 'doctrines' are easily proven false from Bible. So for as long as folks believe the falsehoods, their spiritual growth is stunted, even though other doctrines developed by these two groups, might be very beneficial and advanced. And, if some do notice the falsehoods, then all those other doctrines of value taught by these two groups, will be deemed false. Look at how people just lambast everything the RCC teaches, due to a fictional novel based on the fictional premise that Christ had kids. The RCC is accused of covering that up. As a result, the Bible is accused of being an invention of the RCC. It's totally amazing how a flimsy accusation which a fictional novel merely used as its story line, is accepted by millions of people. No one did his homework. No one wanted to do his homework. Everyone just wanted to be iconoclastic. And everyone just wanted to hate the Bible. For notice how the entire Bible got blamed, too? This is negative volition talking. So Satan licks his chops: Yeah, let these people advance theology -- I'll make sure they bang the drum on obviously-inaccurate things, thus ruining ALL that advance! You see this all the time in secular life. A guy works hard and achieves much. But one day, he does something bad. Thereafter, all that good work done prior, is tainted because of the one thing he did bad. We humans are disgusting.
So all these nations are upper-echelon targets, and there could be others, of course (who can ever have all the facts for diagnosis). Doesn't mean there isn't a lot of apostacy within these nations. Does mean there is a lot of interest (one can't grow OUT of apostacy until much time has been spent learning in God's System).
But since the 1800's, oh! So much more desire to really know! So God rolled out Scripture and its teachers, beginning in the 19th century, as discussed in #2, above. Even so, 90+% of Christians as usual don't give a flip to know God, they only want His Goodies, and ego-stroking, feeling good. But now, oh! Some, more than the normal number (small as a percentage, as always) really want to know God deeply. Just because. And you know this is true, because all the fake interest in God is reacting: when real interest is widespread, fake interest reacts; so you can tell the true level of interest, using the fake as an index of the hidden 'true'. When an idea spreads widely in a populus, there is an inevitable morphing to groupness. Call it a fad, a fashion, a 'movement', a 'cause'. But what you really see, is the widespread thinking about, the idea/thing. Once the groupness-morphing hits, one needs to fit in with the idea/thing, so a whole lot of what passes for 'interest', is really only interest in fitting in. But that interest reflects the hidden true interest. I'd bet you that 99% of folks who own a PDA, don't use it well or find it frustrating, but it's the thing to do. But 1% of folks live on their Blackberry or whatever. Same, for interest in God. His Nature and Existence waxes and wanes in the public interest, so of course when the awareness of the size of interest morphs to a 'group' level, most of those in the 'group' could care less about God: they just want to fit in. Nonetheless, even the fit-in folks have an occasional thought or two -- which God can use to foster genuine interest (God never coerces, but He never misses an opportunity, either). True interest has its maturity levels, so true interest which is young, will of course be glitchy, prone to siphoning off into false concepts about God. For a baby's level of even true interest, is quickly overcome by any kind of distraction. But if it grows anyway, or at least remains, then God will work with it (and discipline the baby, when he gives into the distraction, so that his interest can be freed up). That's what you see here. Sure, the fit-in crowd are just going along with the latest fad; but they too get God's attention just as much: Christ paid for the whole human race, and God will never waste His Son's Payment by neglecting anyone. So, it's a messy process, but all along the wheat are being caused to grow, and the chaff are making themselves plain. We do it to ourselves, but since info about God can only come from God, and He will never coerce, then -- wheat and chaff are self-determined. So a chaff can reverse that disinterest in God, and boy oh boy -- God will Answer! The process, being messy (there are many distractions), takes some years. But God is answering -- because, again, He'll never waste His Son's Payment, Isa53:11! Those in the lukewarm traditional denominations look down their noses at the fresh-faced versions -- which are often wild in their doctrinal ideas, to be sure -- not realizing that the issue is Do You Want God, not how 'proper' is your denomination and its doctrines. God can make any stone into a son of Abraham. So while 'today' these baby goofballs look silly to their Pharisaical elders, count on it -- God will develop the goofballs into geniuses. Wanting to know God is what He uses to develop you, principle in 1Cor13:3. It's not what you know, it's Who you love. God is innately loveable, so no merit accrues due to loving Him. But those who love religion and its trappings don't love God. The two are mutually-exclusive. So the goofball of today will become the superior scholar of tomorrow. Wait and see. Ignorance and error can be corrected; lack-of-love, cannot. The Lord didn't fault the Laodiceans for being incorrect on doctrines, but for their lack of love.
Upshot: many believers are isolated, and it appears to be a choice. We humans don't know what to do with ourselves, ever -- but we get it that some alone time is important. Maybe, it's imposed. Maybe more likely, we feel 'different' or 'outside' our peer group. But you couldn't have the skyrocketing webpages and Bible study materials sold by the bizillions if there weren't a whole lot of worldwide interest in Bible. We're all inept in our interest.. but God knows how to mature us. Again, can't get correct, until get Bible. But disinterest coupled with however much competence, who can fix? Love will never coerce volition. The rest, can be healed. So of course Satan's mimicking-God counterstrategy has its success, too: beginning about 1990 those interested in learning Bible this deeply, decline drastically in number; many of those interested die, but no new cadre replaces them. So that in the US by 1997, you have incredibly low interest in learning Bible deeply, compared to the seven 'fat' years from 1983-1990. The louder and more popular 'Christian' has become, the more it proves no interest in God is operating. Hence the loud 'Christian' agenda in 2000+ elections. So those genuinely interested, always small in number anyway, dwindled to so small a size, that the normally-apostate populus can't be sustained at the same level of blessing-by-association which God had granted. 9/11 happened not due to the terrorists, but due to Christians who are disinterested in God, Lev26 (last cycle, toward end of chapter).
This doesn't mean the pastors are necessarily bad. Does mean the people don't want to hear whatever real information about God, the pastors might want to impart. When Christianity politicizes like it's done in the US and several other English-speaking countries, that's your sure litmus that interest in the Bible is dead. So "God" is just a word you sing to feel good. My pastor's own ministry reflects that trend. When he started teaching 53 years ago, he taught fast, advanced, and gave you plenty of exegesis. As a result, his teaching started to morph, growing in sophistication, a true advancing in theology. He'd revisit past teaching and correct/refine/upgrade it constantly, teaching six new classes per week, so you ended up going there daily (except Saturdays). So by 1990, you had a thorough grounding in Bible, and could read it yourself in the original-language texts -- for he always backed up any principle taught, by showing you how he got it. It was like going to seminary for 50 years: well, seminaries weren't even that deep. [My pastor would kill us if we didn't keep on revisiting what he taught, improving it where necessary. Your parent or teacher always dreams you will carry on the baton, not stand on it, insisting that every golden word out of his mouth should be forever enshrined. Unfortunately we treat our parents and Bible teachers/scholars as if what they say should be frozen in time, never improved. Yeah, and he'd have learned more himself if he didn't have to spend time parenting you. So honor him and carry the baton, improving on what God caused him to give you. It's only loyal to do this. It's disloyal to stand pat on what he says.] But starting in 1992, people bucked all that depth, and he had to keep dumbing it down. So that by the end (2003), when he got the pinnacle of his understanding, the ultimate theological point that Love is God's Head Attribute, and He builds our reciprocity at His Own Level! Which he communicated, too -- he nonetheless had to stop elaborating, and revert back to repeating how salvation is John 3:16, and you use 1Jn1:9 after that. Most of each Bible class hour had to be spent explaining over and over and over these BABY doctrines. Because if you don't get the Gospel, you can't be saved. If you don't get 1Jn1:9, you can't be spiritual and learn Bible. Here's the point: my pastor is advanced. We got better Bible teaching than I can find anywhere else, and I surely didn't appreciate that fact before writing these webpages. So in my congregation, we have zero excuse for being ignorant of Bible; each one of us should by now, be experts ourselves, given the high and consistent quality of the teaching we got. His many years of almost-daily Bible class audiotapes are the witness against us, that still we didn't listen to him. I'm utterly embarrassed, k? So it's really hard to go through his audiotapes after 1990, but that's where the most advanced theological material is -- hiding amongst all that baby food the people wanted. [That doesn't mean there aren't pastors as good or better than him. I just can't find any Bible teaching which is more advanced, than what I got. Pastors often dumb down what they teach, so they might be more advanced, but can't teach what they know due to the lower acceptance levels of their congregations.] So if that's how one congregation went, for congregations everywhere are just as human -- that's how it's gone for America. You can see it in the insane politicizing of Christianity, it's not a hidden trend. You wouldn't have so much interest in the Da Vinci Code and its many precursors, if people knew their Bibles. Bible is way more interesting than any other thing in life. But of course, you can't know that until you learn it in the original languages. And you won't do that, if no one's teaching from those languages. And no one will be teaching, if no one wants to learn. So if even my own congregation went negative, which was taught for over 50 years from those original-language texts, guess what? Up go the fictional sales, down goes the truth. Litmus: how many believers can genuinely articulate God's nature in their own words -- without sounding like parrots? Almost no one. But boy oh boy, everyone can articulate well the latest party, soccer match, date, political squabble! Every word of a song is remembered, lingered over, played incessantly. But thinking about how God is? Um, is He one God or Three, an Egg? We can't even understand Trinity. So the 'lean years' from 1990-1997 in the European nations, are lean of desire to know God. So the pastor must lean toward his congregation's need, and hence cut out the delightful fatness the Lord would rather have us learn (see Isa55). So we stay lean, mean.. children. How tragic. You can evaluate Lev26's 'play' in the US yourself, by thinking over what setbacks happened to the US since 1950, and then comparing them to the cycles/stages God explains in Lev26. You'll have to upgrade the text for modern times (i.e., Lev26 uses agrarian-economy phrasing). Basically, an increasing series of setbacks in economy, foreign policy, and weather are deliberately allowed by God to wake up a nation He sponsors (at the time, Israel). You should be able to match the cycles to US history without too much agonizing. Encarta has a feature where you can type in, say, "1990" and get its list of major events of the decade, so that will help jog your memory. It's real useful to 'play' here, so you can see how predictable are the results. Again, the Christian is supposed to read history now, not after-the-fact, so you can use the 'play' here as practice in discernment, breathing 1Jn1:9 as you do so. So for this upcoming 490, Satan's main strategy will be an extreme promotion of religion itself: he needs to create Gotterdamerungs and destroy certain key technological advances of the last 500 years, in order to isolate access to Scripture. So we're looking at a new dark ages, by the end of this 490, if the world lasts that long (i.e., if the Rapture doesn't occur sooner). Satan always builds up prosperity to encourage war (via greed). Since God built prosperity to get Scripture out, Satan tried to capitalize on it, to foster greed and hence chaos. Well, he had a lot of success, but didn't prevent the widespread access to Scripture the world now enjoys. Hence, he needs a religious war, which is the only counterstrategy he can employ, in light of the current interest in God. Satan hasn't had a good religious war going for two centuries, and needs one. Satan will use our current globalization and interest in God (fake or true) to foster religious alignments. For only that will generate enough fervor to war again. Beware religion of all kinds. It's only about the Bible, stupid. So everything but the Bible, it will seem to be about. In the name of God, of course! |
Consequently, war since 1990 is now mainly fought with lying words.. and economically. So much more effective, than the old-fashioned methods of hack-and-destroy. Sun Tzu was right: you aim to defeat the enemy's mind, in part because then he makes better booty, and you can capture more of his infrastructure. Hence guerrila-type tactics in economics are far more important. Like, how much of the US is actually owned by Americans, anymore? Has anyone noticed China's quiet policy of economic hegemony, which -- surprise, surprise -- also began in earnest about 1983? Who recognized the weirdness of the Fed having to keep down interest rates, so the US doesn't go into a depression, beginning about 1990?
See, we really are Royal. So our attitude determines the quality of life down here for the whole world. We have a lot to answer for, at the Bema. Meanwhile, those invading us economically are preserving US; just as happened back during the slow demise of SPQR, it was the barbarians who kept it going; and they ended up being converts. That's a trend of history you can trace, even if you didn't believe in Bible.
The most important of all these watersheds was Iraq. See, the one group which has remained the most tyrannized of all the peoples of the world, is the Arab. Both Arabs and Jews are cousins. They are very alike. Their cultures are different, but they are so 'big' on 'family', it's suffocating. So in their communities, the herding is worse than normal: religion is so much a part of the race that it's much harder than normal, to have free opinion. Israel has had long practice in dissension owing to the Diaspora, but the Arabs haven't been similarly dispersed. So the mindset remains parochial, and free opinion is given lots of lipservice, but.. that's all. So for Iraq to break open like this provides the entire Middle East with a potential to find God it's not had in centuries. So there must be a lot of hidden positive volition in the Middle East. The Arabs are the worse off, and this gives them space to consider rising above clannishness. It won't play pretty. Modernization never does.
The precise apex might be a little to the right or the left of 1990, too: but then, this measure of the 490s is being done based on calendar years. So you have to allow a variance of a up to a year, on one side or the other. If you do, and you take a gander at whatever signficant variable you want to name in the world's development, I'm confident you'll find 1990 was a watershed marker year. It certainly was, in terms of Bible teaching. As goes Bible teaching, so goes the world's history; as goes response to Bible teaching, so goes the blessing to the world. Which results, in technological developments, in breakups of tyrannies, etc. Because, God is the God of Freedom, not tyranny, and the Word frees you from tyranny, John 8:32, Gal5:1 (etc.): no matter where in the world you are, no matter what type of government/personal burden you are under, God will free you from the inside. So you don't need to ever crusade. "Stand still, and watch the deliverance of the Lord," Moses told the Israelites when they had their backs to the Red Sea, and saw Pharaoh's whole army, rushing toward them. "Be Still, and know that I am God," God told David. Still true.
So when God Rolls Out Scripture Or Ease In Learning Scripture, there is a genuine, invisible, market for it of an unusually-high quantity. In short, it would have been easy to get Scripture as it was being written, the slow technology notwithstanding; Israel was easy to get to, all the main trade routes went through it. Today, it's easy technologically, so you can stay in the same spot all your life, yet 'visit' any country in the world. God knows how to get the Word out, and when He does, that is the litmus of true interest. A more important historical bellweather cannot be listed.
The other variables likewise can be identified in a broad brush manner, and reliably. It cannot be disputed, for example, that the world is in quite a lot of moving turmoil at all levels from religious to political to even sheer movements of people (movement economically, and/or movement physically) at the end of each 490.
It also cannot be disputed that religious warring characterizes the end of each 490; that's in fact another litmus, a reaction to the unseen true interest in #2-#3; for Satan must make a #4 to counter any progress in #2-#3, as those latter two potentially hasten the Rapture's occurrence.
Today #5 and #6 play differently. We are more sophisticated in our warring, so are tempted to think we are at peace; but in fact today we war constantly in word, at bar (courts), ballot box, and especially in checkbook. Greed and cultural insecurity predominate, but we are all too weak to just don our armor, rush onto some plain, and hack each other with abandon. Oh no: we have words, now. Yesteryear, conflicts were setpieces; they were short and composed of far fewer bodies, usually two blocks of men who rushed at each other not unlike Pickett's charge, at Gettysburg; then, the kings of the warring nations/city-states gave enormous import to the outcome of those encounters, largely due to how outsmarted they/the enemy, was in the event. The Battle of Waterloo had what, 1% of the troops involved, compared to Verdun? So our mode of warring has changed, but the warring has actually increased, not decreased. And become guerilla-like, subtle.
Same too, with the ending of a client nation: it may be a subtle demise. SPQR continued in name, but died essentially with Diocletian or Constantine. The Holy Roman Empire really ceased with Charlesmagne's death. Yet on their ashes other nations grew, trying to be phoenixes, carrying the baton. So the US today may well cease as a nation in 2030 (seems to me it died structurally in the late 1960's or 1970's, when Americans stopped owning their own country); but it will still likely be called the US. When a client nation dies, it typically dies this way, or splits in two. You see that phenomenon clearly with respect to Israel after Solomon, SPQR, and Germany. They had all at one time enjoyed a large-enough body of believers to constitute a 'client' God sponsored (i.e., evangelism, laws largely compatible with the Ten Commandments -- which is a code of freedom, not religion, which any nation however heathen can adopt for its benefit). So again, today's version of national demise will largely mean some other nation, maybe rising on the same soil, will gain ascendance. Outwardly, it might not even seem to have changed.
1990 was the contiguous end of the seventh 490 from the Exodus, when Moses began putting Scripture in writing for the first time. 1990 was also the contiguous end of the fourth 490 from the Crucifixion, the 'exodus' of our sins from being under condemnation, Gal5:1. Since all time vests in Christ and He is Risen, that is the operative timeline for the world; but, as usual, there must be at least one individual 'completed' to a spiritual maturity level high enough by the end of it, to warrant granting another new 490; and then, the new 490 can always be truncated, as it was for Israel.
That's why Rapture can't be predicted: it occurs based on a balance between Christian apostacy warranting Divine Recall -- and on the high end, Christians who reach Christ's Own "Pleroma" level of Spiritual Maturity, Eph4:13. Your average joe believer or pastor would say that's impossible, how arrogant, no one can be mature as Christ is. Well, look at Eph4:13, and guess again. Nothing is impossible for God. God is omnipotent: He could just BING you with Christ's Thinking if He wanted to. But that would coerce your volition. So how God Sovereignly wants to use His Omnipotence, is within the corridor of your volition. So His Power, your choice. And when enough believers choose to be grown up to Christ's level, the opposite apostacy will be at its nadir (there's an inverse correlation, historically). At that point -- which no one can predict, since no one can predict volition -- the Rapture will occur.
So this is no normal period in history. If God orchestrates time and convergence, and we know He does, then when HE does a convergence, it's a time of special importance. And we know it is, because never before in history has Scripture been so available to so many for free, with qualified teachers all over the world to teach it. The first century was higher in quality, but far more restricted in scope. Now, all limitations are 'off'. They might resume again, but we are in an open window. How long it lasts, well.. no one knows.
2030 is the contiguous end of the 2nd 1000 since 30AD. That's a qualifying 1000: someone must be awarded a 1000 by its ending, or the next 1000 can't play, and time ENDS.
Satan of course rolled out Islam right on time, yet again. We can now see his games live on television, ever reminding us of Daniel 9:26c, the historical bubble in which Church sits. You can even go to Aish.com and see the Wailing Wall live, to remind you of Dan9:26c's import. So we've a convergence here with the Temple 490, but we're really in that second 40-year period, with 1990-1997 being the 'lean years' in (American, European) Bible DISinterest. How the next 33 will end, is anyone's guess.
If you load GeneYrs.xls and scroll down to the year 6112 since Adam's Fall per Bible (=2006AD), you'll notice several gold and green rows which benchmark the actual historical windows nearest this year. Unlike this webpage which doesn't track the intercalations, GeneYrs.xls does. The non-intercalated 490 ended 1990; but the 2nd contiguous 1000 ends in 2030, as well. Temple 490 ends in 2030, too. And then there's the second half of the nested sevens (each containing a 40) which began in 1950 and also ends 2030. This isn't mystical number-crunching. These are deadlines. Certain spiritual-development goals must be met to justify continuing time. Maybe they were met already, I don't know. But if not, then this will be a very tumultuous period until 2030.
So here we are, in the fifth qualifying 490, which tells you.. what? God Intends Profit. He built a structure of Bible rollout to completion in the 490 just passed, 1990: that was the 4th 490, so something got completed. It's profit time. That could mean Rapture, just as it always could. But more prosaically, it means the rollout just finished, will now earn its 'dividends'. You. Me. Hopefully a bizillion growing believers. For if all we had to live for was this mundane life on this dirtball, please kill me now...
So could you call it 'coincidence' that here in the fifth 490, we have structurally Returned to the Profit of the original-language Scripture.. just like that first century AD? I couldn't. So the Profit is to Profit from the Prophet, Christ, Rev19:10. His Thinking going into our thinking, DDNA-changing our thinking to be His Thinking. God can do this. We know how. Do we do now, what we know how? Up to us.
In short, Satan sure considers the Rapture more likely to happen now than at any time prior. It's really possible in any generation, for the number of Pleroma people needed to rule in eternity can be potentially developed from any generation among a world population. Obviously. There are six billion of us, roughly 2 billion per generation. Centuries ago, there was still a huge 'pool' of potential, to draw from. Any generation can be the Rapture generation. But Satan seems to be rolling his dice.
Temple Reconstruction does NOT presage the Rapture. Yes, a Temple is rebuilt against God's orders by then. See the sarcasm in Rev11. But that can happen any time; the rebuilt Temple can last for centuries, yet no Rapture will occur. Because the Rapture doesn't depend on the Rebuilt Temple, the Rebuilt Temple Depends On The Rapture. And the Rapture, depends on believer volition. Thus we know Satan thinks many believers will grow up during this 490, and he's hedging his bets, creating a distraction we'll drool over, so we'll forget about learning Bible. That's always his ploy with respect to the Temple. We humans drool over buildings. We call a time period great or bad, due to the buildings which we find. Can we be dumber? Hitler thought that way, just ask Albert Speer when you get to heaven. So do we.
Hence Satan wants a rebuilt 'something' (Dome, for now) to remind everyone of the original meaning of that Holy Ground, so people will look at that Holy Ground, instead of looking into, their Holy Bible. So he must think he can make a lot of distractive hay from that Ground, since 1950. Looks like he's been real successful, huh...
A 490 is no guarantee, remember. It plays conditionally. It can only get granted because at least ONE person by the end of the previous 490, fulfilled the spiritual growth conditions (and we can't say precisely who each one was, post 70AD). Once it's granted, it can run to completion, but depends on someone growing enough spiritually. So if too many are apostate, the 490 can be truncated -- just as it was, in 586BC. Because Israel had some credit remaining on the spiritual growth ledger, the whole world didn't end. But the logical corollary of that fact is.. if no credit remains on the ledger, the Trib begins. So it's a game as to when the Trib begins, and Satan's trying to manipulate the timing. On the one hand, he wants to delay it, but on the other he wants to have it. So he's really trying to have his cake and eat it too.
In other words, "the end-times, brother!" comment you so frequently hear isn't necessarily at all the Rapture, but the Ending of a 490. In this case, the ending of a 490 which freed Scripture for the common man. Satan will have to respond to that by an all-out-war, so he can destroy the technological advances he initially fostered to get man's eyes off God. For, those very advances which advanced his goal of homogenizing mankind, now serve to distribute knowledge of Bible as never before.. never, since the first century AD, the last time the world had a relatively-common language (Greek and Latin). [Large powers' languages are learned by others in order to do business with those powers, so Greek and Latin were widely known throughout the world. Trading was relatively easy, though time-consuming, and you had time to learn the language as you travelled there. Even your average peasant along a trade route would pick up many words in a foreign tongue. Look at how many outside English-speaking countries, speak English today? Even remote people in Niger who were slaves spoke some broken English to a reporter from "Wide Angle" (a PBS show), when queried about the slavery there. So it's not unrealistic or arrogant to say that Greek and Latin were widely known throughout the world, in the first century AD. Even as, English is now.]
So now, we're in a second 40-year period following a nexus -- and the 40th year will not end well, if we keep on the same disinterested course. It's a mirror testing period analogous to Egypt's 2nd 40-year period under Joseph: the one containing the lean years. Like back then, here in 2005 the world's people got too fat and happy during the first 40 year period, 1950-1990; plus, many groups suddenly had a freedom they didn't have for decades. So now, both old and new nations, need a wilderness of spankings (remember how Israel started as a new nation).
So now you have an extra reason to be more motivated: being a hidden soldier for your own country's freedom, whatever country you call 'home'. No fanfare, no groups, no one to cheer you on. It's like you're in a foxhole, and only God will see you. Now: isn't that the best way to fight?
