Sept 1997

MEXICO CITY (CWN) -- In a message sent to the Sixth Mexican Youth Missionary Congress, Pope John Paul asked Mexican Catholic youth leaders to "prepare the way, in a spirit of conversion to Christ, for the Jubilee 2000 celebration of our redemption."

More than 12,000 young Catholic leaders from around the country gathered in the northern state of Torreon to discuss ways to prepare for the Third Millennium. "Among the most important conclusions of the meeting are the need for personal conversion by youth," said Bishop Luis Morales Reyes of Torreon. "Young people can only be evangelized by peers who transmit with their own life the joy of a Christian life." Bishop Morales added that the door-to-door apostolate is also gaining momentum in Mexico, especially in large cities. "Protestants reminded us that going door to door is a natural mission for Catholics and youth here have stressed that," he explained.

July 1993

(TIME) -- A front-page story in the Washington Post said, "The United States has become a land echoing with the rumble of apocalyptic prophecy," it reported on Day 5 of the Waco siege. And the phenomenon is ecumenical: "The anticipation extends across religious lines."

True enough. But it also extends beyond religious lines. Millennial thinking is hardly the property of the religious. Indeed, the most widespread and historically significant outbreaks of millenarianism in our time have been secular.

For the past half-century more than a quarter of the earth's people were controlled by political movements whose pursuit of the millennium was as fanatical as that of their religious counterparts--and far more destructive. Soviet, Cambodian, Korean, Chinese communists relentlessly drove their people to extremes of privation and repression in order to hasten the arrival of full-fledged "communism," the millennium as foretold by that 19th century prophet Karl Marx.

In 1958, for example, Mao decided to skip the intermediate stages of "socialist construction" and go right to full communism. He called it the Great Leap Forward. It would take a million David Koreshes to kill the number of Chinese who perished (through famine, forced labor and civil unrest) to satisfy that lunge for millennium. Two decades later, the Khmer Rouge murdered more than a million of their countrymen in an attempt, explained Khieu Samphan, to "reach total communism with one leap forward." Has any religious vision occasioned more human sacrifice than "total communism"?

July 1993

Louis Difo, a former vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank, packed up his family & his investment-banking business last July & moved to Montana. Not just to get away from New Jersey: He wanted to escape the earthquakes, economic collapse & nuclear war his religious sect expects in the 1990s.

Mr. Difo bought eight hectares of sagebrush with a mountain view in Paradise Valley. He also gathered a five-year supply of canned squash, carrots & broccoli; a stack of Treasury bills; "several tens of thousands of dollars" in gold coins; & a five-bed apartment in a concrete reinforced underground bomb shelter.

Though one might wonder what use a T-bill would be in an atomic attack, Mr. Difo is serene. He is an adherent of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the leader of the Church Universal & Triumphant, whose headquarters is nearby, & he believes in "being prepared for the worst, you have peace of mind."

Many Americans with similar dreads are heeding the warnings of latter-day prophets, such as Mrs. Prophet (yes, it's her real name, the surname of her second husband), that the end is near. One religious sect or another has been predicting imminent doom--or a glorious apocalypse--since the pharaohs ruled Egypt.

But the approach of the year 2000 & the next millennium has put the fear of God into a good many people. "After we get into the '90s, we're going to see a lot more" apocalyptic prophecy, predicts J. Gordon Melton, the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion, in Santa Barbara, California.

Which is not unlike what happened in Europe at the dawn of the current millennium. Just before the year 1000, soothsayers were predicting all manner of events, from famine to flying dragons.

Fortunately or otherwise, the history of prophecy reads pretty much like a history of dashed expectations. In the U.S., an entire evangelical Protestant denomination, the Seventh-day Adventists Church, was formed by people disillusioned by the failure of the Second Coming prophecy of Bible student William Miller in the mid-1800s. Adventists continue to believe the end is near, but they no longer attach a date to the event.

Doomsday scenarios tend to have a common thread: The World, having turned its back on God, is virtually destroyed (consumed by fire, flood or whatnot). Only the faithful are spared. For them, there is rebirth in a new religious order--the Age of Aquarius, the Second Coming of Christ, the Kingdom of God, a new messiah. [AMEN!]

The world's institutions are breaking down. The schools. Law enforcement. Government itself.

This is no accident. Long before the political institutions we rely on to maintain civil order began to crumble, our major cultural institutions lost their moorings. The entertainment industry. The press. Academia. Even the churches.

We're on the downward end of a slippery slope. People recognize it. As we approach the dawning of a new millennium, it's only natural that people are asking: "With all the bad news in the world, is there any hope?" Left to our own devices, I'd say we're going down on the Titanic.

Fortunately, I don't believe we're on our own. There is order in this universe. There is One greater than us on Whom we can depend. He's always there for us. And He's got a plan for our personal salvation as well as a plan for a world without end.

At times like these--trying times--Saint Paul explained that "the righteous will live by faith." I don't think I could carry on for another day without absolute faith that righteousness would someday triumph in this world. There's too much pain, too much suffering, too much sin, too much evil.

This is the result of man exercising his own wisdom rather than relying on the laws of God. The Bible is replete with horror stories of such folly--beginning in the Garden of Eden.

For 6,000 years of human history, the story has been the same. Someone, some leader, some group, some city, some nation, even the entire world decides it knows better than God. The consequences are always dire. Whenever God is removed from the equation, something bad fills the vacuum.

But I am certain a better day is coming. And I believe it's closer than most of us think. How do we know that day is coming? Because the One who came, suffered, died and rose again told us so. He promised us--nearly 2,000 years ago. Jesus told us to watch for the signs, and they are all around us. His return is very near. He is literally at the door. As surely as He rose on the third day, I believe He will come again in the third millennium.

Open your hearts, my friends, and rejoice. For He is risen. He is truly risen, and He's coming back to straighten out this mess. All we need to do is proclaim the truth. Help is on the way.

As we enter 1998, I can't help but think about how close we must be to the Second Coming--when the Lord will return for His church and personally rule over the Earth for 1,000 years.

Oh, I know, some of you don't believe in such things. You think it's just a bunch of silly superstition. You prefer I stick to writing about news events of the physical world rather than arcane spiritual matters.

But, as a journalist, I can't ignore hard evidence--no matter where it may lead me. And the more I study the prophetic scriptures of the Holy Bible and look at the condition of our world today, the more convinced I become that we are nearing that time. In fact, I think we are very close.

For just as Jesus' virgin birth in Bethlehem was foretold by the Hebrew prophets hundreds of years earlier, so, too, was His return to Earth predicted. The only question is when.

The most dramatic evidence for His imminent return our generation has witnessed was the rebirth of the nation of Israel 50 years ago. The Jews were, as prophesied, scattered over the whole earth for nearly two millennia beginning shortly after Jesus' death on the cross. Yet, the scriptures leave no doubt that the Jewish state would exist once again before He returned.

Interestingly, Orthodox Jews have long taught that the world would last for 6,000 years before the Messiah would come and usher in a 1,000-year period of restful human history. Since God created the world in six days, according to Genesis 1:31, and rested on the seventh day, according to Genesis 2:2, they reasoned the world's history would climax the same way. They cite Psalm 90:4, which says: "For a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it passes by."

Likewise, Christians have looked to II Peter 3:8: "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

The early church understood this "six-day theory" of world history. It was widely accepted teaching for the first three centuries of the church. From the time of Adam, we've got genealogical records to show that 4,000 years passed until the time of Christ. From Jesus' time until the present age represents another 2,000 years, for a total of 6,000 years or six days.

There's also a three-day theory: Jesus rose on the third day. Would the beginning of the third millennium--or thousand-year period--not be the likely time for His return to earth?

In 1776, Edward Gibbon published "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," in which he cites early documents suggesting the Christian disciples of the first century were taught that Jesus would return after 2000 years. We'll soon find out if they were right.

For many reasons, I believe Jesus is returning soon--if not in the year 2000, certainly thereabouts. But I'm especially drawn to II Timothy 3:1-5, which describes the state of the world in the "last days." Tell me if this doesn't sound like our world: "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these."

Jesus came 2,000 years ago and died for our sins. Now we should be hopeful and expectant of His imminent return.

"Man proposes but God disposes!" said a wise Russian envoy to proud Napoleon, sitting on his high horse contemplating victory over Russia and demanding a surrender! And God did, Napoleon lost the war and half of his army, and retreated in shame. "Like the song "Where have all the flowers gone!" When will they ever learn? It's the old story of Man's awful pride!

But now! —More than ever before!—Man proposes a new invincible technological New Millennium, a brave New World Order and a perfect New Age! But again God disposes, and prophesies in His good old Book that it will miserably fail, and that instead He is soon going to return and install His own supernatural Millennium that won’t need any technology and will transcend all gadgetry! Who do you believe?

It's an old story, a movie often seen before. But man seems to always fall in the same old trap, as the famous historian Toynbee said, "the only thing we seem to learn from history is that we never learn from history."

Of course, "modern enlightened man" poo-poos the old Biblical "legends" as they call the historical sagas of a past that has its bearings very much in the present.

• Noah warned a wicked and very violent pre-deluvian world. They scoffed and persecuted him. A worldwide flood drowned them all.—God disposed of Atlantis!
• Man proposed to reach the sky with the tower of Babel, God disposed of it and its ruin still stands today, a witness of proud man that proposed. We have the linguistic hangovers eversince.
• Lot tried to warn Sodom & Gomorrah, but they laughed. They were disposed of by God’s salt and pitch explosion!
• Moses warned Pharao who hardened his heart. Egypt was disposed of and went into a tailspin it never came out of, its people scattered throughout Africa.
• Daniel warned Babylon. Its ruins still stand today in the Iraqi desert sands as a witness.
• Jeremiah warned Israel, but they didn’t listen and went 70 years into Babylonian exile!
• Jesus warned Israel again…They killed him and were scattered for 2000 years throughout the world.
• The Christian Roman martyrs warned the people of Pompeï…their ruins and fossilized bodies still stand today as a witness.
• Luther warned wayward Germany, and a thirty year war ravished them.
• Rasputin warned Russia. The Czar didn’t listen. He and 80 million others were murdered in 70 years.
• And now…God’s prophecies warn this violent wicked world! But they dispose of those that propose them as "doomsday cultists". What are their ruins going to tell us?

You don't believe that history will again repeat itself? You really think that this time Man will finally glory in his flesh and succeed in the worship of the technological works of his own hands and in the pride of man's achievements of internet and digital Revolutions.—That this time, man will actually immortalise himself through genetic engineering and triumph over God’s creation?

Well, you can believe what you like, but I take the historical precedents any day. You can bet all you want on this highly touted computerised, robotic engineered, nana technological, genetically altered high horse of modern man!—whatever modern means?—but sorry, I’ve seen this movie before and I put my bet on the White Horse and its Rider!

The last of the 4 Apocapalyptic horsemen!