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Yes.The next logical question is “Why are you running?” What can I bring to the Presidency that Hillary or Donald or another candidate cannot? First of all we need character; not a character, or a caricature, but character. Just the other day I was reminded of why I was running while reading Atlas Shrugs, Pamela Geller’s blog. I’m running because we need a candidate who will defend brave ladies like the beautiful Ms Geller. It’s hard to believe one candidate even called her a troublemaker. That’s it blame the heroine. I wonder who did that? We’ll get to that story - that mystery in a minute. Right now, by way of introduction I want to say a couple things about myself.One, Experience.As a Citizen/Diplomat I represented my country overseas. I owned Alamo, a language school in Okayama, Japan where I learned through subscribing to and reading Japanese newspapers of the Bojinka airline plots which targeted between 10 to 12 planes but was suspended after the plotters caused a fire in their apartment with chemicals used for making bombs. I pleaded to stop both waves of airliner attacks - the first wave before 9/11 and the second wave - which we and the Brits stopped - in August 2006.Two, Education.I have a BA in Journalism and a minor in English from the University of Houston but a lot of extra coursework and extracurricular research which adds to this. For example a year of Russian Studies in which I slogged through Russian with classmates most of whom had had four years of high school Russian at Bellaire high school.I was distracted from my Russian studies by the downing of Flight 7 whereupon I began an in-depth investigation to discover if anything could be done to minimize the risk of such an attack in the future. I flew an ultralight in the process of this journey and visited the Boeing Building in Houston to learn more about flying. I also took many trips to libraries across the state where only certain source material was located. On one trip I arrived at sunrise at the campus of Texas A&M just in time to see the cadets training in the mist. And after my research at the library was done I caught up with some high school friends who initiated me to a “yell practice.”I occasionally met astronauts growing up as my father worked at NASA. We took a trip to Florida in Dec 1972 where we saw the last Apollo Mission to the moon - Apollo 17. On board was the first civilian astronaut who was also the first Phd scientist - Harrison “Jack” Schmitt. He became a U.S. Senator from New Mexico and was the first voice of the Senate to raise objection to the use of force against a commercial airliner by the Soviets in 1978, 5 years before the attack on Flight 7. As only a few were killed when the pilot landed on a frozen lake, most simply wanted to ignore the matter. But not Schmitt. His pleas became the springboard for my pleas to stop the Bojinka airliner plots in 2001 while living in California where I had worked at a navigation company.I encountered turbulence in the wake of my pleas to stop the plot. Particularly from those who felt 9/11 was a government conspiracy.1.) At Facebook a user claimed that since I tried to stop the plot that meant I must have been involved in the plot. He later apologized after reading my story.2.) Other internet users have accused me of working with the government or the illuminati neither of which is true. I am a private citizen who loves his country and wishes to see her thrive in as terr0r and crime-free environment as possible. Encouraging citizen diplomacy, partnerships with private individuals can help achieve this end.What’s more important than what people think of me is that the facts get out there. Armed with the right information we all can make better choices.People tend to think of the world as being divided between Liberal and Conservative. But the more facts you learn, you realize that it is the information gap that is truly bigger than any political gap.Take for instance the Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland Tx which resulted in 2 Jihadists getting killed after attempting to bring a Charlie Hepdo-like massacre to Texas.Atlas Shrug’s blogger Pamela Geller helped organize the event and recently revealed some astonishing facts. The FBI informant which had infiltrated the cell was sitting in the art exhibition room in Garland where the Mohammed cartoon contest was being held texting out the location to the suspects who were en route to the facility to shoot everyone up. Geller reports not only did he not have a gun with him (it wasn’t allowed in the building) but there was no FBI team waiting in the wings to ‘protect the participants. For armed security the organizers of the event relied on local and private security one of whom was shot in the exchange of gunfire with the culprits.How did Donald Trump react to Geller’s bravery in holding the event? He accused her of stirring up trouble and never apologized even after learning the facts of the case - how Jihad had been promoted by local Muslims in the very same room the contest organizers rented for the event.There is a gap between how security operates in the West v the Middle East where even Islamic countries tend to be on much higher alert because the risks of an attack are even higher.But to suggest that the U.S. government perpetrated 9/11 flies in the face of the facts. Alex Jones urged viewers of his Austin based cable show before 9/11 to call to the government to stop the government terror attack.Around the same time I was in Los Angeles at the Boeing building near LAX pleading for authorities help to stop the Islamist Bojinka plotters I feared were in U.S. flight schools.There was no government terror attack on 9/11 but there was an Islamist Bojinka attack which sprang from a plot out of the Philippines. These plotters bombed a flight en route to Tokyo killing Haruki Ikegami, a Japanese sewing machine worker in 1995. Shortly after police found a plot to use as many as 12 planes on both sides of the Pacific to attack U.S. targets.A few culprits were caught while the rest fled the scene of an accidental fire caused by chemicals the Cebu cell were using to make bombs. They also bombed a movie theater. Since the airline bomber Ramsi Yousef had previously bombed the WTC in 1993 U.S. authorities received permission from Japan and Philippines to hold trial in New York.I was living in Japan at the time and preferred Japan or the Philippines try the terror cell since the airline bombing occurred over Japan and to a Japanese victim. So I followed the trial in New York closely through the media. 20 indictments were handed down - 9 for the airline bombing and 11 for WTC bombing. It was further revealed that each targeted flight was to have five hijackers. It is likely the date 9/11 was chosen and a total of 20 hijackers selected - 5 for each plane - as a show of defiance to the 20 indictments handed down by the New York court.This was the danger of having the trial so near a community of radicalized supporters in New York City as opposed to in Asia, especially Japan, far from the radical’s support base.Does anybody really think our national security interests were furthered by trying just a scant few of the airline plotters in New York City as opposed to Asia? When a flight disappeared during the trial it put the prosecutors on pins and needles praying it wasn’t terrorism which might taint the jury and result in a mistrial. Hofstra University’s welcome mat to Lynne Stewart, the defender of the blind cleric she was convicted of engaging in a felony with only adds to New York’s image problem of being home to trouble-makers as opposed to problem-solvers.Clear-headedness and compassion for what New Yorkers were facing came out of San Antonio and Okayama, Japan. And it didn’t hurt that my mother was born in Kew Gardens or that I had spent many summer vacations in Mt Kisco and Long Island.If we wish to stop Vietnam wars, Iraq wars, Syria wars, and all the rest we must exercise vigilance, We must at the bare minimum tell the truth about who and what threatens us and who and what does not. And we must win the information war, too, the education war. We can’t do that by turning our backs on the beautiful and brave Pamela Geller nor on turning our backs on people from the FAA like Brian Sullivan and Steve Elson who were saying, “Houston, we have a problem,” metaphorically speaking. They exposed very serious failings in airport screening and pleaded to fix these problems BEFORE disaster struck…I heard the reports on screening failure out of Boston and I was motivated by them and as far as I know - these men - they have never been properly acknowledged. If I am elected, those two and others will get the acknowledgement they rightly deserve.A vote for Trump or Clinton will ensure a very mediocre government. On the other hand a vote for me will help call attention to the fact this isn’t a fight between the Right or Left - it’s a battle between those who value sharing information with the public for the benefit of everyone and those who wish to hoard it for themselves.Oh, and by the way, I feel I should not conclude without saying something about the 50,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam war. My uncle Joe grew up on a lavish Mt. Kisco estate, a gift of a British royal - Sir Edmund Vivian Gabriel to his American wife. Joe was the son of Hugh Kelly, the estate’s manager and horseman. His son Joe was a prominent activist against the Vietnam War.While Donald J Trump was walking gingerly into a doctor’s office in pursuit of a note for a heel spur, my uncle was out hitting the pavement, speaking at universities across the nation so that one day men would not need a doctor’s note to keep them out of a stupid war.The 50,000 who lost their lives had a hero in Joe Kelly - a hero who tried to save their lives and end the war. How many lives were saved as a result of the courage of protestors who dared speak out? Would 50,000 more lives have been lost? It’s anybody’s guess.The case of Bernie Sanders presents an interesting study that I’d like to close with to highlight why I think I’m the most qualified to be President. Even though he’s not in the running I think this story is quite useful in many ways.I have found a good friend on Facebook who has no idea I’m running by the way. His name is Ed Beck. Like me he is liberal and pro-Israel. He waited and waited for Bernie Sanders to come out for Israel. It never happened. All Bernie had to do was be positive for Israel. That’s it. But he couldn’t. In fact he maligned Israel with claims that Israel overreached in Gaza killing 10,000 when the true figure of Gaza deaths was 5 times less.To further his career Bernie Sanders has chosen to distance himself from Israel. And he isn’t alone. Many Jews and those of Jewish heritage, have sought to distance themselves from the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.In high school we debated the issue through the Model United Nations in Houston and again in Austin. We came to know all the applicable U.N. resolutions and timelines. But one thing that bothered me from that experience was that the terrorist ideology of the group claiming the right to their own states in these territories was never adequately considered. The debate was couched as if two equal parties had a dispute such as in a divorce and the question was simply how to fairly divide the assets. But as we’ve seen, the reality is very different. The sides are not equal. If one party of a divorce stockpiles missiles and shoots them at the other party he is going to lose everything. The courts are not going to be sympathetic to him.But for some reason, many liberals and others have been persuaded to believe the party firing missiles into Israel from Gaza are the victims and deserve their state notwithstanding the kidnappings, the sabotage, even frogmen assaults from the sea, and their expressed aim of eliminating Israel entirely.Israel undertook a public relations campaign using Facebook to mitigate the negative publicity it was certain to face. They showed efforts to warn locations which had been targeted to clear out before a strike occurred. They showed fighter pilots canceling attacks after seeing civilians in the target area. They showed clips of Gaza fighters using schools and hospitals from which to launch rocket attacks, Even a priest from a Catholic church which had opened its doors to refugees fleeing the conflict had admitted Gazan fighters were firing missiles from the outskirts of church property and he could only pray the Israelis would show restraint which they did.Bernie Sanders missed all this entirely. And we as a nation suffer because of it.My reaction to the war in Gaza was to contact an Israeli journalist and to get a young American woman reporting from inside Gaza city out after she admitted of a harrowing night of fire and very reluctantly on missiles fired from the area of her building. And indeed after my contact with the journalist in regards to her company’s stringer she did escape to the Egyptian border.We have a whole generation of young people who have been molded by leaders by politicians who have shut their eyes to the realities of the conflict. They have put their head in the sand. And we suffer because of it.Electing Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton won’t increase our ability to cut to the chase and nip an escalation in the bud before another wave of violence occurs. Already Gazans are rebuilding the terror tunnels. It is better to act sooner to solve a problem than later.If I’m elected President I will react to solve problems so fast you won’t even know there was ever a problem. If I can get help get a stringer out of Gaza from the comfort of my own home behind a computer; if I can plea to stop Islamists from hijacking our planes and plowing them into our buildings both before 9/11 and before the August attacks, then imagine what I could do if I had the support of the American people behind me. Anytime our forces were in trouble I ’d be lightning speed quick to respond.One final thing. When I’m President, I’m still going to use Quora regularly. In fact, I will be the most internet accessible President in history. I will help solve math problems. I will still answer questions about boats, 9/11, music, etc. But please forgive me in advance if on occasion I must answer, “That’s classified.”

Re your query: What is the biblical meaning (literal or symbolic) to the reference to ‘Wormwood’ in the Book of Revelations?Assisted by - Quoted source…These are my personal research notes gleaned from over 50 plus years of being a bible student - assisted by the following information which is taken from the Bible Encyclopaedia Insight on the Scriptures [see http://jw.org an interesting site for more details]- I hope that this information assists you with your query:WORMWOOD[Heb., la·ʽanahʹ; Gr., aʹpsin·thos].This designates many, frequently somewhat woody, plants having an intensely bitter taste and a strong aromatic odor. Several varieties of wormwood are found in Palestine, particularly in desert areas. The most common is the Artemisia herba-alba, a small shrub growing 40 cm (16 in.) tall. In Scripture, wormwood is compared to the aftereffects of immorality (Pr 5:4) and the bitter experience that was to come and did come upon Judah and Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. (Jer 9:15; 23:15; La 3:15, 19) It also represents injustice and unrighteousness (Am 5:7; 6:12) and is used with reference to apostates. (De 29:18) At Revelation 8:11, wormwood denotes a bitter and poisonous substance, also called absinthe.Revelation 8: 10–11 - 10 The third angel blew his trumpet. And a great star burning like a lamp fell from heaven, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters. 11 The name of the star is Wormwood. And a third of the waters turned into wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because these had been made bitter._______________________________________________________________________________________Amos 5:7 - In the day’s of Amos the Nation of Israel was treating justice not helpful at all but very bitter to those who needed assistance with kindness.7 You turn justice into wormwood, And you cast righteousness to the earth.By Albert Barns:Amos 5:7Ye who turn - Those whom he calls to seek God, were people filled with all injustice, who turned the sweetness of justice into the bitterness of wormwood . Moses had used “gall” and “wormwood” as a proverb; “lest there be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; the Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him” Deu_29:18, Deu_29:20. The word of Amos would remind them of the word of Moses.And leave off righteousness in the earth - Better, “and set righteousness to rest on the ground” . They dethroned righteousness, the representative and vice-gerent of God, and made it rest on the ground. The “little horn,” Daniel says, should “cast truth to the ground” Dan_8:12. These seem to have blended outrage with insult, as when “the Lord our Righteousness” Jer_23:6 took our flesh, “they put on Him” the “scarlet robe, and the crown of thorns” upon His Head, and bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him,” and then “crucified Him.” They “deposed” her, “set her down,” it may be, with a mock make-believe deference, as people now-a-days, in civil terms, depose God, ignoring Him and His right over them. They set her on the ground and so left her, the image of God. This they did, not in one way only, but in all the ways in which they could. He does not limit it to the “righteousness” shown in doing justice. It includes all transactions between man and man, in which right enters, all buying and selling, all equity, all giving to another his due. All the bands of society were dissolved, and righteousness was placed on the ground, to be trampled on by all in all things._____________________________________________________________________________________Assisted by - Quoted source…These are my personal research notes gleaned from over 50 plus years of being a bible student - assisted by the following information which is taken from the Bible Encyclopaedia Insight on the Scriptures [see http://jw.org an interesting site for more details]- I hope that this information assists you with your query:“And the third angel blew his trumpet. And a great star burning as a lamp fell from heaven, and it fell upon a third of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood. And a third of the waters turned into wormwood, and many of the men died from the waters, because these had been made bitter.” (Revelation 8:10, 11) Once again, other parts of the Bible help us to see how this scripture applies in the Lord’s day.Instead of offering fresh waters of truth, they served up “wormwood,” bitter lies such as hellfire, purgatory, the Trinity, and predestination; also, they led the nations into war, failing to build them up as moral servants of God. The result? Spiritual poisoning of those who believed the lies. Their case was similar to that of the unfaithful Israelites of Jeremiah’s day, to whom Jehovah said: “Here I am making them eat wormwood, and I will give them poisoned water to drink. For from the prophets of Jerusalem apostasy has gone forth to all the land.”​—Jeremiah 9:15; 23:15.The clergy’s power in northern Europe is almost spent, while in some other lands, the government strictly curtails their influence. In Catholic parts of Europe and in the Americas, the clergy’s scandalous behavior in financial, political, and moral affairs has sullied their reputation. From now on, their position can only get worse, since soon they will suffer the same fate as all other false religionists.​—Revelation 18:21; 19:2.Christendom’s Waters Revealed to Be Wormwood​Beliefs and Attitudes What the Bible of Christendom Really SaysGod’s personal name is Jesus prayed that God’s name unimportant: “The use of any be sanctified. Peter said: proper name for the one and “Everyone who calls on the name only God . . . is entirely of Jehovah will be saved.”inappropriate for the universal (Acts 2:21; Joel 2:32;faith of the Christian Church.” Matthew 6:9; Exodus 6:3;(Preface to the Revised Standard Revelation 4:11; 15:3; 19:6) Version)The human soul is immortal: Man is a soul. At death “When man dies his soul and body the soul ceases to think or are disunited. His body . . . feel and returns to the dust decays . . . The human soul, from which it was made. however, does not die.” (What (Genesis 2:7; 3:19;Happens After Death, a Roman Psalm 146:3, 4;Catholic publication) Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20; 9:5, 10; Ezekiel 18:4, 20)The wicked are punished after The wages of sin is death, not death in hell: “According to life in torment. (Romans 6:23)traditional Christian belief, The dead rest unconscious in hell is a place of unending hell (Hades, Sheol), awaiting anguish and pain.” a resurrection. (Psalm 89:48;(The World Book Encyclopedia, John 5:28, 29; 11:24, 25; 1987 edition) Revelation 20:13, 14)“The title Mediatrix The only mediator between God [female mediator] is applied to and men is Jesus. (John 14:6;Our Lady.” (New Catholic 1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 9:15;Encyclopedia, 1967 edition) Heb 12:24)Infants should be baptized: Baptism is for those who have “From the very beginning the been made disciples and taught Church has administered the to obey Jesus’ commandments.Sacrament of Baptism to infants. To qualify for baptism, Not only was this practice a person must understand God’s considered lawful, but it was Word and exercise faith.also taught to be absolutely (Matthew 28:19, 20; necessary for salvation.” (New Luke 3:21-23; Acts 8:35, 36) Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 edition)Most churches are divided into All first-century Christians a laity class and a clergy class, were ministers and shared in which ministers to the laity. preaching the good news.The clergy are usually given (Acts 2:17, 18; a salary in exchange for their Romans 10:10-13; 16:1) ministry and are exalted over the A Christian should “give free,” laity by titles such as not for a salary.“Reverend,” “Father,” or “His (Matthew 10:7, 8) Eminence.” Jesus strictly forbade the use of religious titles. (Matthew 6:2; 23:2-12; 1 Peter 5:1-3)Images, icons, and crosses are Christians must flee from used in worship: “The images every sort of idolatry, . . . of Christ, of the Virgin including so-called relative Mother of God, and of the other worship. (Exodus 20:4, 5; saints, are to be . . . 1 Corinthians 10:14; kept in churches and due 1 John 5:21) They worship God reverence and honor be paid to not by sight but with spirit them.” (Declaration of the and truth. (John 4:23, 24; Council of Trent [1545-63]) 2 Corinthians 5:7)Church members are taught Jesus preached God’s Kingdom, that God’s purposes will not some political system, be accomplished through politics. as the hope for mankind.The late Cardinal Spellman (Matthew 4:23; 6:9, 10) stated: “There is only one road He refused to get involved in to peace . . . , the highroad of politics. (John 6:14, 15) democracy.” News items report His Kingdom was no part of religion’s involvement in the this world; hence, his world’s politics (even in followers were to be no part of insurrections) and her support the world. (John 18:36; 17:16) of the UN as “the last hope James warned against friendship of concord and peace.” with the world. (James 4:4)____________________________________________________________________________________This section are quotes from some very well known Bible ScholarsBrilliant bitternessCommentators say that the star Wormwood of my text was a type of Attila, king of the Huns. He was so called because he was brilliant as a star, and, like wormwood, he embittered everything he touched. A more extraordinary character history does not furnish than this man, Attila, the king of the Huns. The story goes that one day a wounded heifer came limping along through the fields, and a herdsman followed its bloody track on the grass to see where the heifer was wounded, and went on back, further and further, until he came to a sword fast in the earth, the point downward as though it had dropped from the heavens, and against the edges of this sword the heifer had been cut. The herdsman pulled up that sword and presented it to Attila. Attila said that sword must have dropped from the heavens from the grasp of the god Mars, and its being given to him meant that Attila should conquer and govern the whole earth. Other mighty men have been delighted at being called liberators, or the Merciful, or the Good, but Attila called himself, and demanded that others call him, “The Scourge of God.” The Roman Empire conquered the world, but Attila conquered the Roman Empire. He was right in calling himself a scourge, but instead of being “the Scourge of God,” he was the scourge of hell. Because of his brilliancy and bitterness, the commentators might well have supposed him to be the star Wormwood of the text. Have you ever thought how many embittered lives there are all about us, misanthropic, morbid, acrid, saturnine? The European plant from which wormwood is extracted, Artemisia absinthium, is a perennial plant, and all the year round it is ready to exude its oil. And in many human lives there is a perennial distillation of acrid experiences. Yea, there are some whose whole work is to shed a baleful influence on others. There are Attilas of the home, Attilas of the social circle, Attilas of the Church, Attilas o! the State, and one-third of the waters of all the world, if not two-thirds of the waters, are poisoned by the falling of the star Wormwood. It is not complimentary to human nature that most men, as soon as they get great power, become overbearing. The more power men have the better, if their power be used for good. The less power men have the better, if they use it evil. Some of you are morning stars, and you are making the dawning life of your children bright with gracious influences, and you are beaming upon all the opening enterprises of philanthropic and Christian endeavour, and you are heralds of day. Keep on shining with encouragement and Christian hope! Some of you are evening stars, and you are cheering the last days of old people. But are any of you the star Wormwood? Do you scold and growl from the thrones paternal or maternal? Are your children everlastingly pecked at? What is your influence upon the neighbourhood, the town, or the city of your residence? I will suppose that you are a star of wit. What kind of rays do you shoot forth? Do you use that splendid faculty to irradiate the world or to rankle it? Are your powers of mimicry used to put religion in contempt? Is it a bunch of nettlesome invective? Is it fun at others’ misfortune? Then you are the star Wormwood. Yours is the fun of a rattlesnake trying how well it can sting. But I will change this, and suppose you are a star of worldly prosperity. Then you have large opportunity. You can encourage that artist by buying his picture. You can improve the fields, the stables, the highway by introducing higher style of fowl and horse and cow and sheep. You can endow a college. You can build a church. You can put a missionary of Christ on that foreign shore. But suppose you grind the face of the poor. Suppose when a man’s wages are due you make him wait for them because he cannot help himself. Suppose by your manner you act as though he were nothing and you were everything. Suppose you are selfish and overbearing and arrogant. You are the star Wormwood, and you have embittered one-third, if not three-thirds, of the waters that roll past your employes and operatives and dependents and associates. Are we embittering the domestic or social or political fountains, or are we like Moses, who, when the Israelites in the wilderness complained that the waters of Lake Marah were bitter and they could not drink them, their leader cut off the branch of a certain tree and threw that branch into the water, and it became sweet and slaked the thirst of the suffering host? Are we with a branch of the Tree of Life sweetening all the brackish fountains that we can touch? What is true of individuals is true of nations. God sets them up to revolve as stars, but they may fall wormwood. Witness Thebes, Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, and Imperial Rome. (T. De Witt Talmage.)From shining as a heavenly star, by apostasy, we see this star turns to be only as a burning earthly lamp: whereby we are taught what a change sin and apostasy maizes from the better to the worse, as in this star from heaven to earth, from standing to falling, and from shining to burning only; by fiery ambition and bitter contention like wormwood, hating most of any the professors of that truth which formerly they held. (Wm. Guild, D. D.)_____________________________________________________________________Albert BarnsRevelation 8:11And the name of the star is called Wormwood - Is appropriately so called. The writer does not say that it would be actually so called, but that this name would be properly descriptive of its qualities. Such expressions are common in allegorical writings. The Greek word - ἄψινθος apsinthos - denotes “wormwood,” a well-known bitter herb. That word becomes the proper emblem of bitterness. Compare Jer_9:15; Jer_23:15; Lam_3:15, Lam_3:19.And the third part of the waters became wormwood - Became bitter as wormwood. This is doubtless an emblem of the calamity which would occur if the waters should be thus made bitter. Of course they would become useless for the purposes to which they are mostly applied, and the destruction of life would be inevitable. To conceive of the extent of such a calamity we have only to imagine a large portion of the wells, and rivers, and fountains of a country made bitter as wormwood. Compare Exo_15:23-24.And many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter - This effect would naturally follow if any considerable portion of the fountains and streams of a land were changed by an infusion of wormwood. It is not necessary to suppose that this is intended to be literally true; for as, by the use of a symbol, it is not to be supposed that literally a part of the waters would be turned into wormwood by the baleful influence of a falling meteor, so it is not necessary to suppose that there is intended to be represented a literal destruction of human life by the use of waters. Great destruction and devastation are undoubtedly intended to be denoted by this - destruction that would be well represented in a land by the natural effects if a considerable part of the waters were, by their bitterness, made unfit to drink.In the interpretation and application, therefore, of this passage, we may adopt the following principles and rules:(a) It may be assumed, in this exposition, that the previous symbols, under the first and second trumpet-blasts, referred respectively to Alaric and his Goths, and to Genseric and his Vandals.(b) That the next great and decisive event in the downfall of the empire is the one that is here referred to.(c) That there would be some chieftain or warrior who might be compared with a blazing meteor; whose course would be singularly brilliant; who would appear suddenly like a blazing star, and then disappear like a star whose light was quenched in the waters.(d) That the desolating course of that meteor would be mainly on those portions of the world that abounded with springs of water and running streams.(e) That an effect would be produced as if those streams and fountains were made bitter; that is, that many persons would perish, and that wide desolations would be caused in the vicinity of those rivers and streams, as if a bitter and baleful star should fall into the waters, and death should spread over the lands adjacent to them, and watered by them.Whether any events occurred of which this would be the proper emblem is now the question. Among expositors there has been a considerable degree of unanimity in supposing that Attila, the king of the Huns, is referred to; and if the preceding expositions are correct, there can be no doubt on the subject. After Alaric and Genseric, Attila occupies the next place as an important agent in the overthrow of the Roman empire, and the only question is, whether he would be properly symbolized by this baleful star. The following remarks may be made to show the propriety of the symbol:(1) As already remarked, the place which he occupies in history, as immediately succeeding Alaric and Genseric in the downfall of the empire. This will appear in any chronological table, or in the table of contents of any of the histories of those times. A full detail of the career of Attila may be found in Gibbon, vol. ii. pp. 314-351. His career extended from 433 a.d. to 453 a.d. It is true that he was contemporary with Genseric, king of the Vandals, and that a portion of the operations of Genseric in Africa were subsequent to the death of Attila (455 a.d. to 467 a.d.); but it is also true that Genseric preceded Attila in the career of conquest, and was properly the first in order, being pressed forward in the Roman warfare by the Huns, 428 a.d. See Gibbon, ii. 306ff.(2) In the manner of his appearance he strongly resembled a brilliant meteor flashing in the sky. He came from the east, gathering his Huns, and poured them down, as we shall see, with the rapidity of a flashing meteor, suddenly on the empire. He regarded himself also as devoted to Mars, the god of war, and was accustomed to array himself in a especially brilliant manner, so that his appearance, in the language of his flatterers, was such as to dazzle the eyes of beholders. One of his followers perceived that a heifer that was grazing had wounded her foot, and curiously followed the track of blood, until he found in the long grass the point of an ancient sword, which he dug out of the ground and presented to Attila. “That magnanimous, or rather that artful prince,” says Mr. Gibbon, “accepted with pious gratitude this celestial favor; and, as the rightful possessor of the sword of Mars, asserted his divine and indefeasible claim to the dominion of the earth. The favorite of Mars soon acquired a sacred character, which rendered his conquests more easy and more permanent; and the barbarian princes confessed, in the language of devotion or flattery, that they could not presume to gaze, with a steady eye, on the divine majesty of the king of the Huns,” ii. 317. How appropriate would it be to represent such a prince by the symbol of a bright and blazing star - or a meteor flashing through the sky!(3) There may be propriety, as applicable to him, in the expression - “a great star from heaven failing upon the earth.” Attila was regarded as an instrument in the divine hand in inflicting punishment. The common appellation by which he has been known is “the scourge of God.” This title is supposed by the modern Hungarians to have been first given to Attila by a hermit of Gaul, but it was “inserted by Attila among the titles of his royal dignity” (Gibbon, ii. 321, foot-note). To no one could the title be more applicable than to him.(4) His career as a conqueror, and the effect of his conquests on the downfall of the empire, were such as to be properly symbolized in this manner:(a) The general effect of the invasion was worthy of an important place in describing the series of events which resulted in the overthrow of the empire. This is thus stated by Mr. Gibbon: “The western world was oppressed by the Goths and Vandals, who fled before the Huns; but the achievements of the Huns themselves were not adequate to their power and prosperity. Their victorious hordes had spread from the Volga to the Danube, but the public force was exhausted by the discord of independent chieftains; their valor was idly consumed in obscure and predatory excursions; and they often degraded their national dignity by condescending, for the hopes of spoil, to enlist under the banners of their fugitive enemies. In the reign of Attila the Huns again became the terror of the world; and I shall now describe the character and actions of that formidable barbarian who alternately invaded and insulted the East and the West, and urged the rapid downfall of the Roman empire, ‘vol. ii. pp. 314, 315.(b) The parts of the earth affected by the invasion of the Huns were those which would be properly symbolized by the things specified at the blowing of this trumpet. It is said particularly that the effect would be on “the rivers,” and on “the fountains of waters.” If this has a literal application, or if, as was supposed in the case of the second trumpet, the language used was such as had reference to the portion of the empire that would be particularly affected by the hostile invasion, then we may suppose that this refers to those portions of the empire that abounded in rivers and streams, and more particularly those in which the rivers and streams had their origin - for the effect was permanently in the “fountains of waters.” As a matter of fact, the principal operations of Attila were in the regions of the Alps, and on the portions of the empire whence the rivers flow down into Italy. The invasion of Attila is described by Mr. Gibbon in this general language: “The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends above five hundred miles from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was at once invaded, and occupied, and desolated, by the myriads of barbarians whom Attila led into the field,” ii. 319, 320.After describing the progress and the effects of this invasion (pp. 320-331) he proceeds more particularly to detail the events in the invasion of Gaul and Italy, pp. 331-347. After the terrible battle of Chalons, in which, according to one account, one hundred and sixty-two thousand, and, according to other accounts, three hundred thousand persons were slain, and in which Attila was defeated, he recovered his vigor, collected his forces, and made a descent on Italy. Under pretence of claiming Honoria, the daughter of the Empress of Rome, as his bride, “the indignant lover took the field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with an innumerable host of barbarians.” After endeavoring in vain for three months to subdue the city, and when about to abandon the siege, Attila took advantage of the appearance of a stork as a favorable omen to arouse his men to a renewed effort, “a large breach was made in the part of the wall where the stork had taken her flight; the Huns mounted to the assault with irresistible fury; and the succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia. After this dreadful chastisement Attila pursued his march; and as he passed, the cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua were reduced into heaps of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns; Milan and Pavia submitted without resistance to the loss of their wealth, and applauded the unusual clemency which preserved from the flames the public as well as the private buildings, and spared the lives of the captive multitude. The popular traditions of Comum, Turin, or Modena, may be justly suspected, yet they concur with more authentic evidence to prove that Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy, which are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and the Apennines,” ii. pp. 343, 344. “It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod” (ibid. p. 345). Anyone has only to look on a map, and to trace the progress of those desolations and the chief seats of his military operations to see with what propriety this symbol would be employed. In these regions the great rivers that water Europe have their origin, and are swelled by numberless streams that flow down from the Alps; and about the fountains whence these streams flow were the principal military operations of the invader.(c) With equal propriety is he represented in the symbol as affecting “a third” part of these rivers and fountains. At least a third part of the empire was invaded and desolated by him in his savage march, and the effects of his invasion were as disastrous on the empire as if a bitter star had fallen into a third part of those rivers and fountains, and had converted them into wormwood.(d) There is one other point which shows the propriety of this symbol. It is, that the meteor, or star, seemed to be absorbed in the waters. It fell into the waters; embittered them; and was seen no more. Such would be the case with a meteor that should thus fall upon the earth - flashing along the sky, and then disappearing forever. Now, it was remarkable in regard to the Huns, that their power was concentrated under Attila; that he alone appeared as the leader of this formidable host; and that when he died all the concentrated power of the Huns was dissipated, or became absorbed and lost. “The revolution,” says Mr. Gibbon (ii. 348), “which subverted the empire of the Huns, established the fame of Attila, whose genius alone had sustained the huge and disjointed fabric. After his death the boldest chieftains aspired to the rank of kings; the most powerful kings refused to acknowledge a superior; and the numerous sons, whom so many various mothers bore to the deceased monarch, divided and disputed, like a private inheritance, the sovereign command of the nations of Germany and Scythia.” Soon, however, in the conflicts which succeeded, the empire passed away, and the empire of the Huns ceased. The people that composed it were absorbed in the surrounding nations, and Mr. Gibbon makes this remark, after giving a summary account of these conflicts, which continued but for a few years: “The Igours of the north, issuing from the cold Siberian regions, which produced the most valuable furs, spread themselves over the desert, as far as the Borysthenes and the Caspian gates, and finally extinguished the empire of the Huns.” These facts may, perhaps, show with what propriety Attila would be compared with a bright but beautiful meteor; and that, if the design was to symbolize him as acting an important part in the downfall of the Roman empire, there is a fitness in the symbol here employed.__________________________________________________________________________________Joseph BensonRevelation 8:10-11And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven — Bengelius, and some other commentators, interpret this of Arius and his heresy, and the persecutions connected therewith; “and no doubt,” as Mr. Scott observes, “such events might very aptly be represented by the falling of a star, and its imbittering and poisoning the waters to the destruction of those who drank of them: yet the series of the prophecy favours the interpretation of those who explain these verses as predicting the continuation of those calamities which subverted the empire.” Stars, in prophetic style, are figurative representations of many things. Among others they signify kings and kingdoms, eminent persons of great authority and power. Rivers, and fountains of waters — To supply them, may be considered as necessary to the support of life; the drying up these expresses the scarcity of things necessary. Here then we have a prophecy which aptly expresses a judgment to come on the seat of the Roman empire, which should destroy the power of it in its spring and fountain, and cut off all its necessary supports; as when rivers and fountains, so necessary to life, are infected, and become rather deadly than fit for use. At the sounding of the third trumpet, says Bishop Newton, “a great prince appears like a star shooting from heaven to earth, a similitude not unusual in poetry. His coming therefore is sudden and unexpected, and his stay but short. The name of the star is called Wormwood, and he infects the third part of the rivers and fountains with the bitterness of wormwood — That is, he is a bitter enemy, and proves the author of grievous calamities to the Roman empire. The rivers and fountains have a near connection with the sea; and it was within two years after Attila’s retreat from Italy, that Valentinian was murdered; and Maximus, who had caused him to be murdered, reigning in his stead, Genseric, the king of the Vandals, having settled in Africa, was solicited by Eudoxia, the widow of the deceased emperor, to come and revenge his death. Genseric accordingly embarked with three hundred thousand Vandals and Moors, and arrived upon the Roman coast in June, 455, the emperor and people not expecting nor thinking of any such enemy. He landed his men, and marched directly to Rome; whereupon the inhabitants fleeing into the woods and mountains, the city fell an easy prey into his hands. He abandoned it to the cruelty and avarice of his soldiers, who plundered it for fourteen days together, not only spoiling the private houses and palaces, but stripping the public buildings, and even the churches, of their riches and ornaments. He then set sail again for Africa, carrying away with him immense wealth, and an innumerable multitude of captives, together with the Empress Eudoxia and her two daughters; and left the state so weakened, that in a little time it was utterly subverted. Some critics understand rivers and fountains with relation to doctrines; and in this sense the application is still very proper to Genseric, who was a most bigoted Arian, and during his whole reign most cruelly persecuted the orthodox Christians.”_____________________________________________________________________________________Robert Hawker:Revelation 8:10-11(10) And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; (11) And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.Some have thought, that the false prophet is here meant; but if we attend to the features of character given, we shall not be inclined to this opinion. His name of wormwood, meaning the bitter accompaniments, during this time of the third trumpet, seems to point out some more special and peculiar exercise, and of longer bitterness than a quick death: such as Mahomet used. And moreover, it, as some have thought, that the period of this trumpet, opened very early in the fifth century, and ran on to near the close of it; it could not be, in point of time, the false Prophet; for certainly he did not commence his imposture until the year 600, at the earliest. But, might it not be (I ask the question, but do not decide,) that heretic, who first shone like a meteor, in the firmament of the professing Church, possessing great human learning, but soon fell into the awful error, of denying original sin; thereby lessening, or rather doing away, the necessity of redemption. The person I mean, is Pelagius; who lived about this time and whose horrible doctrines have spawned to this hour. Surely he might well be called wormwood; for bitter indeed must be that error which strikes at the very root of the Gospel, and, where received, becomes like a deadly poison, causing men to rot, and swell, and at length die, inflated with a fancied purity of nature born with them, and man’s free will sufficient to keep himself pure.Reader! I pray you, pause over the consideration of this awful heresy. And think, what a mercy it is, that the Lord hath made such a provision, by the sovereignty of his grace, for preserving his called and regenerated children, from the dreadful delusion. Wormwood indeed, it may well be called, when the very waters of the sanctuary, which should run in healing streams, are thus poisoned by those who dispense them, (unsent as they are, uncalled of God,) and which kill the souls of the unawakened, with their bitterness! Now a child of God, through the mercy of divine teaching, hath in himself an effectual remedy, to resist the contagion. Should all the devils in hell, or all the men upon earth, attempt to persuade a child of God, whom God hath convinced of sin, and brought acquainted with the plague of his own heart, that there is no such thing as original sin; his very feelings must everlastingly contradict him. A man taught of God, knows better. He is conscious of indwelling, inbred corruption, and inherent unholiness. He feels his corrupt nature forever disturbing him, even sometimes in moments of solemn worship. He feels what Paul felt, and groan’s under it as the Apostle groaned, that when he would do good, evil is present with him. Think then, what a mercy it is, to have the blessedness of divine teaching, as an antidote against the impudent assertions of man. The Lord knows how distressing it is to a child of God, to feel these inward workings. But better is it, to groan under a sense of inward workings of evil, so as to make Christ dear, and to compel the soul to go to him continually for deliverance; than in a fancied holiness within, which, whoever talks of, no man of the fallen sons of Adam ever knew; to make men proud, and to keep from Christ, instead of leading to Christ.Reader! pause a moment longer. And, if the Lord hath been, and is your Teacher, say, how truly blessed it is, both to have learnt from him original sin, and also the remedy of Christ’s righteousness and blood-shedding, to do the whole evil of it away. Oh who shall speak, or describe the preciousness of that grace, whereby the child of God both feels and knows the bitterness of original sin, which he had before conversion, together with the remains of corruption after conversion; and the blessedness of Christ’s daily cleansing the soul from both, and from all sin? Oh! the sweet consolations of the Lord’s strength, daily made perfect in creature weakness, to carry the child of God on in the life of grace! The child of God knows all these things. They are inlaid truths, in his heart, They are brought forward all the day, and every day, in renewed personal, practical knowledge, to dispute, or contend against them, is to be arguing against our very being. Sure I am of all these things, as much as I am of my very existence. And, blessed Lord; while thou shall bring the whole home to my heart, day by day, as thou art graciously doing, neither men nor devils, can be able to make me relinquish thy truth, in compliment to their false reasoning. Oh for grace in this Christ-despising day and generation, and contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints. Jud_1:3.___________________________________________________________________________________

* Jesus’ 2nd Coming & the Apocalypse *Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the mystery of iniquity in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the Truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in the place of God and his Messiah who has come in the fleshThe Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope that can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of a the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.(CCC 675 – 677)Gazing about at the contemporary world, even our “democratic” world, could we not say that we are living in the midst of precisely this spirit of secular messianism? And is this spirit not manifested especially in its political form, which the Catechism calls in the strongest language, “intrinsically perverse”? How many people in our times now believe that the triumph of good over evil in the world will be achieved through social revolution or social evolution? How many have succumbed to the belief that man will save himself when sufficient knowledge and energy are applied to the human condition? I would suggest that this intrinsic perversity now dominates the entire Western world.The Catechism draws its authority to teach us about these matters from sacred scripture itself. Turning to our foundations, then, what does divine revelation tell us about the mysterious culmination of history, the mega-climax called the Apocalypse, which is prophesied in the book of Revelation and in other books of the New and Old Testaments.In his first letter, the apostle John says, simply, without the theological nuances that we have grown so accustomed to in recent years, “Little children, it is the final hour,” and in another English translation, “Children, it is the last days.” (1 John 2:18) Here is our context, the conceptual framework in which the time of the end should be considered by every generation of Christians. We are living in the final hour, and have been living in this hour from the moment Our Lord ascended into heaven. All of subsequent history is a waiting-for his return. These past two thousand years are the last days. In his second letter, the apostle Peter writes, “In the eyes of the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years are as a day.” (2 Peter 3:3-10).Jesus himself tells us about the period in the undefined future when all of mankind will be put to an ultimate test. The 24th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is the most extensive section of the Gospels in which he speaks about what must come. Here he presents us with more than a symbolic description, and alternately with more than a one-dimensional template, a mere linear-historical prediction of the near future. It is rather a vision which contains elements of both but which penetrates through his own times, and through the persecutions of the first three centuries of the Church, and beyond through all subsequent history until his second coming. He is not a linear thinker. He is not a one-dimensional man. He is God and man. “As for the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only. The coming of the Son of Man will repeat what happened in Noah’s time. In the days before the flood people were eating and drinking, marrying and being married, right up until the day Noah entered the ark. They were totally unconcerned until the flood came and destroyed them. So it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matt 24:36-39)This passage, embedded in pages of Jesus’ apocalyptic teaching, is the core of what he wishes to communicate to all those who seek to follow him. He wants us to go deeper than our usual human tendency to desire knowledge per se of the future, deeper than a kind of “baptized” fortune-telling. Jesus desires to take us to the well-spring of Wisdom, not to knowledge as such because knowledge cannot save us. He is always drawing his apostles into deep waters, event at certain moments to the brink of literal drowning. In this immersion is the beginning of wisdom, for it pulls us from a merely horizontal perspective into a vertical perspective that offers a truly cosmic perspective—so much higher than it is broad. He goes on to say, “Stay awake, therefore! You cannot know the day your Lord is coming (Matt 24: 42).”This dialogue with the apostles is repeated in the Gospel of Luke, with some additional words of Christ. He begins by speaking of the nature of his return in glory after the upheavals that are to come: “The Son of Man is his day will be like the lightning that flashes from one end of the sky to the other. First, however, he must suffer much and be rejected by the present age (Luke 17:24).” This phrase, “rejected by the present age,” is highly significant, for it implies that there are ages to come after his life on earth. Elsewhere he says that some people now living in his generation will see him glorified. Thus, in these seemingly contradictory passages, we are led to understand that he is imparting a multi-dimensional vision, transcending a purely linear chronology.“As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate and drank, they took husbands and wives, right up to the day Noah entered the ark—and when the flood came it destroyed them all. It was much the same in the days of Lot: they ate and drank, they bought and sold, they built and planted. But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be like that on the day the son of Man is revealed. . . . Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever tries to preserve his life will lose it; whoever loses it will keep it (Luke 17:26-33)."Here, if you will, is the true “survival manual” for the apocalypse, here is the spiritual foundation of our savior’s teachings about what we must do and where we must be, spiritually and mentally, as we pass through times of darkness. It goes without saying that there are mini-apocalypses for every individual, and also prefiguring apocalypses that have occurred at certain moments of the history of the Church. The major Apocalypse will be that period of history when everything is tested, when the Church itself will be crucified throughout the world. Where will our resources be then? Will we, like Lot’s wife, look back to the securities of Sodom? Perhaps in her mind she knew it wasn’t the greatest town in which to live, but told herself that, after all, it was a place of material security—they ate and drank and built and planted. Clearly they could make a good living there. There are always reasonable arguments for compromise, for not going into the desert in obedience to the word of God, and doubtless the lady had some good ones. It bears repeating: Whoever tries to preserve his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for the sake of Christ will keep it for eternity.“As to the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor even the Son, but only the Father. Be constantly on the watch! Stay awake! You do not know when the appointed time will come. It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own task; and he orders the man at the gate to watch with a sharp eye. Look around you! You do not know when the master of the house is coming, whether at dusk, at midnight, when the cock crows, or at early dawn. Do not let him come suddenly and catch you asleep. What I say to you, I say to all: Be on guard! (Mark 13:32-37).”Again and again we hear such passages in the readings of the liturgy, becoming ever more accustomed to them as we grow older. Of course, they are always interesting, but the urgency of the Lord’s admonitions can fade in our minds with familiarity. We may give an intellectual assent to them, acknowledging that they are true, yet subliminally we can feel (“feel is indeed the accurate term in this regard) that they are not applicable to one’s own life. The warnings blend into the background, become part of the large body of Christ’s teachings, most of which are less obscure, less full of unknowables. And so we tend to set the question of apocalyptic reflection aside, either dismissing it altogether as a symbolic representation of events long past, or alternatively, of events that are to come in some very distant future. Hence we live as if we are under no threat, convinced on some level that no Beast is going to stare me in the face and devour me—neither a beast on the personal level nor some “mythological” apocalyptic Beast of grand cosmic dimensions. Neither of these approaches are faithful to what Christ tells us.There is always a battle over every soul. Even if our times prove not to be the times toward which St. John’s Revelation is pointing, each of us must go through a kind of small “a” apocalypse. Each of us certainly will be given a capital “R” revelation at the moment of our deaths when we experience our personal judgment, when all that we are, all that we have done or neglected to do will be revealed. The Greek word apokalypsis means a revealing or unveiling. During our lives in this world each of us will indeed face the beast, which is the devil, our ancient adversary, the enemy of our individual souls and of mankind as a whole. In some form or other we must learn to personally resist him and to overcome him in Christ. At the same time we must understand that there will come a point in history when all his malice, all his devices, all his rage will be released in a final vicious attack upon the entire Body of Christ. It will be intense; it will be brief. If we find ourselves in the midst of those three and a half years of total persecution, it will not feel so brief. Yet we must always keep in mind that his time is coming to an end; indeed he is already defeated by the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and there remains only the final battle through which the Church and the world must pass.We are in the final battle, we are in the apocalypse, we are in the book of Revelation, which the Church, beginning with most of the Church Fathers, believes to be a vision of the entire unfolding of salvation history after the Incarnation, culminating in the total victory of Christ over the entire cosmos and its restoration to the Father. The book of Revelation is not a schematic diagram or a flat blueprint or a purely linear time-line. It is a mysterious multi-dimensional vision which surely contains linear-chronological aspects, but that is not the whole thing. Indeed it is not the main thing.The main grace of the book of Revelation is the Lord’s exhortation to every generation to stay awake in a spirit of vigilance, to open the eyes of our hearts, minds, and spirits to the very nature of Reality. The various bizarre manifestations of apocalypticism in our times, ranging from certain wild scenarios in some Protestant circles to their counterparts in some Catholic circles, distort the intention of Revelation. Whenever they are not rooted in profound reverence for the mystery and wisdom of God, whenever they fail in absolute confidence in the coming victory of God, whenever they are not rooted in obedience and docility to the Holy Spirit, they will invariably grasp at knowledge as the saving factor. Why is it that so many people gallop to the book stores to purchase the latest speculative scenarios? Why do we invest so much interest and trust in these, and so little in the interior life of union with Christ—the very One who will save us? Recall at this moment that he does not promise to save our lives in this world in strictly human terms, but to save them for eternity if we but trust in Him and cling to him wholeheartedly. Are we unwittingly falling prey to a religious form of saving ourselves? Have we placed our faith in secret “insider” information, in techniques of self-preservation, survival manuals and combat journals which heavily emphasize the preservation of our lives and minimize our spiritual health? If so, it is time for some self-examination. An attitude that gives mental assent to God while on other levels proceeds as if He is not in fact caring for his flock is unhealthy in every way.Because of our fallen human nature, even our baptized human nature, we are ever tending in the direction of desiring to be autonomous units in control of our own lives. Yes, we want salvation, we want the consolations of God, but we want them on our own terms. This attitude may not even be conscious, but it must be humbly recognized if we are to move beyond the tragically limited world of the self. Whenever we say to ourselves, “I will decide what scripture means. I will not submit myself to any Church that tells me what it means!” we have slipped into the realm of the self. These attitudes creep subtly into our thinking and feeling. They saturate the atmosphere of our times, especially in Western culture. In an era of history dominated by fear and mistrust, the submission of heart and souls to the mind of Christ and his Church is misinterpreted as anti-personalist, when in fact the Church is anti-isolationist and is profoundly personalist. The new mythological hero is the autonomous individual accountable to no one other than his sovereign self, and the spirit of the age encourages us at every turn to emulate him, and in doing so to make petty gods of ourselves.It should be noted with a certain sobriety that the exaltation of a creature above the authority of God is the spirit of Antichrist. Few if any devotees of the self would entertain the notion that they serve this diabolic spirit, yet the truth of the matter is that he who denies that Jesus is the Lord over his life makes himself vulnerable to the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, the spiritus mundi, the spirit of the world. As this spirit becomes increasingly dominated by the ideas of Antichrist, the sovereign self would do well to look beyond the frontiers of his small kingdom, lest he find himself one day, without knowing how he arrived there, in a condition of slavery.By Michael D. O'Brien, 2004:Library : Are We Living in Apocalyptic Times?* Pertinent Answers regarding Revelation *Jason McMahon's answer to In Revelation 21:8 it tells of those who will be cast into the lake of fire. Does this apply only to those who have NOT asked for forgiveness and trusted in the Lord? Does it apply to anyone who has committed these things? Even if they repentedJason McMahon's answer to Is this a time of revelation?Jason McMahon's answer to Why do Catholics believe in the Apocrypha?Jason McMahon's answer to Does Romans 6:7 contradict Revelation 20:12?Jason McMahon's answer to What does Revelation 13:7-11 mean to you?Jason McMahon's answer to Is there controversy regarding whether or not the Revelation 22:18-19 verses were added later, and were these verses cited by Catholics against the creation of the Protestant Bible?Jason McMahon's answer to How should the numbers in the Book of Revelation be interpreted?Jason McMahon's answer to Who is the "Amen" in Revelation 3:14?