China: Fulfilling Bible Prophecy

¹⁶The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.

Only one nation in the world right now has a big enough population to fulfil this prophecy. China currently has 1.3 BILLION people and the largest military in the world with 7 MILLION active, reserve, and paramilitary forces. Should the military need to mobilize, they have a communist regime that has strident power to coerce a population that has 800 MILLION people living in poverty and dependent upon their communist leaders for even basic needs.

China has made it clear it wants its military #1 in the world. This quote was from the following news article on China:

China has roughly doubled its military budget since 2006, according to official government figures that some overseas analysts say vastly downplay what Beijing actually spends.

China is spending big bucks, a double in 2 years?! A massive trade surplus, a failing US economy, and desire to challenge the world's top dog while he is down among other factors. Watch the Glen Beck clip at the end to hear former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton's take on China.

¹⁷The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur

Could this be a reference to China?.

The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. ¹⁸A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.

Here is a comment on this verse from Bible Prophecy:

These "horsemen" may be a small division or group within that army, such as a strategic nuclear weapons division, or they may be brightly painted missiles sitting upon missile launchers.

¹⁹The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.

This verse has always intrigued me.
Tail like a snake-helicopter?
Power of horse in their mouth-Tank?
Heads to inflict injury-Airplane?

Where does China fit into Bible prophecy? Scholars Have pointed to the following verses:

Revelation 16 & Zechariah 14: "Kings of the East"

A number of Bible scholars (1, 2, 3) argue that China is included in the "kings of the east" attacking Israel (Revelation 16, Zechariah 14). The final battle, called Armageddon, ends with Christ's Second Coming and His fighting for Israel (Revelation 19:11-18).

Some point to a more optimistic prophecy concerning China (1, 2, 3). Viewing Isaiah's prophecy concerning Sinim to be China, the prophet suggests the nation will open its borders and that salvation will come to its people (Isaiah 49:10-12).

China's September 11th

22 “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened."

Matthew 24:22

Evil abounds everywhere.  The difficulty is that so often it appears randomly, without warning, and attacks in places of peace or relative calm like a storm without warning.  History could be described almost in terms of relative periods of peace amidst long periods of war and chaos.  It never has really gone away and the damage we have done to each other, human to human, likely adds up to more than all the damage that naturals has inflicted throughout history.  A link to a sad story is below, demonstrating yet another sad event that has been dubbed 'China's September 11th."

At least 33 dead, 143 wounded in train station 'terror' attack in China, authorities say

The 'violent terror attack' at the Kunming Railway Station took place late Saturday, according to China's official Xinhua news agency. Four of the more than 10 knife-wielding attackers were shot dead, The country blames the attack on separatists from the country’s far west and vowed a harsh crackdown Sunday. 

PUBLISHED: SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014, 12:22 PM

AP

A woman reacts at the train station in Kunming after a deadly attack. 

KUNMING, China — Authorities blamed a slashing rampage that killed 29 people and wounded 143 at a train station in southern China on separatists from the country’s far west and vowed a harsh crackdown Sunday, while residents wondered why their laid-back city was targeted.

Police fatally shot four of the assailants — putting the overall death toll at 33 — and captured another after the attack late Saturday in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. But authorities were searching for at least five more of the black-clad attackers.

State broadcaster CCTV said two of the assailants were women, including one of the slain and the one detained.

“All-out efforts should be made to treat the injured people, severely punish terrorists according to the law, and prevent the occurrence of similar cases,” said China’s top police official, Politburo member Meng Jianzhu, who arrived in Kunming early Sunday, an indication of how seriously authorities viewed the attack.

AP

Police officers investigate and protect the crime scene outside a railway station in southwestern China.

The attackers’ identities have not been confirmed, but evidence at the scene showed that it was “a terrorist attack carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces,” Xinhua said. The far western region of Xinjiang is home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule by some members of the Muslim Uighur population, and the government has responded there with heavy-handed security.

Police in Kunming on Sunday were rounding up members of the city’s small Uighur community, believed to number no more than several dozen, for questioning in the attack and information about the assailants.

“How do we know them?” said a Uighur man who gave only his first name, Akpar. “We could not tell if the assailants were Uighurs as they were all dressed in black. We did not like the attack either.”

Most attacks blamed on Uighur separatists take place in Xinjiang, where clashes between Uighurs and police or members of China’s ethnic Han majority are frequent, but Saturday’s assault happened more than 1,500 kilometers (more than 900 miles) to the southeast in Yunnan, which has not had a history of such unrest.

LIN YIGUANG/XINHUA/ZUMAPRESS.COM

A man injured in the attack is treated at the First People's Hosptial of Kunming.

Kunming residents expressed dismay at both the attack and the conditions within China that could have allowed it to happen.

Restaurant worker Xie Yulong said the attackers were “worse than animals.” But he also expressed sympathy toward ethnic Uighurs, saying their region has come under severe security crackdowns in recent months under the government of President Xi Jinping.

“It’s the pressure,” Xie said. “Beijing has put too much pressure on them since Xi Jinping took over. They are under so much pressure they do not want to live, and they did that.”

Another Kunming resident, Jiang Hua, said the attack has made people scared to go out at night.
“I think we should chase off the Uighurs and let them be independent,” Jiang said. “And local authorities should be held accountable for providing public safety.”

AP

Police officers inspect the body of a victim. At least 28 people died in what Chinese authorities are calling 'organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack' in Kunming.  

Witnesses described assailants dressed in black storming the train station late Saturday evening and slashing people indiscriminately with large knives and machetes.

Student Qiao Yunao, 16, was waiting to catch a train at the station when people started crying out and running, and then saw a man cut another man’s neck, drawing blood.

“I was freaking out, and ran to a fast food store, and many people were running in there to take refuge,” she told The Associated Press via Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog. “I saw two attackers, both men, one with a watermelon knife and the other with a fruit knife. They were running and chopping whoever they could.”

Alarms over a possible spread of militant attacks to soft targets beyond the borders of Xinjiang were first raised in October when a suicide car attack blamed on three ethnic Uighurs killed five people, including the attackers, at Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate.

REUTERS/STRINGER/CHINA

Police stand near luggage left at the ticket office after a group of knife-wielding assailants attacked people at Kunming railway station.

Sean Roberts, a cultural anthropologist at George Washington University who has studied Uighurs and China for two decades, said the Kunming violence would be a new kind of attack for ethnic Uighurs — premeditated, well-organized and outside Xinjiang — but still rudimentary in weaponry.

“If it is true that it was carried out by Uighurs, it’s much different than anything we’ve seen to date,” Roberts said by phone.

But he added that it is still unclear whether there is any organized Uighur militant group, and that attacks so far do not appear linked to any “global terrorist network, because we’re not seeing things like sophisticated explosives or essentially sophisticated tactics.”

The violence in Kunming came at a sensitive time, with political leaders in Beijing preparing for Wednesday’s opening of the annual legislature, where Xi’s government will deliver its first one-year work report.

LIN YIGUANG/XINHUA/ZUMAPRESS.COM

The exterior of Kunming Railway Station on March 1. At least 28 individuals are dead and another 113 are wounded after an unidentified group of people rushed into the station and started attacking bystanders, state media reported. 

Willy Lam, a political observer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the attack coming so close to the National People’s Congress dented Xi’s message of a “Chinese Dream” coalescing under his rule.

“Pockets of dissatisfaction, groups of people with grievances, appear to be increasing. After 1 1/2 years of more heavy-handed control (in Xinjiang), the report card does not look good,” Lam said.

Xi called for “all-out efforts” to bring the culprits to justice. The Security Management Bureau, which is under the Ministry of Public Security, said in a statement that police would “crack down on the crimes in accordance with the law without any tolerance.”

The attack was the deadliest violence attributed to Uighur-Han conflicts since riots in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi in 2009, in which Uighurs stormed the streets of the city, targeting Han people in seemingly random violence that included the killing of women and children. A few days later, Han vigilante mobs armed with sticks and bats attacked Uighurs in the same city. Nearly 200 people died.Weibo users took to the service to describe details of what happened, though many of the posts were quickly deleted by government censors, especially those that described the attackers, two of whom were identified by some as women.

Others condemned the attack.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a somewhat related topic, another quote summarizing how two separate cultures have differed in their response to the fallibility of man and natural inclinations for man to oppress their fellow man.  America has its problems, but one is not the Constitution, which has remarkable stood the test of time and helped serve as a backbone to allowing individuals to rise above tyranny and express themselves, however difficult that has been at times.     

Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, writing in 1835:

"There are two great peoples on the earth today who, starting from different points, seem to advance toward the same goal: these are the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.

Both have grown larger in obscurity; and while men's regards were occupied elsewhere, they have suddenly taken their place in the first rank of nations, and the world has learned of their birth and of their greatness almost at the same time. 

All other peoples appear to have nearly reached the limits that nature has drawn and to have nothing more to do than preserve themselves; but these are growing: all the others have halted or advance only with a thousand efforts; these alone march ahead at an easy and rapid pace on a course whose bounds the eye cannot yet perceive. 

The American struggles against the obstacles that nature opposes to him; the Russian grapples with men. The one combats the wilderness and barbarism, the other, civilization vested with all its arms: thus the conquests of the American are made with the plowshare of the laborer, those of the Russian with the sword of the soldier. 

To attain his goal, the first relies on personal interest and allows the force and the reason of individuals to act, without directing them. 

The second in a way concentrates all the power of society in one man. 
The one has freedom for his principal mans of action; the other servitude. 
Their point of departure is different, their ways are diverse; nonetheless, each of them seems called by a secret design of Providence to hold the destinies of half the world in its hands one day."

-Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop translation, at the end of Vol. I: p 395-96.

Persecution Wiping Out Christians: Christianophobia, Rupert Shortt Study

Pray for those who suffer persecution in the middle east.  

9 "Then they will hand you over for persecution, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of My name.  
                                                    Matthew 24:9 

Christianity 'close to extinction' in Middle East

Christianity faces being wiped out of the “biblical heartlands” in the Middle East because of mounting persecution of worshippers, according to a new report.

The study warns that Christians suffer greater hostility across the world than any other religious group.

And it claims politicians have been “blind” to the extent of violence faced by Christians in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam, it says, claiming that oppression in Muslim countries is often ignored because of a fear that criticism will be seen as “racism”.

It warns that converts from Islam face being killed in Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Iran and risk severe legal penalties in other countries across the Middle East.

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"A far less widely grasped fact is that Christians are targeted more than any other body of believers.”

It cites estimates that 200 million Christians, or 10 per cent of Christians worldwide, are “socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.”

“Exposing and combating the problem ought in my view to be political priorities across large areas of the world. That this is not the case tells us much about a questionable hierarchy of victimhood,” says the author, Rupert Shortt, a journalist and visiting fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.

He adds: “The blind spot displayed by governments and other influential players is causing them to squander a broader opportunity. Religious freedom is the canary in the mine for human rights generally.”

The report, entitled Christianophobia, highlights a fear among oppressive regimes that Christianity is a “Western creed” which can be used to undermine them.

State hostility towards Christianity is particularly rife in China, where more Christians are imprisoned than in any other country in the world, according to the report.

It quotes Ma Hucheng, an advisor to the Chinese government, who claimed in an article last year that the US has backed the growth of the Protestant Church in China as a vehicle for political dissidence.

“Western powers, with America at their head, deliberately export Christianity to China and carry out all kinds of illegal evangelistic activities,” he wrote in the China Social Sciences Press.
“Their basic aim is to use Christianity to change the character of the regime...in China and overturn it,” he added.

The “lion’s share” of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith, the report says, quoting estimates that between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or been killed in the past century.
“There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands,” it claims.

The report shows that “Muslim-majority” states make up 12 of the 20 countries judged to be “unfree” on the grounds of religious tolerance by Freedom House, the human rights think tank.

It catalogues hundreds of attacks on Christians by religious fanatics over recent years, focusing on seven countries: Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, India, Burma and China.
It claims George Bush’s use of the word “crusade” after the September 11 attacks on New York created the impression for Muslims in the Middle East of a “Christian assault on the Muslim world”.

“But however the motivation for violence is measured, the early twenty-first century has seen a steady rise in the strife endured by Christians,” the report says.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq left Iraqi Christians “more vulnerable than ever”, highlighted by the 2006 beheading of a kidnapped Orthodox priest, Fr Boulos Iskander, and the kidnapping of 17 further priests and two bishops between 2006 and 2010.

“In most cases, those responsible declared that they wanted all Christians to be expelled from the country,” the report says.

In Pakistan, the murder last year of Shahbaz Bhatti, the country’s Catholic minister for minorities, “vividly reflected” religious intolerance in Pakistan.

Shortly after his death it emerged that Mr Bhatti had recorded a video in which he declared: “I am living for my community and for suffering people and I will die to defend their rights.

"I prefer to die for my principles and for the justice of my community rather than to compromise. I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ, who has given his own life for us.”

The report also warns that Christians in India have faced years of violence from Hindu extremists. In 2010 scores of attacks on Christians and church property were carried out in Karnataka, a state in south west India.

And while many people are aware of the oppression faced in Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi and other pro-democracy activists, targeted abuse of Christians in the country has been given little exposure, the report says.

In some areas of Burma the government has clamped down on Christian protesters by restricting the building of new churches.

“Openly professing Christians employed in government service find it virtually impossible to get promotion,” it adds.

Apocalypse Dam: China's giant man-made waterfall

A display of political will as much as a display of economic achievement.  Will China fulfill biblical prophecy of military superiority in Revelation 9? Only time will tell.

From China:

¹⁶The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.

Only one nation in the world right now has a big enough population to fulfil this prophecy. China currently has 1.3 BILLION people and the largest military in the world with 7 MILLION active, reserve, and paramilitary forces. Should the military need to mobilize, they have a communist regime that has strident power to coerce a population that has 800 MILLION people living in poverty and dependent upon their communist leaders for even basic needs.

From the DailyMail:

It is an scene of almost apocalyptic proportions.
Bystanders are dwarfed as they stand watching a tremendous rush of water gushing through gaps in a dam in China, part of a carefully-choreographed operation to remove silt from the Yellow River in Luoyang, in the Henan province.
This annual operation sees more than 30 million tonnes of silt sent downstream a year, with more than 390 million tonnes shifted this way over the last 13 years.

A resident takes a picture as the fierce waters plunge through three open slits in the dam during the controlled operation

Floods in China: A paramilitary policeman watches water carrying silt gushing out of three specialised holes in the dam of the Xiaolangdi Reservoir on the Yellow River during the annual silt-washing operation

The lone soldier stands guard as sediment-laden flood water gushes through the Xiaolangdi Dam, unleashing tons of water

Umbrellas at the ready: Local residents turn out to watch the annual event - and try to avoid a drenching

The silt-carrying water gushes out of three specialised holes in the dam of the Xiaolangdi Reservoir on the Yellow River during the annual silt-washing operation.

Shanghai stock market Drops 64.89 Points on Tiananmen 6/4/89 Anniversary: Coincidence?

Conspiracy: Shanghai

On the anniversary of the most famous communist crackdown on free speech over the last 25 years, the market just happens to fall the exact number of the date of the famous massacre.  Perhaps someone, natural or supernatural, is sending a message to those that oppose freedom?   I don't prescribe that the figure had to be rigged, but do find it peculiar to say the least.

Shanghai Conspiracy

China stocks fall bizarre 64.89 on 6/4/89 anniversary

'Whoa, these figures are too freaky! Very cool!'

(REUTERS) — China’s censors blocked access to the term “Shanghai stock market” on popular microblogs on Monday after the index fell a bizarre 64.89 points on the anniversary of the bloody June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
In another twist, the Shanghai Composite Index opened at 2346.98 points on the 23rd anniversary of the killings. The numbers 46.98 are June 4, 1989, backwards.

“Whoa, these figures are too freaky! Very cool!” said a microblogger. “The opening figure and the drop are both too creepy,” said another.


For China's ruling Communist Party, the 1989 demonstrations that clogged Tiananmen Square in Beijing and spread to other cities remains taboo, all the more so this year as the government prepares for a tricky leadership handover.

Terms related to the anniversary, such as "six four" for June 4, "23", "candle" and "never forget", were blocked on Sina Weibo, the most popular of China's Twitter-like microblogging platforms. Users encountered a message that said the search results could not be displayed "due to relevant laws, regulations and policies".

"It's that day again and once more numerous posts are being deleted," a Sina microblogger wrote. Sina was not immediately available for comment.

The anniversary of the date on which troops shot their way into central Beijing in 1989 has never been publicly marked in mainland China.

The government has never released a death toll of the crackdown, but estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner urged the Chinese government on Sunday "to provide a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing".

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said the U.S. habit of issuing a statement on each June 4 anniversary amounted to "crude meddling in domestic Chinese affairs".

While state media made no direct mention of the anniversary, the top military newspaper warned the armed forces to be on guard for attempts to sow unrest ahead of the party congress which will handle the leadership transition.

"Enemy forces at home and abroad are going to start something again and use the opportunity for destruction and trouble, and are upping their strategy to westernise and split our country," the Liberation Army Daily said in a front-page commentary.

The government is grappling with the biggest political scandal since the 1989 crackdown, after Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun's flight to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu on February 6 triggered a crisis that toppled the muncipality's party chief, Bo Xilai.

"TRAGEDY THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AVERTED"
Microbloggers decried the overzealous rash of censorship, complaining that their posts had been "harmonised" - a euphemism for censorship - within minutes.

Censors also prevented microbloggers from changing their display photos in an apparent attempt to prevent them from posting any photo commemorating the anniversary.

Yet some people did manage to beat the censors, and a few pictures of the 1989 protests did find their way on to Weibo.

"There can be no social stability if people cannot speak out and must live in terror of punishment," a microblogger commented on one of the photographs.

Yao Jianfu, author of a new book of interviews with Chen Xitong, the Beijing mayor at the time of the crackdown, told Reuters that Chen had said "this was a tragedy that should have been averted but wasn't".

"I never foresaw there would be shooting, because Mao Zedong said that ordinary people should not be shot at and suppressing student protests comes to no good," said Yao.

The government has restricted the movements of dozens of dissidents, former prisoners and petitioners during the anniversary period and warned them against speaking to journalists or organising activities, said Songlian Wang of rights group Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

A coalition of lawyers and rights activists began a one-day fast in their homes on Monday to commemorate the anniversary, said a Shandong-based lawyer, Liu Weiguo.

"Even though the Chinese government has pledged to reform the political system in China, not much has been done," Fang Zheng, who was run over by a tank during the crackdown and lost both legs, said in Hong Kong. "They should stop the repression of mainland dissidents and activists and reassess June 4."

Blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, who arrived in New York two weeks ago to study, wrote in a letter: "No one can stop the wheels of history. I believe that this will prove true for the June 4th Democracy Movement.

Chen escaped in late April from 19 months of illegal house imprisonment and took temporary refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing in a drama which made him a symbol of resistance to China's shackles on dissent.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong, said organisers, who had erected a replica of the Goddess of Democracy that was built in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Chinese tourists stopped on Tiananmen Square shook their heads and appeared mystified when asked about the anniversary. There were no obvious signs of extra security on the already well-guarded square.

But a trinket vendor said he was well aware what day it was.

"Do foreigners also know about June 4?" he asked a Reuters reporter in a hushed tone, looking around to make sure nobody heard him. "I think it is important we remember, but nobody will talk about it now."

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing, Melanie Lee in Shanghai and James Pomfret and Clarie Lee in Hong Kong; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Mayan Anticipation: December Doomsday: What's this all about?

Panic spreads and Doomsayers await the end of the world with each passing day.  Could this be another 'Y2K' false panic or something more serious?  It is anyone's best guess, but the fact that many prophecies such as Pope Malachy's Pope Prediction among other end of the world prophecies are all coming about at the same time cannot be overlooked as mere coincidence.  These are fascinating days we live in. 

Who are the Mayans?

An excerpt from Mayans 2012 Prediction:

The Mayan Indians were advanced in mathematics, writing, and astronomy. They lived in Mexico and built a famous pyramid in the Yucatan peninsula during the year 1050 BC. This pyramid had 365 steps leading to the top of the pyramid which marked the solar year. However, their most famous invention was their calender.

The long calender on the Mayan calender begins August 11, 3114 BC and will be completed on December 21, 2012. This will mark the end of a major 5126 year cycle on the long count calender.

The reason many are interested in this is the fact that during the year 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the milky way galaxy during the winter solstice for the first time in 26,000 years! THIS MEANS: Whatever energy typically stems to the earth from the center of the milky way will be disrupted on 12/21/2012 at 11:11 PM. Coincidence? Some believe that the sun spots could wreck havoc on the earth during this time causing power outages, earthquakes, etc.

Recall the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:  "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.  See that you are not troubled for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows."

There is coming a great time of trouble in which the world has never seen before or will see again.  Whether this major time of trouble comes in our lifetimes makes no difference whether or not one should be prepared to face God in the life to come.  We will die. That is sure.

Exciting days though are here now.  The middle east is a lit firecracker, prophecy is coming true, and technology has lurched the world forward toward eventual war using nuclear weapons. 

Mayan apocalypse: panic spreads as December 21 nears

Fears that the end of the world is nigh have spread across the world with only days until the end of the Mayan calendar, with doomsday-mongers predicting a cataclysmic end to the history of Earth.

Cubans participate in a Mayan ritual at Bacuranao beach in eastern Havana. Photo: AFP/Getty

By Nick Allen, Los Angeles, Malcolm Moore in Beijing and Tom Parfitt in Moscow

Ahead of December 21, which marks the conclusion of the 5,125-year "Long Count" Mayan calendar, panic buying of candles and essentials has been reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them.

The precise manner of Armageddon remains vague, ranging from a catastrophic celestial collision between Earth and the mythical planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, a disastrous crash with a comet, or the annihilation of civilisation by a giant solar storm.

In America Ron Hubbard, a manufacturer of hi-tech underground survival shelters, has seen his business explode.

"We've gone from one a month to one a day," he said. "I don't have an opinion on the Mayan calendar but, when astrophysicists come to me, buy my shelters and tell me to be prepared for solar flares, radiation, EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) ... I'm going underground on the 19th and coming out on the 23rd. It's just in case anybody's right."

In the French Pyrenees the mayor of Bugarach, population 179, has attempted to prevent pandemonium by banning UFO watchers and light aircraft from the flat topped mount Pic de Bugarach.

According to New Age lore it as an "alien garage" where extraterrestrials are waiting to abandon Earth, taking a lucky few humans with them.
Russia saw people in Omutninsk, in Kirov region, rushing to buy kerosene and supplies after a newspaper article, supposedly written by a Tibetan monk, confirmed the end of the world.

The city of Novokuznetsk faced a run on salt. In Barnaul, close to the Altai Mountains, panic-buyers snapped up all the torches and Thermos flasks.
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, even addressed the situation.
"I don't believe in the end of the world," before adding somewhat disconcertingly: "At least, not this year."

In China, which has no history of preoccupation with the end of the world, a wave of paranoia about the apocalypse can be traced to the 2009 Hollywood blockbuster "2012".
The film, starring John Cusack, was a smash hit in China, as viewers were seduced by a plot that saw the Chinese military building arks to save humanity.

Some in China are taking the prospect of Armageddon seriously with panic buying of candles reported in Sichuan province.

The source of the panic was traced to a post on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, predicting that there will be three days of darkness when the apocalypse arrives.
One grocery store owner said: "At first, we had no idea why. But then we heard someone muttering about the continuous darkness."

Shanghai police said scam artists had been convincing pensioners to hand over savings in a last act of charity.

Meanwhile in Mexico, where the ancient Mayan civilisation flourished, the end time has been seen as an opportunity. The country has organised hundreds of Maya-themed events, and tourism is expected to have doubled this year.

Nasa has been aggressively seeking to dispel doomsday fears. It says there is no evidence Nibiru exists, and rumours it could be hiding behind the sun are unfounded.

"It can't hide behind the sun forever, and we would've seen it years ago," a Nasa scientist said.
The space agency also rejected apocalyptic theories about unusual alignments of the planets, or that the Earth's magnetic poles could suddenly "flip."

Conspiracy theorists contend that the space agency is involved in an elaborate cover up to prevent panic.

But David Morrison, an astronomer at Nasa, said: "At least once a week I get a message from a young person, as young as 11, who says they are ill and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday. I think it's evil for people to propagate rumours on the internet to frighten children."

Mayans themselves reject any notion that the world will end. Pedro Celestino Yac Noj, a Mayan sage, burned seeds and fruits to mark the end of the old calender at a ceremony in Cuba. He said: "The 21st is for giving thanks and gratitude and the 22nd welcomes the new cycle, a new dawn." 

Doomsayers await the end of the world – in 12 days' time

Related articles

The end of the world is nigh, or so apocalypse observers would have you believe. The Mayan and Hopi Mesoamerican Long Count calendar may have begun in 3114BC and continued unerringly ever since, but it comes to an abrupt halt on 21 December 2012. Hence, the belief gaining ground among those who fall for this kind of thing that the cosmos will cease to exist in 12 days' time.

Although it may not yet have taken root in Britain's Acacia Avenues, the idea of an approaching cataclysm is troubling folk from Moscow to France, and the US to Brazil. The New York Times has reported that some spooked Russians have been panic-buying matches, fuel and sugar to prepare for the post-apocalypse. And they are not alone. A poll by Ipsos recently found that one in seven people believe the world will end during their lifetime (or, presumably, just after it). The same poll suggests that one in 10 people have experienced fear and/or anxiety about the eschatological implications of Friday week.

But reassurance is at hand. Governments around the world are taking the prophesied threat seriously enough to inform their citizens that they are not taking it seriously at all. Here in the United States, for example, an official government blog entry was posted on Monday, reassuring Americans that "Scary rumors about the world ending in 2012 are just rumors".

Nasa itself has waged a campaign of facts to combat the fear-mongering, releasing a 6.5-minute YouTube video, in which David Morrison, astronomer and Nasa scientist, personally debunked the Doomsday theories. Last month, the space agency published detailed rebuttals of five separate apocalyptic scenarios on its website, including a meteor strike, a solar flare and the so-called polar shift, whereby the Earth's magnetic and rotational poles would reverse, with devastating
consequences. While magnetic reversals do take place approximately every 400,000 years, admits Nasa, "As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn't cause any harm to life on Earth. Scientists believe a magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia."

A few days ago, the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, tackled the Mayan predictions in a spoof television appearance for the radio station Triple J. Acknowledging that "The end of the world is coming", she grimly intoned, "It turns out the Mayan calendar was true … Whether the final blow comes from flesh-eating zombies, demonic hell beasts or from the total triumph of K-Pop, if you know one thing about me, it's this: I will always fight for you to the very end." Some Australian commentators wondered aloud whether such a light-hearted intervention was becoming of the PM. In Russia, meanwhile, the Minister of Emergency Situations, Vladimir Puchkov, issued a statement insisting that the world would not end this month, a sentiment echoed by senior clerics from the nation's Orthodox Church.

Experts in Mayan culture – which flourished in what is now Central America between AD250 and 900 – have dismissed the doomsayers, claiming the 2012 phenomenon misrepresents the Long Count calendar, and is unsupported by any surviving Mayan texts. The internet, with its capacity for sustaining conspiracy theories, is thought to be to blame.

One such theory is the "Nibiru cataclysm", which posits that the Earth will collide with a planet by that name. The notion originated in the 1990s, with an American woman called Nancy Lieder, who claims she is a "contactee" with an implant in her brain that allows her to communicate with aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system, 39 light years away. Ms Lieder, who has a website and a Twitter account, says she was chosen to warn mankind of the interplanetary danger that awaits us.

In South and Central America, where the original prophecy was allegedly made, responses are mixed. The mayor of the mountain town San Francisco de Paula, in the far south of Brazil, has urged local residents to stock up on supplies in preparation for the worst. But in Yucatan, Mexico, which still has a large Mayan population, a cultural festival is planned for 21 December. Any British people still concerned about the Long Count's conclusion could perhaps seek refuge in Bugarach, a tiny French village in the Pyrenean foothills, which the web has inexplicably agreed will be spared the ravages of Armageddon – possibly due to a nearby mountain, which resembles the alien landing site from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Or they could do what most of us do when our calendars run out: buy a new one.

A world upside down

The amount of debt held by foreigners keeps growing, and now we are begging them to keep buying our debt.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKWOE2n.OnGo&refer=worldwide

The US is "begging" China to buy parts of US banks after Chinese government put limitations on such purchases. A couple of years ago, the US would be wondering if it should allow foreign investment from China in US banking system. China and Japan are the two major purchasers of US Treasury debt. If China is stopping bank ownership, how long before it stops buying US gov. debt? We are trying to push interest rates down and cajoling everyone else to do the same. If we can't sell our debt, then interest rates would have to rise, possibly a great deal. The bonds tank if that happens.

World Leaders Continue Call for New World Order

Good article here on the continuing calls from world leaders for a new 'social contract.' This new social contract, or new world order, or whatever you want to call it is consistently described as a top-down solution that will better integrate socially people of all nations.

In addition, the members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) recently came together to discuss the failure of the American Dollar as world reserve currency and called for a new international currency to replace the dollar. This they believed would help bring stability to the commodities market, thus eliminating many of the price shocks that have recently occurred.

From American Thinker, The Guide to the New World Order:

In his recent speech before the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Robert Zoellick, President of The World Bank Group, proposes that we must modernize multilateralism.

He is referring to the late 20^th century understanding of multilateralism as a number of nations consulting and, perhaps, acting cooperatively to achieve a specific goal.

The realities of the economic power shifts that are taking place, he says, call for top-down integration of national economies into an interconnected whole now hopefully opportunely made possible by significant changes taking place in many, especially Near Eastern, countries.

We have lived through destructive Communist and Progressivist forms of Socialism during my lifetime. What New Social Contract on a world scale should I be looking forward to now?

Here is a hymn from Belgrade, from the land where I was born, which extols the virtues of one of the more recent top down managed systems invented by Socialist ideologues:

There is no unemployment but nobody works.

No one works but everyone receives wages.

All get wages but nothing can be bought with them.

Nothing is purchased but everybody owns everything.

Everybody owns everything but they are all dissatisfied.

All are dissatisfied but everyone votes for the system.

BRICS demand global monetary shake-up, greater influence

SANYA, China (Reuters) - The BRICS group of emerging-market powers kept up the pressure on Thursday for a revamped global monetary system that relies less on the dollar and for a louder voice in international financial institutions.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa also called for stronger regulation of commodity derivatives to dampen excessive volatility in food and energy prices, which they said posed new risks for the recovery of the world economy.

Meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, they said the recent financial crisis had exposed the inadequacies of the current monetary order, which has the dollar as its linchpin.

What was needed, they said in a statement, was "a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty" -- thinly veiled criticism of what the BRICS see as Washington's neglect of its global monetary responsibilities.

The BRICS are worried that America's large trade and budget deficits will eventually debase the dollar. They also begrudge the financial and political privileges that come with being the leading reserve currency.

"The world economy is undergoing profound and complex changes," Chinese President Hu Jintao said. "The era demands that the BRICS countries strengthen dialogue and cooperation."

In another dig at the dollar, the development banks of the five BRICS nations agreed to establish mutual credit lines denominated in their local currencies, not the U.S. currency.

The head of China Development Bank (CDB), Chen Yuan, said he was prepared to lend up to 10 billion yuan to fellow BRICS, and his Russian counterpart said he was looking to borrow the yuan equivalent of at least $500 million via CDB.

"We think this will undoubtedly broaden the opportunities for Russian companies to diversify their loans," Vladimir Dmitriev, the chairman of VEB, Russia's state development bank, told reporters.

Men of Faith

Quotes from four humble men of faith who gave it all for the one that gave it all for them.

Jim Elliot:
"He is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose"
Eric Liddell:
"Complete Surrender"
William Borden:
"No Reserve. No Retreat. No Regrets"
Charles Studd:
"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him."

• Jim Elliot left all to serve Christ in Ecuador only to die as a Martyr at age 29.
  

• Eric Liddell gave up fame and fortune in England after winning the gold in the 1924 Olympics to serve the Lord in China. Eric died at age 43 in a Japanese prison camp.
  

• William Borden was set to inherit millions from his father who owned one of the largest food products companies in America in 1900. Instead, Borden at the age of 25 gave it all up, including his degree at Yale and left to spread the love of Christ to the people of Egypt. He died en route.
  

• Finally, Charles Studd, an Englishman who inherited $145,000 (Aprox $3,500,000 in 2011 dollars) gave it all away at the age of 25 and sailed off to China with $5 and lived in poverty the rest of his life, sharing Christ with those in China and Africa. His work in Africa sparked a world wide evangelical crusade & part of the money he gave away went to DL Moody, who used it to start the Moody Bible Institute.

These incredible men gave up their lives in honor of the man they came to call their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We're living forever--meaning our time on earth is 0 Time when we compare it to eternity. These men gave it all. They sacrificed. They changed lives for eternity. Reading these testimony's places climbing the corporate ladder a little further down the list of priorities and makes me shed a tear when I consider just how un-worthy I am compared to these men.

For detailed reads of their biography:

Jim Elliot Biography

Eric Liddell Biography

William Borden Biography

Charles Studd Biography

Other famous men's bio's such as D.L. Moody can be found here

Oracles of Doom come out swinging

SO what is going to happen to the United States over the next few years?

Are we going to see the dollar plummet and the cost of living skyrocket? Or are we entering into a 30's style deflationary environment where cash under our bed is the safest way to protect it?

Some of the biggest names that called this crisis have come out swinging again. Predictions vary, but all remain on the same page----that this recession still has a long way to go.

((Photo: SuperStock (fortune teller); Pete Turner/Getty Images (bomb))

For the Record:

I believe we are going to see the mother of all inflationary turns as the fed will be forced to print money just as Zimbabwae has done in order to keep its currency from going to zero. The fed has acted recklessly in their attempt to flush the system with cash and has caused the inflation train's motor to start up. It will only be a matter of time before just like the recession train before it, will leave too. Treasury bills may be going out at a zero to slightly negative rate at the current, but the idea that this will continue forever is presumptions. World economies will eventually decide, as Obama has, that pouring money into one's own economy would be better served than putting it in the risky box of American securities that for now remains 'safe'. Recently, the USA has been calling on China to relax restrictions on foreign banks. This is like the UN coming to the Iran's negotiation table and telling them to stop enriching uranium: it may 'work' for a little while but give it time and Iran will be right back at it.

Despite the idea that we control the buying power that China needs to maintain it's export growth, we still do not have the upper hand with this nation. We are subject to them in a way that is much bigger than simply having to buy their tainted dog-food, rather due to the fact they hold a $1.4 trillion trade surplus and counting, going up by about $1 billion per day. In effect, every person in the (rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about $4,000

We are going to have to pay for what we have created eventually. It will come.
from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China.

2012: December Doomsday: Are you Ready?

2012:   The year perhaps that brings in the beginning of the end?  The most fascinating prophecy listed below I find is the St. Malachy prophecy, which has been proven right with every pope since the 12th century.  Adding to prophecy list here is a couple new ones, underlined below.  Apparently, beyond Catholic (Malachy) and Aztec (Mayan Calender), there are Chinese beliefs in the Book of Changes and Hindu beliefs within the Kali Yuga that also forecast strange occurrences late in 2012.

He says the Kali Yuga calendar of the Hindus forecasts global changes around 2012, and China’s “Book of Changes,” also known as the “I-Ching,” predicts the end for the same year.

 Luke 12:40  for at what hour you think not, the Son of man will come. 

2012 Doomsday: It's not just Mayan claim

Countless cultures predict end-time scenario this year

An author investigating ancient prophecies is again sounding the alarm about numerous predictions suggesting 2012 could be the beginning of the “end of the age” spoken of in the Holy Bible.

Last year, WND reported on Tom Horn’s efforts to let everyone to know calendars besides the ancient Mayan one predict the demise of human civilization in 2012, and he claims a demonic plot bringing about the end date could be hiding in plain sight inside the U.S. Capitol.

He’s now continuing his effort to publicize the matter with speeches across the nation, providing more possible clues into when apocalyptic prophesies of the Bible might be fulfilled with the “Second Coming” of Jesus to administer the kingdom of God on Earth.

In his latest book titled “Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope Is Here,” Horn sheds light on ancient non-biblical prophecies from St. Malachy concerning the Catholic Church, and provides evidence the next pope, the one following Benedict XVI, is to be the final pontiff before the return of Jesus.
“As the legend goes,” says Horn, “Malachy experienced what is today considered a famous vision commonly called ‘The Prophecy of the Popes.’ The prophecy is a list of Latin verses predicting each of the Roman Catholic popes from Pope Celestine II to the final pope, ‘Peter the Roman,’ whose reign would end in the destruction of Rome.”

While the prophecy itself does not mention the year 2012, Horn says the Vatican’s Jesuit mathematician and codebreaker Rene Thibaut wrote 61 years ago it would be fulfilled in 2012, and he adds current events at the Vatican “certainly point to the soon fulfillment of this prophecy.”
When translated from Latin to English, the final segment of the prophecy reads: “In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people.”

Horn also points to 19th century collection titled “Lectures on the Revelation” by Rev. William J. Reid, pastor of First United Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., which were given over a period of time ending in March 1876.

An excerpt from one of the lectures published in 1878 attempts to determine the official start of the papal system, combining both temporal and spiritual authority, and states: “If it began in the year 752, and if it is to continue for one thousand two hundred and sixty years, then it is to be destroyed in the year 2012.”

“Keep in mind this was published in 1878!” exclaimed Horn. “What is it about this period of time we have entered? What is it about this period of time inaugurated in 2012 that has caught the attention of so many divergent traditions?”

The revelations about the final pope come in addition to Horn’s exhaustive research into the Mayan and other calendars in his previous book “Apollyon Rising 2012.”

He says he never actually had an interest in the Mayan calendar, which comes to a cyclical end on Dec. 21, 2012. But then he became aware of numerous unrelated calendars and prophecies spanning many centuries, all predicting the end of the current human age at this year’s winter solstice.
“I started finding that it wasn’t just the Maya,” Horn told WND, noting prognostications from Jewish mystics, as well as the ancient Chinese, Hindus, Cherokee Indians, and even artwork among famous American symbols that all point to the same time frame.

Despite not having telescopes, the Mayan people of Central America were extremely accurate observers of celestial movements, with the zenith of their civilization occurring between A.D. 250 and 900.

Tom Horn’s “Petrus Romanus” and “Apollyon Rising 2012″ are both available in WND’s Superstore.
“The Maya understood this procession of the equinox, basically not to end, but to roll over, to start over,” in December 2012, Horn explained.

He says their prophets coupled that date “with prophecies of unrest on Earth after which a new form of man appears on Earth, plus the return of their dragon god, a flying serpent who has the power of air.”

“The Aztec saw the same thing, a flying serpent, Quetzalcoatl,” Horn said, adding, “their calendar ends in 2012.”
He says the Kali Yuga calendar of the Hindus forecasts global changes around 2012, and China’s “Book of Changes,” also known as the “I-Ching,” predicts the end for the same year.

A timeline graph created in 1973 based on China’s Book of Changes, or I-Ching, shows the line plunging entirely off the graph precisely on Dec. 21, 2012.

Horn says 39 years ago, when scientists Terrence and Dennis McKenna created a stock-market-like linear graph based on the “I-Ching,” the timeline abruptly plunged off the graph into infinity on precisely Dec. 21, 2012.

“This finding is all the more astonishing given that McKenna’s research was published in 1973 independent of any knowledge of the ending date in the Mayan calendar,” Horn noted.

Meanwhile, the Zohar, a collection of books in the mystical Jewish Kabbalah that first debuted in Spain in the 13th century, talks about the coming of the Messiah at the same general time the other calendars forecast the end.

It predicts in late 2012, “All the kings of the world will assemble in the great city of Rome, and the Holy One will shower on them fire and hail and meteoric stones until they are all destroyed, with the exception of those who will not yet have arrived there. These will commence anew to make other wars. From that time the Mashiach (Messiah) will begin to declare himself, and round him there will be gathered many nations and many hosts from the uttermost ends of the Earth.”

Horn says, “Given the rejection of Jesus by orthodox Jews as Messiah, this coming could herald the coming of Antichrist in 2012.”

What’s perhaps most fascinating is Horn’s discussion of what could be the mother of all conspiracy theories, dating back to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, involving Noah’s great grandson Nimrod, who not only built the famous Tower of Babel, but is the “mighty hunter” who scholars believe became worshipped as the sun god, with names such as Osiris in Egypt and Apollo in Greece.
Horn says from deepest antiquity, a plot involving pagan sun-worshippers, America’s Founding Fathers, Masons and Freemasons has apparently been in the works, culminating in the end time with the return or resurrection of an evil, supernatural being. That character may actually be pictured as the all-seeing eye on top of the uncapped pyramid on the Great Seal of the United States, found on the back of a $1 bill.

Does the image on the back of the $1 bill have anything to do with the Second Coming of Jesus?

Others have speculated the eye on top of the pyramid could be a representation of Jesus Christ, since the Bible notes, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.” (Psalm 118:22 New International Version).

The date at the base of the pyramid is 1776, which is not only the year the Declaration of Independence was signed, but also the beginning of a new Mayan “katun,” a time period of 19.7 years. If each of the 13 levels of the pyramid on the Great Seal represents one of these time periods, the top level would mark the year 2012.

The Latin phrase “Novus ordo seclorum” is part of the American seal, and translates to “New order of the ages,” which some fear is what many U.S. presidents, including George Herbert Walker Bush, allude to when they use the phrase, “New World Order.”

Other strange connections to the United States include the Frieze of American History, a painted panorama at the U.S. Capitol.

Among the artwork is “Cortez and Montezuma at Mexican Temple” by Italian artist Constantino Brumidi.

Montezuma is shown gesturing to the sacred fire with a serpent wrapped around it. According to the Aztec calendar, the fire is predicted to burn out on Dec. 21, 2012.

It depicts Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, entering the Aztec temple in 1519. He’s welcomed by Emperor Montezuma II, who thought Cortez was a god.
“Montezuma’s hand is pointing directly down at the sacred fire, which, in point of fact, goes out … Dec. 21, 2012, the end of the calendar,” Horn noted.

Also featured in the frieze is the Aztec calendar stone, and the sun god Tonatiuh, to whom pagan priests had 80,000 people sacrificed in the year of 1487 alone.
“Hiding in plain sight is the god who demands human sacrifice,” said Horn.

He says another high-profile piece that may hold end-time clues is the famous painting in the Rotunda of the Capitol, titled “The Apotheosis of George Washington.” The word “apotheosis” means to deify or elevate to divine status, and Washington is depicted being resurrected and becoming divine.

The U.S. Capitol Rotunda features “The Apotheosis of George Washington,” with America’s first president becoming glorified as a god, along with numerous pagan gods.

But Horn notes in “Apollyon Rising 2012″:

Those who believe the United States was founded on Christianity and visit the Capitol for the first time will be surprised by the stark contrast to historic Christian artwork of the ascension of Jesus Christ compared to the “heaven” George Washington rises into from within the energized Capitol Dome/womb of Isis. It is not occupied by angels, but with devils and pagan deities important to Masonic belief. These include Hermes, Neptune, Venus (Isis), Ceres, Minerva, and Vulcan (Satan), of course, the son of Jupiter and Juno to which human sacrifices are made.

Horn says the symbolism in the painting associated with the deeply rooted idea that chosen humans are selected by supernatural forces, and their earthly kingdoms are formed and guided by these pagan gods.

Washington was himself a Mason, and, according to the book “The Age of Washington” by George W. Nordham, the president was dressed in Masonic attire as he laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 18, 1793.

When it comes to biblical references to the end, a central theme is that Jesus Christ will be returning to Earth in what is often referred to as the “Second Coming” to administer the kingdom of God. While Scripture does not provide a specific date for “the day of the Lord” as it’s often called, it does suggest everyone be ready at all times, because His return would come suddenly, like “a thief in the night,” and Jesus Himself warned to “be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:44 New King James Version)

The 24th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew features Jesus answering his apostles’ questions about signs of His coming and the end of the current age, and Jesus provides a laundry list of events including wars and rumors of wars, false Christs, famines, pestilences, earthquakes and great tribulation, with many believers being slain.

Jesus noted, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14 King James Version)
He also said: “The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about – the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” (Reader, pay attention!) “Then those in Judea must flee to the hills.” (Matthew 24:15-16 New Living Translation)
This reference to the “Holy Place” has many believing that a new temple of God will have to be constructed in Jerusalem before Jesus’ return.

Some Christians, such as Noel Hornor of the Good News Magazine, think the 2012 prognostications are the result of misplaced fears and reliance on pagan systems rather than the Bible itself.

Hornor writes: “Yes, Dec. 21, 2012, will come and go, Dec. 22 will arrive, and the Earth will go on. And so will new theories regarding new exact dates for the end of the world. The cry has been shouted by strident voices for millennia, and you can be sure it will continue.”
As for Tom Horn, he says he never places any pagan prophecy ahead of the Bible, but just wonders why so many different and unrelated civilizations talk about the end of days in December 2012.
“I would not say that I’m yet convinced that 2012 will be anything more than the next Y2K,” he said, referring to the misplaced hysteria about the world coming to an end when 1999 turned into 2000.
“It’s very easy to take extraordinary circumstances to interpret in Bible prophecy, and then it doesn’t develop. There were lots of reasons to believe Hitler was the Antichrist. He wasn’t. He was an antichrist, but not the Antichrist.”