I have the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). I was baptized at a Church of Christ in May of 2006. Romans 16:16. I am repentant. John 14:15. I assemble. Hebrews 10:25. We are currenlty in the chapter 11 process of Revelation. The mortal wound spoken of during Revelation 13:3 took place February 7 2008 (events that took place in the United States of America and Europe) and is thus reflected upon at Revelation 13:3.
Firstly I would say to people, a lot of what we hear about is out there to lead us to despair. There are saints in the making struggling mightily and some great things happening out there. Watch the news, you would think we were all a bunch of dissidents, apostates, heretics and the like. Like there is nothing to be hopeful for. BALDERDASH!
As to the prophecies and end-times speculation?
When I was a teenager I got suckered into being obsessed with prophecy and apparitions about the end times. TOTAL garbage from unapproved apparitions and feces (strongest word I will use) like Nostradamus and that occultic group of lies.
Garbage written by Hal Lindsay, the Scofield Reference Bible, apparitions from “Our Lady of Stumblebum, Iowa”, 700 club speculation about the EU, the bar codes or microchips as “Marks of the Beast” talk of severe weather being worse lately, and last but not least that trash “Left Behind” - the books and movies… Pure prideful, pedantic, poo-poo (the other stong word I will use.)
If you have any books, recordings or DVDs about stuff like that, throw them out. Don’t read them, don’t give them away to other people to read, put them in the landfill or use them to start a nice winter fire. That is the only good thing they are useful for.
But IF we were near (and it gets nearer every day by a day - even if its 1 day away or 1000 years…) it doesn’t change anything.
St. John Berchmans was shooting pool in the novitiate when someone asked him what he would do if he found out the end of the world had begun. He answered “I’d keep shooting pool.”
Sound strange? Well consider he was in a novitiate and it was the appointed time for recreation. He was under obedience to those who were forming him to do what he was told - recreate. And if the end of the world had begun, he was going to be found by the end, in obedience.
Well, guess what? We are under obedience too. Not as Jesuits or monks maybe… But we are under obedience as Christians - single, married, parents, priests, nuns, whichever… We are to be found at the end doing what we are expected to do.
St. Robert Bellarmine warned against obsessing about it or trying to determine the identity of the anti-Christ for ONE good reason… You run the risk of getting it wrong, not knowing, and then REALLY falling into some hot water when you are swept up in something that you are unable to identify as dangerous because you are only prepared against the dangers of what you wrongly predicted.
(Sure I will follow this moron named “Rob” because I already figured out the anti-christ will be named “Bob”!)
So go to confession, pray, go to liturgy, be fortified with the Eucharist, and don’t worry about it. False prophets or obsession with something you cannot know, will just distract you. And who would that please?
The Devil makes plans for the pious, brothers and sisters. Don’t get suckered into this garbage - it breeds pride, despair, and most of it borders on the occult.
