If Nero was the beast of the past, who is the beast of the end times?

[triumphguy]

First reading from 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time:

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Woe to the shepherds
who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture,
says the LORD.
Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel,
against the shepherds who shepherd my people:
You have scattered my sheep and driven them away.
You have not cared for them,
but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.
I myself will gather the remnant of my flock
from all the lands to which I have driven them
and bring them back to their meadow;
there they shall increase and multiply.
I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them
so that they need no longer fear and tremble;
and none shall be missing, says the LORD.

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David;
as king he shall reign and govern wisely,
he shall do what is just and right in the land.
In his days Judah shall be saved,
Israel shall dwell in security.
This is the name they give him:
“The LORD our justice.”

 

[livingwordunity]

So - …we are to do nothing differently from what every generation has been called to do…Love God above all else and Love our neighbor as ourselves - and to “Listen to the Church”. That being the case…What use is there in trying to guess the future…
For myself, it violates the idea of not worrying - not being anxious - for our Heavenly Father knows our needs…

I’m not “trying to guess the future”. I’m trying to discern the world I’m living in so that I can make the right choices and not fall into error. Satan has been doing his best to deceive us, so it helps to recognize his work when we see it. It says in the Bible that we should keep watch and stay vigilant. We can’t do that with our eyes closed to what’s going on in the world.

 

[JRKH]

I’m not “trying to guess the future”. I’m trying to discern the world I’m living in so that I can make the right choices and not fall into error. Satan has been doing his best to deceive us, so it helps to recognize his work when we see it.

Ah - I understand better…
This is quite different from what I understood from the thread title and opening post.
I absolutely agree that we need to be on our guard so as not to be deceived.

It says in the Bible that we should keep watch and stay vigilant. We can’t do that with our eyes closed to what’s going on in the world.

This I’m a little less sure about…not that I advocate “shutting our eyes” but that “being vigilant” is first and foremost being vigilant within so that our own faith and our own peace is not disturbed. Hopefully this is not occurring to you as you seek to make sense of this crazy world.

Peace
James

 

[tabycat]

We are called to be on our guard but we are not called to plaly ‘pin the tail on the anti-Christ’.:tiphat:

 

[livingwordunity]

We are called to be on our guard but we are not called to plaly ‘pin the tail on the anti-Christ’.:tiphat:

I’m still trying to figure out if Obama is THE antichrist or if he is just one of the many antichrists in history. So I’m open to either possibility.

 

[John_of_Woking]

I’m still trying to figure out if Obama is THE antichrist or if he is just one of the many antichrists in history. So I’m open to either possibility.

Have you ever read that eerie passage from his biography about his dream?

 

[feed_me]

I’m still trying to figure out if Obama is THE antichrist or if he is just one of the many antichrists in history. So I’m open to either possibility.

Obama isn’t the antichrist. How many people and websites have been saying the same thing about Bush? So when he left office and didn’t complete the prophesies of the bible, what are they saying now?

 

[Nelka]

I’m still trying to figure out if Obama is THE antichrist or if he is just one of the many antichrists in history. So I’m open to either possibility.

Antichrist isn’t going to be American.

No offense but 50% of Americans seem to think that their president whoever it is at the time is the antichrist and the other 50% seem to think he is the one to defeat the antichrist.

Strange.

Antichrist will be a jew and it will be Jerusalem.

I used to think it was Maometis as a child.

Maometis being Mahomet or Muhammed and not only does Maometis add up to 666 but the name actually means the number of the beast.

If you read what a lot of saints wrote they all seem to point towards a jew too. This is because the jews are still waiting for their “Messiah” to arrive and when he does he will deceive many people.

M 40
A 1
O 70
M 40
E 5
T 300
I 10
S 200

TOTAL 666

Funny stuff numbers.

 

[RPRPsych]

:banghead:

Obama may have a big ego, and I may disagree with him on a LOT of things, but he’s not the anti-Christ. I’d expect someone a lot more powerful and persuasive.

Or, to put it another way: the anti-Christ wouldn’t need a teleprompter.

 

[benjammin]

Why is this even being argued. Anyone could be the antichrist. It could be you, me, Obama, Bush 43, Snookie, Justin bieber, your local mailman. Anyone could be the antichrist. We shouldn’t be focused on it that much.

 

[ringil]

The antichrist is not a person. Most respectable biblical scholars and theologians acknowledge this.

It’s low-church protestants who push this “Revelations as Comic book” nonsense.

Catholics are brighter than that.

 

[RPRPsych]

The antichrist is not a person. Most respectable biblical scholars and theologians acknowledge this.

It’s low-church protestants who push this “Revelations as Comic book” nonsense.

Catholics are brighter than that.

I like that “Revelation as Comic Book” phrase, can I quote you on that?

And, yes, it’s distressing to see that - in the wake of Left Behind and similar flights of fancy - there are more than a few Catholics who want to jump on the pre-millennial, dispensational bandwagon, or create their own version of it. I see it as a “conservative” form of false ecumenism (unlike, say, the “liberal” form which would make the equally false claim that all Protestants are saved), but a dangerous one. The Church has traditionally been amillennial, has condemned millenniarism in the Catechism, and I see no good reason to dissent from that. (I have other, more personal reasons to support this view, but that’s a topic for another thread!)

 

[happy_88]

End times prophesy makes a lot of money, it also shows that most Christians really do not know how to read literature. This illiterate reading of the bible causes many people to get caught in a literal highway of speculative thought and mindsets of fantasy.Even in this post I have read people giving their theories…This is the root of the problem!
The fact is people like Hal Lindsey, Ellen White and Tim Lahaye have been 100percent wrong 100 per cent of the time.
Another root cause is our narcissism…we read the Bible as if it were written to us personally, While it is beneficial to us it was written for us but not to us.
I assure you that the Catholic Church is not the Beast of revelation.
Revelation was not written to befuddle us or is it a book of riddles. The book of revelation was written with a view that a person knew the Old Testament very well.
Who was the harlot/false prophet? It is in the Old Testament and look to the Jewish priestly garments and tiara.
First you have to look at the book of Daniel, Jesus’s Olivet prophesy and His words to the priest in His trial.
Then use a concordance or on-line concordance and start checking out the words being used. You will see a repeating and common phrases being used in the Old Testament.
This is masterfully done and shows the majesty and divinity of the Bible.
The problem goes way,way back and has compounded itself!

Naomi

 

[Hokomai]

I am pretty sure it is not me.

 

[cmforte]

“Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation” - Revelation 13:7

Isn’t every tribe and people and tongue and nationality represented in the United States of America, the “melting pot” of the world? Just a thought.

Or it could be the United Nations.

Not that I neccessarily believe in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, or that it foretells future events as opposed to as being written during a time when persecuted Christians under Nero thought they were REALLY living in the end times.

-Chris

 

[kentuckyliz]

It’s not a good idea to use the newspaper to interpret the Bible.

Be watchful, yes, like the watchful virgins waiting on the Bridegroom. But they weren’t watching the religious, business, and political leaders of the day; they were waiting and watching for the Bridegroom.

Keep your eyes on Jesus and peace be with you.

 

[kentuckyliz]

Here’s a really fun assignment for you:

Google “Vatican plans for world domination” and read as many results as you can.

Cracks me up every time!