Navigating Prophecies: Ancient Insights, Modern Relevance

Ready for a journey into the depths of prophecy? We promise you an enlightening tour on the winding roads of end-time predictions. From Biblical roots in the Synoptic Gospels to contemporary connections, we unravel the threads of the ever-present apocalypse in our human history. Buckle up as we dissect these fascinating prophecies to explore the constant state of "end times" we seem to be living in.

We also plunge into a riveting discussion about the diverse interpretations of these prophecies across different denominations and world religions. We introduce you to the intriguing views on Rapture, Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Jesus, as well as the leadership of the Antichrist. You'll be captivated by the examination of Gog and Magog's role in the Bible and the Muslim Quran, and the relationship with Russia in today's world. Perhaps an extraterrestrial savior is among us, paving the way to Armageddon and a golden age of enlightenment? 

Finally, reflect with us on the concept of a New World Order steeped in Jewish and Christian origins, as mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Why must the world be in chaos before Jesus returns? And why is the Devil set free after a millennium of peace? As we navigate the turbulence of our contemporary times, we question whether these events signal the end of an era or the dawn of a new one. Tune in for this captivating episode to propel your understanding of prophecies, history, and our ever-changing world.


End-Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon? R. Abanes, (1998), Four Walls Eight Windows

The Consummation of History, G. Weber, (1978), Baker House 

"Space Journey" by Geoff Harvey
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Transcript

Joe: 1:01

Hello everybody, thank you for joining us today on Alien Talk Podcast, a program where we discuss all things about aliens and UFOs and where we always push the limits of our understanding.

Joe: 1:11

We are your host, Joe Landry and Laurie Oldford, and on this episode, we're going to discuss something that is talked about ad nauseam At least that's what I think, and I'm sure most folks listening right now share that point of view when it comes to the subject about end time prophecies. And while this is somewhat of an exhausting topic, it is one that many people deeply believe is not only very relevant, but that involves prognostic events which are unfolding right now as we speak. There are church congregations all over that are regularly engaging in sermons and Bible studies that revolve solely around the second coming of Jesus and all the passages from Scripture that foretell of what is to happen just before that. According to the book End Time Visions by Richard Abanes, since the 1990s, no fewer than 59% of Americans believe that the apocalypse is imminent, meaning that they don't think it's decades away or years away, but it's like any time now, and it has always been that way, right, Laurie?

Laurie: 2:10

Well, yeah for sure, you and I, as well as millions of others, have been completely immersed in all of that for our entire evangelical Christian lives.

Laurie: 2:20

We've heard about the rapture, the tribulation period, the Anti-Christ, the Mark of the Beast, the Great Tribulation, the White Throne Judgment and all of that. This is something preachers go into constantly. I remember hearing about the end times and the second coming of Jesus, and probably a good 90% of all sermons, and what nearly every one of those were, these long-winded commentaries about how everything going on around us, whether it be from the news, the movies, the music industry or the cultural trends, had some connection with the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. And throughout the vast array of the worldview analysis, there is probably no other region on earth that gets as much scrutiny in this way as that of the Middle East, particularly the land of Israel, and I suppose that makes sense from a Christian perspective, since that is the place that serves as the backdrop of the life of Jesus. So that's where everything mentioned in the Bible, should you know, would mostly or most likely be the set to occur.

Joe: 3:28

Right, and of course there is and always has been something going on over there. It's been that way ever since the time of Jesus of Nazareth, as well as during his lifetime and centuries before that. And there's a tendency, with all of the anticipation and hype among believers, to overlook the reality that that passage from the Synoptic Gospels, known as the Olivet Discourse, has been fulfilled over and over again, meaning that wars and rumors of wars, of nation rising against nation, of kingdom rising against kingdom, of pestilences and earthquakes are nothing new at all. Actually, when looking at some dire events happening today, we see that there aren't even as bad as the ones that have occurred, you know, 50, 100, 500, or even a thousand years ago. In the words given to the disciples in Matthew 24: 6-8 about the end times, really, in all honesty, couldn't be more vague in explaining how they are to know when the Messianic Age will be ushered in.

Laurie: 4:33

Yeah, well, they asked Jesus about how they are to know when such things will come to pass, specifically leading to the destruction of the temple that, to the first century Jews, would have signified the end of the world. He spouted off things that were going on at that very point in time. Now we've talked about this whole thing before, about the apocalypse and the return of the gods and how it possibly references the return of our extraterrestrial creators, the so-called Anunnaki, if you will, and the premises of that is, people are always awaiting that return where, whatever it may be conceived in their minds, you know that, being the Christians second coming of Jesus, the Muslims return of the 12th Imam, the Mayans and of the 13th Baktun on their calendar, or the coming of any divine being, for that matter, such as Osiris, Krishna or Quetzalcoatl, there are dozens among dozens of myths about the belief in gods returning to the people, thus resulting in the world, at least the world as people know it, coming to an end.

Joe: 5:45

So the question that gets asked almost monotonously is, are we in the end times? The answer is yes. We are always in the end times. We have been for as long as people have had a language to tell stories, and I think we can all see we are living in a time in which things are changing. The world today is not the same as it was 10 years ago. We are witnessing the end of an era. We have always been witnessing the end of an era.

Joe: 6:12

Many of us remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of global terrorism, the tremendous jump in computer and telecommunications technology after the 1980s, and even the metamorphosis of social norms and conventions, much has come to an end in that regard. I mean, just look around or watch what's on TV now, the news and whatnot. But think back 24 years ago with Y2K at the end of the 20th century, with "party like it's 1999. That was all the end of a time period, right there.

Joe: 6:46

So we are all witnessing the changing of the times and that has always been going on. Just like it goes in that 60s song by The Fifth D imension, "it is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, saying that we are on the verge of big change, cosmic change. People saw the end of an era with the close of World War II, as well as with World War I. They saw it with the American Revolution and the French Revolution, with the Renaissance and the Reformation and the rise of colonial imperialism. There actually hasn't been a time in human history where we weren't on the cusp of a new age, and while we are always in the end of times, we are subsequently always in the beginning of times.

Laurie: 7:27

Well, precisely, the world is in a constant transition and really in a constant dystopia, right, I mean, there is always a set of problems, usually really bad ones, and there is always a struggle. Things are never perfect and people are continuously in a tumultuous state of trying to overcome one travesty after another. The human race is always trying to survive something, and it goes all the way back. There was the fall of the Roman Empire, the destruction of the Jewish Temple, the dissolution of the line of the pharaohs of Egypt, the receding of the Ice Age. It goes on and on. The people living through all of those events were living in the end times, just as we are. So that brings us to the events happening now.

Laurie: 8:15

Not only have we had the war in Ukraine going on for a year and a half now, but there is now a major conflict happening in Gaza. That is absolutely horrific and it is escalating. That's nothing good, and while we look at what is going on in the world and we see that it is bad, we have to keep in mind that in many ways, things are not as bad as they were in times past. So even this situation in Gaza, between Israel and Amos, isn't as precarious as, say, you know, the Six-Day War in 1967 or the War of Independence in 1948. Those were much larger scale military operations in which there were a lot more casualties. I mean they were as bad as wars are today. They were worse than previous times. I mean, the bloodshed from World War I and World War II was just unfathomable, and the ones from centuries ago were extremely brutal, with hand-to-hand combat, and were drawn out for long periods of time, like 30 to 50 years or even hundreds of years.

Joe: 9:22

Yeah, that's right, Laurie, and there really was never was a point in history when a major conflict wasn't taking place.

Joe: 9:29

All things considered, the error in which we are in right now is not too bad. It's certainly not good. I'm not saying that. I want to be clear on that. We're not living in some kind of Shangri-La by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just saying, with as bad as things have been in, say, the past 30 years, with the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, 9-11, the COVID Pandemic and all the social, political and economic turmoil that we've been experiencing, it could be worse. And it has been worse throughout other periods of time, even just 50 to 100 years ago, like you mentioned, the two devastating world wars, and then there was also the Great Depression, Vietnam, Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear threat of the Cold War, the Spanish Flu Pandemic that came immediately after the already awful occurrences of World War I. So, I mean, it just goes on and on, and we have to ask what is about our current time period, right now, that makes so many people think that the end is near?

Laurie: 11:04

Well, I would say nothing at all. There's nothing about the way the world is now that makes it any more likely to be the final days than some other time in human history. However, according to some of my family members and some church fellow churchgoers, we do have some indication that there is something specific that indicates we are living in the last days. Well, twice now I've read the same post on Facebook, which maybe some of you have seen it, with the scripture verse from II Timothy 4: 3-4, and it says for there is going to come a time when people won't listen to the truth, but will go around looking for teachers who will tell them just what they want to hear. They won't listen to what the Bible says, but will blightly follow their own misguided ideas.

Laurie: 12:00

Now, the problem with this passage is that someone replaced the word truth with Bible. The Bible as we know it today did not exist during the time of Paul's letter to Timothy. So to scare people into believing we are in the last days or the end of days, they assume that Paul meant Bible, because the Bible is truth. Right so, but the thing is no truth was the true word used. It wasn't Bible, which you know. It was based on Paul's own teaching, belief and opinions of his newfound religion, faith, so he was not referring to the Bible, and people have always gone around looking for answers. That's why there are so many different religions right now.

Laurie: 12:49

Now I also think it's important to distinguish the difference between the end of times as we mean by what we're talking about, meaning something like the return of the gods and the end of the world, and the end of human existence. We are always in an end of times, but that doesn't mean that we are on the verge of extinction. We as a species are quite capable of persevering and adapting to change, even catastrophic change. In fact, most species are capable of that.

Joe: 13:20

Yeah, and this whole concept of the end of things is really the end of our lives as we know it, not the true end of our lives. It is really a new beginning. And the question is, is the new beginning something good or something bad? That depends a lot on perspective. Those who believe they are on the side of righteousness it is good. For those who are the same believers think not on the side of righteousness, it is very bad.

Joe: 13:48

Now, as it says in I John 2: 15, that if anyone who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for the world passes away, but he who does the will of God lives forever. It is always the other guy with the other beliefs who is considered to be the one who is lost and in trouble. So, there is an entire branch of theology known as eschatology that is dedicated to dealing with final things or the end of things, and is from the Greek word "eschaton, meaning "last. But even within the framework of biblical prophecy about the Second Coming of Jesus, what Christians are really anticipating is a new beginning, and that is why there is so much excitement about end time events, because, despite how terrible and sinister they are, it means the hope that a new and better beginning is just around the corner, not being the Messianic age, with Jesus living among his people here on earth. Anybody who has read the Synoptic Gospels is pretty familiar with all of this.

Laurie: 14:48

Yeah, it's a doctrine that originates, as you've mentioned, from the gospel passages of the Olivet Discourse, from Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, where Jesus makes reference to the Kingdom of God that is yet to come, where it says that two men will be sleeping, and one will be taken and the other left. The two men will be working in the field, one shall be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and the other left. Jesus later concludes by saying, "Watch, for you know not what hour your Lord does come.

Laurie: 15:23

So now, when it comes to the end times, apocalypse, three particular events or stages are thought to occur. The first one is the rapture, and that is a reference to being caught up in the twinkling of an eye, which is this is mentioned by Paul in I Thessalonians 4:16- 18. And it says For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord therefore, comfort one another with these words, and this is what Jesus was talking about with the one shall be taken and the other left, that's when he returns. Now the rapture. Now this is supposed to be the first significant event that brings on the return of Jesus.

Laurie: 16:20

So many of us are familiar with Tim LaHaye and I think Gerry Jenkins, I think, is the co-author the book series Left Behind, in which the occurrence of mass disappearance takes place, with the Christians being raptured (abducted is the word I like to use) and everyone else remaining behind is in state of panic, confusion and disaster. Of course there are other signs that lead up to that, but we're supposed to pay attention to them because no man knows the hour. Regardless, all things that go on in the world catch the attention of everyone because it harken s to the words wars and rumors of wars, of nation rising against nation, and pestilences and earthquakes and all that other stuff.

Joe: 17:06

Yeah, so what we are talking about is something called Millennialism, which deals with the question of the thousand years that comes from Revelation 20: 1-7 Presbyterian theologian George Weeber wrote in his book The Consummation of History that there are three approaches to that Pre-Millennialism, Post-M illennialism and Amillennialism. The one that a lot of people are familiar with is the first one, which says that Christ will return in the future to set up an Earthly kingdom for 1000 years, which means we are living now in a time of the Pre-Millennium. There are also three types of views to understanding the apocalypse and the Book of Revelation, and those approaches are Futuristic, Historistic and Preteristic, again, with the first one applying to the prophecies to being yet unfolded and are awaiting at some point in the future.

Joe: 18:00

Now, different denominations interpret eschatology in their own unique way, so there isn't even a consensus among believers about what is supposed to happen with Christ return, and really even within the Various denominations there's often a lot of disagreement, but anyway, the focus is often exclusively on those things happening in the Middle East. Again, the land of Israel is where the stories of the Bible come from, so it's understandable that it and it with every conflict that goes on over there is. There's a lot of attention drawn towards it. It was that way when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 and with the later U. S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS, it has all been explained by evangelists as pertaining to and time prophecies exactly and with the Pre-Millennialistic approach, that 1,000 years is one of three major stages yet to come for the end times.

Laurie: 18:56

But the second one is the seven-year Tribulation, also called the Great Tribulation, which alludes to a time of distress, as we find in Revelation 7:14, in Daniel 12: 1 and also in Jeremiah 30: 7. Many churches are in a disagreement as to when this is supposed to happen. So, you see what we mean by the many differences of opinions, even within the churches, as to in times doctrine. Some people some believe that Christ returns before the tribulation, which is known as Pre-Trib, where Jesus comes and removes his followers from Earth to escape this, the coming turmoil which would be the rapture. This is what many Pentecostals, Charismatics, and some Baptists hold to.

Laurie: 19:42

Now Mid-Trib believes that Christ returns halfway through and after the peace treaty set up by the Anti-Christ with Israel is broken and removes his believers. That is, Jesus removes his believers. So this is loosely based off of what is in Revelation, chapter 6 through 16, and then also, and also in Mark 13: 19, with God cutting short those days, and there is also Post-Trib, which is where everyone has to go through the tribulation period, and then Christ returns for those who remained loyal followers Through it all, and this is a view more Catholics hold to, which is more Amillennialist or Post-Mi llennialist, which I guess says that you know, there really is no defined Tribulation, but instead a thousand year time period to fulfill the gospel in which most people become saved before Christ returns. So, it's all just how you interpret scripture and which ones you decide to pick to use for your own belief.

Joe: 20:50

Yeah, and this all comes from another variant or branch of eschatology known as dispensationalism, which was popularized in the 19th century by Irish clergyman John Darby, who believed that God reveals himself to humanity in different ways, in different dispensations, I should say basically long periods of time. An allusion to this is found in Amos 3: 7, where it says the Lord will reveal his secrets through his servants and prophets at the right time. Also, in Daniel 12: 8- 10, with the vision of the man, clothes and linen, and above the waters, who said go your way, as these words are sealed until the end of time or the time ordained. So even here the scripture indicates the end of time or the time ordained, which could be the same as the end of an era, the ordained era. Notice, it doesn't say the end of the world or the end of days and Daniel. So we can infer here that time goes on.

Joe: 21:50

There's a one prominent memory that I have when I was a kid, you know about the expectation of the return of Jesus, and it is from when I was 10 years old and my family and I were watching the pilot episode of Battlestar Galactica. That was on television back in 1978, and it was aired on ABC and, believe it or not, the show was interrupted by a news report, and that news report was the announcement of the Camp David Accords being signed. That's right, it went straight to showing then President Jimmy Carter with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat beginning the treaty that was supposed to bring peace to the Middle East. And I remember my parents were really excited about this news, as were many other people that we knew at that time, because the new era of peace between Israel and Egypt seemed to fit with what is written in Isaiah 19: 23- 25, that nations of Egypt, Israel and Assyria will be blessed by the Lord.

Joe: 22:52

So when bad things happen, it's prophecy. When good things happen, its prophecy and many folks we're saying that about the Camp David Accords that we were in the end times and that we could expect a Rapture really soon. I recall one preacher saying that he was certain, absolutely certain, that the Lord directly told him that it would happen well before the turn of the century, that being the year 2000. Obviously now we can say it to that, "No dice. It's always about cherry picking. scripture verses.

Laurie: 23:26

Yeah, I know what you mean, because the same happened to me with my parents in our church when the Gulf War began. And Whoever and whenever something like this happens, you notice how our attendance always skyrockets in church.

Joe: 23:40

Oh yeah, the same was true right after 9- 11. Yeah, people do tend to turn the church when they're frightened.

Laurie: 23:45

Yeah. So we must ask about how, how these tie in with the idea of extraterrestrials and the so-called wonders to be seen in the sky", as said by Jesus about the stars Falling from heaven and the powers of the heavens. You know, she'll be shaken and and then she'll appear to Son of man coming in the clouds with group power and great glory. So one evening I was contemplating this whole ends time thing in time thing and I thought about the fake alien invasion. And you know, could some sort of cabal have planned a fake alien invasion? Like what if a controlling power of elites read the Bible and Planned a sinister plot to overthrow the world by deceiving the population Into believing in a coming alien invasion? I mean, could the secret space program be part of this great ploy? And that brings us to. It's a perfect story to be told, right.

Laurie: 24:43

So, knowing the turmoil that has been in the Middle East for thousands of years, it would make perfect sense for it being to come and solve the problems of the world and usher in a golden age of enlightenment. I mean no money, just a new, some form of type of currency, a peace and safety all around, one political leader for the world, etc. We humans have worn out our welcome to each other. I mean, not all countries will be on board with accepting a human. If so, then I mean this person will have to be just phenomenal and blow everyone away with charm and intellect. This leader will have to be different. The only thing that can claim to solve all the world's problems right now, it would have to be an outsider, an extra terrestrial, and this is a notion that Persisted since the dawn of humanity.

Joe: 25:37

I agree, and there are other things that we've heard from Biblical prophecy, such as, you know, the Anti-Christ and this Gog and Magog. Anti-Christ is not hard to conceptualize, right? It's something or someone who is anti-Christian, anti-good or anti-holy, something bad. However, Gog and Magog, nobody actually knows what the heck that is. It appears in the Quran as a Yajuj and Majuj, and the meaning of it is very obscure. Many theologians and preachers say that it is referring to Russia, although there isn't a shred of evidence to support that.

Joe: 26:15

If it is Russia, then the problem in our modern era is that the Russians will have to fly over about five different countries to reach Israel, where Armageddon is located. It is possible to do that, but the politics involved, with countries agreeing to or not agreeing to it, it poses some, some issues, at least as things stand right now. So flying over them is one thing, but moving a ground army, you know, across five countries, across you know Different borders of you know five countries as a different thing all together. So how would this unfold if all the armies of the world are together in the Valley of Megiddo? Megiddo is the non- corrupted word for Armageddon, which is in Israel, and how are you supposed to move over there to fight this Anti-Christ? The valley can't even hold all the armies of the world, so it is really more like a metaphorical of something else. That is not completely clear. And all this is just within Christianity. It's not even taking into consideration the hundreds of other apocalyptic dogmas that are found in Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism or many others. They all have their own system of beliefs about the end of the world, the afterlife and the final judgment.

Laurie: 27:30

Well, Gog is actually identified in I Chronicles 5.4 as a descendant of Joel. Now, it's unknown if that is the same as the prophet Joel, but in and he's also in Ezekiel 38: 39, he is the chief prince of the tribes of Meshach and Tubal in the land of Magog, who is summoned by God to destroy Israel. Now, with a great you know coalition of forces from throughout the world, Gog and all his army will invade Israel like a cloud covering the earth chapter 38, verse 16, and will plunder and loot the cities. God, however, will send terrible natural disasters that will destroy Gog and his forces. The defeat of Gog will demonstrate the greatness and holiness of God and restore good relations between God and his people. Now, do you see a problem here with God? So he calls Gog to come and destroy Israel, but then backstabs Gog by then destroying him for coming against Israel in order to demonstrate his greatness.

Laurie: 28:38

The Israelites seem to be just as naive as any other group of people. With their deities, the gods play games with us all the time. It's similar to how some believe the Illuminati control us. So, as you can see, it very well may be possible for an elite cabal to pull off an elaborate scheme, they instigate it, they make it happen and then, after people accept it, they switch it around and cause a great war and usher in the new and glorious age of enlightenment, which you know, as they said in the Bible. Also, it says you know, when you say peace and safety, then all of a sudden there's sudden destruction. Now, according to Joachim of Fiore, a Calabrian abbot and theologian, Gog is the final Anti-Christ. In Joachim's view, Gog will come just before the last judgment, but only after the feat of an earlier antichrist in a period of millennial peace. So, it's just all over the place.

Joe: 29:41

And now, according to Emery Van Donzel in his book Gog and Magog, an early Christian and Islamic sources, the identity of Gog might actually be Gyges, who's the legendary king of Lydia from Greek mythology. Also, Josephus refers to a nation of Magog that they send it from Noah's son, Japeth, as indicated in Genesis 10:2. There is also the possibility that it is referring to the Gates of Alexander, which is a remote mountain pass near the Caspian Sea. So, Gog and Magog might have something to do with describing nomadic marauders, possibly the Huns.

Joe: 30:20

Now, with the antichrist that being the person, there have been many who haven't given that label. And there's Emperor Nero, Emperor Caligula, Emperor Diocletian, Emperor Justinian, the whole Roman Empire itself, Charlemagne, who was the king of the Franks in the ninth century, Alexander VI, Pope Leo III, the Habsburgs, Napoleon, the World Economic Forum, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, just to name a few, but also Antiochus IV. He was a Greek ruler in 167 BC who desecrated the Jewish temple and referred to himself as God, and he did so by setting up an altar to Zeus and sacrificed pigs and made the Jews eat the meat, which of course, is against the Levitical dietary laws. So, Antiochus would certainly be thought of as an anti-Messiah to those Jewish people at the time.

Laurie: 31:20

Yeah, the funny thing is the Jews looked at this as defilement in the greatest way, but, like how we showed in previous episodes, Zeus and other pagan gods were most likely the same God as the Jewish one. The Jewish nation just distorted the original gods and made them lower to create the one true monotheistic God. I think that this was the beginning of the desolation, because a couple hundred years later and I mean the desolation of, or the abomination of desolation that Daniel spoke about, because a couple hundred years later, nero comes onto the scene and out of all of them, there is a really good chance. I think that the Anti-Christ in Revelation is nothing more than emperor Nero, and his name even equates with 666, the Mark of the Beast as described in the Book of Revelation. It would make sense for early Christians to think of him and the great empire he represented as the abominable beast. So, by using Gematria, which is Jewish numerology, they could talk about him negatively and critically, in such a way as to be encrypted and secret, and this is demonstrated by taking the words Nero Ceasar, which in Hebrew is Neron Q. Each letter has a numeric value to it and when they are added together it comes to 666. So this is based on an article from October 2004 by Noam Elks, a professor of mathematics at Harvard University.

Laurie: 33:02

Another viable reason that Nero could be considered as the Anti-Christ is what is said about the Tribulation period, because he waged a brutal persecution of the Jews and Christians and brought misery and destruction even in the city of Rome itself, and it wouldn't be very far-fetched to think that they saw all of this as the end of days.

Laurie: 33:25

Could it be that a seven-year period of persecution was mistranslated as a seven-year Tribulation period? I mean, I believe so, because you must take into account everything that was reportedly going on at the time. Like the Mark of the Beast, the Roman Empire was the beast, and when Nero formed a new coin with his image on it that became known as the image of the beast, no one could buy or sell in the marketplaces unless you used this new currency. The Jews and Christians thought this was a form of worshiping the state and the emperor. This name of the mark of the beast could also be a mistranslation from Greek, in which mark is charaigma, meaning money or a note, so this adds up. It could very well be that the mark of the beast is actually nothing more than the money of the Roman Empire.

Joe: 34:19

Yeah, and that's something that's actually pretty well accepted in traditional and conventional eschatology. In the third century AD, the Emperors Decius and the Diocletian instituted the Libellus, which was a certificate that was required to be kept by Roman citizens to prove that they participated in homage sacrifices to the ancestors and to the pagan pantheon. Without it, you couldn't conduct any official business. It was an enactment that they believed would help reform the empire and bring it back in line with the founding traditions of the Roman gods. We've all heard about that, even in modern times, with preachers saying how things like credit cards or social security numbers, ID numbers, even medical records, can be construed as the mark of the beast in reference to what went on at this time in the first century, the first through third century, with the Libellus. I mean, heck, even AI, the artificial intelligence from when I've come across on some evangelical websites even that can be thought of as the mark of the beast, or the Anti-Christ himself, for that matter, AI.

Laurie: 35:27

Yeah, it never ends, does it? So, a cabal, something like the Illuminati, could have read and heard about the Biblical end times. If the conditions are right, and I mean if the political atmosphere allows for it, a certain group of people at the right place in time could bring about the end of days as spoken about in the Bible. It is possible. They could have gotten together and thought out this well-formed plan of starting over a reset, so to speak. What better way than to start wars between the powers and have World War III destroy most of Western civilization? Maybe this is what some of the Biblical end times could be about.

Laurie: 36:18

I once thought that this was far-fetched. However, I then heard about Project Bluebeam. Now, this is a conspiracy theory which believes that NASA is trying to bring about this sort of new age religion with an Anti-Christ as the leader, to kick off the new world order with a technologically simulated second coming In. An article last updated on August 15th of 2023 by RationalWiki. O rg states that this was presented in 1994 by Quebecois journalists and conspiracy theorist, Serge Monast, and later published in his book Project Bluebeam NASA. Proponents of the theory alleged that Monast and another unnamed journalist, who both died of heart attacks in 1996 were in fact assassinated and that the Canadian government kidnapped Monast daughter in an effort to dissuade him from investigating Project Bluebeam. Now, Monast laid out four steps in this process, but the first two steps Monast asserts is that, 1.) it's making humanity think an alien invasion is about to occur in every major city and, 2.) making the Christians think the Rapture is about to happen.

Joe: 37:47

So, when it comes to Israel and the Gaza, we must ask why there is always so much attention. What we must first take into consideration is that the Middle East is a very religious place. It is the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and there are so many more religions influencing that area, and it is predominantly Muslim and therefore influenced mainly by Islam. But with all the differences of opinions and beliefs, one can see why there is so much conflict. But religion isn't the only problem with it. There's also the issues of water and oil, and that's causing a lot of problems and a lot of contention as well in the political discourse.

Laurie: 38:30

Correct. If you look at the Israelis and Palestinian conflicts, many scholars will agree that this stems from the time of Abraham and the turmoil he caused by having a son named Ishmael with his maidservant Hagar. Abraham's son Isaac ended up receiving his blessing, and not Ishmael. Isaac became Israel, and the descendants of the two half brothers have been conflicting ever since. Israel believes that that area, especially Jerusalem, is the promised land of milk and honey and that their god, Yahweh, led them to it. They reclaimed what was theirs in 1948, and they became a nation. Surrounding Islamic nations disagree and want them out.

Joe: 39:21

What's going on right now over there is nothing new. It may be the worst slaughter of innocence since the Holocaust, but it is certainly not the first war, and actually conflicts have been going on there all the time. Even before the state of Israel was set up, there were skirmishes going on. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed and it became a British territory, there were all kinds of uprisings that were brutally suppressed, and because of that, people were forced to relocate, as well as because of the burgeoning immigration that was mismanaged under the British High Commissioner who oversaw the mandate of Palestine. That was all before the state of Israel was even formed and before there was ever a PLO or a Hamas in Gaza.

Joe: 40:07

Like you said before, religion doesn't unite us. I don't think there was a time when it ever did. It actually seems that the whole premise of it is to find affirmation in a set of beliefs by differentiating them from other beliefs that are, of course, refuted as being wrong. It's almost like the vision is what religion is all about, which is why the setup is perfect for a leader to come from somewhere maybe from someplace beyond our planet who can bring us together. That's actually what a messiah is thought to be. Christians are expecting Jesus to come here from somewhere beyond the Earth and make everything right.

Joe: 40:46

The end times is not complete without its antichrist. In previous episodes we explained how the emperor Nero was most likely the Anti-Christ, and we just alluded to that just now. John the Evangelist wrote about him, and Nero, like you said, had a name that equates with 666. He could be the one that is the Anti-Christ mentioned in Revelation, and that doesn't mean anything more than that. There is nothing in the future. It's not about George W, Bush or Napoleon, it is just Emperor Nero. Almost 2,000 years ago, that would make sense for early Christians to think of him and that great empire that he represented as the beast. Like you said, by using Gematria and the apocryphal writing, the early church could secretly criticize the emperor and the entire body politic of the Roman Empire. Remember, back then that would have been a death penalty, probably through crucifixion.

Laurie: 41:45

That brings us to the question of what the new world order is. For some, it is the gradual transformation from nation-states to a one-world totalitarian government that will rule over everybody everywhere. For others, it is a series of scenarios that will set the stage for the end of times, according to biblical prophecies, ushering in a messianic age. For others still, it is the culmination of human progress, taking us to the apogee of our evolution. It means different things to different people. Really, if you ask 50 individuals, you could very well get 50 unique answers as to what the new world order is. For that matter, the idea is one that is deeply embedded in Christianity, with the illusions found in the Book of Revelation of a new heaven and a new earth in which everything of old passes away and God's kingdom becomes established, all after the rule of this Anti-Christ who gets defeated by Jesus, by the way and then the new world order for people of faith will result in the ultimate victory of good over evil. The change in the way of the world is something that has always been talked about by people of all religions. I hope for the eradication of the turmoil and the way things are now, with a new epoch and time, one in which peace prevails.

Laurie: 43:22

Likewise, we see that the new world order is also paradoxical in its meaning, with the typology of the myriad of concepts encapsulated by it. In other words, it is not new and nor is it order, and nor does it pertain to the worldview. It is a continuum of the unfolding of events, often chaotic, tumultuous and disastrous ones, which eventually shape our history piece by piece, to bring about a greater change. One can say we are always on the brink of a new world order. We saw it with the rise of terrorism. We saw it with the fall of the Soviet Union. We saw it with the establishment of the United Nations after World War II and its predecessor, the League of Nations, after World War I. One can even say that the founding of the United States back in 1776 was nothing short of a new world order.

Joe: 44:21

One thing we find about the coming of a new world order is that it always brings rough waters. II Timothy 3:1 says as much that there would be terrible times in the last days, with people becoming heinous. You have to wonder why that should be. We are talking about the end times. Why do things have to get so invariably bad before Jesus comes back? Why does the prelude to his glorious return have to involve everyone suffering from wars and disasters and wickedness In other words why is he running the devil to get such a huge head start and be allowed to wreak so much havoc?

Joe: 44:58

I was always perplexed by that. If the Devil was truly defeated, as the Bible says, why is he still able to get quite a few wins on us and wreak so much havoc before he is finally done away with?

Laurie: 45:12

Yeah. Another thing I always thought about and question was why in the heck was he being re-released after a thousand years of peace? It says that the devil was released again, to temptations again. Just doesn't make any sense. Even if you believe that God's chosen ones are to be taken to heaven to spend eternity in a divine utopia, there will be plenty of death and destruction, as well as the everlasting damnation of the majority who are not considered to be saved. The apocalypse, the end times, the battle of Armageddon, the last judgment. These are nightmarish images of Hellscapes. Who hasn't heard a preacher scare us with it. Here's the thing If God did not give us a spirit of fear, which is in the Bible, like Paul wrote in II Timothy 1:7, then why is there so much fear being preached?

Joe: 46:10

Right. I mean sure we're told the good news that if we have salvation through Jesus, we will survive and live through a Messianic age or else go to heaven. We also know that many people will either be damned or, I guess, will be obliterated from existence. This is not a pretty thought. The point I'm trying to make here is that the returning of anything Jesus, Osiris, Dumuzi, Loki, Quetzalcoatl it's not a picnic. It is a cataclysmic end of an age in the beginning of an entirely new and altered one, where many don't make it and when you look at it that way, there really is no good news to it.

Laurie: 46:50

It's like the Christians are up in a spaceship looking down as the world goes to hell. Well, we brought up before Jesus all of it. Discourse may have been a warning about a future alien invasion. Even he seemed to think that this was going to happen soon and in his era, because he told the disciples that they will not see death until all these things he was talking about happened. And that didn't come to be. However, life continued on and the words of Christ survived to this day, 2000 years later. Whether or not Jesus actually quoted all those words really is up for debate, but we can see that they are words that are everlasting, even though they don't describe anything specific.

Joe: 47:39

Yeah, and you know, paul covers that aspect in II Thessalonians, chapter 2, where he tells us, the followers, not to be alarmed by reports that the day of the Lord has already come because the signs and wonders have taken place as they always have. It's like people even back then knew that these signs and wonders were a bunch of malarkey, because they knew that they've always been going on, they've always been happening and that they couldn't really be used to signify anything. They're pretty much a regular occurrence in the world.

Laurie: 48:07

We live in a time where this is the current trend. There's no doubting it. We see it in movies and TV shows. Eva was celebrated, the bad guy is cool, the dark side is the strongest, the good guys are the true bad guys, etc. The thing is, since we weren't alive in existing 500, 1500 or 2000 years ago, was there a time during those eras where this sort of thing was also going on? We really don't know, except that, at the height of its power, rome was once a great power, the greatest on Earth, and now it's long gone, a fleeting memory, though. Could this civilization have had the same issues we have today?

Joe: 48:53

The problems that we see now in our day are the same once in the past. While they don't mean the end of life on planet Earth, they can very well mean the end of what was once a great civilization. I think that is something that is in the realm of possibility. That is something we need to do, something we can to prevent. Come together as a unified people, as a unified nation. There is one scripture verse that has always stuck out with me. It has been what I think a grave warning to all of humanity. That is Isaiah 5: 20-21. " Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own sight." Kind of foreboding in its tone. Perhaps we should take a better look at history and understand what it is that allows nations to rise, as well as what brings them to the ash heap.

Laurie: 49:59

Yeah, united we stand, divided we fall. It's really rather simple.

Joe: 50:04

Indeed, and just to take from the famous opening line in Dicken's novel A Tale of Two Cities, written more than 200 years ago. We are living in the best of times and the worst of times. That seems to be the theme of the human struggle to exist in this world, and that's where we have to leave it, both for the topic of the end times and for today's podcast.

Laurie: 50:26

Yeah, so for next episode we'll talk about how one man in particular provided some amazing insight to notion of an apocalyptic prophecy, as some of what he has claimed has actually come to fulfillment. And while many believe it was Nostradamus who had accurately foretold future events, it was really none other than Leonardo da Vinci who envisioned technology that is used today, and he did so without a lot of encrypted symbolism that was subject to individual interpretation. He had quite a mind, and we find in some of his artworks some bizarre clues that seem to suggest he had encounters with alien life forms. So we have to ask if the reason that he had such foresight was because he possibly received intelligence from extraterrestrial or ultra-terrestrial sources.

Joe: 51:21

Right, and while most prophetic writings are obscure and difficult to decipher, many of Leonardo da Vinci's predictions are quite tangible in today's world. Inventions such as the helicopter, the submarine, the armored tank and even the refrigerator are just a few things that he was able to visualize in his mind more than 500 years before they ever came to reality, and that's why he is still known, even to this day, as the Renaissance man. I think we'll learn quite a bit in our dialogue about him.

Laurie: 51:49

Yeah, definitely. So be sure to tune in next time. Also, check out our latest YouTube video, titled The Reptilian Menace, that we delve into some fascinating concepts that will help expand your knowledge on that, and be sure to give us a like and hit that subscribe button. So we look forward to joining you again soon.

Joe: 52:11

Also be sure to visit our website, wwwaliantalkpodcastcom, as we put up monthly newsletters there and provide links to some good resources, and we want to thank all of you for the support you've shown for this program, and please send us your comments and questions. We love to hear from you. So until next time, everyone, stay curious.