Jeremiah (est 626-585 B.C.)

Jeremiah son of Hilkiah was from Anathoth, and was part of the Benjamin tribe, he was a priest and first started to hear God when he became thirteen.  He is told that despite his young age that he is to tell a message of doom and destruction to Judah followed by rising and rebuilding, and he starts to see visions.  He is told to go to Jerusalem and Judah to tell the people to turn from their wicked ways, and he is also told that he will be protected as other prophets have been killed by the people there.

He sees a vision of a barren earth with no life and the mountains are shaking, all done by the God's fierce anger.  God tells Judah that he will use Babylonians to destroy Israel and Judah to punish them for their wicked ways.  God speaks to Jeremiah by experience, through rotten buried clothes, through drought, through a pottery wheel.  God tells Jeremiah that the people are now destined for starvation, war and disease so he is asked to be a prophet once more, to deliver the message and that he will be protected, he will be make strong.

God has "put a curse on those who turn from him and trust in human strength"

People try and stop Jeremiah from his words, including people who falsely accuse him or event arrest him and hold him overnight.  However some just throw insults at him, but he suffers to the point whether he questions whether he should have been born at all.  Jeremiah is on trial, and they reference Micah how he had foretold the destruction of the temple, but the King had listened and destruction was adverted, and that Jeremiah should not be killed.

Hananiah challenges Jeremiah, but then Jeremiah foretells his death and Hananiah dies within two months.  Jeremiah writes to the King after he is taken as a captive to Babylonia, and explains that they will be brought back to Jerusalem after 70 years of Babylonian rule.  One of his letters went to Shemaiah, who then wrote letters to deny him, one went to the priest Zephaniah(not the Prophet) who showed Jeremiah and so Jeremiah cursed Shemaiah.

Jeremiah declares that the Lord will make a new convenant that will be written into the hearts and minds of people, foretelling a king in the line of David.

While a prisoner in Jerusalem, Jeremiah buys a pice of land belonging to the Benjamin tribe, later, he gets Baruch to write down what he says onto a scroll and the scroll is read out to the people then brought before the king, but the king chops it up and throws it into the fire, but another scroll is written this time including a curse upon the King

First Jeremiah is imprisoned in Jonathon's house, the in the palace prison but then he is thrown down a well but later rescued, and then he was kept in the palace gaurds residence.  When Jerusalem fell after a 18month siege, Jeremiah was going to be led away but he was set free and allowed to stay behind and have a house, he went to live with Gedaliah (the new leader of Judah) in Mizpah, but Gedaliah gets killed by Ismael, who takes everyone in Mizpah captive.

But the captives are rescued and plan to flee to Egypt but they stop at Geruth Chimham near Bethlehem, fearing for backlash from the Babylonians, but Jeremiah tells them to stay in Judah.  They refuse to listen and are all led to Egypt by Johanan.  But then the Lord tells Jeremiah that the Babylonains will now attack Egypt, Gaza, Philistine, Crete, Moab, Ammon, and the Kedar tribe.

Time for Change?

  If I was to look around the normal everyday household, a family home; you would see that the dad will be quietly sat on his comfortable armchair reading the text on the TV, the mother reading away on her ebook reader, their son on the sofa playing a portable games console, and their daughter also on the sofa but browsing the web on her laptop. Is this what was envisioned when electricity was invented? Is the process of developed technology, something that steals away the personal side of humanity?

Think about it, we make friends and talk to friends through online social networks, we can arrange dates by dating websites, we can do online banking to pay bills. However amazingly fancy these developments seem, we cannot ignore that there are consequences. For example, in my local bank they have removed the customer services desk and replaced it with machines. Another example would be self-service tills in the shops. Now I don’t want to sound like some backwards person thinking some old way of life is more idealistic, but there are so many ways that the modern life removes social interactions from our every day moments.

Its not that I am saying that all these changes are wrong, but what I am saying is that all these changes are taking place without us all debating as a society if this is what we want in our lives and in our children’s lives. Everything we do as a society will have consequences. For example the invention of paper eventually led to the destruction of forests around the world, which in turn has reduced the amount of leaves turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. I am sure that hasn’t had any effect on global warming at all? Or maybe it has.

Another great example of doing something without considering consequences would be the global market expansion, we thought this as being a good thing, something to increase business, to increase the interest in bonds and investments. But look at the sheer disaster of it all now. The ‘market’ can now put so much pressure onto countries that it can force a change in a president or even a government. Let me ask you, where in the description of democracy does it say that people can vote in whoever they want, until the markets become unhappy with their choice and then someone else has to be chosen. World markets now have too much power, and the more you think about it, the more scary it gets. The rating agencies guide investors to downgrade and upgrade bonds. So in a sense, the rating agencies control the market, and therefore the rating agencies can force control onto governments! Has anyone asked who owns these companies? For all we know it’s the people who lend out all the money to countries, that way, now they are getting a higher percentage for all that money they lend out. Now I am not a conspiracy kind of person, all I am saying that it is wrong not to be asking these questions. I want to know who these people are, I want to know who my country owes all that money to, I want to know who my government is giving money to.

If I was a communist right now I would be laughing in the face of democracy. Not to say that communism is perfect, maybe no system can ever be right. As soon as positions of power are created, there is always the chance that someone may come along and abuse it. It only takes seconds to think of many examples of this, and you can’t really blame anyone for it, as humans we are all flawed. But we must recognise that any system we create will also be flawed. Computer systems get viruses. Markets crash. Cars break down. Planes crash. Asset markets will cause bubbles that burst. In some ways I wish there was no system, that there was no government, that there was no debt crisis, but that is not being realistic.

But maybe the fault is not of the creation of electricity, okay there are things we could have done better with the development of electricity, like maybe invented wind power or solar panels before the mass roll-out to the public. No maybe the problem is not electricity, maybe the problem goes back a lot further, maybe the real problem is actually money. Yes I said money. Imagine for a moment a world without it, we used to have a world without it. Money when originally invented had a value to it, gold and silver coins, a value that could be measured. Nowadays money is made from worthless metals and paper, the value of it is imagined. Imagined things just like asset markets can make bubbles that can burst. If the value of the euro suddenly dropped, it is suddenly worth less dollars, and vice versa. Money created the worldwide market, money created the everyday items that remove our social interactions. However, money is actually not the root cause, the root cause to all of this is us.

Well think about it, we invented all these things, we were unhappy with a simple life of living in a straw hut, with a fire and a wife and kids, we chose to invent ways to improve ourselves and our greed has taken us to many low points. The countless wars over land, the devastation during two World Wars, the almost destruction of the world during the missile crisis in the 60’s, the global warming crisis that engulfs us now. These are all things that have originated from our ancestors greed. But is there even any point in saying these things? People may read this and think ‘Hmm some interesting points Mr’, but they won‘t go on to make changes in their life. Can we as a society change? At least to make the changes that we need to? This will ever more grow as a topic, especially in 2012, a year in which many people and ancient civilisations pointed out as an important year for humanity. Will we as humans choose to change and avoid destruction?

Cesar is author of the upcoming 'Book of Prophecies' which will be released 13^th January 2012, if you would like to find out more please visit http://www.cesarprophecies.com for more information.

Prophet Daniel (est 605-530BC)

The story of the prophet called Daniel which means “God is (my) judge” is told in the Book of Daniel. His overall mission can be said was to show that God was sovereign over the kingdoms of men.

Daniel was a captured Jew living in exile after the siege of Jerusalem, a student of the Babylonian court, and later rose to third in power, looking after much of the kingdom. He was known for his wisdom and for his talent as a dream interpreter, and most famously for surviving a night in the lion’s den.

He was a humble man, knew the importance of eating healthily, trustworthy, not corrupt or negligent, and had knowledge of other prophets including Jeremiah. He had visions during the day and the night; some of which would disturb him or exhaust him or even make him ill. He had the ability to talk with angels. He could make prophecies against people to force the outcome of God’s will (making a king live in the wild, telling a king his days were numbered).

Examples of his prophecies include the rise and fall of four empires (Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome), the prediction of the death of Antichus IV in 164 B.C, the prediction of the coming Messiah and his death and the prediction of Israel’s destruction by Titus in 70 A.D.

Yet his prophecies regarding the end times are equally impressive and were very much studied by prophecy collectors such as Isaac Newton and others. His end-time prophecies include; that a prince called Michael will arise, that those in dust will awake to face their judgement, that there will be a time of great distress on the scale that has never been seen before, yet he also said that more was revealed to him than he was allowed to reveal, the words were ‘sealed up’.

The Sibyllines Oracles

Prophet Name:The Sibyl sisterhood, the prophetesses

Origin & Message:
The Sibyls were a set of prophetesses who uttered oracles which were recorded, their advice was much sought after (by the Roman Empire and also the early church) and their influence is mentioned in many cultures such as the Greeks and the Anglo-Irish.
It is believed that the very first Sibyl was a daughter of Noah, or it may even have begun with Noah's wife whom is said to have been the grand-daughter of Enoch (Enoch is mentioned further in my analysis of the Book of Giants). Enoch was supposedly a man of great power vision and an apostle, and therefore some of his natural talents may have passed on down through the generations. Noah's daughters name Sambethe is mentioned in the preface of the surviving writings, and it is said that she moved Greece where she started writing oracles.

Supporting documentation:An early Arab document Kitab al-Magall gives the names of Noah and his daughters, and supports the stories told in the surviving 12 books. There are various authors of these oracle books, yet it is known that other book did exist, in particular The Sibylline Books which were owned by the Roman Emperor and mentioned several times in history, however those books are said to have been destroyed in a fire in 83B.C. The documents of the Sibylline oracles were believed to have been put together (as a collection) between 200B.C. and 500 A.D. They are further mentioned in many other documents dating from around the same time.

Content of the Oracle Books:Some of the books just contain the history of mankind, these are not written exclusively from the Christian viewpoint as they often contain Greek history for example and also Asian kings and even Alexander. Other books contain oracles for specific people such as rulers and kings and warriors and kingdoms.
Some of the books also describe prophecies of the events leading up to the last day on Earth. Book Two describes the events leading up to the last day of Earth, the day of destruction where fire from the sky, stars from the sky will fall and destroy life on earth. With the slight reprieve that some get saved from the flames. Book Three says how in the end times there will be a great war, of dust clouds that cover the earth so that the suns light is darkened and the moons light appears as red as drops of blood. Seems to describe nuclear war. Book Eight is much more prophetic about the end times, it is mentioned about the stars in the sky effecting our weather causing a giant hurricane that desolates the earth.

Validity:
I find these books fascinating, most profound is how they nearly always write in future tense which actually makes me quite confused. It is possible that the Oracles written are just fakes, that someone decided to try and replace the original documents which were destroyed in the fire. Another theory is that after the fire had destroyed the original works, that sections of the original documents had been made (in order to pass on to people etc) and that someone gathered all this information back and compiled them into this set of works in the hope to at least keep some of the original information. This would give the impression that these works would have been very highly valued, and the sibylline oracles were famous in their time for their predictions. Lastly a third theory in which these documents are total fakes, designed to fool people, that they only foretell things that had already happened. For me I like the second theory best.

Solar Storm 2012 & Weakened Magnetic Field

The magnetic field does not just control our compass, it also acts as a protective barrier between us and some of the dangers of space, shielding us from radiation in the solar wind. The scary thing is that the Earth’s magnetic field has been steadily weakening over the past 180 years.

A magnetic reversal is not just possible, it is destined to happen, its only a matter of when. Admittedly it could take hundreds or thousands of years, but one thing is sure, as the magnetic field has been weakening over the last 180 years, it has not been dropping at a steady rate, rather it has got more intense as time goes on. Already the changes are starting to effect our guidance systems in planes, but if an actual reversal happens it will cause an unknown amount of damage.

Polar shifts are infamous thanks to hollywoods films such as The Day after Tomorrow and 2012, but interesting enough there is another film called Knowing based upon the worlds destruction from something called a Solar Storm. A Solar storm is a burst of radiation and heat from the Sun which can reach as far as the Earth.

The issue I have is that next year in 2012, with a weakened magnetic field, a weakened protective barrier, combined with an expected solar storm, and none of this is made up, it is a real possibility for 2012 and nobody really knows whats going to happen! The Solar storm could worsen the magnetic field, it could knock out satellites and our communication systems, it could rupture volcanos and cause earthquakes. Are you prepared?

End Time Prophecies Fulfilled in 2011

As foretold by the 12 Minor Prophets

1. The Death of Birds

“I will sweep away the birds of the air” Zephaniah 1:3

January 2011

Unexplained and unanswered in the sky of Arkansas thousands of blackbirds fell out of the sky, and within a week hundreds of other birds in Kentucky and Louisiana also dropped dead from the sky. Still unexplained, it was said that the birds simply were startled and flew into each other?? Then in Italy hundreds of doves also died, apparently having eaten themselves to death.

2. The Death of Fish

“and the fish of the sea” Zephaniah 1:3

January 2011

Another story to head the headlines was the death of 40,000 crabs that washed up on beaches in the UK, and the death of 2 million fish in Chesapeake Bay, and thousands more fish died the previous year in Lake Michigan, all deemed as abnormal events with strange explanations.

3. The Red Moon

"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come" Joel 2:31

June 2011

For years this prophecy had been much talked about, and to be honest most people expected this as being part of World War Three, as apparently nuclear fall-out can result in the moon appearing red. But in reality, it turned out to be volcanic ash which gave the moon the appearance of being red. Even more intriguing is the fact that in 2011 there were four partial solar eclipses and two total lunar eclipses which is quite rare, it happens about 6 times every century, so the odds of this combined with the ash-cloud-red-moon mirrors the prophecy.

4. The Disaster in Japan

“Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. They will have houses but not live in them, they will have vineyards but not drink the wine” Zephaniah 1:13

March 2011

What happened in Japan was a sad tragedy to all those who were lost and their families, yet was it something that was foretold? In the prophecy mentioned there are three main points; the destruction of houses, the damage to wealth and lastly land (houses etc) which must be left untouched. A report in August from Japan claimed there were as many as 111,944 destroyed buildings, 139,870 partially destroyed buildings, 517,050 partially damaged buildings. There is still some debate about the economic damage done not only in Japan but across the Global markets, and with rebuild costs of up to $300 billion. Lastly the nuclear disaster which became part of the whole crisis; Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes and up to 2500 kilometers of soil were contaminated. Although the warnings were lifted from the 25-30km radius, many residents were unwilling to return to their homes with their children, but there are parts that are still in exclusion where it may be 20 years before residents can return. Even more chilling is the fact the Fukushima was well known for its grapes and vineyards!!!

Prophet Zephaniah (est640-609BC)

Prophet Name:

Zephaniah, related to the Royal line, meaning ‘The Lord protects’, according to the Book of the Bee he was of the tribe of Simeon and died in peace in his own land

Mission/Message:

Zephaniah’s mission was to disclose God’s coming judgement and to speak about ‘the day of the Lord’.

Documentation:

Due to Zephaniah’s social position he would have been very knowledgeable of the political issues of the time, and was probably familiar with the writings of Isaiah and Amos. The book itself is believed to have been written after 640 but before 627.

Occupation:

Not known for sure but we know he was related to the royal line.

Best known for:

-Prediction of the Day of the Lord

Attributes of his personality:

He was of ruling class, in his twenties when he began to prophesy

Supernatural Aspects:

It says that the ‘word of God came to him’. His prophecies come across as if God revealed things to him first and then he spoke about it to others. This is slightly different to others who said directly as if God was speaking to them in present tense.

Examples of prophecies:

-The Day of the Lord

-The destruction of the world

End Times Prophecies:

This book is full of end time prophecies; death of men and birds and fish, destruction of the economy, houses and land not liveable (maybe nuclear contamination), a day of darkness, a time when wealth is worth nothing, the whole world consumed, streets deserted, cities destroyed

Prophet Nahum (est663-612BC)

Prophet Information:

Nahum, meaning “comfort”, according to the Book of the Bee he was from the city of Elkosh and was of the tribe of Simeon, died in peace and was buried in his own country.

Mission/Message:

Nahum’s mission was to portray God as one who gives refuge to those who trust in Him and as one who will not let the guilty go unpunished. In particular Nahum spoke and prophesised about the coming destruction of Nineveh, and that this would give comfort to Judah.

Documentation:

The book contains details of the vision of Nahum. The estimates of dating this book come from the events mentioned in the book. It was after the fall of Thebes in 663 and before the destruction of Nineveh in 612.

Occupation:

Unknown but his hometown was named Elkosh (location also unknown)

Best known for:

-Announcement of the coming destruction of Nineveh

Attributes of his personality:

The type of works used in the book show intense descriptions and vocabulary, the writing is poetic yet features many rhetorical questions. He was a deep thinker and analyst.

Supernatural Aspects:

The book is a vision, but it differs in the fact that other prophets would say “The Lord says” whereas Nahum describes “The Lord will” or “The Lord is”. This would give a general picture that Nahum knew the mind of God whereas others heard the words of God.

Examples of prophecies:

-The destruction of Nineveh

End Times Prophecies:

There is a possibility that the second chapter is talking about Israel being restored after ‘destroyers have laid them waste’ meaning the Israel state after the Second World War. It goes on to mention about an army in red or scarlet, which could represent a country that uses predominantly red on their flag.

Prophet Hosea (est750-715BC)

Prophet Information:

Hosea son of Beeri, of the tribe of Issachar and was from the town of Be'elmath, according to the Book of the Bee he died in peace and was buried in his own land, yet modern beliefs is that he was buried in the cemetery of Safed

Mission/Message:

Hosea’s mission from God was to have a relationship with his wife that was similar to God’s relationship with Israel, Hosea seen Israel’s main problem as a failure to acknowledge God.

Documentation:

Hosea is identified as the first of the twelve Minor Prophets and is the only prophet to come from the Northern kingdom of Israel, the book of Hosea is dated by reference to the current kings of Judah; the author of the book is unknown.

Best known for:

-His dramatic relationship with his adulterous wife.

Attributes of his personality:

He was obedient to God’s commands. He had the ability to rebuke his wife in a harsh way, but similarly to take her back in a loving and supportive way. This would point at a man that is slow to anger (his wife bore three children before he rebuked her) yet someone that considers the person not just by their actions, and therefore takes his wife back if she promises not to be with another man again.

Supernatural Aspects:

It says that the “word of God came to him”, and it is said also that “the Lord began to speak through him”

Examples of prophecies:

-He told people about God’s opinion of their way of life, opinions about the kings and foretold their destruction and repentance

-Ch6 verse two it mentions references which could easily be linked to the death of Jesus or the tearing of the old covenant and the making of the new covenant.

End Times Prophecies:

Although some theorists have taken words from Hosea’s prophecies in an attempt to apply them to modern times, my belief is that they applied to his times, and the coming invasion of the northern kingdom.