This Saturday at work I was listening to a tape cassette by Pastor David J. Meyer. He resides in Beaverdam, Wisconsin. If you would like to receive his newsletter, then please mail your request to:

Last Trumpet Ministries International PO Box 806 Beaver Dam, WI 53916

His web site is http://www.lasttrumpet.cjb.net/

Go there to access his current and past newsletters. Then you will know if you should request his future newsletters.

The four tape cassette series, of which I have transcribed a small fragment from the first tape, is entitled "USA: A Garden Run Amok", which is based upon passages from the book of Isaiah.

Here are Pastor Meyer's words which triggered this post:

"If people can't get ready, and they know better now...

Listen, anybody who has to go around begging for bread is not a child of God...

Because we know better, we know what to do, and anybody who doesn't get ready is Stupid with a capital S, and I'll tell any of you that.

If you don't get ready, you're nuts, and you don't care about your family."

My question for you is this:

Has your pastor, minister, cleric, rabbi, guru, shaman, Druid master, Masonic leader or other spiritual mentor advised you to prepare for hard times, or has your spiritual leader told you that Y2K is nothing worth bothering about to prepare?

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), September 11, 1999

Answers

Randolph--The Bible is full of quotes telling people to get prepared for famines, disasters, the second coming of Christ, etc. I especially like the quote "anyone going around begging for food is not a child of God." But what about all the other quotes in the Bible saying to feed the poor and hungry and you may be entertaining angels unaware, etc. Confusing isn't it? There is one particular person on this forum that says I am "mean," because I am of the opinion that it is every man for himself. Call me whatever you wish, but it is not my responsibility to feed and take care of the world, that is Caeser's problem.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), September 11, 1999.

ULTIMATE=STUPIDITY> to REJECT AMAZING GRACE.[GODS FREE GIFT] HIS SON.

-- NOT-BLIND ANYMORE. (dogs@zianet.com), September 12, 1999.

My friend's dad and stepmom are from Texas. They were here and I talked to her about Y2K. Her pastor told them all to prepare. I guess you could say my spiritual mentor told me to prepare.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 12, 1999.

GOD IS MERCIFUL----TOO THE MERCIFUL.

-- SAVED-BY-LOVE. (dogs@zianet.com), September 12, 1999.

About two days ago I saw on TV that Alan Funt of Candid Camera had died and they ran some old clips of Candid Camera.One clip that really stuck out in my mind;a man gets on a elavator full of people and notices that they are all facing the wall instead of the door.At first he faces the door but after a few seconds he turns around and faces the wall with them.Did he turn around because it was the correct position? No,he faced the wrong way with them because they were facing the wrong way. This to me is Y2K completely.The average joe is not preparing because the other average joes are not preparing.Does this make any sense at all? Does this sound intelligent? Or would you have to classify this behavior as stupid?

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), September 12, 1999.

Stanley--

I believe you've hit on something important there. I once was a subject in a college psych experiment where a group of five subjects looked at a card with two lines on it, and were asked to state which line was shorter. No perceptual tricks, a very obvious difference between the length of the two lines.

Of course, all but one of the "subjects" were confederates with the tester. Their instructions were to state that the longer line was the shorter line. The #4 person was the only true test subject, and wouldn't you know--a sizable percentage of subjects looked at those lines and voted with the group instead of what they could plainly see. I think you're right Stanley--a lot of people aren't preparing because the people around them aren't preparing.

Of course, when they do start preparing...it's gonna big one big mass of humanity hitting the supermarkets.

Trying to avoid the X-mas rush...

-- William in Dallas (bcheek@onramp.net), September 12, 1999.

These psychology points are very important.

This is the reason the government policy is what it is--the fear of mass psychology.

Given the uncertainties of Y2K issues it would take courageous leadership to call a country to make early preparations.

Would either Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt or Reagan have had the courage? I don't know.

But it is too late for public courage.

Time to finish off preps and hope for the best...

If it gets bad we will all have a chance to show what we are made of--at the local level.

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), September 12, 1999.

These psychology points are very important.

This is the reason the government policy is what it is--the fear of mass psychology.

Given the uncertainties of Y2K issues it would take courageous leadership to call on a country to make early preparations.

Would either Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt or Reagan have had the courage? I don't know.

But it is too late for public courage.

Time to finish off preps and hope for the best...

If it gets bad we will all have a chance to show what we are made of--at the local level.

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), September 12, 1999.

Okay, time to fling out some religion. Take it or leave it. I assume no liability for what you think of what I say as it's not my concern. Your beliefs are your own problem. ;-) That said, here goes...

If you profess Christianity, you've got two potentially conflicting things to worry about. Proverbs 22:3 (King James version) says "A prudent [man] foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished." Yet, Proverbs 18:10 KJV again) says "The name of the LORD [is] a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe."

One scripture implies that if you see something bad on the horizon and don't take prudent action, you pay the consequences. The other hints that faith can protect you from calamity. Which one's right? And why does this apply to Y2K?

Both apply. The key is balance. Balancing your preparations for what might be the biggest disaster ever to strike the planet since the flood of Noah's day against the need to have a least a little faith in your God.

There's a lot of talk about Armageddon and occasional mention of the Great Tribulation mentioned in Matt. 24:21 when discussing religion and Y2K. The text in Matt. 24:15-20 refers to a bad event (Matt. 24:15 (KJV) - "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)") that carries a two-fold significance like the rest of Matt. 24 does. One side, the typical fulfilment, applied to the Jewish "world" as it existed in Jesus' day. The other, antitypical, fulfilment is of broader sweep, likely global, in the same way most other prophecies relating to the "end of the world" are set up (lots of stuff in Revelation, for example.)

One of these two, the typical fulfilment of the prophecy that an "abomination of desolation" will "stand in a holy place," took place in 70 CE when Cestus Gallus returned to finish the sacking of Jerusalem. (Might be General Titus instead, BTW. I tend to get 'em mixed up.) The Romans bore their idolatrous symbols in the form of the ensigns that each legion's division carried as their symbol, which were really vile to the Jews at the time since they were under orders from God to not worship any physical object or being aside from God. (Roman soldiers worshipped their ensigns, standards, and all sorts of symbols. Check Encyclopedia Brittanica for details.) Therefore, when the military might of a government that was steeped in idol-worship and all manner of unacceptable thingsas far as the Jews were concerned, stood in the courtyard of the Temple with their heathen symbols and rituals in full swing, an abomination was truly in a holy place.

The second half of the two-sided coin hasn't fallen yet. There has been no massive push to place a govenrment in direct attack of a religion (No, Waco didn't count, although the precedent might have been set there!) the antitypical fulfilment of Matt. 24:15-22 hasn't happened yet, and thus the Great tribulation hasn't started in earnest yet. Armageddon's a while yet.

Some religions teach that such a Tribulation will last seven years, although there's no hard number given anywhere in the Scriptures. The final assault on Jerusalem lasted ten months (late 69-mid 70 CE), so if the prophecies actually do a broader fulfilment, especially in the global sense, we've got God knows (literally) how long before this second fulfilment hits and same for how long it'll last. One thing's certain, it will not be pleasant. Check Matt. 24:22 to see what I mean.

There are, however, already a few hints as to what the modern fulfilment could entail. The first fulfilment involved the largest, most influential gov't that existed at the time, and exerted a global (as much as was known at the time) influence. It also had a long- standing hitory of wanting to modify all religions in its domain for its own ends. The modern equivalent might be the United Nations with its United Religions initiative, which combinesd make a global- governance organization with planetwide influence that is pushing a unified religion standard. (The United Religions' charter to form a world religious council to mimic the UN was due to be ratified in 2000 and a formal world council was to convene in 2003. Check the UN's website for the latest info, as they're not hiding any of it!) If the UN does manage to seize power and does manage to push its chosen "religion" on the masses, Matt. 24:15 hits all over again and the great Tribulation immediately follows. THEN we are ALL in trouble.

So, the balance of prudence vs. faith has to be more well thought out than just a singular event less than four months away and counting. This is not just Y2K, this is for the duration. Take all this into consideration when weighing how much is enough preparing.

If anyone cares, I'm prepping for about a month. My faith tells me that by then God will have started caring for His followers as per Matt. 6:25-34. The Tribulation hasn't started and there's nothing I can do about that when it does (NO amount of prepos will matter then, as it's a divinely generated incident) but try to do things God's way in my life.

Your mileage, faith, circumstances, belief structure, life experiences, etc., may vary. We're all going to be really religious in some way in the coming months to years... Ultimately it's not the responsibility of a religious leader to determine your fate, it's YOURS. Take it and do the best you can.

The occasionally mouthy...

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yahoo.com), September 13, 1999.

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." Abraham Lincoln

-- quoter (quoter@quoterr.com), September 13, 1999.