Merry Christmas

Time has beaten me as I would like to have posted a few more posts leading up to Christmas. For those of you who follow this blog and are interested please visit my YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/stephengbaker) or my podcast page (www.seekthetruth.org.uk). You will find various items of interest there.

I trust that you will have a very happy time at Christmas and come to know the one who 'sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world".

Kind regards,

Stephen

Mayan Calendar

According to the Mayan Calendar, December 21^st. 2012 is when there will be some dramatic signs in the Stella heavens. Wikipedia says of this phenomenon, The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on 21 December 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae have been proposed as pertaining to this date, though none have been accepted by mainstream scholarship.

A New Age interpretation of this transition is that this date marks the start of time in which Earth and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a new era. Others suggest that the 2012 date marks the end of the world or a similar catastrophe. Scenarios suggested for the end of the world include the arrival of the next solar maximum, an interaction between Earth and the black hole at the center of the galaxy, or Earth's collision with a planet called "Nibiru".

Scholars from various disciplines have dismissed the idea of such cataclysmic events occurring in 2012. Professional Mayanist scholars state that predictions of impending doom are not found in any of the extant classic Maya accounts, and that the idea that the Long Count calendar "ends" in 2012 misrepresents Maya history and culture. Astronomers and other scientists have rejected the proposals as pseudoscience, stating that they conflict with simple astronomical observations. In a following paragraph called ‘Apocalypse’ we read, In 1966, Michael D. Coe wrote in The Maya that "there is a suggestion ….that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th [b'ak'tun]. Thus ... our present universe [would] be annihilated [in December 2012] when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion."

In a recent programme on the Discovery Chanell, Prof. Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University stated that the universe would ultimately (several billion years?) be pulled back into the black-hole that it emerged from billions of years ago! He gave an analogy of that event saying it was like rows of marbles lined up and that was where luck came in, five or so broke loose and by so doing caused the other marbles to gravitate towards each other. Anyone that believes that, I would think that they have lost their marbles!

When Jesus was born at Bethlehem there were signs in the heavens. Matthew ch.2 commences, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,  Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.”  These men were not astrologers, people who study the movement of the stars and then predict your future according to the position of the stars. These men were astronomers, men that observed the heavens, charting the courses of the stars. They had observed activity in the heavens that caused them to follow the direction of a particular star; they said to Herod that the star that directed them was “his star”. Some have suggested that the star was a merging together of two stars to give the appearance of one star. These men were not fools; they were wise men that associated the stars presence with the coming into the world of Messiah. The star guided them and the scriptures directed them to Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 reads “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

The gifts they brought signified their understanding of the baby born in Bethlehem. The gold spoke of His deity, the frankincense His purity, the myrrh His suffering. The title ‘King of the Jews’ was nailed to His cross.

There will be signs in the heavens when Christ returns to earth to establish His thousand-year reign on earth. That return is not imminent, but His coming to the air to take His Church to Heaven is, this could happen any moment now. When the Church has gone from the earth, the Day of the Lord will begin on earth ushering in traumatic and cataclysmic happenings throughout the world but particularly in the land of Israel. Current skirmishes by Hamas (Foreign Terrorist Organization violently opposed to the state of Israel. Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawana al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), Syria, Iran, Iraq and other neighbouring Arab nations are only a precursor  of things to come. The Tribulation period will last seven years, the Great Tribulation is the second half of those seven years. Jesus said, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh……And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” (Luke 21:20).

This activity in the heavens is all connected with the opening of the seals, the sounding of the trumpets and the vials of God’s wrath recorded from ch.6 to 19 in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war…. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. The heavens will glow with splendor on that day when Christ returns to earth.  God bless.

Written by Stan Burdit for Stephen Baker

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