Enoch and Elias will preach in Jerusalem,the Holy City, for three and half years.
As a result of their powerful witness, many Jews will turn to their true Messiah at last.'''''Behold, I will send you [Jews] Elijah (Elias) the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the childrento their fathers''(Malachi 4:5, 6 )

Blessed Theophylactus the Bulgarian(11th century) wrote,''''''Elias shall come...as the forerunner of the Second Coming,and he shall return to faith in Christ all the Jews who were found to be obedient, remaining faithfull, as it were, to the paternal heritage of those who had fallen away therefrom''.

This will be one of the most profoundly moving occurances of the end of times .The long vigil of Judaism will end when that'''''Remnant'' which the Lord has preserved through the ages finally turns its heart fully to Jesus Christ.''''And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel....will depend on the LORDthe Holy One of Israel, in truth''''(Isaiah 10;20,)

Thus shall be fulfilled the ancient hope that a remnant, though merely a few grains of all Israel's seas of sand, would truly return to God:''Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:''Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved' '''''(Romans 9: 27 )

The conversion of these Jews will be intense and total:'''Then they will look on Me whom they pierced,''''
records Zechariah tenderly.'''Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn''''(Zechariah 12: 10 ).

The Book of Revelation assigns a specific number to this remnant:'''''And I heard the number of those who were sealed.One hunred and forty -four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed '''
(Revelation 7 : 4 )

So? They are stories. Do they have any validity? Probably. What type of discussion were you hoping to get out of posting that? If I remember correctly, that last line says that 144,000 virgin males (maybe females too) will ascend into Heaven to help Jesus. That's just odd. I'm not sure that the Book of Revelations is meant to be taken that literally.

My analysis is that people who believe in the Book of Revelations have the Thanatos wish (death wish). It is a Freudian concept where people want to die, but want to have purpose with their death (meaning purpose at the end of their lives). Since the 1600's, people have believed that the world was going to end. We are further from that happening today, than we were back when Napolean was alive or when the world wars were taking place. Comparatively speaking, we are in the highest age of peace that we have seen in perhaps hundreds of years.

Ask yourself why you find these passages to be so important. If the reason is to give purpose to your life, I'd say you need to find the bigger underlying problem and deal with it.

[Edited on 13-4-2003 by Protector]

Originally posted by Protector
So? They are stories. Do they have any validity? Probably. What type of discussion were you hoping to get out of posting that? If I remember correctly, that last line says that 144,000 virgin males (maybe females too) will ascend into Heaven to help Jesus. That's just odd. I'm not sure that the Book of Revelations is meant to be taken that literally.

My analysis is that people who believe in the Book of Revelations have the Thanatos wish (death wish). It is a Freudian concept where people want to die, but want to have purpose with their death (meaning purpose at the end of their lives). Since the 1600's, people have believed that the world was going to end. We are further from that happening today, than we were back when Napolean was alive or when the world wars were taking place. Comparatively speaking, we are in the highest age of peace that we have seen in perhaps hundreds of years.

Ask yourself why you find these passages to be so important. If the reason is to give purpose to your life, I'd say you need to find the bigger underlying problem and deal with it.

[Edited on 13-4-2003 by Protector]

I think that the risk is much greater now than then protector. Napolean didn't have Nuclear Weapons (thank GOD). Whenever the world does end it will be by our hands.

Who knows? No one can say that we won't die by an astroid, pole shifting, or any other global catastrophy. Why does one man with a nuclear weapon have to always be the end of us in a discussion? I completely disagree with that assumption. I'd go with the idea that we have been our own saving grace over the thousands, if not millions, of years as a species.

Protector is absolutely, 100% correct. We dont know how the world will end, and we never will untill its too late, or untill its on the news (which would be the case with an asteroid, earthquake, tidal wave, etc...).

Why when it's too late???

Or, idea of ides, the world may come to its conclusion just as prophesied in the Bible.