My cat Cici passed away this week from complications from kidney disease. I didn't even know she had it. The biggest symptom was bad breath, which I took her to the vet for at the end of August. During the lockdown, I wasn't able to get tartar control kitty snacks. I thought she might have a cavity, but her health checkup showed everything looked normal. A blood test didn't seem necessary. She was only 8.
Last week I related that Visible, according to an email they sent, would be launching 5G within a few weeks. They launched it this week instead. It's only available on the iPhone 12, but that's a temporary problem. They still don't have an affordable 5G phone, but 5G coverage isn't available where I live yet and likely won't be for some time. There's time for 5G phone prices to drop. So, 200Mbps top speed is on the way.
Recently, I also mentioned that my electric company was negotiating a rental fee for its power poles that would allow ISPs to bring broadband into underserved areas like mine. I can only get 1.5Mbps via DSL at this location due to a monopoly situation in the local market, which caused me to upgrade to 4G LTE internet instead. There's good news on that front. The state Public Service Commission has set the pole fee at $1 for the first 6 years and $27.71 per pole after that. With rates that high will it be worth it for anyone to bring broadband here? I don't know. The national average is $20/pole. Not far from here the rate is $7. I suspect the price an ISP would have to charge customers in order to offset the pole fee is going to be high.
By this time next year, this area could be looking at these internet options:
As an added good news, part of the deal for renting a power pole to bring broadband here is that the speed has to be 25Mbps download minimum and 3Mbps minimum upload. That's plenty for streaming 1080p or downloading the occasional large software update.
In other news Israel and Morocco are normalizing relations and bringing full peace in the Middle East one step closer.
Have a great weekend.
I got a call from Windstream in regards to my Better Business Bureau filing. They assured me that advertising products to me that are not available is not false advertising because someone somewhere else can buy those things. What? Uh, liar. When I go to the Windstream web site and type in my address, it ONLY offers me one specific internet connection speed, 15Mbps, and that speed is not available here. They only provide 1.5Mbps where I live. That's why I switched to 4G LTE in the first place. After a decade or more of promising me an upgrade, they never did it. At this time in history 1.5Mbps is too slow for just browsing. Too many sites use autoloading videos and junk like that.
I received a card in the mail from them advertising a 1.6Gbps connection speed when that is not available here or anywhere else. That's almost faster than U.S. 5G and is faster in the majority of places that actually have 5G. That's the definition of false advertising.
Moving on.
Visible sent me an email this week. In part it said,
"We’re excited to announce that Visible is launching 5G for compatible iPhones in the coming weeks, with compatible Android devices to follow. At launch, 5G will offer speeds up to 200 Mbps and be available for Visible members on iPhone 12 where Verizon 5G coverage is available."
I assume "in the coming weeks" means January. The price will remain $25/month for those on the Party Plan and $40/month for those who don't join the Party Plan. From the wording on their web site, it's possible to infer that at some point they'll offer full 5G for a higher price. Visible is owned by Verizon, so I completely expect that. Having 5G coming would change things a little bit. It should be faster than the 4G LTE internet I have now, although distance from the tower concerns me. Also, there's no telling when 5G will get to my area. It's supposed to be by the end of 2021, but that's based on a pre-Covid rollout schedule by Verizon. By the way, when 5G arrives here, so does Verizon's $70/month 5G internet service. I'm interested.
So, if I have 4G LTE, why was I looking at Windstream's DSL offerings? Even though the 15Mbps they advertise here is slower then 4G LTE, it would have had important advantages. It's always on. 4G LTE isn't, although it's usually impossible to tell the difference. The second advantage is that I wouldn't have to charge a cell phone to get internet. Right now, I have a 5,000mAh phone on Visible that I use only for internet. 5,000mAh is impressive, but it still needs recharging. I can't leave it on all the time unless I leave it on the charger all the time. I'm not willing to do that until the battery is shot. That means I only use the Hotspot feature when I'm online which means that I can't use my Google Home minis or my smart devices unless I'm online. That's annoying.
Another advantage of DSL would be running my Roku streaming sticks at any time. 15MBps would let me do that at 1080p and still leave bandwidth over for normal internet things. And it would be always on. If I want to watch television on Roku now, I have to make sure my phone is charged enough and set up a Hotspot connection. At the present I use the 5,000mAh phone for internet and my 3,200mAh personal cell phone for Roku. That's more convenient, and it lets me split the data load. Visible is a cell phone company not an internet company, so I try not to go nuts with data. I talked to a rep that said it doesn't matter how much I use, but I'm familiar enough with the industry to still be cautious.
Another advantage DSL would have had would be not having to buy a 5G phone. Prices are coming down but not fast enough. Using DSL for a year while waiting on 5G to arrive in my area and waiting for more and cheaper 5G phone to become available made sense. In addition, Verizon's 5G internet plan would make having a 5G phone no longer necessary. There are other things I don't have time to go into. This post is too long already. Long story short, always on internet is really helpful for this part-time online business idea I'm preparing to launch next year. More about that later if I can get it going and be successful with it.
Have a great weekend.
I've blogged about switching to 4G LTE internet after being promised for a decade or longer by Windstream that faster speeds were on the upgrade schedule with no upgrade ever taking place. Well, last week I got a Christmas type card in the mail from Windstream informing me that my neighborhood has been upgraded to 200MBPS speeds. Amazing. That's 1.6Gbps and 8 times faster than 200Mbps. Maybe they should stop using all caps. False advertising and all. I went on their web site and put in my address to see if it was true. Nope. It was another lie. However, the site said that 15Mbps per second was available. In fact, it was the only option for my address. It looked like they finally upgraded the switch! With a price of $37/mo for the first 12 months, I was intrigued.
The 4G LTE internet that I have now is good. I get speeds better than 15Mbps on a regular basis, but because it's cellular data, it's not "always on" the way DSL is. The speeds also fluctuate. Normally, that's not a problem. I don't download big files very often. But it can be annoying. Sometimes, I'll have to restart the phone to get a better connection. The $25/mo price I get from Visible for true unlimited cannot be beaten, especially with 5G 200Mbps coming in an estimated January or February time frame at the same price. But 5G phones aren't cheap, and I'd have to buy a new one to get 5G speeds. Not to mention that I don't know when my area will be upgraded to 5G. A while back Verizon promised by 2021, but that was before the pandemic. It could be a while. Visible is owned by Verizon.
The thought of having 15Mbps of always on data vs having to keep charging a cell phone to make sure I have internet compelled me to drop by the Windstream office in Cornelia, GA on Monday to at least check it out. The lady at the desk checked the computer and told me she would have to email someone about it. Hmm. Since it was after 5pm, he was already gone for the day. She promised to call me "in the morning" and let me know. Tuesday came and went with no call. I called their office on Wednesday and left a voice mail. By late afternoon with no return call, I went to the office. Guess what? The only speed at my address is 1.5Mbps just like it's been the past 10+ years.
So, I went home and looked up how to sue Windstream for false advertisement. What I ended up doing was filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission reporting Windstream for false advertising fraud and misrepresentation of their services and/or products. I also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I don't know what's going to happen with those, but I do know that my area is not the only one to have slow speeds that Windstream seemingly has no plans to upgrade. Maybe the cost of fighting with the FTC and BBB will be more than the cost of some simple upgrades.
There's some good news on the internet front. Until now Windstream has had a near monopoly here as an internet provider. The local electric company offers internet, but it's only to a few customers on a fiber line. How few? I'm less than a mile from the fiber line and can't get it. However, the electric company has made its poles available to rent to ISPs who want to provide internet to underserved areas like mine. Comcast is one of the companies interested. The hangup is the price of the pole rental. According to the local paper, it will be resolved by the middle of the month. It looks like competition will finally be arriving.
Have a great weekend.
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you were able to get the Black Friday deal you were looking for. I missed mine. It was a 50" 4K TV for $128. Once they sold out, the deal was gone. I've seen some other TV deals that are good, but I was only shopping for one at the right price. $128 was the right price. I'll have to keep getting by with 1080p for now.
I was, however, able to order a second Roku streaming stick. I got the first one on sale in October with the idea of putting it in the bedroom. I set it up and got it running in the living room and ended up never moving it. It became too convenient. Since I wasn't able to find the right TV deal, getting a second Roku device was cheaper than the wrong TV deal. Now that I have Roku, I've been watching TV more than I used to.
I don't watch a lot of movies because of the profanity and such. Traditionally, if I watched something, it was usually something I recorded on a channel that cuts out most of that. There's a service called Vidangel that filters profanity and nudity and whatever else people find objectionable. I haven't used it yet, but I've searched through what they filter. They don't filter every movie or show so it's limited in that respect, but it works with Amazon Prime. Amazon has some shows that look intriguing but are too dirty to watch. The first thing I plan to try is The Expanse. It's a space show with a detective angle. Another SF show I liked but had too much profanity to keep watching was Eureka. Vidangel covers that. Maybe I'll get to watch some of the movies and shows that I never did.
I'm on a 30-day free trial of Prime. That'll let me see how Vidangel works. Roku really works best with a streaming service. It has tons and tons of free stuff, but most of it seems to be uncensored, although I have not spent vast amounts of time looking through everything it offers. If Vidangel works like it's supposed to, I'll let you know more later.
Have a great weekend.
Here's a link to an interesting article on the fight against ageing. https://www.yahoo.com/news/human-ageing-process-biologically-reversed-153921785.html The process involves putting people in a hyperbaric chamber for 90 minutes a day for 5 days a week for 3 months. It could add perhaps 30% to someone's lifespan. The article has more details about the specific benefits.
I wonder if this treatment could be the next great investment opportunity. If it works the way it appears, treatment centers will be springing up everywhere.
The microwave went out. I need to go get a new one.
Have a great weekend.
I posted an article to Facebook about the most likely places to catch Covid-19. It appeared in my feed as everything I post does. I tried to post the article 'Hundreds of thousands of ballots are going to have to be discarded'. It was auto-censored. It never appeared. I kept an eye on it, thinking it might need to be curated. About ten minutes later, the post on Covid also vanished. I can see them on my personal wall, but they don't appear on Facebook.
The article 'Conservative answer' to Facebook launches sounds like something I need to read. mewe.com is another alternative to Facebook. I've had a mewe account for a while. Censorship makes me want to dump Facebook.
Election Stuff
Well, Trump is still fighting the fight against election fraud. There's always election fraud. The only question is how much. Unless he can find something spectacular, does he really have a case? The one thing that makes me think he might have a chance is how the Democrats keep belittling his legal efforts. They protest too much. If they had nothing to hide, why not let him go through the motions and waste as much Republican money as possible? The fact that they seem nervous makes me suspicious that they really are hiding something.
If you needed more proof that the mainstream, liberal media speaks with one voice, here it is.
Have a great weekend.
There was no blog last week due to the remnants of hurricane zeta. I lost power for over 62 hours. It was brutal and cold. My entire area was slammed. It's amazing how long an LED flashlight will last compared to the old incandescent ones.
The election results have not been finalized, but it looks like Biden is going to win with over 300 electoral votes. He had zero coattails. The Democrats lost seats in the house and currently have gained no seats in the senate. They're shellshocked and attacking each over the failure.
There was widespread poll fraud leading up to the election with leftists reporting false numbers in a variety of polls the same as happened in 2016. There also appears to be widespread voter fraud. A report that was never followed up stated that one county had more votes than registered voters. There have been other reports of ballot mishandling, etc.
The most serious threat to democracy is the secret counting of ballots. There are multiple instances of election observers being removed from their duty as described by law. Technically, all votes counted without observers could be thrown out. Removing observers is the definition of election fraud. That's behavior we normally only see from third-world dictators. Now it's in the U.S.
In all counties where observers were removed, democracy is no longer operating. Democracy has failed in those counties. Dictatorship has replaced the rule of law. Corrupt officials in those counties are now free to insert as many phony ballots as they need to win. If this is allowed to stand, democracy will no longer be operative in those counties all of which are Democrat. There will never be another fair election in those counties. If this is allowed to stand, this is how democracy dies in the U.S., one county at a time falling to corruption and fraud. It would be the end of democracy in the U.S.
On a different note, during the counting that's ongoing, I've been recommended some YouTube videos in which Christian "prophets" are predicting a Trump victory. Their names are Kevin Zadai, Tracy Cooke and Mario Murillo. I'm not familiar with any of them, although I did recognize the name of Mario Murillo. Perhaps, YouTube has recommended him before, and I ignored it. If Trump loses, as now seems inevitable, put these guys on the false prophet list. Although, to be fair, Trump could win and not become the next president due to election fraud.
Have a great weekend.
I have a poor cell phone signal indoors, depending on location. I ordered a signal booster from Amazon. The good news is that it works. The bad news is that it doesn't do what I was hoping it would. I can get three bars where before there was a dead spot. That's awesome. What's not awesome is that those three bars don't translate into Mbps. So, if the booster is in a spot that gets 1.5Mbps, despite the three bars the data rate is still 1.5Mbps. If it's in a spot with 5Mbps, I get four bars but still only 5Mbps. It's not really a booster. It's a range extender. That's saddening. Unless I can find the perfect signal spot outside, I may send it back. The perfect spot would be 4 bars with killer Mbps. I'll need to get up on the roof and see what happens but not today.
I got a Roku device on sale. It's pretty cool. I prop my cell phone in a window and turn on the Hotspot. It works great. It doesn't buffer or stutter. One drawback is that I can't get local channels through it because Verizon routes my phone through whatever city, usually LA or NY, making it look like I live there. Locast.org has free, streaming local channels for a variety of cities, but it forces a location check. Roku doesn't have a GPS locator. It defaults to my phone and fails. My local city is Atlanta. The only way I can get local channels is to use the Location feature on the phone. However, that only works for watching something on the phone, which is not my style unless I'm not home. It doesn't tell Locast that my Roku is in the Atlanta region.
Enter the Chromecast. According to tech support at Locast, I should be able to use a Chromecast device to mirror the phone screen on a television. For the price of a Chromecast, I'm supposed to be able to get free, streaming local channels. All of them. I ordered one. We'll see if it works. I wonder if I could send it back in the same box as the signal booster, if it didn't.
There's some great news on the cell phone front. Visible, my cell phone company, is getting 5G with speeds up to 200Mbps for no extra charge. There's no firm date, but it's supposed to be very soon. I ordered the signal booster right before finding that out. I may not need the booster at all, or it may not work with 5G. However, 5G is not available here yet, and I don't know when it will be. Plus, I don't have a 5G phone. With 5G I'd be able to convert my home network to that and have whole house internet without worrying about speed bottlenecks. Hypothetically, I could be on the computer and have both televisions streaming HD shows at the same time. I'll know more soon.
Have a great weekend.
There's no blog today. I need to go help someone. Speaking of help, cats are good helpers. While a dog's laying on the porch, a cat follows you everywhere wanting to know what you're doing. They'll help with anything as long there's a chance they can be with you.
Have a great weekend.
While I still have a grace period on my old email account with my old ISP, I've spent over ten hours this week switching my email logins from them to a new email address. It doesn't seem possible, but I've been putting at least two or three hours a night into it, not counting the core ones I already changed previously. I kept my passwords in a 5x8 notepad that was full. Part of them were in another notepad.
How does it take so long? Each page could have up to a dozen accounts on it. I didn't switch the ones I'm never going back to. Very few sites would let me automatically change my email address. Some of them I had to do a web search to find out how to change it. Apparently, you usually have to contact customer service for those. There were captchas. I had to click confirmation links in emails that could take minutes to arrive. Some of them never arrived, and I had to do them again. Even working on other logins while waiting for the mails only saved so much time. I had some passwords I could barely read or couldn't tell what a letter/number was. I had to try those multiple times. When you have a full notepad, spending from 1 to 3 minutes or more on a single login makes it take forever.
I learned a trick. If a web site says a password is invalid, even if the browser autofills it, that seems to mean they've deleted the account, though it's possible it's just deactivated. When I "restored" one of those passwords, I'd get a message thanking me for registering with the site. /facepalm It was a trick to get me to register. After seeing a few of those, I stopped doing that. If it's so old they can't remember me, I don't use them enough to make it worth the trouble of jumping through their hoops.
The worst offender was Google. I have an old YouTube channel from before Google bought YouTube that I wanted to delete. When I tried to log in, I was redirected to my "Google Account", which I had a separate login for with the same name. It wouldn't take my password. It turned out the YouTube password worked instead(Why?), but I had to jump through hoops because my device was unrecognized. LIE. The account was old enough that I couldn't pass the phone number challenge because I have a new number. As an alternative, I tried the Where do You Live challenge. I failed that, too. It turned out that, even though I was using my YouTube password instead of my Google Account password, they wanted they Where Do You Live answer from my Google account. Makes no sense. Once I figured that out, I couldn't tell if my where I live answer had a space in it or not. For security reasons, I didn't use my real city location. It didn't have a space. Finally, I had it all figured out! I started over. Again. They said I'd tried too many times, and wouldn't let me try again. I still haven't gotten it to work. I'm giving them 24 hours to reset it. It makes me want to cancel every Google account I have and use a different solution. I guess my migration away from them has begun. I already never log in to any site with my Google account. For security reasons, I have individual logins for everything. If you use Google to log into sites and you lose your phone, you're hosed.
As a side note on putting personal information in challenge questions, I never use real data. I don't tell them my first car or where I went to elementary school or any of that. Companies sell or share that information. I make up something unique that makes no sense. A few years back, Yahoo mail got hacked, and my challenge questions for multiple accounts were stolen along with the my passwords. Since I used fake information, the hackers couldn't use any of it to hack any of my other accounts, including my ISP account/mail account. It's an extra step, but it was a life saver when I needed it. None of the other companies I use that have been hacked has come back to haunt me either.
Have a great weekend.
Rosh Hashana is the highest Rapture watch festival, but Yom Kippur and Sukkot can't be ruled out. Rosh Hashana lines up very nicely since it's the trumpet feast and is the feast of which no man knew the day or hour in Biblical times. It has an additional small list of other alignments that I won't go into now. It came and went with no Rapture this year as did Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur and Sukkot don't line up as neatly, though each day has commonalities with the Rapture. I'll skip Yom Kippur since it's over.
Sukkot(or Succot) is called the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths in Christianity. In Judaism it's celebrated for seven days by living in a booth and has associated ritual observances. That doesn't seem very Rapturish, but one of the minor names for Sukkot is the Feast of Ingathering and was a time to celebrate the firstfruits of the wheat harvest and the ingathering of the harvest at the end of summer. The Rapture is the ingathering of the saints at the end of the church age. Since Sukkot lasts seven days, the Rapture could fall on any day, and no man would know the day or hour.
As noted in this blog, if Matthew 24:32-34 and Psalm 90:10 are consistent with each other and with other scriptures, the Tribulation will begin on or during the week of November 9, 2020. Having the Rapture this late would seem to be cutting it close, but there's still plenty of time left to get a covenant in place to confirm. Apparently, the Abraham Accords is that covenant, so maybe it's already in place and only needs to be signed by the many and then confirmed.
The Rapture doesn't have to fall on a feast day. It could be any time. However, the spring feasts are already fulfilled. The fall ones have yet to be fulfilled. If the Rapture falls on a fall feast, it would be a logical way of fulfilling one. If it's Sukkot, it would fulfill the ingathering part for sure, if not the whole feast.
So, what if the Tribulation doesn't begin this year? At the least it would mean the New Testament and the Old Testament are not consistent with each other and open the possibility of two messiahs, a suffering servant and a conquering king. It could also mean there's a translation error at play. It could also mean every gospel that mentions the prophecy of the fig tree is corrupted. I could also mean, gulp, that Christianity is false. Pagans would have a field day. The inconsistency in scripture would extend beyond the two passages mentioned above. It would go into the parables in the gospels, into the book of Revelation, etc. If the Tribulation doesn't begin this year, we would have a huge, theological mess on our hands. It's easier to believe that scripture is as consistent as it's always been and that the appearance of the Antichrist is very close at hand.
Have a great weekend.
I was able to buy a bottle of 91% rubbing alcohol. It hasn't been available since March. Other things are still unavailable. Someone I know was just this week able to buy a type of mixed beans that hasn't been on the shelf for months. There are all kinds of things still out of stock because of Covid-19 supply chain disruptions, but the media doesn't think it's newsworthy. Is it being censored in order to give the impression that things are normal, or is the media too caught up in ratings grabs on salacious nonsense?
The weird thing about the riots is that they're all based on lies. The things the people claim they're rioting over don't exist. They're part of a political narrative not reality. They're pure spin. The word spin began being used in the political sphere to replace the word propaganda. The riots are based on lies and propaganda. I find it amazing that so many people can't tell a lie from the truth. I know the education system is dumbed down, but is it really producing masses of "idiots" who can't tell the truth from a lie? Rioters are children throwing temper tantrums against things they don't like. What if people who don't like riots started attacking rioters to protest the destruction of riots?
What would you think about putting rioters in solitary confinement in a FEMA camp for 10 years with no access to liberal media sources? We could build a skyscraper in a desert with solitary confinement cells instead of normal cells. It's a thought experiment I've been conducting. It may seem harsh, but the rioters are trying to overthrow the government. The penalty for treason is death. Ten years in solitary is light in comparison to what they deserve.
It turns out that the man who died while under the knee of a police officer had a lethal dose of Fentanyl in his system, but the liberals censored the autopsy result of it. He was dying before the police ever got there. Seemingly, the knee had nothing to do with the death. The perpetrator was complaining about not being able to breathe while he was still upright and not under duress. Time for the riots to stop.
It's been a bit of a tiring week. There's no news on the book front.
Have a great weekend.
Blogger has instituted a new interface, and I don't like it. I may switch over to Wordpress.
I'm taking a break this week. Rosh Hashana is a candidate date for the Rapture of the church. We need it this year more than ever. If nothing happens, I'll see you next week. Even if this isn't the time, the peace process is going full blast. The time is soon. I saw an article with a list of five countries that are expected to make peace with Israel next. It's all falling into place.
Have a great weekend.
2020 is the stranger our mothers warned
us about. Let's take a side trail today into the world of Bible prophecy. These verses are from the KJV, but I'm updating most of the old English for readability. I'm using Matthew 24. Similar passages are in Mark 13 and Luke 21.
Matthew 24:6-8 6And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and diseases, and earthquakes, in diverse places. 8All these are the beginning of sorrows.
In verse 7 the word word rendered nation is the Greek word ethnos and could be translated race, but the meaning of it is culture group. Race against race. Culture against culture. We're seeing that in the U.S. right now, although I believe the riots are cultural and not racial. It's Marxism versus American democracy. Race is a cover. It's a kulturkampf.
Verses 9 through 31 go into detail about things that happen in the end times including the second coming. The following verses tell the timing of that.
Matthew 24:32-34 32Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When its branch is yet tender, and puts out leaves, you know that summer is near: 33So likewise you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34Truly I say to you, This generation shall not pass[away], till all these things be fulfilled.
From the Old Testament we know that the fig tree is Israel. Thus, when Israel is reborn as a nation, that generation will see the return of Jesus. The problem is that the Bible doesn't define how long a generation is, though there have been many theories. It's been a conundrum down through the ages However, around 2008 it occurred to me one that we don't necessarily have to know how long that is. Instead, we need to know how long a human lifespan is, and by definition a generation can't be longer than that. The Bible does defines the lifespan.
Psalm 90:10 The days of our years are seventy; and if by reason of strength they be eighty years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
The human lifespan is seventy or at most eighty years. It doesn't matter how long people live in the real world. The Bible uses its own definitions for certain terms. Israel was legally reborn at 12:01a.m. on May 15, 1948. In order to determine a limit on when the second coming can occur, we just add 70 or 80 to 1948, and voilà . The limit for seventy has already passed. The limit for 80 is some time in December of 2027. In order for the Bible to be consistent with itself, the second coming has to occur before that. Remember. It's not a date for the second coming. It's a limit on how late it can happen. It can occur any time before that but no later. This calculation uses the 360-day prophetic year, not the Gregorian calendar year. Using the modern calendar would only push it back 10 months, however.
But this post is not interested in that. We're interested in the beginning of the Tribulation, which starts seven years before the second coming. Subtracting 7 from 2027 puts us in 2020. The Tribulation should begin late this year. Based on research I haven't published, a more specific date for the beginning of the Tribulation is the week of November 9th. If you believe in the Rapture, then that would have to occur before November, even as soon as Rosh Hashana in September, but I don't believe sooner.
If all this is correct and the Tribulation begins this year, what can we expect until then? From above: "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and diseases, and earthquakes, in diverse places. 8All these are the beginning of sorrows." The word translated sorrows is actually pangs as in birth pangs. We would call them contractions. We're looking at more ethnic/cultural strife and diseases and famines and earthquakes. Think of the contraction metaphor. If the second coming is in 2027, that makes SARS-CoV-2 a contraction. Very few people are affected, but the whole world has tensed up. It's the same for the rioting we're seeing.
If famines and earthquakes are going to be contractions, they could only affect a few people while shaking the entire world the way the virus has. Will we see another contraction before November? There's no guarantee, but if we do, I'd expect it to be famine or earthquake. Famine is obvious, although what famine shakes the whole world? It would have to be something different than we're used to seeing. The same with an earthquake. Perhaps a volcano like Krakatoa. Krakatoa is in Indonesia. When it exploded in 1883, the sound was heard in London, England. If something like that happened today, very few people would be affected, but it would shake the world. A contraction could be nation against nation, war. More on that below. Regardless of what the contraction is, it would have to be world-shaking for it to count.
As we draw closer to September, I've been thinking about this more. It's been a long wait since 2008 to see if all this actually happens according to this timeline. If the anti-Christ confirms the covenant in November, it means he would have to be on the world stage performing miracles shortly prior to that in order to rally the world to the new age of peace. Interestingly, Israel may unilaterally implement the Trump peace plan before the middle of September. That's when the U.N. General Assembly comes back in session from their vacation. No, Trump is not the anti-Christ. If Israel does, it might trigger the War of Gog and Magog, a contraction. There have been a lot of bombings in Iran that "experts" think are Israel's way of triggering a war before the U.S. election in November, just in case Trump loses. This summer could get very interesting very quickly.
But what if nothing happens? Then it would look like one of Jesus's prophecies failed. I've already seen a translation that changes "This generation shall not pass" to "this people" will not pass. I assume the translator expected that prophecy to be a problem for the religion and took steps to avoid that. I expect the various translations would change the verse, and the religion would go on. However, I'm trying to be more positive. This year is very strange. I'm anticipating more. We may have seen nothing yet.
Have a great weekend.
