The September 23^rd deception, like those of date-setters past, will soon be debunked by the calendar itself. On September 24^th, the world will not have come to an end. PlanetX will not have crashed into Planet Earth. The Millennial reign will not have begun. The earth will not have split in two. The star of Bethlehem will not have returned.

Will there will be any apologies from the people who perpetrated these hoaxes? If history is a guide, probably not. They will have had so much fun stirring up attention for themselves, they’ll just decide to do it again next year, or maybe even later this year.

Robyn Flynn is a Montreal radio producer. On September 19^th, she tweeted, “Just tried to book an interview w/ a researcher who says the world ends Saturday. Told me he’s not available for interviews until next week.”

She was talking about the so-called “Christian numerologist,” David Meade. And their discussion neatly sums up the problem.

In a video with 9 million YouTube views, another speaker excitedly tells us about the possibilities of September 23, 2017. But he admits that he made a similar video in another year. “I made that video about September 23, 2015,” he said. “And quite a few people watched that video. Now, some people said, ‘Well, nothing happened.’ Well, some of the things I mentioned, if not all of them in that video, did happen. The pope came to America — something that the world had never seen before.”

The Pope did visit the United States in September 2015. But it wasn’t the first time the world had ever seen a Pope come to America. It happened in 1965, 1979, 1984, 1987, 1993, 1995, 1999, and 2008 — not to mention a couple of layovers in Alaska.

And it was hardly a prophetic prediction. He made the video in August, and the Pope visited the U.S. in September. The visit had been on the world calendar for months. If that’s supposed to give his new video credibility, it sadly fails.

Now this particular teacher is careful to say that the things he’s talking about may come true, or may not. He’s not dogmatic, and rarely makes straight forward statements. He says he will leave it to his viewers to reach their own conclusions — something viewers tend to do whether you want them to or not. But when a teacher tells the viewer to decide for himself based on the facts, the teacher needs to be especially careful to give accurate facts.

He said, “In September 23^rd of 2015, many astronomers, many scientists were saying that there is some weird, weird thing going on in the fact that there is this star that showed up… and they called it the ‘Bethlehem Star,’ the star that appeared during the time when Jesus was born — that same star.”

I believe he was referring, not to a star, but to a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in the skies as viewed from our angle on earth. They appeared in close proximity in July and August of 2015. Then, in October, Jupiter and Venus again appeared close in the sky, this time also near Mars. A few astronomers think that one of these conjunctions of planets may account for the star seen by the wise men long ago. This is not unusual. Unbelievers often try to come up with explanations for what they consider “myths.”

The YouTube teacher goes on to say, “So, almost 2000 years later, we have a star appearing that was the same star that appeared according to astronomers. You can look this all up on YouTube. Look at video.”

YouTube is a wonderful tool, but just because someone posted something there does not give instant credibility to their opinions. In fact, from earth, we see a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus fairly often — not every 2000 years as claimed in the video. If he’s referring to the three planets together, that didn’t happen in September of 2015, but in October. And it lasted only days — not the two years he implies.

I realize I haven’t gotten into the astrology lesson that these people give when they speak about Revelation 12. Suffice it to say, they don’t understand Revelation 12. I won’t bother to prove the fallacy of their opinions because, as I said at the beginning, the calendar will debunk them.

I have several concerns, though. First, the Bible’s credibility is harmed by these kinds of teachings. When the predicted event doesn’t happen, people are left to think that the Bible said something inaccurate. Nothing could be further from the truth. This stuff is about pseudo-science, and the religion of astrology. It’s not about the Bible. But when preachers such as this man say it, people assume such preachers speak for God.

My second concern is that so many people have chosen to take these things seriously. Nine million people viewed the video I just referenced. That means people are passing it on to one another using email and social media. Why pass on such obvious fallacies? Where is Christian discernment?

Finally, I’m concerned that Christians are so quick to accept something that God condemns — the false religion of astrology. Isaiah 47:13-14 says, “Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame.” (NIV)

Christians follow the great God of the universe. He has spoken to us. He has given us the precious gift of His word. Yet, some of us are willing to turn to astrology as the answer to the puzzles of the universe.

Brothers and sisters, stick to the Bible.

Copyright 2017, Hal Lindsey.com-All rights reserved

This week Congress has the opportunity in the Graham-Cassidy Health Care Bill to end the Federal funding of Planned Parenthood. We pray they act before it is too late. It is undeniable that God’s judgment hangs over our land for the atrocious sin of abortion. Many Americans were not aware that God spared us a devastating judgment just 10 years and 8 months after Roe v. Wade.

Video of the sermon
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMY6-eHt9fU?rel=0]

A crisis reveals the character that a man has built over the course of his lifetime. Each little step builds upon the previous step, his thought life, his decisions, and his affections all form his character. When the moment of crisis arrives, it is too late to build those things into his life – the crisis will reveal what he has made of his soul.

Such a crisis took place 34 years ago last Tuesday. On the night of September 26, 1983, the military officer on duty at the Soviet Union’s early warning center received repeated urgent messages that indicated a nuclear war had begun. His “computers warned that the United States had fired five nuclear missiles at his country.

‘The machine indicated the information was of the highest certainty,’ he later recalled. ‘On the wall big red letters burnt the word: START. That meant the missile had definitely been fired.’ And the clock was ticking before they came to their designated targets obliterating millions upon millions of people.

The Soviet government’s policy in the event of a US nuclear attack was to launch an immediate and all-out retaliatory strike in accordance with the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction.” One phone call and that would have happened.

The officer had just minutes to decide whether to assess the attack as genuine and inform the Kremlin that the United States was starting World War III – or tell his commanders that the Soviet Union’s early warning system was faulty.

Imagine the pressure he was under. His career would certainly be effected – what would come of telling his superiors that the system they built and trusted was at fault, telling them to trust his instincts rather than the super computers. They had no reason not to trust their computers, and why should they trust him?

Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces in that crisis made the right decision. “Guessing that a genuine American attack would have involved hundreds of missiles, he put the alarm down to a computer malfunction.

Lt Col Petrov was vindicated when an internal investigation following the incident concluded that Soviet satellites had mistaken sunlight reflected on clouds for rocket engines.

Although Petrov was feted by his colleagues and initially praised by superiors for his actions, he was not rewarded.

He later complained that he was scolded by superiors for failing to complete a routine paperwork during the incident and had been scapegoated by generals embarrassed by the failure of their early warning system.  

He took early retirement from the armed forces the following year.”

It is interesting that no one outside the USSR knew about this incident until the Iron Curtain came down.

“The incident was only made public in 1998 with the publication of the memoirs of General Yury Vontintsev, Mr Petrov’s superior at the time.

In the 2014 documentary The Man Who Saved the World, Mr Petrov said: ‘All that happened didn’t matter to me — it was my job. I was simply doing my job, and I was the right person at the right time, that’s all.’” Indeed he was. The man whose, “decision to ignore warnings is credited with averting nuclear armageddon” died this past May 19 at age 77. We only learned of his death this past week because, “Karl Schumacher, a German film maker who first publicized the story in the West, …tried to get in touch to wish him happy birthday” this September 7th. Petrov’s son, Dmitry, informed him of his father’s death.

Stanislav Petrov, the ‘man who saved the world’ made the right decision when the crisis came. Note that he was not rewarded for doing so; indeed he paid a price for doing the right thing, but he never regretted that decision. And God spared our land a judgment which in 10 years and 8 months of abortion it had earned. We are now at 44 years and 8 months and we should remember that God’s judgment has not altered, indeed His cup of wrath is much fuller than it was in 1983. It is high time to repent of our sins.

Copyright 2017, Rev David Whitney, News With Views. All rights reserved.