"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars" (Lk 21:25).

Are the heavens beginning to blaze forth the return of our Savior, Jesus Christ?

The following is from "The Charlotte Observer" March '99.

WASHINGTON - On Tuesday, March 2, a dangerous asteroid whizzed by Earth in a cosmic close call. Similar near misses are expected on March 18, March 26 and April 1.

Astronomers are discovering potential killer asteroids at a record pace.

The public's flirtation last year with fear of menacing space rocks - fueled by two fictionalized movies and one widely reported threat - has faded. But astronomers scanning the sky with new technology are finding substantial fresh evidence of real danger.

There are almost weekly additions to science's official list of "potentially hazardous asteroids." In 1998, scientists found 55 of the would-be-killers - more than in the previous six years combined. Now, the list is at 163 and growing.

None of these rocks is expected to hit Earth directly. But they are too close for comfort in a big universe where a couple of million miles is a tight squeeze. The rocks have always been out there, but scientists are now finding them so fast that they worry they can't keep up with potential threats.

On February 4, a 30-foot-wide rock - too small to do major damage - came incredibly close to Earth. It was only 632,000 miles away (a little more than twice the distance from here to the moon), and scientists didn't notice it until it had already passed and was moving away.

For a few brief hours on February 16, it looked as if a two-thirds-of-a-mile-long asteroid discovered in January could come even closer than that - maybe even hit us - in 2066 or 2073. But new photographs showed that the rock with an unusual orbit would be close, but not that close.

The biggest reason astronomers are finding more of these near miss asteroids are the redirection of Air Force technology from tracking killer satellites to spotting killer rocks.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory, a federally funded national security research center outside Boston, changed the asteroid tracking world last March when it began using Air Force technology to scan the sky with a telescope based in New Mexico. The lab's program, called LINEAR, has found 38 of the last 59 dangerous asteroids.

Astronomer's guess there are 2,000 such asteroids out there and so far they have found about 8 percent of them. So even though the number of asteroids being found is soaring, it's not growing fast enough, experts said.

At this rate, astronomers will not reach their 90 percent goal until January 2030, calculated Minor Planet Center Director Brian Marshden.

So NASA, which spends $3.5 million a year on asteroid tracking, is speeding up the process. A second LINEAR program goes on line this spring. With a second LINEAR, astronomers should find 90 percent of those killer rocks in about 16 or 17 years, Marsden said.

As it is now, just a fraction of the potentially dangerous space rocks are being cataloged - only the big ones likely to end life as we know it if they collide with Earth.

There are millions of others that could cause major disasters, like a 150-foot-wide one that exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908 and leveled thousands of square miles of forests. (End quote)

On February 17, 1996, NASA launched a space mission called NEAR that is to rendezvous with asteroid 433 Eros in the near future. It will take a much closer look at an actual asteroid than man has previously seen.

The name of the mission NEAR could possibly have prophetic implications. Jesus spoke these words to His followers concerning the end of the age.

"So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors" (Matt. 24:33).

Why all of the sudden fuss over asteroids? Jesus warned us to expect signs in the sun, moon, and stars (Lk 21:25) near the end of this present age.

It should be noted that the Greek word often used in the Bible manuscripts for star is aster. It is the root word for our English words asteroid and disaster (Webster's Dictionary of Word Origins).

Did Jesus predict that asteroids would wreak disaster upon Earth in the last days? Certainly NASA is focusing for a closer look and has even launched a space mission to rendezvous with an asteroid in the near future.

Is it possible that John the Revelator predicted such a harbinger for the last days?

"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star (Gr. aster) from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters" (Rev. 8:10).

It is true that the book of Revelation has an abundance of symbolic language but one shouldn't overlook the fact that prophecy can bear both a symbolic and a literal fulfillment.

Suppose that someday NASA does spot an asteroid aimed directly towards earth and sounds the warning. What would be man's response? Jesus discussed that also in the verse following a prediction of erratic star behavior.

"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" (Lk 21:26).

Will heart attacks actually increase because of what men see coming upon this Earth?

Gratefully the next verse is of much greater comfort.

"And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory".

THE JERUSALEM FACTOR

Will Yasser Arafat declare a State of Palestine on May 4, '99?

The House passed 380-24 a non-binding resolution urging President Clinton to withhold U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state unless it results from negotiations with Israel. The Senate passed a similar resolution 98-1 last week. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has suggested he would proclaim Palestine a state on May 4.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in consultation with Defense Minister Moshe Arens and Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon in late March decided to revoke the travel documents of three Palestinian Authority officials: Ziad Abu Ziyad's VIP card, and Hanan Ashwrawi's and Faisal Husseini's special travel privileges.

Husseini told reporters that "there will be two capitals in Jerusalem, one in east Jerusalem that will be the capital of Palestine and another in west Jerusalem that will be the capital of Israel."

Husseini also warned that the peace process would be jeopardized by a US move to transfer its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. "If the US is interested in the progress of the peace process, it must refrain from doing this," he said.

A law passed by Congress in October 1995 gave the US administration until this May to move the embassy. But President Bill Clinton is likely to exercise a waiver by which he can postpone the move in the interests of national security.

In a meeting with EU special Mideast envoy Miguel Moratinos 3/18/99, Netanyahu said he reiterated his stand that "we are not willing to accept any compromise or any division in Jerusalem or any internationalization of Jerusalem...when the final-status talks reach the point of discussing Jerusalem, I will open and close the meeting with one sentence: Jerusalem is not up for any negotiating."

It seems that May of this year may prove quite interesting. Will Arafat declare a State of Palestine? Since Arafat is scheduled to meet with the President in late March the decision may be announced by the time you read this newsletter. Will President Clinton move the US embassy to Jerusalem? One or neither of these may occur this year or both could be postponed for a short time. But, the threats of such action are certainly moving the world towards the setting of the end-time stage as predicted by Zechariah. He prophesied over two-millennia ago that Jerusalem would become the focal point of the world's politics just prior to the coming of the Messiah to the Mount of Olives.

"Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people" (Zech. 12:2-3).

Couple this with the fact that Philistia is prophesied to become one of the ten kingdoms that conspire against Israel at the end of the age (Psalm 83:1-8) and we can see the importance of Palestine struggling hard to gain independence.

Unless renewed or extended, the Oslo Peace Treaty dies on May 4, '99.

I wrote in my book titled "The Beast and the Arabs" that Egypt will betray Israel's trust near the end of the age and will actually march troops into the region. Of course, Egypt has sat quietly since the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords in 1979.

God warned Judah against relying on Egypt several millennia ago when Assyria was breathing down both Israel's and Egypt's backs.

"Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it..." (II Kings 18:21).

It seems that the stage is now being set for the fulfillment of Daniel 11:40-45 and that Egypt is now beginning to show her true colors?

The following is from World Tribune Middle East Newsline, 3/12/99.

GAZA - The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan will meet with Palestinian Authority representatives over the next few days to draft a joint position of Palestinian statehood.

PA officials said the agreement came during PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's meeting with Abdullah on Wednesday in Amman. They said Jordanian and PA representatives would discuss the details over the next few days. An Egyptian official would also participate in the talks.

The Palestinian aim is to obtain an agreement between Jordan, Egypt and the PA before Arafat meets U.S. President Bill Clinton on March 23 in the White House.

"The Palestinian State will be declared at the end of the interim self-rule," PA Cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdul Rahman said on Thursday." There will be pressure but at this point there is no announcement to delay statehood in May. There is no alternative."

On Monday, March 15, Egypt said it would support PA efforts to declare a state on May 4, the expiration of interim self-rule according to the Israeli-Palestinian accords signed in 1993. Arafat said the Palestinian leadership has not decided whether to issue a declaration of statehood on May 4 or to succumb to appeals from Western nations that such a decision be delayed for another year.

To add to the mixture, the U.S. announced in early March '99 that it would be selling Egypt $3.2 billion worth of advanced jets, tanks, and rockets.

Shortly before arriving, Cohen said the Pentagon was ready to sell Cairo 24 F-16 fighter jets, 200 M-1A1 tanks, and 32 advanced Pac-3 Patriot missiles worth a total of $3.2 billion. Cohen said this deal would be funded from the $1.2 billion annual military aid the US grants Egypt.

Speaking after a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart, Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, Cohen said Egypt would feel insulted in the US rejected its requests for advanced military equipment.

The arms sale offer was the latest of several by Cohen to Arab allied of the US during his nine-nation trip to the Middle East.

The prophet Joel predicted that the nations would arm for war just prior to the return of Messiah (Joel 3:9-10). The ironic factor is that the US is helping to arm them and this in the name of peace. Defense officials noted that, while it appeared that Cohen was handing out offers of weapons and funding to each nation on his Middle East tour, most of the deals had already been announced.

Y2K

So much has been written about the "Y2K" dilemma that there isn't much useful information that I could add. Thus I will concentrate this brief article upon the fix for the problem. The following is from the Charlotte Observer, March 16, 1999.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The most common technique used to fix computers vulnerable to Year 2000 failures is only a short-term remedy, and even advocates of the method acknowledge it will require other expensive repairs or replacements within a generation.

The temporary fix, using a sophisticated twist of logic to fool computers, is highly controversial among insiders because it's intended to work for only a few decades - typically 30 years. One expert describes computers already fixed with the technique as "little ticking time bombs waiting to go off."

The Clinton administration and industry analysts estimate the method is being used to patch 80 percent of computers in the worldwide repair effort expected to cost $300 billion.

So why is the technique, called "windowing," used?

Simple: It saves money because it's quicker and easier, even if it only works for a specific window of time. The permanent fix, called "expansion," requires a tedious line-by-line repair of all the dates expressed in two-digit years rather than four digits.

Experts hope "windowing" will prove adequate until these computers are replaced - or until programmers can devote enough time and money to make permanent repairs.

"It's a Band-Aid, the way building a house out of wood and fiberboard is," said Jim Duggan, a researcher with the Gartner Group consulting company of Stamford, Conn. "You hope you'll be somewhere else before it falls down."

"It's like the Fram oil filter guy: You can pay me now or you can pay me later," said Keith Rhodes, a technical director at the General Accounting Office, which monitors repair efforts at federal agencies. "It's not solving your problem. It's delaying the inevitable."

Using windowing, programmers instruct software to guess the century for dates that fall within a specific "window" of time, such as the next three decades. The computer interprets the year based on a future so-called hinge date, or pivot, that programmers choose arbitrarily.

For example, a software program with a pivot of "30" will interpret years "00" through "29" as 21st century dates, but will assume years "30" through "99" are during the 1900s. Some programmers use pivots of "50" or "70," to buy even more time, but their choices are limited by a variety of technical factors. A pivot of "70," for example, might cause problems for computers trying to process birth dates earlier than 1969.

Windowing is fraught with other risks, too. Different programs assigned different pivots can cause havoc when companies or governments try to share information, unless they take complex precautions.

Testing typically takes longer, too. Windowing problems might not appear until January, when computers start guessing which century to use, said Noah Ross, a consultant and vice president for Cap Gemini Group. (End quote).

It appears that Americans and the world may experience power, gas pump, water, banks, airline, etc., failures in the near future. How bad this will be and how much havoc it will wreak upon mankind is unknown except by God. Whether terrorist regimes will try to use the situation to their advantage as a result of other nation's military capabilities possibly being hampered is uncertain.

Some speculate that martial law may be enforced if things do get shaky.

Martial law is law administered by domestic military forces when war or serious internal dissension prevents civil authorities from governing. The army may take over administrative and judicial function's, and civil safeguards (e.g., freedom of speech and habeas corpus can be suspended). The latter is a writ issued by a court commanding that a person held in custody shall be brought before a court so that it may determine whether the detention is lawful. Meant to ensure that a prisoner is accorded due process of law, it does not determine guilt or innocence. It originated in England and was highly regarded by the British colonists in America as a safeguard against illegal imprisonment. It is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. However, if martial law was declared and habeas corpus suspended, there is no legal right to a fair trial.

In the 1980's, Congress amended the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 - which restricts the use of troops to enforce civilian laws - to let the president enlist the military in the War on Drugs. President Reagan in 1986 signed a national security decision-directive declaring drug trafficking a threat to the security of the United States.

In a worst-case scenario of looting and civil unrest, the involvement of the military in some urban areas could extend to martial law, military law, military courts, the suspension of rights of due process and habeas corpus, and seizures of industrial or personal property. The National Guard is now being trained for such an emergency if it is needed.

Officials may respond to pressure either because they believe the crisis is genuine - or because they think the appearance of activity on their part is necessary to head off panic. Much will depend on the perception of the probability of power outages and infrastructure failures.

Whether martial law will play a role in American domestic affairs is uncertain. However, other countries are certainly toying with the idea.

The United Kingdom Home Secretary Straw is in charge of organizing his government's response to Y2K. His plan: To call out troops to quell disturbances that could be caused by disruptions in electrical power generation and government services.

And he can't leave town. "Jack Straw has been told that, as Home Secretary, he must stay in London during next year's millennium celebrations in case of a serious breakdown in public order or a national emergency," the London Sunday Times reported on December 28.

The Ottawa Citizen in December disclosed that the Canadian government is considering martial law: "Among the activities that must be done to meet the problems resulting from Y2000 failures is development of relevant emergency orders and regulations required for the invocation of emergency provisions under the Emergencies Act."

In the U.S., Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah), who heads the Senate's Year 2000 committee, has asked the Pentagon about its plans "in the event of a Y2K-induced breakdown of community services that might call for martial law." And a House subcommittee has recommended that President Clinton consider declaring a Y2K "national emergency."

PREPARATION - YES OR NO?

What will actually occur with Y2K in the days ahead? I personally have no earthly idea! I have read a lot of hype about it including some who claim that we are underestimating the problem and others who say that it is being blown out of proportion. The latter contends that it is pouring billions of dollars into the pockets of those sharks that are playing upon the people's fears.

How should you respond? Since I am not aware of a scripture that deals directly with Y2K, I have basically kept my mouth shut so as not to remove all doubt, concerning your personal preparation. I am leaving it up to you individually to prayerfully discern the leading of the Holy Spirit and to decide what steps you should take now and in the immediate future. I could furnish Bible examples of people preparing for, and of miraculous protection from, disaster. For instance: Noah built a boat in order to survive the flood. Of course Noah could have told God: "You can speak the word and all the wicked will die instantly and the righteous will be spared so I don't need to build a boat." Yet, had Noah done so he may have quickly learned just how long one can tread water. Joseph was warned of seven years of famine and prepared the nation of Egypt for it. Joseph could have told God: "You will protect me so there is no need to build large granaries". Yet, had he done so, Joseph may have harshly learned just how long one can fast and still draw a breath.

On the brighter side, Elijah was fed by the ravens and then, at the command of God, went to the widow's house where God miraculously multiplied the widow's barrel of meal and the cruse of oil (I Kings 17). So, here are examples of supernatural protection. Even so, the prophet obeyed the words of God by going to the brook and later to the widow's home. Let's make sure we have obeyed the leading of the Holy Spirit before we expect God to do all the work. After obeying God's commands the need was miraculously supplied (I Kings 17).

I could refer you to the "faith chapter" of Hebrews 11 and to those divine interventions that spared and exalted Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, etc. in times of need. They, through faith, "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to fight the armies of the aliens, women received their dead raised to life again" (Heb. 11:33-35). Such heart-warming accounts will just about have you walking on water.

Yet, I could continue the context which adds: "And others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented." When this scripture is considered the bounce in your feet and the shout in our voices might turn to a slow crawl or to a tearful-mourning and begging God for the perseverance to stand.

God's word is true and He is faithful. Yet, the same gospel that promised that "whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do" (John 14:13) also adds "in the world ye shall have tribulation (John 16:33)." Saints, trouble is surely on the way, not necessarily because of Y2K which may or may not play a role, but because God's word predicts it.

Whether the Y2K problem wreaks havoc upon civilization or whether it proves to be just a bump in the road, God's word is on schedule.

God's promises and prophecies will not fail! "Keep looking up for our redemption is drawing nigh."