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For our perusal:

BOOK BY 'HARBINGER' AUTHOR NOW POSITS NEW PROPHECY OF TRANSFORMATION, FINANCIAL COLLAPSE

A notion in Catholic Marian and charismatic circles that great turmoil looms is a notion shared by many evangelicals and other non-Catholic Christians, who focus their attention on Israel and biblical theories linking future events with things like "blood moons" (one of which occurs tonight, 10/7/14).

They believe an unusual sequence this year and next of lunar displays (the way light reflects off the moon during an eclipse) serves as a harbinger for the start of events we too feel are someday in the future, though we anticipate it differently (mainly, through the Virgin Mary).

When four blood moons occur in a set period of time, it's technically known as a "Tetrad," and the Tetrad now in progress will coincide with four Jewish feast days, indicating to certain evangelicals a special time is at hand: that as one preacher claims, "something is about to change."

"Four 'blood-red' total lunar eclipses will fall on Passover and Sukkot in 2014 and 2015, the same back-to-back occurrences at the time of [tetrads in] 1492, 1949, and 1967," he argues. "Those three dates were the most important in all of Israel's history!" It is not lost on us that a blood moon rises as does a disease so closely associated (Ebola) with blood.

There is also the idea of "shemitah."

That's a Hebrew word that means remission, and what it comes down to, supposedly, is this: the Sabbath is not only a day but a year. Just as there are six days of work in a week and rest on the seventh -- the Sabbath -- so also is their a mirroring of this but on the scale of years: six years of regularity and the seventh year a time when matters are disrupted or suspended: in some cases traumatically so (at least for bankers).

Money is wiped out. Ledgers are erased. Debts are "forgiven." Fields lie fallow. There is no more ownership of land. Sweeping transformation?

It's a thesis gaining special currency with the release of a new book, The Mystery of the Shemitah, by the brilliant Jonathan Cahn, who wrote the huge, bestselling book, The Harbinger (detailing incredible coincidences tied to biblical mysticism and September 11).

The last shemitah: 2008, when the bottom fell out at Bear, Stearns, then Lehmann Brothers, then the rest of the country.

Seven years from 2008 brings us to 2015, or thereabouts.

How much credence to put into such abstruse calculus?

We are open to considering many things in a time when many things are mysterious. A "3,000-year-old mystery," as the publisher hypes it?

Interesting stuff.

And we will say this: Cahn's dissection of the hidden symbols behind 9/11 was extraordinary -- inspired. Now, this idea of shemitah. "Over half of the greatest point crashes in Wall Street history are joined to the biblical Year of Remission," asserts the author. "An incredible sixty percent of the ten greatest crashes take place either with the Shemitah or in its wake."

Well, okay; point crashes. But, one may argue, points aren't what they used to be; the stock market is vastly higher than before; what about percentage crashes? In some cases, they also hold up.

Anyway, Cahn, a Hebrew Christian rabbi, argues that the original Hebrew commands every creditor to make a shemitah in places such as Deuteronomy 15. The term shemitah is often translated, he tells us, as "the release" or as we said a remission. The English word "remission" is defined as "the cancellation or reduction of a debt or penalty."

We're not quite sure whether the crash of 2008 wiped out debt -- or, rather, wiped out folks because of their debt. But it did level the financial playing field (until the government propped up the economy artificially). The fields were fallow.

That prop is indeed going to give way some day -- and perhaps sooner rather than later.

One shemitah started in the year 2000, says Cahn, and reached its climax in September of 2001. The next one was seven years later. This is a great read, for those interested in biblical prophecy or finances.

We found of most interest the intriguing discussion of "towers" and the spiritual implications of them in the Old Testament.

"What are the signs of a nation in danger of judgment?" asks Cahn. "One of the classic biblical signs of national judgment is this: Years before the destruction falls, a warning is given. The nation's hedge of protection is removed. Its borders and national security are breached. An enemy is allowed to strike into the land. The strike is contained, limited in time and scope. It is a shaking, a wake-up call, an alarm -- the first massive warning of judgment. The nation is then given a grace period to either turn back to God or to continue on its course and head to destruction -- the first harbinger."

That harbinger, posits Cahn, was 9/11. It was followed by a collapse on Wall Street on September 17, 2001 (when the market plunged 684 points). Did we turn back to God? Seven years later came another plunge and the Great Recession.

Did we turn back to God? Or simply defy our "enemies"?

"When one takes in the magnitude of the phenomenon, it becomes beyond stunning," says Cahn. "It is an ancient mystery that had to have determined not only the exact timing of the two greatest stock market crashes in world history but also the timing of 9/11 itself, to name just one of the events necessary to the manifestation. All these events have impacted and altered the course of America and world history. And yet behind them lies a mystery ordained from ancient times."

For your contemplation.

"You may be interested in the Catholic connection to Jonathan Cahn's book," wrote a viewer named Jeannie. "Mid-shemitah year on March 18 is the feast of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem. Note: the blood moon, solar eclipse, and so forth at this time. St. Cyril saw (as did all of Jerusalem) a Cross in the sky. Also the shemitah ends on September 13, the day before the Exaltation of the Cross. As you know, Mary has messages many times about this sign to be seen by everyone. Mary also said when 'things' happen we will know why she chose the thirteenth to appear. Food for thought and prayer."

We are starting "Special Reports" at this website to add to our regular features on such matters.

Back to Cahn: Only two stock market collapses in this millennia, he points out, have borne the title of "the greatest stock market point crash in history," and both occurred on the culminating day of the shemitah (on the biblical calendar).

Whew! A cycle of 2,569 days? Not sure God plays the numbers. Not sure He does not. There is a book of Numbers. But that's another issue.

Seven. Something about that number.

Also: something about the name of that place, right there at Wall Street, near Federal Hall, which figured into 9/11: The World Trade Center.

"In the fall of ancient Israel the nation decided it could rewrite morality and change what was good and evil, sin and righteousness -- so too America," writes Cahn. "What had once been recognized as right was now attacked as evil, and what had once been recognized as sin was now celebrated as a virtue. Morals, standards, and values that had undergirded not only the nation's foundation, but also the foundation of Western civilization and civilization itself, were increasingly overturned, overruled, and discarded. And those who would not go along with the change -- who merely continued to uphold that which had once been universally upheld -- were now increasingly marginalized, vilified, condemned by the culture and state, and persecuted. The nation's moral descent had now reached the point where the government was seeking to force those who held to God's Word to go against the Word, punishing with fines, damages, and condemnation."

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