Revelation 13:18 (critical mass)
"Wisdom is needed to understand this. Let the one who has understanding solve the number of the beast, for it is the number of humanity*. His number is 666." (Rev 13:18)
The world is gradually coming to an end. Much of what Jesus Christ prophesied is happening. let's take the number 666 literarily for a minute - the verse says it is the "number of humanity". How many people do the sociologists say are in the world today? 6 Billion plus. Could the number 666 be the final census that will be taken by the Great One Himself?
Look at it this way, despite all the catastrophes that have befallen man; the bubonic plague of the "Dark Ages" (1300s) killed an estimated 25million people in Europe alone , and "took" about 35million Asians. The Spanish Flu that broke out in 1918 killed an estimated 40 million people, the 1st and 2nd world wars killed another 70million between them. Despite all the bombings, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, chemical disasters, man is inexorably attaining the critical mass that will signal the end of the world - 6 Billion, 6 Hundred and 60 million people.
This is why we could never actually know or be able to know when the end of the world will be. It is impossible for all the organisations and governments of the world, assuming they even agree to work together and not lie to give the exact figure for the world's population, Only one person can do that - the maker of all the earth and the universe, "... the Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come" (Rev 4:8). He knows what happens to every bird. He says even our hair is numbered. Take the plant and animal kingdoms for example; as man done as much damage to them as he has done to himself ?(bible verse - man dominates man to his own injury) yet a lot of plants and animals have become extinct. And despite everything man has experienced from the forces of nature and various disasters of his own making, we still continue to increase in number nonetheless (bible verse on increase and populate the world) - that shows there is a higher purpose which we will ultimately fu!
lfill - that of God's.
I do not pretend to know the mind of God - I can't even tell for certain what the next person is thinking about. But God in his infinite wisdom has given us clues - probably more than enough to see us through. We must use those clues or else go down at the final count. The Bible says "...He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches..." (Rev 2:7) And where or what is the church? The church is you and I. Jesus said the kingdom of God is in you (and I). We are not to search for it in the North or South. We are to look inwards where the spirit dwells...
The bible says when the word has been preached to all nations, when everyone has been given a fighting chance; a chance to exercise his/her will in the choice between good and evil, then the end will come. Is it so difficult to see the trend in how the Gospel is spreading (like wildfire) throughout the world? We must note also, that the great pretender (to the throne) is doing his best (that's a subscript "h" in "his" to show how low he has fallen) to create parallel imitations to confuse the situation and give "alternatives" for people to believe in. Like a pastor I know says, man is a spirit being and so whether he likes it or not, he will believe in something - whether it is God or multiple gods or even if he "believes" on the absence of a higher order, he still believes in something. The danger here is that a man may be able to fool himself enough to believe that he believes in nothing. But vacuum is against the law of the Universe - even space is filled with planetary b!
odies and debris. History is replete with people who "saw" the light (or at least discovered too late that it existed) on their deathbeds. Charles Darwin whose wife was a firm believer had one major concern on his deathbed, that his unbelief would separate him and his wife forever, and that it would leave his ever-loving wife alone in heaven while he spent eternity in some other place. Some people will say that Charles Darwin probably sent (and is still sending people in droves to hell by his book, "The Origin of Species", but the same way no one can make you feel inferior without your consent, is the same way no one can damn you to hell without your consent - not even the devil. in the final analysis everyone is responsible for his actions. That is all due to free will.
It is said that there is enough Nuclear arsenal stockpiled to destroy the world 6 times over. Do you think that left to the devil he wouldn't have arranged for some scenario where those Nuclear devices will be set off either through war or by "accident."? But the faith of the world is not in his hands. God does not believe in the world; he believes in and knows individuals (you and I).
So make the right decision. If you are undecided, someone will make it for you - with your consent (knowingly or otherwise); and it will be ascribed to, and binding on you!
Finally, remember, we are over 6 Billion at the moment, and the one who is coming with his reward in his hands to give to every one according to the works of his/her hands (Rev 22:12) is watching and counting. And when we reach the critical mass; when that last baby draws breathe and utters its first cry, it will resound in heaven. That cry will be a war cry; a signal to take up arms, and down here on earth it will be "judgment day!"
From Tunde Itayemi
Thanks Tunde !
Footnotes:
* New Living Translation's (NLT) alternative rendition.
Humans are usually numbered in thousands, and tens of thousands in the bible. Even John talks of seeing uncountable multitude worshipping before the throne (Rev 7:9), yes, uncountable by human standards, but God knows every one of them and "he has got your number."
Sources: Internet (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm for deaths due to the 2 world wars)
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I have a friend who is, on the surface, a cliché. An aspirational cliché. She has a beautiful face, two degrees from an American Ivy League college, a handsome husband with a similar educational pedigree and two children who started to read at the age of two; she is always at the top of Nigerian women achievers lists in magazines; has worked, in the past 10 years, in consulting, hedge funds and non-governmental organisations; mentors young girls on how to succeed in a male-dominated world; recites statistics about anything from trade deficits to export revenue. And yet.
One day she told me she had stopped giving interviews because her husband did not like her photo in the newspaper, and she had also decided to take her husband’s surname because it upset him that she continued to use hers professionally. Expressions such as “honour him” and “for peace in my marriage” tumbled out of her mouth, forming what I thought of as a smouldering log of self-conquest.
Another friend is very attractive, very educated, sits on boards of companies and does the sort of management work that is Greek to me. She is single. She is a few years older than I am but looks much younger. The first board meeting she attended, a man asked her, after being introduced, “So whose wife or daughter are you?” Because to him, it was the only way she would be on that board. She was, it turned out, a chief executive. And yet. She lives in a city where her friends dream not of becoming the CEO but of marrying the CEO, a city where her singleness is seen as an affront, where marriage carries more social and political cachet than it should.
Another friend is a talented writer, a forthright woman who makes people nervous when she speaks bluntly about sex, a woman who describes herself as a feminist, and who talks a lot about gender equality and changing the system. And yet. She earns more than her husband does but once told me that he had to pay the rent, always, because it was the man’s duty to do so. “Even if he is broke and I have money, he will have to go and borrow and pay the rent.” She paused, rolling this contradiction around her tongue, and then she added, “Maybe it is because of our culture. It is what they taught us.”
There is, of course, always that “they”. Two years ago, we were slumped on sofas in his Lagos living room, my brother-in-law and I, talking about politics as we usually did.
“I think I’ll run for governor in a few years,” I said in the musing manner of a person who only half-means what they say.
“You would never be governor,” he said promptly. “You could be a senator but not governor. They won’t let a woman be governor.”
What he meant was that a governor had too much power, and was in control of too much money, none of which could be left to a woman by that invisible “they”. And yet. I realise that 15 years ago he would not have said, “you could be a senator.” Civilian rule brought greater participation of women in politics and the most popular and most effective ministers in the past 10 years have been women. In the next decade, my brother-in-law could be proved wrong. In the next three decades, he will certainly be proved wrong. But she would have to be married, the woman who would be governor.
My first novel is on the West African secondary school curriculum. My second novel is taught in universities. One question I am almost always certain of getting during media interviews is a variation of this: we appreciate the work you are doing and your novels are important but when are you getting married? I refuse to accept that the institution of marriage is what gives me my true value, and I refuse to come across as silly or coy or both. The balance is a precarious one.
“Would you ask that question to a male writer my age?” I once asked a journalist in Lagos.
“No,” he said, looking at me as though I were foolish. “But you are not a man.”
