Has NASA confirmed the coming Tribulation?
Friday, 26 September 2008, at 2055 hours
Central Time -- Nashville, Tennessee, USA
My recently-released book, Tribulation: 2008, discusses a phenomenon that our government's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) calles Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). Among the NEOs, there is one type called a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA). Scientists at NASA have a special program that watches for NEAs, which could strike the Earth and cause damage. This scenario was dramtized in a popular Hollywood movie called Deep Impact.
According to the NASA program office that scans the universe for dangerous NEAs, there is an asteroid orbiting our solar system that could strike the Earth in the year 2014.
NASA image of NEA designated SV-11 shows orbit intersecting Earth
The above image was downloaded from the NASA program office page that tracks the NEA designated as 2008-SV-11. It is an Apollo-class Near-Earth Asteroid, meaning that it is at least the size of an asteroid that passed near the Earth in the year 1862 and caused fear. As the asteroid burned in the daytime sky, it was given the name Apollo after the ancient Greek god of the sun.
The potential for an impact with the Earth in the year 2014 is consistent with my analysis of Bible prophecy concerning the Tribulation -- the seven-year period of widespread turmoil and destruction that immediately precedes the return of Jesus the Christ. Details of that analysis are the basis of my book. Both the book, and a separate set of astronomical calculations -- by Mark Biltz, a Messianic Jewish pastor, who compared astronomical events with the feasts of the Hebrew Calendar -- suggest that the Tribulation will have been completed by late in the year 2015. Pastor Biltz and I agree that the event which is the "official" start of the Tribulation is the blowing of the first of seven trumpets by angels in Heaven. We also agree that the blowing of the first trumpet (described in Revelation 8:7 of the Holy Bible) will coincide with this year's Hebrew Feast of Trumpets. That feast takes place this coming Monday, the 29th of September. It is marked by the sighting of the New Moon as the sun sets.
As the seven-year Tribulation progresses, destruction on Earth increases. The Book of Revelation describes several sightings of "stars" that fall from heaven. The different "stars" (which could technically be asteroids or comets) have different effects. When the first trumpet sounds, "fire mingled with blood" falls from the sky. As my book explains, this could be a case of a "dirty comet" passing through the Earth's atmosphere. A comet is made of ice crystals mixed with "space dust" of various elements. If that dust includes a high concentration of iron, for example, then ice melting as a comet passes through the Earth's atmosphere (thus developing a fireball from the friction) would resemble "fire mingled with blood".
Are there any indications in the Bible that this NEA discovery is actually linked to the desctruction described therein? It appears so. In the ninth chapter of Revelation, a star falls from the sky. That star is given "the key to the bottomless pit", and the pit is opened. The designation of the asteroid is SV-11, and its class is Apollo. In verse 11 of that chapter, an angel is released from the pit. The angel's name is Apollyon, which means "Destroyer". Could this be a mere coincidence? Possibly, but I don't think so -- especially not when it follows, in precise chronological order, other events described just prior to that in the Bible. And, I think it is also no accident that the verse reference is 9:11. Those numbers harken another day of destruction.
Time will tell whether my analysis of the Bible is correct. But, as one friend told me recently, "This is all too coincidental to be a coincidence."
