December 2005
Michael Travesser Says, “Now It All Ends.”
Could He Be Right About 2007?
PREFACE
There is no event that will more widely affect the entire population of the world than the end of it. Every other occurrence dwindles to insignificance beside it, and every personal, community, state or national crisis becomes incidental in the consideration of it.
It has been said that nothing focuses the mind like its impending doom. This event can be witnessed most vividly with those experiencing a terminal disease. No matter how disheveled or disorganized were their lives previous to the diagnosis, it rarely bears much resemblance to it afterward. Essentially, the only ones who do not experience this extraordinary, intense change of focus are those in strong denial of the reality of what is happening with them.
The same can be said of humanity in general, even when irrefutable evidence is presented that indicates its end is near and approaching rapidly. The scenario of Chicken Little is most frequently invoked under such circumstances, in an attempt to return the mind to its pre-apocalyptic musings.
The intent of this writing is not to set a fixed time as to when a particular person or group believes the natural earth will disappear, but rather to offer the reader a consideration of evidence, as objective and empirical as possible, that at some time in the not-to-distant future, it indeed will.
THE AWAKENING
On September 10, 2001, less than twenty-four hours before the first Boeing jet slammed into Tower One of the World Trade Center, there appeared on a seemingly obscure but apparently well attended website, what could only be termed a prediction or “prophecy.” The wording of that “prophecy” becomes especially portentous in light of what occurred on the south end of Manhattan Island at 8:46 am the following morning:
You have gone far enough, and now I will show you who it is that rules in the heavens. You have built your Babylonish tower, but I will make the top to break off and its foundations to sink into the mire. You will see the stability of the sand you have built on. You will try everything to save it but it will not be saved. (Link)
That website, StrongCity.com, was operated by a small group of Christians living in the wilderness of Northeastern New Mexico, and led by a man known as Michael of Travesser, the author of the above prediction.
The online resource Wikipedia.org contains the following:
Michael Travesser was born Wayne Bent in 1941. He is the spiritual leader of the self-proclaimed cult, Strong City, which consists of about 77 people near Travesser Creek in New Mexico as well as other devotees around the world. Travesser and his followers believe that he is the Son of God and that he, along with his followers, fulfill the second coming of Jesus. (Wikipedia as of Oct. 24, 2005)
Wikipedia also included the statements, “At present, the group continues to look forward to the fulfillment of Michael's prophesies,” and “Michael prophesies that 2006 is the year of preparation before the year of rest which begins in the fall of 2006.” It may be noted that Wikipedia is now considering removing all reference to Michael Travesser.
In a telephone interview with Travesser, he informed this writer that his statements are simply an assertion of what the Bible and ancient documents such as the Dead Sea Scrolls proclaim, and that his words are no more a prophecy “than to say that Monday will come next week after Sunday.” He emphasized that he is not so much making a prediction, but more simply showing what is revealed in the scriptures. One can draw their own conclusions, he added. Michael's conclusion is that the world is now, as the aforementioned terminal patient, in its last gasp, and he offers the reasons for that conclusion.
It now appears that Wayne Bent, a.k.a. Michael Travesser is again setting forth considerations for the future — or what little he thinks there is left of it.
~~~
This planet has experienced no deficiency of end-of-the-world predictions, stories of the coming apocalypse or cartoonish images of wild-eyed, John-the-Baptist-like, wilderness prophets. They have predicted a variety of cataclysmic events ranging from the U.S. President actually constructing an articulate sentence, to a disaster of “Biblical proportions” resulting in the demise of civilization as we know it. Most, or perhaps all of those predictions, and the individuals or groups uttering them, it should be noted, have passed their time unfulfilled. So perhaps it seems somewhat an exercise in redundancy to write of yet another one — or is it?
The beginnings of this intense modern-day interest in prophetic messages of doom can be arguably traced to the mid-twentieth century discovery of a set of ancient documents in the Judean Desert of southern Israel. That discovery in the caves of Qumran near the Dead Sea would irreversibly alter the religious and political geography of the world, though relatively few would recognize those changes with anything but passing interest.
In 1947, while searching for a stray goat, a Bedouin shepherd boy was throwing rocks into a cave in the side of a cliff. Hearing a popping sound, rather than what one would expect of rock striking rock, he climbed into the cave and discovered the source of that odd sound. His stones were shattering earthenware pots in which the aforementioned documents had been stored for over two millennia. Thus were discovered the ancient parchments called the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The heightened awareness of archaic spiritual writings brought about by that discovery is apparently responsible for the emergence, decades later, of a surfeit of such religious socio/cultural phenomena as the Bible Codes, increased awareness of Native American prophecies along with those of other indigenous peoples around the world. Even the advent of such fictional works as the best selling books The Davinci Code and The Celestine Prophecy can likely trace the origins of their success to that little shepherd boy and his lost goat.
Those writings brought clearly to the modern mind the idea that indeed there were actually men of intellect and wisdom who lived long before this self-absorbed generation. The ubiquitous and often shallow nature of many of the current publications is readily discernible to any critical mind, as was bitingly described by one writer for the Canadian magazine, Muse in an article entitled, McSpirituality - would you like fries with that?:
“The pile of new spiritual literature is growing like a landfill full of disposable diapers; they serve the purpose for a couple of hours (in much the same way) and then need to be thrown out - because unfortunately they don't evolve, can't be reused, and are too difficult to recycle.” 1
Of course not all such writings fall into the category of the saccharine-polluted, watered-down swill referenced by Muse. Some have well withstood the test of close scrutiny and time. However, it is well to take an objective step back in observing the immense scope of this oddity. The broader picture seems to give it a life of its own, as if something is inexorably moving the destiny of this world to a final conclusion — a day of judgement, as it were. A day in which all the unanswered questions of the ages, and every inequity and apparent injustice will find resolution — or dissolution. Nearly every known spiritual genre, ancient and modern, embraces to some extent the idea that everything as we now know it, will end — soon. This will occur, because it must occur.
But how does Michael of Travesser fit into these broad, vaguely elucidated, and even more vaguely chronicled, doomsday scenarios?
A merely superficial examination of Travesser's movement would seem to lead to the convenient pigeon-holing of the group into a category consonant with being just another fanatical Christian cult. And what about the frightening similarity between the Strong City settlement, and those two most notorious American-bred cults, the Branch Davidians and Jonestown — both of which were led by men who claimed the title of Messiah or God-incarnate — and both culminating in their own parochial Holocaust?
One striking similarity between those self-extinguished* congregations that does not, however, seem to be present with the New Mexico assembly is that in both instances (Jonestown and Waco) there existed an intoxicating atmosphere of paranoia derived from a combination of the leader's strong personality and his personal, exclusive interpretation of Scripture. These factors, being inextricably wed to an apocalyptic “gospel,” and presented by powerfully charismatic and oratorically inclined figures, proved in either case to be a lethal combination. Both expected government persecution and assault, and both received them. Both expected to die in those assaults, and both did. Such do not seem to be the circumstances surrounding those in New Mexico.
The Michael Travesser/Wayne Bent community believe, and have declared plainly on their website, that the world will, and indeed is, falling on its face all around them — and they simply refuse to participate in it. Their philosophy, on the surface, appears to have some distinct similarities with Waco and Jonestown, i.e., withdrawing from an obviously corrupted society, and a seemingly indefinable belief in an approaching apocalypse as delineated by Judeo-Christian writings. However, on closer examination, the similarities pretty much evaporate.
The beliefs of Travesser and his followers indicate quite the polar opposite of those other now-extinct groups. In fact, Michael made a definite point of that when addressing questions posed to him by an Albuquerque television news team that visited their community in November of 2002.
“We're not a suicide cult,” he told KOB-TV. “It doesn't work, it doesn't help people; it doesn't,” he added with a whimsical smile, as if to convey the humor of it, “make their life better.”
Nor does the Travesser group present themselves as a family of ostriches, ignorant of the outside world and what is happening. Rather they appear to be somewhat politically aware and culturally astute observers of society — an apparent necessity if they are to recognize the fulfillment of Bible prophecy in current events.
In all this, Michael Travesser seems to defy any attempts to conveniently categorize either him or his followers. He says he has been cursed at by the political Right as being radically Left, and by the Left for being radically Right; by Fundamentalist Christians as demonically liberal, and by liberal Christians as diabolically worse than Fundamentalists. Few seem to be able to make up their minds about this man in a way in which they can agree.
What sets him and his movement apart from the previously mentioned prophets-of-doom is that he has made only two predictions — two “prophecies” as it were, and they both came to fulfillment as stated: The first was the aforementioned September 10th publication foretelling the razing of the World Trade Center, and, the second was the warning of the overthrow of Nineveh, which came to its fulfillment even as this article was in research and writing.
NINEVEH PROVINCE, IRAQ
September 14, 2005 in a post on the private section of his website, normally open only to his congregation (the public access section of which, according to Travesser, receives a little over a quarter-million hits per month, and increasing), he stated that early one morning, while laying on his bed, “...strongly on my heart came the words over and over again: 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.' Jonah 3:4.”
He told The WINDS that, as with the 9/11 prophecy, he did not have any clear picture of what that overthrowing would look like, but precisely forty days later, its meaning became abundantly clear. Nineveh had been overthrown — and in a most unexpected manner.
On the fortieth day after Michael claims to have received those words, the Iraqi vote-count ratifying the new constitution was made official. This, even in the face of indisputable vote fraud.
“All across Iraq,” Time Magazine wrote, “the numbers seemed fantastic: More than 90 percent of voters in many Shi'ite and Kurdish provinces were reported to have voted for the proposed constitution in Saturday's referendum....And in the swing provinces of Diyala and Nineveh, the numbers simply looked implausible....
“'It wouldn't surprise me if the election was rigged,' said a U.S. Army officer in Mosul who requested anonymity and who worked on security arrangements for the poll with Iraqi security and election officials. 'I don't even trust our election process.'” 2
American officials almost unanimously agreed that if the Nineveh Province had been allowed to repudiate the U.S. formulated constitution, the effect on the political stability of Iraq would have been chaotic. Rejection or disavowal of the document would have been triggered by three provinces voting against it by a two-thirds or more majority. Two other provinces, Anbar and Salahudin, did precisely that — and Nineveh as well, but with only a 55 percent “No” vote, which effectively converted the entirety of the province into implied tacit acceptance of the constitution, thus nullifying the actual estimated 80-97 percent “No” vote.
The Sunnis are not happy.
Michael gave his consent for The WINDS to quote from the private section of his Journal posts concerning this. In that post Travesser outlined the practical result of the fraudulent ratification of the Iraqi constitution.
“This victory for the occupiers of Nineveh,” he wrote, “was gained amid charges of gross fraud. Nineveh, one of the strongest strongholds of the Sunnis who unofficially voted as much as 97% against the new proposed constitution, now find that their protest vote 'officially' came in at about 55%.
“They are looking at each other,” he continued, “saying, 'Oh sure, we voted only 55% against.' They know that something stinks. The constitution that was approved, virtually guarantees western domination of the oil fields in Iraq, and the ability to divide and conquer any opposer in the region. The old order has been overthrown, and it was official, exactly forty days after the time when I heard the voice,'Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.'”
Travesser adds, “So, what does this all mean?”
“There is an interesting prophecy uttered by Jesus that applies: 'The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it...' Matthew 12:41.”
THE END OF THE WORLD AND THE ANCIENT CYCLE OF THE JUBILEES
In the antiquated seasons of Old Testament Israel's religious celebrations, there is a peculiar system of dividing and reckoning time periods, which upon close scrutiny seem to carry a much greater intent (and portent) than simply parceling out the times of sacred festivals.
In decoding the depth of the meaning of the jubilees, Michael Travesser has assembled an interpretation that, though it may not constitute a direct prophecy of the end of the world, comes chillingly close — especially in light of his personal historical precedent.
Attempting to avoid an unnecessary theological maze, the apologetics of his argument go something like the following:
The Jubilees were originally established in the Biblical Book of Leviticus, as seven blocks of time comprised of seven “weeks of years” each; i.e., seven years, times seven, or forty-nine years, with the fiftieth year being a jubilee — which also marks the beginning of the next “seven weeks of years” and so on. These eventually constitute larger blocks of time incorporating ten Jubilee cycles, or 490 years. See Lev. 25
In and around each Jubilee year were several things that took place, and commandments to be adhered to. But more pertaining to this discussion, is how Travesser applies the timeline of those Jubilee blocks to the 21st Century — and the epochal end of his aggregation of time.
~~~
Established in the Laws of Moses, ostensibly for the purpose of returning indentured property and people to original ownership and status, and the forgiveness of all debts, there has always been, in Jewish antiquity, the belief that the Jubilee cycles carried with them much deeper and more profound meanings than merely theocratic ordinances governing social standards and behavior. This is especially true of the larger time periods of 490 years (a block of ten jubilees) set forth in Jewish Scripture.
During the time of the prophet Daniel, Israel was captive to the Babylonish King Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, having been uprooted from their homeland and forcibly relocated to Babylon (in modern-day Iraq). The ninth chapter of the Book of Daniel, even though the term “jubilee” is not mentioned there, presents a very long-range prophecy based on one of these 490 year blocks of ten jubilees. Following the outline of predicted events to take place in that timeline, which was given Daniel by the angel Gabriel, the starting point is also revealed — that moment when the 70 weeks of years, end-time prophetic clock begins to tick. See Daniel 9:24
Daniel's prophecy lays out a very specific period of time, the starting of which was to be reckoned from the time that the Persian King Artaxerxes (Babylon having fallen to the Medo-Persian Empire) issued the command that certain Jews were to journey back to their homeland for the expressed purpose of rebuilding their holy city, Jerusalem. The prophecy's termination, marked by its final “week of years,” was to result in the coming and “cutting off” of the Jews' much anticipated Messiah.
At the time that decree was pronounced, the prophecy claims that sixty-nine “weeks of years” later (483 of the 490 years), would find the coming of “Messiah the Prince.” Messiah in Hebrew means anointed and it becomes a clear fulfillment of that prophecy, when, by historical records, exactly 483 years after the Persian king issued that command, Jesus of Nazareth was anointed Messiah at his baptism in the Jordan River. At that time, according to all four Gospels of the New Testament, a shape or form “like a dove” — a universally accepted Biblical symbol of the Holy Spirit — lit upon him, indicating that his mission — or Messiahship — had been anointed by that Spirit.
In succeeding verses of the Daniel prophecy it is revealed that in the middle (three-and-a-half years) of that final Messianic week of years, “shall Messiah be cut off.” What then does “cut off” mean? Three-and-a-half years after he was anointed Messiah, Jesus, at the demand of the leading Jews of the nation, and their mob, was executed on a Roman cross. One cannot, it seems, be much more effectively “cut off” than that.
The prophecy is clearly stated:
Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one (Messiah) shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator. Daniel 9:24-27 RSV.
MARTIN LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION
Another prophetic ticking-clock
Around AD 476, following the “apostolic age” just after the time of Christ's first appearing in Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity slid into a deep theological and moral declension — a period called the Dark Ages. During this time the Roman Catholic Church, having co-opted — or more accurately, coerced — the secular authority of national rulers, killed hundreds of thousands of martyrs for refusing to bow to its religious dogma. During this period the spiritual Christian church went underground — quite literally in many instances — to escape persecution and martyrdom.
Though the end of the Dark Ages has been set historically at about AD 1000, the spiritual Dark Ages continued well into the 16th Century. Its end came when a thirty-four-year-old Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, disenchanted with the Roman Catholic Church and its immoral practices of selling indulgences, nailed a document to the church's chapel door in Wittenburg, Germany. That document, known as the Ninety-five Theses, was the ensign that began a religious upheaval, the magnitude of which has never since been witnessed, and has virtually no analog in historical record, save the first advent of Christ.
Thus, by one of the most observably punctiliar moments in human history, began the Protestant Reformation.
It is well established in prophetic application that many prophecies can and have been assigned to more than one time period. An example of this is the Old Testament scripture of Hosea, referring to the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt, that declared, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” Hosea 11:1
In the New Testament, Matthew applies Hosea's scripture to Jesus and his parents: “And [he] was there [in Egypt] until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Matt. 2:15
In this application, Matthew clearly intended to transport the proclamation of Hosea forward several thousand years to the return of the child Jesus from his flight into Egypt to escape a jealous, homicidal king. This exercise of prophetic reinterpretation is especially egregious to Jewish scholars, who will obstreperously point out that the proper — and only — application of the Hosea text is referring to the Exodus — God bringing Israel out of Egyptian bondage in the time of Moses.
It seems that most “religionists” have missed, as Travesser explains it, the dynamic, “fluid” nature of the scriptures, perceiving them instead, as expressed by the Epistle of James, to be a “dead letter.” They misinterpret them as a rigid, inflexible set of rules, by the keeping of which one may assuage the anger of an offended God and hopefully secure entrance into Heaven — thereby escaping the sentence of being deep-fried for a very long time.
Following this well documented, Biblical principle of multiple prophetic applications, Michael transplants the Daniel prophecy forward 1,483 years, in the same manner as were Hosea's words by Matthew. Travesser applies its 490 year time span to the present age, establishing both the beginning and ending of the period.
One morning, he said, he was strongly impressed by the words “Go look up the 95 Theses.” With no connection, he claims, to anything he was contemplating, and with even a sense of wonderment as to why such a thought was so heavily upon him, he did so.
The following is excerpted from one of Michael Travesser's early writings in November of 2000, a little time after he and his followers moved to New Mexico:
Here I sit at my writing at almost 1:00 A.M. It was suggested to my mind earlier in the day to go back to the command to restore modern-day Jerusalem. That is, the command to restore the modern-day message of the Lord to its proper place, after being broken down for so many centuries by the works-oriented Catholic religion — the command, or decree, that all things would be brought to their rightful place, and that the faith of Jesus would be restored. The Voice that came to me was strangely insistent that I should look more deeply into the timing of this event. It was suggested by the heavenly messenger that I should look at the 95 Theses that Martin Luther nailed up at Wittenberg. I felt that this would be interesting to read, so I thought I would study into it in the morning. I went to sleep with this on my mind.
At 11:00 P.M. I awakened and was strongly impressed to check this out then, and not wait till morning. I was forced out of bed, as it were, by the very strength of the Spirit upon my soul. I could not wait till later. As I looked at the information presented, I was greatly blessed and strengthened to read: “Dr. Martin Luther, October 31, 1517.”
What he discovered was sobering indeed. The period of time starting when Luther inaugurated the Reformation of the Christian's faith in Christ, October 31, 1517, (analogous, Travesser claims, to the command in Daniel 9 to restore and build spiritual Jerusalem), until God completed Michael's anointing as Messiah, was, to the day, precisely 483 years. This marked the exact beginning of the last “week of years” — the same precise time reference correlating in a perfect historical parallel to when Jesus began his earthly ministry. This time frame accurately overlays the ten Jubilee cycle of Daniel, and thus, according to Travesser, began that last week of years encompassing Messiah's advent, and his closing work in the 21st Century. This 483 years pointed directly to the year 2000, when Michael Travesser heard the words, “You are Messiah.” The baptism that revealed his mission — or Messiahship — came in the fall of 2000, as stated previously, and that began the last seven years, or the last “week of years” which would end in the fall of 2007.
This, in itself, would seem to present a credible scenario for Michael Travesser's theology, but there's more upon which he bases his revelations.
THE MELCHIZEDEK TEXTS OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
Biblical canonists have long felt that the sum of inspired literature was completed shortly after the Protestant Reformation when the current sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible (seventy-three in the Catholic Bible) were determined for inclusion in holy writ. It was as if, to their thinking, some magical formula, passed down to a handful of Catholic priests and a German monk, could shut the mouth of God. Then came the discovery of the Qumran parchments resulting in a serious paradigm quake as the neat, tidy little box of scriptures in which they had imprisoned God began to split at the seams. Many realized that the Ancient of Days apparently had more to say concerning the affairs of men, and the end of time.
Contained in those documents are texts that Travesser has often quoted from in a particular context that seems to be an echo of the Book of Daniel, set for this time.
These scriptures are rather like a 3-D photograph made up of two superimposed images, each taken from a slightly different angle. When viewed separately, they present only a flat, two-dimensional picture. A picture that does indeed contain marvelous detail and insight, but is lacking a depth that is not even imagined to be there until observed via the appropriate medium. Then when viewed together they suddenly take upon themselves a profundity of dimension — a depth impossible to discern when viewed separately.
The Book of Daniel is one of the layers of this image. Since the Bible, much as we know it presently, was first established as a whole in AD 367, by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Daniel has been part of the scriptural canon almost universally accepted by Christians throughout the world. 3
The other layer necessary to the understanding of the Jubilee cycle outlined in Leviticus, and how it effects the picture of “global termination,” is found in the Melchizedek Texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
A very interesting “coincidence” about those Dead Sea manuscripts is that they were discovered immediately following the beginning of a Jewish Jubilee cycle, apparently because they were not needed until now, but also as if to assure that they could not be applied to any time period other than the jubilee cycle then present, the one in which Michael was baptized, and according to Michael, the beginning of the end.
In both scriptures — Daniel and the Melchizadek Texts — is clearly described the same event, but occurring at separate times. Daniel delineates the precise timing of the first Messianic age with the advent and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The Qumran scroll sets a period which encompasses the final appearance of the Messiah — however, with one major, and important difference. The Melchizedek Texts do not establish any frame of reference as to when the the 490 year epoch begins. It is as if that detail was left to be revealed at the end of the allotted time.
In 11Q13 (Qumran cave eleven, fragment thirteen) is found a scripture entitled The Last Jubilee: A Sermon (Melchizedek Texts). In that document, the first sentence reads, “I take my text from the law of the jubilee.” This parchment then proceeds to weave an illustration of a startling series of events outlining what is clearly a synopsis of the end-time. In fact, direct references to the prophecy's focus upon latter-day events are several. The author of the text dwells on the spiritual parallels between the return of lost inheritance and land during the jubilee, to the returning of the Sons of God to their heavenly inheritance — referred to in the writing as their “patrimony.”
As applied to the last days, this [final jubilee] refers to the liberation of those in captivity, consonant with the words of Isaiah: The Lord has sent me to proclaim liberation to captives.' (Isa. 61:1) Since the [Hebrew] word for 'liberation' is homonymous with one meaning 'swallow' - which is, of course, a celestial creature - this signifies that they will become One with the sons of heaven....
At the final jubilee, therefore, God will in fact be restoring them to what is rightfully theirs; they will indeed 'return, every one, to his patrimony [the Lord Himself].' 11Q13
Again, the time frame of these events is delineated:
All this will happen in the final week of a series of years involving nine preceding jubilees [referring to the system, discussed earlier, of a block of ten jubilees]. When, therefore, the Scripture speaks of a Day of Atonement to be observed in the seventh month, the tenth day of that month (Lev. 25.9), what is meant, in an eschatological sense, is that this final jubilee will be marked by a day on which all the children of light and all who have cast their lot with the cause of righteousness will achieve forgiveness of their sins, whereas the wicked will reap their desserts and be brought to an end.
This is the era which Isaiah terms the year of favor (Isa. 61:2) - that is, the one designed, by God's favor, for the king of righteousness - which is what, by his very name, Melchizedek prefigures - to come into his dominion. He will take the lead among God's heavenly saints in executing the various sentences of judgment. emphasis supplied
Michael points out that the sentence “He will take the lead among God's heavenly saints” is a strong indication that the second appearing of Messiah would differ from the first in that there would be a host of individuals of whom the spirit of Christ is in full possession.
Notably Travesser also indicates that two prophecies — one in the Old Testament, and one in the New — each revealed that Messiah would be on the earth during a specified period of time. At the first advent of Christ there was a prophecy, well known to the Jews, which should have told them that indeed their Messiah was already among them, long before he was baptized in the Jordan and publicly proclaimed.
That ancient prophecy revealed that Israel's national sovereignty and legal authority as a nation would not come to an end until their Messiah walked the earth. Found in Genesis 49:10, it reads:
The scepter [rulership] shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
At the time Jesus was born, all of Palestine had been completely subjugated by the Roman Empire, and a ruler selected by them was installed on the throne of Israel. By the certain word of their own Torah, their redeemer was already among them — but they did not recognize him: “For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.” Acts 13:27
Likewise, the second advent of Christ — that Michael Travesser claims, differs substantially from the first, in that Messiah comes in all of his people, and not only in one person as a separate individual — came by very much the same token as the first. [When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. 2 Thess. 1:10]
The foregoing prophecy of Genesis, telling Israel their national sovereignty would not be removed until their Messiah was already born, according to Travesser, was echoed in another given by Jesus, and recorded in the Book of Luke, which foretold the time when physical, earthly Israel would again possess Jerusalem: “And they [the Jewish nation] shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Luke 21:24
Jerusalem had been under the control of “Gentiles” from the time foretold in the first prophecy marking Messiah's appearing, when that control was wrested from the Jews by the Roman Empire, until the era when non-Jewish or Gentile control ended and their holy city would again be part of Jewish-controlled Israel. Even after the United Nations, in 1948, gave a portion of Palestine to the Jews to become the state of Israel, the old city of Jerusalem was not included in the UN declaration.
Rebuilt and walled in stone by the Turkish sultan, Suliman the Great, in 1517, Old Jerusalem was still part of the Hashimite kingdom of Jordan, and forbidden to be entered by Jews. (Can one but wonder at the “coincidence” of an Islamic sultan commencing the rebuilding of physical Jerusalem at the same time the Protestant Reformation began the rebuilding of spiritual Jerusalem?)
Then, in the last half of the twentieth-century, things changed — rapidly.
THE SIX DAY WAR:
A Fulfillment of Prophecy?
Shortly after dawn at 7:14 am, Monday, June 5, 1967, a command was issued that launched the entire Israeli Air Force. Their destination: Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Thus began the Arab-Israeli “Six-day War” which ended, as the name implies, six days later, on a Sabbath, with Syria accepting peace negotiations with Israel.
On the fourth day of the war, Thursday, the eighth of June, Israeli commandos drove straight to the heart of then Arab-occupied Old Jerusalem. With an intensity of purpose fueled by what they believed to be two-thousand years of national homelessness, they fought on until they found themselves in the presence of the massive Herodian stones of the ancient Western Wall, once a part it is believed, two millennia ago, of the last Jewish temple. Now the most sacred place in all Judaism was again under Jewish control. This event portended a fulfillment of prophecy little understood until the beginning of the third millennium.
Just as the prophecy of Genesis proclaimed that the Jewish Messiah would come at the very end of Israel's sovereignty as a nation, so also, says Michael Travesser, the second coming of Messiah was to be heralded, by Jerusalem once again coming under Jewish domination.
On the morning of June 10th, the last day of the Six-day War, less than forty-eight hours after commandos secured the Western Temple Wall on Mount Moriah, twenty-six-year-old Wayne Curtis Bent, who was destined to become Michael the deliverer, was quietly baptized into the Christian faith in a small church near Poway, California.
Coincidence?
~~~
THE END OF ALL THINGS
THROUGH THE EYES OF MICHAEL TRAVESSER
“...YET HE SHALL COME TO HIS END, AND NONE SHALL HELP HIM.” Daniel 11:45
One very important prophecy in Daniel now opens up the precise time when Michael appears in his present work, which overlays the work of Jesus after his baptism. This prophecy, Travesser asserts, clearly depicts events now unfolding in our world, and others which have revealed themselves over the last five years:
At the time of the end the king of the south shall attack him; but the King of the North shall rush upon him like a whirlwind, with chariots and horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall come into countries and shall overflow and pass through. He shall come into the glorious land. And tens of thousands shall fall, but these shall be delivered out of his hand: Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites. He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. He shall become ruler of the treasures of gold and of silver, and all the precious things of Egypt; and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall follow in his train. But tidings from the east and the north shall alarm him, and he shall go forth with great fury to exterminate and utterly destroy many. And he shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him. At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time; but at that time your people shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book. Daniel 11:40-45, & Daniel 12:1.
This scripture from the Book of Daniel, Michael Travesser claims, describes the current events leading to the present predicament of U.S. President George Walker Bush. Travesser states that many of the prophecies in Daniel clearly indicate reference to the United States of America, and current world events appear to closely, if not identically, parallel those prophecies. This prophecy also directs one to the precise moment that Michael would appear, bringing deliverance to those who believed in him, and directing judgment to the people who have loved evil.
Michael emphasizes this Scripture as not only a finger, pointing to his own work, but a serious omen for those who dwell at “the time of the end,” — the end of the final week of years since the beginning of the Reformation. Travesser shows how these very scriptures mark the time from 1967 until 2007, exactly 40 years. The king of the south referred to here is Egypt. To the Jews, Egypt was that King of the South and in the context of this scripture there are now two very large forces in contest in the region. The King of the South, Michael says, represents the Muslim nations, and the King of the North is Babylon which is the conglomeration of religious beliefs and confusion, personified and revealed in no entity more clearly than the United States of America. Ruling over all the “treasures,” clearly is referencing the nation and its money kingdom, the guns of which are now trained squarely on the Middle East. Those guns, though mostly owned and supplied by America, are primarily controlled, or “aimed,” by the small nation of Israel — the land of the Jews, which is so by United Nations proclamation.
“Tidings out of the east and the north” of Israel clearly points to Iran and Iraq. These “tidings” or rumors and reports, cause the King of the North (Babylon, whose guns are now the guns of the United States of America), to go forth with fury to exterminate and utterly destroy many (terrorists). He pitched his tents between the “rivers” in the glorious holy mountain. Yet, he comes to his end with none to help. This king is personified by President George Bush. He has come to his end. No one wants to help him. He has come to an impasse, an inescapable predicament. The King of the North, who has control of the financial kingdom, was alarmed by the tidings that came from Iraq and Iran. There still is much alarm over Iran's nuclear facilities, and Travesser claims we will see more of this impasse in the months before us. The time here referred to, however, is the very time when Michael stands up in judgment, “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And...at that time your people shall be delivered.” And, according to the Dead Sea Scrolls, “He will take the lead among God's heavenly saints in executing the various sentences of judgment.” This time, according to Travesser, is now. The prophecy is fulfilled as stated. This is somewhat a shift from the Daniel 9 prophecy. In Daniel 9, the Messiah is cut off and killed. In the Melchizedek text, it is Messiah who cuts off the generation he comes in. It is the end of God's intercession for men and his institutions. Being cut off, they are allowed to disembowel themselves and each other, and this is nowhere more prominently done than in the media of the United States. God cuts them off. Travesser states that this happened on April 19, 2004, just 1290 days from the end of the 70 weeks of years prophecy. “This 1290 days is clearly laid out in Daniel 12,” says Michael Travesser.
In that same verse of Daniel, prior to where it states that the personage referred to will “come to his end” it also says of him, “And he shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him.” Travesser indicates that “palatial tents” is more literally translated the “tabernacles of his palace.” “He shall pitch his royal tent.” “This indicates,” Travesser says, “he shall put his authority right in the midst of the rivers.”
Also “seas” is accurately rendered “rushing waters — rivers” which he says are the two scripturally famous rivers that run through that part of the East — the Tigris (a.k.a., Hiddekel) and the Euphrates. The “glorious holy mountain,” Travesser says, “refers to the place of the two rivers because Mesopotamia is a holy land in its own right.”
“When you're talking about Jews or Christians, they have their holy sites. But the Muslims have theirs, also. Mesopotamia — Iraq — was the birthplace of humanity. Iraq was where humanity was born, and it's considered a holy land. “If you just shut out the possibility that any Muslims could be holy people, you'll twist it over into meaning only Jerusalem. But that's not so.
“This 'King of the North' who comes up and plants his tents there oppresses God's set-apart people. And Muslims are very much as easily set-apart as are Jews. They are from Hagar, and have Abraham as their father. But Jews are largely Khazars. So who's holy?
“One holy (religiously set apart) land is Mesopotamia, the other one is Jerusalem.
“Mesopotamia is considered holy, with many shrines. It was the land of Abraham. It's a 'glorious holy mountain' and many people consider it that way.”
At the time of the end the King of the North finds himself in an impasse, and cannot move forward in his plans.
IMPASSE: N., im·passe, 'im-“pas, 1a: a predicament affording no obvious escape, b: DEADLOCK c: where G. W. Bush resides.
Impasse? President Bush has apparently reached one, which is, according to Travesser, the real meaning of the Hebrew term in the Book of Daniel, “come to his end” — a place or position where he has no options. He has, as it were, painted himself into a corner, with no one to help. Even his own party members don't want him campaigning for them, seeing it as the kiss of death for their re-election efforts.
“They have him in a place,” Michael told The WINDS, “where nobody is happy with him.” He has nowhere to go. He cannot solve his problems domestically — moderate Republicans reject him as too conservative, conservatives as too moderate; if criminal prosecutions continue as they have, the Democrats may win the White House by default because all the major Republican players may be in jail; his foreign policy and commitments are turning to ropes of sand; the country, because of him, is more polarized, socially and politically, than at any time in history (his presidency has the approval of about one-third of Americans, whom the other two-thirds mostly believe should be institutionalized). Like the seven-headed hydra of Greek mythology which, when one ravenous head was cut off, two more grew in its place, every time Bush makes a political move to resolve his troubles in Iraq he is faced with yet greater problems. This will not stop, according to Travesser, until as written in Daniel 11:45, he “comes to his end.”
Since Korea, with its 54,000 killed, and Vietnam's 58,000, many Americans have lost their tolerance for the death of their young men and women in wars that are questionable at best, and criminal at least. After a mere 2,100 fatalities (if the loss of any life can be termed “mere”), there is a larger percentage of mainstream Americans against the Iraq war than any previous conflict. It is not that Americans are shedding their immoral apathy and awakening to the unrighteousness of this conflict, but rather, according to many pundits, it is symbolic of a generation habituated to instant gratification. From fast foods to fast cars; from supermarkets to Supersize, Americans have little tolerance for a reward that is not big enough; quick enough; too far beyond arms reach — or their attention span.
The cognitive advantages of whatever reasons the U.S. Administration gave for feeding two-thousand Americans and forty-thousand Iraqis through their military/industrial meat grinder, are fading to oblivion. Yes, the much vaunted, moral, crusading Americans have an extremely short collective political memory. They seem to have become the functional definition of one of their pet excuses for why their children fail in school — Attention Deficit Disorder. Or could that be more accurately termed Moral Deficit Disorder? Americans seem to be the perfect tool for the King of the North to use in his reactionary response to rumor.
~~~
“The number of American casualties in Iraq is now well more than 2,000, and there is no end in sight” is the opening statement by Martin van Creveld in his stinging article entitled Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War, published in The Forward magazine. 4
“Some two-thirds of Americans, according to the polls,“ van Creveld continues, “believe the war to have been a mistake. And congressional elections are just around the corner.”
Mr. van Creveld, a professor at Hebrew University and author of Transformation of War (Free Press, 1991), writing for the Jewish magazine, cogently outlines how the American president has essentially imprisoned himself — and his nation — in a situation from which there is no foreseeable, or workable, extraction.
Professor van Creveld, apparently an academic of no small stature, is, according to The Forward “the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers.” ibid.
“It's damn easy to get into a war,
but...it's...awful hard to ever extricate yourself
if you get in.”
-- President Lyndon Baines Johnson, referring to Vietnam.
Van Creveld continues his dissection of the Bush Administration's Iraq war policy employing the obvious (and lately, ubiquitous) comparisons with Vietnam. In that war, the U.S. adopted a strategy, conceived by then Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, that Laird termed Vietnamization. By training the South Vietnamese Army, and bequeathing to them all American armament and resources then in-country, they hoped to transfer complete authority for prosecuting a very unpopular war, to those whom the United States had pledged itself to defend (sounding familiar?).
Knowing very well that virtually the entire available supply of resolve to win that war was in possession of the North Vietnamese, the plan of Vietnamization was simply a ruse to camouflage the real intent of American policy — to “get the Hell out” as George Ball once told Robert McNamara. Interestingly, President Lyndon Johnson, in a phone conversation with his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, said, “I don't know what in the hell, — it looks like to me that we're getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me,” Johnson laments. “I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we're committed [sounding more familiar?]. I believe the Chinese Communists are coming into it. I don't think that we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere in that area [sounding even more familiar?]....What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country?”
Because Vietnam's petroleum reserves have only (as of 2004 statistics) 175,000 barrels per day exporting capability (enough to last the United States all of twelve-and-a-half minutes), the answer to Mr. Johnson's rhetorical questions as to what they were worth to US: Nothing! Had it been otherwise — had Vietnam vastly more than the itty bitty oil production capability they presently have, would it not be reasonable to assume that President Johnson, et. al., may not have been so quick to abandon their holy program of defending democracy? “And,” the former president adds in his phone conversation, “it's just the biggest damn mess that I ever saw [sounding really familiar?].” Of course Mr. Johnson did not live to see Mr. Bush's mess (and Mr. Bush may soon wish he hadn't either).
This becomes an enlightening exercise if, in the above scenario, one substitutes “Vietnam” for “Korea,” and “insurgents” or “Iran” for “Chinese Communists.” Do all too familiar analogies present themselves? If history grants this planet sufficient time, will succeeding generations be labeling still another misbegotten martial adventure by America as “another Iraq”?
Does KOREA = VIETNAM? = IRAQ? = IRAN? = SYRIA? = Who's next? Canada? (they did say some unnice things about Jr.)
On the National Archives building, in Washington D.C. is inscribed “What Is Past Is Prologue.” David Brinkley once commented on that statement, remarking, “That's the government's way of saying, 'You ain't seen nothin' yet.'” Foresight gathered from hindsight would seem to indicate there will never be an end to this country's unwarranted involvement in the national affairs of other sovereign nations, except for — ah, yes — Michael Travesser's view of things. Perhaps all this has something to do with why he believes there will not be another generation; why ancient/modern prophecies declare it is time for this heartbreaking experiment to be concluded — this cosmic exhibition meant to demonstrate whether mankind is capable of governing its own affairs.
“What had to come, has come,” Martin van Creveld wrote. “The question is no longer if American forces will be withdrawn, but how soon and at what cost.”
As to the inevitable and increasingly accurate comparisons to Vietnam, van Creveld proclaims, “Clearly this is not a pleasant model to follow, but no other alternative appears in sight. Whereas North Vietnam at least had a government with which it was possible to arrange a cease-fire, in Iraq the opponent consists of shadowy groups of 'terrorists' [and a greater number of insurgents] with no central organization or command authority. And whereas in the early 1970s equipment was still relatively plentiful, today's armed forces are the products of a technology-driven revolution in military affairs. Whether that revolution has contributed to anything besides America's national debt is open to debate. What is beyond question, though, is that the new weapons are so few and so expensive that even the world's largest and richest power can afford only to field a relative handful of them.
“Therefore,” van Creveld continues, “simply abandoning equipment or handing it over to the Iraqis, as was done in Vietnam, is simply not an option. And even if it were, the new Iraqi army is by all accounts much weaker, less skilled, less cohesive and less loyal to its government than even the South Vietnamese army was. For all intents and purposes, Washington might just as well hand over its weapons directly to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. “Clearly, then,” van Creveld concludes, “the thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a classic withdrawal.” 4
A classic withdrawal is what Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha, a decorated Marine Corp Vietnam veteran, apparently had in mind when he was accused, on the floor of the Congress, of being a coward for wanting to, as his detractor put it, “cut-and-run.” Likely he subscribes to the homily that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
“As the pullout proceeds,” Professor van Creveld warns, “Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not.”
However, of the only options available, and which indeed must be taken, none are tenable. “...a complete American withdrawal is not an option; the region, with its vast oil reserves, is simply too important for that.” ibid.
George Bush is faced with two absolutely necessary, but mutually exclusive requirements: Total withdrawal and continued occupation. The U.S. must get out of Iraq, but it must not. Iran will emerge, according to The Forward article, as the biggest winner. A winner, according to van Creveld, “that in the not too distant future is likely to add nuclear warheads to the missiles it already has. In the past, Tehran has often threatened the Gulf States. Now that Iraq is gone, it is hard to see how anybody except the United States can keep the Gulf States, and their oil, out of the mullahs' clutches.”
Iraq has not only been brought to its knees by two wars with a vastly superior militant nation, but has been economically gutted by over ten-years of sanctions by that same nation — not to mention the deaths caused by those sanctions of over a million-and-a-half Iraqi citizens, most of them children. Yet the U.S. expected to be greeted with kisses and flowers as their liberators. One must seriously ask how this unbelievable disconnect in logical thinking ever emerged from the minds of those whom America thought were sane and rational beings.
If Bush wants to create terrorists with which to validate his Homeland Security agenda, he is, according to van Creveld, going about it the right way. If the president chooses to “cut-and-run” it is quite likely he will create a Somolian-style anarchy under strong Islamic colors. This will breed an army of terrorists, driven by Iran's hatred of the “Great Satan.” That is why, van Creveld says “a continued American military presence [is required] ... because a divided, chaotic, government-less Iraq is very likely to become a hornets' nest. From it, a hundred mini-Zarqawis will spread all over the Middle East, conducting acts of sabotage and seeking to overthrow governments in Allah's name.”
This writer would like to suggest to Mr. van Creveld that the scenario of “mini-Zarqawis” will materialize whether or not there is a continued American military presence. The only variable will be the velocity with which they breed. This will most certainly further Iran's dream of exporting its Islamic theocracy to engulf the Middle East.
“For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush,” van Creveld opines, “deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted,” he reasons, “they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.”
Plenty of time? What would they be tried for? War crimes? By international law, war crimes are punishable by death — which effectively terminates any “mulling over” process. Besides, such prosecution would require at least one of two situations, neither of which exists: The U.S. would necessarily have to become a signatory to the International Criminal Court — which it refuses to do — or America would have to be defeated, occupied and the “president's men” arrested by a foreign power — somewhat like it has done with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
Impeached? On what grounds? “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” as stated in the U.S. Constitution? There is no constitutional basis for impeachment predicated on stupidity, or even lying to the American people — except under oath. One former U.S. president qualified for that category, but Tefloned his way out of it, being exonerated virtually along party lines.
Whatever justice ultimately pursues and overtakes Mr. Bush and his colleagues, it is clear that he is, as the prophecy states, coming “to his end” and there will be none to help him. Though nearly all Americans love to think otherwise, international respect for the United States is the lowest it has ever been since the founding of the Republic. “This prophecy in Daniel 9 concerning the King of the North and his coming to an end,” says Travesser, “clearly reveals the timing of his appearing and the validity of his message — the time when the followers of God are vindicated, and the evil forces judged and brought to their desolation.”
All of this directs us squarely, according to Travesser, back to the end of the prophecy in Daniel 9. “And upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.” Simply stated: The one who entered the Middle East to desolate, and the one who desolates the world, will come to the desolation decreed for him — the same desolation decreed by Michael Travesser, but which is brought upon the desolator as the direct result of his own vain and unthinking, demonic purposes.
WHO REALLY CONTROLS AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY?
It is mentioned, in the Seventh Protocol of the Elders of Zion: “...to sum up our system of keeping the governments of the goyim in Europe in check, we shall show our strength to one of them by terrorist attempts and to all, if we allow the possibility of a general rising against us [by Iraq], we shall respond with the guns of America....” This is the King of the North speaking. They are the “guns of America” that are punishing the regions from which the “rumors” came, and it is this power also, who is coming to his end, with no help.
Though many have denied the evidence of the authenticity of the Protocols of Zion, proclaiming it “anti-Semitic” in origin, it becomes viscerally alarming when the entirety of its template is overlaid on current events and the accurate congruency of the two become apparent. As for the accusations of racism: Closely following virtually any charge that Israel is heavily influencing America's direction, comes the inevitable epithet of anti-Semitism, which is almost universally applied under such circumstances. It has been so overused in attempts at obfuscating of the truth, that, as Pat Buchanan put it, they “have cried 'wolf' once too often.”
That American economic and foreign policy is largely controlled by Israel is quite indisputable in the face of overwhelming evidence of it. In an article written for The American Conservative entitled, Whose War?, former Republican, and Reform Party Presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, claims that “the charge of anti-Semitism...is toxic. For this venerable slander is designed to nullify public discourse by smearing and intimidating foes and censoring and blacklisting them and any who would publish them. Neocons say we attack them because they are Jewish. We do not. We attack them because their warmongering threatens our country, even as it finds a reliable echo in Ariel Sharon.” 5
Robert Kaiser, in a Washington Post front page article, clarified the issue when he quoted an unnamed “senior government official” saying that “the Likudniks are really in charge now.” — Likudniks being a “Yiddish term for supporters of Sharon's political party.” 6
Kaiser goes on to quote another senior official, this time from the Bush Sr. Administration, who is highly critical of Jr.'s presidency: “Sharon played the president like a violin: 'I'm fighting your war,'” said Sharon, “'terrorism is terrorism,' and so on. Sharon did a masterful job.'”
Buchanan says that “America is about to make a momentous decision: whether to launch a series of wars in the Middle East that could ignite the Clash of Civilizations...” This, says Buchanan, would be disastrous. 5
What are the core motivations for Israel going to such efforts to control the “guns of America”? Israel has virtually no oil reserves of its own and must depend entirely on imports to fuel its economy. The title of an article published in Israel's newspaper, Haaretz Daily, rather succinctly tells the story and brings the picture into sharper focus: Infrastructure Minister Paritzky dreams of Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa. In that article Paritzky is said to be requesting “an assessment of the condition of the old oil pipeline from Mosul to Haifa, with an eye toward renewing the flow of oil in the event of a friendly post-war regime in Iraq.” Paritzky emphasizes that “the Americans would respond favorably to the idea, since the pipeline would bring Iraqi oil directly to the Mediterranean.” Following the expiration of the British Mandate for Palestine, that pipeline was redirected to Syria, denying Israel the benefit of it. 7
Jane's Defense Weekly, in its Foreign Report, stated: “It is understood from diplomatic sources that the Bush administration has said it will not support lifting UN sanctions on Iraq unless Saddam's successors agree to supply Israel with oil.
“All of this lends weight,” Jane's concludes, “to the theory that Bush's war is part of a masterplan to reshape the Middle East to serve Israel's interests.” 8
The United States, in a 1975 MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) declared that, in the event of a crisis, it would supply all of Israel's petroleum needs — even if such an action would result in “domestic shortages.” Another provision included in the MoU is that the United States was committed to the stocking of a strategic oil reserve specifically set aside for Israel — to the tune of $3 billion. Another strong impetus for rerouting Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean, according to Minister Paritzky, would be the dramatic lessening of U.S. dependence on oil transported via the Persian Gulf. “Direct access to the world's second-largest oil reserves (with the possibility of expansion through so-far untapped deposits),” says Jane's Foreign Report, “ is an important strategic objective.”
“Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?” asked Philip Zelikow, executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, better known as the 9/11 Commission. “I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 — it's the threat against Israel. 9
“Mr. Zelikow made those remarks to a gathering at the University of Virginia, Sep. 10, 2002, while he was still a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB — known throughout the intelligence community as “Piffy-ab”). PFIAB is a 16-member panel that reports only to the president. Each member possesses what is known as a “code word” clearance, which exceeds even Top Secret, giving them access to any classified data they deem necessary to perform their duties, which primarily constitute the evaluation of U.S. intelligence agencies for leaks and mistakes. Such a clearance would of course provide Zelikow with all the information he would need to formulate such a conclusion as Israel's security being the principle reason for going to war with Iraq. It wasn't any connection with al-Qaeda, Zelikow asserts, that spurred the U.S. to war, but rather Iraq's potential as a nuclear threat to Israel, and its support of the organization Israel considers its primary domestic threat — Hamas.
Ipso facto, Israel gains two enormous advantages. An unlimited supply of oil and a U.S. prosecuted war against its arch enemy. This should be a very sobering set of circumstances for Iran to consider — are they next? Not because they have oil reserves, but because, according to Israel's assessment, they pose the greatest current threat to its security. And any threat to Israel's security automatically translates to a high-priority concern of the United States since the United States is largely controlled and directed by Israel and the Jews.
Kol Yisrael — Israel Radio — reported on October 3, 2001, less than a month after the 9/11 attack, that during a Cabinet meeting while being strongly questioned by other Cabinet members on how America would stand on certain issues, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon angrily retorted, “I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.”
This clearly reveals the reality of things. Jews actually are in control of money, policy and nearly all other major political moves. Paul Wolfowitz is the current president of the World Bank. Alan Greenspan runs the Federal Reserve, soon to be succeeded by his assistant Benjamin S. Bernanke. All three of these men exercise enormous leverage and influence in American foreign policy — and the policy of the entire planet. All three are Jews. The rumor was recently floated that the next Secretary of Defense could be Joseph Leiberman, also a Jew.
Consider a fictitious scenario that all matters monetary and warfare would have as policy-makers, Mormons. Would not that furrow a few brows? Would not one think that with ten percent of the congress being Mormon, and all major leaders of government and international finance, Mormon, that Mormon policy might very well be the policy of America and the world? Mormons do not hold these positions, but Jews do, and the interest of Israel is clearly the thrust of American foreign policy. According to Michael, this clearly reveals the King of the North, that modern Babylon which is confronting all other forces — and especially Islam.
Michael observes that in the Old Testament era it was Persia that brought an end to the Babylonian Empire of its time. With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the outspoken and confrontive new president in Iran — which is modern-day Persia — Michael questions, “will he be the key for the drying up of Muslim support for America in the Middle East? Will he be the trigger to the sixth plague for Babylon, when the Euphrates is dried up, and Babylon (the US) is left vulnerable and exposed? Would that not be the pinnacle of ironies?”
These musings of Travesser, in the light of what is currently taking place in Iraq, seem very, almost mind-bogglingly plausible. The Shiite majority now controls Iraq, and the Iranian Revolution that ousted the Shaw in 1979, brought the Shi-ites to full (some would argue, despotic) power in Iran. In the scenario of the US attacking Iran, as it is widely expected to do at the behest of Israel, there would likely be no other outcome than a total eradication of Shi-ite support for the United States, and its efforts at creating an Iraqi, cookie-cutter-style democracy in America's image.
So devoted are the Iranian Shi-ites, that their mind-set is completely harmonious with their willingness to die, if necessary, in a nuclear holocaust of their own devising — especially if it would assure the extinction of their arch-enemy, Israel. Iran has absolutely no intention of allowing Israel to be the major power broker in the Middle East, as it is in the rest of the world.
Consider that fully eleven percent of the most powerful legislative body on earth, the United States Senate, is Jewish. And considering that, of the general U.S. population, only 2.2 percent are Jews, this presents, in political power (and control in the financial sector as well), a strength five times greater than their representative number in the American population. Is this accidental? Does simply exposing such truth to the light necessarily make one anti-Semitic (or anti-Mormon)? It does not seem, simply by the fact alone, that strong Jewish control over those sectors of America's system would be a negative thing. What makes it negative is the ends that power is used to serve.
This, Travesser claims, indicates a control over America's and the world's financial system, which traces its origins back to 1744 and the Mayer Amschel Rothschild family. The Rothschilds are “an eminent international banking and finance dynasty of German Jewish origin that established operations across Europe....The Rothschilds were supporters of the State of Israel, and Baron Edmond James de Rothschild was a patron of the first settlement in Palestine at Rishon-LeZion. In 1917 Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild was the addressee of the Balfour Declaration, which committed the British government to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” 10
The American public — especially the Evangelical Christian community — has a general perception that the Jews are the saviors of the present world. But did the Jews save their own world 2,000 years ago, before they were thrust out in the Diaspora? Did they have the spiritual insight to discern truth from error then when Jesus was summarily dismissed and crucified? Did they save their own city and culture in their final days? Travesser states that the Jews destroyed themselves in that generation, and now they are destroying themselves again, and taking the whole world with them. The behind-the-scenes antics of some of the modern Diaspora are not hard to recognize.
In a July, 2003 article, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that, “According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency.” 11
The operative word here is amateurs. They may have been so by the definition of intelligence analyst professionals, but what they were clearly professionals at was skewing good intelligence data, and incorporating that which is somewhat worthless, to construct precisely the picture that Israel and the U.S. Administration desired. That being, a picture that could be presented to the American people and the world as sufficient justification to engage in a murderous war against a nation that had never in any way harmed the United States — but did threaten harm to Israel if attacked, which is precisely the position Iran now occupies. If Iran is attacked, it threatens retaliation against Israel — and this is the entire impetus for American policy against Iran.
“The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hard-line conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.
“The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.” ibid.
“CIA Director, George Tenet, even though he publicly assumed responsibility for the Niger uranium debacle, claimed that he and his agency were under severe pressure to provide intel that would justify a war for which a decision had already been made.
White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, claimed that critics of the Administration's policies were attempting to “rewrite history.”
Rewrite history? Let's see now — the justification for the war seems to have morphed through several evolutionary processes:
- Saddam has a covert nuclear weapons program. (Oops!)
- Well, Saddam has biological weapons. (Oops!)
- Saddam has links to al Qaeda. (Oops!)
- We need to justify the loss of the fighting men and women already fallen in Iraq. (Bush's Logic: If you're in a hole, keep digging. You'll eventually get back to the top.)
- Bring Democracy to Iraq (Very large, pronounced “Oops!”)
Actually, Scott, who is it really that is rewriting history?
The OSP was given its political clout by no less than the most powerful vice-president in history, Dick Cheney, and his then-advisor Lewis “Scooter” Libby. They (along with Newt Gingrich and others) were personally involved in pressuring the CIA to render the intelligence in such a manner as to paint Saddam as a threat to the U.S. that must be dealt with.
“Such hands-on involvement in the processing of intelligence data was,” The Guardian wrote, “unprecedented for a vice-president in recent times....”
“The OSP had access to a huge amount of raw intelligence,” and the pressure they were able to exert caused CIA analysts to exercise great reluctance to “discard anything, no matter how far-fetched.” ibid. Few of those actually analyzing the data had any intelligence experience in doing so. They were simply “data mining” for information, no matter, it seems, how incredible, that would allow the Bush Administration to carry out its mandate as Israel's bodyguard.
Clearly, Israel and other Jewish powers have conceived a plan to remain relatively insulated from the effects of the war, while allowing the United States to take the heat. The U.S. is the fall guy, while the Jews, for whom the war was fought, sit in relative peace and watch the fiasco from a distance. Is America stupid? Yes, America is stupid, and according to Michael Travesser the desolator will come to his desolation. This desolation is quite simply a cause-and-effect relationship — the work of the desolator's own hand. It has the look-and-feel of a well drafted and executed plan to bring the great nationalist state of America to its knees.
History is filled with instances where a nation has openly declared its allies, and entered into mutual defence agreements with them. This is not at all uncommon, but the US has engaged in lies and subterfuge about its defence pact with Israel, attempting instead to cover it up, apparently in order that the Muslim nations will not be offended. America saw honesty with its own citizens and the rest of the world as an impediment to its (and Israel's) true agenda — world domination and the erradicaton of any threat to it.
“'They surveyed data and picked out what they liked,' said Gregory Thielmann, a senior official in the state department's intelligence bureau until his retirement in September. 'The whole thing was bizarre. The secretary of defence had this huge defence intelligence agency, and he went around it.'” ibid.
The Office of Special Plans appears to be simply an agency cloned from the political DNA of the Bush regime, whose sole purpose was to use the CIA and DIA as a fast food source for their bottom-feeding amateur intelligence analysts — no nutritional content required. Through them the neocons could provide Bush and Rumsfeld with the justification to war they so badly wanted.
“It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel,” The Guardian pointed out, “specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorize.”
Israeli intelligence officers visiting the White House were not required clearance of any kind except by the word of a White House official.
Richard Perle — nicknamed “the Prince of Darkness,” “Darth Vader,” the “evil genius,” — was Assistant Secretary of Defence under the Reagan Administration. However, in 1996 he was an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his role as advisor to Netanyahu, he advocated that “Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or destabilized, for Israel to be truly safe.” ibid.
U.S. officials ran a story up a flagpole for the American press, claiming as its origin the Israeli prime minister. It suggested that WMDs were not found in Iraq because they had been spirited away to Syria. What better way to turn the cross hairs on yet another of Israel's enemies?
The OSP simply acquired all of the raw intel — whether hearsay or obviously manufactured — and created out of it an illustrated coloring book for the White House. The Bush Administration got what it wanted, and nearly 50,000 people have died as the result.
~~~
Michael Travesser tends to view and interpret every major event refracted through the prism of scripture, and the foregoing is no exception. In an email exchange with this writer, he connected Israel's control of America with Daniel 8:24: “And his [King of the North's political/military] power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.” emphasis by Michael Travesser
Travesser sees the “holy people” in that text as Muslims, who are, by number and power, probably the largest group of “holy people” on earth. Exegetically, the word holy, he says, simply means set apart for a sacred purpose. Hence all the propaganda news footage of a praying Saddam, attempting to exemplify himself as a holy leader of a secular nation.
Associating this with the prophetic symbolism in scripture of a “beast” representing secular governments — especially in Revelation where the “mark of the beast” signifies lost souls — Travesser tersely states that “The beast uses the power of other entities [in this case Bush and America] to pull off his will” and then he adds, warningly, “Anyone being used in his ‘coalition,’ is part of his power.” And this, he says, is a very core part of what it means to receive the infamous “Mark of the Beast,” as stated in the Book of Revelation. That is, to agree with the Beast, or allow one's self to be used by him. By doing so, one becomes so self-identified with the power of the Beast, he becomes, himself, that Beast. The United States of America is now the personification of this Beast power of Revelation. It has become the driving force behind a ruined, religious/secular morality — a blatant antichrist, and a tyrannical deceiver over all the earth.
THE COMING OF THE PRINCE
So far, much of our discussion has revolved around Michael's interpretation of verses, largely in chapter eleven of the Biblical Book of Daniel, and how he perceives their fulfillment — especially the last verse in that chapter. However, an exceedingly important event takes place at the very time when the political leader is coming “to his end.” And that, not-so-coincidentally, is described in the very next verse, the first one of chapter twelve:
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
It is no coincidence, according to Michael Travesser, that the two events have been so clearly juxtaposed, for it is when the power of earth's system becomes fully manifest that the power of Heaven's does as well.
So — what is the purpose — the meaning of all of these events? Travesser simply says, “It is the plant and its fruit. Every plant bears fruit of its own kind, and in its own season. The kingdom of evil is now revealing itself as expressed in the King of the North — i.e., the international bankers and Israeli/Jewish power brokers — along with all of the power and might of the United States and its willingly cooperative Gentile citizenry — commonly referred to as 'Christians'. Pure evil with its pure human domination is reaching its perfect maturity, as is pure righteousness.” Travesser quotes: “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Eph 4:13
~~~
To collate these factors into a “Travesser-type” perspective:
- Jesus appeared, as per the prophecy of Daniel 9, in his ministry at the beginning of the final week of years.
- Michael appeared with his present work at the beginning of the 70th week of years — that work being primarily defined in the Jubilee text of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
- The end of the 70 weeks of years prophecy included the destruction of ancient Jerusalem, and finally the entire Roman empire. Travesser states that the end of this 70 weeks of years will bring the same results to this present world as it brought to old Jerusalem.
- Michael appeared just at the time that the King of the North was preparing to invade Iraq, and set up his tents between the two rivers.
- The prophecy ends before the winter of 2007. This, according to Michael Travesser is the true end of time because it is simply the end of the prophecy.
- Lastly, the first Christ Jesus was cut off, killed, and then destruction came. The second coming of Christ cuts off the wicked, and intercedes no more for them. It is this generation which is cut off, but also, it is the time for the deliverance of those who have been true to God and to principle.
In the last two-and-a-half decades cults and isolated bands of religious separatists have gained a somewhat sullied reputation, having become generally a stench in the nostrils of organized religion — especially in America. It would be much easier, perhaps, to dismiss Michael Travesser and his small sect of Christian followers as just another of these cults — a band of fanatic disciples being led by a desert “holy man,” perhaps to their ruin — that is, were it not for his perfect record in the theater of predictions (even if only two). But, as Elizabeth Taylor once said, There is no deodorant like success, and dismissal of this man, and his claims, under such circumstances becomes somewhat problematic. It takes on the nagging, even disturbing texture of What If...?
Travesser's teachings become all the more difficult to ignore in the intense light of historical reality, and when it is recalled that Jesus was, in his time, only an obscure “cult” leader who never traveled more than a hundred miles from his home and owned literally nothing but the clothes on his back. His ministry spanned only three-and-a-half years and, visibly at least, had but a handful of adherents during his lifetime — and none at his death. His “school” of discipleship experienced a twelve-and-a-half percent dropout rate, and even the closest of his followers deserted him when he was executed on a Roman cross. Jesus was reviled by the religious leaders of the “true church” and the public in general; tried, convicted and condemned to death by a secular authority at the behest of the leaders of his own religion, causing it to appear as if his entire life and ministry were an utter failure. But there is no name in the 21st Century more recognizable than his among all peoples of the Earth, nor any person whose teachings are more generally known, to a greater or lesser degree, albeit, his teachings, as Jesus himself experienced them in his own life, are not remotely known by the majority of those who claim to be his followers.
It is widely believed by present-day Christians that the Jews of Jesus' time rejected their long-looked-for Messiah because he did not fit their theological interpretation of the prophecies concerning him. Is it possible that such a scenario is again being played out by God's professed followers, twenty-centuries later? And — to paraphrase Santayana — by not learning from history, are they “condemned to repeat its mistakes”? Could modern Christianity's expectations, like those of the ancient Jews, be wrong? those expectations of exactly what the return of God's Son would look like? Perhaps a better question would be, has anyone ever gotten it right when attempting to predict the manner in which a given prophecy would be accomplished? It seems that a perusal of Biblical prophecies, and their fulfillment, would indicate not, though many in this time still attempt that which history has shown to be unsuccessful. It has always been the case that the object of a prophecy was not recognized for what it was until after its completion — and virtually never in advance of its fulfillment.
If history illustrates anything about religious movements, it is that they are, virtually without exception, always conceived in obscure beginnings and rejected, often violently, by contemporary society. Considering these things, it would seem appropriate that a substantial amount of objectivity should be involved in the assessment of this man — Michael of Travesser — and his view of things soon to come.
Any thinking person with an intellect greater than a bug would have to frankly admit that this world is faced with a universal upheaval and civil/social disintegration that cannot be effectively addressed or resolved short of the total meltdown of civilization — and perhaps of the entire human race. Most nations are ruled, demonstrably, by personages whose intelligence only questionably exceeds that of the aforementioned critters of earth. And the reality is indisputable of this world's de facto control by unseen men of higher intellect, but whose moral values lie somewhere on the level of primordial soup. To any objective observer, the current, nearly vertical descent of this world's system into oblivion is not merely occurring, but is essentially an accomplished fact.
Will the world survive mankind as a sentient, but amoral, species? Or will the total demise of God-given sensibilities — the complete effacing of His image from the human race — signal some holocaustic end to everything?
Michael Travesser and his congregation have very recently ceased publishing on the Web site which carried his message. He has turned himself to almost continual prayer and meditation, for he feels that he has finished what he was sent to accomplish, and revealed what was given him to reveal. He has spoken what he was given to say, and he feels his work is complete.
“The people of God,” he says, “who are fully possessed of Him will soon leave the earth, at which time the world will enter its terminal fire — its dissolution in what will very likely be a nuclear holocaust for all remaining mankind — the final poisoning of all the earth in the fires of its own creation.”
Scientists estimate that the end of the world will come in about four to five billion years, when the sun burns out. Michael Travesser thinks it will be sooner.
~~~
*It should be noted in the case of the Branch Davidians that, even though the official government position explained their deaths as self-immolation, overwhelming documented evidence clearly indicates FBI and Delta Force intervention to be the actual cause of the group's death.
REFERENCES:
- Derek Hall, Muse Magazine, Canada, ca. 1996.
- Time, Oct. 18, 2005 (Link)
- Adapted by Columbia University, St. Augustine Studies from Professor Paul Hahn, University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas.
- The Forward, November 25, 2005
- The American Conservative, March 24, 2003
- Washington Post, Feb. 9, 2003
- Haaretz Daily, March 31, 2003.
- Jane's Defense Weekly, April 16, 2003.
- Inter Press Service (IPS), March 29, 2004.
- Wikipedia, as of 12/8/05 (Link)
- The Guardian, July 17, 2003, Special investigation: “The spies who pushed for war”
Related Article: Seventy Weeks Prophecy of Daniel Nine Ends in 2007.