2008-08-08: Plague of Flies Continue, Pharaoh asks for prayer

On this date the plague of flies continues, Pharaoh grants prayer, but not far away.

Fulfillment

There is not much text for this plague date, and the text given is pretty minor, especially compared to dates later in the year.

2 key events marked the date.

Russian Invades Georgia

A few hours before the start of the opening of the Olympic ceremony, the Russian military began a major military operation in Georgia. Tanks rolled in, 9000 soldiers crossed the border, planes dropped bombs across the country and a naval blockade of Black Sea ports was also carried out. The offensive lasted for about 4 days before Medeved announced a halt to advancement, though fighting continued.

Opening of Beijing Olympics

This event landed squarely on the prophetic date. With nearly 1 billion people watching on TV, and over 100,000 in the stadium for the ceremonies, this opening forms the "natural" fulfillment.

There were roughly 80 heads of state present in the Stadium to watch the show, and gatherings of heads of state are also a common fulfillment pattern. Bush and Putin were seated near each other which is also curious considering the other headline for the day.

Comments

There has been a series of "double folds" where the time line is highlighting events which fold back to the World War II era. An example of this is Barak Obama’s visit to Berlin, a match to the 1936 visit of Jesse Owens to the Berlin Olympics. Barack’s workout at his hotel gym mapped closely to Owens’ Olympic performance.

In this case the stadium in Berlin folded to a July 1942 event in Paris where the Winter Velodrome was the venue for housing 13,000 imprisoned Jews. For 8 hellish days they had no access to bathrooms and little food. Of the number imprisoned in the stadium only 400 would survive the war.

Though nothing a severe happened in the Birds Nest stadium in Beijing, the general political climate surrounding the Olympics is quite similar. Instead of Nazis, this stadium is surrounded by Communists, and the net effect on personal liberties is quite similar. Protesters are even calling this the "Blood Olympics."

Events in Georgia may or may not precursor what looks to be a series of increasingly severe prophetic headlines later in the year. At the end of World War II, the world entered the Cold War, and this invasion of Georgia may be the flash point for starting another, though significantly shorter, cold war era between east and west.

Pope Notes

The Pope’s visit in April of 2008, provided prophetic matches to the events this day. There were 2 different venues, and each venue mapped to a headline.

The first venue, a brief stop at a Jewish Synagog (the 3rd time a Pope had ever visited a Synagog) focused on the relationship between the angels over the ark of the covenant. In the public meetings these were likened to the 2 religions, Judaism and Christianity, but the more precise linkage is to the 2 halves of the nations descended from Abraham, which is the split between the east and western worlds. The Georgia invasion by Russia presses on the quote of the hour, "Blessed are brothers who dwell together in unity." NATO and east-west relations will be strained by this invasion for some time.

The second venue was a stop at Saint Joseph’s Parish for an ecumenical prayer service. This service dwelled on the unity of various Christian groups, especially for prayer. The numbers of Christian groups represented roughly matched the number of nations present at the opening of the Olympics. The Christian practice of coming together for prayer is mirrored in the way nations come together for the Olympics. The Pope mentioned the fast change in the modern world, most visible in China, and the fire of faith that is in our hearts, like the Olympic flame in the Stadium.

Phil Stone
Revised: 2008-08-12
Updated: 2008-10-18