2 Kings, Chapter 25, Verse 26
Then all the people, great and
small, left with the army commanders and went to Egypt for fear of the Chaldeans.
In view of the modern world I wonder: Are we still hiding in the
fleshpots of Egypt for fear of the Chaldeans? Mary daughter of David help us!
Here we see the last remnants of David’s Kingdom in shambles. Now the
Jews finally realize that Israel’s hope is gone. Yet, God has not totally
snuffed out the line of David and through David’s line will come the Christ. Oh
that Israel would recognize Him.
·
In the ninth year of his reign, Zedekiah rebels
and Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem for two whole years.
·
The famine grows extremely severe in a short
period of time
·
Zedekiah tries to escape at night with his
soldiers, but he gets captured by the Babylonians (Chaldeans) before they make
it very far.
·
The Chaldeans kill Zedekiah's sons before his
eyes, stab his eyes out, and take him in chains to Babylon.
·
Nebuchadnezzar's captain of the bodyguard,
Nebuzaradan, comes to Jerusalem and burns down the Temple, the King's palace,
and all the houses of the city.
·
The Babylonian army tears down the city walls.
Nebuzaradan takes all the remaining people to Babylon—except for the very
poorest, who still remain to be vinedressers and do farmwork.
Brunch
with the King
·
The Chaldeans break the bronze pillars that were
in the Temple and carry them to Babylon.
·
They completely loot all the remaining silver
and gold from the Temple, stripping away all the treasures and bringing them to
Babylon.
·
Nebuzaradan sends the two highest priests of the
Temple and the three guardians of the Temple's threshold to Babylon, where
Nebuchadnezzar has them put to death.
·
Shaphan's grandson, Gedaliah, becomes the new
governor of Judah, which has been virtually emptied out and put in exile.
·
Gedaliah tells some of the remaining warriors of
Judah to put down their weapons and live peacefully under Babylon's rule.
·
They do this for a while, but then a warrior named
Ishmael leads ten men to kill Gedaliah.
·
The remaining people then run away to Egypt,
afraid of what the Babylonians will do to them as punishment.
·
After thirty-seven years of exile and
imprisonment, Jehoiachin is freed by King Evil-merodoch of Babylon. The king
lets Jehoiachin eat at his own table in luxury and also gives him a generous,
regular allowance.
In fact, Jehoiachin eats
daily at the Babylonian table is an assertion that there is hope and after the gospel
of Matthew, for instance is quick to name Jesus as “son of David”.[2]
Mary is from the line of David and as Queen of Heaven desires to lead
us to the promised land of Her son. We should listen to Her Fatima messages.
Fatima[3]
·
May 13, 1917. When asked by the children who she
was and where she came from, the lady said she was "from heaven" and
that she would reveal her identity later. She asked the children to come back
to the Cova da Iria on the 13th day of the month for the next six months, and
she asked them to pray the rosary every day "in order to obtain peace for
the world" and the end of World War I.
·
June 13, 1917. The lady said she would take
Francisco and Jacinta to heaven soon while Lucia would remain on earth for
"sometime longer" to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
·
July 13, 1917. The lady said she would reveal
her identity in October and "perform a miracle for all to see and
believe." After telling the children to make sacrifices for sinners, she
revealed three secrets; two of the secrets were not shared publicly until 1941
and the third secret, written down by Sister Lucia and sent to the Vatican, was
not released until 2000.
The second secret was that while World War I would come to end, a "worse one will break out" if people continued offending God. The children were told that calamity would be prevented if Russia was consecrated to the Immaculate Heart. Although Sister Lucia confirmed that the consecration was done properly by Pope Pius XII in 1942 and by St. John Paul II in 1984, some Fatima devotees continue to argue that it was not.
The third and final secret, published 83 years after the Fatima apparitions, was a vision of a "bishop dressed in white" shot down amid the rubble of a ruined city. The official Vatican interpretation, discussed with Sister Lucia before its publication, was that it referred to the persecution of Christians in the 20th century and, specifically, to the 1981 assassination attempt on the life of St. John Paul II. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith at the time of the third secret's publication in 2000. Presenting the secret and the interpretation to the press, he said the vision's purpose was not to show an "irrevocably fixed future" but to "mobilize the forces of change in the right direction."
·
Aug. 19, 1917. The lady again said she would
perform a miracle in October and asked that the money given by pilgrims be used
to build a chapel on the site of the apparitions.
·
Sept. 13, 1917. The lady asked them to continue
to pray the rosary "to obtain the end of the war," and she said that
Jesus, St. Joseph, Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel would appear
during the miracle in October.
·
-- Oct. 13, 1917. Despite the pouring rain, tens
of thousands of people went to the Cova da Iria to witness the long-awaited
miracle. The lady identified herself as "Our Lady of the Rosary" and
said the war would end and the soldiers would return home. After asking that
people cease to offend God, she opened her hands, which reflected a light
toward the sun. Sister Lucia recalled crying out, "Look at the sun!"
As the crowds looked on, the sun appeared to "dance," spinning and
changing colors. The children also saw the promised figures of Jesus, St.
Joseph and Mary. Amazement at the "dancing sun" turned to panic when
the sun seemed to hurl toward earth. Fearing the end of the world, some people
screamed and ran, some tried to hide and others remained on their knees,
praying for mercy. Then the sun returned to its place. Thirteen years after
Mary's final apparition at Fatima, the bishop of Leiria declared the visions of
the three shepherd children "worthy of belief" and allowed the
veneration of Our Lady of Fatima. However, the bishop did not recognize the
"dancing sun" as miraculous.
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