As Christians await the Rapture

[Pharaoh]

A very similar scenario is going on in Iran..........

In November, Iranian president Ahmed Ahmadinejad startled the world when he announced that felt 'the hand of Allah' entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.


According to Ahmadinejad, during his UN address, he suddenly felt himself surrounded by light. It wasn't the stage lighting, he said -- it was light from heaven. Ahmadinejad related his otherworldly experience in a videotaped meeting with a prominent ayatollah in Tehran


Ahmadinejad's "vision" at the UN could be dismissed as political posturing if it weren't for a string of similar statements and actions that suggest he believes he is destined to bring about the "End Times" -- the end of the world -- by paving the way for the return of the Shia Muslim messiah.

In a November 16 speech in Tehran to senior clerics who had come from all over Iran to hear him, the new President said the main mission of his Government was to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance)".

The mystical 12th Imam of Shia Islam disappeared as a child in 941AD, and Shia Muslims have awaited his reappearance ever since, believing that when he returns, he will reign on earth for seven years, before bringing about the Last Judgment and the end of the world.

In order to prepare for the Mahdi, Ahmadinejad said, "Iran should turn into a mighty, advanced, and model Islamic society". Iranians should "refrain from leaning toward any Western school of thought" and abstain from "luxurious lives" and other excesses.

Scared yet? It gets worse. Ahmadinejad is rumored to have ordered his cabinet to sign a loyalty pact with the 12th Imam and throw it down a well near the holy city of Qom, (where they believe the imam is hiding).

In a December article called "Waiting for the Rapture in Iran," the Christian Science Monitor's Scott Peterson wrote that Ahmadinejad has earmarked $17 million for the Jamkaran mosque, supposedly built on the Mahdi's orders.

"Officials deny rumors," Peterson said, that when Ahmadinejad was mayor of Tehran, he "secretly tasked the city council... to prepare

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