Dear friends:

A reader sent a very fascinating two-point response to my previous message about the lady who had the visions similar to Elisha's servant.

He cited two parallels:

1.  This passage is amazing: As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because that will mean the LORD has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army." 2 Samuel 5:24.

2.  Then he quoted from first century Jewish/Roman historian Josephus concerning the destruction of Jerusalem around the time of Titus, Book VI, Chapter 5, describing something like that seen by Elisha's servant and the Canadian lady recently on July 30:

"Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, 'Let us remove hence.'"