Hey Doves,There may be an historical set of reasons behind March 21, 2008. Hizballah may start a serious reprisal with Israel in Gaza the day after March 21st. That would be wise if the U.S. is crippled from the Rapture - it's not like we'll have a free schedule then. However, the other historical basis for March 21st stinks badly - This is the date chosen in 1844 by a Masonic Baptist preacher whose bad fruit teachings lead to the formation of the 7th day adventists and his teachings eventually - worst of all...Jehovah's Witnesses. Take a look at the articles below. Pray and meditate about this stuff if you care a lot about March 21st.
My personal gut instincts say that the rapture should probably occur before June 11, 2008 at the very latest to ensure 40 year continuity of Matthew 24:31-44. That's where I stand. If the rapture doesn't happen by then, all that I can do is to keep looking up. The Lord Jesus Christ will be back soon to get us, if not by then. Waiting on our Lord is worth it, indeed!
Yitz!
Matthew 24:31-44
31And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 32Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
33So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
35Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
36But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
37But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
42Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
43But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
44Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5056
Hizballah’s revenge attack likely after 40-day Mughniyeh mourning next month
February 26, 2008, 1:40 PM (GMT+02:00)
AMAN chief Maj. Gen. Amos YadlinThis was predicted by Israel’s military intelligence AMAN chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin in his briefing to the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee Tuesday, Feb. 26. In the past, Hizballah has timed its reprisals for the 40th day of mourning, in this case March 22-23, - 40 days after its military commander Imad Mughniyeh was blown up in Damascus.
Yadlin also reported that in the month since Hamas flattened Gaza’s border wall for free Palestinian access to Egyptian Sinai, al Qaeda operatives have used the opportunity to steal into the Gaza Strip, along with scores of Palestinian terrorists returning from special courses in Iran and Syria. There, the acquired special skills in the fabrication of explosive devices and missiles. Among the too were trained snipers, of the type which have begun plaguing Israel farmers till their fields close to the Gaza border.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_21
March 21 is the 80th day of the year (81st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 285 days remaining until the end of the year.
Common date of the Equinox. In astrology, March 21 the day of the Equinox is the first full day of the sign of Aries. It is also the traditional first day of the astrological year; and International Astrology Day.
630 - Byzantine emperor Heraclius restores the True Cross to Jerusalem.
717 - Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid.
1188 - Accession to the throne of Japan by emperor Antoku.
1413 - Henry V becomes King of England.
1556 - In Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake.
1788 - A fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans and leaves most of the town in ruins.
1800 - With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.
1801 - The Battle of Alexandria is fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.
1804 - Code Napoléon is adopted as French civil law.
1821 - First revolutionary act in Monastery of Agia Lavra, Kalavryta, Greek War of Independence.
1844 - The Bahá'í calendar begins. This is the first day of the first year of the Bahá'í calendar. It is annually celebrated by members of the Bahá'í Faith as the Bahá'í New Year or Náw-Rúz.
1844 - The original date predicted by William Miller for the return of Christ.
1849 - The Norwegian city of Hamar is reestablished by royal decree.
1857 - An earthquake in Tokyo, Japan kills over 100,000.
1859 - Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 1st in US, incorporated
1871 - Otto von Bismarck is appointed Chancellor of the German Empire.
1871 - Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.
1913 - Over 360 are killed and 20,000 homes destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio.
1918 - World War I: Second Battle of the Somme begins.
1919 - The Chinese High School is established in Singapore by Tan Kah Kee.
1928 - Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
1933 - Construction of Dachau, the first Nazi Germany concentration camp, is completed.
1935 - Shah Reza Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, which means 'Land of the Aryans'.
1937 - Ponce Massacre: 18 people and a 7-yr-old girl in Ponce, Puerto Rico are gunned down by a police squad acting under orders of US-appointed PR Governor, Blanton C. Winship.
1940 - Paul Reynaud becomes Prime Minister of France.
1943 - Massacre of the town of Kalavryta, Greece by German Nazi troops.
1945 - World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.
1952 - Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.
1960 - Apartheid: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180.
1963 - Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.
1964 - In Copenhagen, Denmark, Gigliola Cinquetti wins the ninth Eurovision Song Contest for Italy singing "Non ho l'età" ("I'm not old enough").
1965 - Ranger program: NASA launches Ranger 9 which is the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes.
1965 - Martin Luther King Jr leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
1968 - Battle of Karameh in Jordan between Israeli Defense Forces and Fatah.
1970 - The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.
1970 - Vinko Bogataj crashes during a ski-jumping championship in Germany; his image becomes that of the "agony of defeat guy" in the opening credits of ABC's Wide World of Sports.
1970 - In Amsterdam, Netherlands, Dana wins the fifteenth Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland singing "All Kinds of Everything".
1980 - US President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
1980 - On the season finale of the soap opera Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase "Who Shot JR?"
1985 - Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.
1989 - Sports Illustrated reports allegations tying baseball player Pete Rose to baseball gambling.
1990 - Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.
1999 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
2002 - In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh along with three other suspects are charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
2002 - British schoolgirl Amanda Dowler is abducted in broad daylight on her way home from Heathside School in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
2004 - In Malaysia, the 11th Federal and State elections are held, returning the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional to power with an increased majority.
2005 - Red Lake High School massacre: Jeff Weise shoots and kills seven people at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minnesota before committing suicide. Weise had priorly killed his grandfather and his grandfather's girlfriend.
2006 - Immigrant workers constructing the Burj Dubayy in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates and a new terminal of Dubai International Airport join together and riot, causing $1M in damage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Miller_%28preacher%29William Miller (1782–1849) was an American Baptist preacher, whose followers have been termed Millerites. He is credited with the beginning of the Adventist movement of the 1830s and 1840s in North America. Among his direct spiritual heirs are several major religious denominations including Seventh-day Adventists, and Advent Christians. Later movements which found inspiration in Miller's emphasis on Bible prophecy include Bible Students/Russellites and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Miller was also an active Freemason: "It was here [Poultney, Vermont] that Mr. Miller became a member of the Masonic fraternity, in which his perseverance, if nothing else, was manifested; for he advanced to the highest degree which the lodges then in the country, or in that region, could confer."[3] Little is known of Miller's Masonic ties other than this statement by his biographer Sylvester Bliss. The majority of subsequent authors either ignore this statement or list it without comment. Whitney R. Cross specifies that Miller was a Royal Arch Mason but gives no further details or sources.[4] H. Y. Smith and W. S. Rann, editors of the 1886 book History of Rutland County Vermont with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men & Pioneers show "Rev. William Miller" as one of fifty-one individuals listed by a Mr Clarke as "those who have been prominent in the Order in this county [Rutland]."[5] Miller (listed as Capt. Miller) is later given as one of the early masters of Morning Star Lodge, No. 27. This lodge is said to have been "organized in Poultney prior to 1800, though the exact date is not known."[6] In a letter written to his friend Truman Hendryx, dated November 17, 1832, Miller rejoiced when Antimasonry died in his locality.[7] Miller’s statements concerning Antimasonry are dated well after his conversion in 1816, and seem to indicate that Miller saw no contradiction between his Baptist religiosity and his Masonic beliefs. It doesn’t seem likely that Miller was an active Mason following his licentiation as a Baptist minister by the Low Hampton Baptist Church on September 12, 1833; the Poultney lodge-and most other lodges—had closed in 1832 during a time of Anti-masonic fervor. In addition, Miller had moved back to Low Hampton in 1815. However, as shown previously, evidence suggests that he at the very least, retained sympathy for the Masonic movement until 1834, and possibly later.[8]