1.
The other day I was listening to a program by Sheikh Imran N. Hosein, one of the leading scholar on Eschatology from Islamic world and this talk was part of a series titled SIGNS OF THE TIMES and in that talk he invited questions and feedback from others to reply at the program which was broadcast on Youtube. Someone shared the Lord's Prayer and mentioned that Jesus the Son of Mary taught a new system of measuring value, a new method of trade. According to Christian history, this new system was represented by Alpha sign. The guidance of new value system is embedded in the Lord's Prayer.
Then he went on to share the Lord's Prayer and Sheikh Imran appreciated and confirmed that the Qur'an and the Final Prophet's teachings are also aligned and convey similar message. Listening to the Lord's prayer and also Sheikh Imran's comment inspired this post.
So here is my contemplation on the Lord's prayer from Eschatological perspective or perspective of the Later Days.
2.
Lord's prayer is found in Matthew and Luke in slight different variations, and also due to translation and transmission we further get some difference in text. But those differences actually widen the understanding because Aramaic like Arabic have very rich words which can have wide range of meanings.
So here is the Lord's prayer inclusive of the various meanings of each statement (the original prayer comprise of 7 verses):
Our Heavenly Father,
Hallowed is Your Name.
Your Kingdom come.
Your Will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Please give us the bread for our daily sustenance.
Please give us our necessary sustenance.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Forgive us our transgression, as we forgive those who transgress against us.
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
and deliver us from evil.
Do not let us be led into temptations,
but separate us from the evil ones.
For Yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory
in all the worlds.
For Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
for ever and ever
So be it. Amen.
I have repeated the same lines few times with variant possible meanings.
3.
Now before I go into sharing my contemplation on the Lord's Prayer, which caught hold of my heart in a renewed fashion since I heard it recently and particularly in the context of eschatological analysis, let me mention some context.
The Creator God is One without a second and all we see in this creation is His. Jews, Christians, Muslims and all other religion (In reality the idea of many religions is false, if God is one, religion or Deen in Arabic is also one, Deen al Qayyimah its called or the primordial religion of God, but that's a different discussion) worship the same God Who created Man in His own Image to establish His Kingdom on earth. This was the intention behind creating humanity on earth, the Divine intention, the Blueprint and the Will of God was that Man will be God's representative on earth carrying out His Will on God's behalf. Man is the physical manifestation of the Unseen God.
From Adam until Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad and many other Prophets in between were sent God to transmit the same message to remind humanity of their role, their task and to free people from exploitation and to bring back humanity from transgression and forgetfulness.
Over time different religious group formed their own divisional ideology and divided the messengers and prophets among themselves and excluded the others, even thought all Prophets were sent by One God, to preach the one message. They were sent again and again to renew the Plan to establish the Kingdom of God so that Mankind may establish God's Kingdom on earth and to establish justice, peace, mercy for all of mankind and end all forms of oppression, racism and exploitation.
Thats the summary of struggle of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses, of Jesus and of Muhammad, Divine peace and blessings be upon them all.
True believers of God make no discrimination among any of the Prophets and Messengers. But Satan in its mission to divide mankind entered and corrupted every culture and divided mankind into different perception, sects and denominations and further divided them and made them rejoice in their petty divisions.
4.
Lord's Prayer is transmitted by Jesus the Son of Mary and Jesus being one of the Signs of the Last Days make the prayer even more significant. This is because the prayer when looked through the understanding of Eschatology or the Study of the Later Days may offer an ocean of meanings and guidance.
It contains few sign posts which are extremely important and relevant for Later Days and they are strategically mentioned one after another for faithful to receive guidance.
We know from various teachings of the Last Prophet, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of God be with him, that in the Last Age, the Anti-Christ and its agent Gog and Magog will spread corruption and deception in many fields. Natural laws and ways will be perverted to the max. Deception will be such that what is natural will be made unnatural and what is corrupted will become the norm.
Thus we see from modification of gene to alter natural food production to enslaving mankind with fraudulent monetary system and national and global debt.
Now lets look at the Lord's prayer:
Our Heavenly Father,
Hallowed is Your Name.
Your Kingdom come.
Your Will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
This part define the mission and vision statement of every believer in God. The very purpose of life on earth is Hallowing God's Name, not in vain, not for the sake of religious and spiritual pride, but to establish God's Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven. That is to say, to live a life on earth, and also to establish the Godly way of life as a whole in family, in society and to entire earth governed by Divine ethics, Divine guidance and Divine policy.
But what is the opposite of that, which is to destroy all religious values, to turn every sector devoid of Divine guidance. The race towards secularism is a race to convert entire world into godless system. All religion is attacked, any religion that talks about morality, ethics are looked down upon and religion itself is corrupted and perverted through the agents of deception in the name of radicalization.
But any faithful believe in God who has conscience and eyes and hearts to see and understand should realize that the mission and vision of God's will is establishing Divine System on earth. And that establishing of Divine System will happen through humanity, and that is the master plan and it shall and must be done.
In the beginning of the Lord's prayer that is affirmed and reminded. Not just for the sake of saying it, but to understand that, the establishing of God's will on earth where God's Name is Hallowed and Divine standard is established - that is the purpose. Everything else that is done in the name of so called religion including prayer used to be the means, not the end. But eventually people forgot the destination and purpose and got busy with the means only.
Please give us the bread for our daily sustenance.
Please give us our necessary sustenance.
There are two vital things here, one is food or sustenance and second is anti-consumerism or anti-hoarding. Hoarding and Consumerism is against everything that is spiritual. In the later days, sustenance will be corrupted. People will earn in all sort of unethical manner and they will care nothing. Food will be corrupted, nothing is natural anymore. Almost all seeds are now genetically modified, be it vegetable, crops or fruit, making them devoid of divine blessings. Study shows that genetically modified food have its healing properties destroyed. This in effect giving rise to cancer and many other diseases causing untold suffering. Malignancy is khabis and what is Benign is tayyib. In dietary law, God prescribe to eat what is tayyib or pure.
According to the Prophetic prophecies and Holy texts, the Anti-Christ's forces will corrupt food and control it massively. The industrialization of food production is the beginning of this and genetic engineering, use of pesticides are all part of this corruption. The so called superstore, fast food and processed food are mother of waste of precious food as well.
In the Prophetic prophecies, Christ when he returns (be it metaphorical or otherwise) he will kill / obliterate / destroy pigs. This is particularly conveyed in the Islamic tradition. One way to interpret this is that Christ or Christ ideal will obliterate or put an end to consumerism. To me pig or swine represent consumerism and over consumerism. Also pig or swine represent sexual perversion which will manifest more and more in later age and the return of Christ will bring an end to sexual perversion and will help man to return to what is natural and permitted by God.
The part of the Lord's prayer where Jesus is asking for daily sustenance also reminds me of the very first Surah of the Qur'an which conveys the same message about anti-hoarding, anti consumerism. In the Aramaic, the part which is commonly translated as daily bread, is meant differently. It translate as: "Give us the bread for our daily need."
In the Qu'ran, Surah Alaq, verse 6, 7 translate closely as:
Indeed man transgress because he sees himself free of need.
The Arabic read, kalla, innal insana la yatgha, ar raa ustaghna.
An expanded translation would be: Indeed man become taghut (transgressor) when he see himself free of need through over consumption and hoarding.
One of the major mark of the later days is man's over consumerism. He will eat, he will consume way more than what he need. This is also the cause of major suffering not only on the individual but this also of contribute to lack resources in other part of the society and the world.
Jesus teaching us different kind of economy where we ask only what is bare essential. The original text of the prayer (in Greek) uniquely contains the word epiousios, which means superessential or what we may call bare-minimum. This is the anti-thesis of consumerism. If Christ teaches anti-consumerism, then obviously consumerism is what define Anti-Christ.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Forgive us our transgression, as we forgive those who transgress against us.
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Now we come at the crux of the sign of the end times, which is defined by debt and universal debt. But this will not be understood plainly unless one have a grasp on the subject of modern monetary system and how debt is generated through central banking system, federal reserve and printing money out of thin air. These subject and terms may seem furthest removed from anything religious or spiritual to a person who have been brain washed by corrupted religious models but one must not forget that one of the act of Jesus that survived in the bible was chasing the money changers from the temple.
Does Christians really know why Jesus chased them out of template and turned over their table? Well, Sheikh Imran clarify this on the 2nd part of the program titled, SIGN OF THE TIMES. Its worth watching. It was precisely for committing Usury which is forbidden in all Abrahamic tradition was the cause. And in modern day, it is this Usury and Debt based system which is on a mission to make all of humanity slaves.
Jesus is teaching us not to become a slave to debt by orienting our intention and resolve through prayer. It is also teaching us to forgive our debtors. Biblical law instruct to forgive debts if it is unpaid after 7 years. Financially speaking, usury is the number one instrument to enslave mankind and making them debt slave.
Save us from the time of trial,
and deliver us from evil.
Do not let us be led into temptations,
but separate us from the evil ones.
Eschatology confirms that as days goes by, the trial and tribulation and suffering of people will increase.
Side note: Come March 2017, with so much civilized now we are, and yet UN had to issue an warning that 20+ million people in various part of the world is now facing the largest humanitarian crisis in history of UN. What does it tell us?
Jesus is teaching us to seek refuge in the Ultimate Refuge Who is God specially from the time of trial and to be safe from evil and evil people.
For Yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory
in all the worlds.
For Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
for ever and ever
So be it. Amen.
And finally in the Lord's Prayer we are reminded of the final reality. In Surah Alaq of the Quran, after reminding the reason for man's transgression, we are also reminded of our eventual destination: inna ila rabbikar ruzwa. "Indeed to the Lord is the Return".
If we are talking about a Kingdom of God to be established on earth, which implies the entire system be established upon Divine Sovereignty and on Divine Guidance. For that to happen, first of all a new economic model and monetary system has to be established based on the Scripture. This model has to be unbiased and just and free of oppression. It can not encourage hoarding of wealth by few (bankers, banks and corporate) at the cost of most of humanity suffering and degraded to poverty. It should be system free of debt and money must go back to real money with intrinsic value. Not money produced out of thin air the value of which diminish by every hour and every day causing immeasurable financial burden and suffering to all people except 1% who control and manipulate the system and their allies.
If we are serious about God's Kingdom on earth, we must never stop at our lip server in the name of prayer but must educate ourselves about the real money, about monetary guidance in the Scripture and ethics of monetary system. We must learn ethical way of transaction, not the nihilistic dog eat dog economics that sucks the wealth out of most of mankind and hoard it in the hand of few, not the one that print bogus paper money and make money with real intrinsic value prohibited. We must educate ourselves about muamalat, ethical dealings, we must educate ourselves what is the Biblical and Quranic teachings about dealings of economic matters and how money matter is taught through the Prophets. Kingdom of God can not establish on earth, unless we purify the system of money which runs the world, which runs the government and which affect everything else. Unless monetary system is properly establish, while abolishing usury and other tools of exploitation, the Kingdom and Will on earth as it is in Heaven can not materialize.
Without that real intention, everything else is trivial and child's play. Ironically if we are not educating ourselves on those important subjects in their real sense, we are equally condemned in the words of Jesus about the prayer of the hypocrites who does nothing but vain glory, showmanship and uttering of void words only. May God exclude us from them and accept us among the circle of the helpers of Jesus Christ the Son of Mary, and may our soul awaken by the Holy Spirit of God.
~ Sadiq, Dhaka
SIGN OF THE TIME SERIES BY SHEIKH IMRAN N. HOSEIN
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