End of Days by Sylvia Browne

Posted by admin_akashic on Aug 9th, 2022 in Stories

Zarathustra’s concept of the end of the world is thought to be the first recorded doomsday prophecy in history, dated at around 500 BC. The final days, according to Zoroastrian scripture Zand-i Vohuman Yasht, would commence “at the end of the tenth hundredth winter … The sun is more unseen … The year, month and day are shorter … The earth is more barren, and the crop will not yield the seed … Men become more deceitful and more given to vile practices. They have no gratitude.”

There will be a final great battle between good and evil. Good will triumph, and Ahura Mazda will purify the earth with molten metal and a divine, cleansing fire. (Zoroastrians don’t consider fire itself to be sacred, but it’s intensely important to their religion as a symbol of Ahura Mazda’s power, in much the same way the crucifix is intensely important to Christians.) Ahura Mazda will then begin His judgment of every soul on earth. Consistent with Zarathustra’s belief that Ahura Mazda is ultimately a compassionate deity who created good but not evil, even those deemed to be evil, or sinners, are not banished to an eternity of damnation but instead face three days of punishment, after which they’re forgiven and resurrected. All suffering on Earth will end, and there will be perfection throughout the world once Ahura Mazda’s great cleansing has taken place.

There are thought to be approximately three million Zoroastrians currently practicing this beautiful faith throughout the world.

Pentecostalism

In 1901, at a prayer meeting at the Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, a woman named Agnes Ozman began spontaneously speaking in tongues, or languages not known to the speaker. The Reverend Charles Fox Parham, who was leading the prayer meeting, interpreted that phenomenon as biblical evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, based on Acts 2:1-5:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place, and suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The Reverend Parham also cited Acts 2:38-39 as one of the foundations of his beliefs:

And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.”

The Reverend Parham moved on from Topeka to undertake a revival meeting ministry and continue his teaching. One of his students in Houston, Texas, was an African American named William J. Seymour, who was allowed to sit outside the segregated room to listen to the Reverend Parham.

William Seymour relocated to Los Angeles and, on April 12, 1906, claimed that he’d been filled with and overwhelmed by the Holy Ghost. A small group of followers who’d met Mr. Seymour at the home of a gentleman named Edward Lee, rented an abandoned church on Azusa Street and organized themselves as the Apostolic Faith Church. The vast majority of today’s traditional Pentecostal denominations credit William Seymour and his Azusa Street Revival as the birthplace of their church.

The Old Testament Pentecost originated after the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, when it was also called the Feast of Harvest. It was observed fifty days after the cutting of the first grain offering after the Passover—hence the origin of the word pentecost, which in Greek means to “fifty count.” The New Testament Pentecost occurred fifty days after the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.