APOCALYPSE COUNTDOWN 666

APOCALYPSE COUNTDOWN 666

Preface

THE QUEST FOR MEANINGS

          We always have that vague sense of purpose, that inner direction guiding our every move. Even a child has a wish that seems so near and yet so far. Some of us spend a whole lifetime trying to reach that elusive goal, and although some find a sense of purpose, others don’t.

          In this book, I have included a brief autobiography not because I have found the meaning of my own existence, although perhaps I have, but for reasons unrelated to who I am or where I am right now. If I found a lot of humor and mystery in my growing up, others would find it even more hilarious and more mysterious than I ever will.

          Amazingly, strange phenomena bordering on the occult should keep me away from certain death at least four times in my childhood and beyond. There are other events that I didn’t give much credit for, like driving in the mountains of Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen. The rough terrain was passable only to vehicles with four-wheel drive. I drove my 13-year-old non-four-wheel-drive Mazda for 3-4 hours each way, depending on the condition of the unpaved, rocky trails, to a small dispensary (Primary Health Care Center) in one of the Tihama Villages. During my weekend drive to town, my car stopped just after the halfway mark of a steep road that curved out of the side of a mountain. The slope was too much for my aging car. My mistake was shifting the gear to neutral, causing my car to roll down the hill at lightning speed. My brain went numb and confused in an instant. Fortunately, my car (as if someone had taken over the wheel) veered towards my left against the mountain wall. Had it veered to my right, I would have tumbled down the cliff.

          At another time, I took a flight from the newly emerging summer capital of Saudi Arabia, Abha, to Jeddah. The plane took off again as soon as it touched down at Jeddah International Airport. The stewardess turned deathly pale, and so did I. I was seated in the front row, facing the seats where the stewardesses buckle themselves in for take-offs and landings. As soon as we were on the Air again, the stewardess unfastened herself and walked towards the first-class cabin. Her color was better when she returned. I asked (in our vernacular, being a Filipina) what happened. “There was an airport van in the middle of the runway,” she replied calmly.

That was my fifth and sixth encounter with the ugly face of death.

          When I became a doctor of medicine, I was sure (like any young idealist of my age) that I had found my reason for living. I would go home to my tribe in the southern Philippines and serve my people, not quite. Seventeen years have passed (1980-97), and I am still here in Saudi Arabia. I see no way out. My children are back home in Manila, attending school. My salary is just enough for me, for them, and for some friends and relatives, and I am helping them through college.

           Although I may have made some material progress, I have matured spiritually. This book is a testament to that spiritual growth, and it all began with the number of the beast: 666.

          As aliens in Saudi Arabia, we used to stand in line waiting for the English newspapers to arrive in our town during the Gulf War. We watched a single TV broadcast, although in Arabic, until the wee hours of the morning.

          When I read about United Nations Resolution 666, my skin crawled, giving me Goosebumps. I borrowed a Bible from the Indians in the hospital and asked where I could find the number of the Beast in it. This book is the result of that query.

          Exotic texts in religious books can effectively erode the faith of many unless rational and believable explanations are provided.

          Muslims, Christians, and Jews believe in the six-day creation. Some Muslim scholars agree that the six days can also be interpreted as six periods. Ironically, these scholars are unaware of a short yet significant verse in the Holy Qur’an that would settle the six-day controversy once and for all. Similarly, it will liberate the Christians from the dilemma of the six-day creation as written in the book of Genesis.

          How can there be first, second, and third days if God created the moon and the sun on the fourth day, two heavenly bodies upon which our conception of time is based? How can there be a morning and an evening each day of the first three days of creation if the sun did not exist then? This is the dilemma of the six-day creation that Christians either did not understand or chose to ignore. I have yet to find a Christian who rationalizes this dilemma.

          Qur’an 22:47 states, ‘Verily, a day in the sight of thy Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning.’

Obviously, God was referring to His time, not Earthlings' time, in the same manner that we use Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) instead of local time zones. Each day of the Qur’an/Bible's six-day creation is 1,000 years of Earthlings' time. It is even very possible that the first three days of creation referred to other solar systems, ours having been created on the fourth.

          The most sensible order of creation would have been to create the sun (light) followed by the planets, in contrast to the Book of Genesis. We know scientifically that the planets and moons were formed from the debris of rocks caught in the gravitational field of the sun following the Big Bang. Those beyond the orbit of Neptune, including Pluto, are part of a region known as the Kuiper Belt, which remains unformed, resembling an ocean of rocks orbiting our solar system, casting doubt on Pluto's status as a planet. This is one of the beauties that make the Big Bang theory so believable.

          Qur’an 21:30; ‘Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined as one unit of creation before we clove them asunder? We are made from water, every living thing. Will they not then believe?’ Qur’an 51:47: ‘Verily, we can extend the vastness of space thereof.’(Expanding universe)

          Panspermia is one word in the May 1997 issue of Discover Magazine that jolted my mind. It is the fanciful notion that life spread through space, which can be defined beautifully by the Qur’an verse 42:29 - ‘And one of His signs is the creations of the heavens and the earth and the living creatures that He scattered through them, and He has the power to gather them together when He wills.’ This verse is one of the many concrete proofs in the Holy Qur’an that life may not be unique to Earth.

          The science fiction space tunnels (wormholes) that shortcut the stars and galaxies may be correct. God speaks in the Holy Qur’an of passages and pillars in space that the eyes cannot see. Qur’an Verse 13:1-4 states - ‘Allah is He who raised the heavens without pillars that you can see’ (with pillars that you cannot see). Muslims interpret the passages as orbital paths of the planets and the invisible pillars as gravity and centrifugal forces. I disagree. The orbital paths of the planets, the sun, and the solar system are clearly defined as paths upon which the mentioned heavenly bodies are not supposed to deviate. Long before humans ever learned that our Solar system is moving in space, not fixed, the Holy Qur’an had already spoken of its movement towards a certain point in space. The secret passages and invisible pillars are waiting to be discovered unless they have already been found. The theoretical Black Holes in space may be the hallowed pillars of space in the Qur’an that the eyes cannot see. It could be the secret passages of the heavens. I like to think of black holes as massive invisible nails pinning the universe together, without which the universe would either collapse or galaxies would continuously collide. Black Holes are the pillars that the eye cannot see, which give the universe a semblance of stability.

          Whether the claim is true or not, while Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon, he heard the Adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, "Allah ho Akhbar" (God is the Greatest). There is no doubt that God will always be ahead.

          Verse 55:33 of the Holy Qur’an says, ‘O ye assembly of Jinns and Men! If it be ye can pass beyond the heavens and earth zones, pass ye! Not without authority shall ye be able to pass!’

          I have tried a dozen times to leave Saudi Arabia for good, but something always comes up to prevent me from doing so. There had to be a reason for my being here.

          It was seventeen years ago when I sought employment in Saudi Arabia.

“I’m sorry,” the secretary had said, “recruitment was closed two weeks ago. All available posts had been filled.” But she took my papers anyway after perhaps learning I was a Muslim and disappeared behind a closed door. The Arab recruiter emerged from his office and searched for me in the crowd.

“Don’t give your passport to anyone but me,” the Arab had said. “I will make sure that you get your visa before I leave for Saudi Arabia. My work here is done.” Only now did I realize the significance of those words. He had been sitting in his office, virtually doing nothing for two weeks, as if he were only waiting for me to show up. The year was 1980. 

UPDATE NOTE: (June 21, 2025)
I wrote the above introduction to my book, “Apocalypse Countdown 666,” long before I discovered that I bear the mark of “The Chosen One.” Had I known that I was a “Jedi,” I would have enjoyed my gift not only in my retirement, but fortunately, I have recorded everything. I hope to condense the life of the Chosen One in a book I plan to write soon, In-Sha-Allah!

https://www.amazon.com/Nosca-Khalid/e/B01NA7APYQ

Nosca Khalid

"Apocalypse Countdown 666"

amazon.co.uk

januspublishing.co.uk