Podcast # 14: The Chosen Ones – Part Two
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, today’s podcast is the fourteenth in the series, and is titled “Answering the Call”. Hello Allan and welcome to the Podcast.
Thanks Scott. It’s good to talk to you again.
Scott: For those listeners who might have missed your last Podcast, perhaps you could start off by giving a brief summary of what you talked about in Part One of “The Chosen Ones”.
Certainly Scott. In my last Podcast, I said that the ancient prophets predicted that our present world age would end in a series of cataclysms brought on by a close encounter with a comet, at which time the earth would be struck by an asteroid.
Because of the catastrophes that would befall the earth, and the devastation that would be caused by the world-wide earthquakes and Tsunamis that would follow, the ancient prophets referred to this day as “The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.”
This Terrible Day of the Lord would be followed by a seven year period of terror and destruction that would end in the return to earth of the long-awaited Saviour, who would lead the world into a new Golden Age of peace, that is predicted to last for a thousand years.
Although billions of people will die on that terrible day of the Lord, the prophets predict that one group of people will be spared. They will be miraculously taken out of their bodies, and will not have to endure the disasters that are coming. These people are what the Bible calls “the Chosen Ones.”
I also referred to the words of Jesus who said that many would be called, but that few would be chosen. I then went on to explain who these Chosen Ones were, and why they would be chosen. And now I’d like to spend the rest of this Podcast dealing with the topic: “Answering the Call”.
Scott: What exactly do you mean by answering the call?
Well Scott. The call I am talking about is the call of prophecy. As I have explained on my Blog, and in earlier Podcasts, all prophecy serves a purpose. And that purpose is to warn people about the events that are coming.
And the reason why these warnings are given, is so that those who listen to these warnings can do something about it. While they may not be able to change the events that are coming, they can certainly change themselves.
And that is where change really counts. For the call of the spirit is always an inner call. It always comes from inside of ourselves, from the deepest recesses of the heart. And when it calls, it is up to each one of us to decide whether we choose to answer it or not.
In other words, each one of us has the freedom to decide whether we want to be guided by the warnings given by Jesus, as well as the prophets of old.
Scott: What did Jesus say?
Jesus told his disciples that the Day of the Lord would come like a thief in the night. It would be sudden and unexpected. It would come at a time when people would be too busy with their daily affairs to notice what was about to happen.
Jesus said it would be like the time of Noah before the floods came. As we read in the Gospel of St Matthew, Chapter 24, Verses 37-39:
“But as the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the Ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away.”
Those who ignore the words of prophecy will be the people who will be caught unprepared on that terrible day. So the way to avoid the reign of terror that is coming, is to watch for the warning signs outlined in prophecy, and to be prepared.
Yet despite this warning of Jesus, the world is once again sleeping. Once again the people of the world are caught up in the events of their personal lives, their businesses, their problems and their pains. They are too busy to notice the time. But time doesn’t wait for them. It moves remorselessly on to its appointed climax.
Scott: So Allan, how does one answer the call?
Well Scott, answering the call is always a personal decision. It is never done in groups. For, as the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “Souls are not saved in bundles”.
Every person has to decide for himself, or herself, whether to take the words of prophecy seriously. But what I find interesting, Scott, is that most people who come to that decision, have tended to follow a similar path.
There appear to be six distinct stages in the process of answering the call of prophecy. I call the first stage REJECTION. Then comes VOCATION. This is followed by INVESTIGATION. Then comes CONVICTION, followed by CONVERSION. And finally there comes the stage that I call IMMERSION.
Scott: What do these different stages involve?
The process begins with what I call rejection. When people first come across the words of prophecy, they invariable reject them. And there are many reasons why they do this.
The first and most common reason is that they are simply too busy with their lives to worry about warnings about the future. For such people, the challenges involved in living their lives, in raising a family, of performing a full-time job, or of running a business, are too time consuming to worry about such things.
These people usually pride themselves on being hard-nosed realists, who devote their lives to the practical challenges of their daily existence. They generally don’t read much, or if they do, they tend to prefer escapist literature that helps them to relax, or take their minds off their daily problems.
Or else they devote their spare time to reading technical, scientific or financial journals that help them keep abreast of what is going on in the world in their particular areas of interest.
In all of these cases, people crowd their minds with thoughts and emotions related to the responsibilities of their daily lives. They seldom allow themselves the luxury of time to think about the events of our times, or what they might mean for the wider world of humanity.
But even when they do, they tend to be dogmatic, rejecting anything that conflicts with their accepted point of view. Furthermore, they are generally quick to point out the fallacies and failures that surround the whole subject of prophecy.
In previous Podcasts, I have gone into considerable detail about the problem of false prophets, and those well-meaning individuals who have misled people in the past.
The reason I did this was to illustrate just how much they have muddied the waters, and how they have made fools of those gullible souls who believed in their predictions.
But as I said before, and want to emphasize again, the failures of false prophets in the past, can never invalidate the message of the true prophets who have stood the test of time. And here I am talking about the sources of prophecy that I have used in the pages of my book.
Scott: So what is the next stage in this process, Allan?
Scott, the next stage in this process is what I call VOCATION. What I mean by this is that the individual concerned receives an inner call. The form that this inner call takes tends to vary from person to person.
It may come in the form of the words of a book, through a conversation with a friend, in hearing a song, by watching a program on TV, or even by listening to the message of a Podcast like this.
But most often it comes in the form of a deep personal experience. And this experience is often generated by misfortune, pain, disease or loss. Something happens to the individual that causes them to question themselves, and their role or purpose in life.
Because this call always comes from within, there may at first be little or no outward sign of this inner transformation. But as time passes, it begins to reveal itself in a change in attitude and perception, and a questioning of all that has gone before.
Those people who are called may be slow to recognize this initially, because their lives tend to carry on pretty much as they did before. But there is one noticeable inner change. They tend to look at life in a new way. They find themselves drawn to what I call INVESTIGATION.
Scott: What do they investigate?
They begin to look at their lives in a different light. And without necessarily being aware of any deliberate change in outlook, they begin to find themselves drawn towards the subject of prophecy.
They find that things begin to happen in their lives that draw them to this subject. They experience events that the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called “synchronistic”. That is, events that seem to happen by chance, but later turn out to have a purpose and meaning behind them.
For example, they might happen to read a book that they might previously have ignored. And this may be followed by a chance encounter with a friend that relates to what they just read, and which then points them towards something else.
The variations are endless, and are invariably tailored to the particular interests and activities of the person concerned. But the most common feature of this phase, is that the process speeds up. The interest grows more intense.
And as they learn more about the subject of prophecy, they reach a point in their lives that I call CONVICTION. As the word suggests, this is the point in their researches where speculation turns to certainty.
As the individual studies, and learns more and more about prophecy, and begins to view the circumstances of the world in the light of these prophecies, there comes a time when they no longer need to be convinced.
They reach a point in their inner belief where doubt disappears, and is replaced by a growing sense of conviction. But while many may think of this as a good thing, it is usually the beginning of the worst stage of this entire process.
This is the stage of CONVERSION.
Scott: So Allan, what do you mean by conversion, and why do you regard this as the worst part of the process of answering the call?
Well Scott, the reason why this the most difficult stage of the entire process, is that the person changes from a Researcher into an Activist. Once they have become convinced of the truth of prophecy in their own lives, they instinctively want to convince others.
And the first people they usually try to convince are their inner circle of family and friends. And this is entirely predictable. because once they are convinced that our world is in peril, and that cataclysmic disasters are coming, they naturally want to save their loved ones as well.
And this is where the process can turn ugly.
For while it may have taken years for that person to go from the stage of scepticism to complete conviction, they now become imbued with religious fervour to convert those around them to their way of thinking – which is that our world is facing dire consequences for its evil actions in the past.
However, these well-meaning folk fail to consider one crucial fact. What do you think that is Scott?
Scott: Well, Allan, I would guess that these loved ones are likely to reject what they have to say.
Exactly. Well done Scott. Yes, despite the best of intentions, these people forget that they themselves started off by rejecting what others had to say, for all the reasons I gave earlier.
Their friends and family will say they are too busy, or they don’t have time, or that they are not interested in the subject. Besides, they will say that nobody takes prophecies seriously anymore because so many of them have proven to be wrong in the past.
They may also go on to say that nobody can predict the future, and that anybody who says they can is deluded. They may even point to the words of Jesus, who is recorded in the Bible as saying: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only“. (Matthew Chapter 24 Verse 36)
And so on, and so on, and so on. The excuses never end. So the new recruit to the world of prophecy is confronted by a sad discovery, and that is that the truth that they sought for so long and so hard to find, is now rejected by those they love the most.
What activists who have reached this stage of the process fail to realize, is that other people don’t change their outlook in life as a result of intellectual arguments. If that were the case, then our world would be a garden of delight, and there would be no need for prophecies to warn people of the consequences of their actions.
But as I said before, people have to be called from within. And until a person responds to that inner call, it is generally not possible to convert them to a new understanding of life, and of the need for change.
And it doesn’t end there. Not only do family and friends reject what they have to say, but they are also likely to scorn them for their gullibility. This is a sad day in the life of any prophetic activist, particularly those who speak of dark days to come.
And my response to all this is: Tell me about it. I have been down that road many times, and I know its bitter taste all too well. But the difference is that I have moved on. And in due course, others do as well.
And the reason they do, is that they come to embrace the final stage of this process, which I call IMMERSION.
Scott: What do you mean by Immersion?
Immersion is the stage when people come to understand what is really happening in the world, and why it is happening. They understand the cyclical nature of life, and why catastrophes continue to occur from age to age.
They realize not only why such things happen in the course of our evolution on earth, but they also see the necessity for such things to happen, as well as the beauty and the justice that lies behind the plan that is now unfolding on the earth and in the heavens.
They understand the Truth, and are at peace – not only with the world, but also with themselves. They finally come to realize that they are not responsible for saving others, even if they belong to their immediate family, until they are ready to be saved.
And the choice must always be left to the individual concerned. They first have to hear the inner call. And then they have to answer that call. Until that happens, it is better to leave them to follow the path in life that they have chosen.
For as St John wrote in the last chapter of his Book of Revelation:
“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”
In other words, if people aren’t ready to respond, then it is wiser to leave them in peace. Let them continue to live their lives according to their own inner light, whether this be for good, or for ill.
I will be continuing this topic of the Chosen Ones in my next Podcast, which will deal with the question: “What Should We Do?”.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast, Part Three of “The Chosen Ones”.
