Hoax Being Peddled on the Internet

An e-mail has been in circulation during the past few days about a certain Brazilian seer who goes by the name of Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose. He reportedly predicted that on July 18, 2008, “Philippines will get (sic) 8.1 earthquake, thousands of people will die”. His supposed claim to fame is a series of unfortunate events that he purportedly predicted. His future predictions even go as far as the year 2043!

I tried to google this name and look at other search engines. Negative. This could only mean that it is a fictitious name.

However, a certain Jucelino Nobrega da Luz was identified in a Chinese website:
http://fuzzyface.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!94E609F82A595B8F!1702.entry. The blog writer wrote: “This guy is a b_s_t artist from Aguas de Linoia, near Sao Paolo. To help you judge the accuracy of his predictions, he predicted that China would begin to experience economic grown in 2008. So he doesn’t even read the newspaper! He also said that China would be hit with devastating floods in February of 2008. He failed to predict the cyclone in Burma or the earthquake in China. His trick is to write letters about things that happened in the past, then forge a postmark on the envelope to make is appear as if he had written the letter before the event took place. He has been exposed for this fraud in the past”.

So what I did was to double check the information by accessing the website of this Mr. da Luz at the following: http://www.jucelinodaluz.com.br/previsoes_2008_english.htm.
The site lists his so-called “prophecies” for the whole 2008 which does not mention a July earthquake in the Philippines.

This could only mean that an unscrupulous individual wrote a farcical e-mail message. My wife pointed out that the e-mail message itself is full of grammatical errors and hence, the veracity of facts and the authorship are suspect.

What is galling is the fact that this e-mail is being forwarded to several persons without checking and assessing the merits of the content. Some individuals even add a few lines like “bahala na ang Diyos (God’s will be done)” and “God holds our future” but keep on forwarding the e-mail nonetheless.

If we have faith in God, why do we have to forward such a dubious e-mail to others? Why can’t we simply trust God to take care of everything? Do we doubt God’s mercy and grace? Why do these people have to plant doubts and instill fear on other individuals?

We had second thoughts of sending replies to our colleagues because we know that we risk offending them. But I guess as Christians we have to draw the line somewhere, mainis man sa atin yung tao o hindi.

Of all people, the first one who sent me this was my own sister from Pampanga. I wrote back to my sister to remind her of the following:

1. Despite all the advances in science, earthquakes could not be predicted with reasonable accuracy.

2. Only God knows what will happen in the future. He declares the beginning till the end and His will or counsel stays. “…I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isaiah 46: 9-10).

3. A prophet is the one who can predict future events with 100% accuracy. In Israel during the Old Testament, if you declared yourself a prophet and failed to forecast accurately, that "self-proclaimed" prophet would be put to death. This implies that to be able to predict future events 100%, your knowledge should come from direct revelation from God. In Deuteronomy 18:20, it is written: “But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death."

4. The Bible is all-sufficient, that is, we cannot expect additional revelations from hereon.

5. Therefore, anyone who claims to predict the future is not from God. Remember that the apostle Paul warned us of individuals who would preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you (Galatians 1:8). This also refers to false prophets who would arise in latter days as Jesus warned in His discourse at the Mount of Olives: “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people” (Matthew 24:10-11).

6. In recent times, not even Jeane Dixon, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce and Madam Auring had an accuracy of 100%. No human has ever done that after the apostle John's revelation at Patmos.
7. Remember that God holds the whole world in His hands.

The main message to my sister: Trust God that whatever happens, He is in control.

But we thank the Lord for this, at least now there is an opportunity to discuss these things and invite others who profess to be Christians to reconsider stuff that is easily being passed around out of good intentions.