Monday, May 4, 2009

Speechless

I just finished reading a new book called SPEECHLESS: SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS by Reverend Donald E. Wildmon, the founder and president of the American Family Association. In it he takes up where Janet Folger’s THE CRIMINALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY left off.

Both books chronicle various instances of bias against Christians and both books warn that soon it will be tough to speak out as a Christian in our society if we don’t start doing something immediately. Even now, the Hate Crimes bill is making its way through Congress and Obama has vowed to quickly sign it into law. Similar hate crimes laws in Canada have resulted in some scary legal prosecutions. For example, one newspaper was ordered to pay three homosexual men $1500 after the paper ran a paid advertisement that featured Bible verses critical of homosexual behavior. In another case, a man was charged with hate speech when he distributed flyers that listed the medical dangers of homosexual behavior.

This same kind of persecution is already turning up in the United States as Reverend Wildmon clearly shows.

SPEECHLESS is a sort of companion volume to the show of the same name. It documents cases of suppression and general bashing of Christians that seem almost unbelievable and yet are happening all over the country today.

One outrageous story concerns a group of eleven people who went out to evangelize in the midst of the city of Philadelphia’s OUTFest, a celebration in the ‘gayborhood’ of homosexuality. This is an open, public event funded by the city. These eleven Christians stood together and began to sing “Blessed be the name of the Lord’ on a street corner. Organizers of the event had formed a security group called the Pink Angels who linked arms to form human chains and carried large insulation panels to block the Christians and keep them from moving down the street. They also blew whistles and screamed obscenities. This sort of harassment is illegal in Philly, so the police were called. And yes, you guessed it, it was the Christians who were arrested and are now being charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors with a maximum sentence of forty-seven years in prison and $90,000 in fines.

The Boy Scouts are another group that has suffered persecution and bias because they refuse to allow homosexual Scout leaders.

Schools are especially vulnerable when it comes to a student’s right to free speech and freedom of religion. The ACLU has so cowed school administrators and officials that they err way too far on the side of caution rather than be dragged into a lawsuit, even one they will eventually win. How ridiculous does it get??? One fourth grade student was stopped from giving out candy cane writing pens to his friends because the candy cane’s origin is Christian and was originally used as a Christian symbol.

All this should be utter nonsense that’s laughed out of existence before it even starts. These days it’s not. In another, more sobering example, Catholic Charities of Boston was forced out of the adoption business because it refused to place children in homes with same-sex couples. The saddest part of all is that Catholic Charities specialized in ‘special needs’ children who have a harder time being adopted.

This is what happens when a falsehood -- that there is no difference between same-sex unions and marriage -- is elevated to a moral principle and inserted into the law.
The end goal of the liberals and homosexual activists is to redefine Christianity as a form of bigotry, thus making it the moral and legal equivalent of racism.

Bottom line: this is an important book that should be read by every Christian.

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I was saddened but not surprised to learn that Christians who believe Jesus is coming again are being targeted -- by other Christians!

Emerging church leader Brian McLaren says that this type of Christian who takes the Bible literally and seriously is the reason there’s no peace in the Middle East. He feels the view that Christ will return to establish his kingdom on earth is morally and ethically harmful. He also believes that what he calls this ‘bogus end-of-the-world scenario’ leads to a kind of death wish for World War III which might all too easily create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

McLaren hates the notion that Israel is a special nation in the eyes of God. I don’t know which version of the Bible he’s been reading, but it certainly doesn’t correlate with mine.

McLaren feels those Christians who hold to such biblical beliefs must be ‘robustly confronted’ by the rest of the nation. If that isn’t ‘hate’ speech, I don’t know what is... not that anyone is going to call him out on it.

Not long ago, an article was posted on the Internet that said ministries that defend the faith are akin to mentally unstable cultists who are not like typical dissidents or normal people who complain, they are deadly.

Tony Campolo says ‘rigid’ Christians who believe in the possibility of Jesus’ soon return are the real problem for the whole world. He feels they’re to blame for wars and a host of other evils. Mark Driscoll in his book VINTAGE JESUS ridicules Christians who believe there will be an Armageddon and a Rapture.

Rick Warren in THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE tells readers to think about something other than Bible Prophecy because he considers it a distraction.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, a big name on the New Age circuit, feels the world can’t evolve and there can be no peace while such Bible believing Christians are around.

J. Vernon McGee once said many years ago that the persecution of Christians in the end times was going to come from other Christians including the denominations. Looks like he was right on the money.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Good and Evil

The world continues to be turned upside down. It’s like some kind of Alice in Wonderland scenario where, just as the Bible promised, good is now evil and evil is declared good. The evidence just keeps pouring in at a faster and faster clip. If you didn’t think persecution for Christians was coming, now you can count on it.

Hate Crimes laws are just inches away from being passed. This is yet another step in the eventual total silencing of Christians as chronicled by Janet Folger in THE CRIMINALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY and Donald Wildmon in his new book SPEECHLESS: SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS. We got a taste of it when Miss California, Carrie Prejean, lost the Miss USA crown because she dared to say she believed in traditional marriage. The backlash against her from the homosexual camp was tremendous, although support for her throughout middle America was also great. Can you imagine such a thing happening even ten years ago?

Now Obama is dithering on going after the Bush Administration for the whole torture controversy. Liberals and others of their ilk have a crazy, obsessive hatred of everything George W. Bush stands for (aka Bush Derangement Syndrome) and have been waiting, salivating, for a chance to get back at him and those associated with him.

Obama has chosen someone for the FCC who’s totally in favor of the so-called Fairness Doctrine and who will probably help him use the back door of the FCC to help ban the Rush Limbaughs and other non-Obama supporting voices in this country.

The Department of Homeland Security recently came out with a report stating that people who are against abortion or a one world government, people who support a literal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, even returning war vets, are now considered possible right wing extremists and terrorists. Talk about hitting directly at the Christian heartland of America.

Google has shut down links that lead to facts about Hitler and Nazi Germany because so much of it so closely resembles what Obama has been doing with our banks and the economy. Now they don’t even want you to read about evil when it was actually considered evil.

Thanks to Obama, the United States is now funding abortions overseas. And he gave embryonic stem cell research the green light as well, even though it has yielded no breakthroughs as has adult stem cell research that doesn’t kill a potential human life in the process.

Liberals show us more and more every day that they value sexual freedom above anything and everything else in this world. Talk about a direct correlation with the ancient pagan behavior that’s so condemned in the Bible. This is why they support abortion at all stages of a pregnancy thus allowing men and women to have sex anytime they want, and then if the woman gets pregnant, they can abort the child. This is why they want to force health care professionals to perform abortions no matter what their conscience might tell them. This is also why (among other reasons) they support gay rights and gay marriage at the expense of religious freedom or freedom of speech. Sexual freedom trumps all. Forget about teaching abstinence or anything even close. Soon seventeen-year-olds will be able to purchase the morning after pill without parental knowledge.

And the list goes on.

Every so often there’s a glimmer of sanity and hope in the midst of the daily onslaught of bad news...

Miss California standing up for her beliefs even knowing it might be the kiss of death to her chances of winning was heartening, even if it was in the middle of a beauty contest where the women are judged on their looks and their ability to walk across the stage in high heels wearing a bathing suit.

The Tea Parties, although not Christian per se, showed that many, many Americans have not abandoned and do not want to abandon the Biblical principles on which this nation was founded. The shocking and dismissive way the so-called mainstream media treated these demonstrators highlights the impact they obviously had.

More good news comes from the fact that prophecy and other such end times conferences are thriving, with larger attendance than ever before. I find this a sure sign that ordinary, non-political people still seek spiritual enlightenment. Now is our chance to give them the Word of Truth rather than letting various new age and other philosophies fill the God-sized hole in their hearts. As Mark Cahill so aptly pointed out in a Code Blue Rally presentation called LUKE WARM NO MORE, when we get to heaven, we don’t want to be told we were out-evangelized by John Travolta who constantly pushes Scientology. How humiliating would that be!

Monday, April 20, 2009

God's Principles

Most Christians agree we’re living in the end times as prophesied in the Bible. One of the key indicators as spoken of by Jesus himself is that it would be a time of deception with people believing everything but the truth.

I haven’t been a Christian all that long, but even in these few short years, I’ve seen things go downhill, so much so that I hardly know where to turn for good, solid Christian information and teaching.

When I first came to Christ, I went to Christian bookstores and picked up books to enhance my Christian walk. Since I’d been brought up Catholic, I knew little about the endless varieties of ‘Protestant’, but I figured they all pretty much taught the Bible, something the Catholic Church had never done, at least not in my presence. I also subscribed to Christianity Today (CT) never thinking it had the potential to lead me astray.

I’ve long since given up on CT. It contains articles about the emergent/emerging church and contemplative prayer and labyrinths. It features authors, like Brian McLaren, who preach a different gospel from what is given in the Bible. All in all, it’s totally unreliable because it basically presents anything and everything in the ‘Christian’ community with no discernment as to its adherence to truth.

As for Christian bookstores -- I’ve learned they’re basically no safer than Barnes and Noble or Borders when it comes to the books they carry, even if they are supposedly Christian. Compare B&N’s Christian section and the contents of a Christian bookstore and you’ll find little to no difference. Christian bookstores even feature novels like THE SHACK whose bottom line is that God is in and around and through everything here on planet earth. They tout authors like Joel Osteen who’s basically no different in what he teaches than mega-selling new age author Rhonda Byrne and THE SECRET. According to both, we need only think about what we want from life in our thoughts and voila, the universe will respond and we can achieve it.

Rick Warren is another case in point. His Purpose Driven Life has much in it that’s not biblical. Even more distressing, this church leader whom some have called the new Billy Graham, went on Larry King recently and made sure everyone knew he was NOT an anti-gay marriage activist and claimed that he’d never openly showed his support for Proposition 8 in California. (I wonder how people can tell lies like this with a straight face when all anyone has to do is check on the internet where you can hear his actual, earlier endorsement of Prop 8). Pastor Warren even assured the audience that he called and apologized to his gay leader friends for this terrible misunderstanding. Can you believe this? What a blow for the church and what a total dereliction of his responsibility as a so-called man of God. He obviously craves the approval of men rather than God.

I next discovered Christian TV and thought, great, here’s a place where God’s truth is being broadcast to the masses. I soon learned all too many of the people on these stations have sold out as well as the station owners who refuse to allow people on their shows to say anything negative about Islam. I had early on heard about the deception of Benny Hinn, but then I learned that Joyce Meyer and John Hagee and many of the others who preach on these stations are also spreading false, non-biblical ideas. So much for ‘Christian’ TV.

Obviously the best and only remedy for all of us is to constantly immerse ourselves in our Bibles, so we won’t be fooled again as the old song goes.

There’s a war going on right now for the hearts and souls of men, and too many people don’t even realize it’s raging around them on all sides, never mind knowing enough to strap on the armor of God. This war is especially fierce in the United States right now because America is the only nation that was founded on Christian principles and it’s the last bastion of freedom and truth left in the world.

Evolution shoulders a lot of blame for the attitude we now see around us. By teaching that all things evolve, it’s obvious religion must evolve as well and thus ‘old-fashioned’ values and teachings like the abhorrent-to-God practice of homosexuality have clearly become outdated -- or so says our secular, liberal society. Homosexual marriage has been passed in several states with more hovering on the brink. Not even in the heavily homosexual-leaning society of the ancient Greeks was there state-sanctioned homosexual marriage.

In fact, those who hold to biblical teachings and who revere the constitution of this great nation are now considered potential terrorists according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security.

All this and more has come about because Christians have abdicated their role as salt and light in society. I’m not saying that Christians should become political activists, although we can certainly use more of those. But we need to stand up for the word of God and we’re certainly not doing that when the 1% of the population that’s homosexual can hijack and brainwash the entire country into buying the lie that it’s their civil right to be able to marry.

The TEA Parties this past week are a prime example of people acting on their principles. I know some people think the church and Christians should have nothing to do with politics. They argue that Daniel accepted the Babylonian rule he was under and Paul didn’t try to fight the Romans. But there’s a difference. Those governments were dictatorships -- the only way to get them to change their ways was by force, rebellion, revolution. They weren’t governments of the people, by the people, and for the people the way the United States is. This country was set up precisely so that people could have a say. In former times we used this for good and did things like ending slavery and child labor. Modern Christians should be ashamed of themselves that those who have stood up for change in the past fifty years were people like Madelyn Murray O’Hare who got prayer thrown out of the schools and homosexuals who are winning the right to overturn civilization as we know it through homosexual marriage laws and hate crimes legislation. Don’t you think it broke God’s heart to see good and decent Christian Americans do nothing to fight these abominable changes to our laws?

Christians must stand up and make their voices heard no matter how much the tide seems to be turning against us. America is the standard of freedom and hope throughout the world because we are (or at least we used to be) a Christian nation whose government openly operates on Christian principles that guarantee freedom and justice for all. As Christians, we have a clear duty do evangelize. However, as citizens of America, we also have a civic responsibility to stand up for our founding principles.

Isn’t it nice that when we do so, we’re also standing up for God’s principles.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Things You Probably Never Knew About American History

What ever happened to the teaching of the real facts about American history in our schools? We know that most teachers are no longer even willing to admit that this country was founded as a Christian nation even though the population at that time was 99.2% Christian and .8% Jewish. And if you’ve been watching Fox and Friends over the past few months, you’ve been learning how the history textbooks in our schools and colleges have a decided liberal bias and often twist the facts in favor of the liberal agenda.

Well, here’s a story I’ll bet you didn’t know and were never taught in your history class about the great revival in the American colonies in 1746.

We may think the spiritual decay in this country is a current trend and that our ancestors were moral and upright, but back in 1746, there were hordes of people going to bars and brothels. It was a growing national trend that the churches couldn’t seem to stop.

And then everyone learned that France had sent out a fleet of 70 ships whose intention was to wipe out every church in America and kill the pastors.

The English navy had been blown away in a storm, so there was no help coming from that direction. People everywhere did what we should all do in such circumstances -- they figuratively put on sackcloth and ashes by praying and fasting. Even while they were doing this, the men sandbagged and prepared as best they could to defend their homes.

Obviously God heard their fervent prayers, In July 1746, a huge wind blew the French ships into the West Indies where many of the sailors got syphilis. Over 1300 died.

These ships were supposed to rendezvous with 46 other ships at Halifax, but when they tried, they missed each other because of the fog that came up. The admiral committed suicide.

Finally the 70 ships came in under the 3rd-in-command, having also lost their number two man. Another plague swept through the ranks and killed more men.

The colonials called for another day of fasting and prayer on October 16th. The French took off from Halifax and again God answered their prayers -- a hurricane came and wiped them out!

As you can imagine, this story was proudly recounted for over 50 years after the events in question. Today we no longer have even a hint of such a thing happening. There have been other revivals in the United States, too, with just as dramatic results. We never hear about those either. I have no idea how to go about it, but it’s high time we reclaimed our heritage.

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Speaking of history, evangelist Perry Stone has some fascinating insights into patterns in history and in the Bible, and the way they reoccur in other times and places. The Jews use pattern as the template for prophecy whereas we see it as prophecy/fulfillment. It’s interesting and even jaw-dropping to study this kind of 'circular time' where similar events seem to happen again and again.

One example he gives to show how historical patterns often repeat themselves is that of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and the astounding parallels between the two men. Lincoln started his political career in 1846 and Kennedy started his in 1946. They both had VP’s named Johnson. Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln. Both of their secretaries warned them not to go to the places where they were eventually shot. Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater and his killer hid in a warehouse. Kennedy was shot from a Ford-Lincoln and his killer hid in a theater. Both were shot in the presence of their wives. These are just some of the patterns; there are many more.

How about these election facts -- the son of a former president who was a Harvard grad beat out a senator from Tennessee who actually won the popular vote with the deciding votes coming from the state of Florida. Do you think I’m talking about the Bush/Gore election of 2000? I could be, but I’m not. This is actually what happened in the election of 1826 when John Quincy Adams, the son of a former president and a Harvard grad beat out Andrew Jackson, the senator from Tennessee who won the popular vote.

Evangelist Stone also points out that Bill and Hillary Clinton brought the spirit of Ahab and Jezebel of Old Testament infamy to the White House. Just like Ahab and Jezebel and their illegal land deal with Naboth, Hillary and Bill were involved in the Whitewater scandal involving land. After Ahab was killed, Jezebel continued on in political power, just the way Hillary has done as a New York senator and the current the Secretary of State under Obama, even though Bill is off the political stage.

Even more interesting are the developing parallels Stone highlights concerning Barack Obama. Did you realize that both presidential candidates and their running mates have Biblical names? JOHN McCain, SARAH Palin, and JOSEPH Biden are easy. But BARACK is also a Biblical name as seen in the book of Judges and the story of Deborah.

The number 400 is important biblically. The Jews spent 400 years in Egypt and then there was a major change in the cycle as God led them away to the Promised Land. If we use that same 400 years and start at the founding of this country in 1607, we arrive at 2007. Strangely enough, this is when major shifts started happening in George Bush’s administration, including an increase in joblessness and the start of our financial woes. And now we have a whole new era of ‘hope and change’ with the country heading in a completely new and uncharted direction, although not a positive one. Our continuing slide into moral decay has gotten a huge boost from Obama’s support of gay marriage and abortion, and the march toward globalism predicted in the Bible for the end times seems definitely underway.

Even Israel’s likely upcoming war with Iran over its nukes can be seen as the culmination of a pattern that has been playing out in the 20th and now 21st centuries.

Check out Perry Stone’s recent CD on PATTERNS OF RECENT AMERICAN PRESIDENTS: BARACK AND ISRAEL’S NEXT WAR for more on this topic along with other fascinating materials at his website at PerryStone.com.


Monday, April 6, 2009

Obama, Globalism, and the Spirit of AntiChrist

Obama pretty much sold out America at the G-20 Summit this past week by turning over our economic sovereignty to the Europeans. Watching all those leaders high-fiving each other like a bunch of giddy school kids was not a pretty sight. Obama has certainly shown no respect for our Constitution or for our freedoms, but has declared over and over again his intentions to take us further and further down the same socialistic path Europe has already trodden.

According to Dick Morris, Obama is deliberately sabotaging the banks, so that he can eventually nationalize them and place them under international jurisdiction. Our forefathers must be getting dizzy with all the turning over in their graves they’re been doing lately.

The Bible tells us that there will be a proliferation of many little antichrists in the world before the final AntiChrist of Revelation shows up on the scene. An antichrist is someone who rejects the God of the Bible and denies that Jesus is our sovereign Lord and the only way to salvation. An antichrist propagates false, anti-biblical teaching by preaching another gospel than the one revealed in the Bible. Sad to say, I believe Obama fits this description to a T. I also believe Obama is laying the foundation for the AntiChrist.

I have many reasons for this belief. For one thing, Obama says he's a Christian who draws on his deep faith. And yet he believes there are many paths to heaven and that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. He has also stated that he believes the passages in Romans about homosexuality are from an ‘obscure’, little read book of the Bible.

Obama says he was raised by his Mom who was a Christian. However, her friends and other documentation show she was an atheist. He claims he studied his catechism while in Indonesia; the records show he was enrolled in Muslim school and was registered in Koranic studies. He can recite the opening prayer in Arabic with a good accent. In his book, Obama also rhapsodized about the Islamic call to evening prayer saying it’s one of the prettiest sounds in all the world. And then there was the ‘slip-up’ during that interview when he referred to ‘my Muslim faith’ and didn’t even realize it. The interviewer had to correct him!

I can’t imagine any Christian saying such a thing, not by accident, not ever.

Obama denies the gospel with his dedicated promotion of abortion and the homosexual agenda. While he was a state senator in Illinois, he voted four times in favor of infanticide. And he struck down Bush’s ban so that now we the taxpayers are funding abortions worldwide.

Last, but certainly not least, he spent twenty years planted in the pew of one of the most radical anti-white, anti-semitic, anti-American churches in America under the leadership of Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Is it any surprise he’s pushing globalism which by its very nature is demonic? Satan has been trying to implement this for thousands of years, starting with the tower of Babel. Looks like the devil has all the help he needs in President Barack Hussein Obama.

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Is your church going Purpose Driven and how can you tell?

I had no idea that churches were being targeted for Purpose Driven takeovers and that it often happens as a kind of stealth campaign where the rest of the church membership has no idea what’s going on until it’s too late.

Here’s the way it goes down.

Church Transitions, an associate of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church trains a small clique of church staff, sometimes but not always including the pastor, and they do this without telling the rest of the church membership. Eventually, as the process moves along and people start to learn what’s going on, those who voice genuine concerns are identified and the potential effectiveness of their opposition assessed. Those who are undecided are befriended. Those who persist in resisting are marginalized and eventually vilified until new rules can be established that will silence all resistance.

What it boils down to is that the members must then either embrace the changes or leave the church they may have helped to build. As Rick Warren says, “When you reveal the vision to the church, the old pillars are going to leave. But let them leave... they only hold things up.”

Warren once said that the term ‘fundamentalist’ comes from a 1920's document on the Five Fundamentals of the Faith. He considers this document a narrow and legalistic view of Christianity. Here’s the list of what he objects to:

1) the inerrancy and full authority of the Bible
2) the virgin birth and full deity of Jesus Christ
3) the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
4) Christ’s atoning, vicarious death for the sins of the world
5) the literal second coming of Jesus Christ.

Yikes -- I thought these were the basic, bottom line tenets of the Christian faith!

To start a Purpose Driven church is one thing. To have your church stolen out from under you is something else again.

I previously said some nice things about Warren’s new magazine. Looks like I was sadly mistaken, even when it comes to trusting him with the very basics of Christianity.

For more information on this, check out THE DARK SIDE OF THE PURPOSE DRIVEN CHURCH by N.W. Hutchings.

Monday, March 30, 2009

March Miscellanea

Here’s an interesting take on the possible origins of the Antichrist -- he could be a descendant of Esau. Esau began the whole idea of trying to wipe out the Jews by plotting to kill his brother Jacob who, of course, ended up being the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Among Esau’s descendants were the children of Amalek and one of the most famous Amalekites was Haman who also tried to wipe out the Jews in Persia as told in the book of Esther. Herod was an Idumean, also descendants of Esau, and as we all know from the Christmas story, he tried to kill every single Jewish male baby in Bethlehem in order to hold onto his power.

Later during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Idumeans pleaded with the inhabitants of the city to let them come inside the walls. The Jews allowed them in because they promised to help with the fighting. They came in, all right, and then they turned on the Jews and helped the Romans slaughter them.

The entire book of Obadiah shows God’s anger at Edom, the nation that sprang from Esau. Obadiah graphically depicts God’s fury concerning their treatment of his chosen people with prophecies of Edom's future punishment.

The Bible tells us that there will be one time when Esau breaks the yoke of his brother Jacob (as predicted by their father Isaac during that whole incident with the stolen blessing in Genesis 29). Can this possibly be the time when the Antichrist rules because the Antichrist is a descendant of Esau?

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As if we didn’t have enough to deal with on the gay marriage front, now a dictionary has gotten into the act. Merriam-Webster now includes one of its definitions of marriage as “the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage.” Noah Webster, our founding father who created the Webster dictionary, must be turning over in his grave. Here’s what his original definition had to say about marriage... it’s “the act of uniting a man and a woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and a woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the partied engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself.”

Not many people know that Noah Webster included a call to repentance and the sinner’s prayer in the opening pages of his dictionary. We’ve come a long and not-so-good way since then.

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Are you feeling like you’re in the minority lately? If you’re a true Bible-believing Christian, it’s very likely you are. According to a recent survey, only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview. Even more chilling, only 1% of young adults hold a biblical worldview. We’re not doing a very good job of passing our faith on to the next generation. I’ve often wondered how God would be able to declare his church complete and to initiate the rapture, but with stats like these, it’s sadly getting easier to imagine, at least here in the United States. Happily the rest of the world is exploding with new believers, China and the Middle East in particular.

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Speaking of stats, here’s another sobering one. There were 14,000 pastors in Germany as Hitler was rising to power. Only a little more than 800 stood up to him. The problem was that the churches in Germany had divided their worldview between the secular and the sacred, something no Christian should ever do. And so Hitler was able to use their foolish -- and unbiblical -- worldview to gain political power with no one to stop him. The separation of church and state IS NOT in our constitution, but it was in the former Soviet Union’s!

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Five consequences for rejecting God according to Romans 1.

1. People become futile in their thinking and indulge in stupid speculations.
2. People exchange the truth of God’s word for the lie that we can be God ourselves (just like Eve did in Eden).
3. People accept homosexuality as normal.
4. The whole culture becomes violent and debased.
5. The culture encourages immorality which means we end up with corrupt judicial, executive, and legislative branches of the government.

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Some worldview trends taking the place of the word of God

1. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS which is also known as cultural Marxism. This is forced on the culture by the so-called elites who do everything in their power to deny God. Everything is equal except for the ultimate truth of the Bible and God.

2. PAGAN SPIRITUALITY from across the spectrum which is being heavily promoted by Oprah among others. This is a growing trend because it gives people license to rebel against the God of the Bible. It also provides spiritual salve for their guilty consciences -- people are able to do whatever works for them. Pluralism and tolerance become cool (for everything except the Bible). It also justifies people’s political liberalism so they can be in favor of abortion and gay marriage and other sins without feeling bad.

3. ONE WORLD SPIRITUALITY which is the amalgamation of Darwinian evolution, pantheism (God is everything and everything is God), and occultism (as evidenced by the explosion of movies and stories about vampires, demons, aliens, and superheroes with god-like powers, as well as the rise of the Wicca religion).

These trends have two goals in common -- to destroy Christianity and to create chaos so people will cry out for more government. The elites want socialism, but they want it to come through evolution rather than revolution.

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Have you noticed how the facts about Islam that keep turning up in the news and online get scarier and scarier and yet most people seem more oblivious than ever about the dangers of this all-encompassing political/religious system. The latest comes out of Turkey where half of all murders last year were honor killings. Now family members are forcing women to commit suicide, so the male members of the family won’t have to kill them and end up in jail. Families used to call on the younger men to do the killing because they felt the law would deal with them more leniently. Now, however, Turkey has passed a law that calls for mandatory life imprisonment for those who perform these honor killings. In order to avoid that penalty, after the family council decides that a woman should no longer be allowed to live for bringing ‘dishonor’ on the family, they leave her in a locked room with a noose, a knife, and rat poison until she complies with their verdict. How nice of them to give her a choice on how to off herself.

Monday, March 23, 2009

International Prophecy Conference 2009

I recently attended the 2009 International Prophecy Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida.

All I can say is a great, big WOW.

The speakers were a who’s who of biblical prophecy and included the host pastor, Joe Van Koevering along with Tim LaHaye, Grant Jeffrey, Mark Hitchcock, Perry Stone, Donald Perkins, and John McTernan.

Here are some of the highlights of what we all learned.

The Bible tells us that God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse her. John McTernan spoke about how every time America has done something to violate this principle, we’ve have some sort of catastrophe. For example, George Herbert Bush was in the process of giving a speech in Madrid insisting that Israel must divide the land when a freakish storm that eventually came to be known as the Perfect Storm (of George Clooney movie fame) began swirling in the north Atlantic where storms never have their origin and headed southwest, which storms never do. This killer storm skirted the coast of Maine where Bush has a summer home and 30 foot waves just happened to wash over that residence, blowing out the windows and destroying the place. Later in 1992, this so called Peace Process which Bush senior initiated and whose core principle calls for the dividing of the land of Israel, moved from Madrid to the United States at the same time that Hurricane Andrew hit. Soon after all this, it became clear to everyone that Bush senior was done politically and would not win re-election.

Another really amazing connection between what happens when we mess with Israel concerns the Gaza strip. At the urging of the U.S., Israel turned over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians. Jews were warned to leave and then forcibly evicted from their homes. Within the week, Hurricane Katrina struck the city of New Orleans and people here in the United States were warned to leave and then forcibly evicted from their homes. George W. Bush never recovered from the political fallout of this disaster and he left office with some of the worst ratings in history. God had judged him as he had judged his father for trying to divide the land of Israel.

More interesting tidbits: Our economy started to fall on July 20th, 2007 after another speech was given that Israel must be divided. The stock market crashed in a big way (in the 600-700 point range) on the three Jewish holidays of Rosh Shoshana, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of Trumpets.

Check out McTernan’s book on the subject AS AMERICA HAS DONE TO ISRAEL for more mind-boggling connections that are too numerous to be coincidental.

Mark Hitchcock spoke about four possible scenarios for America since it is not mentioned in end times prophecy: 1) a nuclear or EMP attack, 2) a financial apocalypse, 3) an energy crisis, or 4) a fall from within. He also felt that during the Rapture, America will lose more Christians percentage-wise than any other country and that this would reduce us to a third world country overnight. His book, THE LATE GREAT UNITED STATES has more on all of this.

Perry Stone pointed out that God is a God of patterns and that the things that occurred in Genesis provide a template of what will happen again. He then proceeded to show how America follows the pattern both of ancient Israel (13 tribes vs 13 colonies, the Israelites crossed the Red Sea to become a nation, we crossed the Atlantic ocean, etc.) and the Roman empire (where it seems that we are similarly being destroyed from within). He suggested that our economic situation is very much like the story of Joseph in Egypt and that Obama is like ‘the pharaoh who knew not Joseph’.

America seems to have reached her peak. The Antichrist and the one world government can’t bring the mark of the beast to bear while the U.S. dollar still exists nor can the world join together in a global government in the first place unless America is no longer strong and free. Israel has to stand alone, which means no more support from the U.S. which also means no more blessings on America. America is also ripe for judgment for the sin of killing millions of babies and its growing support of the abomination of state-sanctioned gay marriage.

Grant Jeffrey gave a riveting talk about the Shadow Government and the plan by global elites to take over the entire earth. Even before the election was decided, both Obama and Hilary Clinton attended a meeting of the Bildiburgers, a select, elite group somewhat like the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Likely it didn’t matter who came out on top because whoever ended up as president would choose the other as secretary of state.

Even scarier is the ever-growing technology which can now keep tabs on all of us. Radio Frequency chips (RFIDs) are in everything, including the clothes you wear. They don’t disable them when you buy the clothes (with your also-able-to-be-tracked credit card) and these chips can be read up to 100 feet away with a reader. Right now it’s used for inventory control, but the possibilities for more evil purposes are endless. American passports now have this chip and they’re talking about putting them in drivers licenses. And did you know that every email any of us has ever sent since the beginning of email is still out there, even if you immediately erase it. The National Security Agency runs a huge computer that keeps all the data. Mr. Jeffrey’s advice -- when sending emails, act as if a policeman is watching over your shoulder.

A crew from God TV filmed all the sessions and they’re going to be on sometime in the future. Check out their website at GodTV for the times and also check out the website of conference host Dr. Van Koevering at God's News Behind the News.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Islam -- Cruel and Usual Punishment

It still amazes me that so many people think Islam is a religion of peace and that those who follow it come to the United States and happily blend right in to our American way of life. Muslims do not and cannot integrate with our culture because they’re living under another cultural imperative entirely.

Christians have no cultural mandate, but are able to work, eat, and dress according to the places where they live. In contrast, Islam deifies 7th century Arabian culture. It’s Arab imperialism disguised as a religion. Islam is a one party totalitarian system that puts you to death if you try to leave it.

We continue to call Islam a religion, but it’s actually a political system whereas Christianity and other religions are not. Islam follows the political structure of 7th century Arabia where the chief had absolute power over the members of his tribe. Every Muslim nation today has a dictator or other single leader who holds absolute power over the people. Just like in the Arabian desert all those centuries ago, freedom of speech and religion are nowhere in sight.

As most people know, Muslims are supposed to pray five times a day facing toward Mecca. Again, this is cultural imperialism. Christians don’t pray toward Rome or the Holy Land nor do Jews pray toward Jerusalem. Is Allah in Mecca? I don’t think so.

As for dietary laws, only those foods which were acceptable in 7th century Arabia are allowed today, thus the prohibition on pork among other foods.

Women really lose out under Islam where they are totally subjected to horrible treatment. Women are forced to wear what illiterate, nomadic tribeswomen wore in the desert during the 7th century when Islam was founded. Women are pretty much a segregated subculture under the total dominance of men. They’re separated in schools and are even segregated in fast food restaurants -- no family dinners at McDonald’s allowed under Islam. Worse, public decency police called muttawa search the malls for women whose loose scarves might reveal a curl of hair. Once found, they are allowed to beat these poor women with sticks. Islam punishes rape victims rather than the rapists -- a woman needs four male witnesses to attest to a rape otherwise she is considered the guilty party and can even be stoned to death because of it. Thanks to the Islamic concept of ‘honor’ killing, a woman can be legally murdered by her male relatives for such 'violations' of the family honor as dating an unacceptable man or wanting a divorce or losing her virginity outside marriage. The perpetrators suffer little or no consequences for their acts. Islam allows men to have an endless number of ‘pleasure’ wives, a woman whom a man can legally 'marry' for a single night of sex, then walk away from in the morning, no strings attached.

Punishment is cruel, unusual, and downright barbaric under Sharia law in Islam. The Koran specifically commands that those who disobey Allah be tortured, so they cut off hands, ears, and tongues. They gouge out eyes. They behead people and carry out public floggings. Did you know there are three official state beheaders in Saudi Arabla? These guys are like rock stars over there. Every Friday, they have public beheadings of murderers, sorcerers, adulterers, robbers, and others in Riyadh’s ‘Chop Chop’ square.

The United States must NEVER allow Sharia law to gain a foothold, not even in enclaves of predominantly Muslim populations. If you want to know more, check out Noni Darwish’s riveting new book, CRUEL AND USUAL PUNISHMENT. Ms Darwish lived the first thirty years of her life under Sharia law and she tells how that was and how Sharia might soon be coming to a neighborhood near you if all of us don’t stand up for our constitutional freedoms and for our country.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Movie Madness

Movieguide magazine, a Christian family guide to movies and entertainment, has put out their annual year in review issue.

There’s lots of interesting stuff.

They list the ten Best Movies of 2008 for families and give the theme/reason why they were chosen:
1. WALL-E (love gives all to save mankind -- best love and sacrifice)
2. FIREPROOF (learning to truly love -- best redemptive love story)
3. PRINCE CASPIAN (substance of things hoped for -- best faith and chivalry)
4. BOLT (love overcomes all obstacles -- best faith and trust triumph)
5. JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH 3D (discovering the value of family -- best finding family)
6. NIM’S ISLAND (hope, courage, and keeping promises -- best coming of age)
7. KUNG FU PANDA (the truth is there is no secret -- best overcoming elitism)
8. THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX (commending a code of real honor -- best valor in the face of danger)
9. MADAGASCAR 2 (love bears ignominy and perseveres -- best father/son reunion)
10. HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 (learning to do the right thing -- best good, clean fun).

The ten Best Movies of 2008 for Mature Audiences:
1. IRONMAN (sacrifice redeems cad -- best conversion to righteousness)
2. GRAN TORINO (redemptive power of sacrifice -- best learning true valor)
3. VALKYRIE (righteous courage -- best standing against evil)
4. CHANGELING (a mother’s love will not be silenced -- best truth triumphs)
5. THE LONGSHOTS (the gifts God gives you -- best use of God’s gifts)
6. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (save mankind to save the world -- best pro-humankind)
7. EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED (truth vanquishes false philosophy -- best expose of tyranny)
8. TYLER PERRY’S THE FAMILY THAT PREYS (Jesus forgives sinners -- best forgiveness in Christ)
9. MARLEY AND ME (unruly dog builds family -- best pet builds marriage)
10. HENRY POOLE IS HERE (miraculous deliverance from despair -- best atheist finds God).

One of the cool findings they report: movies reflecting high moral, biblical, and Christian standards do much better at the box office than movies that violate those high standards. Even better, this is especially true of movies that go out of their way to aggressively violate such standards. Moviegoers tend to reject them.

Four of the top five movies in 2008 had strong or very strong Christian, moral, and/or biblical content (with HANCOCK being the exception). Ten of the top ten movies had at least some Christian, moral, and/or biblical principles.

I don’t know about you, but I often have a beef with movie critics -- it seems the more they like a movie, the more I’ll probably dislike it. So I especially enjoyed this tidbit -- according to Movieguide, most movie critics picked as their favorites the worst movies seen by the fewest number of people.

The bottom line good news is that family friendly movies and movies with positive Christian content make the most money, on average, of any other kind of movie and these kinds of movies did so again in 2008. In fact, 2008 was the year that Communist movies like CHE totally bombed at the box office. Pedophile movies like HOUNDDOG with Dakota Fanning, anti-American movies like WAR, INC., anti-Christian movies like ADAM RESURRECTED, RELIGULOUS, and SAVE ME, also all bombed at the box office. It was the year where sex, foul language, graphic nudity, and homosexuality did not sell yet again.

Christians need to realize that this trend will not continue unless they support good movies as much as they can, thus sending the message to Hollywood to produce more of the same. We can’t ignore the huge influence Hollywood has on our kids and grandkids and on the society in which we all live.

With that said, here are some of the worst movies of 2008 for contributing to the corruption of the culture. In no particular order, they include: MILK, HANCOCK, W., SEX AND THE CITY, THE READER, THE HOUSE BUNNY, WALTZ WITH BASHIR, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, SAW V, THE PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, and WANTED.


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The top three religions in the world are:
1. Christianity -- 2.1 billion
2. Islam -- 1.5 billion
3. Secular/Non-Religious/Agnostic/Atheist -- 1.1 billion.

The largest religious bodies and churches in the world are:
1. Catholic Church -- 1,100,000,000
2. Sunni Muslim -- 1,000,000,000
3. Eastern Orthodox Church -- 225,000,000


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Americans seem to be confused about several important moral issues. While 88% of Americans disapprove of adultery, only 52% say abortion is wrong while 50% say homosexual behavior is morally wrong.


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If you needed more proof that we're living in a post-Christian age, check this out. Active Christians in American number about 43 millions adults or 19% of the nation’s 226.2 million adults according to an R.R. Bowker study. ‘Active’ Christians are those most likely to read the Bible in their spare time, be committed churchgoers. accept leadership positions in the church, and feel obligated to share their faith.


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The political correctness gestapo isn’t only at work in the U.S. when it comes to the homosexual agenda. Now the European Union has demanded that all foreign aid to Nigeria be suspended after the Nigerians voted not to recognize homosexual marriage.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Voting for Obama

I am so thankful I didn’t vote for Obama.

Everything he’s done so far has been anti-God and anti-Bible.

He revoked the Mexico policy, so we’re not only funding abortions in the U.S., we’re funding them abroad.

He’s been on Arab TV and thinks it’s his job to make the American people understand the Muslim viewpoint. Someone ought to tell him it’s his job to stand up for America and to protect her citizens.

Hate crimes legislation, one of Obama’s prime objectives, has now moved to the front of the legislation line. Everyone’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion will suffer with pastors being the first to go. If you want to see how it’s going to be, check out what’s going on in Canada.

The stimulus bill is an ‘Obamanation’ of frivolous spending and untold pork projects that will NOT stimulate the economy. All the welfare reform that has worked so well and gotten untold numbers of people off welfare is gone with the stroke of a pen. The bill includes provisions leading to government health care and mandatory electronic health records for everyone with no opting out. We’re rapidly heading down the road to socialism.

My heart breaks for my country.

The irony is that many people ignored God’s clear directive and voted for Obama thinking he would fix the economy. If history holds true, this bill and the mortgage bailout he's planning are going to shrink our economy and we’ll soon be a second rate, has-been superpower.

Since God is in charge, I can only think that America is being judged in the form of an Obama/Democrat/far-left liberal presidency. Romans 1 says when people reject God, their foolish hearts are darkened, that they become fools. We can see that happening everywhere we turn. Common sense seems completely absent in every avenue of society. Why else would people believe that a horrendously debt ridden country like we’ve become can get out of debt by spending more money, and on ‘stuff’ that we don’t really need. It’s totally unbelievable. We deserve every bit of judgment we receive. Perhaps this is also the way God is going to take America off the world stage to set up the situation needed for the end times to play out.

As a country, we’re ALL responsible for Obama being in power and all the other things which have led us to the state we’re in today. But those Christians who actually voted for him will have to answer to God for not doing their homework and finding out exactly what he really stood for instead of falling for his empty rhetoric about hope and change.


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I recently read about the Muslim man who murdered his wife. The uniquely Muslim twist to this is that he did it by beheading her, the favored killing method of Islam. She was trying to divorce him. How ironic that he’d started a Muslim TV station meant to bridge the gulf between everyday Muslims and Americans. The station wasn’t doing as well as expected, so I suppose his pride was at stake. I fear we’ll be seeing more of these kinds of 'honor' killings in the future. Perhaps it will wake America up to what this ‘religion of peace’ is really all about.


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The Obama administration has given $700,000 to “The Future of Babylon Project” which aims to rebuild the city of Babylon as a ‘cultural tourist’ mecca. Saddam Hussein had visions of himself as a modern Nebuchadnezzar when he started rebuilding the city back in the days when he still held power. Now that the insurgency is dying down, the project is moving forward once again. Many cynics laughed at the Bible’s insistence that Babylon was slated to become the wealthiest and most powerful city on the face of the earth. As always, God will have the last laugh as Babylon’s rebirth gains momentum right before our eyes.


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How sweet is this.... The pope called Nancy Pelosi on the carpet, giving her a stiff scolding on her recent visit there. How she thinks she can be a Catholic and push for every kind of abortion known to man is beyond me. After bum rushing the so-called Stimulus package (or the Great Generational Theft Act as many are calling it) through Congress so she could take this trip to Rome, she ended up being soundly rebuked. I especially appreciated the irony that our Speaker of the House, who never refuses any opportunity for an interview, gave out no interviews after she met with Pope Benedict XVI nor were there any pictures of her and the pope together. Until she toes the Catholic line on abortion, he obviously doesn't want to be seen in the same photo with her.


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I knew the movie MILK about the homosexual mayor of San Francisco would somehow be rewarded at the Academy Awards, if only to show the world that Hollywood is in favor of ‘gay’ marriage and thinks the rest of us are a bunch of homophobic bigots. And so it happened last night when Sean Penn won the Oscar for Best Actor. Of course, during his acceptance speech, he had to spout some nonsense about how the grandchildren of those who voted in favor of marriage being between one man and one woman would have nothing but shame for them somewhere down the line. Ho hum. I had been fearful that MILK would win Best Picture, but happily that didn’t happen thanks to that great little movie that could, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Monday Miscellanea

1. I saw a nifty cartoon recently. It showed a boss and an employee talking.

Boss: “Bob, you are the most honest, trustworthy, joyful, patient, kind, loyal, and respectful employee I’ve ever had work for me.”

Bob (thinking to himself): Honesty (Exodus 20:16), trustworthiness (Exodus 20:15), joy, patience, kindness (Galatians 5:22-23), and loyalty and respect (1 Peter 2:17-18).

Boss: “Keep it up, but just make sure you keep your Christianity and Bible stuff out of the office.”

How typical. People wants all the fruits of Christianity such as good employees, loyal friends, freedom, good laws, honesty in government, the Constitution, and yet they don’t want to acknowledge it as such.

2. In my Bible Counseling class our assignment was to take our Bibles to work for the rest of our lives!! What a great assignment for every Christian.

3. Nietsche said a couple of really interesting -- and true -- things:

a) “When one gives up Christian belief, one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality.”

I wish we could get this across to the many Americans who want religion out of government and yet want to keep the same morals. No wonder those morals are sadly disappearing -- they have no foundation to stand on.

b) “Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know what is good for him and what is evil: he believes in God, who alone knows. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is truth -- it stands and falls with the belief in God.”

Christianity and its morality has been proven time and time again. The answers to life are clear if only people would open their minds and hearts.

4. The secular mainstream media is not free of religion as they’re always claiming. They’re promoting atheism, a religion, because they want to remove all traces of God from our daily lives. This is not neutrality. There’s no such thing. Evolution supporters try to pull the same trick. If they were really interested in the truth, dialogue between both sides would be allowed.

5. Homosexual ‘bishop’ Gene Robinson is having to reduce clergy and support staff although not his own six figure salary. He thought the pews would be filled with hundreds and even thousands of homosexuals after he was ordained, but that hasn’t happened and he’s now being forced to cut back. Even more offensive is the fact that his salary includes $40,000 for his housing which he shares with his homosexual lover.

A similar result occurred when homosexual marriage became an option in Massachusetts. The huge rush by homosexuals to get married that many expected to see never happened either. Which just goes to show that the so called ‘gay’ agenda isn’t about rights, but about dismantling the laws and boundaries of society.

6. Speaking of homosexuals, the latest government statistics show that 65 % of syphilis cases are homosexual males. Turns out homosexual men are the ‘primary drivers’ of increased syphilis rates overall. Even more telling, this sexually transmitted disease was almost eradicated less than 10 years ago. The number of cases has been going up since the year 2000.

7. Where can you find true biblical teaching on a nation-wide basis anymore? Christian high schools are caving. Christian higher education is caving (just for starters many Christian colleges and seminaries embrace something called Christian psychology which is an impossible combination since the two systems have a completely different basis from which they operate). Churches are caving which explains in part how Obama got elected. Even so-called Evangelicals are no longer biblical. They have pieces of the truth and with those pieces they’re able to attract the hungry masses, but then they don’t deliver the most important aspects of the gospel.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could come up with a way to take people who make their entry into Christianity through people like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren, and somehow guide them to the next step. How can we do that? How can we reach them? I think Bill Keller of Liveprayer has the right idea -- he’s trying to infiltrate the ‘secular’ media with the message of Christ rather than ‘preach to the choir.’ At this time we Christians have no real platform -- the mainstream media, Hollywood, the music industry, TV, the major denominations, have all been stripped of the God of the Bible.

Christian and conservative talk radio remains a powerful force, but that might soon be coming to an end with all this talk of the ‘Fairness Doctrine.’ The most unregulated area right now is the internet. In fact, Christian radio might have to default to the internet (as Brannon Howse of Worldview Weekend is doing by having his radio show also shown live on the internet) in order to get out the message of God. But how many will take the extra effort when they get home to search out a program they used to listen to in their car? Probably the same sold-out Christians who are already holding the line on Biblical Christianity.

8. During a speech at Obama’s inauguration festivities, Al Gore assured a group of junior high kids that they know more than their parents, basically implying that kids shouldn’t listen to their elders. I remember hearing about Maria von Trapp (of Sound of Music Fame) recalling how during the days of Hitler’s rise to power, she and her classmates in school were also told that their parents were old and reactionary and that the future lay with their own younger generation.

9. Here’s a good argument against liberals who support everything homosexual. If they believe in evolution as much as they say they do, then how can they be for homosexual behavior? Evolution relies on heredity. Traits are passed on to future generations through DNA and the race is improved through survival of the fittest. Homosexuals must therefore have bad genes since their 'unions' don’t produce offspring and therefore can't pass on any traits at all. Of course, passing on their philosophy is another matter.

10. More insanity from the global warming nuts. Green writer James Lovelock says it’s too late to save the planet from global warming. The best we can do now is to cull the herd. I guess 4,000 abortions a day isn’t enough for them.

Monday, February 2, 2009

New Age Bible Versions Part 3

As promised in an earlier blog, here are the final six trends that appear in the newer translations of the Bible such as the NIV and NASB as shown in NEW AGE BIBLE VERSIONS: An Exhaustive Documentation Exposing The Message, Men and Manuscripts Moving Mankind To The Antichrist’s One World Religion by G.A. Riplinger.

7) The newer translations go beyond the psychology of self-esteem to show man becoming his own God. For example, instead of the KJV’s “around about the throne were four and twenty seats” (Rev. 4:4) the NASB has “around the throne were twenty four thrones”. The KJV says about man in Ps 8:5 “ For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels”. The NASB and NIV among others instead state “Yet Thou hast made him a little lower than God” which is quite a promotion of status! Here’s a similar contrast in Heb 2:7 -- “Thou madest him a little lower than the angels” (KJV) vs “Thou hast made him for a little while lower than the angels” (newer versions). The word blaspheme doesn’t only mean slandering God, but includes the concept of claiming the prerogatives of the deity. Instead of translating the word as “blasphemy” as the KJV does, the new versions use “slander” in Col 3:8, Mark 7:22, and Matt 15:19 to name a few places.

8) The new versions have not only chiseled away at Christ and Jesus’ name. they have routed out many references to God. Compare Rev 21:4 in the KJV “God shall wipe away all tears” to the NIV and NASB “He shall wipe away.” Or Heb 10: 9 in the KJV “I come to do thy will, O God” to the newer versions’ “I have come to do thy will.” In 1 Tim 3:16 the new versions have “He who was revealed” as opposed to the KJV’s “God was manifest.” And in Matt 6:33 you find “the kingdom of God” (KJV) versus “His kingdom” (newer versions). Even more telling, in 2 Cor 10:4, the KJV says “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God” while the new versions have “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but divinely powerful” which is ambiguous to say the least.

9) The new versions tend to soften man’s sinfulness and guilt. In 1 Cor 4:4 we have “For I know nothing by myself” (KJV) whereas the newer versions say “My conscience is clear’ (NIV, NASB). Col 2:11 changes from “the sins of the flesh” (KJV) to “the body of the flesh (NIV, NASB). Matt 18:7 in the KJV reads “woe unto the world because of offenses” compared to “woe unto the world because of stumbling blocks”. Even more telling, Luke 7:30 in the KJV says “rejected the counsel of God against themselves” as opposed to “rejected God’s purpose for themselves” in the newer versions.

10) The KJV is actually easier to read when you compare grade levels and vocabulary. The grade level average of the KJV is 5.8 while the grade level average for the NIV is, amazingly enough, 8.4. The author includes a comparison chart of the hard words used in the NASB as compared to the easier words in the KJV. Here are a few quick examples: great plainness of speech (KJV) vs lividness of speech (NASB), carried away (KJV) vs deportation (NASB), coasts (KJV) vs environs (NASB), cast out (KJV) vs eliminated (NASB), band of soldiers (KJV) vs whole Roman cohort (NASB), and hall of judgement (KJV) vs Praetorium (NASB).

11) The newer versions are harder on women. The KJV says in 1 Tim 5:16, “If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them” while the new versions lay this burden solely on women, “if any woman who is a believer has dependent widows, let her assist them. Rev. 13:16 says “free and bond” (KJV) which includes everyone in both categories as opposed to “free men and slaves” (newer versions) which is more nebulous. James 4:4 translates as the all-inclusive “ye adulterers and adulteresses” in the KJV as compared to “you adulteresses (NASB). The newer versions also take the credit away from women. Check out Heb 11:11 in the KJV where it's Sara who shows faith: “Through faith also, Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised.” Now here’s that same verse in the newer versions with Abraham as the star of the passage: “By faith Abraham even though he was past age -- and Sara herself was barren -- was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”

12) The newer versions show a decided lack of uniformity when it comes to servants and slaves. A servant is one who exerts himself for the benefit of another master while a slave is a person held in bondage, a thrall. The KJV uses the word “servant” in every case, along with “bondman” and “handmaid”. The newer versions can’t seem to make up their minds and are very schizophrenic in their translations. The KJV always translates the Hebrew ebed as “servant” while the new versions flip flop and use both “servant” and “slave”. The Greek pais is also inconsistently rendered in the newer versions as both “slaves” and “servants”. Doulos, the word most often translated as “slave” in the newer versions, becomes “servants” in those same versions in Revelation 10.

The bottom line is that it never hurts to cross check whatever translation you’re using with the venerable King James Bible.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Christians and the Decline and Fall of America

Christians need to take responsibility for the shape America’s in right now because Christians have abdicated their role in civil society.

Too many Christians have bought into the lie that says the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are not Christian documents. The rest of the world understands this quite clearly, but here in America, we seem to have lost our way. We also seem to be trying to destroy everything in this country that has made it strong and good, i.e. God and the Bible.

Not many people know that of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, 24 of them held seminary degrees. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton said they got the idea for our government’s separation of powers from Jeremiash 17:9. The concept for our three branches of government -- legislative, executive, and judicial -- originated in Isaiah 33:22 where God is described as judge, lawgiver, and king. The idea for the tax-exempt status for churches came from Ezra 7:24.

The text from Deuteronomy 17:6 can be found in Article 3, Section 3, paragraph 1 of the United States Constitution. The text for Ezekiel 18:20 can be found in Article 3, section 3, paragraph 2 of that same document.

John Adams himself stated that the founding fathers used the principles of Christianity to achieve independence. No wonder the United States of America is the longest running constitutional republic in the history of the world.

What I wouldn’t give to listen in on some of the sermons that were preached during the times of the founding fathers. Talk about applying the Bible to everyday life! Pastors in those days regularly preached in response to current cultural and social issues. They covered such current events as earthquakes, the great fire of Boston, and solar eclipses, After a man was sentenced to death, pastors often preached from the Bible about capital punishment. How many of our pastors today do this? How many know their Bibles well enough to even attempt it? And thus so many of the issues of today which are clearly laid out in the Bible fall into heated and unnecessary dispute.

Did you know that Jesus taught two parables on the issue of capital gains? He taught about minimum wage (once) and which kind of tax system is biblical (twice). The BIble addresses the issue of an unjust war vs the proper use of military action. How handy this might have been in the Iraq war among other instances.

The Bible speaks about the importance of Christians being involved in elections. In Exodus 18:21, God even gives the qualifications for an elected official -- they should be a person of faith who hates covetousness and who will rule with the fear of God. How many men and women in our Congress fit that description? And we wonder why the country is tanking on pretty much every front.

Christians need to realize that Congress doesn’t necessarily represent the values of Americans -- they represent the values of those who vote. Between 1992 and 1996, there was a 17% decrease in the number of evangelicals who voted. From 1996 to 2000, it decreased another 23%, for a 40% total decrease. In the year 2000, out of the 60 million evangelicals living in America, only 15 million voted. Can you imagine if the other 45 million had gone to the voting booth in this latest election? We would surely have a different president sitting in the oval office.

We could take back this country in a heartbeat if we only took the Bible seriously and did what God wants us to do. So why don’t we?

Monday, January 26, 2009

What In The (Christian) World Is Going On?

A new Barna Group poll shows depressing results for any Bible believing Christian.

Half of Americans who call themselves Christians don’t believe Satan exists.

Fully one third are confident that Jesus sinned while on earth.

Another 40 percent say they don’t have a responsibility to share their Christian faith with others.

Twenty-five percent dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches.

These results have huge implications. Americans are growing increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they want to believe and leaving the parts they don’t like behind. They have no problem discarding huge portions of the Bible and what it teaches. Hey, if Oprah does it, it must be okay.

Not only are we living in a post-modern world, it seems to me we’re living in a post-Christian world as well.

When you think about it, people are being pretty darned arrogant to think they can pick and choose specific elements from God’s word and forget the parts they’ve decided are too hard or that they don’t want to have to apply to their lives. God is God. Why shouldn’t He be able to demand how He wants to be worshipped? Who are we to disagree? Not only that, God is all-knowing. That means He’s right on top of what works in our lives and what doesn’t. We don’t have to look far to see the utter mess we’re making by taking matters into our own hands and doing what seems right to us. Just walk down any city street and you’ll find that pornography, drugs, drinking, swearing, rudeness, and selfishness abound. And that’s just for starters.

How convenient that so many American Christians don’t believe in Satan -- convenient for Satan, that is. That kind of mindset gives him free rein to carry out the business of keeping as many souls from heaven as he possibly can before his time is up. Multiple express lanes on the already broad highway to hell are now wide open for business. Satan and his demons must be laughing all the way.

In too many places, Christianity has become a feel-good religion that leaves all the hard parts like sin and hellfire out of the equation. In this new ‘Christianity, we don’t even have to worry about sharing the gospel. Whew, there’s another uncomfortable task off our plates.

It’s only going to get worse. Our new president has set out a decidedly anti-Christian agenda. Many of our pastors, who have been during a lukewarm job already, may soon be muzzled in their preaching by new hate crimes legislation, especially when it comes to homosexuality. Many have already muzzled themselves on this topic. It’ll be interesting to see which ones stand firm on their Biblical principles.

We can’t count on our leaders to do what’s right and moral. The corruption and wrong-headedness of our elected officials has gone off the charts. Our politicians don’t even follow the straightforward precepts of our Constitution, never mind the Bible. Revival only comes from the grassroots up and always has. It’s time for those of us who are serious about Christ to step up to the plate.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

End Times Miscellanea

Talk about watching the Bible and prophecy come alive right before our very eyes! The birth pangs keep getting closer and closer together as things continue to fall into place for the return of Jesus Christ.

1.) It’s been a puzzle to many Americans that their country, the land of the brave and the home of the free, a country founded on godly Christian principles and blessed above any other nation on earth, would not be present in the end times scenario. Fifty years ago this seemed well nigh impossible. Today, it’s all too easy to see how quickly this is going to happen.

America is well on its way to being a super-power no longer and out of the picture by the time Antichrist comes along. America is speeding down the road to perdition and straight into the arms of God’s totally justified wrath. Our new president is certainly no friend of God’s and has an agenda in direct opposition to almost every principle the Bible stands for from abortion to gay rights to the totally non-Biblical way he wants to continue to handle our economic meltdown.

We have gone from the most pro-life to the most pro-abortion president in our nation's history. We’ll see how quickly he signs the Freedom of Choice Act to allow every kind of abortion conceivable under the sun.

The inauguration has already given us further hints at what’s to come, just in case you weren’t paying attention during the campaign. Obama may have been sworn in using Lincoln’s Bible, but he also chose an openly gay Episcopal clergyman (if you can call him that) to give one of the prayers at the presidential inauguration, a prayer this so-called Christian addressed to the ‘God of our many understandings’ whoever that is. The Obama administration had their Hate Crimes agenda on their website within hours of him taking office, so we know what we’re in for on that front.

2.) The bird flu has hit Asia again with people dying in China and Thailand. Nepal and India have also been hit as they were forced to destroy thousands of birds to avoid the spread of the deadly disease. This is likely a precursor setting up some of the final plagues which are outlined in Revelation.

3.) Israel has done a number on Hamas. The terrorist group might even be weakened enough to allow Israel to live more securely in the land, one of the preconditions for Ezekiel 38 and 39 to occur.

4.) Speaking of Ezekiel 38-39, Israel has discovered huge quantities of natural gas reserves off the coast of Haifa. This could eventually make the country energy independent and might perhaps be part of the tempting loot that Russia and her allies want to plunder.

5.) Russia continues to build alliances with her Ezekiel 38 and 39 partners in a myriad of ways including working to establish navy bases in Libya and Syria. Russia is also helping Iran with her nuclear power plant.

6.) Turkey, another ally of Russia from Ezekiel 38-39, has recently called for Israel to be barred from the United Nations, thus aligning this formerly more secular and moderate country into line with the rest of the Muslim world.


Monday, January 19, 2009

Defeating the Totalitarian Lie

With the recent advent of VALKYRIE and DEFIANCE into movie theaters, there seems to be a minor upsurge of World War II flicks. And not solely for entertainment, since both of these are based on true stories. For a different perspective on Hitler and the Nazis, check out DEFEATING THE TOTALITARIAN LIE: A Former Hitler Youth Warns America by Hilmar Von Campe.

The author tells his story of growing up in Hitler’s Germany, joining the Hitler Youth, and eventually enlisting in the army to fight. Even more interesting, at least to me, he explains how Hitler built his totalitarian regime. The author considered himself a ‘Christian’ like most of the rest of Germany, and yet like everyone else, he did nothing to stop Hitler. Because he was morally compromised, he didn’t feel responsible for the Holocaust. He considered himself guilt-free because he personally hadn’t killed any Jews. The rest of the country pretty much felt the same way.

It wasn’t until he wrote down a list of all his sins and realized he’d been a Christian fraud rather than a true, Bible believing Christian that he was able to see the truth. He’s written this book because he sees the same kind of thing happening in America.

One of the main points the author makes and one that many people don’t realize is that Nazis are not right wing Fascists. The name of the party was National Socialism. Nazis are radical, left-wing socialists. They hold a philosophy similar to that of the sadly misnamed ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) in this country which was founded by a communist and which is trying its hardest to disconnect Americans from their history, their heritage, and their traditions. The ACLU works diligently to undermine anything to do with God and His moral absolutes. The Nazis also denied God and went to great lengths to remove Him from all facets of society. The ACLU does the same while promoting itself as upholding democracy and freedom.

The Nazis had godless judges who made the law subject to Nazi ideology. Here in America we have godless judges who are also pushing God aside and violating our Constitution by removing prayer from our schools, making abortion legal, and working to make homosexual marriage a civil right among other perverse concepts.

Children were a big target of the Nazis as they are in this country. Control how young people are taught and you can control the world. That’s why the Nazis insisted all children attend public school. In this country as well, the schools have taken control of our kids’ education and now show little desire to consult with parents. Even more alarming, various courts have upheld the rights of the schools over those of the parents. If you think the Nazis used biased textbooks, you should check out the texts they’re using in a public school near you, particularly in science and history.

The Terri Schiavo case is another example of America following a Nazi-like path. A judge condemned Terri Schiavo to die a slow and torturous death by dehydration and starvation. Hitler gave orders right after the beginning of the war that allowed the Nazis to murder hundreds of thousands of people they considered unfit to live because they were of no use to society. This euthanasia was just the beginning of the slippery slope leading to the Holocaust. Even now Oregon and other states have instituted policies of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The author covers lots of other similarities between America and the Nazis. He talks about the corruption of the U.N., the push for a North American Union, how Israel fits into the picture, and the rise of liars and lying throughout our country and our government among other interesting topics. Free societies can only exist when they’re based on truth which is why America has prospered for so long. That truth is being trampled on all the time. It was the mindset of Germany that allowed Hitler into power. DEFEATING THE TOTALITARIAN LIE gives fair warning so something similar won’t happen here.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Allah vs God

We’re often told that the God of the Bible and Allah are the same, that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. I even saw recently where some British clergyman announced it would be a good idea for Christians to use the name Allah in the spirit of tolerance and friendship, since there’s no difference.

This idea, of course, is utter nonsense.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has many qualities as outlined throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. He’s good, just, merciful, loving, and full of grace. He’s all powerful and all-present. God cannot learn since He knows all things nor can He lie. And best of all, God keeps His promises and delights in doing so. We can count on Him in all things.

Allah, the god of the Muslims is capricious. No one knows what he’ll do which means Muslims have no real assurance of salvation. One Muslim descendent of Muhammad once said that even if he had one foot in Paradise, he still couldn’t be sure that Allah would let him in. You may do a ton of good works, you can live your entire life with a Mother Teresa-like selflessness, but in the end there’s still no guarantee you’ll get into Allah's heaven.

Sadly, the one and only sure way to enter Paradise is to die wielding the sword for Allah against the infidel. It’s no wonder there’s a waiting list to become a suicide bomber!

And speaking of heaven, isn’t it strange that the rewards promised to Muslims like endless sex with dozens of virgins and all the wine you can drink are considered sins and highly condemned on earth. Talk about flip-floppng standards!

Allah is known for having 99 names. Some of them, however, are downright Satanic. Allah is called The Greatest of All Deceivers, The Lord of the Dawn (or Morning Star which is used to refer to Lucifer in Isaiah 14), The Humiliater, and The Most Proud One among others.

Here's another reason Allah can’t be the same as the God of the Bible -- Muslims fiercely deny that Jesus was the son of God. It's written right on roof of the famous Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem where it says 'there is no god but Allah and he has no son'. After being rejected by the Jews, Muhammad waited until he grew strong enough and then returned to slaughter them all. The Koran reflects his hatred of Jews and Christians throughout and is in many ways a reaction to them. Why else would the Koran keep repeating that God has no son? And why else do Muslims continually shout Allah Akbar, which means ‘Allah is greater than’. Greater than what? The God of the Jews and Christians, of course. As Shakespeare might say, methinks they protest too much.

The God of the Bible is also a jealous God. Oprah got very turned off by that quality when she was in her twenties; it’s part of what led her down the new age path. Jealousy has gotten a bad rap. Although it can be, it's not necessarily an irrational, knee-jerk reaction that results in crazy behavior with no ties to logic or reality. Jealousy in this case means being vigilant in guarding something you care about. We should all be on our knees thanking God for being jealous of us when we don’t deserve it. Jealousy means He cares. Jealousy means He wants our love and reverence all to Himself. And why shouldn’t He have it? After all, He’s the one who created us. We can maybe understand this better using marriage as an example -- who wants a spouse who doesn't care what we do or who we see? No matter what they might say otherwise, we wouldn't think much of the level of their affection.

The Bible tells us that God loved us so much He sent His only begotten son to die for us to pay for our sins so that we might spend eternity with Him. All we have to do is believe in Jesus and obey His commands.

Indeed, Allah of the Koran and Jehovah God of the Bible are nothing alike.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Bible Version Trends

In NEW AGE BIBLE VERSIONS: An Exhaustive Documentation Exposing the Message, Men, and Manuscripts Moving Mankind to the Antichrist’s One World Religion, the author, G.A. Riplinger, lists 12 trends that she sees occurring in the new translations (NIV, NASB, etc.) as opposed to the venerable KJV. The things she points out may be subtle, but they definitely give you something to think about!

Here’s a brief survey of the first six trends. (I’ll cover the other six trends another time).

1). One tendency of the new translations is to soften the definition of what’s right and wrong, thus leaving more wiggle room for people to interpret the scriptures in a more humanistic, liberal way. The NASB uses the word immorality instead of fornication in a myriad of places including Rom 1:29, 1 Cor 5:1, 1 Cor 6:13, Eph 5:3, Rev 2:14, Rev. 9:21, and Rev. 17:2 among others. Immorality is defined as the state or quality of being immoral (not moral) which is a lot more nebulous than calling it fornication, the word the King James version uses, which means illicit sexual intercourse on the part of an unmarried person. The NASB also takes the KJV term whoremonger which is a man given to whoring which is again unlawful sexual intercourse and translates it as immoral person or immoral men (as in 1 Tim 1:10, Rev. 21:8, and Rev. 22:15).

2). A second trend is to take out or soften the idea of holiness. ‘Holy men’ becomes simply ‘men’ in 2 Pet 1:21 and men are ‘equipped’ or ‘mature’ rather than ‘perfected’ (Eph 4:12 and 13, Heb 13:21, 1 Cor 2:6).

3). The new versions tend to blur the line when it comes to showing that salvation brings spiritual riches like faith, mercy, and good works and not necessarily material wealth. Compare the NIV translation of Prov 21:21 -- ‘finds life, prosperity’ -- with the KJV translation which says ‘findeth life, righteousness’. Jeremiah 29:11 as famously stated in the KJV says “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace’ comes across very differently when you say ‘I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you’ as the NIV does In 1 Tim 6:6, the KJV says ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain’ as opposed to ‘godliness actually is a means of great gain’ in the new versions which again hints at material rewards. It's certainly much easier to preach the ‘prosperity gospel’ using the new translations.

4). The new versions feed the hardheartedness which will characterize the last days. These versions omit Matt 5:44 ‘do good to them that hate you’ and also Matt 11:26 ‘ But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.’ The KJV says ‘do violence to no man’ (Luke 3:14), but this becomes ‘don’t extort money’ in the new versions. Instead of ‘despisers of those that are good’ (2 Tim 3:3), the new versions have ‘haters of good’. Drunkenness in the sense of sobriety also goes missing. Instead, the new versions translate ‘sober’ and ‘sobriety’ as sensible, temperate, self-restraint, discreetly, and prudent.

5). Honesty seems to have become more of an irrelevant concept in the new versions. ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’ from Romans 13:9 is completely omitted. The word ‘honest’ instead becomes ‘honorable’ or ‘excellent’ (i.e. Phil 4:8, 1 Pet 2:12) while ‘dishonesty’ in the KJV becomes ‘shame’ (2 Cor 4:2) and ‘deceit’ becomes ‘error’ (1 Thess 2:3).

6). The new versions subtly feed men’s self-esteem, thus giving fuel to the idea that men are proud and lovers of their own selves. The KJV tells us ‘not to please ourselves’ while the new versions have us ‘not just please ourselves’ (Rom 15:1). Somehow the latter statement doesn't pack the same Biblical punch. In 1 Pet 3:3 we have ‘whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning’ vs ‘let not your adornment be merely external.’ That qualifier (merely) makes a lot of difference.

Bottom line: it certainly behooves all of us to contrast and compare the newer versions to the KJV, especially when it comes to Bible study.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Our Brilliant Founding Fathers

Thanks to the culture’s revisionist teaching both in school and in the media, you will oftentimes hear that our Founding Fathers were not really Christians, that they were mostly deists or that they were a group of secularists, agnostics, and even atheists who didn’t believe in God.

The truth is the vast majority of them openly proclaimed a strong Christian faith.

Not only that, they also strongly believed in the benefits of a Christian education for the new nation because they felt Christian principles provided five distinct benefits for society.

First comes the benefit of a civil society. Civilized behavior is not the result of a good constitution or good laws. No matter how good the laws may be, you can’t have a civil society if people’s manners are universally corrupt. Manners teach you to focus on someone other than yourself and to have concern for other people. If only the tough and the rough survive, then you must govern by brute force and raw power.

Second, the Founders believed any self-governing nation needed self-governing citizens and Christian principles provide the basis for just that. If citizens can’t control themselves, then government control must increase and limited government correspondingly decreases. Civil laws can attempt to regulate and restrain outward conduct, but these laws can’t address the heart. Christianity addresses theft, murder, and all other evil human behaviors before they occur, while they’re only a thought in the heart.

The third benefit of a Christian worldview is good citizenship. Even Benjamin Franklin, who was not a believer in the divinity of Christ, still urged the instruction of youth in the principles of Christianity because he believed those principles laid the foundation for the honorable traits like integrity and honesty that made for good citizenship. It doesn't matter for the purposes of their citizenship if your neighbor doesn’t believe in Christ as long as he conducts himself according to the basic tenets of Christianity including the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.

The fourth benefit is the elevation of every kind of knowledge. The Founding Fathers were excellent students of history and they knew that history has consistently shown that the elevation of academic achievements always accompanies the open promotion of Christian principles. Up until very recently science and religion have kept company together and have helped the world progress in amazing ways. Many of the greatest achievements in literature, art, sculpture, music, government, philosophy, science, etc. have occurred at the hands of openly professed Christians. Just think of Milton, Defoe, Calvin, Bach, Handel, Michelangelo, Locke, da Vinci, Newton, Kepler, and Galileo just to name a few.

Fifth and finally, teaching Christian principles results in the cohesive value system necessary for the successful governance of a nation composed of millions of individuals from diverse backgrounds and different ethnic and religious groups. Having a standard value system in society means that everyone, no matter their beliefs, can still know what is right and wrong as far as living in the society goes. This common set of values used to give us national stability and tranquility. Without a firm Christian foundation, our values now flip-flop, often depending on which judge who gets the case.

Since the courts removed Christian principles from schools and the public arena starting in the 1960’s, violent crime has gone up nearly 700 percent. teen pregnancies have increased 700 percent, and academic achievement scores have plummeted. America now consistently places among the last in the world in math and science, and literacy has fallen from the best in the world to 48th -- the worst of any industrial nation.

I sure wish we had more men like the Founding Fathers around today. This country was mightily blessed by God for over two centuries because of the rock-solid foundation they laid. I pray our nation will open its collective eyes and recognize the source of our prosperity before it’s too late. (Check out Wallbuilders for more great info on our Founding Fathers to counteract all the misinformation that’s out there.)

Monday, January 5, 2009

Thoughts on a One World Religion

The Bible talks about planet Earth having a One World Religion in the end times.

In order for this to happen, everyone around the world, all the major religions, will have to get with the program -- or at least play nice with each other.

I don’t see a problem with most religions. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is already positioning itself for just such a scenario by showing that they’re wiling to work with those of other faiths (except, of course Protestants whose Reformation they can never forgive). Mary, the mother of Christ, will probably be key in this as witnessed by the many sightings of “the blessed Virgin Mary” around the world. The Hindus who have a multitude of gods and the Buddhists who don’t have a god at all will have no trouble with a one world religion. New Agers, secular humanists, and atheists have nothing to lose and will easily fall in line.

The two main groups who won’t go along with this are the Evangelical Christians (those who truly follow the Bible, not the wishy-washy modern Christians willing to compromise to the point of saying there are many ways to get to heaven) and the Muslims.

The Rapture will take care of the Christians. It will probably be readily explained by the New Agers as a massive, but much needed planetary cleansing. How else can the world be rid of those reactionary, intolerant, uncompromising Christians who refused to get along and were thus hindering the dawning of the Age of Aquarius (or whatever the term will be for what they consider the next stage of mankind’s evolution).

As for the Muslims, I think Ezekiel 38 and 39 might provide the answer. According to these chapters, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and other Muslim countries come to attack a peaceful Israel who’s minding her own business and dwelling in the land without walls, bars, or gates. The Bible then tells us what will happen in Ezekiel 39:2 “And I will turn you back, and leave but the sixth part of you.” In other words, God destroys five-sixths of this attacking army.

Not only that, but in the process, God also provides victorious Israel with fuel for seven years from their attackers’ leftover (nuclear) weapons. “And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years: So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them.” (Ezekiel 39: 9-10)

This foolish attack on Israel will likely finish off the Muslims as far as them being a major threat to the world or to a one world religion. Those Muslims who are left can easily find a home with the Catholic Church which has already made overtures to Islam as evidenced by that well-known photo of the pope kissing the Koran.

This is just one of many possible scenarios that could pave the way for a One World Religion.