David sang to the LORD after being delivered to a military victory.
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. (2 Samuel 22:2-4)
How much more should we sing of the Lord who delivered us from the enemy of sin, and the violence of the devil? How much more should we praise His holy name for being our fortress and deliverer, accomplished by using His own body, broken and punctured, dead on the cross while enemies mocked? How much more should we sing of Him who rose from the dead, conquering death so that we could conquer death, and be with Him forever? How much more should we sing of Jesus who is our shield and is the very horn of salvation?
Praise our Lord today! Sing, laugh, praise, and proclaim His goodness for all His works! I pray you are victorious in Jesus today!
There is a lot going on in the Eastern part of the world. Uprisings and police action in Turkey, election in Iran, pressure on Israel for peace talks, Russia and US at odds…and a lot going on in the US with wildfires, storms, and our own political problems (Obamacare, PRISM, IRS spying. etc).
There is a lot going on inside the church, too with apostasy and false doctrines popping up everywhere. It is really like a tsunami of falling away right now and keeping up with what is happening in the global church and from what direction is enough to give a watchman whiplash and nausea.
A kind reader let me know that there is stuff going in in South America. Let’s take a look at a different hemisphere for a moment. Brazil is currently having the biggest protests that nation has seen for 20 years.
“As many as 200,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities on Monday in a swelling wave of protest tapping into widespread anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption. The marches, organized mostly through snowballing social media campaigns, blocked streets and halted traffic in more than a half-dozen cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, where demonstrators climbed onto the roof of Brazil’s Congress building and then stormed it. Monday’s demonstrations were the latest in a flurry of protests in the past two weeks that have added to growing unease over Brazil’s sluggish economy, high inflation and a spurt in violent crime. While most of the protests unfolded as a festive display of dissent, some demonstrators in Rio threw rocks at police, set fire to a parked car and vandalized the state assembly building. Vandals also destroyed property in the southern city of Porto Alegre.”
The citizens on reddit who post there, insist that the protests are for the most part, peaceful. One reader answered, “Since a lot of people are asking why the people are upset: It began with a raise on Bus Fares, and now it’s growing to corruption and the world cup bill. We have really bad public services, and we pay a lot of taxes.”
On the video above, the citizen journalist says that the protests in Brazil are not being reported in the West, and that admittedly “you may not have heard of this with Turkey and Syria’s uprising, it is difficult to keep track with everything that goes on in the world. Eventually, international news outlets might report what is happening down here, but they might portray the protesters as criminals and vandals and delinquents. It is of extreme importance that the truth reaches you before they do.”
His channel is called #ChangeBrazil. He goes on to say specifically of the current protests (he recorded it on June 14, 2013), and note his perception of the wealth and social gap, which I’ll go back to in a moment-
“This is what happens when a society is forced to put up with ludicrous and nonsensical laws that are created only to only benefit the lawmakers themselves, and which results in wealth and social gaps so outrageous it would be cause for hilarity if they were not not so true.”
The rise in bus fares for the poor in the face of a wealth gap; plus excessive government spending to prepare for the World Cup, is inflaming the beleaguered hearts of the Brazilian populace. In another video a woman named Carla said of the World Cup, that the spending to prepare for this year’s World Cup of 30 Billion dollars by building a new stadium is more spending than the last three World Cups put together, which was about 25 Billion.”
Her concern is that in a country where illiteracy can reach 21%, and averages 10%, and which ranks 85 in the human development index, where 13 million people are underfed every day, “does that country need more stadiums?”
“As many as 200,000 people have marched through the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities, as protests over rising public transport costs and the expense of staging the 2014 World Cup have spread. The biggest demonstration was in Rio de Janeiro, where 100,000 people joined a mainly peaceful march. In the capital, Brasilia, people breached security at the National Congress building and scaled its roof. The protests are the largest seen in Brazil for more than 20 years. … The way these initial marches were policed – with officers accused of firing rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters – further incensed Sao Paulo residents and shifted the focus from rising transport costs to wider issues. “For many years, the government has been feeding corruption, people are demonstrating against the system,” Graciela Cacador told Reuters news agency.”
“The underlying frustration people feel about their lives runs deep. A specific frustration (bus fares, World Cup stadium) once expressed in a civic demonstration of whatever kind, often touches off the general dissatisfaction a person feels about the injustice of life in general. It’s the same thing as when we argue with our spouse over who drank the last of the milk and put the empty carton back in the fridge. He or she asks, “what’s the matter? and you get a churlish “Nothing” in response, and after further pressing, the argument explodes. As the argument goes on, you hear “Yeah? And another thing…remember that time you…!!” Once you give voice to the frustration past frustrations pile on and angrily come out.
The mass of people gathered at Sao Paulo’s Largo da Batata was impressive – but more impressive was that after the demonstration began, thousands more kept arriving, streaming peacefully towards the city’s main avenues in a constant flow. Their bright banners bore diverse demands – but all reflected a fatigue with what people here get from the state. I repeatedly heard the word “tired”: protesters told me they were tired of corruption, of nepotism, of high taxes paid for poor public services. … This protest was mirrored on the streets of Rio, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and other cities. Brazilians are asking for change – in a scale the country hasn’t seen for decades.”
The world is in a stage of collapse.
I’ve written before about former Soviet Union citizen Dmitry Orlov, who emigrated to the UN after the collapse of the USSR. An acutely perceptive writer, he took his first hand observations of his home society’s collapse and wrote a blog and then a book, called “The Five Stages of Collapse.” He began his public writing on this topic in 2008, when the world collapse was just gathering steam. Note Mr Orlov’s concept of the ‘mental flip’ another thing I’ll get to in a moment. He wrote,
“In this article, I proposed a taxonomy of collapse, splitting it out into five stages—financial, commercial, political, social and cultural—and tied each of the five collapse stages to the breaching of a specific level of trust, or faith, in the status quo. Although each stage causes physical, observable changes in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is generally quite swift, because it is something of a cultural universal that nobody (but a real fool) wants to be the last fool to believe in a lie.”
As social relations disintegrate their effects are felt most profoundly at the psychological level. (source) Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost. Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in “the goodness of humanity” is lost.
To hone in on the last two stages, Orlov wrote,
“Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as local social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity” (Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I die tomorrow” (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). There may even be some cannibalism.”
OK, let’s go back to the three things I noted in the articles:
1. wealth and social gap 2. a tired society 3. the mental flip
The one without Christ has the spirit of antichrist. (1 John 2:22-23). John wrote in that verse that the spirit of antichrist is already in the world. And so it is.
It is constantly being revealed that the world is a disbelieving world, and is against the true God. This means that the world has the spirit of antichrist. Indeed, satan is the god of this world. (2 Corinthians 4:4). The world has always had the spirit of antichrist, but we didn’t notice as much because for the most part societies seemed to behave. They seemed to be satisfied with their lives. Unless you really think about it and then you see this is not so. The world has always been in turmoil, and it shows.
The scars from war after war and uprising after uprising is the constant in history, not peace. French Revolution, American Revolution, WWI, WWII, killing fields, pogroms, concentration camps, atomic wars, protests, Occupy Wall Street, collapse of Soviet Union, Arab Spring, all these are the constant. And I haven’t even gone back very far in time, nor touched all the uprisings on other continents. As Mr Orlov wrote of the five stages of collapse, “A casual perusal of history books will show that these various stages of collapse occur with great regularity.”
It is a wheel that is spinning faster and faster. Let’s look at this diagram of the cycle put up by Health as a Bridge for Peace (HBP) project illustrating their view of the stages of conflict:
It’s an endless cycle of peace, frustration, war, reconciliation. This, of course, mirrors the life of Israel as described in the Old Testament, which in itself is a picture of man’s war with God due to sin.
The difference today is not that these protests are happening, because they always have, but that the pace of the protests in one country after another is quickening.In other words, that wheel is spinning faster and faster.
As the spirit of antichrist reveals itself more and more, and as more and more people fall away from the faith, things will get worse in every aspect of our lives, especially government. Can we expect godless leaders to be moral, just, and compassionate? In the short term, maybe for a little while. In the long run? No.
The bible says that government is supposed to serve. (Matthew 20:25-28). Government is supposed to treat us fairly and justly but sometimes it doesn’t. When that happens, we Christians are still supposed to obey because God set up all authorities on earth. (Romans 13:1-2).
An unbelieving beleaguered world population tired of the same old corruption (which is really corruption of the heart) and is calling for change, will get it. The world will be ready to submit to the antichrist’s government because as Orlov outlines, the changes that lead to external societal change happen slowly, but the mental flip happens fast.
Can you see that happening now, biblically? The antichrist will be revealed when the falling away is complete. (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Pulpit Commentary says of the falling away, that it is a religious falling away and not a political one. The verse “is to be taken generally to denote that remarkable “falling away” from Christianity concerning which Paul had instructed the Thessalonians (comp. 1 Timothy 4:1-3).”
But the religious falling away feeds into the political one. If men do not have God, they do not know how to behave. This lack of a moral structure and an unhitching from a higher power of accountability will only lead to rampant sin. And we see that it has, all over the world. As the falling away increases, sin rises, and bad behavior deepens. In other words, the feeling is, “I’m in power, I can do what I want, so why not?”
Brazilian powers-that-be have been acting this way for a long time and the people are “tired” of it. Tired of the same old lies, oppression, greed, and self-absorption. It’s the same everywhere. Is there anything more egregious than an IRS that steals from the working man with “ludicrous and nonsensical [tax] laws” as the Brazilian man said, and spends our money to stay in $3,500 a night hotel rooms? Is this a government that serves? That is fair and just?
As society is collapsing all around the world, what can’t be seen is the mental collapse. Weariness, anger, frustration, despair characterize those who are being governed. There is no relief any more from the periods of corruption in government to release the citizen to secular hope. After WWII in America, the fifties and early sixties was a period of great hope, but then there came the gender and sexual revolution, and culture radically shifted. Now we don’t catch a break for 20 years or even 10, but every five minutes it seems, some place is going bananas.
It is clear to all secular people now, that there is no hope. Yet they still look for it. They’ve tried communism, dictatorships, kings, capitalism, fascism, feudalism, papacy, socialism, every -ism possible.
Philosophers have tried their hand, too. Aristotle thought that the highest form of community is the political community because public life was more virtuous than the private. The Pharisees would eventually come to emody Aristotles’s false notion, to the disaster of Israel. Kant wrote his essay called “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” in 1795, describing three basic requirements for organizing human affairs to permanently abolish the threat of present and future war, and, thereby, help establish a new era of lasting peace throughout the world. It didn’t work. Joseph Smith, the Mormon, tried to usher in a theo-democracy. It didn’t work. Karl Krause suggested in his essay titled “The Archetype of Humanity”, that all the world needed was to form five regional federations: Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia, aggregated under a world republic. Hasn’t happened.
They are running out of ideas as to what will make the world work. The world is getting tired of trying and failing to govern itself. This pace will quicken eve faster as each day falls below the horizon and the next day arises. It is all happening so fast now.
The antichrist will have a solution for the world’s despair and frustration, and the world will buy it, to the disaster of the globe.
In the end, Jesus will show via His wrath that only He is the solution. After that, He will usher in the final government!
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6).
The universe exists so that God will accomplish the redemption of man.
It’s that simple.
“As we read in Colossians, “All things created by Him and for Him.” And what is this grand design? What is this grand purpose? What is God doing? Why did He create this universe? Why did He create the earth? Why did He put on the earth all these creatures? Why did He make man? What is the point of all of this? (Colossians 1:16).
“And the answer is, “The grand design is redemption.” The grand design is the gathering of a redeemed people into eternal glory for the purpose of worshiping Him forever and ever.” ~John MacArthur, “The Theology of Creation”
To that end, Jesus commissioned emissaries to go forth with the message of redemption, AKA the Good News AKA the Gospel. Some proclaim it nearby and others go far afield. The ones who go far are missionaries, bringing the good news to every nation, tribe, and tongue. (Matthew 18:16-20; Acts 1:8).
God will sovereignly ensure all will occur as He designed it to occur as He said in Isaiah 46:9. It will happen. He said in Isaiah 46:9. “Remember the former things long passed. I am God, there is no other. I am God, there’s no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done saying, ‘My purpose will be established, I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’”
However, that is not to say that from our one-dimensional view down here on earth, that there won’t be heartbreaks, apparent setbacks, and distress among us as His plan is being carried out from above.
I keep up with a couple of missionaries who our denomination supports, via the Southern Baptist Convention and International Mission Board. The couple is in Central America, in the jungle. They have worked with a local man for a year who is a Pastor. This pastor travels over rough jungle roads to reach a family who lives in the jungle who had opened their home to the Pastor. He travels long to reach the place, and does the weekly bible studies. He travels so long he must stay overnight there. They had hopes to plant a church there, eventually. Above, Jungle, Wikipedia commons
This month’s mission report says that though we all expect opposition from without, the missionary couple were blindsided from within.
The local pastor who travels to the jungle there each week, “was told by the head of this family that they will no longer host the Baptist meetings. The reason: they have been led to believe by leaders of their church that Baptists do not believe in the Holy Spirit because we do not speak in tongues and have experiences like being “slain in the Spirit.” This is not the first time we have encountered this attitude from those we call our brothers in Christ.”
Until now, the worst battles had been against shamanism, Mayanism and Catholicism, all of which are so rampant in Central & South America. But now missionaries must also battle the worst examples of Pentecostalism from inside our own Protestant denominations? Sad!
The same is happening in Africa. Pastor Conrad Mbewe of Reformed Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia speaks often about evangelical issues in Africa. One of the issues with the decline of the church in his native land, he says, have also been the excesses of Charismatic Pentecostalism. Above, Africa.
“A century or two ago, Christian missionaries came from the West and taught us the Bible. As a result of this, we did away with polygamy, cannibalism, tribal feuds, etc. We were taught to put on more clothing to hide our nakedness. We learned to desist from tattooing our bodies, which were now temples of the living God. We even stopped sacrificing our babies to ancestral spirits.”
“I am reminded of the many claims to healings that are made by “anointed” Charismatic preachers. Every week, there are tens of thousands of miracle services conducted across the country and the continent. When I say that these are just publicity and fundraising gimmicks, sincere Christians are often horrified at my saying so. When I then ask them to give me the name and address of one person whom they know who was once blind but now sees, or was a cripple (on a wheelchair or on crutches) who now walks, or was deaf and dumb but now speaks, they suddenly sober up and admit that they do not know anyone. “Sources” have told them of many people who have been healed.”
“What information would be helpful for Evangelicals in the West to know about the state of the African church?“
Pastor Mbewe responded,
The Christians in the economically and educationally challenged areas of Central Africa are in a state of what I call “blessed ignorance.” I find that in general their hearts are with Christ and they are faithful followers of His, but they lack the theological refinement necessary to get all their ducks in a row. The people have “low expectations of their leaders’ educational qualifications to preach.” It is in these areas where rampant health-wealth-prosperity preaching and extreme charismatic practices are most common and leave the church in a state of immaturity.
As for what’s happening in Asia, there is a terrible influence of the healing-miracle-prosperity church there, too, especially in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, thanks to a charismatic South Korean named Pastor Lee at Manmin Church. We read,
“Abundant Fruit of the Holiness Gospel Has Been Borne in Thailand “ “Amazing works of the Holy Spirit unfolded and abundant fruit of the holiness gospel was borne even in Thailand where the 95 % of population is Buddhist. … Additionally, Thai Com 5 satellite TV has broadcast GCN TV programs, such as Dr. Lee’s sermons and the programs on the works of God’s power, nationwide. Since innumerable people watch the programs, the holiness gospel is being spread rapidly. Amazing works took place through the handkerchief prayer on which Dr. Lee had prayed. Even sorcerers and shamans accepted the Lord through the handkerchief prayer (Acts 19:11-12). Pastor Sungchil Lee has given glory to God by holding meetings in many areas of Thailand in September 2009, November 2010, and February 2011. Countless people were healed of their diseases in the meetings.”
“This book explains why Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity is a rapidly growing global phenomenon. Although often caricatured and reduced to speaking in tongues (glossolalia), prosperity, or snake handling, this volume reveals that the primary appeal of pentecostalism is divine healing and deliverance from demons. Globalization heightens the threat and fear of disease, fueling growth of religions that are centrally concerned with healing. In Latin American, Asian, and African countries where world Christianity is growing most rapidly, as many as 80 to 90 percent of first-generation Christians attribute their conversions primarily to healing for themselves or family members.
Even in the United States, 62 percent of Pentecostals report healing experiences. Contrary to popular stereotypes of flamboyant, fraudulent, anti-medical “faith healing” televangelists who preach a materialistic, “health-and-wealth gospel” or sensational “exorcism” of demons, this book offers a more nuanced portrait. The chapters illumine local variations, hybridities, and tensions in practices, depict human suffering and powerlessness, and explain the attractiveness to many of a global religious movement that promises material relief and empowerment by invoking “miracles” and spiritual resources. Achieving the twin goals of thick description and comparative analysis of global practices is best achieved by bringing area experts into conversation. Sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political scientists, theologians, and religious studies scholars from the United States, Europe, and Africa write about illness and healing on six continents. Read together, these chapters generate and set the agenda for a new program of scholarly inquiry into some of the largest forces of change reshaping today’s world—globalization, pentecostalism, and healing.”
I’ve striven to show you both personal and widespread examples of the worst excesses of the
Charismatics that are happening in Latin America, Asia and Africa and the devastating impact on the church. The tomfoolery you view each day on TBN is not just contained in American broadcast media and a few churches at the fringes of the faith. It is a widespread, global phenomenon that is killing the church.
“However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”” (Luke 18:8b).
The answer is yes, because God purposes to bring a group He’s selected for His son to redemption as His Son’s bride. It will happen. But the falsity of the false church which abuses the Holy Spirit is daily being revealed and the stain of is is spreading.
When I refer to the excessive charismatic aspects of Pentecostalism, I’ve said “fringe” or “excesses” etc, so it is clear to you that I do not indict an entire denomination. As John MacArthur said in his essay, “Encouragement to Faithful Pentecostals,” “There are those in charismatic and Pentecostal churches who love Christ, serve His people, and—like John—are disturbed by the sinful excesses they see dominating the charismatic movement.”
He said, however, that they need to speak up against the abuses against the Holy Spirit with the ridiculous excesses of tongues, slain in the spirit falling down, toking the spirit, laughing in the spirit and so-called miracles and alleged healings. Speak. Up.
John MacArthur and colleagues are speaking up. He has organized a conference called Strange Fire. The Strange Fire conference “will boldly and thoroughly deal with prosperity preachers, faith healers, and many of the other familiar charismatic aberrations and blasphemies of the Holy Spirit.”
MacArthur, along with Phil Johnson, RC Sproul, Conrad Mbewe (I mentioned him up above), Tom Pennington, Steve Lawson, Nathan Busenitz, Justin Peters (I refer to him frequently regarding his monumentally helpful series “A Call For Discernment”), Todd Friel, and Joni Eareckson Tada. These speakers’ bios can be read here.
He said,
“If you believe that the baptism of the spirit is subsequent to and separate from salvation, you have now created two classes of believers. If you believe in mystical experience, transcendent esoteric kinds of supernatural things, then what you will do is depreciate study, spiritual discipline, and the means of grace by which you grow. If you exalt feeling you will denigrate reason and open the mind and the spirit, the powers that people cannot understand or deal with. And as long as these kinds of things lie at the core of Pentecostal tradition, the potential for disaster is there, and if you believe that God is still giving revelation of any kind, the lid is off.” (source)
It’s as if satan had said, “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war,” as Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar. “Dog has its ordinary meaning; havoc is a military order permitting the seizure of spoil after a victory, and let slip is to release from the leash.” (Wiki)
The lid is indeed off, and nobody likes what was released. Fortunately, in this long essay for the third time, I refer back to Isaiah 46:9. “Remember the former things long passed. I am God, there is no other. I am God, there’s no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done saying, ‘My purpose will be established, I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’”
His good pleasure is to bring a Bride to His son- us, believers in the resurrected, holy and divine Jesus. As our wedding day approaches, please pray for your own church to withstand this worldwide onslaught of Holy Spirit perverted-charismatic excess, and pray for those who are caught up in it. There are many, and we weep for them as much as we do the lost in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, atheism…
Won’t you be glad when satan is thrown into the Lake of Fire to deceive the nations no more! (Revelation 20:3, 10).
Writing in the mid-1500s, John Foxe was living in the midst of intense religious persecution at the hands of the dominant Roman Catholic Church. In graphic detail, he offers accounts of Christians being martyred for their belief in Jesus Christ, describing how God gave them extraordinary courage and stamina to endure unthinkable torture.
From the same link, the book’s purpose was fourfold:
Showcase the courage of true believers who have willingly taken a stand for Jesus Christ throughout the ages, even if it meant death,
Demonstrate the grace of God in the lives of those martyred for their faith,
Expose the ruthlessness of religious and political leaders as they sought to suppress those with differing beliefs,
Celebrate the courage of those who risked their lives to translate the Bible into the common language of the people.
Luke
Luke was a Gentile, possibly a Greek. It’s not known as to when or how he was converted. He was a physician in Troas and was probably converted there by Paul, especially since it was at Troas that he attached himself to Paul’s party and started traveling with them. Notice in Acts 16:8-10, that it is at Troas he switches from “they” to “we” in his text-
“So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10And when Paulc had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
Luke went with Paul to Philippi, but was not imprisoned with him and did not travel with him after his release. He apparently made Philippi his home and stayed for some time. It’s not until Paul’s visit to Philippi (Acts 20:5-6) about seven years later, that we again meet with Luke. From this time he again traveled with Paul and stayed with him during his journey to Jerusalem (Acts 20:6-21:18). But he disappears once more during Paul’s imprisonment at Jerusalem and Caesarea, and only shows up again when Paul starts for Rome (Acts 27:1). He then stayed with Paul through his first imprisonment (Philemon 1:24; Colossians 4:14). Many bible scholars believe Luke write his Gospel and Acts when in Rome with Paul during this time. During Paul’s second imprisonment, Luke apparently stayed nearby or with Paul, but because just before his martyrdom, Paul wrote to Timothy and said, “only Luke is with me.” (2 Timothy 4:11).
After Paul’s death, Luke apparently continued to evangelize as he had learned to do with Paul. Exactly when and how he died is unknown. One ancient source states “He served the Lord without distraction, having neither wife nor children and at the age of 84 he fell asleep in Boeatia (Place unknown), full of the Holy Spirit.” Another early source said he went to Greece to evangelize, and was there martyred by being hung from and olive tree in Athens in AD 93.
United States Geological Society (USGS) rates a quake major if it is over 6.0 in magnitude. Each year, the average number of 6.0-6.9 quakes occurring in that range for the entire year is 134. So far this year (2013) there have been 60 in the 6.0+ range. There have been four this week.
Comparing last year at this same time, the number of quakes in the 6.0-6.9 range was 59.
Let’s compare this half-year to last year’s half-year. The number of quakes in the year 2012 between magnitude 4.0-9.9 from Jan 1- June 15 are 4,266.
The number of quakes in the year 2013 between magnitude 4.0-9.9 from Jan 1- June 15 were 6,130.
Looking at a longer term trend for quakes between 4.0-9.9 magnitude, from Jan-June for the last 7 years:
Now, looking at only half a year is not the best way to look at data for this data set, because earthquakes don’t occur in a predictable or proportional way over the course of a year. But if wanting to use this year’s data at all, it is important to look at apples-to-apples, so I compared it that way for the previous years.
As a note, USGS changed their pages. The search page is still functional, but one critical piece is missing from the way they offered the search results before: the total count. If I want to get a total count for any search data on earthquakes, I have to copy the USGS result into Word, manually delete the extraneous information, copy all, press the number button, and look at the last line to see how many there are. It is cumbersome. As with any data gathering, the more you introduce humans monkeying with the data, the more chances there will be to introduce human error. In addition, I can’t find out how many quakes there are for the entire year because the sheer volume of copied information will crash or freeze Word.
Come on, USGS, give us the total number of quakes for our search function again. Please?
So there ya go, just FYI, some information for you at the half-way point in 2013. Does it feel like half the year is gone already? It is going so fast. Maybe July-December will be the time frame the Savior will come! One can hope for the Blessed Hope, and pray too. :). Maybe tomorrow will be the Day.
A few days ago, I read an interesting article about a man who had been living in Minnesota for decades was really a WWII SS Nazi Commander. For him to have been a commander in WWII, he’d have to be really old by now, and the story says he is 94 years of age.
I thought that was an interesting coincidence because I’d just watched a movie called “The Stranger”. This is a fictional 1946 movie about a Nazi who had masterminded the genocide of the Jews and when the war was over managed to flee Germany to the United States. He settled in a small village in New Hampshire, obtained a teaching position at an academy, and married the town scion’s daughter. It starred Orson Welles as the Nazi, Edward G. Robinson as the FBI man chasing him, and Loretta Young as the wife who married the Nazi.
The movie built its suspense, making the conclusion a sneak attack of horror. Its chosen location was a burb so guileless that patrons of the General Store helped themselves to pouring the ever-percolating pot of coffee behind the counter while the genial proprietor sat playing checkers near the woodstove with anyone who’d take him on for a quarter. There were happy teens running track, a well-attended church, and a luminous bride chirping about her white wedding.
Harper, NH is a kind of town every person could admire, life there is what we hope for, and wants life to be like. A town that’s safe, pretty, innocent, and upright.
Its stomach-turning, gasping horror was due to the juxtaposition of the clean-cut innocence of the town being gradually overcome with the stain of the evil heart of the Nazi. It was like watching a baby just out of the bath being approached by a rabid, drooling, mangy dog ready to devour it.
The movie gradually descended you into the mind of the Nazi, but the resistance of our mind to recognizing such horror is strong, especially by the young wife who had just married the evil man masked as a thoughtful teacher. In response to her father’s question about walking home after dark, she had said, “In Harper, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
The fictional town of Harper, NH where the Nazi had come to live
The wife resisted the clear implications of her husband being a murderous Nazi, even after he confessed to two killings. He had (made up) a good reason, after all. She resisted facing the truth to the point where Robinson had to show her film of a recently liberated Concentration Camp, complete with wasted skeletons of people weakly and pitifully thanking their liberators, right down to close-ups of the skeletons in the ovens. The Stranger is said to be be the first to show actual footage of the German camps.
Loretta Young’s character had a problem facing such evil, because one would surely be able to spot it? Something about the person would set him apart from all the other people who are not so evil, surely? We as rational, innocent, good people, would be able to distinguish ourselves from the Nazis who harbored such hellish minds and dark hearts? Surely we would not … marry a person like this?
Loretta Young’s character finally broke down and faced the truth. The movie is called The Stranger and the title is apt. The stranger is not the man who came to town with all his WWII evil hidden away, the stranger is the evil that is in all of us, a potential that waits coiled up like a snake at the base of our hearts, waiting to be fed.
So having just seen the movie the night prior and then reading the article about the Minnesota man, was interesting to say the least.
Report: Former Nazi SS Officer Living In Minnesota A 94-year-old man who allegedly was a top commander of a Nazi SS unit responsible for the massacre of civilians during World War II is reportedly living quietly in Minnesota, according to an exclusive report by The Associated Press. The news agency says it obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act that show Michael Karkoc
“A June 3, 1944, photo provided by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shows SS chief Heinrich Himmler (center) as he reviews troops of the Galician SS-Volunteer Infantry Division.” Source
lied to officials in 1949 about his past in order to immigrate to the United States. According to the AP, Karkoc concealed his military service during World War II as an officer and founding member of the SS-led Ukraine Self Defense Legion and later as an officer of the SS Galician Division. “The Galician Division and a Ukrainian nationalist organization he served in were both on a secret American government blacklist of organizations whose members were forbidden from entering the United States at the time,” the AP reports.”
Michael Karkoc Revelations: Nazi Unit Leader’s Minneapolis Life Prompts Shock “The revelation Friday that a former commander of a Nazi SS-led military unit has lived quietly in Minneapolis for the past six decades came as a shock to people who knew him, prompted harsh condemnations from World War II survivors in the U.S. and Europe, and led prosecutors in Poland to say they would investigate. … “I know him personally. We talk, laugh. He takes care of his yard and walks with his wife,” his next-door neighbor, Gordon Gnasdoskey, said Friday. Gnasdoskey, the grandson of a Ukrainian immigrant himself, said he was disturbed by the revelations about his longtime neighbor.”
St. Michael’s and St. George’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Karkoc is a member of the St. Michael’s and St. George’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, seen at right, and is a member in good standing, said his pastor. The implication being, how could such a quiet man, who the day before had been seen doing normal suburban things such as cleaning his gutters, have participated in brutal and evil crimes against humanity?
Paul Washer has the answer.
“Hitler was not an anomaly. Hitler was not a phenomenon. Hitler was what everyone in this room has the potential of being. Not only that, you need to understand that even in all the wickedness of Hitler, he was still restrained by the common grace of God. And you need to know this, that if it were not for the common grace of God, restraining you in your unconverted state, you would make Hitler look like a choirboy.” Paul Washer.
The “shock” is not that there is a Nazi living among us. The shock is, that any one of us could be a Nazi.
When we come to grips with our own terrible evil, evil we use and wield against God every day, we come to better grips with His love for us. His holiness is so pure, so strong and majestic, so piercing, that even a glimpse of it terrifies the common man.
“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” (Exodus 34:29-30).
His perfection and holiness puts fear into us. That is because we recognize how depraved and evil we are.
Isaiah saw immediately how depraved he was, when confronted by the holiness of God. “And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5).
The delusion satan brings is that we are good, we are innocent, we are pure. Or, at least to the slightly more honest among us, we’re not so bad. “We’re not like HIM” our minds cry out when we discover that our neighbor is a Nazi. We use each other as a benchmark of progress in the goodness department, when the true standard is God. Our minds want to shrink from using Him as a benchmark because deep down we know what we are:
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5).
Do you see how complete that statement is, “so great”, “every intention”, “continually”? We are saturated with sin, permeated down to the last molecule. Washer is right, “All men are born evil.”
Washer is right to say that Hitler was restrained from worse. The restrainer is holding back the full potential of sin in the human heart, and so we enjoy His common grace. But once the restrainer is out of the way,
“Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, … The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders…” (2 Thessalonians 2:7b, 8a, 9).
In other words, watch out! ‘Satan with all power’. Everyone on earth except those who believe in Jesus after the rapture will make Hitler look like a choirboy. God’s common grace will have been removed- which will reveal the undeniable fact that everyone is not just a Hitler, but is an antichrist.
Once we understand this, the shock shifts. We are no longer shocked by the Nazi man puttering in his garden, because we see ourselves as having the same potential. The shock is, GOD LOVES US ANYWAY.
We can have a higher and deeper awe and love for Holy God because he loved each and every little Hitler on earth. Our precious Jesus died and shed His blood to save us!
“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
If the Nazi in the camp had turned from the ovens and bent down and asked the Lord to forgive his sins, Jesus would have, and the Nazi would go to heaven and the Jewish man on the slab about to be put into the oven would go to hell. His infinite love forgives any sin- except the sin of rejecting Him. His love is eternal, infinite, unstoppable, and would blanket you in glory in an instant,
“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9).
The Lord will unhesitatingly save you, and change your evil heart to a holy heart.
Last night, I was thinking about something Beth Moore said. I want to look closely at the content of what Beth Moore said in this example I will show you. I am personally offended by it and I’m spiritually grieved by it.
In a LifeToday with James Robison, a televised Christian program, Mrs Moore said, [deleted from Youtube, can now see the video here) ,
“We could live our whole believing lives through, and never make it to our promised land. We get to heaven and go ‘You were not faithful to me! You didn’t do what you said you were gonna do!’ ‘Child, I was holding every single bit of that for you. But I will insist that you cooperate with me.’ What it says over and over in this particular chapter, the number one hindrance to our calling becoming a reality, is unbelief. This is the heart of our study. Listen carefully. What God began to say to me about five years ago, and I’m telling you it sent me on such a trek with Him, that my head is still whirling over it. He began to say to me, ”I’m gonna tell you something right now, Beth; and boy, you write this one down. And you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it: ‘My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief. My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief’ … Starting with you.’ ” … Amen.”
Let’s examine each part of what she said through a biblical lens.
1. Her ‘oh, no’, scare tactic, try-harder faith is on display here. This is Legalism, also exemplified here. Example; “We could live our whole believing lives through, and never make it to our promised land.” Really? We can lose our salvation and not make it to heaven? That’s not what the Bible says. (John 3:16, Romans 8:38-39, John 10:28-29). Perhaps she was talking about unbelievers, one may protest. No, she said “believing lives.” Another may protest that perhaps she meant believers may not make it to our promised land here on earth. But this is not what the Bible teaches, either. The Bible says we are not promised ease on earth. (John 16:33; Acts 14:22). As a matter of fact this earth isn’t even our home. We should not consider earth our promised land whatsoever.
2. She degrades the holy relationship with an almighty God and promotes an earth-centric focus. Example: “We get to heaven and we might say something like this to GOD: “You were not faithful to me! You didn’t do what you said you were gonna do!” Really? When we get to heaven we are going to still be greedy for the things on earth? No. (Matthew 6:20-21).
When we get to heaven we are going to argue with God? Not hardly. We will be so overcome by His glory we will fall down. (Revelation 4:10, Isaiah 6:5, Revelation 1:17). Even Daniel when confronted with an angel from heaven, he fell down. (Daniel 10:8). But Mrs Moore teaches that when we get to heaven we’re going to cry for the things of earth and make a charge against God for their lack. This is ludicrous. In my opinion, it is blasphemous.
In actuality, Zephaniah tells the people, “Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near; the LORD has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests.” (Zephaniah 1:7). And the LORD tells Zephaniah to say it again, “Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.”‘ (Zephaniah 2:13).
3. She says she is a prophet. No, she doesn’t come right out and say “I am a prophet”. But she uses personal revelation and biblical language about the context of her supposed revelations to teach people that she is hearing from God and has a message from Him to proclaim. Example: “boy, you write this one down. And you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it:”
Read how God interacted with the Prophets:
“Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 1:3)
“Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.” (Revelation 1:19)
“Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” (Habakkuk 2:2)
“Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD:” (Ezekiel 14:4)
“Boy, you write this one down. And you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it:” (Moore 1:1)
Just kidding on that last one.
Either Beth Moore is a prophet like John and the rest, or she should heed what Ezekiel, a true prophet, has proclaimed from the LORD,
“Her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD has not spoken.” (Ezekiel 22:28).
4. She confuses people with internally contradictory statements. Example: “My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief.” First, who is the bride? Let’s get clear on that. GotQuestions says, “The imagery and symbolism of marriage is applied to Christ and the body of believers known as the church. These are those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and have received eternal life. In the New Testament, Christ, the Bridegroom, has sacrificially and lovingly chosen the church to be His bride (Ephesians 5:25-27).”
So the Bride is the Church. The Church is the body of believers.
So what Moore is saying is that the global church is in a state of paralyzing unbelief. She says God told her that the church doesn’t believe. This is impossible. If you believe, you’re a member of Christ’s church. If you do not believe, you aren’t. She speaks a self-refuting idea.
Also, about being “paralyzed”. If we take her statement to be true, then what she is saying is that the global body of believers on earth, the Bride, is not operating in the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit dwells in every true believer, (and He does) and every believer is frozen and paralyzed, (what she says) then this means the Spirit is not operating, or can’t. She is saying God said the Spirit is paralyzed, frozen, and inoperable. Can this be so? No. (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). Worse, she is saying Jesus told her this. Worst of all, she said Jesus told her to teach it.
The truth is, the Spirit indwells every believer, (Romans 8:4, Ephesians 1:13b-14), and we already know that the body of Spirit-filled believers is the Bride, so what Moore is saying is that the church isn’t working. In fact, the Bible says Christ is in us, and Christ is always working. John 5:17 and Ephesians 2:2 testify that all three Persons of the Trinity are always working. To say that He isn’t, that the Spirit in His Church is paralyzed, is malignant in the extreme. I’m serious. Only satan would say that the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God is frozen and paralyzed. It is the Modern Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Below, John MacArthur from the linked sermon:
“A way to perceive this would be to see it as a contrast to what we see in Matthew chapter 12, for example. The leaders of Israel committed the unpardonable sin and what was that unpardonable sin? It was attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit. You remember that? It was attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 12:31-32. What’s going on today is the opposite, attributing to the Holy Spirit the work of Satan. That’s what’s going on. Attributing to the Holy Spirit the work of Satan. Satan is alive and at work in deception, false miracles, bad theology, lying visions, lying dreams, lying revelations, deceptive teachers who are in it for the money and power and influence. Satan is alive and well and the work of Satan is being attributed to the Holy Spirit, that is a serious blasphemy just as attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit is a serious blasphemy.”
5. Extra-biblical revelation is not to be trusted. I’ve focused on Moore’s claims of personal revelation before, here and here.
What does the Bible say about forthcoming revelation of God? (Hint: It ain’t happening).
“But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.” (Revelation 10:7)
Did you catch that? Just as he announced (past tense). God announced to His prophets what He was going to do. (Amos 3:7). That announcement is contained in the Bible. He has been working and will continue to do work. God’s work on earth will not be finished until the last trumpet, as Revelation shows us, but His announcement of it was. The revelation of His work on earth is concluded. Yet Beth Moore is making additional proclamations from God. Either God is lying, or Moore is. (Hint: Jesus IS the Truth, and the truth is in Him; John 14:6, Ephesians 4:21). Friends, the canon is closed and the announcement of what God plans to do was already proclaimed.
Gill’s Exposition on Revelation 10:7 says: “As He said to Isaiah 60:3, &c. and Isaiah 66:8; and to Daniel, in Daniel 2:44 Daniel 7:25; and to Zechariah, in Zechariah 14:9, and others;” Beth Moore’s name is not on that list.
For those who want to cling to Beth Moore as a teacher and defend her, saying perhaps that she didn’t mean what she said: I’m sorry. The Bible says that teachers are held to a higher standard. (James 3:1). In order to even BE a teacher one must be mature, self-controlled, vigilant and possess a host of other qualifications that qualify a deacon/teacher/overseer. This is so they will teach rightly and they can spot a false doctrine in the first place- one aspect of protecting and feeding the flock. (Acts 20:28, John 21:17). Teachers are supposed to teach rightly. (2 Timothy 2:15).
Teachers rightly dividing the word for their pupils are raising up pupils who can then turn to the scriptures to see if these things are so. (Acts 17:11). This makes the student stronger. How can a student of Beth Moore examine the scriptures to see if these things are so, if they came from her head, or a vision, and not the Bible? They can’t. And so in this way, she actually raises up people who do not rely on the word, and are weaker.
The word is all-sufficient. (2 Timothy 3:15-17). That’s why we rely on it!
We don’t judge a teacher as false by one thing they said, once. We give the benefit of the doubt, and watch carefully for a long time, comparing their words and teachings to scripture. One misstep does not make a false teacher, perhaps, but a long pattern of variance with the Bible, does.
Mrs Moore has passed the time of benefit of doubt and has proven over long years that her words, doctrines and actions are not to be trusted. I am not the only person who has compared what she says and does to the sterling Word and found that she is not to be recommended. The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry has found the same, and so has Rev. Mike Abendrothof Bethlehem Bible Church, and Rev. Jim Murphy of First Baptist Church at Johnson City, NY, and Shai Linne, Modern Reformation, and Pastor Tim Challies, and so on.
In this post, I’ve striven to not only open your eyes to the poor theology and confusing doctrines of Beth Moore, but I’ve also striven to show you how to parse these things for yourself. To stop and really think about what a teacher is saying, phrase by phrase, and to compare it carefully to the Bible. The Bereans sought the scriptures to see if these things were so, and that bespeaks of having a constant stance of asking ‘are these things so?’ If they believed Paul on his face they would not have sought the scriptures, would they? Constantly testing all things, all spirits, is what we are called to do. (1 John 4:1). And don’t stop there. If you have found things that are NOT so, don’t keep it to yourself. The church at Thyatira tried to do that, (Revelation 2:20) and were charged by Jesus for it. Speak up. Be brave.
Do not rely on external feelings or teachers who claim to have had an experience. This today from No Compromise Radio, quoting BB Warfield:
“In the history of Christian thought mysticism appears accordingly as that tendency among professing Christians which looks within, that is, to the religious feelings, in its search for God. It supposes itself to contemplate within the soul the movements of the divine Spirit, and finds in them either the sole sources of trustworthy knowledge of God, or the most immediate and convincing sources of that knowledge, or, at least, a coordinate source of it alongside of the written Word . . . There is nothing more important in the age in which we live than to bear constantly in mind that all the Christianity of Christianity rests precisely on “external authority.” (Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Biblical Review, ii. (New York: The Biblical Seminary, 1917), 169-191.)
And what is that external authority? The One True God as revealed in the Holy Bible. Sola Scriptura!
Isaiah 19 along with the more ‘famous’ prophecy in Isaiah 17 (Damascus destroyed) are two prophecies that have not yet come to fruition. Isaiah 17’s oracle regarding the city of Damascus (Syria) being razed to the ground with not one inhabitant hasn’t come to pass yet because Damascus is the longest continuously lived-in city in the world- about 5500 or 6000 years. Isaiah 19’s companion prophecy about the future of Egypt also has not come to pass-yet, though some parts of it have come to pass once already. Coffman’s Commentary on the Old Testament explains the double fulfillment concept like this:
“This well organized chapter naturally divides into two sections. The first (Isaiah 19:1-15) falls into three stanzas or strophes: (a) strophe 1 (Isaiah 19:1-4) prophesies the overthrow of Egypt through strife and their suffering under a cruel ruler; (b) strophe 2 (Isaiah 19:5-10) prophesies the drying up of the Nile and the total collapse of Egypt’s economy; (c) strophe 3 (Isaiah 19:11-15) foretells the incompetence of Egypt’s vaunted wise men. The total picture that emerges in these fifteen verses is that of the total ruin of Egypt. “We may see in this section of the oracle Isaiah’s determination to persuade the court of Judah not to embark on any alliance with Egypt against Assyria.”
“The second division of the chapter (Isaiah 19:16-25) is Messianic and is composed of five sub-paragraphs, each of them beginning with the words “in that day.” The paragraphs begin in Isaiah 19:16,18,19,23,24. Although the prophecies of this section could refer to historical events prior to Christianity, to the extent that this might be true, we believe that the great thrust of the passage is Messianic and that whatever fulfillments might have come in pre-Christian times such fulfillments were typical of the far more perfect fulfillments in Christ and the age of the Gospel. For example the return of Judah from captivity is far more adequately fulfilled in the acceptance of Christ by the “righteous remnant” of Israel and their release from the captivity of sin.”
Isaiah 19 is not a long chapter, I recommend you read it.
In any case, with the usual attention to Turkey, Syria, Israel, Russia, and Iran in prophecy, I wanted to bring some attention back to Egypt in prophecy. The LORD has a plan for the Egyptians, it is a glorious plan, too! Though it will be dark for the Egyptians for a while, they are one of three nations specifically mentioned to be receiving a blessing in the Millennium! Here is what the LORD says,
“In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:24-25).
Isn’t it fantastic that Egypt, terrible Pharaoh-ruled Egypt who oppressed the Israelites, are going to be blessed? Perhaps it is because that nation was chosen to harbor the savior Babe when the family fled Herod’s plans to kill the Jesus and all the children. Don’t count Egypt out just yet. They will be front and center of prophetic plans from our LORD!
Meanwhile, back to today, there is a part of the Egypt prophecy that I’d like to look at in view of some news.
“And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom;” (Isaiah 19:2)
Egypt has had a long history of strife, external and internal. One Arab Spring or one dictator falling doesn’t mean imminent fulfillment, but it is confirmatory of the character of the people throughout history, as described in the bible. With that caveat, here is the news,
“Egyptian Cabinet member caught on hot mic discussing war with enemies Israel and America“ “Just last month, Secretary of State John Kerry quietly sent Egypt an additional $1.3 billion, even though Egypt has failed to live up to democracy standards. That largesse didn’t stop a prominent Egyptian politician from talking about Egypt’s “enemy” the United States in what some pundits are classifying as a classic and embarrassing “hot mic” moment. President Mohammed Morsi gathered a group of politicians last week who thought they were speaking privately at a parliamentary meeting. But as seen in an Egyptian television video of the meeting — excerpts of which were later translated by the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) — they were actually on live television, cringingly discussing secret ways to stop Ethiopia’s Nile River dam project which threatens water flowing to Egypt.”
“Before being told he was on television, Hussein described the U.S. as an enemy:
I’m very fond of battles. With the enemies, of course – with America and Israel, but this battle must be waged with maximum judiciousness and calm. Even though this is a secret meeting, we must all take an oath not to leak anything to the media, unless it is done officially by sister Pakinam [el-Sharkawy, a Morsi aide]. We need an official plan for popular national security, even if we…”
“The viewer sees him being handed a note, which presumably points out that his words are not confined to the room. Hussein laughs, then continues with the anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric: “Okay… Fine… The principles behind what I’m saying are not really secret… Our war is with America and Israel, not with Ethiopia. Therefore, engaging in a war… This is my opinion…”
Another part of the Isaiah 19 prophecy involves one of the world’s great rivers, the Nile. The ‘secret
meeting’ the Cabinet held to discuss their mutual enemy (America/Israel) was over the contentious issue of the Ethiopian Dam which Egypt feels would staunch the flow of precious water into their country. The prophecy says, Isaiah 19:5-10,
“And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the river will be dry and parched, and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up, reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile,on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more. The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast a hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets on the water. The workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton. Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved.”
That is specific. Its fulfillment will be devastating, because a great many millions of people depend on the river for income, as you can see in the prophecy. It was true when it was written around 700 BC and it is true today. When that prophecy comes to pass, it will mean total economic devastation for Egypt.
I’ve been watching a development which I’ve written about once, and that is the new dam that some claim will dry up the Nile River. It is variously known as the Grand Millennium Dam and the Renaissance Dam. I’d written,
“One thing that may hurry this disaster along is the dam that Ethiopia is building. We read above that the headwaters were only discovered a century ago and they are in Ethiopia. Ethiopia (and other nations) are tired of Egypt dominating the River. The Ethiopians are building a huge dam so they, too, can control the waters.”
And seven months later to this very day the tiff is escalating into a full-blown war room plan to stop the dam. Egypt is serious about their water, and they have to be. See what Morsi’s cabinet member said in that same meeting, with Morsi present and in attendance
“I say to the Egyptian people: Nobody can turn off your water supply – unless they want to turn the Egyptians into the world’s most extremist people. Imagine what this people would do if its water were turned off – what all 80 million of us would do to Israel and America if our water were turned off,” Hussein concluded.”
Ethiopia shrugged off Egypt’s threats over the dam. “Mohamed Morsi, promised to “defend each drop of Nile water with our blood” and other senior Egyptian politicians called for the dam’s destruction.” Ethiopia should not be too hasty to shrug off those threats, the serous intentions of which were revealed in the hot mic gaffe.
Barry Rubin at GLORIA wrote, “The televising of a meeting held by President Muhammad Morsi allowed listeners to hear plans for military attacks on Ethiopia because of a dam that country is building on the Nile in order to generate electricity. Participants didn’t know the meeting was being aired on live state television. Egyptian leaders discussed covert operations to destroy the dam or giving covert support to rebel groups.”
Source Commons Wikipedia
Forbes speculated on the practical ways Egypt might carry out their threat. “As Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said June 9 following Ethiopia’s refusal to halt construction of the dam and ahead of his trip to Addis Ababa to discuss the project, Egypt will not give up a “single drop of water from the Nile.” “No Nile, no Egypt,” he said.”
Forbes’s speculation included Egypt convincing N. Sudan to allow them bomber landing privileges so that Egypt could bomb the dam … a bombing Morsi alluded to in the hot mic gaffe The Blaze, MEMRI, and Barry Rubin reported on.
Today the Egyptian Parliament ratified a new Nile sharing agreement. “Ethiopia’s parliament on Thursday ratified an accord that replaces colonial-era deals that awarded Egypt and Sudan the majority of the world’s longest river.” The article goes on to say that the agreement for water sharing will include five other Nile River countries: “Ethiopia, and Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Burundi”.
South Sudan is said to be getting on board with the pact, but not North Sudan. So perhaps North Sudan will cooperate with Egypt after all as Forbes speculated, and the dam will be history soon. Or not, but the prophecy says the Nile will be dried up. How that happens is anybody’s guess, but right now the dam is the front runner contender.
When Morsi’s people say, “No Nile, no Egypt” they are right. Not because they are so wise, but because the bible is. Isaiah 19 depicts a very dark time for Egypt. Their main artery of the Nile River dries up and their economy totally collapses. Whether that time is imminently in front of our eyes or is still in the future is unknown to us.
One thing is for sure, it will happen. My advice is to keep watching the news of this tiff over this dam.
One last note.
Morsi held a secret meeting and talked of the war against Israel. This echoes the Psalm 83 language, verses 3-4a
“They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;”
Our glorious God will not let that happen. And even though they vainly plot against His people now, He will hold His nation Israel in His hand and personally protect Israel. And alongside Israel in the Millennium He will raise up Assyria and Egypt, and bless them. God is surely loving and forgiving! Egypt will think so too, they will worship Him!
“In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. 20It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them. 21And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. 22And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.”
“23In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.”
“24In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”
I watched a movie called End of the Spear, about missionaries making first contact with the Stone Age Huaorani tribe of Ecuador not far from the Shell oil company corporate base in Shell-Mera Ecuador. It’s a good movie and I recommend it. The missionaries made the contact in 1956 in the Amazon basin. I got curious and looked up where Mera is, and it is only 5 miles from Puyo.
I was in Puyo, I was in the Amazon.
This is why I am so fascinated by Providence. Little did I know that the incident the modern movie depicts was in 1956 a famous event in Christianity- and still is. When the five missionaries who were killed by an aggressive tribe in the jungle in the middle of the last century in a different hemisphere, that a mere four decades later there I would be at that nearly exact place, sitting at a cafe on the main street unaware of my own lostness and need for those same missionaries who had come there years before. I was unaware and unaffected by the drama of courage and salvation that had taken place and had opened up so many hearts. And how Jesus knew that a few years after that, I would become one of His children, my very own heart He opened up to His grace.
He knew I’d come to understand the debt I owe to those missionaries who in the great relay race over
centuries, kept the faith alive for all peoples and tribes and tongues to hear the words of life, the baton of belief passed from hand to hand and mouth to ear, so that one day I might partake of the great truth. All I knew back in 1996 was that there were too many Jesus statues in Puyo.
Even grander is the story of the missionary widows who shared the Gospel with the very men who killed their husbands. The Huaorani came to faith. I remember reading the Life magazine story about it online. The movie depicts it well.
With a magnificence as great as His grace and the power of the Gospel word, we should rightly celebrate His work in the world in awe and in gratitude. Even on the days when you feel useless for Christ, know and understand that the seeds of faith are powerful and everything you do and say in His name adds to His tapestry of faith, and makes a difference. Providence is an amazing thing- because Jesus is always at work.
When I want to read something but relax my brain I read the UK’s Daily Mail. It is full of agitation, hyperbole, and large photos. Actually, their photos are great. It is aimed at a female readership, and is a tabloid paper, meaning, along with its bigger size, uses large photos and it “tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and TV.” The paper does have good writing, and it did enjoy journalistic success in the 1980s. According to Wikipedia, it has been awarded “National Newspaper of the Year in 1995, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2012 by the British Press Awards.”
All in all it’s not a bad paper and I really, really like the photos. So here is one from an edition this week:
(see, the hyperbole in the headline is the all-caps for ‘cannot’. Here’s the great photo)
LOL! I mean, what better than to emphasize the imminent invasion of damaging creatures we cannot, I say, CANNOT, control than this severe close-up of a slobbering, grinning, menacing insect?
“A new and annoying species of ant is terrorizing the U.S. and chemicals that kill off other types of the insect are proving ineffective against it. The ‘crazy’ ant, named for the erratic trail it leaves as it makes its way across the country, originated in Argentina and Brazil. But since it was first spotted in Houston in 2002, it has spread to some 21 counties in Texas, 20 counties in Florida and a few locations in Mississippi and Louisiana. University of Texas researcher and co-author of a study on the creatures Ed LeBrun said the omnivorous ants attack and kill other species as well as monopolizing food sources to the detriment of the entire ecosystem. He said everything from cattle to songbirds are at risk of the tiny ants, despite them being at the bottom of the food chain. According to ABC News, the chemicals that kill the more common red ant aren’t effective on crazy ants so residents should call pest control if they find an infestation in their home. And hopefully they’ll get there before the critters attack their computer. The insects, bizarrely, are attracted to electrical wiring and components and in one year alone caused $146.5 million in damages in Texas, ABC reported. The devastation occurs when one ant discovers the transformer then gets electrocuted when it touches it, and ‘waves its abdomen in the air’ omitting a certain scent. The scent lures for ants to the scene and they too are electrocuted, again sending the scent into the air to attract their friends. Eventually, there are so many dead ants that the electric switches get stuck or the insulation fries and the system shuts down.”
The world has always been terrorized by insects, and for most of the time of humankind’s life upon it, humankind has been at the mercy of them. Plague arose from fleas on rats. Plague was “one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, killing an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1348–50. It’s estimated to have killed 30–60% of Europe’s total population. All in all, the plague reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million down to 350–375 million in the 14th century.” (Wikipedia, Black Death)
Malaria has been a scourge for millennia. “References to the unique periodic fevers of malaria are found throughout recorded history, beginning in 2700 BC in China. Malaria may have contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire, and was so pervasive in Rome that it was known as the “Roman fever”.(Wikipedia). Malaria killed 15,000 people a year in Italy, which is believed to be an under-estimate because malaria led to other health complications that people subsequently died from. Malaria borne by mosquitos was the most important health hazard encountered by U.S. troops in the South Pacific during World War II, where about half a million men were infected, says Wikipedia.
Bill and Melinda Gates have devoted a significant amount of their time, energy, and fortune to the plague of deaths still to this day caused by malaria: “Malaria occurs in nearly 100 countries worldwide, exacting a huge toll on human health and imposing a heavy social and economic burden in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. More than 200 million people suffered from the disease in 2010, and about 655,000 died, the vast majority of them children under age 5.”
I think that is way worse than ants infesting your laptop.
In Deuteronomy 8, when the Moses is recounting God’s mercies of delivering them from a terrible time, an insect is mentioned as one of the scourges:
“who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock,” (Deuteronomy 8:15).
Out of the ten plagues of Egypt, two were a plague of insects. (Gnats, Exodus 8:12-15; flies, Exodus 8:20-32).
Of course men have been terrorized by locusts for much of history. (Joel 4:1-7)
Under the curse of sin man has always been at the mercy of the creation. Weather, insects, animals, and diseases are regular occurrences. This will not be reversed until Jesus comes. (Revelation 19:14). The interesting thing is that man thinks he can control any of this. The line in the ant article that caught my attention was this:
“A new and annoying species of ant is terrorizing the U.S. and chemicals that kill off other types of the insect are proving ineffective against it.”
Today, we see that in human diseases and in insects, man’s efforts to control them are increasingly ineffective. We’ve all read about how diseases man is infected by are becoming resistant to antibiotics, how diseases that used to be contained in animals are jumping to humans, and we’re dying of things we thought we had beaten into submission and obscurity. (Tuberculosis, gonorrhea).
The same with insects. Romans drained the marshes in an effort to defeat the mosquito, they diverted canals and engineered their way around mountains, but the mosquito is undaunted. So is the locust, ant, and bee. Just today the Israel Agricultural Ministry in Jerusalem declared victory over the locust, but I believe that is premature, as we see below-
“And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” (Revelation 6:8).
In the Tribulation, all the animals will be released from their dread and fear of man (Genesis 9:2), which God had instilled in them after the flood. They will seek to kill man on a widespread basis- so widespread that such deaths will be called a plague. A fourth of the remaining world’s population will die in some form or fashion from animals.
John MacArthur believes that it will be the flea again. After all, the most widespread death that ever occurred in the planet at one time was the aforementioned bubonic plague, AKA The Black Death, carried by a flea. Of course this makes total sense.
Personally I do not believe the prophesied plague of beasts will be ONLY the flea, but all animals. If we follow the progression through the bible:
–Man had dominion over the animals. They were friendly. (Genesis 1:25-26, Genesis 2:19) –Man sinned, there was a flood to wipe out all living flesh. (Except Noah and family). After the flood, animals were cursed. They were fearful of man. (Genesis 9:2). This is because now animals were to be food for man, and be hunted. (Genesis 9:3). –During the Tribulation, a prophesied 7-year period of divine retribution by God upon humankind, animals will have lost their fear of man and be hunters of man instead of the other way around. (Revelation 6:8). Even dear old Fluffy and Spot will turn on men and become killers again. There will be no such thing as a ‘domesticated’ animal. –In the millennium kingdom after the Tribulation, animals will be friendly again. They will have been released from the curse (Romans 8:22; Isaiah 11:6-9). (Above, Edward Hicks, The Peaceable kingdom 1816).
We see a small picture of the plague of beasts in 2 Kings 2:23-24. Elisha the prophet cursed the youths who were mocking him (and thereby mocking God, since a Prophet was God’s emissary), and immediately after Elisha cursed them, two she-bears came and ate the youths.
“And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.”
In this scene, animals were used to execute a punishment of people mocking, blaspheming and insulting
God. This is also a picture of how powerful animals actually are. Since they have always had the fear and dread of man in them since the flood, we have only seen the restraint. Yet when God used the bears to accomplish His will (Leviticus 26:21), two of them tore up 42 young men. One bear killed 21 young, strong men in a matter of minutes. Not one got away. That is amazing strength, speed, and power. In the Tribulation, all animals will once again use their strength, speed, and power to the utmost against us in having lost the restraint of fearing and dreading man.
I mean, did you ever wonder how a man who weighs 180 pounds can control an elephant weighing 15,000 pounds, with just a stick?
In summary, we are always at risk of being terrorized by animals, birds, and insects. This post is about His sovereignty. We puny humans think we have things under control, but look at the pinpoint accuracy of God’s control:
“And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:17). In the middle of the sea, in the midst of a great and deadly tempest, God appointed a fish to be in the exact spot where one man was put into the sea, to be swallowed. And at the end, in Jonah 2:10,
“And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.”
Once again with pinpoint accuracy, God appointed the fish to be where HE wanted the fish to be and deposit Jonah at the exact spot He wanted JONAH to be.
For a little while, if man thought that he had conquered the insect, and can live malaria-plague-disease free, he will soon learn that this is not the case. If crazy ants are going to invade, they will invade. We hear so much mocking from people who say that bible stories are just a bunch of fables made up to satisfy primitive man as to what was happening in the world that they did not understand, but today’s man is actually more stupid and more primitive than they were.
The bible men understood that it was GOD doing these things. Even the pagan sailors in Jonah’s boat understood the storm was supernatural from an angry God and prayed to stop it. (Jonah 1:14-16). Not so today. Today we have hermetically sealed meat packages and insecticides and malaria screens and conceit that man is in control. We get articles alarming the populace that crazy ants are coming, and that insecticide CANNOT kill them. Oh, no! We have lost control, is the implicit point of articles such as these. We never had control of the world to begin with. This fact will be painfully revealed in the Tribulation:
“Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17)
To answer that question, no one can stand in the presence of Holy God, except those He has declared Holy! All sinners are at war with God, and are His enemies. Those sinners who have declared themselves sinners, (Romans 3:20), and unworthy to dwell in a perfectly holy place such as heaven with a mighty God, and have repented of those sins and appealed to Jesus to forgive them, He declares peace. (Acts 13:39). To those people, He sees as friends of Himself, and justified them as having been pardoned of their sins and crimes against Him. (Romans 10:4). You can be in that group.
The original apostles were sent to bring a message. “So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.” (Mark 6:12). That message is still good today. There is no expiration date on God’s word. He wants you to repent so you can be declared reconciled to him, no longer at war with Him. (Romans 5:10.)
In heaven, the insects won’t bite and you won’t need screens on your windows. There will be nothing to “terrorize” you. There will be no alarming news. The entire place will be beyond beautiful and filled with the brilliant light of God’s glory!
“After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.” (Revelation 4:1-3).
“Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” (Ezekiel 1:28)
And when you hear the voice of God speaking, I pray it is as His friend, who says, “Well done good and faithful servant,” (Matthew 25:23) and not as one who hears this: “I will display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the punishment I inflict and the hand I lay on them.” (Ezekiel 39:21)
God is glorious and worthy! Selah ———— Further reading
