Posted in end time, peace, prophecy, rapture

Peace be with you

Good morning,

Did you ever have a feeling of peaceful well-being that was saturating you completely? A feeling of rightness in the world, though it is fallen and corrupt, but of sweetness with the Lord anyway? Of needing nothing and wanting nothing, just content with what you have and relieved that all has been taken care of and provided for by the Almighty? Of gladness that you know the Holy Spirit and can feel Him doing the regenerative work in you? That is how I feel this morning.

“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21)

Because He was loving and obedient to the Father:

We soon share in His peace forever

Please accept His free pardon that He offers for your sins. Pray to Him and confess, making Him Lord of your life and you will be cleansed from the sins that weigh you down so. You will then know true peace, being reconciled to the Prince of Peace.
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Posted in Obama, prophecy, son of God, son of strelka

Obama, Son of Strelka, and the unwitting creation story

On July 5th I’d written, “throughout the 2008 Presidential campaign and after Obama was elected, there were many blogs, comments, and social media essays purporting that Obama may be the antichrist. I don’t believe he is, but that dramatic feeling swept the country among Christians and I firmly believe there was a reason so many people felt that way. Collectively, we are not often touched with a similarly strong feeling of spiritual evil- so there must be some basis for it.” I’ve mentioned this before: I think he is a fallen angel. View these next comments in light of that possibility.

He is spiritually creepy. People get a weird feeling around him and about him. Chris Matthews gets a thrill up his leg. Others faint. Some swoon. Others just lose their minds. He has been described as being mesmerizing, hypnotizing, soaring, and most tellingly, “spellbinding.” He takes on a “Christ-like quality for many people”  and they call him the “brother from another planet.” New Yorker’s writer George Packer wrote in 2008: “No less an intellect than The New Yorker’s George Packer confesses that moments after a 25-minute campaign speech by Obama in New Hampshire concluded, he couldn’t remember exactly what the candidate said. Yet “the speech dissolved into pure feeling, which stayed with me for days,” he writes.”

Hypnotizing nebulous amorphousness that leaves no tangible mental trace but causes an altered physiology. Hmmm. Weird. And speaking of weird, but perhaps genius in a weird way, today we have Blogger Dan Warren’s project. Warren got so interested in the cadence, rhetoric, and detail of Obama’s distinctive speech patterns, he made an audio story using his voice. And now an animatic about it. Warren has spent four years snipping snippets of Obama’s self-read autobiography and putting the various separate phrases into a story. Kind of like auditory magnetic poetry.

Here is how Warren describes it. “Bit by bit I’ve dissected Obama’s self-read autobiography into thousands of very short phrases, usually one to ten words or so, and have used these snippets to tell a completely different story from the original.”

There is something behind how Obama speaks. What Dan Warren heard was the thing behind the thing, where the edges of his auditory perception end and his spiritual perception begins. His project is called Son of Strelka, Son of God. It is nine auditory parts. So far Warren has completed two visual parts and uploaded them to Youtube. It’s compelling, interesting, amazing, seamless, and WEIRD. Perhaps it is the real story…

Here are some summaries:
Slate: A demigod is born from a fruit tree, sets about creating the world, and eventually mates with a human woman to produce a son, called Stanley. “I was different, after all,” explains the god-child.

The Creator’s Project:“The Biblically-influenced tale of Stanley, born from an Adam-like character, a proto-man, plays with the themes and conventions of the Greatest Story Ever Told. It chronicles the world’s creation via a falling monkey, the rise of civilization and the birth of Stanley, a deformed orphan son-woman who is to be our savior. Desolate, s/he wanders the earth as the world descends into war. Gods come down to earth, the world starts pouring blood and it all gets a bit Revelations-y. Stanley meets the cosmic turtle who supports the world, and even he can’t help to save the world’s ruin, so they go find Buddha, but he’s not much cop either. Stanley then realizes he has the power to create worlds, does so, and proceeds to fall asleep on his mother’s lap.”

I’ve watched both parts. They are poetic and strange, just the kind of think I like. Here are some stills from the video.

Poison fruit, hanging on the tree
The ‘thing’ that came from the fruit climbs up

Death unexpectedly enters the world.
men built cities

Oops! That’s not from the  movie Son of Strelka. It’s from Gobekli Tepe, the 11000 year old pagan temple! Oh well, some things never change… my blog about it
And the cities buildings grew bigger and taller…
and taller…OOPS I did it again.
This is a monolith of the first city-worship center, Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. I wrote about it earlier today

So that’s a peek into Dan Warren’s mind and his Son of Strelka, Son of God. Perhaps that feeling of Christ-likeness is wearing off, being only a counterfeit after all, and the real spiritual persona is being felt at last. What do you think?
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Posted in end of days, end of days. prophecy, feminism, gender roles

The Eternal Discontent of Feminists

God set up the hierarchy. He said: “Here is how it is going to be.” (Genesis 2:17; 24; Gen 3:16; 1 Cor. 11:8-10). He is the Authority, He holds authority in heaven and upon earth. He made the earth, and He made the puny humans who populate it. He bestowed it all upon Adam and Eve, gave them jobs to do, and said have it all except this one fruit.

And suddenly (thanks to the serpent) all Eve wanted was the fruit. “I don’t want those. I want this one.”

Because humans know better, you know? Not.

The usurpation of the male as head of the family has been going on ever since. Nimrod’s wife Semiramis did a great job of perpetuating the usurpation. Cut to the late 1960s and feminism was born. The mid to late 1960s birthed a lot of rebellion in the world that this generation is still reaping. I think it is one of the reasons we are the last generation: so much rebellion. One of those rebellions was that the role for women outlined in the bible was set aside. Oh, sure, there have been historical anomalies throughout history, but wholesale abandonment of the Godly role set aside for women didn’t occur until the late 1960s. It suddenly was passe to have a man in economic, political, social, and even ecclesiastical fields. This is the lead sentence from the NY Times in their story “Is God a feminist?” – “Behind the public arguments and fracases over the ordination of women there has appeared, since the late 60’s, a flood of feminist religious writing.” The 1960s was the era in which I grew up.

One thing I remember is my mother teaching me about feminism. How “a woman can do anything.” [Really? Anything? And even if we could, which we can’t, do we want to?]. She used to wear a blue tee shirt that had the slogan: “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” It had a fish riding a bicycle on the front. The deduction one makes is that women don’t need men. They are useless in the world of the fish. Er, women.

I always privately thought that the sentiment was stupid. It was illogical. First, it was obvious women needed men. And vice versa. Secondly, the foundation of culture had always been marriage, and that was one man-one woman and then children. Rinse. Repeat. Dismantling the structure of thousands of years of what had been working perfectly fine was ridiculous. These ideas seemed obvious to me. I was 12. That’s how obvious it is that a man needs a woman and a woman needs a man. A 12-year-old can see it.

With feminism came discontent in the jobs outlined for her to do. The Proverbs 31 woman wasn’t good enough any more. Though her children call her blessed, though her husband praises her, though she honors God and He her, that isn’t good enough. What else is there besides familial peace and a God-honoring life? But the serpent made ambition to serve God in His ordained roles seem like nothing. At the same time he made the world seem like something. Women wanted the world!

One of the realms women went into that had previously been reserved for men was police work. This encroachment was beginning to be reflected in television, which always acts as a cultural mirror. In 1974, the first woman to lead a police series was Angie Dickinson in “Police Woman.” I watched an interview with her last night on PBS, in a show about early television crime show pioneers. She said that she had a blast doing the Police Woman show. “In 1974 a woman in police uniform was still rare. If you saw one you’d go ‘oh, look, a lady cop.'” Dickinson was a beautiful woman and had a fantastic body, which the producers showed off, at the same time as they were showing her solving crimes and holding her own with the men. She liked that. She said she was always comfortable with her body and didn’t mind the sexier aspects of the show because that was her personality. It wasn’t something they were contriving or changing her into. Dickinson said the feminists were furious with her. They wanted her to be less sexy and use the show as a feminist platform. Dickinson said no. She recounted her reply to the interviewer, “I’m feminine, not feminist. They wouldn’t talk to me after that,” she said, laughing.

Therein lay the eternal discontent of feminists. They strove for better representation in male-dominated fields and got it. They strove for female representation on television of females in male-dominated fields and they got it. They had a confident, sexy, capable woman in Hollywood holding her own financially and balancing children and a marriage. But they hated her. Why? She was doing it wrong. In other words, she wasn’t being the kind of feminist they wanted. She was her own woman. This is anathema to feminists. Lest you think that the feminists’ twisted mindset is a bygone thing, look at the females of today one would think feminists would laud: Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.

Hillary is feminism’s ideal woman. She isn’t too feminine, like Angie Dickinson is. She has a family, but doesn’t  pay too much attention to them. Her Rose Law firm colleagues thought it was shameful she planned to leave her newborn at home and return to work. No way. She later said “I could have stayed home and baked cookies” revealing the two categories of feminism- either they are seen as ambitious, professional women (doing it right) or traditional, stay-at-home women (doing it wrong) even though ostensibly feminism was supposed to be about equality with men and women having options to choose her life’s work. Hillary was politically powerful, even usurping the office of the Presidency by her husband’s admission that with “you get two Presidents for the price of one.” Feminism poster child!

Sarah Palin came onto the scene as the very first legitimate vice-presidential candidate. She is beautiful, active, healthy, successful (in business with fishing industry and politically as former mayor and Governor, then VP-candidate). She has a family AND a career AND the national spotlight AND she broke the political glass ceiling. You’d think feminists would be dancing around the fir tree with torches to celebrate this victory. But they hated her. What? Yes. She has exactly all the same things as Hillary, ambition, success, family, power, her own decisions, and had even made it farther along the political spectrum. But, see, she was doing it wrong. She held conservative ideals, put her family first, (no abortions!) and worst of all, believes in God.

Liberals define the feminist movement this way:

“The feminism “of the 1960s-1980s was concerned with gender inequality in laws and culture. … During this time feminists campaigned against cultural and political inequalities, which they saw as inextricably linked. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply politicized, and reflective of a sexist structure of power. If first-wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage, second-wave feminism was largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as the end to discrimination.”

Awww. How nice. Benign even. Conservatives define feminism this way:

Conservapedia:
A modern feminist denies or downplays differences between men and women, opposes the encouragement of homemaking and child-rearing for women, and seeks to participate in predominantly male activities. Modern feminists:
–never wanted gender equality; they want power for the female left
–believe that there are no meaningful differences between men and women (The most significant belief underlying contemporary feminism is that there are no sex differences; therefore advocacy for equal rights must be extended to advocacy for equal results or outcomes.)
–oppose chivalry and even feign insult at harmless displays of it
–view traditional marriage as unacceptably patriarchal
–belittle and mock other women who desire to have children or raise a family
–shirk traditional gender activities, like baking
–support affirmative action for women
prefer that women wear pants rather than dresses, presumably because men do
–seek women in combat in the military just like men, and coed submarines
–refuse to take her husband’s last name when marrying
–distort historical focus onto female figures, often overshadowing important events
–take offense at grammatical rules of the English language, like using the pronoun “he” when referring to a hypothetical/anonymous person, or phrases like ‘fireman’ and ‘stewardess.’

We even have a gender neutral bible now, one which removes all mention of man or woman completely from God’s Word. Of course, this removes God as Father and Jesus as the Son of Man, pleasing satan no end. And still the feminists are not happy.

At About.com feminism is defined this way: “Historian and activist Cheris Kramarae once famously remarked that “feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” Although that’s the sort of thing you see printed on t-shirts, it also happens to be an accurate and concise definition of what feminism is. Feminism, as a movement, is about women living on equal terms with men–and not pushed down, by law or by culture, into a subservient role.”

It is thanks to the serpent that notions of one role over another is subservient. Women’s biblical roles are certainly not subservient to a man’s. They are complementary. Man’s headship is an issue of order, not of who is better or more important. The patriarchal structure is not due to cultural influence but of scriptural revelation. God made two human beings and He saw them as equal. He still sees man and woman as equal. It is satan who implants the notion that what you have isn’t good enough. It’s why feminists will always be discontent.

CS Lewis said, “Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.’ Let me rephrase that into today’s politically correct phraseology: “Human history is the long terrible story of woman trying to find something other than God which will make her happy.” It won’t work. It never has and it never will.
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Posted in end times, entitlement, handout

Three squares and health care in jail looking pretty good to some people now

When sin entered the world, it didn’t take long for all kinds of perverse thinking to follow. Almost as soon as Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, shame was first on the sin-list after their original sin- rebellion against God. (Gen 2:25; Gen 3:7), These were followed quickly by fear of the LORD (the bad kind of fear) and then blame. (Genesis 3:10; 12). The next generation followed with disrespect of the LORD, and anger, jealousy, then murder. (Genesis 4:3-8).

I listed these to show that the progression of sin always deepens. Just when you think it can go no lower, it does. Just when you think it can get no more perverse, it does. By Genesis 6:5, the thoughts of man were only evil, continuously. That is 100% sin saturation! So the LORD sent the Flood and started over, with Noah, who found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

Until very recent times, and I’m talking the middle of the last generation, people relied on themselves and family under the auspices of a godly structure to complete their life. They didn’t go to the king for handouts as the default position. They didn’t go to the Government as the first pass when needing something.

Social Security began in 1935 as a “social insurance” program. Think about the very name: Social. Security. There is only security in God, but the government through this program, wants to supplant God and provide for all your needs and make you secure. Soon, needs turned into wants which turned into entitlements. Praying for God’s provision and living within our means He provides was out of the picture. Of course, security is in God only, but this generation has become so entrenched by now in thinking the government will provide for all our needs from birth to death that it just a given to to rely on it.

The poster child for the greedy entitlement view is Peggy The Moocher. So dubbed in 2008 by Michelle Malkin, it came about that this Obama voter thought she was all set. Peggy “exulted earlier this week at a Barack Obama rally that this was ‘the most memorable time of my life.’ Why? As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands: “Because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know. If I help [Obama], he’s gonna help me.””

The government is going to pay for your car and your house?! Reasonable people know this is a ridiculous view to take. More reasonable people know this isn’t even something they should want. There was backlash among people who have some self-respect, recoiling at the low level our vaunted American initiative and independence had sunk. When we remove God from the equation, on what or who else do we rely for provision? We always substitute something. In America that substitution has been the government.

Sin always goes lower. Just as there is no limit to the heights Jesus’ love for us attains, there are no limits to the depths sin will descend to and evil will sink. When Eve tasted the fruit, she was making a statement that she wanted to rely on herself to engage with the world, and not make decisions through God. When Cain offered God grain instead of meat, he was making a statement that his choice was reliance on self rather than God. It has been that way ever since. But relying on yourself instead of God always goes awry. Always. Here are two recent examples of how much overreliance on something other than God will result in ever-deepening  perversity in thinking about how to obtain provision:

N.C. Man Allegedly Robs Bank of $1 to Get Health Care in Jail
“A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report.”

So we go from reliance on God’s precepts for life, to reliance on self, to reliance on government (as a substitute for God’s provision), and now we’re compounding other sins to get what we need and want. Rather than the indirect pain of higher taxes to pay for social security, welfare, and food stamps, people now choose to inflict direct pain on someone so they can get three squares and health care in jail. The incident with Verone was not isolated. This is from today:

“Police say a man robbed a Minneapolis bank with the hopes of being caught.”
Minneapolis Police were called to a Wells Fargo Bank on 800 Park Ave. just before 6:30 p.m. on July 7. A bank employee said the robber, Hassan Muse Farah, had walked through the front entrance and gave one of the tellers a threatening hand written note. The teller gave him money from the register. Then Farah, 20, walked over to a chair in the business lobby and sat down to wait until police arrived and he was arrested. Police said Farah waived his Miranda rights, admitted to robbing the bank, and has been charged with second degree aggravated robbery. They say he robbed the bank and waited for them to arrive just so he could be sent to prison or deported.”

The gimme mindset leads to all sorts of things. Now, in the case of the man in NC who allegedly robbed the bank for $1, he had a desperate situation he was dealing with:

“As he pointed out to the press, he had lost his job of 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman and ended up taking a part-time position in a convenience store. But the work was backbreaking, compounded by the fact that he had arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and a painful lump on his chest. With no health insurance, he decided that his best option was to rob a bank and get health care in prison.”

Once we substitute anything else besides reliance on God for our provision, we not only start to descend into a perverted perspective of needs, wants, and expenses, but we lose hope. Even in these bad economic times, reliance on God shows faith in His ability to take care of His children. I feel so bad for that NC man who had lost his hope, thinking that his only way to get help was to steal from others and bring catastrophe on another human being by threatening her life.

God is above all money, but He takes care of even the smallest, most meager child of His. He knows the hairs on your head, the number of your days, and if He provides for the birds of the field will He not provide even more so for you?

“For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.  If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? (Luke 11:10-13).

What a joy it would be if these people took the conviction they feel that government will take care of them, and replaced it with equal measures of faith in God’s providential care! They’d be all set for life, and life hereafter, too.
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Posted in garden of eden, gobekli tepe, nimrod, prophecy

The Mystery of Gobekli Tepe

After Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, what happened to them? We know that sin, having entered the world, spread quickly and the first murder occurred in a fit of jealousy. Adam and Eve’s son Cain killed Abel when God preferred Abel’s offering over Cain’s. (Gen 4:3-5)

People who are unsaved and therefore an enemy of God say it’s “not fair” that God didn’t accept Cain’s offering. However, Adam and Eve knew God and continued to worship Him after being expelled from the Garden. When Eve bore Cain she praised the LORD. (Gen 4:1). They taught their sons how to worship. If they hadn’t, Abel would not have known God, would not have known that he should make an offering, and not have known that offering should be a blood sacrifice. The problem was that Cain did not offer his sacrifice in faith. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gifts: and through it he being dead yet speaketh” (Hebrews 11:4).” If you’re not offering to God by faith, it is by self, or by sight, and therefore is from your own presumption. That never pleases God.

After Cain killed Adam, God sent Cain away. “So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” (Genesis 4:16) Soon, Seth was born to Adam and Eve. So here we have a split, the believers dwelling somewhere presumably close to where Eden was, and Cain going east, marrying and having children away from the LORD’S presence. But where were they? It is believed the Garden of Eden was somewhere in Turkey. Are there any other remnants of those earliest people? Didn’t they leave anything behind?

In 1994, a Kurdish shepherd stumbled over a stone. German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was called in and an extraordinary site was slowly uncovered over the decade. The world’s first temple, 11,000 years old. It is more enigmatic than Easter Island and more mysterious and complex than Stonehenge. It is universally agreed that it is one of the most important sites in the world. It is seven thousand years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza. “As Reading University professor Steve Mithen says: ‘Gobekli Tepe is too extraordinary for my mind to understand.’ If this place they unearthed is as old as they say, it survived the Flood.

UK Daily Mail says the temple stones at Gobekli Tepe might be the greatest archaeological discovery ever, “a site that has revolutionised the way we look at human history, the origin of religion – and perhaps even the truth behind the Garden of Eden. Nat Geo says,

“We used to think agriculture gave rise to cities and later to writing, art, and religion. Now the world’s oldest temple suggests the urge to worship sparked civilization.”

Previously every archaeological and sociological construct  was predicated on the assumption that agriculture came first, then worship. Gobekli Tempe shows that assumption to be wrong: worship came first, and a lot earlier than they thought. Then agriculture was born  in that very area. We know that wheat was the oldest and likely first domesticated grain, and it happened in that area of Turkey. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;” (Genesis 3:17-18). And agriculture was born.

As for worship versus agriculture, Christians know worship came first. Our loving God created humans, who in turn worshiped Him in perfection and without sin was among the very first acts of humankind. Christians know that ‘civilization’ was created by God. He made the world, made humans and animals. He structured the world through a hierarchy of relational commands: worship of Him, hierarchy between man and woman, and of man over the animals. He gave them jobs to do. He recreated with them. Food was abundant and available. From the sixth day, all the elements of civilization existed: worship, employment, leisure, the foundational structure of the world: family unit, were all set in one day. It did not evolve and it did not progress. It simply was. (Gen 2:15-25).

Yes, but the urge to worship who? The God of Creation? Adam and Eve and their progeny worshiped God personally. Cain was away from the LORD’S presence, but perhaps he worshiped the serpent now. Were he and his people beginning to worship but worship something other than God, using advanced skills learned from the fallen angels to build a blasphemous temple?  The UK Daily Mail article says “It’s as if the gods came down from heaven and built Gobekli for themselves.” Ah! Perhaps that is a clue.

Here is another tantalizing clue: “Nat Geo: “Bewilderingly, the people at Göbekli Tepe got steadily worse at temple building. The earliest rings are the biggest and most sophisticated, technically and artistically. As time went by, the pillars became smaller, simpler, and were mounted with less and less care. Finally the effort seems to have petered out altogether by 8200 B.C.”

Just as sin corrupts steadily downward, perhaps the skills, interest, and conditions at Gobekli Tepe caused the downward spiral in the worship there, just as sin causes a downward spiral in everything.

We may never know more about why Gobekli Tepe was built, or exactly where the Garden of Eden lay. As the Nat Geo article concludes, they quote the archaeologist. “Today less than a tenth of the 22-acre site is open to the sky. Schmidt emphasizes that further research on Göbekli Tepe may change his current understanding of the site’s importance. Even its age is not clear—Schmidt is not certain he has reached the bottom layer. “We come up with two new mysteries for every one that we solve,” he says.

Around 8,000 BC, the creators of Gobekli turned on their achievement and entombed their glorious temple under thousands of tons of earth, creating the artificial hills on which that Kurdish shepherd walked in 1994. We don’t know why. Perhaps the flood buried it. Or perhaps it was because another, ‘better’ city was being built, this time, by Nimrod. Its name is Babylon.
————————————————————–

Below, stunning photos from National Geographic—

The elegant bas-reliefs of vultures, scorpions, and other creatures found on the T-shaped pillars had to have been created by skilled artisans, evidence that hunter-gatherers were capable of a complex social structure.

Pillars at the temple of Göbekli Tepe—11,600 years old and up to 18 feet tall—may represent priestly dancers at a gathering. Note the hands above the loincloth-draped belt on the figure in the foreground.

Another common icon of the world’s first organized religion was snakes. This example was found on the back of a human head from Nevalı Çori. Artifact photographed at Şanliurfa Museum, Turkey.

Images of vultures, like this stone carving, have been found at Göbekli Tepe. Because the birds are traditionally associated with mortality, these depictions suggest that Göbekli Tepe may have been a place for rituals related to the spiritual power of the ancestral dead.

Posted in jerusalem, jews, prophecy

Jews expelled from Jerusalem? Never Again!

“Never again!” ?? Oh, but the sad prophetic truth is that it will happen again. (Matthew 24: 16, 21). Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! (Psalm 122:6). In doing so, we can lend sweet fragrance to the incense of prayers in heaven where God longs to bring in His Millennium reign!

From Arutz Sheva today, in the shadow of Glenn Beck’s speech to the Israeli Knesset, the Quartet’s meeting in Washington to divide Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Authority’s push for a state at the UN. The deadline for the Palestinians to submit their resolution for statehood to the UN Security Council is this Friday. It is a busy diplomatic week and a busy prophetic week. But let’s look back now, at past history, when the Jews were expelled from their eternal city in 1936: Arutz Sheva:

“Every now and then, a treasure is unearthed not by archaeologists digging in the ground, but by historians and others seeking information among the stacks of books in a library. Writer and analyst Lenny Ben David was doing exactly that when he came across a massive Library of Congress photo archive of life in Palestine, circa early 1900s. Prior to its rebirth as a commonwealth, the lands of the State of Israel were all referred to as Palestine by the British. Ben David, a former diplomat and lobbyist, writes on his blog, “As I skimmed through the pictures, one theme caught my eye – the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem. Time and again.”

Expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem, 1936 (Israel news photo: courtesy of Library of Congress)

“Works of art that depict the Roman destruction of the Holy Temple and the Jewish people being led from Jerusalem into captivity in 70 CE are not uncommon. But Ben David saw that the Library of Congress had carefully archived photos of Jews being evacuated during Arab pogroms in 1929 – the same year the Jews of Hevron were massacred – and in 1936. The archive also contains photos by Life Magazine photographer John Phillips, who in 1948 managed to catch on film the horror and tragedy of Jews once more being captured or expelled from their homes in the Old Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter by Jordanian soldiers.”

“Too many times,” writes Ben David. “It led me to post a photo essay: The Jewish People Will Not Be Expelled from Jerusalem Again.” In the essay, he made sure to include shots of the Jews’ expulsion from Jerusalem in 1929, 1936 and 1948 – to remind, and to ensure that it can never happen again.”

Luke 21:24: “They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” That time has not yet been fulfilled. Dear Jerusalem, only a little longer, our God is faithful. Hear His promise!

“Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.” (Jer. 30:10).
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Posted in end of days, prophecy, watchmen

What a watchman’s prophetic ministry does

This is a post about what a prophetic ministry does. Watchmen on the wall (Is 62:6) don’t only tell the news. They don’t only ring the end-is-near-repent bell. The Lord uses these ministries to complete a process in hearers’ hearts. It isn’t only a cognitive absorbing of news, but a spiritual changing of hearts.

Paul uses analogies quite often and one of his favorites is the race:

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7).

“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 9:25).

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?” (Galatians 5:7).

The Church Age is a marathon. A marathon is a 26-mile race. Initially there is a burst at the starting gate, runners quickly jogging away in an explosion of energy. The Church started quickly, like marathoners at the gun.

Above, Participants in the 2010 Boston Marathon in Wellesley, just after the halfway mark. Source Wikipedia

Then there is the long middle part. Runners get tired. Some stumble, but they get up. Others drop out. The pace is plodding, not a lot of energy is expended. Runners look at the crowd, the birds, their shoes, becoming unfocused. They get complacent.

But then suddenly they round a bend and they see that finish line tape up ahead. Suddenly their focus zaps back to the task at hand- fully and completely. They run full throttle, the tiredness leaving their legs and adrenaline kicking in. People are on the sidelines cheering and the crowds swell with energy. There is joy in seeing it and arms start to reach out.

Prophecy is the finish line tape. The watchmen are close to the finish line  shouting and clapping and encouraging and pleading with them to keep running the race. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit quickens their pace, opens their eyes, gives them energy. And the Lord changes hearts.

Here is what a watchman does: “Isaiah 62:6 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,” (Isaiah 62:6)

Here is the effect of what a watchman does: See, as you begin to think about the immediacy of prophetic fulfillments, The Holy Spirit changes your thinking. It changes your heart. Suddenly your priorities are different. You feel more urgency, have more focus on your Christian walk. Watchmen who exhort put these seeds in your mind and heart and the Holy Spirit revives you by showing you that the end of the race is near. You feel a deepening sense of burden for the lost world while at the same time a lessening of hanging on to it.

What you can do: Ask the Spirit to give you discernment, an ability to distinguish truth from error. Diligent study in the Word is the mechanism for growing discernment, because the bible is All-Truth. Once you know truth more solidly the Spirit will lead you to discerning untruth when you come across it. You will then feel stronger in standing on your foundation as the rest of the world tips crazily.

“The period of man’s day is ending, the period of God’s day is coming. But in light of the fact that we are soon to be taken to be with Christ and that will initiate the day of the Lord in which the ungodly will be destroyed and damned forever. It is time to get your priorities right. It’s time to wake up. This is no time to be slumbering and sleeping. This is a time for alertness. The same Jesus who is taken up from you, the angel said, shall so come in like manner as you’ve seen Him go. In other words, you’ve got to live in the light of the return of Jesus Christ.” It’s time to wake up.”
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Posted in ahmadinejad, gog magog, iran, prophecy

Men of destiny, men of prophecy

The Gog Magog battle looms before us. This is the battle that Ezekiel prophesied in Ez 38-39. If you read Ezekiel 36-48, it is largely chronological. Book 36 begins with the New Covenant, (Ez 36:26-28). Then it skips ahead 1900 years where in the next two chapters he describes a horrendous battle of an evil alliance attacking Israel. It is such a surprise to Israel that they are caught off guard and almost succumb. At the last moment, God steps in–

“And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.” (Ezekiel 38:22-23).

Just in case we’re not sure that all will know that it is the LORD winning the battle, He repeats His promise in verse Ez 39:6-7- “And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD. So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.”

And again in Ez 39:21-22- “And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.”

The rest of Ezekiel 39 is consumed with graphic descriptions of the carnage and the cleanup. The burials will take 7 months to complete, and the fuel from downed war materiel take 7 years to burn. That is one of the major reasons scholars think the Gog-Magog battle occurs at the outset of the Tribulation, or just prior, because the Tribulation period is 7 years. There has to be seven years left in which to burn the fuel. Also, the LORD makes Himself known to the Israelites and they renew their covenant with Him. They begin clamoring for their Temple, which we know is built at some point because 3 1/2 years later the antichrist stands in the Temple and calls himself God and stops the Jews’ sacrifices.

Ezekiel goes on in books 40-48 with glorious descriptions of the Millennium Kingdom.

In this battle, Persia (Iran) is one of the lead attackers, along with Russia. America is not listed in prophecy, but the US was raised up in might and we have used that might to cause a tipping of the balance in the Muslim world through ten years of invasions. These invasions are leading to the final set-up of the players and the circumstances that will be in place when the Gog-Magog battle begins.

That said, I found it interesting that recently a top aide of Russia’s President Putin said that he thinks Putin was sent by God at this moment in time to fulfill a pre-ordained prophetic destiny. Secondly, in March of this year, an inside documentary was made by the closest associates of Iran’s Ayatollah but smuggled out from the East. The documentary revealed that both the Ayatollah of Iran and President Ahmadinejad personally feel that they are specific players in the prophetic destiny of Iran. And finally, it has long been known that President George Bush felt strongly that his invasion of Iraq was an order from God that would directly lead to impacts on Israel. In a sense, they are all correct. Read the quotes:

PUTIN
“Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was sent to Russia by God to help his country during one of its most turbulent times, the Kremlin’s chief political strategist said on Friday in rare public remarks. “I honestly believe that Putin is a person who was sent to Russia by fate and by the Lord at a difficult time for Russia,” Vladislav Surkov, a staunch Putin supporter and one of Russia’s most powerful men, was quoted by Interfax news agency as telling state-run Chechen TV. “(Putin was) preordained by fate to preserve our peoples,” said Surkov, who is also the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff.”

AHMADINEJAD
“The purpose of the film is to make the case that Iran is prophetically destined to lead the war against Islam’s enemies, which is as a prelude to the appearance of the Hidden Imam, also called the Mahdi, who brings the final victory for Islam and reigns over the whole world. It uses current events to argue that “the final chapter has begun” and the Mahdi’s arrival is imminent. Most disturbingly, it teaches that Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah are the individuals prophesied to make this happen. President Ahmadinejad is an End Times character named Shoeib-Ebne Saleh, the film states. He is appointed as the commander-in-chief by Seyed Khorasani (Ayatollah Khamenei). The speaker in the film says that this individual will “move” 72 months [6 years] prior to the arrival of the Mahdi and will lead the recapturing of Jerusalem on “the threshold of the Coming.”

In Muslim end time theology, the Mahdi is strikingly similar to the Christian antichrist. So it makes sense that Iran’s leaders feel not only prophetically destined but the timing is also nearly a mirror match for the timing of the Gog-Magog battle.

BUSH
“George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month. Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.” Mr Bush went on: “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”

The LORD sets up kings and he takes down kings. (Dan 2:21). He uses all men for His purposes, whether they are saved or not. He uses people for His global purpose, and He uses people individually to prepare us. God uses negative circumstances for His outcomes. He doesn’t need to make a positive circumstance every time. There are many examples of this in the bible. God has been actively working in the lives of all people on the planet to prepare for the culmination of His promises to Israel and the end of the age. I believe we can see it in hindsight over the last ten years with the rise of Russia, Iran, and the invasions of the US into the Middle east. What do you think?

Note: Terry James has a good essay this week about one of the other major Gog-Magog players, and their drawing-in toward prophetic destiny: Turkey.
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Posted in daniel, Nebuchadnezzar

A little tidbit for you

I have some things that are really interesting I’m working on, but today’s Sunday School and worship were stupendous but tiring, and tonight’s small faith group went long, so I’m saving them for tomorrow. Meanwhile, here is something short:

A La Andy Rooney, “Didja ever notice…” Nebuchadnezzar’s statue…
Daniel 2:31-33: “Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.’ “

The metals represent kingdoms current to Daniel’s time and in the future. The metals go from top to bottom in order of worth. Gold is the most precious metal on earth, then silver, then brass and then iron which is not worth anything on the precious metals market. As time goes on, all the kingdoms decrease in worth and value. Inversely, the metals, though they decrease in value, increase in strength. Gold is the softest metal, iron is pretty strong.

The metals are symbols of kingdoms. Daniel’s interpretation is here: (Dan 2:36-43)

Posted in end time, katla, prophecy, volcano

Volcanoes going off everywhere: Katla, Etna, and… Oz?

Just a short entry today. I spent all day putting together the prophecy newsletter and between the heat and the humidity I’m tapped out. Two volcano stories for you–

Warnings of volcanic eruption in Australia
“Scientists are now warning that volcanoes in Western Victoria and South Australia are due to erupt. The prediction comes just hours after two earthquakes hit the state this morning. Using new dating techniques, University of Melbourne scientists have found that the volcanoes usually erupt every 2000 years, with the last eruption at Mt Gambier, South Australia, 5000 years ago. Earth sciences Professor Bernie Joyce says Australia needs a plan in case of an eruption. It comes as Victorians are warned to brace themselves for more tremors after a shallow magnitude quake hit at 11.32am, sending shockwaves through towns and suburbs more than 100 kilometres away. A series of tremors lasting up to 15 seconds have been felt across Melbourne’s CBD and southeastern suburbs. A second, smaller quake shook Korumburra, with reports it was again felt in Melbourne, at 12.37pm. Senior seismologist Clive Collins said people should prepare for aftershocks in the coming hours. “There will be aftershocks, that’s a certainty,” he told the Herald Sun. “We still expect lots of smaller ones. “After the last significant quake in Victoria there were more than 200 aftershocks.” The tremors shook Melbourne office buildings and many homes across the state, including Warragul, Ferntree Gully, Sunbury and as far north as Melbourne Airport.”

I had written three days ago that scientists were warning that Hekla in Iceland may erupt. I put up a map showing Eyja, Hekla and Katla were in close proximity and noted that when one of the three erupts then one of the others  usually does as well. Today this is being reported:

Possibly Small Eruption in South Iceland Volcano Katla

There was sudden flooding and melting of a glacier and the thought is that a small eruption caused it.

“A glacial flood, probably, from the volcano Katla in Mýrdalsjökull has disrupted the Ring Road (highway no.1), by the river Múlakvísl on Mýrdalssandur in south Iceland, tearing the bridge across Múlakvísl. The road is closed between Höfdabrekka, east of Vík, and the river Skálm, near Álftaver. The flood is thought be the result of a small eruption underneath the icecap of Mýrdalsjökull, probably in the Katla crater, ruv.is reports. “At least this is not a large eruption, the Katla eruption people have been waiting for,“ geophysicist Freysteinn Sigmundsson told ruv.is “If it is a volcanic eruption, it is a small event and possibly only geothermal water.“ The Civil Protection Department has issued a warning to people in the area, to beware of sulphurate smell near the river, as it might be poisonous sulphurate gas.”

In this news article, they write, “Small eruption at Katla“
“For the people of Iceland, the past few years must feel like the old saying “when it rains, it pours’: we’ve seen two significant eruptions, one at Eyjafjallajökull and one at Grimsvötn, in less than a year. Earlier this week, there was news that another Icelandic volcano, Hekla, was showing signs of unrest, although it was unclear whether they pointed towards an eruption. Then, the switcheroo, where instead of anything at Hekla, we get a surprise jokulhlaup (glacial outburst flood) at Katla on the southern end of the island.”

His description reminds me of the people at a tennis match when their heads swing this way then that way then this way…just as we look to one p art of the world for an expected event, another one pops up over there where we least expected it. In 2008 the Chilean volcano Chaiten erupted suddenly and is still erupting. Volcanologists say that Chaiten volcano had not erupted in 9500 years. Last month, the Eritrean volcano Nabro suddenly erupted for the first time ever. In Java, a new volcano was formed within two days. Fisherman were stunned. Three weeks ago I reported that there were 35 earthquakes at the Cuidad Juarez/El Paso border of the US that have geologists and seismologists thinking a new volcano may be born there soon, and a joint team of scientists from US/Mexico went to investigate. Volcanic eruptions from existing volcanoes have increased. Two days ago, “Palermo – An uncountable series of quakes have been recorded in Sicily. The strongest one had a magnitude of 3.1 and was recorded in the province of Messina, along the northern coast of Sicily that has been subjected to a persisting series of seismic events in the last few weeks. The quake was detected 3:01 am at a depth of a little more than 8 km. In the same area, a lighter 2.3 magnitude quake was recorded at 1:58 at approximately the same depth. . .” Today, ash from Mt. Etna closed an Italian airport. What next?!

Stay tuned, and be glad you chose to repent of your sins and accept the free pardon Jesus offers. If you have not repented, heed these wonderful words:

“Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)

“For thy name’s sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.” (Psalm 25:11)
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