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THE WORK OF LAYPERSONS, by Atle Svanoe, Pastor and Author
We are excerpting from this book, as it is so timely, the words seem to burn on the pages with intense convicting power if taken to heart. Svanoe tells it like it really is, whether in regard to himself and his own woeful lack of first love for the Savior, or regarding the woeful spiritual slump on-going in the American and Norwegian congregations in general he has viewed and even pastored in. How many pastors and religious leaders dare to exercise that kind of self-honesty and candor? Not many! They stand to lose their pastorates and even their retirements!
How about a real good does of Svanoe's truthfulness, given us with love, though it is "tough love":
"The Work of Laypersons," by Atle Svanoe
The subtitle for this book is the better title, as Wallenberg is still today virtually unknown, thanks to the Soviets and the virtual ignoring of this great man and his accomplishment and legacy by the mainstream media and press both in America and Europe.
Written by the Briton, John Bierman, who was a correspondent for the BBC when he discovered the virtually unknown story of Raoul Wallenberg, this book tells the almost indescribable exploits of one of the greatest men the 20th century produced. He is reputed to have saved perhaps over 100,000 Jewish victims of the Nazi terror in Hungary, saving them from being packed into cattle cars and shunted straight to the death camps and ovens of Auschwitz by none other than the arch-criminal and arch-butcher, Eichmann. Eichmann fled to safe refuge in Argentina with the collapse of Nazidom rather than face the Soviet Army in Hungary. But Wallenberg, who had opposed Eichman's genocide from start to finish in Hungary, was arrested by the Soviets and treated as a spy, only they played the game of "he's dead and he's not in the Soviet Union either" with Sweden and the world for the rest of Wallenberg's life. At the time the book was published, he may still have survived alive in the Gulag, so the book was written with the hope that world attention would force the Soviet masters to yield up this innocent man and great, great hero.
You may have heard some awful things, seen some awful things too, about the Holocaust. But in Hungary you get it in full detail, except that it is the Holocaust-in-the-making by the infamous Eichman and also the less efficient but just as ferocious gangs of the Arrow Cross, a party of anti-semites who seized control in Hungary as the government collapsed just before the Soviets conquered the country.
Raoul Wallenberg, this brave and brilliant man from Sweden, was virtually alone in opposing Eichmann's master plan of liquidating the whole Jewish population of Hungary, which harbored something like 400,000 Jews. Oh, he got his many thousands out in the Hungary countryside, but in the capital Budapest where Wallenberg was the Swedish government's representative at the legation, he had to fight very hard to get a single Jewish life away from Wallenberg's equally tenacious grasp. Wallenberg was astounding, how he would go after the seized groups of Jews and intimidate and demand his country's protection be extended to the doomed Jews, even as they were being loaded onto the cattle cars at the trains! And he almost always cowed the Nazis into yielding up the Jews to him!
You should read this incredible story yourself. Then you will, like me, agree that this man deserves a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize, and much more besides a tree on the avenue of the Righteous Gentiles in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem--rather, Wallenberg ought to be memorialized with a great statue before the United Nations, to remind those nations represented there that they like him ought to fight for human rights and be willing to risk their lives for them, as the valliant Wallenberg did for the most helpless people in Europe at the time, the Jews of Hungary.
This Intervarsity Press book is recommended with serious and substantial reservations. Nevertheless, it has good information we can benefit from as Christians. But please review the reservations given below.
WARNING: The New Age religionists of America (that now include in their ranks Rick Warren and his Saddleback Church) and the Western European countries want us all to accept their doctrine of equivalence in religion. "All roads lead to Rome" was changed by them, religiously, to "All religions lead to God." But both statements are patently false. Rome was never the center of the world. I repeat, with some rephrasing, there is nothing divinely special about Rome really, and Rome was never the center of the world. Call Rome the Eternal City, or the New Jerusalem, it ain't either of those things! It is just a city, a capital many times in history, but just a city nevertheless, and a Gentile one that may even be destroyed and disappear some day.
Yes, Heathen, idolatrous Rome reached out from its city limits and became a world-state, but there were other heathen, idolatrous world-states that existed at the same time Imperial Rome did. The vast and powerful Parthian/Persian Empire existed at the same time and did not succumb to Roman rule (except temporarily in the border provinces from the Euphrates westward). China was also excepted. And there were no doubt many thriving and powerful Central American Indian civilizations and in Mexico, in turn matched by many Indian civilizations in South America as well. God, we know from the Bible, does not accept that he can be approached and known through anyone but Jesus Christ--so the pluralism of roads leading heavenward is totally false.
That said, we know that there is no religion compatible with true Christianity. You cannot mix oil and water. Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive, or, better, Christianity excludes the Moslem beliefs and Allah its god as idolatry. Islam does the same in regard to our One True God and his Son Jesus Christ. Islam calls us "infidels." But THEY are the infidels persecuting the true believers in the One True God. There can be no neutral ground here. One of us is false, and we know which one is: Islam!
New Age Religionists abound, however, in even the mainline churches today, so they will deny this truth and equate Islam and Christianity, which can be termed "Chrislam"--just another false New Age religion. In "The Cross and Crescent," the author seeks to set forth the differences while calling for understanding of the contrasted positions in doctrine and belief. We Christians are called by him to be understanding and not so bigoted and close-minded or misinformed about Islam. That is fine for him to do, but he must realize that the ground is not level at all between Christianity and Islam--there is no ground at all for Islam to stand on, truth-wise. Christianity is true, Islam is not (however much its error is dressed up in the Koran to appear like truth). Light and darkness cannot exist in the same room. One will drive out the other, and it won't be the light that is driven out, it is darkness everytime. Light is victorious over darkness. Flick on a light switch in a dark room and see what happens EVERY TIME you do it. Every time you will see the darkness driven away. It must happen that way. For darkness cannot exist where the light comes. So too with Islam, or darkness--it will be driven away by the light of the Gospel, by the light of the Word of God. It cannot stand against the Light. It must flee and be driven away. How then can we arrive at a understanding and parity of belief with Islam? It is not possible. Souls are at stake, their eternal destiny hangs in the balance, and Islam must go if they are to be set free from darkness and sin and made God's true children. There can be no co-existence, as in the New Age Religionists' world, where truth is a kind of taffy New Agers can pull or twist any way they want. Truth cannot change from what it is. If it can, it is not truth. It is darkness. So while books like the "Cross and Crescent" are well-meaning attempts by kindly, scholarly Christian authors to get Christians to give and take more "reasonably" with Moslems, for the sake of educating Christians to some of their "errors" in how they view Moslems and Islam, their premise is false: Islam and Christianity, in this world, call for mutual understanding and co-existence. The Moslems reject that view, and Christ certainly rejects it. We cannot ever accept parity with falseness and darkness of any kind as Christians. Yes, we should be informed about the adversary we face to our faith, which in this case is militant, triumphalist, jehadist Islam, but we needn't ever accept a level playing field, not theologically. In civic matters, egalitarian laws of our country and Supreme Court rulings demand a strict and level playing field, though this is not justified by the Christian foundation of our nation not by our CHRISTIAN nation's Founding Documents [while in practice, this is not upheld for Christians, as Moslems are increasingly being given extra-Constitutional rights to practice their prayer times and foot washings now in public offices, schools and even airports where Christians are excluded from even wearing a cross, on the basis that "separation of church and religion" only applies to Christians!).
We do not of course advocate forcing of religion or dictate matters of conscience to the Moslem, or a believer in any other religion, in our midst--he--whatever his belief system-enjoys the same freedom of conscience and religion that we do, as that is our Christian and Constitutional law. But we can never equate Islam as equal with Christianity as a belief system, nor allow the theocratic political state of Islam that is immanent in the religion (which totally rejects our freedoms under the Constitution and the rights given us by God) to be allowed to grow into a state within a state, with its own Sharia law and court system (as is happening in Britain and other parts of Europe).
Subjected Eastern Christians were forced to pay a very heavy tax, allow their churches to
be taken away in most cases (and to this day they cannot rebuild or
build a church--as you find in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Gaza, and
throughout the Moslem world), cease their propagation of the Gospel (or evangelistic outreaches and missionary activity), and keep to themselves in
a ghetto-like society while the main society was run the Moslem way.
Is that the existence we want for ourselves and our families? Is that what we
wish to see happen to America and other Western countries? It is the
greatest calamity! So it behooves us to be informed. This book will
help toward that end, but we must understand at the same time that
we need not accept Islam's belief system as being equal with ours--
on the contrary! They will never be equal, and Christ will come
one day and completely eradicate them once and forever. But until then,
we face this mortal foe, religiously and politically, and we must know
what he stands for and what his tactics are, for they are now
on our doorstep, we cannot avoid the confrontation any longer.It is right and necessary to know your enemy, and for that reason
Christians should inform themselves about an antagonist that is
pushing deep into the West and taking vast advantage, due to the
New Age religionists, the humanists and secularists, who dominate
Western Society. We cannot sit idly by in a "fortress Christianity" and
watch the general society go under the Crescent or any other
false religion--for that is to give up, ultimately, the very ground on which we are standing. How about the Eastern Orthodox churches in Moslem countries today--beginning in the 7th century they
were overwhelmed in many formerly Christian countries in
the East that was governed by the Greek Orthodox Byzantine emperors--and so they
submitted to a most pathetic, pariah-like existence, not even a second class citizenship.
Go to any Moslem-ruled country today, and you will find the Christians
for the most part are the lowest, most despised, and persecuted class, held there by law, and mistreated
accordingly. The best jobs go to the Moslems, and the worst and lowest in pay go to Christians. Cairo, Egypt's garbage collectors are--guess who?--
Christians! They live in the dumps, too. Their churches are
in the dump, if they have them, or in graveyards in caves. The largest Christian church in the Middle East is in a cave on the outskirts of
Cairo! I have been in Egypt, in Cairo, and I found churches elsewhere, but they are few and far between, and under increasing, vicious fire-bomb attack.
Coptic Christians are 10 per cent of the population, and are the original Egyptians, yet they are treated as scum and being subjected to every
kind of mortal attack by traditionalists and the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt, while being called traitors and fifth columnists of Israel.
This booklet by E.W. Kenyon may be hard to come by. For that reason we are republishing it here for you.
From the back cover:
What does "Identification" mean? It means our complete union with Him in His Substitutionary Sacrifice.
The teaching of Identification is the legal side of Redemption. It unveils to us what God did in Christ for us, from the time He went to the Cross, until He sat down on the right hand of the Father.
Christ became one with us in sin, that we might become one with Him in righteousness. He became as we were, to the end that we might be as He is now.
There is a two-fold oneness: first, His oneness with our sin and humanity on the cross; second, our oneness with Him in His glory on the throne. In the fact of Identification we have one of the richest phases of Redemption.
When these truths really gain the ascendancy in us, they will make us spiritual supermen. This is an unveiling of what we are in Christ, how the Father sees us in the Son.
It will be the end of weakness and failure. There will be no more struggle for faith, for all things are ours. There will be no more praying for power, for He is in us. There will be no longer the awful bondage of sin consciousness, for we are the Righteousness of God in Christ.--E.W. Kenyon
"Identification," A Romance of Redemption, by E. W. Kenyon
"The Name," by Franklin Graham, which I finished reading recently, was excellent. Please read it, and you will see what the Name of Christ will mean to you afterward--probably a whole lot more than you first imagined.
ISRAEL ACT 3: This should be considered a classic on Israel, if it isn't! It is even more timely than ever, as Israel is poised to attacked the existential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Those of us who don't stick our heads in the sand know that Iran is aiming with all its might to complete its nuclear missile warheads, arm its missiles, and then destroy Israel with nukes. They have said this is their aim repeatedly, though they are claiming right up the last minute that these are peaceful nuclear uses they are putting their nuclear capabilities to--HA! Who can believe them? Yet they lie anyway, since they have nothing but lies and deceit to share with the world, just as their master Satan has nothing but lies and deceit.
Any minute, any hour, any day now we could be hearing the first reports of their attack to save themselves from a nuclear holocaust unleashed from Iran's missile sites.
Now let this fact sink in! Richard Wolff the author comes from a Jewish family and background of real and intense Nazi persecution. He and his family experienced what the Dutch Jewish Frank family (of Anne Frank fame) experienced, hiding from the Nazis in wartime Europe in secret living quarters above a Dutch business. He isn't like some Jews and some Chrisians, who sit here in the comfy old USA where we don't have rockets fired at us every day from terrorists and cannot see a prophetic role for Israel, and discount its very existence today in the Middle East as just an inconvenient and temporary fluke. He begs to differ with such people and even the churches that support such a view. Who can be better qualified to write what he does on Israel's role in the future, even the near future?
"Israel Act III," by Richard Wolff, an Excerpt Concerning the 1967 War of Arab States vs. Israel
If Jesus had not identified with us in our sinful state, even to the point of becoming sin and a curse, we would have nothing, we would still be on our way to hell and eternal damnation. Identification by Jesus the Lord with us gained us everything and defeated sin, death, and the devil forever. How important it is to understand what the author defines as Identification. This could be the most important doctrine or theology in understanding how we came to be saved and what went into our being granted grace, redemption, and salvation through Jesus Christ. We will be republishing this wonderful booklet on this site. Look for it.
Foreworded by Billy Graham, this book is largely inspired by Finney, a premier evangelist who led one of the Great Awakenings in America. The author, Tom Phillips, formerly of the BGEA, now in an international student ministry, sees many signs that America is on the verge of a great revival that may be called a last Great Awakening.
Bible Accuracy Center
How accurate is the Bible? We should be happy to know that it is far more accurate than its critics can really disagree with or like, if they are honest critics, that is. The true story of the Bible's accuracy is best covered up, for them to make a case against the Bible. We see this done by uninformed people, but even those informed about it, see advantage in playing upon the ignorance of most people on the subject. That is so sad! They are misleading people for their own gain, and surely they will bear a stiffer judgment for doing so, as they are influencing souls away from God and toward hellish hereafters. What about the numerous "exposes" and attempts even by Hollywood movie producers to discredit Jesus and the Bible? They do so for their own financial gain and notoriety. Cameron, who produced the blockbuster movie Titanic, is but a late specimen of that pathetic tribe.
We should not be overawed by these people of reputation and fame who seek to discredit the Bible accounts. They are incorrect in their assessments, and that includes Newsweek or Time too, who often feature the most scandalously fradulent claims concerning Christ and the Bible by skeptics as though they were established facts. The Da Vinci Code hoax is but one of the latest such frauds, in which the young man John in the picture of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci was portrayed in the author's book to be Mary Magdalene, the "secret lover" of Jesus. Absolutely absurd, as any art student has reason to know! Young men were customarily portrayed beardless and physically attractive like women in such paintings--distinguishing them from older, bearded men. That doesn't mean they were actually women, it was just an artistic convention. The Da Vinci Code author took and ran with an absurd idea that has no justification in art history.
I have looked at the same pictures many times, and know those were not young women but were young men. There was no confusion in my mind, since I knew the convention of the artists of the Renaissance dictated that young men would be presented so. I have to believe that the Da Vinci Code hoaxer knew full well this was a fraud, but he did it for big money, and big money he certainly got from his fraud, for his book sold millions. Unfortunately, he landed himself in some really hot fire for eternity unless he repents.
Please go to the article, an excellent one reprinted by "The Vine and the Branches," a magazine by Abiding Word Ministries.
"Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit Testifies the Bible is True," by Mark H. Creech
RECOMMENDED MAGAZINES CENTER:
Wondering what to do when you find yourself in a denomination (examples are the ELCA, standing for "The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America," and the UMC, the "United Methodist Church," or the Episcopal Church (which is the Church of England, or Anglican Church in America), which have all endorsed practicing homosexual clergy) that has seemingly abandoned its moorings in the inerrancy of the Bible and traditional Biblical morality? David Barnhardt's ministry, Abiding Word, publishes this wonderful help, "Vine and Branches," which will inform and guide you out of your confusion and hurt and even sorrow over what has happened to your church in the past years. He knows how, for he has guided dozens, if not hundreds of churches and Bible-believing Christians out of the quicksand of the apostate, politically correct church of today and into a Bible-based, Bible-believing church. Type him in SEARCH and get this wonderful magazine and all its information about what is happening today to the church that was once faithful to the Lord and His eternal Word, the Bible.
Dr. Reagan of Lamb and Lion Ministries has in my opinion (and many others too) one of the very best Biblical grasp of prophecy you can find anyway in Biblical expositors, and don't ask me how or why, he is not from the traditional seminary background, I understand, which teaches a lot of ignorance and downright apostasy as we know to the incoming seminarians. We would be better off in the American church without 90 or more percent of the seminaries, in fact, they have done us so much spiritual damage over the years. But Dr. Reagan is a wonderful Bible expositor you can trust. Look him up and get this great magazine, by going to his lamb and lion ministry website. He is a must read and see, for he is just as good on television as he is in his writings. He also is available to speak to any group or church, if it fits his busy schedule. He has videos and CDs too, which you can easily obtain at this website.
ISRAEL MY GLORY in always excellent in articles and illustrations, issue to issue. This ministry FRIENDS OF ISRAEL, based in New Jersey, rejects Replacement Theology and gives you the correct biblical foundation and scriptures for that rejection, while affirming the Covenant God made with Abraham concerning his descendants and the Promised Land he first promised Abraham, then continually promised to his descendants as their possession FOREVER. How long is "forever"? We shall find out, friends. We shall find out. How about eternity after eternity after eternity? That is how long this Covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants (known today as the Jews) will last on the earth. The Bible doesn't say the current earth will last in its present mode forever--to be sure. This earth is to be transformed by fire (as we read in the Peterine epistle) and remade into a paradise. But it is a paradise where Israel will occupy center stage, and where Christ will set his throne and rule from there forever. The New Jerusalem will also be a part of the new earth eventually, and the Church will be a central part of that city too along with the Jews. It will be most interesting and even thrilling and glorious beyond telling how God works this all out for the Jews his Chosen people and his bride the Church.
The Jan-Feb 2012 issue features: The Book of Esther: The Megillah Begins," Haman's main Problem," and "The Holiday of Purim," plus "Where have all the Christians gone?" and Charles Ryrie on "Why I am a Pretribulation Rapturist." Since Iran is poised to annihilate Israel with its new nuclear-tipped missilies (thanks to the United Nations weak response and also Obama who did virtually nothing except some assistance with software espionarge and sabotage of Iran's nuclear facilities by Israel, that set the nuclear arming of Iran back a year or so), these articles are most timely, since the Book of Esther in the Bible is all about Persian (Iranian) plans to annihilate Israel, or the Jewish people en masse. Haman was the President of Iran in ancient times, and the King of Persia over him was the Premier (to put it in terms we use today). Haman was an Agagite, not a true Persian, who used his Persian connections to plot the total genocide of the Jewish people in the world-state of the Persian Empire. He nearly succeeded, except for the intervention of Mordecai the Jew, an official in the Premier's government, and his niece, Esther, a most beautiful young Jewish maiden. Read Esther yourself. It is fascinating, beginning with a beauty contest arranged by the Premier and his second in charge, President Haman.
The LEVITT LETTER: Always excellent! I found the comics or jokes especially hilarious in this issue, esp. the one about "Jesus cleared the temple." The more grim the world becomes, the more we need to laugh in response, as we have Jesus, and with him we know things are going to turn out all right for us who abide in Him, so we don't have to take sleeping pills at night and go around with an expression of doom and gloom on our faces like the people today.
In this Christmas/New Year issue: Poetry for Christmas and the season, a recipe "Christmas Coronet," humorous but serious reflections of various kinds, hobbies page, with questions and answers and results of previous quiz, the true account of "The Pastor's Cat," (see link below), and Monthly Medications:
ANCHORED MONTHLY MEDITATIONS
Prayer, Patience, Peace
Prayer
Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. (Phil. 4:6)
Jan. 8--Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. (Col. 4:2)
Jan. 15--And when we stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. (Mark 11:25)
Jan. 22--And Jesus spake a parable unto them, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.
Jan. 29--Hear my prayer, O lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness. (Psalm 143:1)
FEBRUARY
Patience
Feb. 5--That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Feb. 12--In your patience possess ye your souls. (Luke 21:19)
Feb. 26--But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. (Romans 8:25)
MARCH
Peace
Mar. 4--The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with his peace. (Psalm 29:11)
Mar. 11--Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. (Isaiah 26:3)
Mar. 18--The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. (Numbers 6:26)
Mar. 25--These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. (John 16:33)
Nellie Tolley, Bury.
For a subscription and contact info, go to:
ANCHORED MAGAZINE
PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS CENTER
A convert from Islam, an Iranian Christian, Leila Mohammadi, has been sentenced, according to the Christian Telegraph, to 2 years in the hellhole prisons of her country by the Revolutionary Court (sic) of Tehran ("terror-ran"). She was first taken from her home to the Horr ("horror") Custody Center, a hellhole of brutality and rape and murder by the Iranian police state police. She had already been five or so months in prison by the time this decree was given by the kangeroo court of Islamic clerics (brutal imposters for holy men in Islamic court robes). Please pray for this innocent woman, Leila Mohammadi. With God there is hope for her deliverance. She is imprisoned merely because she forsook the false religion of Islam and became a true child of God. We thank God for her brave decision. We also must pray for her persecutors, for as our innocent Lord and Christ prayed on the cross for those who were crucifying him, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
RECOMMENDED TRACTS CENTER
Coming, excerpt of a great tract message on how to start prayer groups. Let us try it and see what happens!
"Establishing Prayer Groups"
REALITY CHECK CENTER
SAVE THE PLANET? PLEASE GET A REAL LIFE, WILL YOU, AND YOU WILL DO US ALL A BIG FAVOR!
First, read the New Testament, Matt. 24: 35 and Luke 21:33.
But here is what 2 Peter 3: 10, 12 says: "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which heavens will pass away with a great noise,and the lements will melt with fervent heat; both theearth and the works that are in it will be burned up...Looking forward for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?"
Here we see the burning up of the earth is repeated in scripture, so we cannot mistake the meaning! And the doubling of the statement also, in Hebraic terms, as Joseph pointed out in speaking to the Pharaoh about the Pharaoh's prophetic dreams, is that it will surely come about, make no mistake about it.
Also read Revelation, the whole book! Doesn't that speak of the total make-over of earth? You are not reading a Hollywood script or a comic book, you are reading the Word of God. Jesus who is the Word, says about the Word, that "heaven and earth will pass away, but My Word shall not pass away."
Do you believe Jesus?
All these scriptures, and the Lord Jesus himself, should make it perfectly clear and plain that this world is on the way out--it will not last--it is going to be practically destroyed during the Great Tribulation and the reign of the arch-fiend, the Anti-Christ. The world will then be restored by the Lord for the 1,000 years of his Reign on Earth, a wonderful period called the Millennial Reign of Christ.
But with the final rebellion at the close of that age, the Lord God will burn the earth with fire, purging it off all remains of rebellion and apostasy and idolatry and sin and death, and create a whole new heaven and new earth for the commencement of Eternal Ages.
How then can one save the planet? It cannot be saved! It is going to go, whether we like it or not. It will be restored "temporarily" at the end of the Anti-Christ's destructive rampage, but what is 1,000 years to the Lord? It is as a day, the Bible says.
Then, to repeat, there will commence a new, enduring age, called Eternity, with a new heaven and a new earth purged by divine fire.
Get a life, rethink what you have chosen to believe, all you environmentalists and planet-savers! Save yourselves instead by turning your hearts and lives wholly over to Jesus Christ, not as a do-gooder or planet-saver with his name tacked onto your agenda, but as true Lord and true Master and true Savior. The Lord Jesus ALREADY saved the planet, so to speak. He didn't need you, and he didn't use you. You were lost in sin. He saved the planet, so to speak, by saving your soul by his substitutionary sacrifice of himself on the cross, paying for your sin and my sin, so that we would escape the eternal penalty for sin and gain the chance to become his true children for eternity. Saving the planet, per se, is peanuts compared to the glorious work of Christ's Redemption. It won't really change anything important, nor should it. We need Redemption, not the planet saved and kept uncontaminated by pollution, nice as that may sound to most people. We need God's forgiveness of our sins. We need Christ to come in by His Spirit and take control in our hearts as Lord and Savior. We need to be made New Creations by him. We need to be directed by the Holy Spirit in all that we do.
The very last thing we may need is this planet saved by human agency. Besides, let us be real about it, no human being, no nation, no United Nations or World Government, could possibly save this planet. It is beyond, far beyond human saving or intervention. We won't even be allowed to destroy it by nuclear bombs or an all-out nuclear war. God says so in his Word, this earth is in his hands, and he will see to it, regardless of us.
Just this fact alone ought to scare the environmentalist out of you for ever: it is the Anti-Christ who will come and promise the panicked, hysterical world population that he is the only who who can save the planet. And they will be so duped by him they will believe this maniac. He will then gain total dictatorial control over the earth, as far as that can be attained (with maybe some reserved abstentions such as China and its allies in the East). And he will drag the world, not to greener pastures, but into the fiery pit of destruction. Revelation says so. I believe the Bible on this subject. Do you? If you don't, you will believe him, the Anti-Christ, and he truly will destroy you before he is through on the world stage. Environmentalism is just one ploy he will use to drive the masses of the world into his camp, where he will set a padlock and not let them out, except on pain of death by decapitation--a nice word for "beheading."
SAVE THE PLANET= ANTI-CHRIST= DESTRUCTION AND HELLFIRE DAMNATION. That is the equation, and it is certain to play itself out as the Bible describes in detail. Don't fall for SAVING THE PLANET! The wise will leave the earth in God's hand, where it belongs, and he alone can manage it until the new age of Eternity commences in all its glory.
ECCLESIASTES--THE BOOK THAT STILL OFFENDS A LOT OF FOLKS:
Ecclesiastes is the book that remains the most controversial in the Bible, perhaps, after Esther (which doesn't mention "God" once), and you might even add the Song of Solomon, which many people find cause to question as a part of the canon because it is so explicitly sexual in content, or seems to be so anyway.
But why is Ecclesiastes controversial? Its philosophy is, in a nutshell, seemingly nihilism: VANITY, VANITY, ALL IS VANITY! You might rephrase this in the more modern terms: ABSURD, ABSURD, ALL IS ABSURD! Or, MEANINGLESS, MEANINGLESS, ALL IS MEANINGLESS!
However you like to wrap it, people don't like to receive discouraging reports about life like that, from a person, King Solomon, who had done everything and found it meaningless and then wrote to tell us all how he found life to be utterly vain and meaningless. He tells us in detail what he did to enjoy life, and how it all turned to ashes in his mouth. Is this what we need from the Bible, the Word of God, a message that can only depress us?
Why then is this book in the Bible? That is a very good question. God chose it, to begin with. God chose this book for his purposes, and used King Solomon to write down his experiences of life and pursuit of pleasure and where exactly all that got him. We need that message still, let us be honest. That message needs to be preached to this materialistic, pleasure-seeking, pleasure-mad society of contemporary Americans. We are no different from the pleasure-seeking, pleasure-crazed Romans, Greeks, Babylonians, and Persians--no different at all, except we have the Gospel, AND the book of Ecclesiastes to tell us we are on the wrong track. Those two guides should give us a sufficient reality check, you would normally think, so we stop what we are doing and get back on track with God, treading the pilgrim way to heaven (the narrow road, the way of the Cross). But they are being ignored, profoundly ignored, to our peril.
Another thing Ecclesiastes teaches us is: THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN.
You might suppose that is a given, a known, but our American or Western society and our 370 million population still choose lifestyles that assume just the opposite. We are always after getting "new" things, the latest model of everything, are we not? Last year's make or model isn't good enough when a 2012 schizbanza--doowop whizzes by us on the road. We've got to go trade in what we haven't even paid for yet and get one of those, only it has to be bigger, loaded with even more glitzy features than our neighbor's! But the Word of God stands true forever: there is nothing new under the sun. This tired, old, sin-soaked earth has seen it before. It really isn't new--it is just the old thing dressed up as something new and better. So too with the Roman Empire!
I have read many books about the Roman Empire, and continue to read books about it. Here is my take on it: what they did then, we are still doing today, only we dress it up different and in a "new" way to make it attractive to contemporary Americans. Rome was tolerant, multicultural, and diverse--also supremely pagan and idolatrous.
And today, in our "New Roman Empire" we see touted Tolerance, Multicultural, and Diversity, do we not? Yet it was a big lie then, and it is the same old big lie now. Old Rome was not tolerant--it tolerated everything, and that means every vice imaginable, but it refused to tolerate the moral standards of Christian faith and practice based on God's commandments. Old Rome
Old Rome was not multicultural, despite its seeming to be so; it accepted every culture and people except the Christian culture and Christian people (unless they adapted and compromised with Rome's heathen standards, of course). Old Rome was not Diverse; it had every kind of tribe, race, ethnicity, philosophy, religion imaginable, but, wouldn't you know? Old, "Diversity-loving" Rome accepted everybody else but drew the line at Christianity (of course, it did the same with the Jews, for the Jews had revolted militarily); rotten, pagan to the core, it simply couldn't swallow true Christianity with its belief in the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and refused to try. The old gods were good enough for imperial Rome, which thought its greatness was due to these vain idols setting like big, golden, grinning Chesire Cats in a ten thousand temples strung across the Empire.
Old Rome and Christianity were at loggersheads, they were total opposites. What to do? Old Rome was built on force, so force it was! It had the army, the authorities, the weapons, the trained soldiers and the judiciary, so it went to war. It bitterly persecuted Christians over a period of hundreds of years. It did everything it could to stamp out the Christians and their faith from the Empire, emperor and reign after emperor and reign.
Finally, Constantine I came to power after a military victory at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome that he claimed was due to a miracle he attributed to the Christian god. A supernatural sign had appeared in the sky, and the divine voice commanded him to conquer by that sign. The sign was the Greek letters, Chi-Rho signifying the first letters of "Christ," and he ordered his soldiers' banners to carry the sign with a Cross in it, and their shields were also emblazoned with it. Lo and behold, he conquered his rival.
This new emperor soon decided failure will always lead to more failure, and chose not continue the old failed policy his predecessors had followed in persecuting Christianity as an enemy of the state, and so he turned to trying acceptance and legalization for the sake of preserving social stability in his domain.
He and his co-emperor made Christianity one of the officially sanctioned religions of Old Rome. This worked so well to tame Christianity and start Christians and their churches off down the slippery slope of compromise that Constantine declared Christianity the State Religion.
He is the emperor who presided over the Nicean council in Nicea, Asia Minor, that promoted "Orthodox Christianity" versus Arianism, a heresy at the time that demoted Christ to less than equal with God, conceiving him as a created being with great powers but not God. This champion of "Orthodox Christianity" was really no friend of biblical Christianity. He set Christian faith on a wrong foundation when he declared it the official Roman state religion. We got the Roman Catholic Church based in imperial Rome as a consequence, and what followed. We lost biblical, first-century Christianity, virtually, for a thousand years until Martin Luther and some other reformers were raised up by God's Spirit to restore the Gospel and the true Church.
I will not go into all the details why Emperor Constantine's making Christianity the state religion of Old Rome was bad; history shows it to be very bad, indeed.
I just wanted to point out how what Old Rome touted was not true, and what today New Rome is touting is equally untrue. We are being force-fed the same pagan, idolatrous, anti-Christ philosophy by New Rome that was fed folks back in Old Rome (and brutally force-fed Christians until they were bloodlessly induced by Constantine's clever legalization of Christianity in the 4th century to compromise with and accept).
Old Rome/New Rome? What does it matter to us today? Why, for the reasons given, that we are still being force-fed the same old things, only dressed up as new. The same old lies dressed up as new truths. The catchwords of secularist liberalism today, "Multiculturalism," "Diversity," and "Tolerance," are nothing of the sort in reality. They certainly didn't play out in Old Rome as truths, and today these "new truths" are nothing but frauds too, and yet we are being forced to accept them, even by the law of the land. What to do, Christians? Will you be fooled, will you compromise, will you slide down the slope to perdition with the pagan, anti-Christ, anti-God culture of Old Rome and now "New Rome"? What are you going to do? You need to decide, as you aren't given a choice by the culture of liberalism and secularism that predominates today in our schools, businesses, judiciary, government, clubs, even many of our churches and denominations. We either accept this false religion and its lies, which are nothing new but are the same idolatrous religion and its lies of the past Old Rome, or we take our lumps as true Christians, going the way of the cross, going by the Bible, and the commandments of God. There is going to be a price paid, we need to realize. But the prize is heaven, eternal happiness. Old Rome chose a fake heaven and got hell. New Rome today has chosen a fake heaven and will get hell too. But we can escape, as pilgrims in this world, by going the way of Jesus. We don't have to perish with the multitudes of Old Rome and New Rome. Isn't that good news? Really good news?
You can go and check it out yourself, I did, and read it and am appalled. It is a terrible, alarming statement, the Salvation Army's recent policy statement on abortion allowable under some circumstances, thereby opening the door to full acceptance of universal abortion-on-demand down the road.
I can't see that the SA is right at all, so I have to pull away from them here until this is resolved. If you want to read their policies statement on abortion, it is available widely in the news releases. I went and read it, after finding the news on Yahoo. It is still posted there. Who isn't going to cave in next? William Booth must be turning over in his grave, so to speak.
Oh, by the way, they are said to also sell porn,
and I have seen some things close to porn reading material in the book
shelves here, without
going purposely to check for it. I had no idea this was but
an oversight on somebody's part, to check was not my intention.
I couldn't work in a Christian ministry
of that name that had such low standards, regardless of how many poor
people it helps.
Imagine, it won't stand up to protect the life of a child still unborn,
conceived through rape, or one that is problematic because of
identified problems! Or one that poses a severe health
risk to the mother too. Now how many babies don't
pose a serious or even a severe health risk to their mothers?--anything can
go wrong, huh? huh? I can recall many pregnancies in my family
and in people I have heard about that were problematic, posing severe
risks. But God came through for the mothers! I have
living relatives today the doctors advised the parents to abort!
What a mistake they would have made if they had listened to the
doctors! The doctors even apologized for their miostaken
advise, after the babies worked out okay and their problems
disappeared either during the last of the pregnancy or soon afterwards.
Life bearing is a very risky thing--
sorry, that is the way it is after Adam's fall, we might as
well accept the fact. But to end an innocent life for those reasons! That is playing God, and "termination"--as
they call euphemisically call murder by the paid abortionist's
knife or vacuum--
is just plain murder in God's holy book.
What do you think, friend? Why not let the SA know if you can what you think.
They should be flooded with our comments, just as McDonalds
was after it came out with nasty statements about Christians from
a high official in the company, and also supported Gays and
made a public statement about it, while daring Christians to
oppose it. I recall the official and his statement
and stopped going to McDonalds for over a year, and
finally they backed down, and the official was dismissed, as
he should have been the first week, not months and months after
the came out with his statement attacking Christians. If
we don't respond, say nothing, it just gets worse.
But we can make a difference if we only speak out publicly.
This isn't the Roman empire. Unlike people back
in those days, we vote and do have a voice.
We just have to use it. There are just too many of us
speechless, mute Christians. The Devil pushed our MUTE button,
rendering us totally invisible and of no influence in this
culture. And we let the MUTE button stay on too. Well,
let's take it off ourselves. Let us MUTE the Devil for once,
shut HIS BIG, LYING MOUTH with the truth!
We have all kinds of ways to make the
truth known. Let's use them for all they are worth!
But keep profanity out of it, keep your Christian
values in expressing your views--or you lose the whole
ballgame just as it starts. Love has to be the companion
of truth, or it kills and destroys. Remember, we
were once in a pit too of deception and lies, and
it took Christ in his death and sacrifice to dig us out!
According to Fox News, 1/8/09, Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison's pilgrimage to Mecca last December [which all Moslems are required to do
once in their lifetimes] was paid by the Muslim american Society of Minnesota (MAS), an organization with ties to Islamic radicals. According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, MAS is the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. Emerson said that the agenda of MAS is to "impose Islamic law in the U.S.," in order to undermine counterterrorism policy." The trip, funded by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota [truly, "Muslim American" is
an oxymoron!--Ed.] was fully reviewed and approved in advance by the House Ethics Committee," Ellison's office said in a statement to Fox News. Until June 2007, MAS of Minnesota featured writings of Islamic clerics that praised Hamas and urged Muslims to "wage Jihad until death."
NEED ANY MORE EVIDENCE THAT ELLISON SHOULD BE IMPEACHED AND SENT BACK WITH A ONE-WAY TICKET TO MECCA WHERE HE BELONGS?
Let me
answer. He proved one thing: he meant not a word of his highly-televised speech, where he promised the Muslim World at the Cairo university venue that the United States, at least under his watch, would never, never, never again
play the big bully on the block and tell other nations what to do! Isn't
that as bad as Bush Senior's promise not to raise taxes? Actually, it is far worse, since Bush Senior might have meant his promise ever so slightly or wishfully (though knowing as a worldly-wise politician he would have to raise taxes), but Obama
was just telling the Muslims what he knew they wanted to hear:
less U.S. involvement in the affairs of the Muslim Middle East and Muslim North Africa--their leaders would be free to oppress the people all they liked and to kill Jews and prepare for war on Israel. So one thing is proven, again, that Obama meant not
a syllable of that high-sounding declaration, for he gave U.S. aircraft, weapons material, and lots of
money to eradicate a fellow Muslim head of state, probably not much worse
than he is. The difference is that Gaddafi did not have a once free and prosperous country like the United States to run into the ground, he just had a big patch of blowing sand and flies and
oil wells in North Africa, and there isn't much there to ruin that wasn't previously ruined when the Muslims took over in the 7th century from the
Byzantine Greeks.
What is the result of this brutal and arbitrary intervention by Obama in Libya's
internal affairs, this assassination of Gaddafi so that a worse
dictatorship can take his place? Well, we can reasonably expect
the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother serpent of Islam that hatches out
all kinds of scorpions and cockatrices of terrorism across the globe, to fill the
vacuum. Democracy of any shape or form, except in name only,
is out--draconian sharia law will probably prevail, and what shreds of
individual liberty the "secular" Gaddafi permitted will now be stamped out, and
for the ladies
it will be the head to toe burka or hejab (aren't these appropriately ugly terms for the hideous
bondage imposed on women?), and perhaps no schools for
females, just household chores and cranking out babies, and...it'll just gets worse and worse for human beings and human
rights in Libya. But God...we have nothing to lose by praying God will overrule these wicked men now in power, and bring freedom where there is none, and none will be, except for God's intervention. We had Obama's intervention, but we really need God's grace and mercy to bring salvation, along with justice and freedom to the people in that benighted land.
Robert Krebs, a Montana based missionary, is a godly mouthpiece of the prophetic warning God is giving
this nation and the American people, and particularly the Christians in it, who
are called to be Wise Virgins, not Foolish Virgins. (There is a big
difference too between them, though it isn't visible as yet, and it
will be manifest one day!).
Here is Robert Krebs' latest warning, based on a dream. he writes well, and I wouldn't want him to change a word of it. It is a wonderful
message, with many meaningful things for us as Christians.
Just as the Bible prophets depicted us, we have evil eyed chariots jostling each other in the public thoroughfares! The torchlike, glowing lights of our
vehicles, shaped like wrap-around eyes of serpents or wolves,
along with the speed and aggressiveness of the streams of
21st century cars, must have been an astonishing sight to
the prophets in their visions! Our vehicles were called chariots, which of course they are, being no more than a plush, covered, glassed-in chariot body pulled by an
internal combustion engine, the modern horse!--
Regardless of Obama, I stand with Israel, the clear underdog, not with the clear bully, the Arab Bloc nations and the Moslem World. I am not for Judaism over Islam. I am not for religion of any kind, I am for Jesus Christ and His rule upon the earth. He chose the Jews, He chose Jerusalem as his capital, he chose it as Israel's capital too. Mt. Zion is his special dwelling place, and that is in Jerusalem! The secularized Jews today in Israel, and
some of the religious ones too, may not know Israel's true destiny is with the Messiah, Yeshua, not with anything else, and leastwise with
the coming world despot, the one to be the Anti-Christ, the son of perdition. But one day we shall see Israel repent and recogize their Messiah in Yeshua and return to him in tears of grief and sorrow for once having rejected him in his first coming. What a joyous day that will be, friends and Emmaus Walkers! Can you think of anything more glorious? I want to see America
do the same thing, repent and return to Jesus--that would be glorious too, but I think Israel's return to God will be even more of a stupendous, cosmic event than America's conversion from materialism and self and false gods of money and sex and power.
PRAYER CENTER
When you lose loved ones, residence, job,
all you have been accustomed to (even your all paid for like new car!) is gone, you need to set some
goals right away. I set mine almost immediately, upon my mother's
homegoing, followed quickly by the homegoings of two brothers.
The second of two goals I set was to go to Jerusalem to pray at the Wall. This is a desire of mine, to return to the beautiful land I have been greatly privileged to see twice in my life. May God grant me a third
such time by His grace!
Remember that screwball Congressman rookie who brazenly
refused to swear in on the Bible and chose the Koran instead? His
name, which is going down in the Book of Infamy no doubt, is
Keith Ellison. I can prove he is a screwball, for this following
excerpt shows he is beyond doubt one of the worst to inhabit the halls of Congress in a long, long time:
"Congressman's Trip to Mecca Paid by Muslim Group," Vine and Branches Magazine, Spring 2009, p. 10.
Oh, the hundreds of cocktail parties in Washington's Belt Line
must have buzzed from one end to the other with congratulations! Sip sip guzzle guzzle hiccup! So the big old bogeyman of North Africa is gone, is he? Moammar Gaddafi (however you spell him, he is dead, apparently). Now is our "great liberator" and "champion of democracy" in Washington
sleeping easier in bed, thinking that there will be no nuisance in that
area of the world to contend with any longer? But what exactly did Barack Hussain Obama (aka Barry Sotoro) accomplish by his vicious
hunting down and killing of this wretched, backpeddling Muslim despot?
Why are we Christians generally so, ah, fat? The pews or chairs can only take so much more and then they'll collapse, like those stage sets at that
Midwestern fairgrounds! Won't that be a fine sermon topic for next Sunday!
More about
this very serious topic and question a little later, in the article a friend sent me from Charisma Magazine.
We may need some time to think about it too, as we have probably
wondered for some time what is the problem with us and how are we going to fix it. I know I have always "eaten for comfort", not always for
hunger or nutritional reasons. I have heard others say the same thing, which in my case hasn't made me fat, as I am naturally an ectomorph, but it has for others, poor souls who are
now battling hundreds of pounds weight (some comfort that turned out to be!).
"Why Is the Church so Fat?" by Kara Davis, M.D., Charisma Magazine, July 2004
REVIVAL CENTER
For Hans Nielsen Hauge, please go to:
"Hans Nielsen Hauge, The Life and Work of Hauge, Biography by C.B., 1890"
Hans Nielsen Hauge, Part II, and Concluding Edification, Hauge-style
We have an exciting article from the Pentecostal Evangel, Oct. 25, 1930 issue, that is entitled "Methodist Preacher Filled with the Spirit," by J. Narver Gortner. You won't want to miss this!
"Methodist Preacher Filled With the Spirit," by J. Narver Gortner
We have a second article from the Evangel that is just as good, and you won't want to miss it!
It has to do with a "hopeless bum" on the street that seemed no good for anything, yet God...and his life later produced great good for the Kingdom of God. Return here for it.
FAITH IN ACTION CENTER:
Thanks to my intrepid Minnesota cousin Gene Iserman (who is a true Viking Argonaut and is in his early twenties and just entering college), we have a new center with
this inspiring title that we have taken from his own blog, as
it is perfect as he framed it, and we give him the credit here for it.
You will not find a more exciting travelog of a young
fellow acting out his faith, as Gene sets out on a 2,050 mile
epic journey by kayak down the Mississippi River from its source to
the Gulf of Mexico. His blog carries his travelog, day to day,
and there is enough of it uploaded to give you
a wonderful experience (hilarious too!) of what such a journey
entails. But why did he do it? Just to gain a name or a some fleeting fame for himself? Hardly! He put his life at considerable risk instead to
raise money from donors for providing clean water and food to
children in needy societies and countries that lack such
necessities. Hosts James and Betty Robison of the longtime running "Life Today" program on TV have taken up this cause for years, we know,
with their program featuring the digging of wells in Africa to bring clean water to thousands of impoverished children and adults, purely to save their lives from the contaminated, disease and parasite-infested, muddy water they normally are forced to drink every day as well as give them the witness of Christian love in action. The Lord laid the same thing on Gene's heart.
Hence his fund-raising journey down the Mississippi! Don't miss it! Go to:
Faith in Action, With
Gene Iserman, Kayak-er from Onamia, Minnesota
His disk may still be available. If you want some
music from him, email: ronaldginther42@yahoo.com
MISSIONS CENTER AND EVANGELISM CENTER:
"The Macedonian Call--Again," Excerpt from "To All Peoples," by Robert L. Niklaus, the Missions World Book of the Christian and Missionary Alliance
My eldest brother Darrell R. Ginther was a street evangelist all his adult life, and he passed away at the age of 76, unretired, this August 13, three days after my own birthday. He was a living testimony of how God can deliver us from the powers of darkness, and he wrote an autobiography entitled "Delivered from the Powers of Darkness." We
offer it here along with additions to it by various people that we thought suitable and helpful, so that you can be inspired by the miracles that evident in his life and also how Almighty God in his faithfulness and love and mercy took a troubled, even a mentally-disturbed boy (who could not process the sudden death of his idolized father in a plane crash) and used him, despite on-going mental problems for many years, in reaching thousands for Christ with the saving, delivering Gospel.
"Prince of Zion," The Street Evangelist Darrell R. Ginther
PROPHETIC LITERATURE CENTER
We believe and know too that the prophetic gift operates
in people of the world as well as in people of the kingdom of light.
God warns people, using even the ungodly as mouthpieces. Oh, yes, he does, and we can prove it a thousand times if we had the time! The worldly people will have no excuse, who disregard all God's warnings, wherever he chooses to set them.
"Egypt or Goshen," by Robert Krebs, Mission USA
As my Danish side of the family was named Andersson, who knows
if Hans Christian Anderson can be one of our ancestor's? I would like to
think so anyway, but I shall have to wait for the genealogy to be completed
by a genealogist in our family before I can crow about it. At any rate,
this is the dreamer who came up with "The Ugly Duckling" and
many other classic fairy tales that are loved by children (and adults) the world over--for good reason, they are wonderful stories and also teach
a good moral. Now he also wrote prophetically, which is new to me.
The proof of this is the following piece. You will find that he was
the Danish H.G. Wells in prophesying the technology of the far future, which is
our present today. H.G. Wells the 19th English historian and scifi writer was an atheist and a futurist (though he became a pessimist in later life). Who can forget his "The Time Machine" story once having read it? It really describes to me millions of nearly immobile, grossly overweight American couch potatoes, sitting endless hours in their livingrooms and dens glued to their
plasma TVs and remote connecting them to 400 plus channels of pre-digested
entertainment. He also foresaw
the 20th century nuclear age and all sorts of our hitech inventions. From his secular standpoint, he nevertheless had some clear-sighted and cogent views of what we might expect in a future society. I
can tell that Hans Christian Anderson was a Scandinavian moralist and a
"scop" (or a minstrel or bard in the traditional sense of a court
singer and poet chanting stories based on the past exploits of a tribe or hero). Anderson forsaw intercontinental
air travel, for one thing, when it absolutely did not exist. I present this here for the reason that Anderson's visionary piece corroborates the Bible's own depictions of the world of the future and its various
marvels of communication and travel, at a time when these marvels we take so for granted today really seemed too farfetched to ever become reality--but they did, and they have become reality, you will agree, in many instances!
"In a Thousand Years," by
Hans Christian Anderson
Lately I dusted off some old Bill Gothard prints from his Bible course, and rather than throwing them out, I will share them here with you, as you may enjoy them. I added more prophetic verses of the Day of the Lord too.
FRIENDSHIP WITH ISRAEL CENTER
As some commentator has recently described it, Israel is the matchbox on the football field (the football field representing the
huge area of the Arab nations ganged up on tiny Israel to eradicate it). Somehow in the world's eye these five million or so Jews (Israelis) are
the terrible big bully, the 600 pound gorilla on the block, when attacked repeatedly by hundreds of millions of well-armed Arabs, not to mention Turks and nuclear-armed Iranians! Give Israel a break, people! Do us all a big favor: Get a real life,
won't you? And
the United Methodist Church and the ELCA (so-called Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, which is neither evangelical nor Lutheran nor a real church in the Biblical sense!) that have sent
a squadron of bishops to lay wreaths on Yassir Arafat's tomb in
Ramallah--have you two hypocritical religious bodies ever looked at the map of Israel and the
Arab countries surrounding her? Can't you see how pathetically, screamingly tiny Israel is,
with almost a miniscule, almost indefensible land mass wedged between
huge Arab countries? And the population differential! It is just as
mind-boggling! Five million Jews against 130 million Arabs, or 200 million (they are multiplying so fast with their women being made baby factories by men who seldom do any work but coahabit at the drop of a burkha), or 1.3 billion Moslems world-wide who all potential anti-Semites and may
choose to see Israel wiped off the map in an all-out war! I am for the
underdog! And I know God is too. With God, Israel has a majority, even if the whole world is allied against her. Woe to any nation, including
the USA, who turns on Israel to destroy her! We are close to it
with Obama's endorcement of a Palestine that would effectively
cut Israel in two pieces, and put missiles from Iran right in
Jerusalem's capital by making part of it the capital of a Hamas-controlled
Palestine. We are in big trouble if Obama prevails, and so are all the other nations, including that godless, big, chocolate gobbling pussycat, the European Union. God Almighty will destroy them and us too, if we
join with Israel's enemies to attack her (or stand by while
our Arab and Moslem "friends" do the job for us.
I plan to go to Israel 2012, God willing, to pray at the
wall, where prayer is customarily given by Jews. Prayer can be offered anyplace of course, but as this is a retaining wall of the
last temple, it has significance as a prayer site, particularly when you are thinking of restoration by God for his people the Jews, as well as
for us Gentiles. The church, despite the great numbers added, particularly in Asia and Africa, is in alarming decline. We see this in America most
markedly, and in other Western countries. In Africa, the veneer of
Christianity is very thin, with scant Bible teaching covering
a hidden mass of animism and witchcraft. I have it on my heart to pray
for whomever lets me know they want this done for them, there at the
Western or Wailing Wall (Called the "Kotah" by the Jews). I have a Jewish style prayer shawl worn by men, and a cap that was purchased over
in Israel by my mother. I am not there to attract attention, but to
look like those around me, mainly Jews and seek God as I pray
for those whose names I will bring before the Lord.
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