August 12, 2010
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LIVING ON BORROWED TIME - DVD
A morally and spiritually bankrupt society …A worldwide economic meltdown…A planet racked with increasingly intense manmade and natural disasters…Are we the Final Generation?
Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matthew 24:42-44
Reviews: The DVD should be seen by small groups and youth ministries far and wide. The clear quoting and referencing of bible verses is especially strong. The collage of dramatic imagery - both in photography and artwork, grabs the viewers' attention and weaves the conclusion that God is about to continue His plan in a major way. The video is so fresh - the oil explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico is shown as one example of how this old world is wearing out and is in flames
The video next defends the authorship and reliability of the bible before showing eight unmistakable developments in our world that point toward the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The number one sign given to our generation is the return of the Jewish people to form the nation of Israel. Jesus Christ is now standing at the door waiting to take his beloved bride- His true believers. Like the admonition from the Book of Jude, verse 23, I pray that this DVD will be used by the Holy Spirit to pluck dying people out of the fire before the borrowed time runs out. - John Wicklund - Chair- Olive Tree Ministries Board of Directors - Maple Grove, MN
Great Job! We have watched all your DVD’s and we think this is the best one so far. After someone watches this DVD there is no way they could argue that we are not living in the last days! – Don & Cindy K. – Bakersfield, CA
The DVD came and it was great. GOOD JOB ! ! – Julie A. – Whitefish, MT
God bless you, the new DVD is amazing! I know that if there is anyone out there who doesn't know what the bible holds or has no clue about what is really going on after seeing this DVD they will surely be enlightened about what is truly going on in the world today. - The Taylor's - Bakersfield, CA
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Iran Warns Against Israeli Invasion of Lebanon -
Iran warns that if Israel were to invade Lebanon, it would be counter-attacked by several countries in the region. Iran's Fars News Agency reported that Ramin Mehman-Parast, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, issued the warning yesterday, saying that while it's unlike Israel will invade Lebanon, the "Zionist regime would be slapped hard in the face by the regional states if it dares to attack Lebanon again."
"What the Zionist regime [Israel] should understand well… is that an aggression against any country in the region or against any Muslim nation in the region will cause the strong reaction of all the regional countries," said Mehman-Parast, when asked about how Iran would react were Israel to attack Lebanon. "Given the regional countries' preparedness and vigilance, they won't allow the Zionist regime and its supporters to make a move in this regard."
The possibility of further clashes between Israel and Lebanon was heightened last week, after Lebanese snipers shot and killed an Israeli officer along the northern border and wounded a second officer, during routine IDF tree-clearing work on the Israeli side of the border. Israeli soldiers returned fire, killing three Lebanese soldiers and a journalist who had been invited to observe the pre-planned Lebanese army ambush.
But the Arabic and Muslim media has been quick to blame Israel for the incident, reversing the chronology of the events and suggesting that the assault was due to an Israeli incursion. The Fars News Agency recalled the events as follows: "...Israeli forces launched several rockets targeting a Lebanese army position on the country's southern border, killing at least three Lebanese soldiers. One Israeli officer was also killed in the resulting firefights, while several other Lebanese and Israeli soldiers were injured. According to a Lebanese army spokesman, the violence broke out after Israeli soldiers entered Lebanon, attempting to uproot a tree on the Lebanese side of the border."
The Lebanese Daily Star reported that Lebanese Foreign Minister Ali Shami applauded Iran’s support of Lebanon against "Israeli aggression." Ali Shami, who was in Tehran over the weekend, said Lebanon was grateful for the “material and moral support of Iran against the Zionist regime.”
Shami met with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili. The Star reported that Jalili said, “The Lebanese Army, which has the backing of the people and the resistance, will not let the Zionist regime cut even one tree in Lebanon.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Shami that a united Arab front against Israel symbolized by a tripartite summit in Beirut has "foiled plots of the enemy Zionist regime. Their presence represented solidarity and unity in the entire region and promoted the nation’s front against the Zionist regime and its sponsors.”
According to Shami, Lebanon is planning to complain to the the UN Security Council and General Assembly about alleged Israeli spying in Lebanon. “The report is now ready,” he said.
Arms from Turkey, Syria, Iran to Hezbollah – www.upi.com
JERUSALEM, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- A secret meeting of Iranian and Turkish intelligence officials has led to a new weapons supply route for Hezbollah, a report says.
Iranian and Turkish intelligence officials recently signed an agreement that establishes territorial continuity for Turkey, Iran, Syria and Lebanon, and guarantees a constant supply of weapons to Hezbollah, a report in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said.
Details of the agreement signed between Ankara and Tehran show a direct link between Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Aharonoth quoted the Italian newspaper as saying Thursday.
Italian reporter and terror expert Guido Olimpio said the agreement was recently signed at a meeting between Hussein Saab, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards secret service, and the recently appointed Turkish intelligence chief Hakkan Fidan, and solves Hezbollah's ongoing search for weapons suppliers.
Yedioth Aharonoth said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in closed meetings, expressed concern about Fidan's appointment, fearing the secrets shared between the two countries would be leaked to Tehran.
The new weapons route will allow the transport of sophisticated weaponry including rockets and missiles to pass through Syria to Lebanon and Hezbollah, the Italian newspaper said. The transfer would be coordinated by Turkish and Iranian agents and Hezbollah operatives, and the route secured when the truckloads of weapons pass through, the Italian paper said.
"The Iranians are interested in building a similar network to that established in Sudan and their final goal is to assist Hamas," Olimpio said.
In Khartoum, Sudanese, Iranian, and Palestinian agents operate with the help of Egyptian collaborators he said. Iran is trying to set up a similar network for Hezbollah, he added.
Tensions in Lebanon Hinder Mideast Peace! - By Bill Salus - www.ProphecyDepot.com
This article is a postscript to a recent article called Israel, Iran, and the Ishmaelites, which emphasized the present desperate Saudi push for Mideast peace. In a nutshell, Saudi King Abdullah took his Mideast peace plan of 2002 out of the archives and pitched it to the Arab League in Cairo on July 28, 2010. As a result of his stature and salesmanship, the Arab League pledged their support to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to enter into face-to-face "Direct (peace) Talks", should he desire, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This geo-politically expedient Arab League decision came on the heels of Netanyahu's July 6, 2010 comments that he is willing to conduct "Direct Talks" with the Palestinians. All of the above came as good news to U.S. President Barack Obama, who from day one in the oval office has advocated a Mideast foreign policy of "Engagement." His aim is to have all adversarial parties in the Mideast talk through their territorial and ideological differences. Some have criticized his "Engagement" policy calling it naďve; however, volatile Mideast conditions seem to be pressing the need for final diplomatic discussions.
Departing with a sense of accomplishment, Saudi King Abdullah left Cairo and headed for a historic Beirut conference with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman. King Abdullah had not visited Beirut since March of 2002 at which time he had pitched his peace plan to the Counsel of Arab States. This extremely pro-Arab peace plan was accepted by the Arabs at the time. However this trip, somewhere in the 363 mile shuttle between Cairo and Beirut, Abdullah's previously endorsed peace plan lost its importance and sense of urgency as the Saudi King was forced to abruptly shift his focus toward mounting tensions in Lebanon.
The Beirut summit primarily ended up addressing genuine concerns that Sunni-Shiite violence could erupt as soon as the results are made public of the UN court probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri in 2005. The UN court is apparently preparing to implicate members of the powerful Hezbollah in Hariri's murder. Hezbollah is not expected to respond favorably to any assassination indictments from the UN. In fact, recent increased Hezbollah troop buildup in Southern Lebanon has caused Lebanese villagers in the area to clash with UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) soldiers.
Furthermore, Hezbollah has essentially disqualified the role of the UN in Lebanon over the past four years by defying UN Resolution 1701. This UN resolution called for the disarmament of Hezbollah in the aftermath of its 34-day conflict with Israel in the summer of 2006. Presently Hezbollah has assembled an arsenal of approximately 60,000 more advanced rockets, inclusive of Syrian Scud Missiles, and they have accomplished this during UNIFIL's watch.
The Saudi King was requested to support Syrian and Lebanese wishes to discourage the possibility of any Hezbollah involvement in the Hariri assassination. The King's peace plan was overpowered by this Hariri matter and other more pressing issues currently developing inside Lebanon. These matters included the following:
· July 8, 2010 - Israel posted aerial photos on an official website inclusive of detailed maps and 3-D simulations locating Hezbollah deployed troops into Southern Lebanon. Reportedly 20,000 Hezbollah troops are presently positioned in hiding in hospitals, homes, schools, and other civilian locations in Southern Lebanon.
· July 9, 2010 to present - UNIFIL forces clash with villagers in Southern Lebanon who are concerned that UNIFIL's increased patrolling, the result of the Hezbollah troop buildup, would hinder Hezbollah's ability to protect the villagers in the event that Israel attacked Lebanon.
· July 11, 2010 - Hezbollah's commander in Southern Lebanon, Sheik Nabil Kaouk declared Hezbollah has a "bank of targets" located inside of Israel and that presently they can "strike anywhere inside of Israel."
· More recently on August 3, 2010 - Lt.-Col. (res.) Dov Harari, 45, from Netanya, was shot dead by a sniper from the Lebanese Armed Forces and a company commander from his battalion, Capt. Ezra Lakia, sustained a gunshot wound to the chest.
Peering through the smoke screen of the Middle East peace pipe it becomes alarmingly possible that the international community, including the Arab League and their Persian nemesis Iran, is headed for a war wake-up call in the very near future. Direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, should they occur, are headed for high hurdles for the following reasons:
1. Abbas has expressed on several recent occasions that he is not interested in direct talks with his Israeli counterpart unless certain preconditions are met. Namely, he wants Israel to freeze all settlements and allow a third party, like NATO, to be the guardian of territory Israel acquired in 1967. Abbas wants Israel to provide this land for the creation of a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital. Although the Saudi Peace Plan calls for this, it is unimaginable that Benjamin Netanyahu and his current right wing coalition will ever agree to it.
2. Abbas is merely a propped up figment figurehead of the international community's imagination. He, nor his Fatah party, represents the majority will of the Palestinian people. The Hamas party and its leadership are the democratically elected party of the Palestinians as of January 2006. Hamas is not interested in a Two-State solution. The Hamas charter calls for Israel's destruction through Jihad and for the consecration of a final Arab State in the Middle East called Palestine.
3. The Arab League has made it clear that they believe peace cannot be achieved with the present Netanyahu Administration. This implies they don't expect a viable peace is currently achievable and therefore all present negotiations are essentially meaningless.
4. The Arab League's new position forces the Obama Administration to pressure Israel into accepting the preconditions of President Abbas before direct talks can begin. This is not likely while the Netanyahu right wing coalition reigns sovereign over Israel.
4.
5. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict represents only a segment of the overall complex Mideast peace predicament. Israel is also at odds with Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran. Additionally, Turkey has recently become adversarial toward Israel complicating the entire Middle East peace process.
6. The Arabs have internal geo-political and religious conflicts amongst themselves. For instance, Sunnis and Shiites have Islamic ideological differences. Additionally, the Saudis are very concerned about the proxy relationships, sealed by bonafide war pacts, between Hezbollah, Syria, and the Hamas with Iran.
7. The Arabs have conflicts with Iran in addition to Israel. As pointed out in the Israel, Iran, and the Ishmaelites article, Saudi Arabia is very concerned that Iran's nuclear aspirations may extend into a war between them and Iran.
These are just a few of the reasons Middle East peace continues to allude the grasp of the international community. King Abdullah's peace plan has mustered up Arab League support for "Direct Talks" between the Israelis and Palestinians. Additionally, it has encouraged President Obama that the Arab League seems to appreciate his Mideast foreign policy of "Engagement". However, the current content of the Saudi Peace Plan will prevent Israel from accepting it as a legitimate plan for Mideast peace. Tensions in Lebanon may push the Saudi Peace Plan back into the archives where it had been collecting dust for over 8 previous years.
In next war, Israel to remove Palestinian civilians from harm's way – www.worldtribune.com
TEL AVIV — Israel's military has drawn plans to evacuate tens of thousands of Palestinians during a war in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Military sources said the Planning Directorate has drafted options for the rapid removal of Palestinians from villages and refugee camps during any future war. They said the plans would seek to eliminate efforts by Palestinian fighters to use civilians as shields.
"We were severely criticized by the international community for firing into civilian communities," a military source said. "One solution has been to remove civilians from areas controlled by terrorists before battle."
In the 2009 war against Hamas, the Israeli military dropped millions of leaflets over Gaza communities that warned of an invasion. The flyers, accompanied by more than 250,000 phone calls, urged Palestinians to leave their homes to avoid injury.
"It did not succeed too well, mostly because people didn't know where to run," the source said. "We will address this in future planning."
Under a newly-drafted doctrine, the Israel Army would force Palestinians out of their homes before any full-scale battle. The sources said the military believes that most civilians would cooperate if offered options for food and shelter in another location.
The military has come under heavy international pressure to revise its urban warfare tactics after a United Nations report accused Israel of crimes in the Gaza Strip during the Hamas war. On July 6, the military reported the indictment of eight soldiers on charges connected to the war against Hamas.
China's army condemns South Korean-US sea drills - Christopher Bodeen – www.news.yahoo.com
BEIJING – China's military on Thursday condemned a second round of U.S.-South Korean naval drills planned in the Yellow Sea in the coming weeks, vowing it would respond in kind.
Beijing opposes actions by foreign military ships and planes in waters near its coast that could "affect China's security interests," the military's newspaper People's Liberation Army Daily said in an editorial.
"If no one harms me, I harm no one, but if someone harms me, I must harm them," said the editorial, signed by Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, a frequent outspoken commentator on military matters.
"As far as the Chinese people and the Chinese military are concerned, these are not joking remarks," Luo wrote.
China has repeatedly criticized the drills, saying they risked heightening tensions on the Korean peninsula and ignored its objections to any foreign military exercises off its coast.
The expected participation of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington is particularly irksome to China because of its status as a symbol of U.S. power in the Pacific and the possibility of its F-18 warplanes flying within range of Beijing.
The exercises are the second in a series of U.S.-South Korean maneuvers to be conducted in the East Sea off Korea and the Yellow Sea. No date has been announced, but they are expected to happen in the coming weeks. The first maneuvers were conducted last week.
Although the Yellow Sea consists mostly of international waters, China regards it as lying within its vaguely defined security perimeter. China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement earlier this week demanding the U.S. and South Korea "take China's position and concern seriously."
While Luo's editorial mentioned no specific responses, China has recently given an unusual degree of publicity to a series of military drills and live-firing exercises along its eastern coastline — seen by some as a direct response to the U.S.-South Korean exercises.
The criticism comes amid renewed verbal sniping between Beijing and Washington over the South China Sea, which China claims in its entirety, along with the myriad tiny islands lying within it.
Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also have staked claims on all or some of the territory, which straddles vital shipping lanes, important fishing grounds and is believed rich in oil and natural gas reserves.
China responded with outrage when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a regional conference last month that the U.S. had a "national interest" in seeing territorial disputes in the South China Sea resolved through a "collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants."
Beijing prefers to leverage its size and strength to deal with each claimant individually and blasted Clinton's remarks as U.S. interference in its affairs.
China has also been alarmed by joint search-and-rescue exercises this week between the U.S. and Vietnamese navies, viewing it as part of efforts to build an "Asian NATO" to contain Beijing's rising influence.
The New Push for a Global Currency - by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - www.lewrockwell.com
You surely didn't think that the governing elites would let this economic crisis pass without pushing some cockamamie scheme for control. Well, here is the cloud no bigger than a man's hand, a revival of a 60-year-old idea of a global paper currency to fix what ails us.
The IMF study that calls for this is by Reza Moghadam of the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, "in collaboration with the Finance, Legal, Monetary and Capital Markets, Research and Statistics Departments, and consultation with the Area Departments." In other words, this paper shouldn't be ignored.
It's a long-term plan, but the plan has the unmistakable stamp of Keynes: "A global currency, bancor, issued by a global central bank would be designed as a stable store of value that is not tied exclusively to the conditions of any particular economy.... The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing needed systemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present."
The term bancor comes from Keynes directly. He proposed this idea following World War II, but it was rejected mostly for nationalistic reasons. Instead we got a monetary system based on the dollar, which was in turn tied to gold. In other words, we got a phony gold standard that was destined to collapse as gold reserve imbalances became unsustainable, as they did by the late 1960s. What replaced it is our global paper money system of floating exchange rates.
But the elites never give in, never give up. The proposal for a global currency and global central bank is again making the rounds. What problem is being addressed? What is so desperately wrong with the world that the IMF is floating the idea of a world currency? In a word, the problem is hoarding. The IMF is really annoyed that "in recent years, international reserve accumulation has accelerated rapidly, reaching 13 percent of global GDP in 2009 – a threefold increase over ten years."
You see, monetary policy isn't supposed to work this way. In their ideal world, the central bank releases reserves and these reserves are lent out, leading to a boom in consumption and investment and thereby global happiness forever (never mind the hyperinflation that goes along with it). But there is a problem. The current system is nationally based and so the economic conditions of one country turn out to have an influence on the borrowing and lending markets. Without borrowers and lenders, the money gets stuck in the system.
This is a short history of the last two years. By now, if the Fed had its way, we would be awash in money. Instead the reserves are stuck in the banking system. It's like the whole of the population of the United States has suddenly been consumed by the moral advice: neither a borrower nor a lender be.
And why? Well, there are two reasons. Borrowers are just a bit nervous right now about the long term. They are watching balance sheets day by day, consumed with a weird sense of reality that had gone out the window during the boom times. Meanwhile, the bankers are just a bit risk averse, happier to keep the reserves in the vault than toss them to the winds of fate. They have the bank examiners breathing down their necks right now, and lending doesn't pay well, not with interest rates being suppressed down to the zero level.
Under these conditions, yes, hoarding seems like a pretty good idea. What's more, we should be very grateful indeed for this retrenchment. The idea of plunging back into another bubble seems rather shortsighted.
The IMF has a problem with this practice, though it doesn't dwell on it. The problem is that this practice of maintaining high reserves is putting a damper on consumption and investment, prolonging the recession. The simple-minded solution coming from the high-minded eggheads at the IMF is to find some system, any system, that would push the money from the vaults into the hands of the spending public.
The rationale for the global currency and global central bank is that the reserves could always find a market in a globalized system, and would not therefore be so tied to the exigencies of a nationally based banking and monetary system.
An academic paper can wax eloquent for hundreds of pages about the advantages of a global system. It will lead to more stability, efficiency, and less politicization of money and credit. And truly, there is a point here: a real gold standard is always tending towards a global currency system. Different national currencies are merely different names for the same thing.
But there is a key difference. Under a gold standard, the physical metal is the limit and the market is the master. Under a global paper system, the paper provides no limit whatsoever and the politicians are the masters. So there is no sense of talking about the glories of globalization in the current context. A world paper currency and world central bank would heighten the moral hazard and lead to a global inflationary regime such as we've never seen. There would be no escape from political control at that point.
Every proposal of a drastic solution such as this always comes with a warning of some equally drastic consequence of failing to adopt the proposal. In this case, the IMF actually raises questions about the survivability of the dollar itself. "There has been a long-running debate speculating on whether the dollar could collapse," says the paper. It raises the worry that if a run on the dollar materializes, central banks could attempt to race each other to dump it permanently.
But, the paper points out, many people wonder whether "good alternatives to the dollar exist." And for this reason, it might be a good idea to cobble together such an alternative sooner rather than later.
There is probably more truth in that statement than most people want to grant. But the right alternative is not yet another and more global experiment in paper money inflation. God forbid. If we want an alternative to the dollar, there is one that could appear before our eyes if only we would let it happen. Private currencies traders the world over could, on their own, give rise to a new currency rooted in gold and traded by means of digital media. On many occasions over the last 20 years, such a system nearly came to be. But guess what? The government cracked down and stopped it. The governing elites have decided that there will be no currency reform unless it comes from the marble palaces of the monetary elites.
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The Death of the Dollar - By Vasko Kohlmayer - www.americanthinker.com
Nothing can save our financial system in the long run. It is doomed to collapse. This is inevitable, because our government controls and manages its very foundation -- the dollar.
The federal government began its takeover of the dollar in 1913 when it established the Federal Reserve Banking System. Prior to that, the dollar was a real store of value. In the period from 1783 to 1913, there was a long period of currency stability with virtually no inflation. If you saved one dollar in 1800, your great-grandchild could buy roughly the same amount of goods with the same dollar one century later.
In 1913, five dollars could get you the following:
15 pounds of potatoes, 10 pounds of flour, 5 pounds of sugar, 5 pounds of chuck roast, 3 pounds of round steak, 3 pounds of rice, 2 pounds each of cheese and bacon, and a pound each of butter and coffee ... two loaves of bread, 4 quarts of milk and a dozen eggs.
In 2010, five dollars barely gets you two pounds of cut chicken meat.
Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the dollar has shed more than 90 percent of its value. The loss of value has been especially pronounced since 1971, when Richard Nixon took the dollar off the last vestiges of the gold standard. In that year, the dollar became a pure fiat currency, grounded in nothing but the whims of politicians and technocrats. The consequences have been disastrous. One thousand 1971 dollars would buy only $185 worth of goods today. This represents a loss of some 80 percent in purchasing power.
The dollar has already entered its terminal phase. The word "doom" is written across it for anyone with the eyes to see. Sad to say, there is no way to reverse its downward slide. With more than $13 trillion in public debt and some $100 trillion in unfunded mandates, our federal government has assumed far more obligations than it can ever make good on. Worse still, these figures are growing larger every year.
To put it bluntly, our federal government is flat-out bankrupt. Currency disintegration is always the unavoidable result of government bankruptcy. The dollar -- which has been weakening for many decades -- will at some point go into a sudden death spin.
The only question is when. It may happen six months from now or six years from now. The timeframe is impossible to predict, but we can now be certain that happen it will. No one -- not even the federal government -- can escape the numbers. And the numbers are hideous. One hundred trillion-plus is a killer.
Under normal circumstances, the dollar would have collapsed already, given how impossibly indebted our government is. Some people are puzzled by its continued survival. They say this is just another sign that we live in a crazy world. But there is nothing crazy about it. The dollar is still alive because there is no ready alternative.
Doomed though it may be in the long term, big-time holders of U.S. dollars keep desperately hanging on because they have nowhere else to go. Where else could China invest its nearly one-trillion-dollar reserves? There is no easy option. So China keeps propping America's federal debt by purchasing Treasury notes and thus keeping the dollar afloat. It is a bad deal for China and a fortuitous one for the U.S., at least for the time being. But things cannot go on like this forever. Eventually, something will give in, and the whole gargantuan house of debt will come crashing down. When that happens, things will get ugly.
Some people may say this situation has been brought about by reckless fiscal and budgetary policies rather than by the government's management of the currency. But the ability of government to run deficits is directly tied to its power to manage money.
It is very difficult for politicians to run large deficits if the currency is anchored in something intrinsically real and valuable -- let's say gold. This is because when they post large budget shortfalls under a gold standard, people naturally ask them, "Where in the world are you going to get all the gold to pay for all this spending?" And since politicians do not know how to make gold, they are forced to admit: "We are going to get it from you, the people, of course. Where else could it come from?"
As you can imagine, such answers do not usually go well with the voting public. The restrictive quality that real money exerts on the profligacy of politicians is often referred to as "the golden handcuffs."
As it is now, most people do not think that they will have to pay for the spending incurred by their representatives in Congress. They think that deficits are something that does not concern them directly. They somehow assume that if the government needs more money, it can simply issue more bonds. But this way of living is unsustainable, and sooner or later, the inflow from abroad will stop. Then we will all pay for our government's extravagance by the disintegration of the currency.
Traumatic as it may be, we should not be surprised by this. It has to end this way. This result became ineluctable the moment the American people gave government control over their money. Let's hope that we will learn from our mistakes. Let's hope that when the present monetary regime finally unwinds, we will have the wisdom to lay a more solid foundation for our money than the whims of politicians.
Is the U.S. Pursuing the Wrong Mideast Peace Process? - Tony Karon – www.news.yahoo.com
The recent skirmish on the Israel-Lebanon border has amplified fears that the Middle East could be on the brink of another war. So the fact that U.S. Special Envoy Senator George Mitchell arrived in Israel this week hoping to restart peace talks ought to offer some reassurance. But it doesn't. The reason: Obama's peace process doesn't involve those who could clash with the Israelis this summer. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who Mitchell will cajole to talk directly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is not at war with Israel, and will remain on the sidelines if new hostilities broke out, just as he did during last year's Gaza war.
The forces on the front lines of the gathering storm - Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and Syria - are allied with Iran, and the Obama Administration is maintaining its predecessor's policy of trying to diplomatically isolate the self-styled "Axis of Resistance." Some limited overtures have been made to Damascus, largely in the hope of separating Syria from Iran. But absent any move to end Israel's occupation of Syrian territory on the Golan Heights, those will come to naught. The Administration has also made limited overtures to engage Iran on the nuclear issue, using Iran's defiance to strengthen the case Washington makes to less sanguine partners that Iran should be isolated. But it has precious few channels to the relevant leadership should hostilities break out along Israel's northern border or in Gaza. On both of those fronts, an uneasy calm is maintained not by any agreements, but by each side's awareness of the damage they could suffer, both physical and political, in a new confrontation. Still in both cases, the antagonists operate on the assumption that a new shooting war is inevitable at some point.
The Bush Administration's diplomatic boycott of the "resistance" camp failed to stem their rising influence, cemented the alliance of its component parts, and left Washington and its Western allies with precious little access to important decision makers. That may not have bothered the Bush Administration much, because it imagined the region locked in a fight to the finish between "moderates" and "radicals" - a grand alliance of Arab moderates who would join with Israel and the U.S. to vanquish Iran and its allies. Stability was not the Bush Administration's priority. When anxious Europeans pressed Washington to help end the disastrous 2006 Israeli war against Hizballah in Lebanon, then Secretary of State Condoleezza famously responded that she had "no interest in a return to the status quo ante." But, of course, that's largely what resulted, because the projection of force by the U.S. and Israel in the region has failed to eliminate the "radicals."
Turkey was the most important U.S. ally to break decisively with the Bush Administration's approach to the region, building its own bridges to the "resistance" camp in the belief that it can't be wished or blown away, and that the region can't be stabilized without accommodating its interests. Turkey's approach was pilloried by some in the West and Israel as aligning with Iran. But British Prime Minister David Cameron, following talks in Washington, recently visited Ankara and sought to ingratiate himself with the Turkish leadership by referring to Gaza as a "prison camp" - as Prime Minister Racip Erdogan has done - an apparent attempt to enlist Turkey's support in mediating the region's conflicts. Turkey's good offices with the "radicals," combined with its longstanding, if somewhat frayed security alliance with Israel, may have become a vital channel of communication for avoiding new wars in the region.
Of course, pursuing peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as the Obama Administration is doing by urging direct talks between President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, needn't work at cross purposes with a broader push to stabilize the Middle East. But it could.
The Bush Administration eventually renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as an element of its strategy to confront Iran, seeing a Mideast peace process as vital to provide political cover for Arab regimes to ally with Israel and the U.S. against Tehran. That was the logic behind the Annapolis conference and subsequent discussions between Abbas and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The process went nowhere, of course. But even if Olmert and Abbas had managed to agree on the contours of a Palestinian state (they didn't), it was clear that any process that excluded Hamas - which had demonstrated in a democratic election that it spoke for as much as half the Palestinian population - was unlikely to gain much traction. And a peace process conceived of as a means to weaken and isolate Hamas and its allies obviously gives them an overwhelming incentive to ensure its failure, which is well within their means.
Still, the Obama Administration maintains the Bush policies of confining its diplomatic engagement largely to friends rather than adversaries. Once again, the argument is being made in Washington debates that pressing forward the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a key condition for a successful effort to isolate Iran. But there's no apparent reason to expect that Obama will succeed where Bush failed.
Just last Friday, a major annual study of public opinion in six major Arab countries by University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami released its latest findings, with some grim tidings for the White House. Not only has the proportion of respondents holding negative views of President Obama almost tripled (to 63%) since his Cairo outreach speech of last year, but the idea that the Arab world feels threatened by the idea of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon seems questionable. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at 12%, was the third most popular foreign leader in the region (after Turkey's Erdogan at 20% and Venezuela's Chavez at 13%; Obama didn't make the top 20). And the study found that an overwhelming 77% of respondents believed Tehran had a right to its nuclear program - an alarming 57% even believed a nuclear-armed Iran would be better for the Middle East.
Plainly there's a disconnect between Arab public opinion and the Obama Administration's approach to dealing with the region. If the goal is stabilizing the region and preventing war, it may be time for President Obama to heed the advice of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. When challenged on why he was dealing with Israel's mortal foe, Yasser Arafat, Rabin's answer was: "We make peace with our enemies, not with our friends."
Of the laws of God and the dangers of political parties – Bill Wilson – www.dailyjot.com
Jesus said in Matthew 24:12, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." Have you noticed that Americans have grown colder to one another? Democratic state house candidate in New Hampshire Keith Halloran wrote in facebook that he wished former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin would have been on board the flight on which former Republican Senator Ted Stevens was killed. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recently called "crazy" members of his own party who criticize the man who occupies the Oval Office. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from Nevada recently said, "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay. Do I need to say more?"
When God's laws are not followed, the love of many waxes cold. It is so true. George Washington understood this principle as he shaped the very first underpinnings of political government in America. In his 1796 farewell address, he said, "The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles." Washington knew that Americans needed to be moral and just people in order to survive as a nation. He spoke against the divisions that political parties bring.
Washington said, "One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection." He went on to say, "All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency."
He said political parties, "serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests." Washington's solution is found in the principles of the Bible itself. He says, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." Keep the law of God and love for one another.
Have a Blessed and Powerful Day!
Bill Wilson
Word of Life Ministry
Worshipping in Truth – Greg Laurie – www.harvest.org
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
— Exodus 20:4
I read an article about a woman in New York who was cited for driving in a carpool lane with a mannequin. She had dressed it up with a brunette wig, makeup, stylish clothing, and sunglasses. A police officer, knowing what was going on, pulled her over and requested to see her I.D.—and the mannequin's as well. Not amused, she told the officer she saw no problem in driving around with her dummy because everyone else was doing it.
Whether there are a lot of people driving around with dummies, I don't know. But I do think there are a lot of people worshipping dummies—or at least a dumbed-down version of God. The second of the Ten Commandments has to do with worshipping the right God in the right way:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. . . . (Exodus 20:4–5)
We must worship God the way He wants us to worship Him, because how we worship matters as much as whom we worship. Does this mean that it is wrong to wear a cross or to have a painting or drawing of Jesus? No. But it is wrong when we have those objects to use as an aid to worship.
Jesus said, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). It is good to worship God in spirit. But Jesus said we must also worship Him in truth.
There is a right way to worship the right God. And God is not pleased when we feel we need images or icons or statues to help us in our worship.
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Why God's Purpose for the Tribulation excludes the Church - by Thomas Ice – www.pretrib.org
"And the LORD your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the Lord, and observe all His commandments which I command you today."
-Deuteronomy 30:7-8
God's purpose for the tribulation (i.e., the seven-year, 70th week of Daniel) revolves around His plan for Israel and does not include a earthly presence for the church. Why? Because God's plan for Israel is unfinished at this point in history. When the role of the church is completed she will be taken as a completed body to heaven in an instant-at the rapture. This will clear the way for a restoration and resumption of progress toward the completion of our Sovereign Lord's plans for His elect nation-Israel.
The Tribulation Focuses on Israel
The Bible teaches that the tribulation is a time of preparation for Israel's restoration and conversion (Deut. 4:29-30; Jer. 30:3-11; Zech. 12:10).1 While the church will experience tribulation in general during this present age (John 15:18-25; 16:33; 2 Tim. 3:10-13), she is never mentioned as participating in Israel's time of trouble, which includes the Great Tribulation, the Day of the Lord, and the Wrath of God. Gerald Stanton explains:
The Tribulation does not deal with the Church at all, but with the purification of Israel. It is not the "time of the Church's trouble," but the "time of Jacob's trouble." The emphasis of the Tribulation is primarily Jewish. This fact is borne out by Old Testament Scriptures (Deut. 4: 30; Jer. 30: 7; Ezek. 20: 37; Dan. 12:1; Zech. 13:8-9), by the Olivet Discourse of Christ (Matt. 24:9-26), and by the book of Revelation itself (Rev. 7:4-8; 12:1-2; 17, etc.). It concerns "Daniel's people," the coming of "false Messiah," the preaching of the "gospel of the kingdom," flight on the "sabbath," the temple and the "holy place," the land of Judea, the city of Jerusalem, the twelve "tribes of the children of Israel," the "son of Moses," "signs" in the heavens, the "covenant" with the Beast, the "sanctuary," the "sacrifice and the oblation" of the temple ritual. These all speak of Israel and clearly demonstrate that the Tribulation is largely a time when God deals with His ancient people prior to their entrance into the promised kingdom. The many Old Testament prophecies yet to be fulfilled for Israel further indicate a future time when God will deal with this nation (Deut. 30:1-6; Jer. 30:8-10, etc.).2
The Church is Absent from the Tribulation
Not one Old Testament passage on the tribulation refers to the church (Deut. 4:29-30; Jer. 30:4-11; Dan. 8:24-27; 12:1-2), nor does the New Testament ever speak of the church in relation to the tribulation (Matt. 13:30, 39-42, 48-50; 24:15-31; 1 Thess. 1:9-10, 5:4-9; 2 Thess. 2:1-11; Rev. 4-18), except as present in heaven. Such silence speaks loudly and supports the pre-trib position, especially when combined with clear, explicit statements that promise her exemption from that time (Rom. 5:9; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Rev. 3:10). Note the clear promise to the church of Revelation 3:10:
Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth.
If pretribulationism is indeed the teaching of Scripture, then we would expect that passages dealing with the tribulation would consistently make no mention of the church. This is exactly what we find. However, Israel is mentioned often throughout these texts. Dr. Robert Gromacki has studied the New Testament book of Revelation, chapters 4-19, which gives the most detailed overview of the seven-year tribulation in all the Bible. He has shown the following:
However, there is a strange silence of the term in chapters 4-19. That fact is especially noteworthy when you contrast that absence with its frequent presence in the first three chapters. One good reason for this phenomenon is the absence of the true church and true evangelical churches in the seven years preceding the Second Coming. The true believers of the church have gone into the presence of Christ in heaven before the onset of the events of the seven year period. The church is not mentioned during the seal, trumpet, and bowl judgments because the church is not here during the outpouring of these judgments.3
Tribulation on a Christ-Rejecting World
Another purpose for the tribulation is that it is a time of God's wrath upon a Christ-rejecting world and a time of revenge for Gentile treatment of Israel.
Moreover, it is evident that the Tribulation also concerns God's judgment upon Christ-rejecting Gentile nations. Babylon, which "made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication" (Rev. 14:8), shall herself "be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her" (Rev. 18:8). The "cities of the nations" shall fall, after which Satan shall be bound "that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled" (Rev. 20:3). God's judgment falls likewise upon the individual wicked, the kings of the earth, the great, the rich, and the mighty, every bond man and every free man (Rev. 6:15-17). It falls upon all who blaspheme the name of God and repent not to give Him glory (Rev. 16:9). Wicked men, godless nations, suffering Israel--these may all be found in Revelation 6-18; but one looks in vain for the Church of Christ, which is His body, until he reaches the nineteenth chapter. There she is seen as the heavenly bride of Christ, and when He returns to earth to make His enemies His footstool, she is seen returning with Him (I Thess. 3: 13).4
Such a time of judgment does not require the church, who has not rejected Christ, to be present. With the church in heaven during the tribulation, it enables God's focus to be on Israel as His Divine instrument through which He acts. This program was predicted by the Lord before Joshua and Israel ever entered the Promised Land. Notice the predicted pattern:
1) then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. (Deut. 30:3)
2) And the LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it . . . (Deut. 30:5a)
3) And the LORD your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the LORD, and observe all His commandments which I command you today. (Deut. 30:7-8)
Zechariah speaks of the Lord's retribution upon the nations as a time when "the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem . . . in that day that I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem." (Zech. 12:8-9) Once again the focus is upon Israel, in this case Jerusalem, not the church.
The book of Revelation provides a graphic depiction of God's judgment upon an unbelieving world, often called "earth dwellers." As God prosecutes His judgment upon the "earth dwellers," John records periodic pauses by our Lord as He evaluates the response of mankind to His judgment before going onto the next phase. It is as if the Lord inflicts a series of judgments and then surveys the landscape to see if, like Ninevah in the days of Jonah, there is repentance so that He can suspend prosecution of the war. Un like Ninevah in the days of Jonah, the "earth dwellers" do not relent in the wake of "the wrath of the Lamb" (Rev. 6:16), so our Lord proceeds to the next phase of His battle. Every step of the way, the "earth dwellers" would "not repent of the works of their hands" (Rev. 9:20) Instead of worshipping Christ, "the earth and those who dwell in it . . . worship the first beast" (Rev. 13:12). Instead of repentance they "blasphemed God" (Rev. 16:21). Finally, "all the nations were deceived" (Rev. 18:23) resulting in the satanic notion that the armies of the world must march against Jerusalem-God's city-and Israel-His people. This results in the basis for the second coming of Christ, which is to resue Israel from the world's armies who are striking out at God by invading His people. Such a scenario does not demand or require the church and so she will not be there. We can see that the purpose of the tribulation revovles around God's plan for Israel, not the church.
Conclusion
Only pretribulationism is able to give full import to tribulation terms like "the time of Jacob's trouble" (Jer. 30:7), as a passage specifically stating that the tribulation is for Jacob (i.e., Israel). John Walvoord concludes,
Never are tribulation saints given the special and perculiar promises given to the church in the present age. The nature of the church in contrast to Israel therefore becomes an argument supporting the pretribulation viewpoint.5
Since God's purpose for the tribulation is to restore Israel (Jer. 30:3, 10) and judge the Gentiles (Jer. 30:11), it is clear that this purpose does not include the church. This is one of the reasons why she will be taken to heaven before this time. The church's hope is a heavenly one, not participation in the culmination and restoration of God's plan for His earthly people-Israel. Maranatha! W
Endnotes
1 These arguments are adopted from John F. Walvoord, The Rapture Question, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), pp. 270-71.
2 Gerald B. Stanton, Kept From The Hour: Biblical Evidence for the Pretribulational Return of Christ, 4th edition (Miami Springs, FL: Schoettle Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 35-36.
3 Robert Gromacki, "Where is 'The Church' in Revelation 4-19?" in Thomas Ice and Timothy Demy, editors When The Trumpet Sounds (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995), p. 355.
4 Stanton, Ibid., p. 36.
5 Walvoord, Ibid., p. 65.
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(Lord Come Quickly)
"On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, All other ground is sinking sand."
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