July 20
America Going to Pot, Literally
It is estimated that marijuana is the biggest cash crop in America. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the entire U.S. marijuana market is worth about $112 billion.
Around the nation, the idea of legalizing recreational marijuana use has been gaining traction. Pro-marijuana bills have been introduced by such prominent politicians as Reps. Barney Frank, Ron Paul, and Sen. Jim Webb.
The epicenter of the pro-pot movement is clearly California. San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has already introduced a bill that would allow adults 21 and older to legally possess, grow, and sell marijuana.
"It defies reason to propose closing parks and eliminating vital services for the poor while this potential revenue is available," Ammiano said in a statement.
It's not just the track record of California's liberal population that has it front and center in the legalization debate. Since California has a massive $26.3 billion budget shortfall, the argument is being made that pot can be a good source of income for the state. One headline made the trade-off very clear: "No Marijuana Taxation without Legalization." A tax on marijuana in California, like alcohol, would generate nearly $1.4 billion in revenue, according to an official analysis released by state tax officials.
The use of marijuana is banned outright under federal law, but It is unlikely that there would be a state- vs.-federal conflict since U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department would defer to state marijuana regulations. Holder is basically saying we are going to void the federal laws by ignoring them.
Over the last several years, the U.S. government has changed the focus of its anti-drug efforts, deemphasizing marijuana in favor of prescription drugs. Even private anti-drug groups have been retreating from the effort to control marijuana usage.
Recent polls show a sharp rise in the public's support for legalization. Thirty years ago, only 27 percent of the population was for marijuana being made legal. Today, there are polls that show nearly 50 percent of the public is for the lifting of such restrictions.
Any ads you do find today about pot are for its free use. The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) is using TV ads to urge California residents to support a plan to legalize and tax marijuana.
Once California becomes a haven for marijuana usage, the pressure will be on other states to join the party. The perfect template for how a vice can spread throughout the land is gambling. At one time, anyone who wanted to roll the dice or try their luck with a one-armed-bandit had to travel to Las Vegas. Today, nearly every state in the Union has some form of gambling.
In my home state of Iowa, they first had riverboat gambling. The twisted thinking was that betting on the river was somehow separate from betting on dry land. Now that people have gotten used to gambling dens, Iowa now has several soil-based casinos throughout the state. Some are equal to ones found in Nevada.
The problem with sin is that it has a very progressive nature. When we allow room for one “minor” sin, one of a more evil nature will quickly follow. I can see legalized euthanasia in the footsteps of the marijuana campaign. Oregon passed a law allowing doctor-assisted suicide, and the pro forces there have won every legal challenge. Gay marriage is another sin sweeping over the nation. Same-sex marriage is now legal in nine states.
All this moral erosion tells me is that tribulation judgment is coming soon. At some point, God will say "enough is enough," and will begin to pour His vengeance on this evil world. We, as believers, need to do our best to combat the forces of darkness. When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the Lord will want to know what role we played in this mess.
"Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences" (2 Corinthians 5:9-11).
-- Todd
Antichrist—Legend or Looming, Lethal Reality?
Recently I interviewed with The History Channel for its documentary series that will be aired this fall. I have reported before that I was very kindly treated by the film company's crew. They are classy folks, and this commentary is in no way meant to cast aspersions their way.
That said, I'm under no delusion that the secular presenters will, in this History Channel presentation, come down on the side of the pretrib view of Bible prophecy, much less on the side of my view in considering prophetic matters in the general sense. Their series, I believe, will invoke the sacred name—in secular thinking—of Nostradamus, the sixteenth-century French seer credited with predicting such things as the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Second World War. Nostradamus is always, it seems, right smack in the center of all documentaries on things to come.
This puts all such presentations into a somewhat adversarial role with what God's Word has to say about truth, when it comes to the foretelling of things to come:
"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of
His majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to
Him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And
His voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:16-21).
Jesus Christ, you see, is the Word (John 1:1). He gave the prophecies to the Old and New Testament prophets. His is the only truth there is with regard to prophecy or anything else. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life..." (John 14:6a). Jesus alone knows the end from the beginning, and has given us all we need to know. He IS the very Word of God.
So it is with annoyance that drives me to distraction that I've listened to (I must listen, because I'm blind) the many documentaries on prophecy coming across the TV cables in these trying although exciting times. The documentary, no matter which of any given series on prophecy, without fail presents short clips of those who champion the literal—and, in my view, true—perspective of things to come. Academic theologians of the non-literalist ilk then are placed to follow those who give the literal position. These always put off the Bible renderings of prophecy as symbolism, allegory, or as history already accomplished.
For example, you might remember watching one of these programs in which a proponent of literal fulfillment presents the Antichrist as the most terrible tyrant who will ever rule on planet earth. Jesus himself said that the time of the beast's rule—the Great Tribulation—will be the worst time of human history (Matthew 24:21-22). Following the literalist view, immediately, is a theological professor from a major university or other high ecclesiastical chair saying with a tolerant smile that John, the writer of Revelation—whom, he pedantically asserts, was not John the apostle—was just speaking in language couched in coded verbiage. The warnings about the Antichrist, these debunkers of the literal view claim, is just meant to slam imperial Rome and its Caesar ruling at the time of John's 90-96 A.D. writing of the Revelation.
Revelation was given, these proclaim, only to give the persecuted Christians of the time hope of Christ's return to put an end to their suffering. Revelation, in this historical view, was not prophecy—in actuality was no more than an anti-Roman Empire political pamphlet. This constant effort to dispel any and all notions of Bible prophecy being any more than apocalyptic literature is proof positive, in this writer's view, that Lucifer, the angel of false light, is indeed the prince of the power of the air in these quickly fleeting end of days.
My prayerful hope is that those in the cutting rooms of documentary filmmakers will change the formula for once...that they will let the high-minded theoretical anti-literalist theologians be given their say first, and follow their—in my view—prevarication with the views of those who hold up God's Word, who is Jesus Christ, as saying what He means and meaning what He says.
Bible prophecy calls Antichrist “the Beast” for good reason. Revelation is the book of the unveiling of Jesus Christ in all of His power and glory, and of His literal return to this sin-fallen sphere. Chapter 13 of that book also unveils a literal coming world ruler—the most dastardly in history—who will force all to worship him or be murdered. We see today the setting up of his future kingdom in ways that are astonishing, considering the speed of their development.
Antichrist isn't a legend; he is a looming, lethal reality.
--Terry
