Apathy in Dealing with Infectious Diseases

The heads of several tech companies have recently pledged money to combat diseases. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has funded a project that will bring together a group of scientists, engineers, doctors, and other experts in an attempt to “cure, prevent, or manage all diseases in our children’s lifetime.” Zuckerberg said he will devote 99 percent of his fortune to this cause.

Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, believes one day we will find a way to live forever. Ray Kurzweil, Google’s chief futurist, said in April, “We will reach a point around 2029 when medical technologies will add one additional year every year to your life expectancy.”

These goals of curing all disease and achieving immortality are pipe dreams. We have learned a great deal about the functions of living organisms, but our knowledge has not allowed us to master the codes of life. In reality, we are slowly losing the battle against infectious diseases. An entire series of bacterial pathogens have developed resistance to nearly every antibiotic.

The problem is so bad the United Nations has just declared antibiotic Resistance as a Crisis, putting it on par with Ebola and HIV. It is hoped that the classification will lead to the funding and research needed to combat, or even fully eradicate, the problem, which is currently responsible for more than 23,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone.

The World Health Organization has warned that gonorrhea “may soon become untreatable” because of growing resistance to the antibiotic ceftriaxone, a member of the cephalosporin class.

Head lice do not cause death, but its resistance to treatment shows the problem. In 1945, the insecticide solution to treat lice known as Nix, was the most commonly used treatment and was nearly 100 percent effective against the organism. Today, only 2 percent of head lice can be treated with NIX.

Even when virus kills large numbers of people, there is no alarm by world governments. The West African Ebola epidemic of 2013 to 2016 was the most widespread epidemic of the Ebola virus disease in history. Ebola has up to a 70 percent fatality rate. Doctors that wore heavy protective gear still managed to become infected with the virus. We still don’t have any cure or specific treatment for Ebola.

At one point in 2014, the number of cases was doubling every couple weeks. We were within a month of seeing the infections rate reach the hundreds of thousands, but then the disease just suddenly stopped in its track. It was like the virus was meant to be some type of warning.

Another indication of how unprepared we are with disease is the problem with the Zika virus. For most people, the infection is similar to a very mild form of dengue fever. The horror of Zika occurs when a pregnant woman becomes infected, the virus spreads to her fetus.

This can result in microcephaly (severe brain malformations), and other birth defects. Unlike Ebola, which erupted in Africa, Zika has reached the shores of America. Florida has asked Congress for money to help with the eradication of mosquitoes that carry the virus, and lawmakers have failed to move for several months.

I have to wonder if these bugs have invaded people’s brains, reprogramming them to be apathetic. Leprosy is a disease that was once wiped out in the Western world. Because we allow infected people to freely enter our country, leprosy has re-emerged as a risk factor. When children from immigrant families turn up at school with leprosy, the media conceals the source of the infection.

If the tech giants were able to cure infectious diseases they would also greatly discredit Bible prophecy. Since plagues and pestilences are a key element of the Tribulation hour, their removal would be a huge obstacle to several prophetic passages.

The lack of concern about infectious diseases is a direct result of the moral state of the world. We have the same level of apathy about terrorism, nuclear war, and natural disasters. Because God has already determined to use plagues and pestilences to show His wrath upon a wicked world, the ultimate threat from these dangers is 100 percent. The next time we have an epidemic, it may not stop until we have toll that fits the carnage described by prophecy.

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places” (Matthew 24:7).

“These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will” (Revelation 11:6).

“I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God” (Revelation 15:1).

 

–Todd

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Power

Henry Kissinger once said that political power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. He should know. He was for many years at or near the very top on that political leadership chain that wields such power. Some believe he remains so today, even into his nineties.

Power is the one thing for which the global elitists lust. It has been that way since Nimrod first thought to establish one-world order on the plains of Shinar those millennia ago. The constant, incessant drive since the time God intervened and scattered the would-be globalist government architects at Babel has continued to be construction of humanistic world order under the absolute authority of a small number of power brokers.

Daniel the prophet and John the revelator both saw the same composite beast coming out of the sea of humanity at the very end of history. Each vision represented a single-governing, global entity. Daniel, in particular, saw that the monster was the composite of great world empires of the past.

Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first waslike a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. (Daniel 7:2-8)

John prophesied the following through his Patmos vision: And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. (Revelation 13: 1-2)

It is clear that the great prophets Daniel and John were given almost identical visions of the monstrous hybrid entity that will one day crush all of humanity under its massively destructive power. Representing all of the great humanistic empires of history, the satanically driven final world empire will have at its head a single mouth–that of Antichrist–the first beast of Revelation 13. That mouth will speak “great things,” meaning it will propagandize the world’s inhabitants to such an extent that they will believe a great lie that will deceive all but the very elect of God–those saved during the Tribulation era (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).

To anyone with eyes to see and especially with ears to hear, we are witness today of the development of that great power to deceive. The globalists are shouting with the all-in assistance of the world’s media and through actions that are louder than mere words. They want to transform the world into the new Babel–a neo-Nimrod platform upon that will erect, at least symbolically, a tower even more powerful and all-encompassing than that Tower of Babel of antiquity.

This, to me, is what is among the most troubling in this presidential election. There is a clear distinction between the directions the two major candidates want to go with regard to how America will be governed for the next four years.

The power struggle is immense. One candidate claims that he wants to begin returning the United States to the leadership of the world of nations, with maintenance of traditionally distinctive borders and ways of dealing internationally.

The other candidate’s driving imperative is clearly to continue taking America down the path of deconstructing national boundaries and forcing slavish adherence to more and more internationalist regulations. She is adamantly determined to bring this nation into compliance with the globalist, one-world design.

I say that to me this is especially troubling because Bible prophecy clearly presents that a beastly composite, world order will one day come to pass, if but for a short time. National autonomy and sovereignty will therefore have to at some point diminish and ultimately vanish.

Those of us who want to see America and other nations maintaining–or I should say returning–the international order to like it has been in the recent past seem on the wrong side of Bible prophecy. The globalists seem on the winning side, in that sense.

This election will supposedly determine whether we will go one direction or the other with regard to whether we will live under the U.S. Constitution or under Global Agenda 21 or 30, or whatsoever it’s called now.

Lucifer lusted after God-like power (Isaiah 14:14). All of fallen mankind since the time of the Garden of Eden has clamored for God-like power, which Satan promised through his original deception to Eve. Today, with a U.S. presidential candidacy that threatens to disrupt their one-world agenda, there is a desperate effort to hold to power in Washington, D.C., in the U.N., and in the echelons of principalities and powers in high places (Ephesians 6:12).

The die is cast, as Shakespeare would put it. The new world order is coming. It’s just a matter of when. Will it come during this presidential election cycle?

I believe the answer to that might depend upon the born again of this nation.

According to Paul’s prophecy in 2 Thessalonians, the Restrainer (the Holy Spirit resident within each individual believer in Jesus Christ) will restrain until He (the Holy Spirit) is taken out of the way. Then all-out iniquity will fill the vacuum left in the wake of His removal as Restrainer.

The Church–all born-again believers–just might have at its prayerful fingertips the power to hold back or restrain absolute evil until Christ’s Body–all born-again believers–is removed.

It is incumbent upon each of us as believers, therefore, to appropriate that Power of restraint against those who would bring about the Antichrist, globalist power base for as long as we serve as Royal Ambassadors upon this judgment-bound planet.

The power of prayer is beyond anything the finite mind can fathom. Let us use the privilege we have been given to exercise this great weapon against the ultimate evil Satan plans for humanity.

 

–Terry

Islamic Terror Is Driving Us Toward a Police State

The frequency of Islamic terror attacks has become so common in the world that we regularly see multiple events occur during the span of a week. The lack of activity during the latter part of August and the first part of September had me wondering if Muslims were on some unannounced holiday.

It only took one single day for Arab terrorists to make it clear that any respite is just a fluke. Here is a breakdown of events from last Saturday:

9:35am – A pipe bomb explodes near a charity race organized by the U.S. Marines. Because the race had been delayed, there were no injuries. A second device was found near the site.

8:30pm – A loud explosion is heard in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. The source of the blast came from a device that was placed under a metal dumpster. A total of 29 people suffered non life-threatening injuries.

9:15pm – A knife-wielding assailant dressed in security guard uniform stabs nine people at the Crossroads Center shopping mall in St. Cloud Minnesota. Authorities said the attacker is reported to have mentioned Allah and to have asked at least one of his victims if he or she was Muslim.

11:30pm – A second device built from a pressure cooker and containing wires and a mobile phone is discovered a few blocks from the New York blast site. It is safely defused before being sent to an FBI lab. Several fingerprints were later recovered from the device.

The mall attacker, Dahir Adan, is a Somali immigrant. He was born in Africa and had lived in the United States for 15 years. He was shot and killed by Jason Falconer, an off-duty police officer, and firearms instructor. Adan appears to have hate issues against America. In a poorly written Facebook post, he wrote “Osama dead but his people ain’t, that’s a scary thing cause they going to want payback on the U.S.”

The bombs in New Jersey and New York were the work of Ahmad Khan Rahami. He was born in Afghanistan in 1988 and first came to the United States in 1995, several years after his father arrived seeking asylum. The FBI interviewed Rahami’s father in 2014 after a violent domestic dispute. That interview stemmed from a tip alleging that Rahami’s father was calling his son a terrorist.

If we had a federal government that truly wants to protect its citizens from harm, both of these individuals should have already been placed on an FBI database of potential terrorists. When Rahami’s father labeled him as a terrorist, he was already in jail for stabbing one of his relatives.

Another red flag should have been a lawsuit filed in 2011 by The Rahami family alleging discrimination and harassment because it was operating a restaurant in violation of city ordinances hours of operation.

The key problem we have with the Islamic world is a clash of cultures. The people of the Muslim faith operate under the idea that all other societies need to bow to their religion. They come to the West, and instead of being thankful for having been allowed to escape some horrible situation in the Middle East, they insist we conform to their twisted set of values.

Terrorism continues to get worse because our leaders think that accommodation is the best way to resolve the problem. Unless we are willing to abandon our Christian faith, there is no way to find common ground with a faith that seeks our enslavement.

There is a high cost that comes with this policy of appeasement. With each new attack, we lose another chunk of our freedom. The bomb that went off in New York shut down a large section of the city for two days. If it had been a dirty nuclear or chemical bomb that killed hundreds of people, the whole area would have been placed under martial law.

It was the growing security apparatus that led to the capture of Rahami. He was identified by one of 8,000 cameras that have been added to New York streets since the September 11 terror attacks as part of the city’s “Ring of Steel.” Big Brother may have an eye out for terrorists, but the growing sophistication of surveillance systems also has him keeping an eye on us.

The only fix for the problem of Islamic terror is to punish those committing the crimes. In the 1800s and early 1990s, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration sent people back to Europe if they thought they were unfit for American society. Back then, a return trip by boat took nearly a month.

Today, we could have Mohammed, Khaldun and Abdul back in sand land in under 16 hours. We’ve become so timid that we are taking the coward’s option by doing nothing. The needed response to this terror should be righteous anger.

“Oppression makes a wise man mad” (Ecclesiastes 7:7a).

“Who executes justice for the oppressed; Who gives food to the hungry The LORD sets the prisoners free. The LORD opens the eyes of the blind; The LORD raises up those who are bowed down; The LORD loves the righteous; The LORD protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, But He thwarts the way of the wicked” (Psalm 146:7-9).

–Todd

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The Wheel of Humanity

It is the geopolitical center of earth’s most dangerous dilemma from the standpoint of the threat of nuclear Armageddon. It even outweighs the gravity of threats from ISIS, Russia, China, or North Korea.

The very survival or destruction of humanity’s future seems to revolve around this nucleus geopolitical matter.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced the problem in a recent video.

Israel’s diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace. Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews.

There’s a phrase for that: It’s called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous. It’s even more outrageous that the world doesn’t find this outrageous.

Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage.

Out of 138 nations eligible to vote on United Nations Resolution A/67/L.28, only Israel, the United States, Canada, and the Czech Republic voted against the resolution, while forty-one abstained.

The resolution reaffirms: “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, in a practically unprecedented such bias-tinged statement, declared recently that the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian-controlled territories “must end.”

As the U.N. world leaders gathered in New York City the past week, the number one-collective thought, if not necessarily expressed as the all-out obsession of most gathered, was the idea to force Israel to give up land for peace. It was the same old, ages-long rant: There can’t be peace until Israel gives the Palestinians back their rightful land.

Only, it isn’t theirs. God gave it to Israel in perpetuity:

And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. (Genesis 17:7-8)

But, if you don’t accept that biblical claim, then how about this one?

Israel took the territory in question in a series of modern wars, the most pertinent for this argument being accomplished in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The diplomatic world frets that this is the sticking point for Middle East peace. They fret further that if not forthcoming, acceptance of the demand that Israel give up the land in question for peace will mean World War III–nuclear conflict, and the end of humanity itself.

Actually the inverse is true–thus according to God’s Word, which prophesies the following:

I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3: 2)

Most all of the leaders of the nations are dead set to do just what this foreboding prophecy foretells. They are determined to part or divide God’s land. At some point, this will be accomplished, because that’s what Armageddon is all about. All nations will be brought by the God of Israel into the Valley of Jehoshaphat–that is, to the place where Armageddon will unfold.

All of this is shaping up at a rapid pace while most every signal of prophetic significance is coming together in dramatic convergence. We have covered these converging signals of end-times alignment many times in this column.

There is perhaps no such prophetic element so important as the nations of the world dealing treacherously with God’s timepiece–Israel.

One of the great Bible teachers of these present days mentioned Israel in relationship to the world’s nations the other day. I was sipping my coffee and watching his thirty-minute Bible study at 5 a.m. It was Through the Bible with Les Feldick, and Les made a profound point. The fact that he had made it way back in 2001 when the program was taped did not diminish its profundity.

He said (and I paraphrase) that the world is like a wheel, with Israel its hub. All of humanity move in their orbits around this people as God permits with Israel, His chosen, at the center. He gave the following Scripture:

When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. (Jeremiah 32: 8-9)

This does not in any way mean that the Jewish people are better than any other. As a matter of fact, God points out on occasion that they have been among the most obstinate. But, make no mistake, Israel is His, and it will be the nations of the world forcing its version of peace on that nation that will bring about God’s wrath and judgment. That great wheel of humanity and history is rolling ever closer to Armageddon.

–Terry