A Nation Without a Moral Foundation

Corruption has become so rampant in our American government that it is hard not to be shocked by what has become “business as usual.” The outcome of the undercover videos about Planned Parenthood is one that is so low that it should not escape anyone’s attention.

In 2015, a grouped called, The Center for Medical Progress, released several gruesome videos that showed Planned Parenthood officials conspiring with undercover reporters to make money off of aborted baby parts. One Planned Parenthood worker proudly said, “I want to buy a Lamborghini.”

The day the video was released the abortion-loving-press didn’t know how to react to the video. The footage was so evil that liberals had to struggle with what was left of their moral conscience. For about three days, they were silent as the video rapidly disseminated over social media.

Once the liberal media regained their composure, they launched a counterstrike. They first reported that the videos were an “Extremely offensive intrusion and [showed a] lack of respect for women.”

The Guardian then turned disgust on its head by describing the videos as a “Stomach-churning sequence of anti-abortion activists picking through a bowl of fetal tissue.” Others tried the bald-faced denial approach, saying “The video showed no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood.”

If you could have stepped into a time machine and traveled a year into the future, before you reached your time destination, you most likely would have concluded that Planned Parenthood would be seriously punished and that there would be a positive outcome for the group behind the videos. Your thoughts may have been similar to the thoughts on my list:

1. Planned Parenthood would be found in violation of the federal “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations” or “RICO” statute.

2.They would have lost all its government funding.

3. The makers of the video sting would not gain heroic status.

A year later, Planned Parenthood has not been charged with any crime and receives the same amount of money from the government that they were given before their heinous practice of selling aborted baby’s body parts was exposed.

The Center for Medical Progress has been made the villain by our corrupt Judicial system. A grand jury has indicted Susan and David Daleiden for allegedly “Tampering with governmental record with intent to defraud and harm Planned Parenthood.” The pair also faces a misdemeanor charge related to the purchase of human organs.

The tampering with governmental record charge is being used because the Daleiden’s used fake driver’s licenses to get into a Texas clinic. Tampering with a governmental record is a serious charge that carries punishment of up to 20 years in prison; but it’s really only the equivalent of buying beer with a fake ID. An Attorney for the Daleiden’s called the second charge “ridiculous,” saying the activists never intended to actually purchase the aborted babies.

We are not going to return to sanity by electing more Republicans. It was a Republican controlled house that cast the vote to continue funding Planned Parenthood. America’s problems are the result of us turning our back on God.

When the Founding Fathers drafted our original Constitution, they based that new document on moral principles found in the Bible. That truth is not always understood because the forces of darkness have revised history books to argue that America was founded by men who used secular morality as their guide. When we read direct quotes from our Founding Fathers, we get the true understanding of their inspiration:

John Jay, the first Chief-Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court stated, “The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.”

Noah Webster, author of the first American Speller and the first Dictionary stated:

The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. . . All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the U. S. House, “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

Fisher Ames author of the final wording for the First Amendment wrote:

“[Why] should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.”

Benjamin Franklin, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

The quote from Franklin would be prophetic except for the fact that moral depravity has been evidenced throughout history. The Roman Empire rotted from the inside out. The nation of Israel lost its way many times. The only thing different with our age is that the whole world faces God’s judgment.

“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9 :17).

–Todd

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Gog Incentive

One recent day’s headlines combine to produce a picture that brings the lateness of the prophetic hour into focus:

China’s Xi calls for creation of Palestinian state

Tunisia declares nationwide curfew as violent protests against unemployment and poverty spread

Syria conflict: “US expanding air strip” in Kurdish north

Saudi-Iranian proxy war over Syria spreads to World Economic Forum meeting

French Prime Minister warns Europe will be “totally destabilized” if it takes all refugees

This is what the death of a nation looks like: Venezuela prepares for 720% hyperinflation

Haiti postpones Sunday’s presidential election as violence erupts

Nations are in distress with perplexity. The seas and waves of peoples around the world are roaring. All signals point to the soon coming Tribulation outlined in the greatest of all prophetic books –The Revelation. All the while, it is pretty much business as usual within the confines of the United States while the country prepares for another presidential election.

The global financial powers that be are in disarray equal to that of the national leaders around the world who are in the aforementioned distress with perplexity. The international stock exchanges appear to be set for massive collapse, yet the trigger point for that Humpty-Dumpty fall seems held up by some unseen hand of fate. All appears to be in configuration precisely as Jesus foretold it will be at the time of His next, catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind. –Not the Second Advent of Revelation 19:11-14, but the Rapture as given by Paul as recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15 and 1 Corinthians 15:52-55, and even by Jesus Himself in John 14:1-3.

Surrounding all of these stage-props for the final act of the age, the handwriting is appearing on the walls of human history, perhaps beginning to clarify how the Ezekiel 38-39 scenario will play out. The nation Israel, as the student of Bible prophecy might expect, is in the middle of these most interesting developments.

News reports have informed for some months the many intrigues of the oil industry while cost per barrel has been tumbling since Saudi reduced its prices. It is believed by many “experts” that that oil-rich nation’s royal family, in concert with the United States presidential administration, cut prices to undercut Russia’s upsurging involvement in oil production and sales around the world.

The undercutting worked. The ruble fell precipitously, and although the Russian currency unit is now up to around 85 cents against the U.S. dollar, Vladimir Putin’s budding Russian empire continues to suffer. And, while he and his country suffers, he remains resolute in presenting the image of being able to project power in the manner of the Soviet regime at the apex of its being able to threaten the world.

Despite great concerns that Putin indeed has the military resources and other assets to truly threaten his neighbors–and the rest of the world–experts with first-hand knowledge of Russia’s capability provide interesting perspective to somewhat the contrary.

Bill Browder, chief executive officer of Hermitage Capital, and a former champion advocating for Vladimir Putin, now believes the Russian president leads a nation in such great peril of likely collapse that the situation portends danger for the world.

Browder’s ire against Putin was generated as the result of two of his colleagues who opposed Putin’s rule being killed–Browder supposes–by Putin’s henchmen. Browder, himself, was expelled from Russia in 2005 after criticizing alledged endemic corruption in the country.

Browder told CNBC that Russia is in severe recession and could very soon descend into chaos if money in Russia “runs out.”

“I don’t think you can underestimate how bad the situation in Russia is right now, you’ve got oil below any measure where the budget can survive and you’ve got sanctions from the West. Russia is in what I’d call a real serious economic crisis,” he said on Thursday [Jan 21]… .

He told CNBC while attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) that Russia’s Central Bank is “running out of money.” He added: “Eventually they’re going to run out of that money and when they do, that’s when the real trouble begins.”(Rapture Ready News 1/22/16)

So, perhaps the Gog “evil thought” of Ezekiel 38-39 begins to become increasingly understandable to the diligent student of Bible prophecy. Russia’s movement into the Middle East is itself an astounding development. Astonishing oil and gas discoveries off the coast of the Jewish state and within the Golan Heights area truly add prophetic intrigue in the minds of those who observe. These things, combined with such reports of Russia’s dire economic straits give food for thought, indeed. Does it all add up to being the incentive that will put hooks in the jaws of that prophesied leader termed “Gog”? Stay tuned, as they say…

Terry

The Misadventures of Blasphemy Boy

The followers of Islam have become an endless source of lunacy. With each passing day, these people seem to be fixated on outdoing themselves in irrational antics. If they are not blowing themselves up in some region of the world, they are raping women in public places.

The latest act of craziness occurred in Pakistan. A 15-year-old boy cut off his own hand, believing he had committed blasphemy. Anwar Ali, was attending an evening prayer gathering at the mosque in the village of Khanqah, southwest of Lahore. At one point, the imam, identified as Shabir Ahmed, questioned those in attendance.

The imam called out: “Who among you is a follower of Mohammed?”

Everyone raised their hands.

He then asked: “Who among you doesn’t believe in the teachings of the Holy Prophet? Raise your hands!”

Ali, misheard the question and raised his hand, believing that Ahmed had asked, “Who loves Muhammad?” He realized his mistake when he saw that his was the only hand up, he quickly put it down. But by then Mr. Ahmad was screaming “Blasphemer!” at Ali, along with many others in the crowd. “Don’t you love your prophet?” they called, as Ali fled in disgrace.

If I’m in church and the preacher says, “Give a shout if you love the Lord” and then follows by, “Raise your hand if you don’t trust that the Bible is the Word of God,” I’m not even going to acknowledge the fact I wasn’t paying close enough attention. When you share a common faith, you don’t expect trick questions.

To make things right, Ali went home and used a grass-cutting machine to chop off his hand. He then placed his freshly severed right hand on a plate and brought it to the mosque.

The imam reacted to boy’s morbid offering with panic. Fearing for his life, he fled the village.

The police quickly caught Mr. Ahmed and locked him up. But local religious leaders protested, and the authorities backed down and released him. After the international news media began picking up on the story, the authorities rearrested the cleric, holding him on vague terrorism charges. It is unlikely that Ahmed will be convicted of any crime.

The boy’s family is already arguing that the cleric did nothing wrong and should not be punished. In an interview with a local reporter, Ali said he has no regrets about his action. “Why should I feel any pain or trouble in cutting off the hand that was raised against the Holy Prophet?”

Blasphemy is a very serious matter in Pakistan. Angry mobs regularly kill people accused of insulting Islam. Pakistani law does not define blasphemy, but does state that its punishment is death.

What is missing here is common sense.

I have a bad habit of carrying a TV remote control with me whenever I leave my bedroom. I have four remotes for one TV. Quite often, I see something on TV, the remote is on mute, and I can’t find the volume control because all the remotes are scattered around the house.

I get mad because I can’t find one of them, but it never crosses my mind to cut off my hand to break myself of the habit. Anyone who amputated his or her own limb for some trivial reason would be shipped off to the funny farm.

I didn’t come up with the cheeky title of “Blasphemy Boy.” It is the result of how the liberal media processes all events that are negative to Islam. When this story was first reported in the New York Times, the imam was clearly seen as the villain. Four days later, all the coverage had a vastly more positive spin; covering up what should have remained an act of horror.

The BBC sent an Islamic reporter who predictably fawned over Ali for his wonderful dedication to his faith. In a sane world, the first question would be “How could you do something so stupid?”

The key flaw of the Islamic faith is that no one can ever do enough to please its deity. You can cut off both your hands and feet and never be sure that Allah is going to be satisfied with your sacrifice.

What puts Christianity above all other religions is this: We have a Savior that has paid the price. Jesus is the only Person who claimed to be God, who performed miracles to prove His divinity, who died and rose from the dead, and most important—claimed to have the power to forgive sins.

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

–Todd

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Rapture-Resistance Reasoning

While those who truly grasp the lateness of the hour and what the issues and events of these strange, troubled times mean, there is the overwhelming majority that hasn’t a clue. This is neither surprising nor unexpected, because the vast part of the world’s population is in spiritual darkness–without Christ, therefore without the Holy Spirit to guide thinking and comportment.

There are millions upon millions of others who are within Christendom–that is, who claim to be under the umbrella of Christianity. Most of these, statistics bear out, would not qualify as “Christian” under the definition of being “born again.” That is, they haven’t truly “believed” as given in Romans 10:9-10:

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

It is not my place–nor the place of any other person to say who is and isn’t “saved” on an individual basis. However, we are to definitely hold to what the Bible tells us are the qualifications for becoming a child of God who will spend eternity with Him in Heaven. In the sense of discernment, we can say that those who hold to those biblical qualifications are “saved” and those who do not hold to those qualifications are not.

We will deal in this essay with those who fit within the category defined by the above prescription for being born again. I would like to get even more specific.

Among those who are truly born again, there are many views of how things will play out, prophetically speaking. At the same time, there are also many who don’t know and many who don’t care about prophecy–what God has foretold about their future. They are too busy living out their increments of life one heartbeat and breath at a time.

Sadly, the latter by far constitute the majority. That is, most don’t know about Bible prophecy, and most don’t care. They are aided and abetted in their willful ignorance by the pastors and Bible teachers within their church bodies in this disregard for the prophetic portion of God’s Word. That prophetic Word is almost one-third of the Scripture the Lord has given us through His Love Letter to mankind.

Even more specifically, I want to concentrate for the moment on the doctrine of the Rapture of the Church–that twinkling of an eye moment Paul wrote about as recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:52-55.

Of those who have truly been born again, there are few in number who know about the Rapture in concrete terms or who grasp that there will come that moment of being called into Heaven by their Lord. In America, even those who do understand that the Rapture is an event prophetically scheduled according to the Bible resist embracing the promise intrinsic within the doctrine of that imminent call from Christ. That is, rather than desire to hear Christ’s call, “Come up here,” (Revelation 4: 1) these want to first live life on earth and fulfill all of the anticipated pleasures it offers. It is primarily this group of believers to whom I address the thoughts that follow.

Notice, please, that I wrote as a qualifier, “in America.. It is in America that this attitude of not embracing the Rapture among Christians is most pronounced. Proof of that statement is made clear through the thousands upon thousands of sermons that are preached each week. The number of prophetic messages amongst those thousands of sermons are infinitesimal. People don’t want to hear that Christ’s call is imminent. The pastors–in overwhelming numbers–demonstrate that they don’t want to delve into that portion of Bible truth–even if, indeed, they in fact believe that the Rapture is an imminent event.

Not desiring the Rapture is, for American believers, as natural as breathing. Life in the United States is not bad, and for the most part, pretty comfortable. Compared to living as a Christian in, say, the Middle East, Africa, or other parts of the world, being a Christian requires that no heavy price be paid. That is what I mean when I say it is as natural as breathing.

Christians in America, unlike their counterparts in less blessed, heavily oppressed, persecuted parts of the world, rather than worrying about whether they will be able to provide food for themselves and their children for the day, look forward to their upcoming marriages, vacations, or new purchases that will satisfy their latest comfortable lifestyle aspirations. These physical and psychological wants and needs are the natural outflow from abundance. Longing for the Rapture is a spiritual–supernatural–exercise that requires, for most, effort that seems to offer no tangible, immediate gratification. Such effort is just too taxing for most of America’s Christians and their pastors. It takes them out of their comfort zone, much as does prayer and Bible reading.

When American Christians in this category do think of the Rapture–which, again, they in fact believe is a thing that will happen, but somewhere in the hazy years of the future–they fear it will take them away from the pleasures of this earthly life. That event will, they think, snatch them from their comfortable American lifestyle. It will present a completely changed paradigm–one that will cause them to lose homes, family closeness, friendships, other relationships, and their “stuff”–all of which provides familiarity and pleasure.

This is especially true among the younger people. Their disinterest in prophecy in general and in the Rapture of the church in particular is more than obvious in the make-up of prophecy conferences. I can’t see any longer, due to a retinal disease, but am told that the conferences are almost without exception attended nearly exclusively by those with gray hair.

Now, I’ve been perhaps too harsh on Christians in America. However, we are approaching the very end of this Church Age. The perhaps overly stern exhortation is to focus attention on the reality that we might within months, weeks, days, or even hours, look our Lord in His holy, omniscient eyes. He said He was going to prepare a place for us and would come again and take us there with Him (John 14:1-3). That “place” is something we can’t even begin to fathom in its wonders and luxuriant surroundings. All of the relationships in this life we thought we might lose in the Rapture will be magnified in their joy and intimacy a million times over. We are going to find that all earthly treasures we so valued are as refuse compared to things the Lord has prepared for those that love Him.

I sense that the newlywed couple who belong to Christ will find their relationship with each other dazzlingly more intimate than anything planet earth could have nurtured. The “stuff” left behind will be instantly forgotten when we behold the heavenly treasury that holds us spellbound. The best days of our lives in this earthly confinement will seem as a time of terrible, debilitating paralysis. The Rapture will instantaneously bring life unencumbered by gravity and all laws of what we know as physics. The Lord put us here to enjoy the many good things He provides. There’s nothing wrong in living life to its absolute fullest. But, this is not our home. We are but travelers in a foreign land. We are here for, at best, 70, 80, 90, or 100 years, then we slip these surly bonds.

We, as God’s children, should not resist the doctrine of Rapture, but anticipate that glorious instant when the whole purpose of our being born into this universe reaches fruition. We will at that incomprehensible moment understand what it means to be joint heirs with Christ. Even so, Come, Lord Jesus!

–Terry