The Man Who Declared War on God

The Man Who Declared War on God
Vol: 11 Issue: 31 Saturday, August 31, 2002

Michael Newdow was the Sacramento atheist who sued his daughter’s school because he claimed she was made to feel uncomfortable hearing other kids recite ‘one nation, under God’ during the Pledge of Allegiance.

He won his suit. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concurred, and the rights of 9 million Americans were ruled secondary to the rights of Newdow’s daughter NOT to hear the Name of God.

Newdow filed his lawsuit on behalf of his daughter, alleging the Pledge did her irreparable harm. After the Court ruled in his favor, it was revealed that the daughter had nothing to do with it.

Not only does Newdow not even have custody of his daughter, but both his daughter and her mother are Christians.

Newdow, having admitted he used his daughter to gain standing before the court, protested about the attention his suit focused on her.

Probably because the mother and daughter then sued to have the little girl’s name removed from the Pledge suit. In any case, Newdow’s ‘standing before the court’ amounted to being the non-custodial, biological father of a little Christian girl, and on the strength of that, defeated God in open court.

Like Deja Vu All Over Again

Having gained the sympathy of the 9th Circuit Court [the court that ruled in favor of legalizing marijuana use for Rastafarians on religious grounds] by pretending to represent his daughter, now Newdow is going back to court to challenge God, pretending to represent you.

He filed suit this week in federal district court in Washington contending that it is unconstitutional for taxpayer-funded chaplains to pray in Congress and minister to lawmakers.

He wants the court to prohibit the House and Senate from employing spiritual chaplains, who are paid by Congress to lead prayers, counsel members and perform other religious tasks.

“If congressmen want to go to church, (then) walk down the block like other Americans do and go to church,” Newdow said in an interview Thursday. “Don’t get my government engaged in it. There are some people who don’t love God almighty. That’s why we have an Establishment Clause.”

In truth, the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Assessment:

No matter how many times I’ve tried to see it the way the courts do, I just can’t get there from here. The logic doesn’t work.

If Congress is forbidden from making laws respecting the establishment of a religion, but is also conjoined from prohibiting the free exercise thereof, then it would appear that the Court cannot rule in favor of Newdow on part A without being in violation of part B, since forcibly constraining anyone from worship, even members of Congress, consitutes prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The courts began in the mid 50’s to take the position the Founders were not necessarily Christians (?) and therefore, when they referred to ‘religion’ (except in the Constitution) they were speaking of religion as a philosophy — they meant all religion.

But when the courts examine the Establishment Clause, ‘religion’ is always interpreted as Judeo-Christianity — making the practice of religion a Constitutionally protected guarantee, but the worship of God unconstitutional.

Perpetrating this fraud required a concerted effort a juriprudential double-speak and historical revisionism on a scale that should take our breath away, but doesn’t.

To interpret the Establishment Clause as permitting religion but prohibiting God meant ignoring historical legal precedents going back to the foundation of America.

The courts therefore take the position on the Constitution that it means what it says when that suits the worldview of the justices involved, and it means what the jurists think the Founders wanted when interrpeting it literally runs counter to their worldview. (Sounds like a ‘religion’ of its own)

If, for example a particular judge didn’t believe in God, for example, ‘God’ becomes the prohibited part of religion, but the practice of it apart from God is legal, since, in their view, religion is meaningless anyway.

Rulings of this kind have a cumulative effect of separating God from religion as a legal precedent. Protected religions are those that worship Allah, Buddha, Zoroaster and Vishnu. Prohibited religions are Biblically-based.

Reality is not an issue. Need proof? Newdow’s suit demands the removal of paid Congressional chaplains as being unconstitutional. He argues that such was never the intent of the Founding Fathers. And a court accepted the suit as having sufficient merit to warrant a hearing.

The Congress has had paid chaplains since 1789. So, as I said earlier, you can’t get there from here.

In trying to sort out social trends for the last days, I often refer to Paul’s second letter to Timothy — since it is so relevant to the time in which we live.

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:1, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Paul lists some of the characteristics of society at the end, just before the judgements of God overtake the planet during the Tribulation. Things like being ‘without natural affection’ ‘trucebreakers’ ‘unthankful’ and ‘unholy’.

In reading Newdow’s latest effort and the willingness of the courts to turn a blind eye to whatever it takes in order to legislate God out of existence while protecting religion, my mind immediately skipped to 2 Timothy 3:5.

“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:”

Space Rocks, Air Bags and Armageddon

Space Rocks, Air Bags and Armageddon
Vol: 11 Issue: 30 Friday, August 30, 2002

The headlines continue to contain to remind us that it is only a matter of time before the next big asteroid strike wipes us all out as allegedly happened to the dinosaurs 85 million years ago.

In a story with the catchy, 21st century sounding title, ‘Ready to tackle Armageddon’ the BBC explains how the European Space Agency is planning to develop an earth defense system to protect us all from incoming asteroids.

A Spanish company, Deimos-Space, is designing the mission and hopes its plans will convince ESA to give the go-ahead for a full scale test on a real asteroid. The company has come up with a plan, which it calls the Don Quixote mission, to launch a pair of probe spacecraft called Hidalgo and Sancho at a far off asteroid.

One would hit the asteroid at extremely high speed, deflecting it slightly from its orbit.

The other would observe the asteroid and make highly accurate measurements of what happened to it after the impact. The idea is that the mission would tell scientists how hard they would have to hit a real rogue asteroid heading for Earth in order to deflect it safely.

In essence, Deimos is developing a cosmic game of 8-ball and it’d like to figure out how much English to use before it’s time to shoot the gameball.

If all goes according to plan, the asteroid’s orbit will be shifted at impact by a few fractions of a millimeter. Tiny changes in orbit can become much larger over time and Deimos wants to use the experiment to calculate how to knock a real rogue asteroid off course.

The mission planners say that their plan would only work if they had enough warning time, since it would take months for the Deimos Project to reach the target after launch.

The plan sounds unreassuringly like the Bruce Willis movie, “Armageddon”. (In the movie, they saved the earth, but Bruce Willis got killed).

That’s probably why mathematician Dr. Hermann Burchard suggests a giant airbag, according to a an article in the latest edition of ‘New Scientist’ magazine. Burchard’s plan is quite detailed and is generating some excitement among other mathemeticians (who say the last one hit 85 million years ago, but evidently failed to calculate what once in 85 million years does to the odds).

Burchard wants to inflate a giant airbag made of some lightweight material (he favors Mylar) from outer space, and then drag the airbag into the path of the oncoming asteroid, steering it using a spacecraft.

“Then all you need is to take enough fuel along. You push it very gently. You don’t want to push too hard because comets are very loose conglomerations of pristine matter,” the professor at Oklahoma State University said in an interview.

It’s a serious matter, said Dr. B. “There is a very, very realistic threat to humanity” that would require “nations should constitute some of or other national agency to set up a defense mechanism.”

Assessment:

So, what’s it gonna be? An armada of oil driggers preparing for a mission on an asteroid on two week’s notice? Or a European cosmic pool table? Or a giant air bag?

We must do something soon. After 85 billion years, there’s gotta be a cosmic bullet out there with Planet Earth’s name on it somewhere.

All this attention to something as provably unlikely as an incoming asteroid has the conspiracy theorists abuzz: the governments of the world have discovered a Doomsday Asteroid coming right at us and the ‘experiments’ are really the real thing, some say.

Unlikely. The only way you could keep the impending destruction of the earth a secret would be if, right after you told them, you shot them before they could talk to anybody else. And that wouldn’t be very helpful for the long range goals of the project.

So what’s all the hubbub, bub? If the last time this happened, the only survivor was Barney, and from there, it took lizards going through the butterfly/elephant/ardvaark/platypus/ape/gorilla/scientist evolution process all the way up to the beginning of recorded human history and ultimately inventing a telescope so we could scare the pants off ourselves, then why the big scare now?

Why now, as Dr. Burchard warns, is “there is a very, very realistic threat to humanity” that would require “nations should constitute some of or other national agency to set up a defense mechanism.”

Wrong. The real answer? Because that is what the Bible said would be the case in the last days. And not just because the last one missed Barney the Purple Dinosaur, either.

In outlining events as they would unfold before that future generation to whom He was addressing His comments, Jesus warned “there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars” — which accurately reflects the growing hysteria since first we launched the Hubble Space Telescope and discovered how infinitely vast the universe is. Scared us half to death, which is precisely what Jesus said it would do.

As a consequence of being able to see more of the universe than ever before, we discovered that there were billions of space rocks, any one of which could hit us. All those rocks were there before; but now we know about them. Creating what Jesus said would cause “upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity.”

It is no stretch to see in His Words reflected in today’s headlines, screaming that ‘something must be done’ to protect us from the ‘very realistic threat to humanity’ posed by asteroid strikes.

Jesus had more to say about Dr. Burchard and the Deimos Project in the following verse; “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”

There’s no doubt about it: the fear of oncoming asteroids is real. Nobody kicks out a couple of billion dollars to practice their English in outer space just to improve their pool game. It is difficult to imagine anyone publishing an article in New Scientist 25 years ago, seriously proposing we build an airbag to protect us from incoming asteroids.

And there is no legitimate reason to believe, mathematically speaking, that another Big One is due, just because its been an alleged 85 million years. How long was the interval between that one and the one before? C’mon.

Jesus was pointing out more than simply a sudden fear of big rocks and digital telescopes. As humanity grows more arrogant in its knowledge, it grows less dependent on the defense it relied on since prehistory. Once we simply shrugged our shoulders and said something like that was in God’s Hands.

God can no longer be trusted, since science says He no longer is. Consequently, we are defenseless against space rocks.

And so goes the scenario as outlined by the One Who really does shield the earth from falling space rocks. He said that while scientists are keeping an eye peeled for falling space rocks, they will get an unexpected eyeful, because He says, “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

Although we are eyewitnesses to the fulfillment of the ‘signs in the sky’ part of the prophecy, what does it mean to us now, since what we are seeing is only in it’s developing stages?

Note that these verses, Luke 21:25-27, aren’t taken piecemeal from various places in Scripture to make the point. It is a single, consecutive narrative.

A narrative that concludes in the next verse; “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”

Editor’s Note:

My apologies for the lateness of some recent Omega Letters. Some network development issues have slowed us down, but they are almost completed. And I’d like to beg your indulgence and publish this particular OL as a column for public consumption — with an appended salvation message. This story might turn a skeptic around. No point in only preaching to the choir, I hope you agree. On another side note, Mike and I have some new, interactive, subscriber-only features on the drawing board. [Mike threatened me with bodily injury if I let the cat out of the bag about specifics before he is done beta testing, but you’re gonna like them.] And we have a new design genius coming aboard as part of our team, so look for some improvements in both asthetics and design in the coming weeks. Summer is almost over, and its time to really get down to business. Thank you all for your support, loyalty and friendship, and prayers — the latter more than the former. Finances remain very tight, [probably due to the summer] but thanks to your prayers, we seemed to have somehow made it each month. And, know that you are in our prayers, as well, as we carry the battle forward together, until He comes. – Jack

Oh, The Irony of It All

Oh, The Irony of It All
Vol: 11 Issue: 29 Thursday, August 29, 2002

Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Justice Department suffered a major blow last week when the secret federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers.

A May 17 opinion by the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alleges that Justice Department and FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps.

What I found interesting was the way the story was reported. For example, the 75 cited instances in which the Justice Department abused its authority and padded its search warrant requests.

Peter Jennings reported it this way at ABC: “Good evening, everyone. We are going to begin tonight with the first ever published opinion from a secret court. The court which operates inside the Justice Department says the Bush administration is not adequately protecting the privacy of American citizens and permanent residents. Notice Jenning’s spin. The “Bush administration is not adequately protecting. . .”

Jennings finally acknowleged at the end of the piece that perhaps at least SOME of the inadequate protection of American privacy took place during the Clinton administration as well.

“”The court said the FBI misled it when it sought permission for wiretaps and search warrants, making misstatements and omissions of facts in cases going back to the Clinton administration.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer spun the story this way: “Still, this court’s rebuff is another development that makes John Ashcroft a lightening rod for criticism over his department’s role in the war on terror.”

CBS News explained the FISA decision to America this way. “A big setback for the Justice Department in the war on terror. A secret U.S. court that deals with sensitive intelligence issues is refusing to expand the department’s surveillance authority. The court saying the department has been abusing the authority it already has as far back as the Clinton administration.”

The CBS anchor, John Roberts then threw to reporter Jim Stewart for the ‘rest of the story’. Unlike Roberts, Stewart never mentioned the Clinton administration.

“They meet twice a month in a sealed courtroom on the sixth floor of the Justice Department, and until now had never issued a public order. Today the Bush administration was wishing they still hadn’t. The top secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court blasted the FBI for submitting a troubling number of inaccurate affidavits while seeking secret wiretaps and then making unauthorized disseminations of what they learned from the surveillances. Angered, the court turned down a request from Attorney General John Ashcroft to broaden the FBI’s surveillance and intelligence sharing powers in the war on terrorism. Ashcroft is appealing, but bureau critics point out the court was very specific in its criticism.”

And to dot the last ‘i’ and cross the final ‘t’ in CBS’ indictment of the Ashcroft Justice Department, they cut to a clip from Democratic Senator Charles Grassley: “They cited a long history of 75 cases of the FBI not being credible, not being candid in the request of information.”

In closing, Stewart was able to credit the abuses of the Ashcroft Justice Department with missing an opportunity to prevent the September 11, attacks:

“Ironically, it was because the bureau had already been slapped over ill-conceived FISA requests that it failed to ask the court’s permission to search accused terrorist Zacharias Moussaoui’s computer last year. That led to charges the FBI missed an opportunity to prevent the 9-11 attacks.”

Assessment:

Life can be ironical, ironically. Because you would have to be a pretty knowledgeable individual to know that all seventy-five Justice Department abuses cited by the court took place prior to September 2000.

The Department of Justice admitted to all seventy-five of them before the court back then. The Bush administration didn’t come into office until January, 2001. Ashcroft’s confirmation was held up until February, 2001.

The court’s opinion specifically noted that in September 2000, “the government came forward to confess errors in 75 FISA applications related to major terrorist attacks directed against the United States – the errors related to misstatements and omissions of material facts.”

But you didn’t learn any of that from ABC, CBS or CNN. And during the NBC Nightly news, as Fred Francis was explaining (charitably, compared to everyone else) that it didn’t ALL happen on the Ashcroft watch, (although the truth is that none of it did) the screen went black and the audio cut off just as Francis began to pronounce the first syllable of the name Clinton: “The secret court says the FBI deceived it largely during the Cl-. . .”

(I’m not alleging it was on purpose. Just that it happened. Draw your own conclusions).

In reporting the story, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post ever mentioned the name “Janet Reno” once.

The Washington Post did manage to mention John Ashcroft six different times in the piece, though. The Post noted that “ironically, [there’s that word again) the Justice Department itself hadn’t opposed the release [of the opinion].”

The Post didn’t mention why, because they would have to explain it was because the court cited the Reno Justice Department for 100% of the criticism.

The New York Times never mentioned Reno, but it did admit that there were an “alarming number of instances” during the Clinton administration in which the F.B.I. might have acted improperly. All. All. That is even more alarming.

And the New York Times was alone among major liberal media outlets to report that Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who recently stepped down as the court’s presiding judge, had praised Attorney General John Ashcroft and his staff for ending abuses of the system for requesting wiretap authority.

Isn’t that ironical?

Saudis Begin To Smell The Coffee

Saudis Begin To Smell The Coffee
Vol: 11 Issue: 28 Wednesday, August 28, 2002

The Saudis are just now coming to grips with the fact that the seventy-year plus ‘arrangement’ with the United States is beginning to crumble.

The White House calls it an ‘alliance’ — so do the Saudis, but evidently we have different understandings of the what the word means. ‘Allies’ work toward a shared goal. Unless one calls extracting oil from the Saudi desert and delivering it to US refineries a ‘shared goal’.

But since everything gets paid for in American dollars — the only thing ‘shared’ are the dollars. American oil companies developed the Saudi oilfields, then the Saudis nationalized them and we went from developers to customers overnight. The Saudi contribution was owning the desert where the oil reserves were.

Fair enough, but if that is an ‘alliance’, then so is my relationship with my local Wal-Mart.

Saudi Arabia’s leading newspaper recently called for a “national dialogue” on the future of U.S.-Saudi ‘ties’. The dialogue is needed, the Al Riyadh newspaper said, “because we are getting repeated signals from Washington that they no longer see our relations in the same way.”

Something about getting kicked off the military bases we built to save the Saudis ten years ago now that we need them may be partly responsible, but the Saudi paper didn’t explore that aspect.

Neither did they explore Saudi stonewalling the Khobar Towers investigation, the $300 million royal payoff to Osama bin-Laden that made the USS Cole, the US embassies in Africa and the 9/11 attacks possible.

The Saudis didn’t dwell on the fact most of our sworn enemies are Saudi nationals, as were 15 of 19 9/11 hijackers and bin-Laden himself. Not to mention about a third of the prisoners currently at Gitmo.

Instead, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal observed, “Unfortunately, there are certain departments who are trying to raise doubts about the strong historical ties between our two countries. I am confident they will not succeed.”

The Saudi Foreign Minister later said on FoxNews that a ‘few people’ in America were questioning the sincerity of our Saudi ‘alliance’, as if it were the lunatic fringe element. Like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld? And pretty much everybody else that is paying attention.

We ran a poll way back in April over at Oracle in which we asked the question, “Are the Saudis Really Our Friends?” and of 5565 respondents, 138 — 2.48% — said ‘Yes’. The remaining 97.52% of you said ‘No’. That was in April.

Before we knew the Saudi royals were fundraising for Hamas — before we knew about the $300 dollar deal with bin-Laden [“here’s $300 million to attack America, if you promise to leave us alone” – our ‘allies’ – bah!] — before we knew the Saudis weren’t going to let us use the bases we built in their country against Saddam.

The rising degree of mutual suspicion crystallized in the release of a private briefing to a Pentagon civilian advisory board that characterized the Saudi regime as the “kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” for U.S. interests in the Middle East.

The Saudis tried to argue that the “kernel of evil” idea was only supported by a few loose cannons in the Pentagon and among the president’s most hawkish private advisers. But then 97.52% of YOU are loose cannons, too, if the poll numbers I cited are any indicator.

The Saudis themselves aren’t buying their own arguments anymore, which is why the little ‘down home’ chat between Bush and Prince Bandar was arranged.

The photo ops showed a relaxed Bush in shirtsleeves lounging in a chair while Bandar, dressed in western clothes, leans on another chair as the two chat.

They looked like two friends sitting around waiting for the start of the Super Bowl.

But that was for show. What they talked about was the hundreds of billions in Saudi investments that the Saudis are threatening to withdraw.

Here’s why we talk so much about politics in a newsletter devoted to Bible prophecy.

The Saudis know that Bush is vulnerable on the economy. The Democrats have already made it clear they intend to hammer him on the economy, corporate raiders and the disappearing surplus.

And the Democrats are doing what they can to ensure the economy doesn’t recover before November.

The Saudis know that the threatened divestiture would hit the US recovery hard. And they can count on the Democrats to make sure that Bush and the Republicans get the blame for it.

In effect, the Saudis are in the position of king-maker.

If they want to, they can topple the administration’s fragile Congressional majority and hamstring his administration until the 2004 elections, and even guarantee Bush won’t get a second term.

The threatened divestiture is only about a third (and maybe less) of total Saudi investments. The other two-thirds remain as a Sword of Damocles over Bush’s re-election hopes.

It fits into Bible prophecy in that all the machinations and dirty deals are focused at only one ultimate goal — the elimination of the Jewish State, Islamic supremacy over Jerusalem and Islamic control of the Temple Mount.

But it is the political ambitions of both the Democrats and Republicans that give the Saudis the power to dictate to the White House in the first place.

Democrats are saying Bush is soft on the Saudis because he comes from Big Oil. That’s a smokescreen. Clinton didn’t come from Big Oil and he was just as soft and for exactly the same reason. Because the Saudis could kick him out of office faster than a Congressional Impeachment Committee.

Republicans blame Democrats for the economy, Democrats blame Republicans for the economy, and political analysts from both sides concur that the mid-terms will swing based on the economy.

That’s what Bandar and Bush were chatting about. How much is George W Bush willing to pay to keep control of the Congress for the next two years and keep his job for the four years after that?

For Israel, it’s a question of life and death. And nobody in Jerusalem — or evidently in Washington, either — is sure what the answer is yet.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Vol: 11 Issue: 27 Tuesday, August 27, 2002

The United States has concluded that stopping illegal drug trafficking must be a major element in its anti-terror strategy.

U.S. officials said terrorist organizations on the State Department’s list have significant links to drug traffickers and cartels. The officials said much of the revenue obtained by terrorist groups come from the production and sale of illegal drugs.

“Nearly one-third of the organizations on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists appear also on our list of targeted U.S. drug suppliers,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said.

Officials said drug traffickers and those deemed terrorists are connected in a variety of ways. They said terrorists are used to protect drug shipments or supply labor for opium poppy growth in such countries as Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

In other cases, officials said, drug traffickers turn into the financial arms of terrorist groups. They said Hizbullah is a prime example of how drug dealers and terrorists meet.

The officials said Washington has decided to focus efforts on terrorist groups that engage in drug trafficking. They said federal agencies have set the capture and prosecution of these organizations as a top priority.

In an address to the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force on July 30, Ashcroft said he was shocked by the overlap between drug and terrorist groups. He said the federal government has launched an effort to crack down on drug dealers and foreign suppliers with the same measures that are being currently used against groups deemed as terrorists.

Assessment:

Revelation 9:21 outlines in a nutshell the reasons for the judgments coming on the earth during the Tribulation. “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”

The word translated in the Book of the Revelation as ‘sorceries’ has a unique and interesting etymology. The word usage is intriguing, when one considers the fact the Book of the Revelation, although put to paper in the latter part of the first century, is an account of events that are still future, although it grows increasingly obvious that it is near future.

The word translated as ‘sorceries’ in Revelation 9:21 and again in Revelation 18:23 is a different root word than used elsewhere in Scripture.

Elsewhere, as in Isaiah 47:12 or Acts 8:11 the word sorceries comes from the root words ‘keseph’ [Heb] and ‘magea’ [Gk] — both of which mean ‘magic arts’.

But uniquely, in the Book composed for the generation that would experience its contents, the word translated ‘sorceries’ comes from the Greek word ‘pharmakea’ from which we get our English word ‘pharmacy’. ‘Pharmakea’ means, ‘the use or administration of drugs’.

One would assume rampant drug abuse was not a problem for the English translators poring over the old Greek manuscripts in 1611. Neither is there historical evidence of rampant drug problems in AD 87.

Look again at Revelation 9:21. “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”

Murders. Hmmm. That’s a word often appended with the phrase, ‘drug-related.’ What about ‘fornications’? Hmmm. I’ve heard that prostitution and drugs are connected. Thefts — I think one can safely link drug abuse and theft. Pretty incredible, when you really think about it.

And just in this Book, the one that describes the world in the last days.

Daniel and John were given similar visions of the Tribulation Period. Daniel’s account is from the perspective of Israel. John’s perspective is that of the Church until Chapter 4, and then from the perspective of heaven thereafter.

Daniel’s vision shook him to his core. The confusing images, the terrifying beasts . . .imagine living in the fifth century before Christ and being afforded a panoramic view of the Persian Gulf war battlefield, for example.

Daniel needed an explanation.

“And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and SEALED till the TIME OF THE END.” Daniel 12:8-9

“All the News That Fits”

“All the News That Fits”
Vol: 11 Issue: 26 Monday, August 26, 2002

It must be difficult for President Bush to have to fight a war with terrorists, another war with the Democrats, and a third, concurrent war with the media. All three enemies have adopted a ‘take no prisoners’ style, whereas the White House must work within carefully defined rules of engagement.

In the guns and bullets war, there are no prisoners in enemy hands — they are executed on the spot. But the White House fights an ongoing battle with the liberals and the courts concerning the treatment of the thousands of prisoners being housed at the Gitmo Crossbar Hotel in tropical Cuba.

In the political war, the Democrats are giving no quarter, observing no rules [such as building a campaign platform based on Bush’s destruction of an economy already in recession before his taking office and then talking down the economy at every opportunity].

But the White House is hamstrung by having to stick within certain guidelines. The administration must ‘talk up’ the economy to keep things moving, is constrained against mounting too vicious a counter-attack without losing support from its base, and is forced to maintain a working relationship with the opposition to keep the war moving.

Then there is the third war — the one that really counts. The war with the media. Why is this the war that ‘really counts?’

Consider the facts. Without opposition from the media, the administration could fight al-Qaeda on al-Qaeda’s terms. An America unrestrained could crush al-Qaeda and its supporters out of hand. But a lot of innocents would die on the battlefields, while American civil liberties would be shredded in the process.

The main obstacle to prosecuting that kind of war is the media. That’s not to say the media shouldn’t play that role, just demonstrating the power that it has.

With the media on his side, Bush wouldn’t have to worry about anybody believing the economic downturn was his fault. If the media were honest about the economy, it would have to point out that it was during the ‘good old days’ when the market was hovering at 11,000 it was up there because all the corporate accounting tricks that crashed the market when exposed were responsible for the overvaluation in the first place.

It is inconceivable to me that any of the media analysts who blame the current administration for the economy actually believe what they are saying themselves.

In essence, their presentation of the situation is akin to cheering the deceptive accounting practices that the Miracle Clinton Economy was built on, and then condemning the current administration for blowing away the smoke and exposing the deception. (It’s ok if its crooked, as long as its profitable?)

When TIME laid the blame for Enron directly at the feet of the Clinton administration, the story withered and died on the vine for lack of interest. At the same time, the Bush Harken deal and the Cheny Haliburton stock sale story have been resurrected more times than the Broadway musical ‘Oh Dolly’.

Does anybody remember the pressure put on Cheney to divest himself of Haliburton stock to avoid a conflict of interest? The charge was led by the Democrats, supported by the media, and resisted by both Cheney and his lawyers. In the end, Cheney reluctantly sold the stock he is now being publicly pilloried for.

The point isn’t the Democrats, Haliburton, Cheney or Republicans. It’s the gulf between public perception and reality — and why it is so vast — that is at issue here.

The Peter Jennings/Terry Moran ‘Bush Stinks’ Show at ABCNews is becoming a regular feature. A recent example was last week’s coverage of the takeover of the Iraqi Embassy briefly in Berlin.

Jennings solemnly intoned that it was another example of ‘problems’ with the administration concerning Iraq. Jennings called a comment by Canada’s Defense Minister saying that Canada was unlikely to participate in an attack on Iraq a ‘sharp rebuke’.

Nothing personal to Canada, but with something less than sixty thousand active duty personnel, the entire Canadian armed forces amounts to about six times the LAPD. The comments were neither a sharp rebuke nor is Canadian participation likely to influence the outcome of a war with Iraq.

Jennings then seemed to speak for himself as he announced as a fact: Some people are asking today whether or not the White House is losing control of the debate about war with Iraq. Terry Moran helpfully explained: In the past couple of weeks, you ve had top Republican leaders defecting from the pro-war camp, key allies opposing any action against Saddam Hussein, and now this attack in Berlin. The hawks in the administration are on the defensive.

After highlighting the rebuke from Canada, Moran inaccurately portrayed Scott Ritter s opposition as something fresh and newsworthy. Leading into a lengthy soundbite from the man who has been claiming for years that Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction, Moran trumpeted: Opposition is mounting at home, too. On Capitol Hill, Scott Ritter, the former Chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, said the administration had failed to make the case for war.

Moran concluded with a warning: Recent events have made clear, Peter, that if Mr. Bush wants to move militarily, he and his team will have to do a lot better job shoring up support at home and around the world.

This seems like a lot about a little, but its a much bigger deal than most realize. Moran made the point, and it is well taken. If Bush wants to take on Saddam, he’ll have to convince. . .the MEDIA.

The power of the media — to do good, or to do evil — is enormous. The examples are cited are not cited as being either good or evil; they are examples of the POWER.

Currently that power is, for the most part, benign, but it makes it no less powerful. The Apostle Paul said that the rise of the antichrist would be predicated by a great ‘falling away’ or, a general, global apostasy.

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; ” [2Thessalonians 2:3]

Further, Paul warns “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” [2 Thessalonians 2:11-12]

When asked what would be the signs of His coming, the first thing Jesus said was, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” [Matthew 24:4]

Deception is the key to the antichrist’s power. It is the key to the enemy’s power. The devil is a liar and the father of liars. But at no time in history has it ever been possible to deceive with the kind of pinpoint precision — and on a global basis until this generation.

No wonder Paul wrote, “This know also. That in the last days, perilous times shall come.” [2 Timothy 3:1]

Editor’s Note: Thank you so much for your prayers. Our pastor has been released from the hospital, having suffered ‘only’ a mild stroke, and is safe at home. Praise God for answered prayers!

The Babel Effect

The Babel Effect
Vol: 11 Issue: 25 Sunday, August 25, 2002

Like most of the UN efforts of the past decade, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa is going nowhere.

According to its planners, the aim of the Johannesburg summit is to reach agreement on reducing poverty in developing nations by fuelling environmentally-friendly economic growth.

The way the UN sees it, poor nations want more aid and better access to the markets of wealthy nations, but developed countries are concerned about the potential impact on their economies.

More than 100 heads of state accompanied by 40,000 officials are expected to attend the summit. There will be the usual bickering and infighting, and all the unresolved problems will be blamed on the United States. President Bush will not attend.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development is supposed to be the followup to the Rio Earth Summit a decade ago.

The Rio summit, championed by Al Gore (whose ‘Earth in the Balance’ was timed to be released at the same time) set goals for protecting the planet, ranging from curbing emissions of the polluting gases blamed for global warming to preventing the spread of deserts.

Kofi Annan characterized the progress since Rio as ‘far from satisfactory’.

Assessment:

Part of the reason that the various summits produce more hot air than greenhouse gases is because off of them arrive at the same, predictable conclusion. It’s up to the United States. The US is the big polluter. The US is the richest nation.

What happened at Rio was all the nations of the world got together to decide what America would do to clean up the global environment.

They talked about all the things they would do after the US got the ball rolling and paid for everything, but basically, the Rio Summit was just a global Brazilian Mardi Gras.

When it was over, everybody went home and complained about what the US wasn’t doing and why it was all our fault Rio was a failure.

Here’s an example. According to the BBC’s World News, Rio was a UN conference that produced tangible results, including international conventions on climate change and bio-diversity.

Since then, says the Beeb, ’emissions of greenhouse gases heating up the world have increased and natural resources have been further degraded – but campaigners say there was nothing wrong with the commitments, only with the failure of governments and others’ to carry them out’.

The ‘governments’ is code for the USA, and ‘others’ is code for George Bush.

The Beeb’s cracks its own code in the next paragraph. “But the prospects today are less promising. The withdrawal of the Bush administration from the Kyoto treaty on global warming demonstrates how crucial American involvement is to international action.”

The Beeb doesn’t say that not one single other country ratified Kyoto, the US Senate refused to ratify Kyoto when Clinton first brought it home, and that it was Clinton who first pulled the US out of Kyoto. Bush merely continued the same policy on Kyoto after he took office — he didn’t originate the policy.

The Clinton administration is ‘governments’ — George Bush is ‘others’. But it s all, ultimately, America s fault.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development is like other world summits. It’s a place for lobbyists and special interest groups to meet to plan how to make the rest of the world see things their way.

It attracts the various lunatic fringe groups from all across the spectrum. They march and chant and riot and smash and go home when its over.

Invariably, when the various summits are over, the only thing still clear is that God knew what He was doing at the Tower of Babel.

The UN Conference at Rio was just one in a long running series of abysmal failures in global summiteering.

The Vienna Conference on Human Rights ended without reaching an agreement on whether human rights are universal, for example.

The Durban Conference on Racism broke up while still debating the fact that a ‘Jewish state’ is racist, whereas an ‘Arab world’ is not.

The UN Population Conference at Cairo determined that women should rule the world and that abortion should be like having a tumor removed.

What the various UN summit debacles do establish beyond doubt is universal recognition of the need for a working system of global government.

And they establish with equal clarity that the UN doesn’t fit the bill.

The Bible says that in the last days, a global government will exist. The UN is a prototype of that final form of world government, but it isn’t it. The UN has served a purpose; it has established the necessary infrastructure in which a global system could operate.

Europe has modeled much of its superstate after the UN system and is perfectly positioned to take the torch when passed. It shares most of the UN’s values, but has fewer built-in weaknesses. And, unlike the US, Europe wants the job.

That is precisely how Daniel said it would eventually play itself out, writing from Babylon, 2500 years ago.

And that’s how it is developing now. It is either a colossal coincidence, or additional evidence that this IS the generation that ‘shall not pass, til all these things be fufilled’. (Matt 24:34)

“This Generation Shall Not Pass”

“This Generation Shall Not Pass”
Vol: 11 Issue: 24 Saturday, August 24, 2002

It wasn’t that long ago that the world was convinced that Israel committed a massacre at Jenin in which it allegedly lined up five hundred Palestinians and executed them.

The mere fact that Israel mistrusts the United Nations and wouldn’t cooperate was seen as evidence of Israeli guilt. The Israelis were pronounced guilty by most the mainstream press, and were convicted [before the scope of the alleged crime was even known] via anti-Israeli resolutions offered by both the United Nations and the European Union.

Of course, there was no massacre at Jenin or anywhere else and despite the hostility of the investigating agencies, they were unable to come up with a scintilla of evidence supporting an alleged massacre.

Instead, they found bodies that had been disinterred from local cemetaries and planted on the Jenin battlefield, Palestinian funerals for ‘martyrs’ who weren’t dead, and massive evidence of a frame up job being perpetrated against Israel.

Unable to discover evidence of a massacre, the matter was quietly dropped in favor of the next set of allegations against the Israelis. As usual, all allegations are treated as facts until disproved.

Assessment:

Although the global press can find nothing about Israel to admire, when it comes to Yasser Arafat or Palestinian suicide bombers, they are generally depicted as ‘freedom fighters’ standing up to a great oppressing power.

A news story published by the Singapore Straits Times extolled the Palestinian suicide bomber and ensured no reader would miss who was the good guy in the conflict.

“Deaths in Israel from suicide bombings have more than doubled in the past year. The surge has occurred despite aggressive Israeli operations that have immobilised everyday life for most of the two million Palestinians in the West Bank, fenced in another 1.2 million in the Gaza Strip, killed hundreds of people accused of anti-Israeli attacks and detained thousands.

The suicide bomber has become the Palestinian version of a smart weapon, Israeli military officers said. Moreover, it’s cheap, unpredictable and abundant. It’s relatively easy to hide, transport and store, and therefore difficult to detect and defend against.”

Note that the “aggressive” Israelis ‘killed hundreds of people ACCUSED of anti-Israel attacks.’ While the (apparently passive) Palestinians get the benefit of the doubt, Israel is portrayed as a super-villian being put in its place by the suicide bombing campaign so admired by the column’s author.

Even now, after it is common knowledge that everything we’ve been saying about Arafat for a decade is true; he never wanted peace, he planned the ‘spontaneous’ uprising in advance, he used the uprising to postpone elections to stay in power, he stole hundreds of millions of dollars (billions, according to some reports) earmarked for his suffering people; still, if there is room to offer the benefit of the doubt, it is immediately extended to Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Jenin is a perfect example.

Because all this is known fact and beyond dispute, the US has been seeking ways to sideline Arafat in favor of an honest representative. The White House proposed that the Palestinians select a prime minister and ‘promote’ Arafat to a ceremonial presidential role.

The Palestinian cabinet met to consider the plan, and, having considered it carefully, promptly told the US to kiss off.

Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told reporters, “We told them (the United States) that this is not your business,” Erekat said. “We were shocked during the discussions that the American side is speaking about changing the law of elections.”

They were ‘shocked’ — shocked, I tell you, at the concept of the US interfering with Palestinian election laws (as if they actually had any).

Further, they say, in a free and democratic election, Arafat would be re-elected immediately. Not that there’d be any way of establishing that as fact. The only sense in which you could apply the word ‘democracy’ to the Palestinian Authority would be in the classical Greek sense of ‘mob rule’.

If, as claimed, Arafat would indeed be immediately re-elected by his people, then several things become crystal clear to any honest observer.

First, it becomes crystal clear that the Palestinian people themselves do not want peace with Israel. It is equally clear that they don’t want a two-state solution but instead want a Jew-free Palestine.

There is no question Arafat supports terror as a method of persuasion. There is no question that he has employed terror in the past and no doubt he will employ it in the future. Those who would immediately re-elect him would presumably share his views.

That makes Arafat your average, representative Palestinian. A terrorist bent on the destruction of Israel — even at the expense of plunging the region into open war.

Now to the point. A people that would elect a known terrorist to office, would resist efforts to remove that terrorist once he was known to be a terrorist and would defend the terrorist activities of its government is a terrorist population.

If there is a major difference between Osama bin-Laden, Saddam Hussien and Yasser Arafat, I am unable to discover it. Applying the same logic, if there’s a difference between the average Palestinian and the average al-Qaeda fighter, I would be unable to articulate it.

Yet the entire world sides with the terrorist and the terrorist gang he leads. The whole world is prepared to rise up and defend Palestinian ‘democracy’ where none exists, knowing that if Palestinian ‘democracy’ prevails, the only genunine democracy in the Middle East must be destroyed. It makes absolutely no sense in the natural. None whatever.

Except in the context of Bible prophecy. The Bible says that in the last days, Israel would be reborn, would become the center of global attention, and would find itself standing alone against the rest of the world.

That statement, made say, in 1945, would have sounded like an impossibility. When Israel was in fact reborn as a Western-style democracy, the likelihood of the predicted global emnity seemed even more unlikely. Why would a democracy stand alone against the whole world? Democracies tend to stick together.

But the Bible said the whole world would stand against Israel in the last days. It doesn’t matter if Israel is a mirror image of Europe or America when it comes to respecting human rights, the rule of law and individual freedoms for its citizens.

Israel’s destiny was recorded thousands of years in advance to play out exactly as it is now playing out before our very eyes.

Jesus said of the generation that witnessed these developments, “this generation shall not pass until ALL be fulfilled.” [Matthew 24:34]

WE are that generation.

A Bodyguard of Lies

A Bodyguard of Lies
Vol: 11 Issue: 23 Friday, August 23, 2002

Since CNN began airing the first segments of the tapes it obtained in Afghanistan, we’ve learned a lot more about CNN than the tapes actually reveal about al-Qaeda.

For one thing, CNN didn’t ‘discover’ the al-Qaeda video library. They BOUGHT it for an as-yet still unclear sum that has been reported variously as somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000. There are all kinds of journalistic ethics issues here, but one that may interest the Department of Justice is the fact that CNN put money into al-Qaeda’s bank account.

Originally, CNN said that “a longtime source in Afghanistan led CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson to the people with the tapes two weeks ago.” It wasn’t until after they were cornered that CNN admitted to paying for the tapes. Still, Robertson refused to reveal his sources, but he insisted that none of the money paid went to al-Qaeda.

CNN’s Aaron Brown told CNN’s viewing audience that they’d just have to ‘trust our good judgment and honesty’ regarding the whole matter. Um, didn’t you guys lie about paying for the tapes?

As it turns out, CBS also forked over an undisclosed amount of cash to an undisclosed source for some al-Qaeda tapes. CBS also denies that any of the money went to al-Qaeda.

Assessment:

Brown says we should trust CNN’s good judgment and honesty during a report in which he admitted CNN lied about paying for the tapes, blaming it on miscommunication. Boy, CNN and CBS must have a lot of petty cash lying around. It would seem that five-figure payouts would have to be approved at a level higher than CNN’s Nic Robertson. Was Robertson walking around carrying that kind of money, or did it have to be brought in? You see the problem with the “we didn’t know he paid for them” story.

Now, as to the ‘no money went to al-Qaeda’ story . . . how does CNN know? Where did they come from? We can trust to Robertson’s journalistic good judgment and honesty all day long, but Danny Pearl thought he knew who he was dealing with, too.

And by all accounts, Danny Pearl was a man known for journalistic integrity and good judgment until his ‘reliable source’ cut his throat on camera during another of al-Qaeda’s video productions.

The controversy hasn’t stopped CNN from airing selected segments from their collection aimed at proving al-Qaeda is much more dangerous than previously believed.

One segment that aired endlessly showed al-Qaeda operatives using a chemical weapon of some type to kill a puppy. We saw it over and over — enough times to notice something odd.

The ‘gas’ was released by the two operatives, it oozed along the floor until it got to the puppy. . . the puppy’s death throes were grisly.

BUT. . . how come the gas didn’t kill the two guys that released it? What kind of chemical weapon looks like dry ice (outside of Hollywood)?

The rest of the segments that CNN aired are similarly suspicious. The video work is a bit too smooth, the action of the fighters a bit too perfect to not have been staged. They are propaganda tapes designed to scare the pants off Westerners. After all, that’s what terrorists do. They terrify.

The truth grows increasingly difficult to find in the New Normal. It is rightly said that ‘truth is the first casualty of war’ and sorting through the layers of propaganda takes longer than it used to.

The New York Times is publishing a top-secret military document a week, while Rumsfeld bellows about security and Congress questions the wisdom of ordering the FBI to investigate it. Attention soon turns to whether or not Congressmen should be ordered to submit to polygraph tests.

But the New York Times keeps churning out the ‘top secret’ Pentagon papers. No New York Times reporter is being charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. Publishing top secret documents in time of war is illegal.

If they are top secret documents, and not deliberately leaked disinformation.

The al-Qaeda tapes have all the same red flags. But whose propaganda are they? Certainly, they are terrifying, so they serve the al-Qaeda agenda in that respect.

At the same time, they serve the Pentagon’s interests as well. The most difficult challenge facing the US as it attempts to prosecute a war against shadows is maintaining public support.

Images of al-Qaeda operatives preparing poison gas attacks goes a long way toward whipping up public support for whatever it takes to protect us from such a threat.

Which is probably why the administration hasn’t called anybody’s attention to the inconsistencies in the ‘puppy’ tape. It isn’t like they don’t have experts that can point out the dry ice trick and the ‘smart gas’ that doesn’t kill its handlers.

To be effective terrorists, al-Qaeda must terrify. Bombs and airplanes are effective weapons only if there remains the lingering threat that there are additional attacks to follow. That can be accomplished by either launching an actual attack, or simulating it on videotape so everybody can see what they have planned.

At the beginning of the war, Rumsfeld solemnly assured the Washington press corps — and the nation — that they would always tell the truth.

So far, he’s kept his word by leaking whatever lies the Pentagon wanted the Arab world to believe to the New York Times.

The war on terror is being fought at a number of levels, as we’ve been assured countless times by the administration.

When Jesus was asked about the signs of His coming, the first thing He said was ‘take heed that no man deceive you.’

In the New Normal, deception is what it is all about.

A personal note . .

We just found out our pastor was hospitalized while vacationing with his family in North Carolina. It is possible he suffered a stroke. Please join us in prayer for Ed Smith that all will be well. And for his family and our church. – Jack

“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James 5:16

Russian Roulette Over Iraq

Russian Roulette Over Iraq
Vol: 11 Issue: 22 Thursday, August 22, 2002

The Russians have been expanding their economic cooperation with Iraq and other states that have been designated terrorist states, despite US pressure on Moscow to maintain solidarity with the US war effort.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued a stern warning to Moscow this week, saying that expanding trade with Iraq would brand Russia a friend of terrorist states and frighten foreign investors away from its capital-starved economy.

“To the extent that Russia decides that it wants to parade its relationships with countries like Iraq and Libya and Syria and Cuba and North Korea, it sends a signal out across the globe that that is what Russia thinks is a good thing to do, to deal with the terrorist states, Rumsfeld said.

Decisions by Russian leaders to deepen economic ties with Iraq hurt Russia “because people all across the globe, business people, can make a decision: Where do they want to put a plant? Where do they want to invest? Where do they want to have a relationship?”

Rumsfeld made his comments to Army troops at Fort Hood, Tex., following his meeting with President Bush at the Western White House in Crawford. They were the most pointed of any administration official regarding reports of new trade deals linking Moscow and Baghdad.

Assessment:

In his war speech, President Bush said that any state that wasn’t ‘with us’ in the war on terror was ‘against us’ — although it is easier to draw the lines of demarcation than it is to color within them.

The White House has already established a two-tier system for implementing the Bush Doctrine. Little countries like Sudan or Afghanistan that do business with terrorists can count on seeing the skies darken with US warplanes.

Big, scary countries like Russia and China (or Europe) are free to do what they want. China recently upgraded Iraq’s air defense net using the latest (stolen from the USA) fiber-optic technology. Germany has been quietly supplying Iraq with ‘dual use’ technology, spare parts and other embargoed trade deals.

There are a number of ways in which one can conduct diplomatic relations, but there is only one way to successfully prosecute a war, and that is to win it quickly, without drawing in additional combatants.

Rumsfeld has adopted an optimistic attitude regarding what might happen if America were to attack Iraq and damage Russian economic interests there.

“I don’t think our relationship would be affected with Russia if that were to happen,” Rumsfeld said. “My impression is that the Russian administration is fairly pragmatic at this stage and their interest in the United States is greater than their interest in Iraq.”

Maybe so. But the prophet Ezekiel says that Russia’s interests in Iraq and other countries of the Middle East will eventually develop into a military alliance between Russia and the Muslim states of the Middle East that will set its sights on Israel.

“And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:” (Ezek 38:3) Bible commentators have identified ‘Gog and Magog’ as being modern Russia for centuries. Ezekiel says that Gog (Russia) will be drawn into the coming Middle East conflict, whether she wants to be part of it or not — Ezekiel said it will be as if there were a ‘hook in her jaw’ — inexorably drawing Moscow [Meshech] into the conflict:

“And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:” [Ezek 38:4]

And Ezekiel is specific about the lineup of nations.

Compare the prophet’s line up, penned 2500 years ago, to current geo-political reality. Identification of the modern equivalent states is in parenthesis; “Persia, [Iran-Iraq] Ethiopia,[Sudan] and Libya with them; [North African Muslim states] all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, [Eastern Europe] and all his bands; the house of Togarmah [Turkey] of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” [Ezek 38:5]

Part of Ezekiel’s prophecy for Russia has already been fulfilled. Verse 8 says that ‘after many days, thou shalt be visited’ [Hebrew ‘paqad’ — ‘called to remembrance”].

Immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a sudden, brief wave of Christian evangelism. I remember covering a story in which the Duma suspended activities mid-debate because someone in the hall was passing out free New Testaments and all the lawmakers went out to stand in line.

But after a year or so, the Russian Orthodox Church reasserted itself, and all western evangelists were given the Russian boot. And Russia’s ‘call to remembrance’ was over. And what happens next is, given the current situation, more than just a good guess.

“After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. ” [Ezekiel 38:8-9]

The Bible scenario for the last days is a complicated one. There are many, many disparate elements that eventually have to fit together like finely machined parts. Currently, not all the parts have been milled and polished, but it grows increasingly obvious that they are all listed in the work order.

The exact ‘hows’ and ‘whens’ are known only to God, but the overall picture is clear enough. If these aren’t the last days, then all these prophecies will have to be fulfilled -again- in some future generation. All of them. The restoration of Israel [again] the emergence of a revived Roman Empire [again], a new global government, a centralized, global economic system, etc., etc.

Clearly, the Bible indicates only one restoration of Israel ‘to the mountains that have always been waste’ consisting of a people ‘brought forth out of the nations’. It indicates only one revival of the old Roman Empire.

In fact, Jesus Christ told us “when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” [Luke 21:28]