Accidental Victory

Accidental Victory
Vol: 70 Issue: 31 Tuesday, July 31, 2007

By all accounts, it appears that the United States just might win the war in Iraq with al-Qaeda, despite the best efforts of the Left to hurry up and declare surrender before such a political catastrophe for them can occur.

Two notable critics of the Iraq war, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, both of the Brookings Institution think-tank, took an eight-day tour of Iraq. Upon returning, they called the surrender debate back home “surreal.”

“Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily victory but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.”

According to these two administration critics, “the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. . . Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.”

O’Hanlon and Pollack’s report, published, of all places, in the New York Times, is completely at odds with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s assessment that “the current mission is lost” and that the Iraq war is “the worst foreign policy mistake in US history.”

Both the Brookings report and the Congressional record expose the Left’s preference for surrender, or, put another way, a ‘limited loss’ against al-Qaeda. The Left wants to lose just enough to discredit the Republicans and sweep the ’08 Elections, but not lose beyond Iraq.

A few weeks ago, Reid and his partisans tried to attach an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that would have mandated sending terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the United States.

The amendment was eventually pulled and replaced with a Republican amendment that did the exact opposite, prohibiting sending terrorists to the United States.

THAT amendment passed overwhelmingly, and, revealingly, every Democrat sponsor of the original amendment to shut down Gitmo ended up voting for the alternative.

Its one thing to politicize the necessities of war as unconstitutional and unconscionable when it wins political points, but it is another thing altogether if it means importing terrorists within our borders.

The Left wants to lose, but it wants to survive the loss.

Assessment:

The Brookings report contains some really good news from Iraq, despite efforts from the left to either suppress or discredit its contents. Especially since the original op-ed piece by the study’s authors was published in the New York Times.

Michael O’Hanlon is a Princeton-educated Ph.D and recognized expert on a wide range of foreign policy issues — including Iraq policies — for the Brookings Institute. He has also been a leading critic of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq so far.

But O’Hanlon’s criticisms were rooted in policy, not politics. O’Hanlon criticized what didn’t work, because his interest was in what works and what doesn’t, rather than for failures to use as a political weapon.

That is why his assessment of the situation is so important. Because O’Hanlon’s past criticisms were about policy, not politics, and his current assessments are based on personal observation, not political affiliation. In short, it is about as close as one can actually get to the unvarnished truth in the mainstream press.

So it is no surprise that this good news about Iraq was filtered according to audience demographic. NBC News didn’t even mention it on its Monday news broadcast.

Instead, NBC News led its broadcast with a story teased as:

“disturbing new details about corruption at the very top of the Iraqi government. A new draft U.S. report, obtained by NBC News, says corruption has hurt delivery of services, threatens vital public support for the government there and there are new indications that Iraq’s new rulers have virtual immunity from prosecution.”

NBC is broadcasting to its audience, reporting only what the far Left wants to hear. That’s how NBC News gets its ratings. By attracting a loyal audience. How does a news organization attract a loyal audience? Tell them what they want to hear.

ABC and CBS reported on the Brookings story, but highlighted a conflicting story from Oxfam calling Iraq a “humanitarian crisis”. They are broadcasting what the center Left wants to hear; “The surge might be working, yes, but don’t forget it is all the administration’s fault Iraq is such a mess in the first place.”

Fox News did a victory dance over the Brookings Institute’s assessment, focusing all its attention on the good news. Fox News is broadcasting to the center Right and far Right and is telling its audience what it wants to hear.

(It is worth noting, incidentally, that Fox News has, by far, the largest audience in America.)

But there are two things I want you to get out of today’s report. The first thing is that what passes for ‘news’ is little more than openly partisan political propaganda. And we’re ok with that.

The networks broadcast to a specific group of views whose bias mirrors their own, and attract viewer loyalty by feeding that bias, selectively reporting or withholding information as necessary.

It isn’t journalism. It is partisan political propaganda disguised as journalism. Call it, the “new journalism” — because it is universal.

You can run down the list in your own mind; PBS – liberal, Fox -centrist/Right, CNN-centrist/Left, NBC – Far Left, etc., but what you won’t find is one that doesn’t lean one way or the other. The public is accustomed to propaganda, even welcomes it, provided it tells them what they want to hear.

Most of what we see and hear is controlled by a handful of executives within a tiny clique of mega-news corporations. That used to sound like paranoid conspiracy theory, but today that is not only fact, but a matter of public record.

Disney owns ABC, Viacom owns CBS, General Electric owns NBC, TIME-Warner owns CNN, and Fox seems to own everything else. Their audiences are compartmentalized and their ratings rely on viewer loyalty.

The Bible warns of a coming strong delusion in the last days and the rise of a master propagandist whose most powerful asset is his power of deception. The Bible says he will find a willing audience among those who “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2nd Thessalonians 2:10)

That’s the first thing I want you to get. There is no such thing as ‘truth’ in this generation. Just what we want to believe is true.

The second thing I want you to see is the incredible hypocrisy and cynicism that passes for political dialogue when it comes to the Iraq war.

The Left has invested all its efforts in its declaration of defeat and its effort to surrender, ignoring all warnings that defeatism emboldens the enemy, then pointing to an emboldened enemy as ‘evidence’ that we are defeated.

It is a winning political strategy, and a brilliant one, provided one discounts the costs in American lives necessary to win political victory by achieving a military defeat.

It is exactly the kind of cynical politically opportunistic machine that would embrace the Bible’s Master Propagandist with all their heart and soul, provided he told them what they wanted to hear.

The population is ready for that kind of government. The only thing holding it back is the Restrainer.

The NASB renders 2nd Thessalonians 2:6-8 this way: “And you know what restrains him [the antichrist] now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. THEN that lawless one will be revealed . . .”

There can be only one “Restrainer” and that is the Holy Spirit. And He cannot be ‘taken out of the way’ while He still physically indwells the Church. There is no other logical way to interpret that verse other than His restraining influence, which is completely invested in the indwelt Church, is withdrawn.

Think of it. One day, you are a Spirit-filled Christian, the next, God decides its time for the Tribulation and takes the Holy Spirit ‘out of the way’. Suddenly, and without warning, you are no longer indwelt by the Holy Spirit and facing the worst time of spiritual trial in human history alone.

You are among the first Christians since Pentecost to have the indwelling Spirit of God revoked from them and the first Christians in history to witness a Promise of Scripture broken. Is that logical? Or even possible?

Jesus promised: “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever.” (John 14:16)

The Restrainer cannot be removed and His temples be left behind. Forever means forever.

So, adding it all up, we find that the propaganda machine is built and ready. The population is conditioned and prepared.

But the one for whom it was all constructed cannot step to the stage until after the Restrainer is ‘taken out of the way’ – and the Church along with Him.

So even the bad news is good.

“Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.” (1st Thessalonians 4:18)

Special Member’s Report: The Underground E-Church

Special Member’s Report: The Underground E-Church
Vol: 70 Issue: 30 Monday, July 30, 2007

By now, some of you may have noticed that a lot of our subject material has disappeared from the main page, unless you are logged into the website.

We’ve either moved, or are in the process of moving, our archives, the majority of our commentary, and most of the reader forums inside the member’s area of the website.

Recent legislation in Canada and similar pending legislation in the US view open, straightforward non-politically correct speech as ‘hate crimes’ rather than free speech.

A conservative blogging website, freedominion.ca is under investigation by the Canadian Human Rights Commission after someone complained that a comment posted that offended both Islam and gays.

The comment that prompted the investigation said, “I can’t figure out why the homosexuals I ran into are on the side of the Muslims. After all, Muslims who practice Sharia law tend to advocate beheading homosexuals.”

To my mind, it is a reasonable question, given the fact that the second part of the statement is factual. Ask any Muslim fundamentalist.

It does seem odd that the gay rights movement would ally itself with radical Islam.

It makes as much sense as a 1930’s German gay rights organization siding with the Nazis.

But somebody found it offensive enough to file a complaint against freedominion.ca with the CHRC, a court that can uniquely boast that it has never found a suspect innocent.

Compare the offending comment to a couple reader replies to a column at the Huffington Post last week regarding Bible-believing Christians:

” I agree Dap . . .thank you Max . . these guys need to be exposed and stopped . . . put behind bars more like . . . they are insane.” – Macready

“When terms like “Jesus Freak” and “Bible Thumper” prove woefully inadequate to describe such creatures, there’s always the clinical yet entirely apt “dangerous psychopath”. – willfarnaby

I only chose the first couple, I could have filled a page with similarly hateful anti-Christian sentiment, but why wallow in it? The message is pretty clear.

Advocating mass imprisonment of ‘insane’ Christians is protected ‘free speech’ that doesn’t raise an eyebrow, while pondering Islam’s relationship with gay rights is ‘hate speech’ deserving of a federal investigation.

It is completely in synch with the Bible’s outline of the social order of the last days, so I’ve been expecting something like this for some years.

But now that it is here, I have to decide how to respond.

There are two choices. we can speak out boldly in public until someone is offended and files a complaint. The website membership is small, and barely covers its own operating expenses now. It wouldn’t take a conviction to shut us down, the legal expenses would be enough on their own.

But the Omega Letter’s purpose is to equip you with the information you need as the days grow short so you are “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” (1st Peter 3:15)

Our aim is the “perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:” (Ephesians 4:12)

Our vehicle is by providing a safe haven on the net where like-minded believers can fellowship, learn from one another, exhort one another, discuss doctrine and share their burdens with one another.

We can’t do any of that if the government shuts down our servers while investigating an ‘offensive’ public post.

It is a proven principle of war to choose one’s battles carefully. This is a battle that can only be won in principle by losing the war.

The only other choice remaining is to go underground, so to speak.

Our members pay a membership fee, which is as close to building a fence around internet territory as one can go. It also tends to weed out those who are cruising the net looking for somebody to offend them; there are lots of places they can go be offended for free.

We aren’t doing it in order to boost our subscriber base — we anticipate the exact opposite. Websites don’t grow by hiding them. But it greatly reduces the risk of our giving unintentional offense to some protected agenda group.

We are manually reviewing each column in our commentary archives before releasing them individually back into the non-suscriber database. The briefing archives, and all member’s forums will be invisible to non-subscribers.

Posting privileges to the public commentary forums will be according to member status and all posts will be delayed, subject to our review. All publicly viewable posts will be subject to review prior to release.

Most of the changes will be invisible to logged-in members at the website, but if you aren’t logged in, all the links to the member’s areas will be gone, as will a lot of the front page content.

(If you’ve forgotten your password, there is a link on the password page where you can retrieve it by email.)

For now, we’ll continue the Omega Letter emails, but we are working on alternatives for the day when we won’t be able to deliver them via regular email anymore.

I am not happy about the necessity to go underground, and I am particularly worried about the impact the move will have on the OL’s subscriber base. But my first obligation is to preserve our existing fellowship.

I knew from Bible prophecy that one day, Christians would face censorship and be forced underground. I’ve been making observations over the years, with each new piece of legislation, that it was coming. But it was always ‘someday.”

But somehow, that doesn’t cushion the shock of knowing that ‘someday’ has arrived.

Special Report: Iran’s War Plan Emerging

Special Report: Iran’s War Plan Emerging
Vol: 70 Issue: 28 Saturday, July 28, 2007

Special Report: Iran’s War Plan Emerging

This past week, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad paid a state visit to Syria to meet with Bashar al Assad, president of Syria, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, and with the senior Hamas leadership headquartered in Damascus.

During their meeting, the Syrian president promised his Iranian counterpart to refrain from opening peace negotiations with Israel in exchange for massive Iranian military aid and Tehran’s support of Syrian interests in Lebanon.

This was reported Saturday by the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, which is published in London.

Following their lengthy meeting in Damascus, President Bashar Assad said, “I am calm today, more than ever.” After their meeting, the Iranian president also met privately with Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas political bureau director Khaled Mashaal.

According to the report, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agreed to help Syria with nuclear research and chemical weapons and to equip its navy with surface-to-sea missiles of the type that Hezbollah used to attack the Israel Navy Hanit warship in the course of the Second Lebanon War.

It also promised to build in Syria a factory for the manufacture of medium-range missiles and to allot $1 billion to the purchase of advanced tanks and combat planes from Russia.

Reports indicate that Iran even promised “to make problems” during the Lebanese presidential elections in order to keep Assad’s Lebanese puppet, Emile Lahoud in office.

Barely two days after Ahmadinejad headed for home, Nasrallah was announcing to anyone that would listen that Hezbollah had missiles that could strike anywhere in Israel.

“In July and August (2006) there was no place in occupied Palestine which was out of the reach of the resistance missiles. Tel Aviv or elsewhere, we were certain that we could reach any corner or spot in occupied Palestine and now we are certain that we can reach them,” Nasrallah told al-Jazeera.

Hezbollah has been building its arsenal and training its forces with Iran’s assistance for the past year and awaiting instructions from Tehran.

Nasrallah’s comments to al-Jazeera only days after Ahmadinejad’s summit suggest those instructions have been given.

Last year’s war came as a surprise to both Hezbollah and Iran. Hezbollah slipped across Israel’s border and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. They expected Israel to bluster and fume, perhaps conduct a few retaliatory strikes, but they never expected Israel to mount a full-scale invasion of Lebanon.

The war came before Iran was ready. But Hezbollah successfully held off the Israeli incursion and the war ended in a draw, pleasantly surprising Damascus and Tehran and drawing the renewed attention of al-Qaeda.

With Hezbollah still holding Israel’s prisoners and Israel going home empty-handed, it appeared that Israel might not be as unbeatable as it once was.

The thinking is, if Hezbollah could stalemate the IDF, the combined power of an Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas-al-Qaeda assault, coupled with advanced weaponry, could finally crush them.

The European UNFIL units stationed in Lebanon would be assigned to the terrorists to drive out, without risking direct European retaliation against Iran or Syria. There is evidence to suggest that is just what Ahmadinejad has in mind.

Tehran has placed new al-Qaeda units Tehran has established within Hezbollah units in Lebanon. They are specifically trained to attack UNIFIL, and with Hezbollah’s new anti-aircraft and anti-ship cruise missiles, Hezbollah can engage any air or naval retaliation that might come from European ships and aircraft.

A few years ago, during one of its military parades, Tehran had in formation an infantry unit of mullahs, students of the Quran, dedicated to martyrdom. Ahmadinejad made a show last year of signing up thousands of volunteers to join a special martyr’s brigade.

The past year’s resupply and training preparations have equipped Hezbollah and Hamas to inflict serious, and potentially fatal injuries to Israel, even without direct Syrian or Iranian military action.

And a major war would inflame radical Islam throughout the region, threatening the governments of both Jordan and Egypt. Both have peace treaties with Israel and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan are both still friendly to the US — good reasons for targeting their regimes for overthrow.

Syria continues to build up its forward ballistic missile batteries along the border with Israel. Syria is known to be producing non-conventional warheads, including those containing VX gas, to deliver by SCUDs.

World Tribune reported that, ” Israeli military sources said the Syrian military has positioned its Scud C and Scud D ballistic missile batteries in southern Syria. The sources said the missile batteries have maintained full combat readiness and could be launched at any time.

The sources said the Syrian missiles, including the SS-21, could reach virtually any part of the Jewish state.”

The Tribune said that Israeli intelligence interprets the high state of alert of Syrian forward missile batteries as an indication of a planned Syrian first strike.

“We have tried to reach an arrangement where each side takes measures to ease tensions,” a military source said. “The Syrians have not responded.”

“The Syrians are limiting their preparations to ballistic missiles, air defense and commando operations,” the source said. “Their first move would be an attack on our cities rather than a tank invasion of the Golan.”

The sources said Syria has also brought military personnel in plainclothes to help re-populate villages in the Golan Heights near the demilitarized zone with Israel. They said this could indicate that Syria was adopting the Hizbullah model of establishing a civilian shield from which to attack Israel.

“Israel wants peace, but we must be prepared,” Olmert said. “We must not allow ourselves to be taken by surprise.”

Syria recently removed its military checkpoints on its side of the border. Israel is “concerned” that Syria’s removal of military checkpoints on their side of the Golan Heights could be a sign that Damascus is preparing for war, the London based Al-Hayat reported Saturday.

The British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, reported on June 25 that Tehran was establishing a missile defense shield for Syria and preparing to ship sophisticated military hardware, including “dozens of medium-range Shahab-3 and Russian-made Scud-C missiles, together with Scud-B missiles.”

Along the Israeli side of the Golan, Israel has established a number of new army positions, and several old IDF military installations reopened. Some of the newly reactivated installations hadn’t been used since the early 1980’s.

More tanks have been patrolling the area, with several tanks setting up shop in strategic positions looking down on Syria. Makeshift military outposts have been erected and Golan checkpoints fortified.

In several Golan positions near the Syrian border, IDF tractors cleared the way in recent weeks so that tanks can amass in the area if they are needed, soldiers stationed here said.

Dennis Ross, State Department Middle East chief negotiator during the Clinton administration, said flatly this week that war could erupt between Israel and Syria this summer. “Syria has rearmed Hezbollah to the teeth,” Ross said, without America doing anything to punish the Assad regime.

The editor in chief of Syria’s official daily newspaper Al-Thawra wrote Wednesday that Damascus was expecting an attack at any time, and warned that an Israeli strike would be a “mistake.”

Assessment:

Last week, al-Qaeda released what was obviously a five year old video of Osama bin-Laden exhorting his followers, prompting widespread speculation that the fact he hadn’t been seen in more than a year and that this video was five years old meant that he was dead or dying.

A second, but far less discussed possibility, is that the video was released as a signal to his commanders. When al-Qaeda wants to get a message delivered, and it doesn’t have time to wait for Fedex to find the right cave, it releases an Osama bin-laden video. The second it is released, its contents make world-wide headline news. It’s lots faster, and more reliable, than Fedex.

Let’s add up what we know, or can reasonably infer, from the available intelligence. Iran appears to have given Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda a target list and a target date for war with Israel. Syria has put its missile batteries on high alert, and Israel is fortifying its side of the Golan Heights.

Last week, Ehud Ohlmert was discussing handing the Golan back to Syria in exchange for peace. This week, Syria claims Israel is not serious about peace negotiations and is adding new missile batteries to its military buildup along Israel’s borders.

What else do we know? We know that Iran has signed up thousands of volunteer martyrs. Iran is also orchestrating and coordinating military operations with Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The latest National Intelligence Estimate says Iran has been hosting al-Qaeda’s top leadership and that al-Qaeda now coordinates policy and operations with Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

We know that al-Qaeda is recruiting in Latin America. We know that Venezuela has been operating an Iran-Damascus-Caracas air corridor for the past year.

We know that Middle Eastern illegal aliens have been caught trying to enter the US disguised as Mexicans.

Here’s what we don’t know. We don’t know who has made it across the borders so far, where they are, where they are from, or what their intentions are.

Here is what we can infer. It is reasonable to assume that a good number of Iranian-trained jihadists, as well as al-Qaeda jihadists smuggled from Venezuela through Mexico have made it to the United States.

At the same time, Iran is openly pulling the strings to orchestrate an all-out war of annihilation against Israel, through proxy armies, while it prepares for a wider war with the United States, where sleeper agents await their activation orders.

Homeland Security has been warning of the probability of a terrorist attack against the US this summer, with Michael Chertoff making headlines last week by saying last week that he had a ‘gut instinct’ of an impending strike.

And this week, we’ve had Osama bin-Laden’s face splashed over every TV set in the world, in a carefully arranged montage of selected clips from old videos. What can be inferred from the available intelligence is chilling. Iran may be orchestrating something much wider than just a regional war with Israel.

It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

Hating Christ . . .

Hating Christ . . .
Vol: 70 Issue: 27 Friday, July 27, 2007

Hating Christ . . .

I was reading the comments posted by readers of the Huffington Post in response to a column posted by Max Blumenthal about the “Christians United For Israel Tour” Washington summit meeting, hosted by San Antonio pastor John Hagee.

The column was entitled, “Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United For Israel Tour.”

Blumenthal’s column fairly dripped with hate for Christians in particular, but reserving some for Jews who collaborate with them.

“CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby. Hagee and his minions have forged close ties with the Bush White House and members of Congress from Sen. Joseph Lieberman to Sen. John McCain.

In its call for a unilateral military attack on Iran and the expansion of Israeli territory, CUFI has found unwavering encouragement from traditional pro-Israel groups like AIPAC and elements of the Israeli government.”

Let’s digest that before moving on, ok. The warmongering Christians are in a conspiracy with other pro-Israel groups and elements of the expansionist Israeli government to destroy Iran.

Now that we know who the players are; warmongering Christians and expansionist Israel, Blumenthal warns that the Christians are not just warmongers, they are duplicitous, as well.

“But CUFI has an ulterior agenda: its support for Israel derives from the belief of Hagee and his flock that Jesus will return to Jerusalem after the battle of Armageddon and cleanse the earth of evil. In the end, all the non-believers – Jews, Muslims, Hindus, mainline Christians, etc. – must convert or suffer the torture of eternal damnation. Over a dozen CUFI members eagerly revealed to me their excitement at the prospect of Armageddon occurring tomorrow.”

The real motive behind Christians United For Israel, according to Blumenthal, is suspect, because what Christians really want to do is convert Jews to Christianity.

There are two ways to look at that motive. The first is positive.

The Bible says that Jesus is the only way to heaven and my greatest earthly obligation is to do everything I can to keep people from going to hell. I have nothing to gain in this lifetime by seeing someone converted to Christianity.

And, assuming there really isn’t a God or an afterlife, nobody has anything to lose.

Nobody is injured by coming to Christ. And if the atheists are right, as they believe, nobody is injured in the afterlife, either, since there isn’t one.

But the way that Blumenthal expresses it, Christianity is an evil, hateful religion in which “Jews, Muslims, Hindus, (and) mainline Christians must convert or suffer the torture of eternal damnation.”

It is hard to think of a more negative way of expressing it — Blumethal is to be congratulated for his semantical skill. It is interesting that Blumenthal included ‘mainline Christians’ in his list of the damned.

That is very revealing. It isn’t the Christian system that Blumenthal rails against.

It is Christ Himself.

Assessment:

The reader comments to Blumenthal’s column literally took my breath away. Christianity calls on its followers to love God above all things and to love one’s neighbor as himself.

Evidently, that is exceptionally offensive to the readers of the Huffington Post:

“Dear Max, You’re the best, this report of yours gets right to the heart of the matter. These Zealots are a danger to Humanity. Thanks for exposing them, because it is their dreams of “Heaven” that is bringing us to *HELL* on earth. – DAP”

“They want to finish the job Hitler started — removing Judaism from the face of the earth — and they imagine that a nice Jew, Jesus, is going to do it for them. They are a curse on the face of Christianity, a danger to Jews, capable of starting a war in the Middle East if they feel it will bring Armageddon closer and just the kind of offal that makes Christianity ugly to Jews who are not sucking up.” – Midnight4

” I agree Dap . . .thank you Max . . these guys need to be exposed and stopped . . . put behind bars more like . . . they are insane.” – Macready

“When terms like “Jesus Freak” and “Bible Thumper” prove woefully inadequate to describe such creatures, there’s always the clinical yet entirely apt “dangerous psychopath”. – willfarnaby

“There IS NO GOD! GOD is a fictional character and it never ceases to amaze me how supposedly intelligent people that seem to demand proof of everything else in life (most of which doesn’t need more than looking at to prove – e.g. air quality and it’s relation to green house effect) then say “oh…it’s all about belief and faith.” What blind bullsh*t.”

“That those of the Jewish faith would allow this merger with those Christians, who believe that the rapture will give the Jews, “God’s Chosen People”, a chance to save their souls would be laughable, if it wasn’t so frighteningly delusional!” – JoDeeVa

“Clearly these religious freaks should not be allowed to vote; or drive for that matter.” – editor

The hatred the comments expressed was aimed at people like me. I guess that is what was so breath-taking to me. Logic doesn’t apply to this kind of white-hot hatred.

Wrote another blogger, “As a non-believer, it’s frightening that these people go to sleep hoping that I will burn in hell tomorrow.” dragbunt

If the guy, ‘dragbunt’ is an unbeliever, then what difference does it make? There is no hell, so what the heck is so frightening to him? And if he is frightened by a Christian belief that doesn’t apply to him, wouldn’t that necessitate the coining of a new word, say, “Christophobe”, to describe him?

I don’t get it. The Left utterly vomits out its hatred for believing Christians and Jews, but champions Islamic rights to demonstrate its enlightened and progressive doctrine of “inclusionism”.

Here is the Left’s brand of inclusionism at work: Pro Islamic and Saudi-funded K-12 school curriculum is now mandated by the federal government. The government gave the job of designing it to Harvard University.

According to a report authored by Sandra Stotsky, a former senior commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Education, the curriculum is both “distorted” and “manipulative.”

Harvard s outreach program delivered seminars that virtually promoted Islam as a religion, while sharply criticizing alleged American prejudice against the Muslim world, she found.

Harvard s outreach training prompted K-12 teachers to design celebratory treatments of the life and teachings of Mohammad and the revelation and spread of Islam, with exercises calling on students to appoint imams, memorize Islamic principles, and act out prayer at a Mosque.

According to Stotsky, if Harvard s outreach personnel had designed similar classroom exercises based on Christian or Jewish models, People for the American Way, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the A.C.L.U. would descend upon them like furies.

We’ve discussed this program in previous briefings several years ago, they aren’t new. But the Lefties that express such hatred for those who believe the Bible have no problem with Harvard’s Islamic evangelical outreach programs.

There are no ACLU lawyers serving papers, People for the American way publicists whispering in news editors’ ears, no atheists challenging their 1st Amendment Right not to believe in Allah to the Supreme Court.

They’ve had time. The public school system has been using this curriculum since 2002. No doubt the first crop of American jihadists have already graduated.

Stotsky criticized one of the key teaching resources pushed by Harvard s outreach program: The Arab World Studies Notebook. The Notebook has been widely denounced as a practically proselytizing text offering uncritical praise for the Arab world. Stotsky calls it, a piece of propaganda.

Even the Notebook s editor, Audrey Shabbas, acknowledges that it s purpose is to provide the Arab point of view.

One analysis quoted by Stotsky says that the Arab World Studies Notebook is designed to induce teachers to embrace Islamic religious beliefs and to support political views favored by the Middle East Policy Council (formerly the Arab American Affairs Council).

How is it that Christianity so hateful that the Bible qualifies as ‘hate literature’ while a Saudi-funded Islamic indoctrination program is part of the K-12 public school curriculum?

It isn’t that the Left prefers Islam. It’s just a knee-jerk, mindless response to its blind hatred of Christ.

Christ, not “Christianity.” The Left has no beef with the Christian ‘system’. (After all, they’re going to hell with everybody else.)

It is the followers of Christ who are the hateful ones so despised by the Left that they’d rather see America embrace the Koran than the Bible.

It is Christ, and those who follow Him, of whom BufuAmericanus was speaking when he wrote in his comment: “If you don’t bow to the right ghosts, we will wish for you to burn alive and suffer in eternal torment… God is love, A-Men.”

Saying someone will go to hell if he doesn’t accept the gift of pardon offered by Jesus Christ is ‘hate speech’ to the Left.

Calling Christians “religious freaks” that should be silenced, disenfranchised and jailed is not. Since it is aimed at Christians, it is protected opinion being expressed by those exercising their 1st Amendment rights.

With all the hatred being espoused against Christ, and knowing that Christian sites are being targeted for hate crimes, it helps to keep in mind that we DO follow the real Jesus Christ. He said this would happen, and He gave us a command for when it did.

“These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. . . He that hateth Me hateth My Father also.” (John 15:17-19, 23)

Special Report: Who’s Next?

Special Report: Who’s Next?
Vol: 70 Issue: 25 Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has gone after the Canadian freedominion.ca website on the grounds the site propagates ‘hate speech’.

Free Dominion is a Canadian-based blogger site, not-too dissimilar to the Omega Letter’s forum section in its content and subject material.

It is a conservative blogsite, (one of the very few in Canada) with links to other Canadian and American conservative blogs. It also is a site where other conservative posts, columns and blogs are reposted and/or linked.

Several of my own columns have appeared there on occasion. Sample headlines from freedominion.ca include: “Liberal Strategist Photo Slammed as Derogatory to Women and Politics”; “Liberal on Liberal Action in Canada South (San Franscisco)”; “Biblical Recipe Produces Virus-Fighting Oil”; etc.

My favorite is a parody of a rabidly liberal Canadian political writer as a housewife under the headline; “Warren Kinsella If He Made a Different Choice in Life”.

(Warren Kinsella is a former speech-writer for Jean Chretien (and my 1st cousin).

Free Dominion was notified by mail that it was under investigation by a government investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission that a complaint had been lodged against it.

The only information given them was the last name of the complainant and the name of the investigator. According to one source, the complaints surround posted comments referencing gays and Islam. One comment cited was a reader post that said;

“I can’t figure out why the homosexuals I ran into are on the side of the Muslims. After all, Muslims who practice Sharia law tend to advocate beheading homosexuals.”

The statement itself is true, but whether or not something is true is no defense against prosecution under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

All that is necessary to invoke the ire of the Political Correctness Police is that the complainant be offended. You see, under Canadian law, it is a crime to offend someone.

It is also important to note that it was NOT the website’s publishers who posted the comment that so offended Canadian teacher Marie-Line Gentes that she filed her complaint with the CHRC, but it was instead a member posting. But it is the website’s publishers that are facing trial.

And it is equally important to note that the CHRC has NEVER found anyone charged under the Act innocent. The only reason that freedominion.ca is still operating is because they located their servers in the US, and beyond the Canadian government’s ability to order shut down.

“It is true that website material can still be posted on websites and by persons that are beyond the Commission’s jurisdiction. This limitation stems from both the nature of the Internet and jurisdictional limits of Canadian law,” the commission says.

“Nevertheless, a decision under section 13 or a conviction under the hate promotion provisions of the Criminal Code are of great importance in indicating that hate promotion is not permissible in Canada.”

Section 13 is the article authorizing the criminalization of thought.

Assessment:

Needless to say, this information is of exceeding interest to Some Guy, who just MIGHT be subject to the CHRC’s jurisdiction, who may or may note occasionally make insensitive remarks about certain topics that might run afoul of the law on giving offense.

Not that I have anybody particular in mind, you understand, I’m just saying. . . ummm, ” Hey, did I tell you how much I liked being in the States? It sure is nice here.. . “

We’re probably going to have to make a few changes in our forums, putting more of member’s posts behind the member’s only firewall. If only members can read it, then there is a reduced likelihood we will offend one another.

But our day is surely coming. I confess, although this is something I foresaw coming for years, I am still blinded with the realization that it is here. The letter to the freedominion.ca sight was heavy on references to “settlement”.

“The report will include a recommendation for the disposition of the complaint. I can recommend that a conciliator be appointed, if the evidence supports the allegations in the complaint, or that the complaint be dismissed, if the allegations are not supported by the evidence.”

No charge filed with the CRHC was ever ‘dismissed’ without settlement to my knowledge. Then the investigator held out both the carrot and stick to them:

“I can also recommend to the Commission that a settlement be approved if the parties reach an agreement during the course of the investigation. . . I would be pleased to discuss the possibility of a settlement with you or your representative at any time.”

The implied choices are stark: “Pay off the complainant, or face heavy fines and criminal prosecution.”

Our time is coming. . .

The EU’s Newest ‘Prince’

The EU’s Newest ‘Prince’
Vol: 70 Issue: 24 Tuesday, July 24, 2007

On Monday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair assumed his duties as Special Peace Envoy for the so-called ‘Quartet’ consisting of the EU, UN, Russia and the US.

His mandate from the quartet the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations is limited to helping to build Palestinian Authority institutions and to promoting the development of the Palestinian economy, with the role of mediator generally reserved for the Americans.

The limits on his mandate have already begun to chafe the leaders of the EU, who see themselves as the rightful leaders of the Middle East peace process.

The EU is in a strong position to press for a lasting peace in the region and must press upon the US the importance of its sustaining an “active, balanced and consistent interest and engagement,” the parliamentary European Union committee said.

The 27-member group must be “more active and assertive than it has been in the past,” including by providing leadership and imaginative ideas within the Quartet of the US, Russia, the EU and UN, it said.

Committee chairman Lord Roper said the EU has a crucial role to play in ensuring the Middle East Peace Process gets back on track.

“As recent events have testified the situation in Palestine is very fluid and it will be necessary to engage effectively with all the parties involved, that is where the EU has in advantage over other members of the Quartet,” Roper said.

He suggested that the world’s largest economic bloc should take an “assertive approach both unilaterally and within the Quartet to ensure innovative solutions are found to move the peace process forward as quickly as possible.”

“The focus must now be on the working towards sustainable final status agreements not an inflexible devotion to the Road Map, the goal of a two state solution is key and the EU should do everything it can to ensure it is achieved,” the Liberal Democrat peer said.

In a report on the EU and the Middle East Peace Process, the committee warned that the international community must act urgently to restore the credibility of the peace process through a renewed, concerted and sustained effort.

It criticized the approach taken by the Quartet to the human rights and socio-economic plight of the Palestinians, accusing them of contributing “nothing to ameliorate the crisis.”

The most incredible position advanced by the EU’s committee was that the Quartet ‘Road Map’, or blueprint for peace, as originally conceived in 2003, cannot be the only vehicle for progress. The reason?

It argued that the interim steps described in the Road Map should no longer be pursued to the exclusion of consideration of the final status issues, including the territorial limits of the two states, the fate of refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

Assessment:

Here’s why that position is so incredible. What it is really saying is that the Quartet should drop the preconditions for peace before moving on to discussions of statehood.

Those preconditions include: 1), New Palestinian leadership must be “untainted by terror,” and, 2), all terrorist activities against the Jewish State must have ceased.

The Palestinians flatly refused to meet either of these preconditions, but continue to demand that Israel meet all of its obligations, which, according to the Road Map, are not binding until the Palestinians meet preconditions 1) and 2).

The road map also called for the new leadership to immediately takes steps to dismantle the terror network (not negotiate a ceasefire), to outlaw terrorism (not done), to arrest wanted terror suspects (not one arrest since Abbas was appointed) and to take concrete steps to gain control of the territories (not one of which has been undertaken).

AFTER all that had been accomplished, Israel was obligated to; unfreeze Palestinian funds, begin dismantling settlements, begin withdrawing its troops from Palestinian areas, lift the closure of its borders to Palestinian workers and turn over security to the Palestinian Authority.

Although the Palestinians are led by unrepentant terrorist and former number two man to Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, Israel lifted the border closures. That brought about a wave of Palestinian terror attacks.

As soon as the opportunity arose, the Palestinians voted a recognized terrorist group, Hamas, as its majority government.

Although Hamas absolutely refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist and utterly refused to halt terrorist operations against Israeli civilians, Israel totally withdrew from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas took over Gaza, and, using former Israeli settlements as a base, began unrelenting rocket attacks against Israeli civilian targets. Since then, Gaza has become an enemy state-within-a-state. What makes it all the more incredible both Gaza and the West Bank are BOTH avowed enemy states, despite the fact that neither exists AS a state.

And the EU’s proposed solution is to take those two enemy terrorist states, force them into a single entity despite the fact they remain sworn enemies of Israel, and grant them official statehood.

This lunacy, argues the EU, is the first step towards achieving peace. Israel MUST ‘renounce violence’ against the enemy, the enemy is not required to reciprocate, and in return for ISRAEL meeting one side of the road map, to reward Hamas and the PA for NOT meeting any of its obligations.

It’s hard to put it into words that make sense.

Blair’s mandate, which the EU objects to as ‘too limited’ restrict him to dealing with the economic aid to the Palestinian Authority and its institutions. The EU and the Palestinians demand it be extended it so that he has the authority to impose a ‘solution’ on Israel.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat flatly told Blair: “”We made it clear that we are no longer interested in talks, declarations or even initiatives. We are interested in the creation of mechanisms in order to implement all the ideas for the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Instead of laughing him off, Blair and the EU both agree that, to achieve statehood, the Palestinians should stop killing EACH OTHER, but make no demands that they stop killing Jews.

As crazy as it sounds, it is pretty much in line with the way the Bible outlined the peace process described by the prophets in the last days.

It will be based in the concept of “Land for Peace” (“dividing the land for gain – Daniel 1139).

It will be one-sided in nature and leave Israel completely vulnerable. (“They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” ~ Jeremiah 6:14)

It will be centered around ownership of Jerusalem and be imposed by a global coalition: (“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” ~ Zechariah 12:3)

And finally, it will be brokered by a leader of the Europeans and will be based on a pre-existing seven-year agreement: (“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week” ~Daniel 9:27)

The Oslo Agreement was a seven-year agreement that collapsed when Arafat renewed the intifada, and the Road Map for Peace was a plan drawn up based on the principles of Oslo. That agreement remains unconfirmed.

I am not saying that Tony Blair is the antichrist — in fact, I don’t believe that he is. But Blair’s role will be to set the stage for Europe to replace the United States as the principle peace broker, which will put the EU in the driver’s seat, which in turn sets the stage for the antichrist, precisely as the Bible predicted.

At at some point before that event takes place, the Apostle Paul says, “the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with those words.” (1st Thessalonians 4:16-18)

The Future Belongs to God

The Future Belongs to God
Vol: 70 Issue: 23 Monday, July 23, 2007

More than 2600 years ago, the Prophet Isaiah recorded a challenge hurled by God to all those who laid claim to Divinity, saying,

“Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. (Isaiah 41:23)

While many have picked up the challenge, including Mohammed, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, William Miller, Harold Camping, etc., all have failed to meet God’s exacting standard of 100% accuracy, 100% of the time.

Consider what it means for Ezekiel to describe, 2500 years in advance, the geopolitical alliances of the 21st century. It was only sixty years ago that the world was at war — the alliances described by Ezekiel didn’t exist until that war forced them into being.

The Scriptures say that the ‘hairs on your head are numbered’ — multiply that times every single person who ever lived. Every single one of them had free will choices and the choices made by our ancestors, no matter how far back we go, shaped the world we live in today. The same one foretold by the prophets.

Hebrew prophets named alliances between nations that didn’t exist in their world, and in some cases, didn’t exist until this generation.

Let’s take a look at ten prophecies in the process of fulfillment in this generation. A lot of this is covering old ground to long-time Omega Letter readers, but it is worth taking a second look.

1. ‘Take heed that no man deceive you’ “

And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.” (Matthew 24:3-4)

It’s often been said that the ‘devil’s greatest trick is convincing people that he doesn’t exist’. Deception has been raised in this generation to an art form. We expect to be deceived by our politicians, our entertainment, advertisers and the media.

2. An increase in disasters and wars.

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. ” (24:6)

World War One and World War Two were cataclysmic events that shaped the 20th century, but they were domestic disputes in comparison with what World War Three with the Soviet Union would have looked like. For fifty years, the two sides were locked in ideological combat in what history calls the Cold War. Every morning for fifty years, each side woke up wondering if the Cold War would turn hot — the ultimate rumor of war — that ended only a decade ago. But, as Jesus noted, see that ye not be troubled, for the is not yet. And it wasn’t.

3. The great “Falling Away”.

“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” (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

In this generation, being labeled a Christian ‘fundamentalist’ is almost a criminal charge. The very phrase “Christian fundamenalist” conjures up images of wild-eyed crazies stockpiling weapons against the end of the world while plotting the best way to blow up abortion clinics.

4. “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” (Daniel 12:4.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, very few commentaries existed on either Daniel or the Revelation. Both were considered to be filled with metaphors and symbolism. Even Calvin and Luther passed up the challenge. The words were ‘sealed UNTIL THE TIME OF THE END’.

In this generation, the mysteries of Daniel and Revelation are largely unlocked.

Columbus sailed to the New World 1500 years after the Apostle Paul made his Meditterranean journey. Both sailed on wooden ships equipped with sails, as did ships until the end of the 19th century. One hundred years later, the same trip takes a few hours by air. 1900 years to get from Paul’s ship to the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic. Sixty years after that, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. We certainly can go ‘to and fro’.

Moore’s Law says that computer capacity doubles every 18 months. Knowledge is increasing at an exponential rate. There is technology being developed to make computers out of strands of DNA.

5. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matthew 24:12) — Anybody else notice how many parents are murdering their children lately? Each of you can make as strong a case for the increasing tolerance of sin and the collapsing moral structure of society as eloquently as I can.

6. The emergence of the antichrist.

Daniel says that the antichrist’s seminal act of power will be to make peace between Israel and her neighbors. Until this generation, there was no Israel to be at war. Today, the effort to bring peace is the single most important foreign policy goal of the US, EU, UN and Russia — who together form the “Quartet” that developed the current ‘road map’. The world is crying for a leader who can solve the global problems of the Middle East, terrorism and outlaw nations. Today. In this generation.

7. Earthquakes, Famines, Wars and Pestilences —

Matthew 24:7 speaks to all of these as being like labor pains — growing in intensity and frequency as the time approaches. Earthquake activity is demonstrably on the increase, while ethnic wars rage across Africa and entire populations face starvation at a time when other countries are throwing leftovers in the garbage.

The entire sub-Saharan continent of Africa is facing extinction by the pestilence of AIDS — while the technology exists to arrest it. We can make computers out of DNA strands, but the earthquakes, famines, wars and pestilences just keep getting more intense.

8. As it was in the days of Noah and Lot (Matthew 24:37, Luke 17:28-30)

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5) That wickedness is the hallmark of this age can be proved by picking up a newspaper.

The president refers to ‘evil’ and ‘evildoers’ in every speech. What could be more wicked than deliberately blowing up a bus filled with children to make a political statement?

Television could be described as ‘imagination in a box’. We are entertained by vicariously participating in the story line. What entertains us the most? According to the box office receipts, murder, mayhem, war, destruction, occultic fantasy and sex.

Lot lived in Sodom, a place where homosexuality was rampant and widely accepted as an acceptable alternative lifestyle. Today, we have parades for homosexuals in drag, or in various stages of undress, flaunting their wickedness to the enthusiastic applause of the audience. (Romans 1:32)

9. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14)

Right now, some of you are reading these words in South Africa. Others in the UK. Still others in New Zealand, Australia, Mexico City, Vancouver, Nigeria and Bahrain. That’s just the Omega Letter subscribers. There are literally thousands of Christian websites doing the same thing, with the same global reach. Soon, there will be no corner of the earth that the Gospel has not penetrated. Jesus said that once that happens, THEN shall the end come.

10. “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” (Matthew 24:24) I could make a list. But so could you.

Bible prophecy is both the proof of God’s existence and the assurance we have of our salvation. “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:” (2 Peter 1:19)

The same Voice that proclaimed, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11) also proclaimed, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)

Bible prophecy is not gloom and doom, but is instead hope and a blessed assurance. It is proof positive that God remains on His Throne and that He WILL do all that He has promised. Including the following:

“For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.” (1st Thessalonians 4:16-18)

Special Report: “Pickles and Cucumbers”

Special Report: “Pickles and Cucumbers”
Vol: 70 Issue: 21 Saturday, July 21, 2007

“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.” (2nd Peter 1:16)

What sets a Christian apart from a Muslim, a Jew, or a Buddhist? Christians wake up each morning, confident in their salvation and unafraid to meet their God.

Their God isn’t an unknowable Allah, or a dead Chinese philosopher or a coming Messiah, but a Risen Savior Who has already paid the full penalty for their sin on the Cross.

To a born-again Christian, at the moment of rebirth, one becomes ‘positionally seated in the heavenlies’ — that is to say, as surely as if that person was there already.

In the beginning, God created man in His Image. God is eternal — existing outside of space and time, He always was and He always will be, in a kind of ever-present now, for want of a better analogy. God created the angels in the same way, although they had a created beginning, they were designed to last eternally.

So, we have the two eternal creations of God — the angels, and man. Everybody with me so far?

The angels rebelled and were cast out of heaven (Jude 1:6, Job 2:2 Isaiah 14:12). Then Adam and Eve fell, and were cast out of Eden. (Genesis 3:23)

After the Flood, God sought out Abraham, with whom He made a covenant. Through Moses, God established the Law, which in essence, subdivided spiritual mankind and created a new spiritual entity in the Jew.

All mankind was now subdivided into either Jew or Gentile. Are you still with me? To this point, there are three distinct eternal entities; angels and mankind, subdivided into Jews and Gentiles.

Spiritually, they are distinctly different with the only common characteristic being that they are created with an eternal spiritual existence. Don’t let me lose you now. Here’s the good part.

The Bible teaches that, at the Cross, a fourth spiritual creation came into existence. It is distinct from either Jew or Gentile, but is related to both.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

You still with me now? Allow me to torture yet another analogy by way of explanation. Think of the caterpillar and the butterfly. Or, better yet, a pickle and a cucumber. Your choice.

You start life spiritually, as a caterpillar (or a cucumber). Unless you get squashed (or eaten) before the transformation takes place, then that is how you remain for eternity.

Stay with me. . .

On the other hand, once the caterpillar becomes a butterfly (or the cucumber becomes a pickle), that is what it is. It isn’t what it WILL be, it is what it IS.

And no matter what you do, you can’t turn a butterfly into a caterpillar (or a pickle into a cucumber). That is why it is called TRANSFORMATION. It is permanent and irrevocable.

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” (Galatians 6:15)

Becoming a ‘new creature’ in Christ is not a future event — it cannot be, since it takes place at the moment of salvation.

“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18 ) We already HAVE that power of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit as a birthright procured on our behalf by the Savior.

Let’s pull it all together now. Among the most divisive doctrines in the Body of Christ is the doctrine of eternal security.

At various times, we’ve examined it from the perspective of ‘this is what the context of this verse is’ and, ‘the original Greek says’ and so on, but the fact remains that when a Jew or a Gentile is saved by the Blood of Christ, he becomes a new creature, no longer a spiritual caterpillar, (or a pickle), but something else.

The transformation is complete at that moment. The rest is up to Jesus.

“Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” ( Philippians 1:6 )

Whether ‘once saved, always saved’ is a slogan or a doctrine is debated endlessly. But the simple truth of God is that the truth of God is simple.

You can’t turn a butterfly into a caterpillar. And you can’t turn a pickle into a cucumber.

Assessment:

“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:” (2nd Peter 1:19)

Don’t let doubt steal your confidence, and don’t let it be shaken by clever-sounding arguments that keep you bound by guilt and out of the battle. Know you are loved by God, and that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.’ (Romans 11:29)

Remember Who ‘He which hath begun a good work in you’ is, and be confident. When you are saved, the power of God indwells you. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)

The time is short until He returns and eternity is a long, long time. Each of us knows somebody who is either a caterpillar or a cucumber. How they will spend eternity may be up to you.

The enemy wants you to think that you aren’t good enough to be used by God, heck, you aren’t even really saved! Look at what a mess you are! How can God use you? How can you tell other people that they need to trust Jesus when He can’t even kick your cigarette habit for you?

The enemy wants to blind you to the fact you ARE new creature. If he can hold your salvation over your head, extending it, and then pulling it away, then that gives him power over you.

The real truth is, the only thing still up to you after salvation is whether you re going to be a beautiful butterfly or a moth; a Vlasic or a sour pickle.

But you don’t have to be a spiritual heavyweight to introduce people to Jesus. Or to be ready to answer the skeptic’s arguments, or to give a reason for the hope that is in you.

The only requirement for membership into the Body of Christ is that you must first be a sinner who trusts in Jesus alone for his salvation.

It bears repeating; the simple truth of God is that the truth of God is simple.

“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;” (1 Corinthians 1:27)

The Land Nobody Wanted. . .

The Land Nobody Wanted. . .
Vol: 70 Issue: 20 Friday, July 20, 2007

The land claimed by Israel is smaller than the state of Rhode Island. In comparison to the Arab Middle East, Israel is like a single piece of sod on a football field.

Carrying the analogy further, imagine that one team has to defend that single piece of sod from an opposing team that outnumbers them 650 to 1. The other team, claiming unfair advantage, is demanding the single piece of sod be divided and half of it be awarded to them.

The referees agree, and penalize the defending team for refusing to concede half of its 1/6th of one percent of the field to the opposition [that outnumbers them 650 to one]. The crowd loudly boos the defenders.

That is roughly analogous to the rules of engagement under which the Middle East conflict is being played out.

The Arab side makes two concurrent claims; 1) Israel has no historical right to the land; and 2) Israel, by its existence, has dispossessed the indigenous Palestinian people, leaving them with nowhere to go.

Except for a few decades of Christian control during the Crusades era, the land claimed by Israel was under Islamic control for 1300 years. That is one of the principle arguments advanced in favor of the Palestinian claim that Israel has no historical right to the Land of Promise.

That argument is bolstered by the existence of an Arab mosque atop what the Jews claim as Temple Mount, a mosque that has graced Mount Moriah for some 1,350 years.

According to Islam, the mosque atop Mount Moriah is the third-holiest site in Islam. Islamic tradition says the al Aqsa Mosque marks the place where Mohammed ascended into heaven aboard a winged horse. For that reason, it ranks third in line behind Mecca and Medina as Islam’s holiest cities.

In ancient times, Israel sat atop the most strategic crossroads of the known world. One couldn’t get from Babylon to Egypt by chariot without passing through it. Israel and Jerusalem have been fought over and conquered by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and finally, the British in 1917.

In each of its conquests, Jerusalem was strategic because of its strategic value as Israel’s God-given capital. From Nebuchadnezzar to Titus, each successive conqueror acknowledged Jerusalem as the capital of the Jews.

When the region was conquered by Islam, taking Jerusalem was a strategic, rather than religious necessity. Whoever controlled the Jewish holy city controlled the remaining indigenous Jews.

The reconquest of Jerusalem became a holy religious duty only after the Crusaders claimed the city for Christianity. Since the city was holy to Judaism and holy to Christianity, it became holy to Islam, as well.

But ‘holy’ doesn’t mean the same thing to Islam as it does to Christians and Jews. To Christians or Jews, ‘holy’ means worthy of reverence, whereas to Islam, ‘holy’ means worthy of possession.

Under Islamic possession, Jerusalem was just another dusty city of the province of Southern Syria. In the four hundred years Jerusalem was under Ottoman rule until 1917, the city was never even a regional or provincial capital.

After the Ottoman Empire fell to the Allies in the First World War, British foreign secretary Lord Balfour put into writing Britain’s support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

When the League of Nations made Palestine a British mandate after the war, Lord Balfour’s declaration was assumed as part of the deal and the allied powers of the Great War all agreed. By 1935, there were more than 300,000 Jews in Palestine. Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, had 100,000 people.

In 1947 Britain, which had been handed the Palestine problem by the now-defunct League of Nations passed it on, with relief, to the newly born United Nations. The UN agreed to partition Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a neutral UN zone containing Jerusalem, a city sacred to three religions. The Jews were thrilled, the Arabs adamantly opposed.

In late 1947 the plan was ratified by the UN, and the State of Israel proclaimed on May 14, 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the country. The the British pulled out completely, and most of the Arab world- Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan), Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, as well as Palestinians- immediately attacked in an attempt to destroy Israel.

By the time of armistice in 1949 Israel held three quarters of Palestine- twice as much land as the UN had proposed- Jordan had taken the land on the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt had taken the Gaza Strip.

It is at this point in the story of the Middle East that history ends and the modern myth of the Middle East is born.

Assessment:

The modern myth is that at the end of the Israeli War of Independence, the indigenous ‘Palestinian’ people were dispossessed by Israel and left with nothing.

The historical fact is that, until the mid 1930’s, the term ‘Palestinian’ was a label applied to the Jews.

Until 1950, the name of the Jerusalem Post was THE PALESTINE POST; the journal of the Zionist Organization of America was NEW PALESTINE; Bank Leumi was the ANGLO-PALESTINE BANK; the Israel Electric Company was the PALESTINE ELECTRIC COMPANY; there was the PALESTINE FOUNDATION FUND and the PALESTINE PHILHARMONIC.

All these were Jewish organizations. In America, Zionist youngsters sang “PALESTINE, MY PALESTINE”, “PALESTINE SCOUT SONG” and “PALESTINE SPRING SONG”

In general, the terms Palestine and Palestinian referred to the region of Palestine as it was. Thus “Palestinian Jew” and “Palestinian Arab” are straightforward expressions. “Palestine Post” and “Palestine Philharmonic” refer to these bodies as they existed in a place then known as Palestine.

The adoption of a Palestinian identity by the Arabs of Palestine is a recent phenomenon. Until the establishment of the State of Israel, and for another decade or so, the term ‘Palestinian’ applied almost exclusively to the Jews.

The claims of the Arab ‘Palestinians’ to be a separate people is an utter fiction. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians.

Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent British invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.

Syria was created by the British and subsequently given to France as the French Mandate. The Syrians declared independence after the British left in 1946, two years before Israel did the same thing. Jordan was created by the British in 1921.

The same British government that created the modern Arab world in 1920 at the San Remo Conference in Italy — by decree — also created a Jewish homeland the same way at the same conference.

And the Jewish Palestine of the Balfour Declaration as confirmed at San Remo encompassed a much bigger chunk of ground than Israel claims today.

Until the Jews renewed their claim to the land of Palestine, nobody else wanted it. The Jews petitioned for statehood on the principle that Palestine was “a land without a people” and that the Jews were “a people without a land.”

Arab revisionist historians say that claim was ‘a myth.’ History and mathematics tell a different story — if anybody were interested in the facts, that is.

In 1948, there were about 735,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs in Palestine. There were about 716,000 Jews. Since the same land now supports a population of more than 12 million combined Arabs and Jews, the argument that the Arabs were ‘crowded out’ by the Jews makes no sense.

The ‘Palestinian refugees’ languishing in ‘refugee camps’ in Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere, were not interned by Israel. They were interned by their own governments after those governments lost the war with Israel.

Those Jordanian citizens that lived in Jordan’s West Bank and the citizens of Egypt’s Gaza Strip (who, on May 30, 1967 were still Egyptians), became instant ‘Palestinians’ on June 7, 1967.

From the moment of its declaration of statehood, the Jews of Israel have lived under the constant threat of annihilation by the surrounding Arab states. As Golda Meir observed during the Yom Kippur War, “the Arabs can fight, and lose, and come back to fight another day. Israel can only lose once.”

What makes this significant is that NONE of this is a secret. Knowing this, the entire world prefers the fictional account advanced by the Islamic world; that the Palestinians pre-existed the Jews, that the Jews stole ‘Palestinian land’ dispossessed its inhabitants and locked them away in refugee camps.

Remember the football field and the single square of sod analogy. To the world, dividing that single square of sod defended by a team outnumbered 650 to one that holds the rest of the football field is an example of ‘leveling the playing field’.

It is nothing short of madness. But it is a madness that seems to have infected the world at large. The Islamic version of the Arab-Israeli conflict is a monstrous lie being advanced in favor of a claim to land that nobody wanted until the Jews did.

In the midst of a global war on terror, the world is prepared to countenance an openly terrorist government ruling over a ‘people’ that do not exist, (a people whose only goal is the ANNIHILATION of another people whose history is THE most documented record of ancient times) based on the argument that the Jewish claim to Jerusalem is historically invalid.

That lie is so delusional that it boggles the mind. Yet it is the basic reason for a global war on terror that now threatens to spill over into an all-out war of civilizations.

Israel, by its very existence, is a stench in the nostrils of the secular world. It is a constant reminder of the existence and reality of God, and therefore, man’s accountability before Him.

Paul explains it this way: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. . .” (Romans 1:28)

The secular world’s war against the Jews is unreasoning, blind anti-semitism so ingrained in its psyche it is blissfully unaware it even exists.

Any critically-thinking person can see the truth, yet the UN consistently finds the ‘anti-truth’ when it involves Israel. It is almost supernatural in its scope and breadth. In fact, scratch ‘almost’ from that last sentence.

It IS supernatural.

“And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)

Note:

Today is Day One of the Omega Letter National Gathering at Angel’s Bed and Breakfast in Hermann, Missouri. It is also Gayle’s 50th birthday. Between the two, there is so much excitement that I really should give both events my undivided attention. So, with your kind indulgence, today’s and tomorrow’s OL briefs will be repeats of previous columns. I hope you enjoy them.

Forgetting Pearl Harbor

Forgetting Pearl Harbor
Vol: 70 Issue: 19 Thursday, July 19, 2007

Forgetting Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese government launched a sneak attack against the United States, striking without warning and scoring a devastating blow against a nation that thought it was at peace.

When asked what he thought the Japanese sneak attack against the US Sixth Fleet had accomplished for the Japanese Imperial war effort, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto offered a surprisingly glum assessment.

It was surprising because the Imperial Japanese Navy had scored an uncompromising victory.

The Japanese strike force had succeeded in destroying five battleships, a minelayer, and had sunk or severely damaged three battleships. One hundred and eighty-eight aircraft were destroyed on the ground, and the US Navy suffered 2,333 dead and 1,139 wounded.

By contrast, Japan’s losses were negligible: five midget subs, 29 aircraft and 64 men. Instead of jumping for joy at the victory, Yamamoto said instead, “I fear that all we have accomplished is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

On December 7, 1941, the United States was nowhere near ready for war. It’s fleet was antiquated, its military forces were still at peacetime levels, it had no air force to speak of, and those forces that it did have were poorly equipped.

Some new recruits, in the first few months following the attacks, trained using wooden rifles and mock weapons because there weren’t enough to go around.

But Yamamoto was right. The battle cry, “Remember Pearl Harbor” struck deep into the hearts of every American, and the “terrible resolve” it imbued resulted in the utter destruction of the Japanese war machine just over three and a half years later.

Assessment:

On September 11, 2001, forces loyal to Islam launched a sneak attack against US civilian targets within the homeland, using US civilian aircraft as improvised bombs.

Both of the towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed: the 110 story structures collapsed from the heat of the fires, killing 2,752 innocent American civilians — an even greater death toll than those lost at Pearl Harbor.

A second attack, this one launched against the heart of the US military in the heart of the American capital, destroyed a significant part of the Pentagon’s outer wall and killed another 189 Americans.

And yet a third attack, this one aimed at the US Capitol Building, or perhaps the White House, was thwarted by the passengers aboard Flight 93, who forced that plane down into a farmer’s field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

In total, 2, 974 Americans died on September 11, 2001. Unlike Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of this attack, Osama bin-Laden, danced with glee.

In a grainy videotape smuggled out of Afghanistan months later, Osama is chortling about how pleased he was at the carnage, which he said was much greater than he had expected.

Osama bragged that he inflicted that carnage with only 19 losses to his side, most of whom, Osama chuckled, didn’t know they were on a suicide mission until after the planes had taken off.

Osama had no fear of having ‘awakened a sleeping giant’. And he had already long before reached the conclusion that American resolve was a myth.

It will be six years this September since 19 hijackers armed with box knives killed more Americans than the fleet of 20 Japanese ships of the Imperial Navy inflicted at Pearl Harbor.

As Osama expected, the sleeping giant quickly rolled over and went back to sleep. American resolve evaporated as quickly the Democrat’s promises not to politicize the war for partisan purposes.

Within months, Democrats were solemnly declaring the war in Afghanistan was a “quagmire” and that George Bush had “dragged the nation into another Vietnam.”

Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, the New York Times, etc., were all reminding us that Afghanistan defeated the mighty Soviet Union after a twelve year conflict and prognosticating that same fate for America.

When that prediction failed to materialize, they dusted off the same rhetoric, replacing “Afghanistan” with “Iraq.”

Three and a half years after the fall of Saddam, (about the same length of time necessary to destroy the Imperial Japanese war machine) the Democrats in Congress forced an all-night debate over the issue of surrendering — to the same al-Qaeda terrorists that attacked us on 9/11.

Colin Powell, in a National Public Radio interview, predicted current U.S. troop levels can’t be sustained past the middle of 2008.

“We have to get us out of a middle of a civil war,” said Joe Biden. The debate was over a bill that would require the US to begin to withdraw its forces from Iraq within 120 days, finishing the withdrawal by April 30, 2008, leaving al-Qaeda’s forces in possession of the battlefield.

“We can’t win,” says Senators Carl Levin and Jack Reed. “We’ve already lost,” moans Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “President Bush has embroiled us in a quagmire!” the Democrats chant in unison.

“This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap,” lamented Democratic ally, Ayman al Zawahiri.

Pearl Harbor? Pearl Harbor? Isn’t that a beach somewhere in Hawaii?