Special Report: Sgt Anton Schmid

Special Report: Sgt Anton Schmid
Vol: 80 Issue: 31 Saturday, May 31, 2008

Mike Godwin is an attorney who served as first staff counsel for the Electronic Freedom Foundation. He is a pioneer in internet law and is also the author of what has come to be known as “Godwin’s Law.”

As formulated in 1990, the law states: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

Although in one of its early forms Godwin’s Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions, the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads.

“Godwin’s Law” shares the same characteristic that makes ‘old sayings’ into ‘old sayings’ — that is, it proves itself through casual observation.

In virtually any discussion group, somebody is likely to make a comparison to Hitler. I ran a search of the OL’s commentary archives and got ten hits on the keywords “to Hitler.”

Nine of them were in reference to people who compared Bush to Hitler, and one in which I used Hitler in conjunction with a story on propaganda.

There were 18 hits to our OL briefing archives; in several I drew comparisons between Hitler and Ahmadinejad, the majority of the rest were stories in which somebody else compared Bush to Hitler.

There were a couple of comparisons to Hitler in our member’s forums in conjunction with speeches by Arab leaders to the UN.

So Godwin’s Law is proved true without ever leaving our own community. But Godwin’s Law wouldn’t even exist except for the historical truth that Hitler has no historical equal.

And no contemporary threat measures up — not even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nuclear threats reach the same level of malevolent evil.

Whereas Ahmadinejad would destroy Israel in a blinding flash, Hitler’s henchmen subjected the Jews to unimaginable indignity, cruelty, deprivation and humiliation first.

It is one thing to destroy an enemy wholesale in war — evil it may be, but it doesn’t rise to the level of executing children in front of their parents, or working human beings literally to death by the tens of thousands.

Ahmadinejad’s enemy is Zionism as embodied by Israel. It is a religious and political genocidal hatred, but it is aimed at the Zionist entity, not the individual Jew.

For all his lies and bluster, Ahmadinejad is telling the truth when he boasted of Iran’s thriving 25,000-strong Jewish community.

There is a distinction drawn in Iran between ‘Jews’ and ‘Zionists’. The hatred of Israel is genocidal, but Iran’s hatred is politically and religiously motivated. Not ethnic.

Hitler didn’t seek their destruction for what they did — he sought to destroy them for who they were. It is a singular evil in which an innocent baby is no less an enemy to be destroyed than an armed combatant.

Hitler has but one real competitor, and he has not yet made his appearance. One can get a sense of why Hitler has no competition now, and some idea of what life will be like during the reign of the antichrist, from the story of Sgt. Anton Schmid.

Anton Schmid was an electrician who ran a small radio shop in Vienna, Austria. Germany annexed Austria in 1938, and Schmid was drafted into the Wehrmacht.

By 1941, Schmid was a sergeant in charge of a troop reformation depot in Vilnius, Lithuania when the Nazis began exterminating Lithuania’s 180,000 Jews.

He witnessed Hitler’s einsatzkommando squad herding Jews into two ghettos where they were shot to death by the thousands.

In a letter to his wife, Stefi, Schmid described his horror at the sight of mass murder and of “children being beaten on the way”.

He went on, “You know how it is with my soft heart. I could not think and had to help them.”

His ‘soft heart’ led him to use his position to smuggle food into the ghettos. He was able to hide, and later obtain forged papers and transportation for 250 Jews who made it safely to the Jewish underground.

Schmid’s ‘soft heart’ was anathema to Hitler’s Germany. He was arrested by the Gestapo in January 1942 and tried for treason. On April 13, he was executed as a traitor. In his last letter to his wife, he wrote; “I merely behaved as a human being.”

His wife was subjected to harrassment and vandalism by her former friends and neighbors and she was ostracized long after the war was over.

It wasn’t until 1967 that Israel’s Yad Vashem Memorial recognized Sgt. Schmid as “Righteous Among the Gentiles” for “merely behaving as a human being” –when so many millions did not — at the cost of his ‘soft heart’ being stopped by Nazi bullets.

In 2000, Germany recognized Sgt Schmid’s heroically ‘soft heart’ by renaming a German Army base in Schmid’s honor.

The base had previously been named for a German general Gunther Rudel, who although not linked directly to Nazi atrocities, served as a judge for the Third Reich’s brutal ‘People’s Court’.

Fifty-five years after the war’s end, the former commander of the base refused to attend the ceremony in protest of its renaming.

Assessment:

“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” (1st John 2:18)

The story of Sgt. Anton Schmid is more than a cautionary tale from the past. It is a picture of what is to come when Hitler’s true successor assumes his appointed place.

According to the Book of the Revelation, the antichrist will also embark on a genocidal campaign against Jews and against those who come to faith in Christ during the seven year Tribulation Period.

Jesus described the Tribulation Period as “such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” (Matthew 24:21-22)

The ‘elect’ of whom Jesus refers in this passage are the Jews of Israel, not the Church. Back up a couple of verses and read it in context.

He begins by referencing the “abomination of desolation” — a reference to an event that can only be accomplished by desecrating the Temple in Jerusalem.

Jesus is addressing “them which be in Judea” and admonishing them to pray their flight “be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath Day.”

I don’t expect to be here when the antichrist comes to power. I believe that the Bible teaches that the Church Age concludes with the Rapture of the Church before the antichrist kicks of the 70th Week of Daniel by confirming a seven year treaty between Israel and her enemies.

Not because of some “Great Escape” as a reward for faithfulness. We are living in the Laodicean Church Age, one so lukewarm that Jesus said it made Him want to vomit. (Revelation 3:16)

Rather, the Rapture is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit will continue to indwell the Church until He returns.

Since the ministry of the Holy Spirit must be withdrawn to allow the absolute evil of antichrist to rule, (2nd Thessalonians 2:7) then the vessels He indwells must be withdrawn with Him.

While I don’t expect to be here, many of those I love probably will, unless they turn to Jesus and become part of the Promise beforehand.

There are Christians who will argue that the presence of Tribulation saints mentioned in Revelation 13 proves the Church will also endure the judgments of the Tribulation.

There will be saints during the Tribulation, but these are those who came to Christ following the Rapture — and Revelation 13:15 hints that they will be few and far between — not millions or billions.

John, speaking of the False Prophet, says; [he causes] “. . . that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”

For illustration, Hitler was able to exterminate just 12 million in seven years with the ovens blasting away 24/7. It’s an unthinkably high number, but not compared to the billion or so Christians who now walk the earth.

Rooting out a billion people from the population takes time. More time that the antichrist has alloted to him.

There will be a lot more ‘Nazis’ in the Tribulation than there will be Sgt. Anton Schmids.

According to Yad Vashem’s records, of the hundreds of millions who lived in Europe under the Nazis, there were found just 22,211 “Righteous Gentiles” who stood up to Hitler — and the ministry of the Holy Spirit was still active in the world during the Nazi reign of terror!

I’ve recently come into possession of some documents translated by Ines Weber from German archives dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore some of the stories of the Righteous Among the Gentiles, the Holocaust, and the role it played in the restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land and beginning of the prophetic countdown to the Return of Christ.

The Tribulation Period is something we all know about in the abstract, but it sounds so foreign and distant and unthinkable that it is virtually impossible to picture.

Thanks to Professor Weber (whom you’ll learn more about as we move along) we have a portrait of evil from its birth, and an historical image upon which to draw.

It is an ugly image, occasionally made beautiful by stories like that of Sgt. Anton Schmid. It also provides some historical parallels that suggest the world is about ready to relive it.

Bible prophecy is like a road map. In order to be useful, one must not only know where one is going, but where one has been, in order to figure out where one is now.

It is incumbent upon us to understand the order of events to ‘get’ what Jesus meant when He said, “And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.”

The first ‘thing’ was the restoration of Israel. But how it came to be is a portrait in prophecy fulfilled.

And an assurance that remaining prophecy will continue to be fulfilled with equal precision and attention to detail.

“. . .yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. ( Isaiah 46:11)

Marantha!

Synch is Everything

Synch is Everything
Vol: 80 Issue: 30 Friday, May 30, 2008

One of my favorite commercials from bygone days opened with a scene in which a guy is sitting on a park bench. Suddenly, a paramedic team shows up, rousts the guy around, while shouting “Find the limb! Find the limb!”

The guy looks around, all confused, then the paramedics leave. A minute later, a chimpanzee comes out of the bushes wielding a chain-saw. The commercial’s tagline? “Synch is everything.”

As a commercial, it must have been a failure. I don’t remember what it was advertising, other than it must have involved synchronizing something. But as entertainment, it was a resounding success. I still chuckle when I think of it.

What brought the commercial to mind is the fact that the whole world seems to be out of synch; up is down, black is white, racism is wrong, unless one is black, lies are “misstatements” whereas decisions based on misinformation qualify as “lies.”

Hillary Clinton makes up a lie about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. When caught, she claims she ‘misspoke’ and that, as they say, was that. Barack Obama makes up a story about an “uncle” who was a WWII combat veteran who signed up the day after Pearl Harbor and ‘was among the first Americans to liberate Auschwitz.

Except it wasn’t his uncle, but a great-uncle, Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army and not the Americans, and it turns out he was attached to a unit that liberated an ancillary camp near Buchenwald.

Obama also claimed in 2002: “My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.”

In fact, he did not fight at all. How do I know that? Well, because Barack Obama wrote it in his book, “Dreams From My Father.”

“Gramps returned from the war never having seen real combat, and the family moved to California, where he enrolled at Berkeley under the GI bill,” he writes. “But the classroom couldn’t contain his ambitions, his restlessness, and so the family moved again.”

Obama’s camp corrected the story about the uncle and Auschwitz, but to date, has yet to explain how his grandfather could have been a combat veteran who never saw combat.

And, despite Obama’s efforts to have somebody in his family liberate Auschwitz, Obama’s grandfather wasn’t in the Red Army, either.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has alluded to using nuclear weapons against Israel. His government was caught red-handed, in 2002, with a secret nuclear enrichment program it denied existed for over a decade.

He believes it is his destiny to start a global war that will usher in the Islamic ‘messianic’ era, and he’s hosted conferences with titles like, “A World without Israel and America.”

Hillary and Obama’s overt lies are dismissed as misspeaking, whereas Ahmadinejad’s statements, which are absolutely true, are dismissed as ‘hyperbole.’

On the other hand, Scott McClellan’s book shot to the top of the charts overnight, based on his contention that George Bush deceived America about Saddam Hussein — when it was clearly IMPOSSIBLE for Bush to have known the truth.

Barack Obama’s pastor is revealed to be an America-hating, white-hating, racist Marxist with ties to the Nation of Islam who taught Obama and his family for twenty years. Obama gets a pass from the media, who argue that just because his pastor is a racist doesn’t mean he is.

John McCain is endorsed by devoted Christian Zionist John Hagee, and the next thing you know, McCain is forced to reject the endorsement after Hagee is accused of being an anti-Semite.

Ditto for Rod Parsley’s endorsement after he called Islam an evil religion. McCain never attended either man’s church, but McCain is under fire as an anti-Semite and an Islamophobe.

The Palestinians have the full support of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and even the Vatican for its effort to create a Palestinian state that has been ethnically cleansed of Jews.

The PA defines a Palestinian State as one that is Judenrein (Jew-free) and the presence of Jewish settlements on ‘Palestinian land’ is the biggest stumblingblock to peace between the two sides.

Israel, on the other hand, must extend full citizenship benefits to its Palestinian population, despite the fact that Israeli-Arabs, including members of the Knesset, are part of the Palestinian terrorist network.

Under dispute is territory captured by Israel while it was defending itself from the combined efforts of the Arab world to annihilate Israel over the course of five separate wars — all started by the Arab side.

While the Sudanese government systematically destroys its Christian population, the Burmese government allows thousands to die from the recent cyclone rather than accept Western aid.

Jews are being killed for the crime of being Jews. The Iranians threaten genocide against Israel. Hezbollah takes over Lebanon. Muslim on Muslim violence reaches critical mass — yet worldwide polls show the world’s two most hated nations are the United States and Israel.

The world is out of synch — hey — is that chain saw loaded?

Assessment:

For those of us over forty, it is all but impossible to reconcile the world in which we live with the world into which we were born.

In that world, Richard Nixon was forced from office for lying. Several top members of his administration went to jail.

Ronald Reagan’s top administration officials were hauled before Congress for lying and several top officials, including the late Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Col Oliver North were convicted of lying to Congress.

Bill Clinton became the first sitting president to be the target of an impeachment trial since Andrew Johnson in the 1860’s for lying about Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, etc.

George Bush has become a dirty word, even among many Republicans, for allegedly lying about the reasons for the Iraq War.

Barack Obama can lie with impunity. So can Hillary Clinton. Obama can be a racist. Hillary can be a feminist. Neither is a big deal to their supporters. McCain’s supporters, on the other hand, are still trying to distance his campaign from Hagee and Parsley.

Patriotism is the new treason. American patriotism has been morphed into American nationalism, and American nationalism is treason against the UN’s New World Order.

Last year, an invitation extended to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the Marxist Columbia University turned into a popularity contest between Ahmadinejad and George Bush. Incredibly, according to Columbia’s student body, Ahamdinejad won. Ahmadinejad received a standing ovation — the mere mention of George Bush drew boos.

As I said earlier, the world is out of synch — ‘normal’ is a word that has lost any semblance of meaning. It is NOT normal to pretend an obvious lie is a ‘misstatement’ while simultaneously attacking decisions based on misinformation ‘a deliberate lie.’

It is NOT normal to carve up an existing state to give half of it to an enemy dedicated to the destruction of the other half. It is NOT normal to call Christianity and Judaism ‘evil’ while giving a pass to Islamic ‘moderates’ who earned the label ‘moderate’ by supporting, but not actively committing, acts of terror.

But since ‘normal’ is meaningless, maybe it is. If one sits back and takes a look at the failed policies of liberal thinking over the past forty years, it is not normal to demand a continuation of those policies. Years of liberal Marxism have turned out an entire generation of people to whom ‘normal’ means ‘something different’.

Forty years ago, half the cars in any given high school parking lot had a gun in them somewhere — but nobody was shooting up schools. Forty years ago, if a president lied to the American public, his career was over.

Ten years ago, lying to the American public was ‘what politicians do’ and even lying under oath to a grand jury didn’t rise to the level of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’.

Today, telling bald-faced lies during a presidential campaign is just part of the campaigning process. All politicians lie.

Forty years ago, the highest compliment anyone could pay to another American was to call him a ‘patriot’. Today, being called a ‘patriot’ is, to the vast majority of the American Left, the worst insult that could be levied against them.

Forty years ago, terrorism was ‘evil’ — today, it all depends on your perspective. As Colin Powell said a few years ago, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

The Prophet Isaiah wrote: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! ” (Isaiah 5:20)

We can look back over the last forty years and actually track the progression. Forty years ago, abortion was murder. Today, it is the sacred American “right to choose” — a euphemism for correcting the choice already made once. “Pro-choice” is a respected political position, whereas “pro-life” is synonymous with ‘militant right-wing religious zealot.’

One can run down the list of things that USED to be good: family, marriage, patriotism, loyalty, honesty, respect for authority, faithfulness, Christianity, self-control, a strong work ethic; these are now evil.

‘Family’ can mean a kid with two daddies or two mommies. ‘Marriage’ can mean two guys or two girls.

‘Patriotism’ means ‘nationalism’ (evoking images of guys like Hitler, Stalin, Zhirinovsky, etc.) ‘Loyalty’ means ‘sycophantic’ and ‘a child’, according to Barack Obama, is something people get ‘stuck’ with.

The Apostle Paul prophesied that, in the last days, perilous times shall come. He described the signs thusly:

“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (2nd Timothy 3:1-5)

Forty years ago, Paul’s description sounded like some kind of alien society. Today, it sounds like a political stump speech.

One that could be delivered by a candidate from either party.

When Thirty Pieces of Silver Isn’t Enough

When Thirty Pieces of Silver Isn’t Enough
Vol: 80 Issue: 29 Thursday, May 29, 2008

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is a millionaire. He wasn’t a millionaire when he woke up Monday morning, but that was before his book debuted at #1 at Amazon.com.

Scott McClellan worked for Bush from 1999, when he signed on as a deputy in the governor’s press office, until he left in 2006 to “pursue a career in the private sector,” the standard Washington euphemism for “clean out your desk, you’re outta here.”

McClelland’s ‘new career path’ made him an overnight millionaire — and all he had to do was sell out the people who made it possible.

McClellan wrote a ‘tell-all’ book about his seven years with the Bush administration, one that, if true, nullifies his own credibility.

If the Bush administration was as crooked as his book makes them out to be, then the fact he spent seven years as its mouthpiece paints him as a self-serving opportunist at best, or a co-conspirator at worst.

“History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder,” McClellan wrote in “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington s Culture of Deception.”

“No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact,” he wrote in the preface, before contradicting himself by asserting confidently, “What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

Either McClellan doesn’t know with absolute certainty, or he does — and somehow, he manages to make both claims in the same breath. But McClellan’s book found many friends among the liberal mainstream media.

Noted the uber-liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution; “It is an extraordinarily critical book that questions Bush’s intellectual curiosity, his candor in leading the nation to war, his pattern of self-deception and the quality of his advisers.”

McClellan said that Bush’s top advisers, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “played right into his thinking, doing little to question it or cause him to pause long enough to fully consider the consequences before moving forward,” according to McClellan. “Contradictory intelligence was largely ignored or simply disregarded,” he wrote.

A reasonable person would recall that the alleged “contradictory evidence” was equally ‘ignored’ by every major intelligence service in the Western world. Which begs the question, were they all crooks, too? The Clinton administration believed Saddam had WMD.

A peek at the Congressional record reveals that so did John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, etc., etc. — BEFORE George Bush even came to office. Were they all liars? Co-conspirators?

Or were they deceived? If so, by whom?

In announcing the beginning of 1998’s “Operation Desert Fox” in which the US conducted a four-day sustained aerial bombardment of Baghdad, President Clinton told the nation;

“Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.”

Secretary of State Madeline Albright explained the objectives of the mission, saying;

“I don’t think we’re pretending that we can get everything, so this is – I think – we are being very honest about what our ability is. We are lessening, degrading his ability to use this. The weapons of mass destruction are the threat of the future. I think the president explained very clearly to the American people that this is the threat of the 21st century. [. . .] [W]hat it means is that we know we can’t get everything, but degrading is the right word.”

Did Bush convince them that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction? If Bush didn’t deceive them, who did? McClellan doesn’t say, because if they weren’t equally deceived by the same evidence, his whole scenario collapses and Bush is simply one among many — not the mastermind McClellan makes him out to be.

The Iraq War didn’t take place in a vacuum — it began with the invasion of Kuwait, continued as an air war for another dozen years, and, barring the 2003 invasion and deposition of Saddam Hussein, would probably still be ongoing. In conjunction with the activities of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and al-Qaeda, AND while US forces were fighting in Afghanistan.

How THAT could be a more desirable foreign policy situation than the one that now exists — with Iran flanked on both sides by US forces — instead of US forces in Afghanistan being surrounded by Iran, Pakistan and Saddam’s Iraq — is unfathomable to me. But it is evidently a dead-bang certainty to Scott McClellan.

“Rather than open this Pandora’s Box, the administration chose a different path not employing out-and-out deception, but shading the truth,” he wrote of the effort to convince the world that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, an effort he said used “innuendo and implication” and “intentional ignoring of intelligence to the contrary.”

Invariably, the reviewers of the book assessed the truthfulness of the book’s allegations based on their own biases.

The Left embraced every word as gospel, right down to McClellan’s innuendos about Bush’s cocaine use, in which he recounts an overheard conversation in which Bush allegedly denied ‘remembering’ using cocaine.

(I don’t know where to begin to sort THAT one out. Not remembering something one claims didn’t happen in the first place is evidence of guilt?)

The Right ignored the contents of the book and focused their attacks on the author, whom they regard as a back-stabbing traitor, rather than, ummm, what’s the word I’m looking for. . . ?

The facts of the matter, as they really are, would be pretty hard to determine from McClellan’s account.

Much of what McClellan alleges involves McClellan engaging in speculation that he elevates to a level of certainty based on what he “knew” was in the minds of the various individuals in the Bush administration at the time.

It’s a kind of “reverse far-sightedness” that would have served him better had he exercised it by resigning in protest, which he mysteriously did not.

Instead, he stayed on for years, crafting the ‘propaganda’ he now accuses Bush of ‘manufacturing’ and dutifully delivering it up to the press corps every day.

There are those who would defend Bush no matter what the allegation, and there are those who would believe Osama bin Laden if he accused George Bush of sacrificing infants to the god Kronos. The truth lies somewhere in between.

McClellan’s book will have the Bush-haters dancing in the streets and has handed al-Qaeda another recruiting tool useful for indoctrinating jihadis on why America is the Great Satan, but one doesn’t have to be a blind Bush-supporter to read through the lines, here.

This isn’t a tell-all, it’s a sell-out. And McClellan got a lot more than the standard thirty pieces of silver for it, as well.

Look for “The Scott McClellan Show” — coming to MSNBC this fall.

Special Report: The Millennial Kingdom

Special Report: The Millennial Kingdom
Vol: 80 Issue: 28 Wednesday, May 28, 2008

According to Scripture, there are at least two remaining Dispensations of God between now and the destruction of universe and its replacement with the new heavens and new earth described by the Apostle Peter.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2nd Peter 3:10)

Peter refers to this as the Day of the Lord and later, the Day of God ((2nd Peter 3:12). This is different than the Day of Christ. The Day of Christ is the day He returns for His Church at the Rapture.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. (2nd Thessalonians 2:1-2)

While the Day of Christ refers to the ingathering of the Church at the Rapture and the Bema Judgment for rewards, the Day of the Lord refers to judgment for sin; judgment against the Gentile nations; judgment against unbelieving Israel and the final judgment at the Great White Throne.

It is important to remember that Christ is not God s last Name; it is His title. Christ is the Greek equivalent [Christos] to the Hebrew Messiah [Mosiach]. The Day of the Lord is therefore significant of judgment, whereas the day of Christ signifies redemption.

So, here is the chronology remaining for the human race: the current Dispensation [the Church Age] comes to an end at the Rapture as part of the Day of Christ.

The Raptured Church attends the Bema Seat Judgment (2nd Corinthians 3:11-15), the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9) and accompanies Him to the earth at His triumphant Second Coming. (Jude 1:14-15)

The Tribulation Period is its own Dispensation, in addition to being a resumption of the Age of the Law it represents the 70th Week of Daniel.

The revealing Angel gave Daniel an panoramic view of Israel s history, beginning with the order to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple and ending with the coming of the Messiah.

Daniel s outline is interrupted at the end of the 69th week (of years) with the cutting off of the Messiah and resumes with the revelation of the antichrist when he confirms a seven-year peace treaty between Israel and her enemies.

How can we know that the 70th Week is set apart from the Church Age? The angel listed six specific things to be accomplished during the 70th Week, from Israel s perspective:

Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

Before going down the list, notice that the 70th week is for Daniel’s people, [the Jews] and Daniel’s holy city [Jerusalem] and NOT for the Church.

1) Finish the transgression yet future for Israel/accomplished at the Cross for the Church.

2) Make an end of sins sin loses its power over believers at regeneration regeneration is a function of the Cross in the lives of believers

3) Make reconciliation for iniquity simply stated, it means to make restitution [payment] for sin. Accomplished at the Cross for believers yet future for unbelieving Jews

4) Bring in everlasting righteousness — Christ returns to set up the Millennial Kingdom with Himself on the Throne in Jerusalem.

5) Seal up the vision and prophecy the fulfillment of all Messianic prophecy yet future

6) Anoint the Most Holy the Mosiach is anointed King as per Israel s ancient custom and reigns over mankind for a thousand years – the Millennial Kingdom.

The Church has no role to play during the Tribulation, which Scripture identifies has having two specific purposes; the judgment of a Christ-rejecting world and the national redemption of Israel.

The Church was judged at the Cross and found judicially blameless by grace through faith. The Church neither rejected Christ nor has need of further redemption. The Church does not remain on the earth beyond the Church Age.

Assessment:

So, who inhabits the Millennial Kingdom? According to Scripture, there are but two groups who survive the Tribulation believing Gentiles and believing Jews.

In Revelation 19:11-16, we find the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. This is His Second Coming. The Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:51-53) is an appearing of Christ in the air. That is not the same as His Second Coming.

This is included, I believe, to draw a distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ. There is no mention in Revelation 19-20 of any kind of rapture event where believers receive glorified bodies.

The prophet Joel, in his description of the Tribulation Judgment, was clear and specific concerning those to come under Tribulation judgment:

“Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up . . . Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. (Joel 3:9,11-12)

The believing Gentiles are non-Jews who come to faith during the Tribulation. Note that they are distinct from the new creature of the Church Age.

Jesus said that He will separate the sheep [righteous, or believing,] nations from the goat [unrighteous, or unbelieving] nations. The goats are cast into the Lake of Fire whereas the sheep [the righteous Gentiles] survive and live on into the Millennial Kingdom.

By implication, no unbelieving Gentile will survive the Second Coming. The righteous Gentiles, or sheep, will live on into the millennial kingdom. They will give birth to children and will populate the earth. However, these are not the only ones who will be producing children during the millennial kingdom.

The impression is given that when Christ returns, all Israel will trust in Him (Zechariah 12:10). They, too, will not receive glorified bodies (as those did who were raptured prior to the tribulation). They also will produce children during the millennial kingdom.

To summarize, the Millennial Kingdom will be populated by believing Gentiles, Israel, and the resurrected/raptured believers whom, according to the Apostle Paul, will hold positions of authority and judgment as well.

Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? (1st Corinthians 6:2-3)

According to the Prophet Isaiah, during the Millennial Kingdom, the earth is restored to its original ecological balance, and lifespans return to what they were prior to the Flood. . . . for the child shall die an hundred years old (Isaiah 65:20)

Everyone who enters into the Millennial Kingdom will be a believer, but the Scripture say that children will be born to believing Jews and Gentiles.

And, as incredible as it sounds (what with Jesus Himself on the throne and resurrected believers in glorified bodies running around directing traffic, or whatever) many of those born into the Millennial Kingdom will reject Christ, and they will, once again, gather themselves together to do battle against the Lord of Hosts. (Revelation 20:7-10)

And with that act, the final curtain comes down on the human race. For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind, writes the Prophet Isaiah. [65:17)

Which leaves us contemplating the question asked by the Apostle Peter; Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?

That s a question that each of us has to answer for ourselves in this life. For it will surely be asked of us as we seek admittance into the next.

Maranatha!

With Friends Like These . . .

With Friends Like These . . .
Vol: 80 Issue: 27 Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The House Foreign Affairs Committee received a report from the Palestinian Media Watch entitled: “Strengthening America’s Enemies: The Ideological Allies of a Future Palestinian State.”

The report makes for some interesting reading. Authored by Itamar Marcus, it notes that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are seeking alliances with some of America’s most vitriolic enemies, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.

Moreover, notes Marcus, “There is ample evidence that the contacts between the Palestinian Authority and the enemies of the United States have the characteristics of relations between allies who share a common ideological bond.”

The report, based on media outlets owned or controlled by the Palestinian Authority, found that the PA was drawn to rivals or enemies of the United States. PMW said leaders of the Fatah movement as well as PA schools have expressed adoration for the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“The Palestinian Authority-Fatah government of Mahmoud Abbas is allied with many states who see themselves as enemies of the U.S. and whom the U.S. sees as threatening U.S. security and world peace,” the report, co-authored by Barbara Cook, said.

“Significantly, the affinity that is felt for such geographically distant non-Muslim countries, such as North Korea, Cuba, and Chavez’s Venezuela is precisely because these states publicly challenge and express loathing for the U.S. The PA admires such organizations as Hizbullah, PA-Fatah heroes are master terrorists such as Imad Mughniyeh, killer of 241 American soldiers in Lebanon and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 are celebrated almost every annual anniversary with a political cartoon in the official PA daily.”

The PA has also named streets after enemies of the United States. In January 2007, the main street in the West Bank town of Yaabed was named after Saddam.

Abbas himself has praised U.S. adversaries, the report said. In September 2007, Abbas extolled North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il and expressed pride in PA relations with Pyongyang.

“Unless the Palestinian Authority demonstrates a major shift in ideology, a future Palestinian state will be firmly allied with North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Iran, Chavez’s Venezuela, and Hizbullah, the forces that are seen as threats to the U.S. and which are linked to world terror,” the report said.

In the Middle East, there is a saying to the effect that the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend.’

In America, we have our own saying: “with friends like these, who needs enemies?”

Assessment:

Were it not so terrifying, it would be funny, in the sense that the Three Stooges were ‘funny’. The Stooges were funny because they were so over-the-top stupid that you couldn’t help but laugh.

Moe would whack Curly over the head with a hammer, and everybody would laugh. When I was a little boy, I actually met the Three Stooges– (well, two of them and Curly Joe, whom I never accepted as a real Stooge).

They were promoting their new movie, “Three Stooges in Outer Space” back in 1960, and were appearing at the Loew’s Theater in Buffalo. Our neighbor was a NY State Judge. He had gotten back stage passes and I got to go along with his kids to meet them after the show.

It’s a funny thing — over the years, I’ve met some pretty famous people — government officials, foreign dignitaries, authors, actors, directors, many well-known Christian leaders; BUT if I really want to impress somebody, I tell them that Moe Howard personally taught me how to poke somebody in the eyes without blinding them.

“You really poke them in the eyebrows,” the great Moe Howard told me when I was seven. “Oh, and the hammers? They’re rubber.” (At the time, I was bitterly disappointed to learn that — but my little brother was vastly relieved.)

The idea that the United States has dedicated a significant part of its foreign policy to creating a Palestinian state out of a terrorist mob dedicated to the downfall of its benefactors is Three Stooges funny, until one realizes that the hammers aren’t rubber.

(That must have been how my little brother felt before I learned the secret).

For all the talk about the Democrats and appeasing al-Qaeda over Iraq, there is no word better suited to America’s foreign policy regarding the Palestinians than the word ‘appeasement.’

There is absolutely nothing about the Palestinian Authority that would lend itself to the belief that the are either capable of self-government or that they even want self-government.

In the fifteen years since Oslo, they’ve made zero attempts at actually governing themselves — remove terrorism from their list of accomplishments and what is left is a lynch mob looking for a victim. And like any lynch mob, without a handy victim, they’d soon get bored and drift away.

The US is using statehood like a carrot, not realizing that the Palestinians really want is the stick.

Abbas can’t make peace with Israel without giving up its victim, which in turn would cause the Palestinian Authority to disintegrate. Statehood isn’t the goal — Israel’s destruction is the goal.

At the moment, Hamas and the PA are dangling the promise of a ‘cease-fire’ with Israel in exchange for an unending list of concessions, most of which are supported by Washington, while making no secret of the fact the ceasefire is only temporary.

There are no guarantees. None. The purpose of the ceasefire is to take the pressure off Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc., to allow them to rearm, reequip and regroup for the next round.

Were this anywhere else on earth, the Palestinians would be rebels, or insurgents, or terrorists, but since their enemy is Israel, they are ‘militants’ at worst, ‘freedom fighters’ at best, and there is no crime too heinous to be justifiable, provided the victims are Jews.

Consider for a moment, the single largest stumbling block to Palestinian statehood — there are Jews living in the West Bank. The Palestinians will only accept a state ethnically cleansed of Jews — and that position enjoys the full support of both the UN and the United States.

It is astonishing. Which is, in fact, the word God used to describe it.

“And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.” (Deuteronomy 28:37)

“So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.” (Ezekiel 5:15)

“And say unto the people of the land, Thus saith the Lord GOD of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of the land of Israel; They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with astonishment, that her land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of the violence of all them that dwell therein.” (Ezekiel 12:19)

(The word translated ‘violence’ in the above verse is chamac which is pronounced in English as ‘Hamas’).

“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)

Guilt By Association . . .

Guilt By Association . . .
Vol: 80 Issue: 26 Monday, May 26, 2008

Suppose that you are a police recruiter who is investigating the background of a potential police recruit. You’ve already done the interview, and you are very impressed.

But during the course of the background investigation, you discover that your candidate has some very shady friends. As you conduct the background check on this guy, you find that while he is clean, all of his friends are heavily involved in organized crime.

Several of the statements he made during his interview were demonstrably false. The more you learn about the guy, the less believable he becomes. When pressed for more detail, he becomes angry and tells you that is none of your business.

Now, to the question at hand: Do you hire him? Would you give this guy a badge and a gun — and all the authority that goes with it — based on the hope that he is really what he seems to be, rather than what all the evidence is telling you?

Is it fair, under the circumstances and considering what the job entails, to reject his application based entirely on the reputation of his closest associates?

The position that he is applying for is one of great sensitivity — what if he has to arrest one of his friends? Or a close associate of one of his friends?

What if one of his close friends asks for a ‘favor’? Suppose, as part of his job, he finds out about a potential raid being planned against the folks he is friendly with?

Would you take a chance on him, arguing that to do otherwise would be convicting him of guilt by association? Or would you thank him for his time and hire somebody whose resume had fewer question marks?

Should a person’s association with known criminals be enough to reject his application to become a law enforcement officer? If you believe it shouldn’t, then you are probably a Democrat.

Assessment:

Last week, Barack Obama was grilled at a campaign stop by a questioner who wanted more detail about his association with Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University.

Khalidi is a former director of the PLO’s press agency in the 1970’s and 80’s. He wrote a book praising Yasser Arafat in 1985 and served on the PLO’s 1991 ‘guidance committee’ while the PLO was still the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization.

“He is not one of my advisers. He s not one of my foreign policy people, Obama said of Khalidi. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel s policy.

Obama then objected to the suggestion that his contacts with Khalidi mean he shares Khalidi s views.

Part of my philosophy is I believe in listening to people even when I disagree with them, Obama said. And part of the reason that the Jewish community in Chicago is so close to me is because they know that on many occasions I ve spoken out vigorously against anti-Semitism, even in my own community, even when it s not convenient.”

Addressing the same topic to a group of Jewish voters in Boca Raton, Florida he complained:

“We’ve got to be careful about guilt by association. The tradition of the Jewish people is to judge me by what I say and what I’ve done.”

That seems fair enough. First, let’s go with what Obama has done to qualify him to be President of the United States. He ran for the Senate in 2004 and won. He’s been in the Senate for three years, and has been running for president for two of them.

Obama pleaded with the voters not to “vote against me because of who I am” — but not in reference to his personal background, but in reference to his color.

“I have to be very cautious about this,” Obama was quoted as saying, “because you remember the old stereotype, ‘I’m not prejudiced, some of my best friends are Jewish,’ right? ‘I’m not prejudiced, some of my best friends are black.'”

So much for his candidacy not being about race. Obama’s associations include Jeremiah Wright, who was his pastor for twenty years. ‘(Nuff said about that already)

Obama is also tied to Weather Underground terrorist William Ayres. Ayres and his group were tied to a number of terrorist attacks. In 1970, three of his compatriots were killed while constructing a nail bomb that went off accidentally.

Ayres told the NYTimes in 2000 that, “I don’t regret setting bombs” and “I feel we didn’t do enough.” It was William Ayres who helped launch Obama’s Illinois Senate career.

An invited guest at the time, Maria Warren, described the get-together in her blog in 2005:

“When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the living room of those two legends-in-their-own-minds, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. They were launching him introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread.

Tony Rezko, a Syrian-born Chicago real-estate developer, was one of Obama’s earliest campaign contributors. Rezko was indicted in 2006 on charges of wire fraud, bribery, money laundering and attempted extortion.

Obama’s ties to Rezko go back to 1990 when Rezko offered him a job with Rezmar Corporation. In 1993, Obama went to work for Rezko’s legal firm, Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. That firm reportedly helped Rezmar get more than $43 million in government funding.

Rezko was a member of Obama’s 2003 Senate Finance Committee. Obama has acknowledged more than a quarter million dollars in campaign contributions that came from Rezko or his associates.

Ok, so that covers some of the things Barack Obama has done for which he asks to be judged. Now, we’ll examine some of the things he’s said:

He claimed to be a product of the civil rights movement (his father was black, his mother, white), saying at the anniversary of the Selma March, “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.”

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii (a long way from Selma) four years BEFORE the Selma March. It sounded good, even if it wasn’t true. “Judge me by what I say.”

Obama told a crowd in Portland recently that Iran “doesn’t pose a serious threat” arguing that “tiny countries” with small defense budgets can’t do harm to the US.

When somebody pointed out that the 9/11 attackers, working with a budget of less than $300,000.00, killed 3,000 Americans, destroyed several blocks in Manhattan, and started a war that still rages six years later, Obama flip-flopped, saying the very next day, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”

Obama is on the record as consistently (and falsely) claiming to be a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama s primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter.

Well, not to Obama. He’s claimed credit for nuclear leak legislation that never passed. He’s claimed that nobody knew Rezko was engaged in wrong-doing, an assertion the Chicago Tribune says, ‘strains credulity.’

And, given that he is running for President of the United States, it probably isn’t nit-picking to point out a statement he made in Oregon earlier this month: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

If a guy is running for the US presidency, it doesn’t seem unfair to expect him to at least know how many states there are, even if he can’t name them. Then there is Obama’s grasp of foreign policy. . .

In Cape Giradeau, Mo., Obama blamed the Bush administration’s Iraq policies for the lack of translators in Afghanistan. “We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.”

(It’s harder to use Arabic translators in Afghanistan because Afghanis don’t speak Arabic. They speak Pashto, Farsi, Russian, Pakistani — but they don’t speak Arabic. Iraqi translators speak Arabic and Kurdish. Shouldn’t a presidential candidate know that?)

Just this past weekend, Obama was asked about the multi-billion dollar cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site. Obama’s answer was feted by his supporters as an example of Obama’s ‘new’ kind of ‘political honesty.’

“Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.”

Obama should stay out of unfamiliar territory. He’s voted on at least one defense authorization bill that dealt directly with the Hanford site cleanup, the most contaminated nuclear waste site in America.

(Surely he read the bill before voting on it?)

Obama doesn’t want people to vote for him based on ‘who he is’ (meaning his race) but instead, he wants your vote — based on what he has said and what he has done.

Based on that criteria, Obama would be much better off campaigning on the idea of being America’s first black president. At least, that part is true. (Sort of.)

But based on what he’s said and done, I wouldn’t hire him to write traffic tickets.

The Price of Appeasement

The Price of Appeasement
Vol: 80 Issue: 24 Saturday, May 24, 2008

Last month, former US president Jimmy Carter defied the US-led diplomatic boycott of Hamas by meeting with its leaders in Damascus, Syria.

After the meeting, according to the mainstream media, he ‘stunned’ the world by announcing he had reached a breakthrough with the terrorist group.

Carter announced that he had received assurances from Hamas that they would accept a two-state solution, should one be negotiated by Abbas and then ratified by a public referendum.

“This is enormous,” says Gershon Baskin, copresident of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information. “It’s the first indication that Hamas is turning its back on its own covenant of never recognizing Israel.”

It’s always ‘enormous’ — to someone — when Hamas makes a new promise of peace, or even a promise to promise to consider peace with Israel.

The reason that it would be enormous, (if they ever went past the ‘promise’ stage) is because the charter establishing Hamas gives it only one reason for existing.

Hamas isn’t a social welfare group, although it does community service work. It isn’t a political group, although it holds seats in the Palestinian parliament. It isn’t a charitable group, although it does charitable work.

Hamas doesn’t exist to do good works, it does good works in order to exist — so that it can fulfill its existential purpose — the destruction of Israel.

Hamas, the acronym of the Islamic Resistance Movement, emerged out of the Gaza Strip branch of the Muslim Brotherhood shortly after the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada (“uprising”) in 1987.

Hamas’ professed aim is to establish an Islamic state in all of Palestine (that is, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).

By its charter, Hamas cannot accept a two-state solution (that is, an Israeli state living side-by-side and at peace with a Palestinian state).

Accepting a two-state solution requires acknowledging there are two states. Hamas cannot recognize Israel without amending its charter to remove its reason for being.

For Hamas to accept a two-state solution would be akin to amending the US Constitution to acknowledge Great Britain’s right to rule the American colonies. In such a case, the United States of America would have no reason to exist.

Recognizing the existence of a Jewish state, even as an adjunct to obtaining Palestinian statehood, would undermine Hamas as an Islamic organization and render it obsolete.

There can be no room for compromise with an enemy whose existence depends on your destruction. The Israelis understand that. Carter does not.

Within days of Carter’s visit and his assurances that Hamas was ready to commit ideological suicide, a truck loaded with four TONS of explosives attempted to ram its way through the Eretz Crossing into Israel.

The driver was killed by IDF forces before he could reach the crossing, but the truck exploded on the Gaza side of the border, blowing a crater in the street in an explosion that could be heard 18 miles away. And the Hamas-Jimmy Carter Appeasement Process was over before it started — to no one’s surprise.

Except, possibly, Jimmy Carter’s.

Assessment:

If there were ever a politician who should understand the price of appeasement, it ought to be Jimmy Carter. The cost of his appeasement of the Iranian revolutionaries by deporting the Shah, then gravely ill with cancer, is still being felt today.

When Carter took office in 1977, the Shah of Iran was one of America’s staunchest allies in the region. Carter asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded that the shah was not fit to rule Iran.

In 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini sparked the Iranian Revolution, Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship.

Khomeini could never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been stillborn.

Carter accused the Shah of torturing political prisoners, stifling human rights, and executing political opponents. To underscore his displeasure with the Shah’s human rights record, he withdrew US support for the Pahlavi regime, encouraging Iran’s revolutionaries.

After finally being deposed in October, 1979, the Shah was reluctantly granted a limited visa for treatment at the Cornell University Medical Center in New York. In response, Iran seized the US Embassy, taking 52 American hostages.

Carter quickly booted the Shah out of the country. But Carter’s efforts to appease the Ayatollah went nowhere and the hostage crisis dragged on.

When the Shah died in Egypt in 1980, the Pahlavi Dynasty died with him.

During his campaign, Ronald Reagan assured the American public that, if elected, he “would not bargain with barbarians.” The implication was not lost on the Ayatollah.

On January 20, 1980, as Ronald Reagan was taking the oath of office in Washington, Ayatollah Khomeini was hurriedly loading his hostages on a plane bound for Ramstein AFB in Germany.

But by then, the Shah was dead, his regime scattered, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was well-entrenched as that country’s legally recognized government. All Reagan could do then was try to contain what Carter left behind.

Let’s add up the cost of Jimmy Carter’s appeasement policy so far:

In 1975, Saddam Hussein attempted to invade Iran following a dispute over the Shatt al-Arab River. The Shah beat back his forces in just four days, forcing Saddam to sign a treaty between the two countries.

In 1980, Saddam abrogated the treaty, reinvaded Iran, launching the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War that claimed a million lives on both sides.

The Shah was a staunch anti-Communist and a key US ally. After the collapse of the Pahlavi Dynasty, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, hoping to use Afghanistan as a springboard to taking over Iran’s warm-water ports in the Persian Gulf.

Invading Afghanistan is something the Soviets would never have dared to consider — prior to the Shah’s fall.

The Iran-Iraq war would not have taken place if the Shah had still remained in power. Neither would the invasion of Afghanistan, which gave rise to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Nor is it likely that Saddam would have made his move against Kuwait, had there been a US-friendly Pahlavi regime next door in Iran. The First Gulf War, with its attending casualties, would not have been necessary. Nor the 12 year air war over the Iraq ‘no-fly’ zone.

Osama bin-Laden would not have risen to power as leader of the anti-Soviet Afghani mujahadeen, so the September 11 attacks may never have happened.

The War in Afghanistan would not have taken place in 2002. The 2003 invasion of Iraq would not have been necessary.

The cost of appeasing Islamic terrorists by abandoning the Shah comes to more than a million dead in four wars, thirty years of Iranian-backed Islamic terrorism, the total collapse of US influence in the region, and the relative certainty of at least one more war in the Middle East.

Totally oblivious to his legacy thus far, Carter continues to promote appeasement as the best way to deal with threats like Hamas, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, North Korea — with the unrestricted support of the American Left, including at least two presidential candidates.

The current crop of appeasers don’t get it any better than Jimmy Carter does or Neville Chamberlain did.

Chamberlain’s political nemesis, Winston Churchill, tried to explain it to his contemporaries in 1938, but the British didn’t get it then, either. Churchill equated appeasement with “continuing to feed the crocodile in the vain hope that it will eat you last.”

History proved Churchill right and Chamberlain wrong. As it will George Bush and Jimmy Carter.

When the offer is peace at any price, the price is far too high.

Interesting Times. . .

Interesting Times. . .
Vol: 80 Issue: 23 Friday, May 23, 2008

Memorial Day is a day officially set aside by Americans to remember those who died in the service of the nation. Originally called “Decoration Day” it was officially proclaimed by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1868.

The first ‘celebration’ took place on May 30, 1868 by ‘decorating’ the graves of the Union and Confederate dead at Arlington National Cemetery. (Hence the name)

For a hundred years, it was observed on May 30th for a specific reason — May 30th was NOT the anniversary of a Civil War battle by either side.

It was renamed ‘Memorial Day’ in 1967 and moved to the last Monday in May in 1971. America celebrates Veteran’s Day in November, but it was originally set aside to commemorate the victorious veterans of a particular war.

Memorial Day is a day set aside to mourn all of America’s war dead — but the holiday has evolved from that of decorating the graves of the war dead to a day in which Americans celebrate the legacy they purchased for us with their lives.

Memorial Day is a national day of family celebrations; picnics, family baseball games, annual reunions as a gesture of respect for those young men who never returned from battle to start families of their own.

It is the day when we remember those who remain forever young, and to say ‘thank you’ to those who served with them.

Thank you. Semper fi.

Assessment:

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Senator John McCain’s military service, as I do for all veterans, but John McCain ranks up near the top of the list.

McCain’s story is breathtaking: Shot down over Hanoi, he broke both arms and one leg during ejection. He landed in the middle of a lake in downtown Hanoi, where he would have drowned had he not been able to pull the cord on his floatation device with his teeth.

The locals who fished him out bayoneted him and dislocated his shoulder before turning him over to the NVA. After five months at the Hanoi Hilton, the NVA figured out he was the son of the commander of Western Pacific forces (WESPAC) and offered him an early release for its propaganda value.

McCain refused early release, for which he was severely punished, and served an additional five years in captivity. His courage and devotion to his nation and his fellow POWs is the stuff of which legends are made.

But being a fine American and an undisputed military hero does not automatically mean one would make a fine president.

As much as I admire John McCain the war hero, I am a bit less enamored of him as John McCain the politician. Sometimes, it almost seems as if the two should get to know one another.

John McCain the war hero spent five more years in a POW camp rather than turn his back on his friends. John McCain the politician suffers from no such crisis of confidence.

When McCain was running for the Republican nomination from Republican voters he aligned himself with Bush administration policies like the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq strategy, judicial appointments and other issues important to Republicans.

In the process, he sought out endorsements that would help him with Republican voters. Despite initial fears that McCain was too liberal, he convinced conservatives he was one of them –until he locked up the nomination.

The first one to be chucked under the bus was George Bush. Shrewd politics, maybe, but not very loyal. McCain rightly calculated that Bush is not very popular, but he knew that during the nomination process.

When McCain was looking for the Republican vote, Bush was his buddy, the tax cuts were great, and the surge strategy in Iraq was sheer brilliance.

Now that he has captured his base, he can’t get far enough away from Bush’s policies.

McCain sought (and received) endorsements from John Hagee and Rod Parsley.

McCain had no affiliation with either pastor or their respective churches — they endorsed him as the Republican candidate, and he accepted their endorsements — and the votes that they brought with them.

Barack Obama’s pastor of 20 years, who “led him to Jesus”, officiated his wedding, baptized his kids and whose sermons inspired his first book, turned out to be a raving racist lunatic.

To mitigate the damage, Obama’s camp pointed to Hagee and Parsley’s endorsements of McCain and attempted to draw a moral equivalent between Wright’s 20 years of influence over Obama as his pastor and a political endorsement of McCain by two pastors whose only link to Wright was that they, too were pastors.

Just not McCain’s, which, of course, makes any effort at moral equivalence patently absurd. All Hagee and Parsley did was endorse the Republican front-runner.

But the moment those endorsements became potential campaign liabilities, Hagee and Parsley went under the bus with Bush.

McCain has now come out as an environmental activist and champion of global warming. He credits his conversion to having settled at Oak Creek, his ranch near Sedona, Arizona.

He says of his Arizona surroundings, “The ecology of the desert is very fragile. Obviously climate change could have a very serious effect there.”

Sedona’s main claim to fame is as a Mecca for New Age adherents. It was the birthplace of the ‘Harmonic Convergence’ in 1987 and the purported location of a number of ‘spiritual vortexes’.

About.com explains that “[v]ortex sites are “believed to be locations having energy flow that exists on multiple dimensions. The energy of the vortexes interacts with a person s inner self. It is not easily explained. Obviously it must be experienced.”

(I worry that John McCain may have experienced one of these ‘vortexes’)

It is a real conundrum. John McCain or Barack Obama. (Or, Hillary Clinton. Not even a village can stop her. I think it will take a stake.)

It’s been said that, in a democracy, the people get the leaders that they deserve.

The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 13:1 that “there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Paul says that God sets people in power according to His will, to accomplish His purposes.

Given the choices; John McCain, Barack Obama (Hillary Clinton???) and the timing (wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilences, the fear of ecological disasters, asteroids, etc.,) one thing we can be sure of.

Whatever He has in mind for America for the next four years, it is going to be interesting.

Enjoy this Memorial Day.

The Next Big One. . .

The Next Big One. . .
Vol: 80 Issue: 22 Thursday, May 22, 2008

The catastrophic 7.9 earthquake that decimated sections of western China have geologists the world over scrambling to predict the next “Big One” to shake the planet.

The number of people killed in China’s devastating earthquake has already risen to over 51,000. More than 29,000 are still missing after the 7.9 magnitude quake struck the south-western province of Sichuan, meaning the final death toll could go as high as 80,000 people.

That number is simply too large for the mind to absorb. It would be as if the entire population of Youngstown, Ohio had been swallowed up by the earth. But according to geologists, the Sichuan quake may be just one in a swarm of major global earthquakes they say are long overdue.

In California, a team of about 300 scientists, governments, first responders and industries worked for more than a year to create a realistic crisis scenario that can be used for earthquake preparedness drills. This is the scenario they envisioned, as published by the USGS.

The 7.8 earthquake rips along the San Andreas Faultline, shaking the Los Angles basin like a bowl of jelly, fifteen times as powerful as the 1994 Northridge quake. Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse.

Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead.

Researchers caution that it is not a prediction, but the possibility of a major California quake in the next few decades is very real.

Last month, the USGS reported that the Golden State has a 46 percent chance of a 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, and that such a quake probably would hit Southern California. The Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage, was much smaller at magnitude 6.7.

In imagining the next “Big One,” scientists considered the section of the San Andreas loaded with the most stored energy and the most primed to break. Most agree it’s the southernmost segment, which has not “popped” since 1690, when it unleashed an estimated 7.7 jolt.

Of course, southern California has been bracing for the “Big One” ever since the last “Big One” in San Francisco in 1906. The Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 hit near Mussel Rock about 2 miles offshore from the downtown area. Estimated to be a magnitude 7.8, it was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles and inland as far as central Nevada.

A typically melodramatic headline at MSNBC asks, “Are You Prepared For the Next Big One?”, over the subtitle, “US Scientists Say It’s Not a Question of If, But When.

Assessment:

Hal Lindsey did a report last week sometime detailing the increase in both the frequency and intensity of earthquake activity over the past five decades since he first published “The Late, Great Planet Earth.”

I helped him research the background for that story at the US Geological Survey and I was simply stunned at what I found. In the early 1990’s the USGS issued a press release denying that earthquakes were increasing, saying instead that we have simply gotten better at detecting them.

That might be true when speaking of the 3.6 magnitude kind that rattle a few dishes — that doesn’t hold water when one is addressing “major” earthquakes. When buildings start collapsing, specialized detection equipment is irrelevant.

Using the USGS definition of major quakes, there have been more major earthquakes in the seven years since the turn of the 21st century than have occurred in any TWO decades of the 20th.

This is, of course, significant because Jesus warned of increasingly frequent and intense earthquake activity as being a principle sign of His soon return. And they are increasing, just as the Lord said they would.

In 1977, for example, the USGS listed forty ‘major’ quakes, defined as those of “magnitude 6.5 or greater or caused significant fatalities, injuries or damage.”

For 2007, I counted seventy-seven — nearly twice that of thirty years earlier. As of May 12, 2008, the USGS says there have already been thirty-five major earthquakes — and scientists the world over are warning of the next Big One.

America’s attention is, of course focused on the San Andreas Fault. Globally, geologists are much more concerned about the Carmel Fault line. They say the last time the Carmel Fault ruptured was over a thousand years ago, in 1033.

The Carmel Fault line intersects with another major fault line, the Dead Sea Fault. And located directly above where these two fault lines intersect is the northern Israeli city of Megiddo.

According to Israeli earthquake researcher, Dr. Amos Salomon of the Israeli Geological Survey, Megiddo (Armageddon in the Bible) is the most likely epicenter for the Next Big One to strike Israel. And like the MSNBC headline, it isn’t an issue of if, but when.

According to a report on the subject in the Jerusalem Post, “We think that the focus of major earthquakes will be in and around the Dead Sea Fault. The seismic waves will spread around the epicenter and they will affect buildings far away from the focus,” says Salamon.”

The Dead Sea Fault runs the length of Israel, north to south, passing through Eilat, Tiberias and coming within 25 miles of Jerusalem. The tectonic plates are shallowest in this area, making earthquakes on this fault, while infrequent, among the world’s largest and most destructive.

Both Turkey and Greece have experienced major quakes in recent times. In fact, geologists have noted recently that the floor of the Mediterranean sea is fracturing like a sheet of glass.

This means that the focal point of tectonic forces is shifting in the region, and an increase in activity is approaching.

The Prophet Zechariah says that when the Lord returns at the conclusion of the battle of Armageddon, He will ‘touch down’ atop the Mount of Olives.

“And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” (Zechariah 14:4)

According to the Prophet, when His feet touch down on the Mount of Olives, an earthquake will open a valley from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea.

“And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.” (Zechariah 14:8)

The Prophet Zechariah wrote his prophecy concerning the return of the Lord sometime after 480 BC, five hundred years before His First Advent. Zechariah did NOT have geological survey maps and charts showing him where the Dead Sea and Carmel Fault lines are.

There hasn’t been a major shift in the tectonic plates of that region in a thousand years. According to the Israeli Geological Survey, the next one is overdue. And according to the Bible, when it comes, so will Jesus.

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

Is your neck as stiff as mine is?

The Dispensationalist Dilemma

The Dispensationalist Dilemma
Vol: 80 Issue: 21 Wednesday, May 21, 2008

If you were to decide to research Dispensationalism off the ‘Net or in most books on the subject, the first thing that you would learn is that:

“the doctrine of a secret rapture was first conceived by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren in 1827. Darby, known as the father of dispensationalism, invented the doctrine claiming there were not one, but two “second comings.”

Typically, the argument against Dispensationalism is that “post-millennialism was the dominant eschatology from the Reformation until at least 1859”.

(I pulled both those quotes from a website called “The Dispensational Origins of Modern Premillennialism and John Nelson Darby,” but I picked these because they are so typical of the argument — so I thought it best to address them first.)

“The doctrine of a secret rapture was first conceived by John Nelson Darby.”

This is the first error of post-millennialism and the foundation upon which the post-millennial criticism of Dispensationalism rests.

Actually, the doctrine of a ‘secret rapture’ was first articulated by Moses in the Book of Genesis:

“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” (Genesis 5:24)

In case that isn’t clear enough, the writer of Hebrews explains what that meant:

“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” (Hebrews 11:5)

“Translated” — what does that mean? The Greek word in use here is metatithēmi and it means “to change.” According to both Genesis and Hebrews, then, Enoch was “changed” and “God took him” because by Enoch’s faith, he had pleased God.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Church at Corinth: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”

The word ‘sleep’ here is koimao which means “to die” and the word ‘changed’ is from the Greek “allasso” which means “to transform”. So Paul is saying, we shall not ALL die, but that some of us shall be transformed.

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1st Corinthians 15:51-52)

So we learn — from the Bible, not from J.N. Darby — the following doctrine:

Enoch was “changed” and taken by God as Enoch’s reward for faithfulness. Paul says that he was teaching a ‘mystery’ — something not previously revealed — that at some point in the future, the faithful will ALL be ‘transformed’ in the ‘twinkling of an eye’ and that the dead will be resurrected first.

Paul later explains the eligibility requirements for this transformation and translation: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” (1st Thessalonians 4:14)

It would then appear that the eligibility requirement has not changed since Enoch, the “seventh from Adam” — faith.

Paul continues: “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.” (1st Thessalonians 4:15-17)

Let’s pretend for a minute that J.N. Darby was a traditional post-millennialist, and work from the same Scriptures he was.

What else could these passages mean? Is there an alternative explanation for Enoch’s ‘translation’? (One that makes sense in light of Hebrews, that is.)

What could Paul have meant when he said we’d be ‘transformed’ in the twinkling of an eye’ – particularly in light of the fact Paul specifically says that transformation will be from the mortal to the immortal.

And finally, if Darby ‘invented’ a secret rapture, what does Paul mean when he says the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout, causing the dead in Christ to rise first?

The Apostle Jude says the Lord returns “with ten thousands of His saints.” The Apostle John says that when He returns at the end of the age, it is a very public event: “Behold, He cometh with clouds and every eye shall see Him.”

Does Scripture make allowances for the discrepancy between these two comings? The Book of Acts records the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven at Pentecost. The Apostles came together to meet with Jesus privately for one last time, to hear His final instructions.

“And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11)

Jesus did not go into heaven with ten thousands of His saints — He went alone, in ‘secret’ ie; witnessed only by His Apostles and two angels. He returns FOR His Saints at the Rapture, Paul says, not WITH them.

For the claim that Darby “invented” the Rapture to hold water, one has to assume that Darby inserted those verses into Scripture.

If not, then if there is an “inventor” of the Rapture doctrine, he was a Hebrew prophet named “Moses.”

Assessment:

I received an email the other day asking me to address Dispensationalism, and, in particular, its various forms. It read as follows:

Dear Jack: I have searched your archives for information on dispensationalism. There are several articles, but nothing that really breaks it down. I have been reading a little on other sites, but ended up more confused than before. I get the basic idea of it, but I know you have the knack of putting it in laymans terms.

Would you consider writing a detailed article on dispensationalism, hyperdispensationalism, acts 28 dispensationalism, and mid acts dispensationalism, and anything else to clarify all the details. I’m having trouble mostly because other things I read assume the reader knows all the history to back up their data.

Let’s first define ‘Dispensationalism’. As a theological system it supplies an interpretive grid for understanding the flow of the Bible as a whole.

Dispensationalism advocates a form of premillennialism in which it sees the past, present, and future as a number of successive administrations, or “dispensations” (Eph 3:2, KJV), each of which emphasizes aspects of the covenants between God and various peoples at various times.

While ‘Dispensations’ are not ages, but stewardships, or administrations, we tend to see them now as ages since we look back on specific time periods when they were in force. For that reason, this present dispensation is known as the ‘Church Age’ or the ‘Age of Grace.’

A greater breakdown of specific dispensations is possible, giving most traditional Dispensationalists seven recognizable dispensations.

1. Innocence – Adam

2. Conscience – After man sinned, up to the flood

3. Government – After the flood, man allowed to eat meat, death penalty instituted

4. Promise – Abraham up to Moses and the giving of the Law

5. Law – Moses to the cross

6. Grace – The cross to the Millennial Kingdom

7. Millennial Kingdom – A 1000 year reign of Christ on earth centered in Jerusalem

One of the most difficult aspects of interpreting the Scriptures is determining those aspects which are continuous (have not changed over time) from those which are discontinuous (changed with time).

For example, salvation has always come by grace through faith. That is ‘continuous’. However, the prohibitions on eating unclean meats has changed over time. (Acts 10:10-17) That is an example of discontinuity by Dispensation.

Dispensationalism holds to the doctrine that the Church was born at Pentecost and that the Church Age will continue until the Church is Raptured at some point before the Tribulation Period.

My correspondent also asked about “Acts 28 Dispensationalism, Mid-Acts Dispensationalism, and hyperdispensationalism.

These are all essentially based on the same principle; that there was a discontinuity between Peter and the early Church and Paul in the later Church.

Mid-Acts Dispensationalist is based in the belief that the present church began during the Mid-Acts period (sometime between Acts 9 and Acts 15)> This view denies the dispensation of grace was in effect until after that time.

Instead,they theorize that the six epistles Paul wrote during the Acts period (Romans, Galatians, both Corinthian epistles, and both Thessalonian epistles) were written exclusively to Gentiles who were allied with Israel, while Paul’s prison epistles (written after Acts 28) were all written to believers like us, who have never been allied with Israel.

So, because believers today did not hear the gospel for the first time in a Jewish synagogue, we never “blessed” Israel, as those during the book of Acts did. The conclusion is therefore drawn that none of those six epistles Paul wrote during the Acts period are written directly to us today.

Since we no longer need to be allied with Israel in order to hear the gospel (unlike those Gentiles to whom Paul preached in the Jewish synagogues), this would mean that only Paul’s prison epistles would addressed directly to the modern Church.

To summarize this teaching, one could say that its advocates believe Paul actually changed his doctrine after he wrote his Acts epistles.

(Which is why I reject it on the basis of both logic and Scripture.)

Like most popular theological positions, supporters of mid-Acts Dispensationalism have a list of Scriptures that, at first glance, seem to favor the hyperdispensationalist position.

But like those other positions, they have to be accepted in a vacuum — since nothing can be done with the contradicting Scriptures, those are simply ignored, in much the same way that post-millennialists ignore the Rapture passages.

With all the various schools of thought out there, how does one truly know he is following the right path? The literal method of interpretation is the key.

Using the literal method of interpreting the biblical covenants and prophecy leads to a specific set of core beliefs about God’s kingdom program, and what the future will hold for ethnic Israel and for the Church.

The Bible demands a distinction between Israel and the Church, and depicts a promised future earthly reign of Christ on the throne of David. (The Davidic Kingdom.)

This leads one to some very specific conclusions about the last days as outlined by Bible Prophecy:

* Israel must be re-gathered to their land as promised by God.

* Daniel’s seventieth week prophecy specifically refers to the purging of the nation Israel, and not the Church. These were the clear words spoken to Daniel. The church doesn’t need purging from sin. It is already clean.

* Some of the warnings in Matthew 24 are directed at the Jews, and not the Church (since God will be finishing His plan with national Israel)

* A Pretribulation rapture – Israel is seen in Daniel as the key player during the tribulation, not the Church. God removes the elect when he brings judgment on the world. i.e. Noah, John 14, 1 Thessonians 4:16. etc..

* Premillennialism – A literal 1000 year Millennial Kingdom, where Christ returns before the Millennium starts. Revelation 20 doesn’t give us a reason to interpret the 1000 years as symbolic. Also, Dispensationalists see the promised literal reign of Christ depicted in the Old Testament by the Prophet Isaiah.

Unsurprisingly, hyperdispensationalists are just as disagreeable when challenged as are preterists, post millennialists, “Kingdom Now” and Dominionist theologians.

Understanding the Dispensations of God is necessary to rightly dividing the Word, and is therefore important, but has no bearing on the seminal issue of salvation.

So I see no reason to dispute, debate or otherwise convince those who hold to a different view of the rightness of my own. I teach from a Dispensational perspective because it is the only one that doesn’t leave gaping holes in one’s understanding. Covenant theology, for example, has no explanation for the restoration of Israel.

Biblical Israel was destroyed in AD 70 as punishment for crucifying the Messiah and the covenant between God and the Jews was transferred to the Church. Modern Israel holds no special place in the plan of God, and there is no kinship between the Church and Israel.

In this view, Church itself has but one unique characteristic. Unlike everybody else, believers will be judged twice.

They are judged to be innocent by virtue of having accepted Christ’s sacrifice as full payment for their sins, but nonetheless will suffer the judgment of God on a Christ-rejecting world.

This muddies the Scriptures and blurs the distinctions between the Church and the world, but it plays no role in one’s salvation.

One can wrongly interpret the Word regarding the details of the last days’ scenario and still be a sincere, born-again, Blood-bought Christian who will go to heaven when one dies, or be translated at the Rapture. (Even if one doesn’t believe in it).

I teach Dispensationalism because I believe it provides the most logical method of understanding the Scriptures — particularly those relative to the last days. But I won’t fight about it.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Nobody is saved by their faith in the Rapture — or its timing. Our faith is in Christ. That is the key to salvation. Trusting in the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth, rather than trusting to our own doctrinal infallibility.

“God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.”(Romans 3:4)