The Mumbai Massacre

The Mumbai Massacre
Vol: 86 Issue: 29 Saturday, November 29, 2008

The Mumbai Massacre

When I first heard of the terror attacks in Mumbai, my first thought was, “Where the heck is Mumbai?” When it became apparent it was a carefully coordinated mujahadeen attack, my next thought was, “Why the heck Mumbai?”

I answered both questions when I looked up Mumbai. “Mumbai” used to be “Bombay” before being renamed back in 1996. Bombay was the colonial name imposed by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Mumbai was the traditional name of the port city.

In any case, I can see now why Bombay was selected.

Mumbai [Bombay] is the capital of Maharashtra and the financial capital of India in the sense that New York City is the financial capital of the US.

With a population approaching fourteen million, it is one of the world’s most populous cities.

Mumbai is one of the world’s top ten financial centers in terms of global financial ‘flow’ and serves as corporate headquarters for scores of multinational corporations.

(If you’ve ever called Dell tech support or Microsoft, odds are that the frustratingly unintelligible person at the other end is sitting in a cubicle somewhere in [Bombay] Mumbai)

The siege was finally declared over by the Indian government on Saturday (local time) as the last of the terrorists were gunned down. Although the terrorists paid special attention to Westerners, particularly Britons and Americans, most the the dead were Indian nationals gunned down in their own city.

About eighteen foreign nationals, including five Americans, were killed and another 22 were wounded. The toll of dead and injured, (at the time of this report – the toll is likely to rise) stands at 162 dead and 283 wounded.

The worst of the fighting was at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, which was the last of a dozen sites attacked in the rampage that began on Wednesday and lasted through to Saturday.

The terrorists never issued any manifestos or made any demands, and it seemed clear from their stubborn resistance at the Taj that they intended to fight to the last. All the attackers were Muslim males between the ages of 17 and 35.

American intelligence and counter terrorism officials said Friday that there was mounting evidence that a Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba was responsible.

Indian commandos said the attackers at both hotels appeared well trained in handling weapons and hand grenades, and they seemed to know the buildings layouts, indicating a high degree of preparation.

Among the sites attacked was the Nariman House, the local Jewish center. When Indian commandos finally raided it, it found the Jewish hostages had all been slaughtered. Said one Indian commander of the terrorists, “they were young, they were determined, and they were remorseless.”

R. R. Patil, the home affairs minister of Maharashtra State, where Mumbai is situated, said the assailant who had been captured alive was a Pakistani citizen. The Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said early evidence explicitly pointed to Pakistan s involvement.

Preliminary evidence, prima facie evidence, indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved, he told reporters in New Delhi.

Let’s summarize: Pakistani involvement, ‘determined and remorseless’ Muslim males between the ages of 17 and 35, and an attack on India’s financial and entertainment capital.

At least 162 dead and another 283 wounded in an assault that paralyzed the world’s most populous city for sixty hours. And finally, the terrorist force itself.

According to the Mumbai police chief as quoted by the New York Times, there were only ten of them.

With confidence I can say that 10 terrorists came in, said the commissioner, Hasan Gafoor. We killed nine of them and one was captured alive.

Assessment:

It is obvious that the raid had the support and assistance of Pakistan’s ISI security services. The ISI is filled with covert supporters of either the Taliban or Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Until Pakistan’s overnight ‘conversion’ in 2003, the ISI was the Taliban’s liaison with the Pakistani government. The ISI supplied money, materiel, recruits and training to both al-Qaeda and the Taliban dating back to the 1980’s.

But it is just as obvious that Pakistan didn’t plan to invade and capture Bombay with just ten guys. The raid on Bombay didn’t provide Pakistan or the ISI with anything of strategic value — just the satisfaction of inflicting harm on a hated enemy.

But what it provided to al-Qaeda was invaluable. Bombay is India’s New York City. Some of the terrorists were already inside the harbor city; the rest infiltrated by boat with additional weapons and explosives.

The terrorists were undoubtedly al-Qaeda affliates; their tactics were mujahadeen tactics; fight to the death inflicting as much damage as possible in the process.

Their chosen victims were Westerners — particularly Americans – and Jews.

During the campaign, Senator Joe Biden hinted darkly at a ‘test’ that will present itself to the Obama administration within six months of his taking office. Homeland Security is as prepared as it can be for attacks using airliners, dirty bombs, nuclear materials, etc.

But Mumbai, a city twice the size of New York City, was paralyzed by ten determined young men armed with nothing but small arms and field explosives for more than sixty hours.

Why Mumbai? To see if it would work. Ten guys paralyzed the city for sixty hours and killed or wounded more than four hundred people. It was a tactical success.

On January 20th, 2009, thousands upon thousands of people will be crowded into coastal Washington D.C. to attend the Obama inaugural.

Please join me in prayer that America’s defenders learned as much from the Mumbai massacre as America’s enemies did.

Thanking the Turkey

Thanking the Turkey
Vol: 86 Issue: 28 Friday, November 28, 2008

It must be difficult for students to figure out why its called ‘Thanksgiving’ when there’s nobody to thank.

In Maryland’s schools, according to the Capital News Service, “students are free to thank anyone they want while learning about the 17th-century celebration of Thanksgiving — as long as it isn’t God.”

Maryland public school officials have turned Thanksgiving into a multicultural harvest devoid of its spiritual essence. Students are taught that Pilgrims had a “belief system,” but nothing further.

“The Pilgrim Story is read in Spanish and English,” Alfreda Adams, principal at Mills-Parole Elementary School in Anne Arundel County where 70 Hispanic students attend, told the Capital. “We make sure that we celebrate all cultures.”

Isn’t that nice? Students are given the opportunity to reject God in two languages in Maryland, while, as Michelle Malkin noted recently, “the town of Hamtramck, Mich., feels free to blast Islamic prayers over public loudspeakers five times a day.”

Secular America is on the horns of a dilemma; here we have a holiday set aside exclusively to give thanks for the blessings of the past year, but there’s nobody to thank.

The first Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by George Washington in 1789. In his proclamation, Washington suffered no confusion concerning Who is the Author of the blessings we are to be thankful for.

George Washington thought that thanks should be directed to ‘Almighty God’.

“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”

It was Abraham Lincoln who made Thanksgiving a national holiday, with the 1863 proclamation that it was to be a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

Is our ‘beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens’ just an off-the-cuff reference to a generic deity?

Assessment:

I ‘googled’ ‘Thanksgiving’ and ‘God’ on Google’s news search engine, and most of the hits that came back were about Thanksgiving without God. Of those, I found just two secular news stories decrying God’s removal from the holiday.

The remainder of the hits came either from Christian-based news sites like ‘Christianity Today’, etc.

In an article at Better Homes and Gardens about Thanksgiving entitled, ‘Why Do We Celebrate?’ discussed the kinds of foods served at the first Thanksgiving feast, the utensils, the guests, but the only mention of God was a notation that, “No meal could begin without saying grace, since the Pilgrims believed that their good fortune was due to their relationship to God.”

The poor, stupid, Pilgrims! They ‘believed that their good fortune was due to their relationship with God’ instead of just dumb luck. Although no student in an American school is taught it, the Pilgrims didn’t merely have a ‘belief structure’ about a ‘deity’ — they were Christians who believed in Jesus Christ.

After 66 days crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth in November 1620.

“Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land,” wrote Governor William Bradford about their arrival in the book, ‘Of Plymouth Plantation’, “they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element.”

An editorial in Delaware County News reminds us all: “This was a holiday formed with good intentions, established for a nation to give thanks to God for the bounty it had received.”

But, lest the editorialist be pigeon-holed as a purveyor of myth, he hastens to add, “Though born out of a slanted and inaccurate mythology involving the Pilgrims and Native Americans, it still denotes images of sharing, family, harvest, sacrifice and prayer.”

Some public school teachers dig deeper toward a darker view of history — that Europeans showed up in the Americas with racially bigoted attitudes and greed, and the peaceful interactions between them and the Indians quickly went downhill.

Rose Lanin, a second- and third-grade teacher at the Kazoo School (Michigan) who has been teaching students about early American life, explained to her students that some pilgrims brought slaves and indentured servants with them.

The ACLU is busy again this year, monitoring public school curriculums to ensure that Thanksgiving Day is celebrated as ‘Turkey Day’, worshipping the creature (the turkey) more than the One who created it.

It isn’t like this should be a difficult concept. Anybody with half a mind should be able to figure out that Thanksgiving Day without Someone to thank is a logical conundrum.

But intelligent people who otherwise are capable of tying their own shoes, holding jobs, driving themselves to work and even educated enough to read can’t seem to grasp the inherent inconsistency.

It is as if they’ve lost the ability to reason, even when it is in their own best interests to do so.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22)

The Apostle Paul’s description of last-days unbelievers notes that they are those;

“Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” (Romans 1:25)

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” (Romans 1:28)

Thanksgiving Day isn’t ‘Turkey Day’ — but that’s what your kids are taught in school.

Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside for America to heed the promise of 2nd Chronicles 7:14:

“If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My Face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

“Thank You, Jesus, for Your many blessings showered upon America. Forgive the ignorant who have been brainwashed by the enemy and lead them to a right knowledge of You. We give You the honor and the glory that is rightfully due to You, and pray that You will come quickly. In Your Name we pray. Amen.”

I pray your Thanksgiving Day was all it could be — and more.

Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks
Vol: 86 Issue: 27 Thursday, November 27, 2008

Of all of the various holidays, Christmas is the most fun. To my mind, it always has been. I loved it as a kid, but I’ve loved it even more since becoming an adult.

It is the one time of the year when I get to express my love and appreciation to my family and friends without anybody feeling awkward about it.

But Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving Day is.

I love its historical purpose. It is the one time of the year when America expresses its collective love and appreciation to our Creator God for the many blessings showered upon us as a nation.

Thanks to the foresight and faithfulness of America’s Founding Fathers, even in the rabidly secular post-Christian America of the 21st century, there remain a significant number of Americans who still heed 2nd Chronicles 7:14:

“If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

The fact that despite America’s many sins, America remains the most Divinely favored nation on the face of the earth is evidence that God heeds His promise in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 as well.

That is what I love most about Thanksgiving Day. The opportunity to witness God’s continued involvement in the affairs of men.

During the American Revolutionary War the Continental Congress appointed one or more days of thanksgiving each year. And each one carried a recommendation to the executives of the various states for the observance of these days in their states.

George Washington, leader of the Revolutionary forces in the American Revolutionary War, proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving in December 1777 as a victory celebration honoring the defeat of the British at Saratoga. The Continental Congress proclaimed annual December Thanksgivings from 1777 to 1783 (except in 1782).

The concept of setting aside a day of thanksgiving is as old and as universal as mankind.

Many countries, such as for example, Asia, Japan, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka have celebrated in gratitude for their rich rice harvest for many, many centuries.

In Africa, many tribal expressions of gratitude are similar as this ancient prayer: “The Year Has Come Around Again, Great Lord Of Our Land – Never Can We Thank You For Your Good Deeds And All Your Blessings.”

In South America you find many of the native Indian cultures have expressions of gratitude and thanksgiving. Modern Brazil has a special public day of thanksgiving and prayers and has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November since 1949.

In Chaldea. ancient Egypt and Greece, harvest festival has been celebrated with great rejoicing.

The Hindus and the Chinese marked their harvest with a holiday. The Romans celebrated their Thanksgiving early October. They dedicated it to the Goddess Of The Harvest, Ceres, and the holiday was named “Cerelia.”

Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, offered the first or last sheaf of wheat to the “Great Mother” or the “Mother Of The Wheat”, believing that earth power was a feminine force.

The annual “Declaration of World Thanksgiving”, is signed by 12 world leaders — religious leaders, scholars, scientists, philosophers, artists — representing various religions and cultures from around the world.

Assessment:

If everybody celebrates thanksgiving in some form or another, and if the tradition goes back to the ancient Chaldeans, then what is so American (or Christian) about Thanksgiving?

The answer should be obvious. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” Scripture tells us.

America is, hands-down, the most abundantly blessed nation on the face of the earth. Sharing in that blessing are Canada, Australia, New Zealand and some of the nations of Western Europe.

Those nations also share the tradition of offering thanks to the Almighty God of the Bible for their blessings.

Israel also has a tradition of thanksgiving, called Sukkot. Sukkot has three names: Hag HaAsif – The Festival of Ingathering, Hag HaSukkot – The Festival of Booths, HaHag – The Festival), which comes on the fifth day after Yom Kippur, lasts for seven days.

During that time the Israelis remember the protection God gave them during the forty years they spent traveling in the desert. The Jews also celebrate the ingathering of crops during the Feast of Tabernacles.

Like the Christians, the Jews offer their thanks to the True Author of blessing, and like the Christian nations, are among the biggest recipients of God’s provision and protection.

Places like India, Sri Lanka, Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, etc., have traditional celebrations in which they give thanks to pagan gods.

What the pagan gods are able to deliver in return is self-evident.

“Yet ye have forsaken Me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.” (Judges 10:13)

The reason that I love Thanksgiving Day above all other holiday seasons isn’t the turkey (but I love that) and it isn’t the feasting (but I love that) or the parades, or the football games or any of the secular trappings that go along with it.

It is because I get to watch God keep His promises. When God told Abraham of the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God until the Lord agreed that if there remained yet ten righteous men in the city, He would stay His execution on the city.

Even though not ten righteous men could not be found, for the sake of Lot and his family, the Lord arranged first for their evacuation, before bringing judgement on the city.

Each Thanksgiving Day, Americans acknowledge the Creator and offer Him thanks for His blessings. And a walk through American history shows that every year was more abundantly blessed than the year before, with one notable exception.

The longest period of economic stagnation in US history was the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Economic growth was all but non-existent and banking panics were commonplace.

The Banking Panic of 1837 almost tanked America — in 1861, Abe Lincoln had to issue ‘greenbacks’ — in essence government IOU’s — to finance the Civil War.

It is especially interesting in light of the fact that, from 1816 to 1861, there were no presidential Thanksgiving proclamations issued.

America was therefore ‘blessed’ accordingly.

We live in a post-Christian era, but there remain a few righteous men left, in a handful of nations, that still heed the national call for thanksgiving and prayer.

Thanksgiving Day renews my hope that, as in Lot’s case, the Church will be evacuated before God executes judgement on a lost and sin-sick world.

“And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.” (Jeremiah 30:19)

Offer up thanks to Our Creator, the Almighty God of Israel, Isaac, Jacob. Let Him hear the ‘voice of them that make merry’ — wherever you may be.

I pray each of you have a happy Thanksgiving Day. God bless you all.

21st Century ‘Tolerance’

21st Century ‘Tolerance’
Vol: 86 Issue: 26 Wednesday, November 26, 2008

John Ziegler went out the polls near his home in Los Angeles on Election Day to conduct his own exit poll of Obama supporters.

He took the twelve interviews he conducted and compiled them into a ten minute web-video that he called “How Obama Got Elected.”

Liberals went berserk, according to Ziegler’s website. Since there were just twelve interviews, he was accused of cherry-picking.

So Zeigler commissioned Zogby to conduct a poll asking the same questions he asked of his interview subjects.

Even John Zogby was shocked at the results. And by the backlash from Obama supporters. When Zeigler approached him about doing a similar poll among McCain/Palin voters, Zogby refused.

I believe there was value in the poll we did, John Zogby told the Politico. I also believe it was not our finest hour. This slipped through the cracks.”

So, what was it that Zeigler’s video documents as the reason Obama got elected? Ignorance. That is why Obama supporters are up in arms.

It is also why the mainstream media is ignoring Zeigler. The voters were ignorant, but they WEREN’T uninformed. They were deliberately misinformed.

The poll was conducted as a multiple choice ‘test’.

Here is what Zeigler discovered and Zogby later reluctantly confirmed:

57.4% did not know which party is in control of the Congress. (this was a 50/50 multiple guess question).

71.4% did not know that Joe Biden was forced to drop out of a previous presidential race because of plagiarism. (This was a one out of four multiple guess question)

82% did not know that Obama won his first election by getting his opponent kicked off the ballot.

56.1% didn’t know that Obama kicked off his political career at the home of two former Weather Underground terrorists.

On the other hand. . .

Just 13.7% didn’t know about Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe. A mere 6.2% could not identify Palin as the candidate who had a pregnant daughter.

89% believed Sarah Palin really offered the fact she could ‘see Russia from her house’ as part of her foreign policy credentials.

(That wasn’t Sarah Palin. That was Tina Fey)

Only 2.4% got eleven questions right — just one half of one percent aced the test.

The media had decided Obama was The One early on and both Zeigler’s video and the subsequent Zogby poll demonstrated that when the media makes up its collective mind, the public doesn’t have a chance.

(Hence, Sarah Palin, by virtue of refusing to abort a Down’s Syndrome baby, was transformed into an agent of intolerance by the progressive and pro-abortion Left. Amazing.)

The Disney character Jiminy Crickett’s theme song went something like this: “When you wish upon a star / makes no difference who you are / when you wish upon a star / your dreams come true.”

They DO come true — if the star is Barack Obama and the mainstream media is wishing right along with you.

Behold the power of propaganda!

Assessment:

Tolerance is the appreciation of diversity and the ability to live and let others live. It is the ability to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards those whose opinions, practices, religion, nationality and so on differ from one’s own.

Intolerance is the failure to appreciate and respect the practices, opinions and beliefs of another group.

By now, most of you probably heard of the experiment conducted by the 14 year-old Illinois 8th grader named Catherine Vogt. (If you haven’t, you’re about to.)

Vogt is the daughter of a liberal mother and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching “inclusion,” and she decided to see how inclusive they really were.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then came to school wearing a T-shirt on which she had drawn with a red marker: “McCain Girl.”

“I was just really curious how they’d react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters,” Catherine told the website, Politico. “I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be.”

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain’s name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

“People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn’t be wearing it,” Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

“One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,” Catherine said of Oak Park’s progressive tolerance.

And students weren’t the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

“In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain,” Catherine said.

The next day, Catherine wore a T-shirt labeled “Obama Girl.” She recorded the reaction, which consisted primarily on congratulating her for coming to her senses.

There is a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon that comes to mind in which the tiger remarks; “I don’t know if I can tolerate that much tolerance.”

But it does provide yet instance in which we can stand in awe of the power of propaganda.

Somehow, while we were standing right there, eyes wide open, the media convinced us that the Christian Right was intolerant and that the ‘progressive’ Left was the classic example of thoughtful tolerance.

It is also another perfect example of ‘cognitive dissonance’ in action. By virtue of incessant repetition, one accepts the two contradictory ‘truths’ — but uncomfortably.

Obama’s supporters elected him in the name of ‘tolerance’ — by suppressing any contradictory view as intolerant or racist. (After awhile, that has to make your eyes start to spin a little.)

In George Orwell’s classic, “1984” words were given contradictory meanings as a means of mind control. The adjective ‘Orwellian’ was derived from his book, and generally refers to control by propaganda, misinformation, historical revisionism, etc.

Orwell’s storyline is so close to that of Revelation’s that it is impossible to imagine he didn’t draw on it as a source. When I first learned about Bible prophecy in the 70’s, I tried to imagine what it would take to bring about the kind of world envisioned by Scripture during the Tribulation.

A world where ‘tolerance’ is a vice and virtue is a sin . . . it seemed so, well, Orwellian to me, then.

Now not so much.

Note:

At the risk becoming annoying, today is the last chance to sign up for the Israel Tour at the Omega Letter main page at http://www.omegaletter.com. Please pray about it and if the Holy Spirit so leads, please come.

And may our God richly bless you and yours over the coming holiday. Please join me in a prayer for journey mercies for everyone headed home to give thanks with family and loved ones. Happy Thanksgiving!

Maranatha!

The Multiverse Theory

The Multiverse Theory
Vol: 86 Issue: 25 Tuesday, November 25, 2008

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which unbelievers will go to ‘prove’ there is no God. First, because it is impossible to ‘prove’ a negative — that is, to ‘prove’ something does not exist.

As Donald Rumsfeld famously pointed out, ‘absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence’. Because I cannot demonstrate God is sitting in this same room with me does not prove He is not there.

I cannot demonstrate that my desk is made up of atoms, either. But because I cannot see something at the molecular structure doesn’t mean it isn’t.

And that is the first thing a scientist would tell you. About practically anything — except God. Some of the most famous scientists in our world, Richard Dawkins, Stephen F Hawking, etc., are atheists — a belief structure built entirely on the absence of evidence.

But whether one believes in God or not is irrelevant to His existence. When confronted with scientific evidence that points to God they either become decidedly unscientific about it and reject it out-of-hand or they built elaborate counter explanations like the Mult-verse Theory.

Scientific evidence? What scientific evidence? Noted Tim Folger in this month’s Discover Magazine;

“Atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons. If those protons were just 0.2 percent more massive than they actually are, they would be unstable and would decay into simpler particles.”

Atoms wouldn t exist; neither would we. If gravity were slightly more powerful, the consequences would be nearly as grave. A beefed-up gravitational force would compress stars more tightly, making them smaller, hotter, and denser. Rather than surviving for billions of years, stars would burn through their fuel in a few million years, sputtering out long before life had a chance to evolve. There are many such examples of the universe s life-friendly properties so many, in fact, that physicists can t dismiss them all as mere accidents. Science is supposed to be skeptical of accidents.

In explaining why the multiverse theory is attractive to scientists who reject the concept of a Creator God, Folger writes:

“Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; the universe is adapted to us.

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi verse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.”

You see, that’s the problem science is currently wrestling with. The danger that they may be forced to “invoke a benevolent Creator” as the only logical and scientifically plausible explanation for what we’re learning about our universe.

“Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non religious explanation for what is often called the fine-tuning problem the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life.”

See? It’s either the ‘multiverse theory’ — or we’re stuck with God.

Assessment:

Five hundred years ago, the Polish astronomer Copernicus put forth a theory that is regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy. Prior to Copernicus, it was an accepted scientific fact that the earth was the center of the universe.

The more we learn about our universe, the more obvious it is that the universe was created as a life support system for the earth. To quote Freeman Dyson, a renowned physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the strong anthropic principle implies that the universe knew we were coming.

A Russian scientist at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow was researching the Big Bang theory in the late 1970’s. Professor Andrei Linde was thunderstruck the uniformity of the universe. For example, he discovered that the temperature of outer space is exactly the same everywhere, at 2.7 degrees C above absolute zero.

The Big Bang Theory says that is impossible. The universe as a whole has been cooling ever since it emerged from the fireball of the Big Bang. But there s a problem: For all of it to reach the same temperature, different regions of the universe would have to exchange heat, just as ice cubes and hot tea have to meet to reach the uniform temperature of iced tea.

But as Einstein proved, nothing including heat can travel faster than the speed of light. In the conventional theory of the Big Bang, there simply hasn t been enough time since the universe was born for every part of the cosmos to have connected with every other part and cooled to the same temperature.

So a new theory had to be invented — a phenomenon called ‘inflation.’ Inflation holds that regions of the universe that are currently separated by many billions of light-years were once close enough to each other that they could exchange heat and reach the same temperature before they were wildly super-sized. Aha!

The multiverse theory is born out of the ‘string theory’ which is so complex most mathematicians shake their heads. Discover Magazine quoted Bernard Carr, a cosmologist at Queen Mary University of London.

“If there is only one universe, Carr says, you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don t want God, you d better have a multiverse.

The Apostle Paul addressed this exact dilemma: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.”

The sun produces energy by fusing fusing two hydrogen atoms into a single helium atom. During that reaction, 0.007 percent of the mass of the hydrogen atoms is converted into energy. If that percentage were lower, there could only hydrogen, if it were higher, there could be no hydrogen. In either case, water could not exist — and neither could we.

The early universe was delicately poised between runaway expansion and terminal collapse. Had the universe contained much more matter, additional gravity would have made it implode. If it contained less, the universe would have expanded too quickly for galaxies to form.

Had matter in the universe been more evenly distributed, it would not have clumped together to form galaxies. Had matter been clumpier, it would have condensed into black holes.

“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:” (Romans 1:20)

So, here we have modern science learning that, “if you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.” Why? Paul answers THAT, too.

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

That’s precisely how it played out, too. “Omigosh! There is only one explanation! There MUST be a God! . . . No, wait! There’s got to be a better explanation! I know! The mulitverse theory.”

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . .” (Romans 1:21-22)

Note:

I was contacted by our tour operators regarding the Israel tour. We’re down to the wire, and we don’t have enough confirmed reservations. The actual cut off date was November 2, but so many expressed an interest that they’ve stretched it out to give everyone a chance.

So we have until Thanksgiving. If we don’t have enough confirmed reservations by the end of the holiday period to make the tour viable, then the tour will be canceled and refunds issued to those who have already confirmed.

I believe that our time is very short — the window of opportunity to see the Holy Land; to walk in the footsteps of Christ; to be baptized in the Jordan River — that window could close at any time. I want to show you what I’ve seen — there is something indescribable about the experience that I want to share with you.

If you want to go, there is just today and tomorrow to fill out the sign up sheet. If you do decide to go, email me and let me know so that the tour doesn’t get canceled while your stuff is in the mail.

I know that times are tough and that the trip would be difficult for many of you, either physically or financially. But if you can make it, it promises to be the trip of a lifetime. I hope that you can.

Special Report: The Birth Certificate Non-Controversy

Special Report: The Birth Certificate Non-Controversy
Vol: 86 Issue: 24 Monday, November 24, 2008

It appears, from what has transpired thus far, that the office of the Presidency of the United States may soon be occupied by a usurper. It sounds nuts. It really, really does.

The idea that somebody would even try is what makes it sounds nuts. Bill Clinton was unable to conceal an, er, indiscretion that occurred in the White House bathroom with no witnesses.

Somehow, it ended up all over the front pages of the world s newspapers and a whole generation of little kids learned too much too soon courtesy of the nation s highest moral authority figure.

So for Barack Hussein Obama to embark on a campaign for the only office that Constitutionally requires natural-born citizenship when he isn t qualified redefines the audacity of hope.

That isn t merely audacious, it s downright impudent. It is unthinkably naive.

Surely, he couldn t hope to keep something like his birthplace a secret from the same media that discovered Monica Lewinsky? Could he? And what about the big shots at the DNC? Surely they ascertained their candidate s eligibility?

Obama s place of birth didn t really become much of an issue until after Hillary went down in flames. I recall there was a rumor that Team Clinton had a bombshell ready to release just before the convention, but the rumor fizzled and died.

One would assume that, if that rumor dealt with Obama s place of birth, that the DNC would have moved heaven and earth to put that rumor to bed well before the election. I mean, think about it.

If you were among the DNC s leadership, would you take a chance on blowing control of all three branches of government on an unqualified candidate? One thing that political operatives understand is how politics operates. This could be something that could blow up in their faces it is far too big a risk to take.

One would assume that ten seconds after the first person questioned Obama s birth place, the DNC had operatives and private investigators and important Democratic Senators poking and pleading and cajoling until they had irrefutable, undeniable evidence that they weren t about to toss away their best shot at the Oval Office in a generation.

Continuing with this line of assumptive reasoning, one would further assume that, in order to squash the rumors before they had a chance to affect the vote, that the DNC would share that irrefutable and undeniable evidence with the voters.

The rumor about his place of birth was substantial enough to qualify for a spot on Obama s Fight the Smears website. Obama s campaign posted a facsimile of his Hawaiian birth certificate on his website.

But instead of quelling the controversy, the facsimile simply fanned the flames. Dozens of self-described experts pronounced the birth certificate an obvious forgery . It was becoming a real problem for the campaign.

A problem that could have been easily and instantly resolved by releasing the vault copy (handwritten long form) of his birth certificate.

Such a copy exists it must exist, if the president-elect was actually born in Hawaii. And at least two members of the Hawaiian state government publicly stated that the records exist, they have examined them, and that Obama s birth records are in order .

But for reasons that defy assumptive reasoning, the Obama birth records are a more closely guarded secret than Pentagon war plans.

The New York Times regularly published top-secret leaked battle plans that forced Pentagon planners to scrap military operations in progress.

But NOBODY can get their hands on Obama s birth certificate.

Honolulu Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe on Wednesday ruled that author Andy Martin had no standing under state law to obtain a copy of the birth certificate.

Ayabe said in his decision that Martin had no direct and tangible interest in the vital statistic records being sought. Hawaii public records laws are more restrictive than in many states and allow birth and death certificates to be released only to family members and those with a direct interest.

That is where it becomes, as they say, curiouser and curiouser. If an American citizen doesn t have a direct interest in whether he wasted his vote on an ineligible candidate, who does?

Then there is Philip Berg, the former Pennsylvania Attorney-General who took his case directly to the Supreme Court.

On Nov. 3, Justice David Souter rejected Berg’s emergency appeal for the court to halt the tabulation of the 2008 presidential election results. BUT Justice Souter set a schedule for a response from Obama, the DNC and all co-defendants on or before Dec. 1.

All told, there are still at least ten active and unresolved lawsuits regarding Obama s birth status still before various federal and state courts. Every single one of them could be put to rest with the same action at the same time.

Just release the birth certificate one time to one credible news organization or even turn it over to the US Supreme Court and be done with it.

So, why is this still an issue? Like I said, it s nuts. Isn t it?

One gets the sense that the LAST thing that the courts or the Senate or the party bigwigs on EITHER side want to see is Barack Hussein Obama s birth certificate.

The courts seem perfectly content to rest on the argument that US citizens don t have standing to question his eligibility.

But the courts, which DO have standing, don t seem even slightly curious concerning WHY Obama is fighting the release of his birth documents.

The mainstream media seems totally unconcerned about Barack Obama s eligibility to serve. This is where it seems particularly out-of-synch.

Woodward and Bernstein became household words after they uncovered the Watergate scandal that brought down a presidency, changed the course of history, and earned them each a Pulitzer Prize.

The reporter who proved that a usurper had managed to get illegally elected to the highest office in the land would go down in history as having broken the story of the century.

A Pulitzer would just be the beginning. Yet not even Bob Woodward wants to be Bob Woodward.

Even the Republicans want to see the Barack Obama eligibility issue fade away quietly into the woodwork. There is no hue and cry arising from the losing camp. Curiouser and curiouser.

But not really. If it turns out that Barack Obama is constitutionally ineligible to serve, then what? What happens next?

If the election is decertified, then legally, the default winners would be McCain/Palin. Not even McCain/Palin want to see that. Absent a political mandate, they would never be able to effectively govern. Even if there were anything left to govern after the riots.

The consequences are unthinkable.

The China Pattern

The China Pattern
Vol: 86 Issue: 22 Saturday, November 22, 2008

In our discussion of the latest “Global Trends” report, we mentioned China and the Kings of the East only in passing — the point I wanted to make was how closely the US intelligence estimates mirrored Bible prophecy for the last days.

We discussed the four spheres of global power that the Bible predicted would dominate the world in the last days and how exactly they corresponded with the four spheres of world power analyzed by the report, right down to the fact that both use Jerusalem as the compass center.

The Kings of the East don’t occupy a lot of space in Bible prophecy — about all that the Scriptures tell us is that they will march westward across the great Euphrates River whose path dissects both Iraq and Turkey.

When the apostles were first beginning to spread the Good News of Jesus into the world, the Holy Spirit instructed them not to preach the word of God in Asia.

Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. (Acts 16:6)

As a consequence, the initial thrust of Christianity as it spread across the earth went toward the west rather than the east.

This had profound implications for geopolitical future, not the least of which was the fact that Christianity thereafter would be seen as a Western institution and be identified closely with Western government.

History shows that this has been the course that the message of the Gospel has taken as it has been preached across the world. It started in the Middle East and spread north and west throughout Europe while its eastern course was blocked and thwarted by the Holy Spirit, according to His purposes.

Five hundred years ago Columbus brought Christianity to the Western Hemisphere where it began to spread across the American continent. (Jeremiah 25:22). Only in this last generation is it sweeping across eastern Asia, coming, like the sun, full circle around the globe.

“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)

Modern China is home to one of the fastest growing underground church movements in history, as the Word of God continues to follow the path of the sun, from east to west.

But the Bible says that the light of truth goes out during the Tribulation period. The Restrainer is removed, together with the Church, and the man of sin takes his place as world dictator for seven years.

John says that at some point during that seven years, the four spirits bound at the Euphrates River will be unbound in the last days, to prepare the way for the Kings of the East.

Their exact objective is not specified; neither do we know exactly what provokes them to invade. But we know how many of them will be making the trip.

“And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. ” (Revelation 9:16)

In John’s day, that was a preposterous number. Two hundred thousand thousand is equal to two hundred million — roughly twice the population of the world in John’s day.

It was a preposterous number in 1800 when it represented twenty percent of the global population of one billion. It was even preposterous eighty years ago, when two hundred million represented ten percent of the global population of two billion.

The global population didn’t pass three billion until 1960, four billion until the mid-70’s, five billion in the late ’80’s. By 1999, when the global population sailed passed the six billion mark, the People’s Republic of China had a standing army, including ready reserves, of two hundred million men.

The precision of that prophecy still fills me with awe. Now that the prophetic number is filled, the preparations for the way of the kings of the east are underway.

The invasion of the West by the forces of the East is one of the most significant events of the last days. From its earliest pages, the Bible has consistently predicted that the final destruction of Babylon will come with the rise to power of the Prince of Persia. (2 Chron.36:20).

The ultimate Prince of Persia is still to come.

Assessment:

Today, American troops line both sides of the Euphrates River while Washington considers ways to effect regime change in nearby Iran (Persia) over the strenuous objections of Beijing and Moscow.

China s one-child policy resulted in way more young men than young women, so China s standing army of 200 million is an army of frustrated and jumpy young men without much hope of a family life apart from the state.

China is extending its reach into Iran, even as it seeks ways to drive the West back over to its side of the Euphrates. China has invested heavily in cyberwarfare and has built up an army of cyber-warriors in preparation for what China anticipates is a coming war with the West, and in particular, the United States.

The number of attacks on US government, defense companies and businesses rose by a third in 2007, to 43,880 incidents affecting five million computers, according to the claims by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Some were so sophisticated that they might be impossible to counteract, or even detect. Meanwhile, its space program, targeted at what one Chinese military strategist called “America’s soft ribs”, was steadily increasing the vulnerability of US assets.

“China is intent on expanding its sphere of control even at the expense of its Asian neighbors and the United States,” it said.

Pentagon and other Washington studies have accused China of using computer hacking to steal information and threaten disruption to both civil and defence services before, and particularly since an alleged co-ordinated attack in 2002, code-named by the US “Titan Rain”, downloaded huge quantities of information.

The Global Trends report forecasts, rather optimistically, that China will share global dominance with the US by 2025. That assumes two things. First, it assumes that China will want to share power with the United States in 2025. Second, it assumes the continued existence of the United States in 2025.

Both are somewhat optimistic assumptions, all things considered.

Note:

Once again, snow in November caught my ISP completely by surprise. (Must be global warming). So once again, I offer that as my lame excuse for the lateness of today’s Omega Letter.

Special Report: Forecasting a “Transformed World”

Special Report: Forecasting a “Transformed World”
Vol: 86 Issue: 21 Friday, November 21, 2008

A report featuring the compiled analyses of US intelligence agencies and issued under the title, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” offers a mixed forecast for the near future.

The previous report in the Global Trends series, which was completed in 2004 and projected developments through 2020, anticipated continued U.S. dominance through that year, though it recognized that the emergence of China and India as new powers would transform the geopolitical landscape.

The new report predicts, “the U.S. will find itself as one of a number of important actors on the world stage,” playing “a prominent role in global events” but not necessarily the prominent role.

The new report describes a world torn by increased conflict over scarce food and water supplies, rogue states, terrorists and (of course) global warming.

(Global warming. Sigh. As I type, half the country is in a mid-winter deep freeze. Winter storm warnings dot the weather map. Winter is still a month away. There’s that clang psychologists call ‘cognitive dissonance’ again. But I digress. . . )

The Global Trends reports are produced every five years by the National Intelligence Council, which represents all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. The Global Trends reports identify and analyze by region, dividing the world into four spheres of world power.

They break down as follows: Russia to the north, Western Europe and the Americas to the West, Asia in the East and Africa and the Non-Aligned Nations (NAM) to the South.

Eastern Europe is lumped in with Russia; Israel with the West, the Arab world with the NAM and Australia and Japan straddle the line West to East.

The forecast says Russia’s emergence as a world power is “clouded” by persistent corruption and lagging investment in its critical energy industry.

It also raises the possibility that a government in Eastern Europe “could be effectively taken over and run by organized crime.”

The report says that global Islamic terrorist movement is likely to outlast al Qaeda itself, with other groups likely to emerge and supplant it.

So al-Qaeda is doomed but Islamofacism is here to stay. Great.

It also says the global shift from West to East in wealth and economic power “is without precedent in modern history.” (“East” generally refers to India, China and the seven ‘Little Dragon’ nations of Indo-China; Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, etc.)

It’s a pretty dismal forecast; no wonder everybody seems so stressed. I’ve read more than one commentary that complained that John McCain practically campaigned for Barack Obama. Given the forecast offered by this report, if he did, I could understand why.

John McCain may be a lot of things, but he’s no dummy. It’s one thing to seek the job as the 44th President of the United States.

It’s another thing altogether to risk going down in history as the last one.

Assessment:

“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)

I want you to keep at the forefront of your mind the fact that this is NOT a report issued by a Bible-believing ministry or an analysis of the conclusions reached by Hal Lindsey in 1969’s Late, Great Planet Earth.

This is the consensus opinion of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.

It is a fairly safe bet than none of these intelligence agencies is basing its forecasts on Hal’s weekly TV program, Chuck Missler’s website or Grant Jeffrey’s book “The Next World War”.

But there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the general trends forecast by these 16 intelligence agencies for the next fifteen years and the general trends forecast by the Bible for the last days.

The only place where they differ significantly is in the outcomes. Bible prophecy starts with the outcome and then forecasts how it comes together. God tells the end from the beginning. Created beings are limited to seeing time in only one direction.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Bible forecast the world would divide itself into four spheres of regional power: the revived Roman Empire in the West; Gog-Magog to the North; the Kings of the East; and the Kings of the South. The Bible oriented each of these from the perspective of Jerusalem.

The Global Trends report identifies the same regional power blocs. A skeptic might argue the division simply follows the four points on the compass. Maybe. But it is a US report. Still, it orients the compass from the perspective of Jerusalem, not Washington.

Why is that significant? Because it is the most strategic place on earth — exactly as the Bible predicted it would be — for ONE generation, somewhere in time.

According to Bible prophecy, the pre-eminent world power will NOT be the United States. The ten toes of Daniel’s vision emerge from the two legs of iron that symbolized the Roman Empire. Bible prophecy says Europe must increase, and therefore, America must decrease.

The Global Trends report makes pretty much the same forecast. It is highly unlikely that the sixteen intelligence agencies of America consulted with the Books of Daniel or Zechariah.

The Prophet Ezekiel forecast the development of a vast northern alliance headed by Russia and Iran and including significant parts of Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It is supremely unlikely that the sixteen intelligence agencies consulted the Book of Ezekiel.

Islamic eschatology predicts the rise of an Islamic leader, the Mahdi, who will lead the Islamic world in a victorious conquest of the dar al Harb (Zone of War) that will usher in a period of Islamic peace and harmony. According to Islamic scholars, the rider on the white horse in the Book of the Revelation is the Islamic Mahdi.

According to the consensus opinion of America’s sixteen intelligence agencies, the Islamic terrorist movement, which seeks to conquer the Dar al Harb and impose a period of Islamic peace and harmony will outlast Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

(Interestingly, while I doubt that Daniel, Ezekiel or Zechariah played much of a role in the Global Trends report, I’ll bet the farm that US intelligence has an entire division dedicated to studying the Koran.)

So, what can we glean from all of this that is of use to us in the Battle of the Last Days?

Just this. The Bible is true. And we can prove it.

Bible prophecy concurs with the latest US intelligence forecasts — but the Bible’s forecast came first by some twenty centuries. The Bible’s forecast hasn’t needed revising in all those centuries — the Global Trends Report gets revised every four years.

Each successive report trends closer to the Bible’s forecast scenario, rather than away.

To a lost and dying world, this is a terrifying report. They don’t know what to make of things. They don’t have any answer to the question, “What is this world coming to?”

“But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you.” (John 10:26)

What is chaos and terror and confusion to the world is our evidence that all is well, that God remains on the Throne, and that everything is under His control. We can trust Him.

No matter how scary and bad and dangerous things get, we have the rest of Jesus’ promise to cling to — and the authority to share it with the lost and frightened:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.” (John 27-29)

If the rest of the Bible is true, then so is the part about eternal life. Maranatha!

The Trouble with Angels

The Trouble with Angels
Vol: 86 Issue: 20 Thursday, November 20, 2008

Angels and angel stories pre-date the oldest Hebrew texts of the bible. The Sumerians, who pre-date ancient Egyptian society, was the most ancient civilization to depict winged humans in their carvings and statues.

The Sumerians tell the oldest known angel stories of messengers of the gods who would intervene between the gods and men. Angel stories permeate most ancient primitive cultures. Winged, angelic-like beings can be found within most all of their artwork and lore.

In Scripture, angels are presented as messengers. St Augustine, one of the early Church Fathers, wrote that angels are spirit-beings and that ‘angel’ is their designation of office, rather than their nature.

According to Augustine, therefore, anyone bearing a Divine message is an angel. The Greek and Hebrew words translated in Scripture as ‘angel’ means, ‘a messenger’.

Angel stories are not unique to Judeo-Christianity — the ‘prophet’ Mohammed claimed that an angel (Jabril, or Gabriel) dictated the Koran to him.

There are stories of angels in the ancient literature of Babylon, Persia, Greece, as well as references to angel-like spirit-beings within Eastern mystical religions like Buddhism and Hinduism.

Angels would seem, therefore, to exist independently from Christianity or Judaism. Every major religion has its own, unique form of angelic being. What makes them unique, however, is the role they play — all religions tend to describe them the same way.

They are more or less universally described as winged creatures of indeterminate sex and of indescribable beauty. They are capable of appearing both as a spirit and in corporeal form. Depending on the religious tradition, they range from being the gentle and benign to that of malignant creatures possessing great powers.

Uniquely then, it is possible for one to believe in the existence of angels without necessarily believing in either God or the Bible.

In some religious traditions, angels are viewed as gods in their own right — the Romans and Greeks had a pantheon of lesser gods; Mercury, (or Hermes) is depicted by the Greeks as Romans as the ‘winged messenger’ of Jupiter (or Zeus).

But where angels have really hit their stride is within the New Age. People are invited to get in touch with their ‘inner angel’ or their ‘angelic spirit guide’. Some teach we are all angels-in-waiting and that after we die, we become angels.

One hears that all the time, particularly from parents grieving the loss of a child. “She’s God’s little angel, now.”

The New Age tends to portray modern-day angels as ethereal, all-forgiving images of light. “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” (2nd Corinthians 11:14)

New Agers see angels as “doorways” into the spirit world.

A New Age mystic named Andrew Ramer writes his travels with an “angel” through many reincarnated lives, “the two of us working to bridge the physical and spiritual worlds.”

(His angel comments: “We angels cannot enter your world unless you open a window or a doorway for us.”)

New Age angelologists develop that ‘opening’ through a host of techniques that are intended to help people connect with a personal angel. Besides the usual angel workshops–attended by a surprising

number of professionals and religious folk– there are angelic oracles, spiritual specialists, divination tools, angel cards (like horoscopes), karma cleansing and much more.

TIME Magazine’s Nancy Gibbs accidently hit the nail on the head, so to speak, in trying to explain why people would so readily embrace angels while rejecting the notion of a Personal Redeemer.

“For those who choke too easily on God and His rules, theologians observe, angels are the handy compromise, all fluff and meringue, kind, nonjudgmental. And they avail themselves to everyone, like aspirin.”

It doesn’t really take that much faith to believe in angels. Lots of people see them.

And that’s the trouble with angels.

Assessment:

Almost all religious traditions have some form of angel. They almost all describe the same being. But the Bible is unique in that it explains who and what angels are. This tells us three things right off the bat. Angels are real. Angels are not religious. The Bible is true.

I’ll explain how I arrived at the last point from the first two. Speaking through the Prophet Isaiah, God hurled a challenge to the would-be gods of this world, naming the defining characteristic of Deity;

“Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.” (Isaiah 46:9-10)

There are lots of ‘prophets’ — Nostradamus, St Malachy, the Mayan Indians, Edgar Cayce, etc., but their ‘prophecies’ are of the “I predict my dog will poop on the carpet” type.

Make the prediction, wait for conditions to fulfill it and shout, “Aha!”

I believe that Satan is real, but the Bible says he is but a finite, created being –an angel. He cannot predict the future. But he can manipulate conditions. (Like predicting a dog will poop on the carpet and then locking it in a house until it does.)

God tells the end from the beginning. That is, God starts at the end and then explains how it got that way. By way of illustration, anybody can predict the winner of the World Series — somebody does it every year.

It is a good guess based on statistical probabilities, not prophecy.

That’s how false prophecies, angelic, spirit guide, whatever, appear to come to pass. It is just the enemy playing the odds.

Imagine predicting the winner of the World Series and then predicting the details of every game throughout the season and how they interconnected to bring about the winning result.

Two thousand years before the invention of baseball.

Angels are real. Lost people see them all the time, so they are not religious manifestations. The Bible explains their end from the beginning.

Isaiah introduces Satan’s fall from heaven, starting at the point where he is judged at the end of time, then jumping back to the rebellion that took place before time began .

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” (Isaiah 14:12,13)

The first half of this morning’s discussion covered what angel’s aren’t. Now, let’s discuss what angels are.

Angels are the first of four distinct sentient, spiritual creations of God. The second is the natural, unregenerate seed of Adam, or Gentile (meaning, ‘one apart from God’).

The third unique spiritual creation of God is the seed of Abraham and Isaac, or the Jew. Until the selection of the seed of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob as a unique spiritual creation of God, there were only angels and Gentiles.

The fourth unique spiritual creation of God is the Christian, a new creature, neither Jew nor Gentile; “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2nd Corinthians 5:17)

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

A Christian or a Jew cannot transform into a Gentile. They are different spiritual creatures. Neither could a Christian, a Jew or a Gentile transform into angels.

The Bible demonstrates how the angels harmonize with the rest of creation. Angels serve as messengers of God. Our relationship with angels is symbiotic and in harmony with creation.

The Bible tasks angels with serving mankind in this life, and then tasks mankind with judging angels in the next.

“Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 18:10)

“Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?” (1st Corinthians 6:3)

The Bible says that fallen mankind serves a secondary purpose in the instruction of angels;

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

“Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. “ (1st Peter 1:12)

Fallen angels exist as adversaries of God, which then creates harmony in a created physical universe. Evil cannot exist apart from good. But without evil, there could be neither a measure of goodness nor a sense of appreciation for it.

They also exist to provide us with clear choices between good and evil; “that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest.” (Psalms 51:4)

Angel worship is forbidden by Scripture. Divine angels never accept worship. But fallen angels live for it.

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.” (2nd Corinthians 11:3-4)

And that’s also the trouble with angels.

Special Report: Sudden Fear — And the Desolation of the Wicked

Special Report: Sudden Fear — And the Desolation of the Wicked
Vol: 86 Issue: 19 Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I read a statistic that said the stock market crash has erased something close to one third of the average American’s 401k holdings.

For folks around my age, it means rethinking the age at which retirement is possible.

I know a fellow about my age who retired on his investments a couple of years ago. The crash is forcing him out of retirement.

For somebody in their sixties or early seventies who retired recently, their monthly retirement income has suddenly dropped by a third and there isn’t a lot they can do about it.

So what do you do? A person’s first instinct is to panic. When enough people panic at once, well, that’s how markets crash in the first place.

Individuals panic by cutting back on their cable bill, or selling their extra car, canceling their vacation or coming out of retirement back into the workplace.

Corporations panic by laying off more workers than necessary, selling off more inventory at greater discounts than necessary and closing more outlets than necessary.

Lenders panic by cutting off more credit than necessary to more borrowers than necessary. In all these cases, the thinking is the same — cut back all the way to the bone and then reorganize.

Restructuring is not the same as reacting. One restructures as necessary. When one reacts, it is out of panic.

It’s either controlled or uncontrolled, but its still panic. Panic is when you don’t know what to do — and you do it anyway.

I know Christians who when they panic, instead of cutting back, they double their tithe. They double down on their tithe so that God will bless the stuff they still have.

Sounds spiritual. But it’s not, really. No matter where one stands on tithing as a doctrine, you can’t get around what a tithe is mathematically — it’s ten percent.

(So if you’re already tithing, then ‘doubling down’ is like offering God a tip.)

Ok. Let’s roll everything back to zeroes for a moment and take stock of the situation.

First, we’re Christians who believe that Bible prophecy is true and relevant to this generation and that we are living in the last days. We go to church on Sunday and pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.”

What does the Bible forecast for the last days? A great apostastic social meltdown. The rise of antichrist. The collapse of the economy. Earthquakes, famines, wars and pestilences.

What do we see? A great apostatic social meltdown. “Apostasy” means to ‘fall away from the faith’ — it refers to watering down of doctrinal principles to conform to worldly principles.

The apostasy is global — former bastions of Christianity across Europe have all but formally renounced their faith. Christianity in the West is on the decline to the degree that the term ‘post-Christian era’ is no longer surprising when applied to America.

Is the world ready to embrace the antichrist when he comes? I submit that the antichrist could run openly AS the antichrist and probably get the majority non-Christian vote, if he were half as charismatic as Barack Hussein Obama.

The global economy is in free-fall, as we’ve already noted. And we’ve spent the past ten years up to our necks in earthquakes, famines, wars and pestilences.

This is exactly what the Bible predicted for the last days. We know this in our hearts and in our minds. But we rail against the moral meltdown.

We worry for the future of a country under Barack Hussein Obama even as we KNOW what the Bible says is the ultimate future of not just this country but the entire western world under antichrist.

We fret and panic over our 401k accounts, knowing that what is transpiring is all part of God’s plan for the last days.

We search the Scriptures for answers to questions like; “what should Christians do to overcome in such times as these?”

But isn’t this what we prayed for?

Assessment:

There is an old principle of spiritual warfare that says, “Be careful what you pray for. You might get it.” We tend to view it more as a joke than a principle.

We should take it seriously — to do otherwise is the spiritual equivalent to assuming a gun isn’t loaded.

A trained warrior knows what a bullet can do and treats all weapons as if they were loaded unless he has personally inspected them to ensure their status.

The seven words, “I didn’t know the gun was loaded!” form the most tragic phrase in the English language.

Prayer is as real as a loaded gun. Because prayer is real, prayer has real consequences. It isn’t enough to talk about trusting God in times like these. We’ve prayed for His Kingdom to come, for His will to be done.

Prayer is real, His kingdom is real and that His will is sovereign. So if you’re afraid of what is coming, does that mean you’re faithless? Does it mean you aren’t trusting the Lord? No. It means you are human.

But it also means you’re missing out on some of what God has set aside for you.

“Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.” (Proverbs 3:25-26)

Notice there are two fears being addressed here. “Being afraid” and “sudden fear.”

“Sudden fear” is what comes to us all. Fear of losing my stuff. Fear of not being able to retire when I’d planned. Fear that my 401k is lost and gone forever.

It is this concept of ‘sudden fear’ that keeps us from being reckless. It is what keeps you from trying to beat oncoming traffic.

After all, you’re saved. You’re a Christian. Nothing can happen to you without God’s permission. So why don’t you just jump out in front of that oncoming car? (The ‘sudden fear’ that God may have granted that permission without telling you.)

Let’s move up to the next level; from ‘sudden fear’ to ‘being afraid.’

God says, ‘be not afraid of sudden fear’. This is the trust level. Where you recognize that the danger is real and the fear is real.

But we needn’t BE afraid of that sudden fear, NOR of the desolation of the wicked when (not ‘if’) it cometh. Note the promise: “For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.”

It is ok to be afraid IN the ‘sudden’ sense — but not to be afraid OF the fear. We live in the world, but we are not OF it. The current economic panic began when folks decided they couldn’t pay their mortgages and defaulted.

There are exceptions to every rule but, in the main, what happens when somebody defaults on their mortgage? Do they evaporate? Or do they move somewhere else where they still have to pay, even if it is less?

The Lord differentiates ‘sudden fear’ from giving in to panic. You lose your job and stop paying your bills to preserve your available cash for when you ‘really’ need it. That is panic; fear devoid of trust.

“Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.” (Proverbs 3:27-28)

Sudden fear is an understanding of the situation and a respect for its gravity. Being afraid of sudden fear is what happens when one forgets to place one’s confidence in the Lord.

This is more than just a pretty platitude. It is a bedrock principle of doctrine. It is the Source of that “peace that surpasseth all understanding.”

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27)

“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:31-33)

There is but one way to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness than I can find in Scripture — and that is to trust Jesus. It is one thing to respect the risks attached as ‘sudden fear’ — it is another to allow it to rule your life.

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”(Matthew 6:34)

Don’t worry. God’s got it all under control.

Note:

We had our first snow event of the season. It was too much for our local cable company/ISP — apparently winter weather takes them by surprise each year. The internet went dark five seconds before I was to press ‘send’.

My apologies for the lateness of today’s OL.