Category Archive: America

Apr 24

Where is America in Bible Prophecy?

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America, Antichrist

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April 24, 2012

Here is a really interesting view point of the end times from Walid Shoebat former Muslim terrorist. It is concerning America but also how large in fact is the Antichrist end time kingdom and its reach. Enjoy and keep looking up!

Where is America in Bible Prophecy?

04/18/2012

By Walid Shoebat – “For many years, it has been taught that in the Last-Days literally every nation of the earth – including the United States – will be utterly dominated by the Antichrist; there will be no place to escape from the dreaded Mark of the Beast; every last nation of the world will come against Jerusalem. Zechariah 12 is usually used to validate the theory, as is the Apostle John. After all, the Antichrist will be given ‘authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation,’ (Revelation 13:7).

This would seem like an ironclad case for the Antichrist ruling the globe, including the United States, which he uses in his march against Jerusalem. It is this dilemma that caused many to believe that the United States will be taken over by Antichrist.

Before we attempt to solve this issue, it is necessary to clarify the dilemma. For this, we can ask a Jesus-style question: does the usage of the phrase, ‘the whole earth’ and ‘every tribe, tongue and nation’ in the Bible mean ‘the entire globe’? If so, then did Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:1 send his letter to every nation, tribe and tongue in the ‘entire globe’?

‘Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you.’ (Daniel 4:1)

‘O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor. Because of the high position he gave him, all the peoples and nations and men of every language dreaded and feared him,’ (Daniel 5:18, 19).

How about…

‘Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom,’ (I Kings 4:34)

Did anyone visit Solomon from China?

How about…

‘Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt,’ (2 Kings 17:29).

Did the inhabitants of every last nation of the earth have Samaritan gods in their homes?

How about…

‘the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries.’ Isaiah 37:18

Did King Sennacherib of Assyria actually destroy all nations on the face of the earth?

How about…

‘As I was considering, suddenly a male goat came from the west, across the surface of the whole earth,’ (Daniel 8:5).

Did Alexander the Great occupy the whole earth?

So then, let us offer a new perspective regarding the end-times verses:

Zechariah 14:2 ‘For I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem for battle’
Matthew 25:32 ‘I will also gather all nations’
Joel 3:2 ‘I will gather all nations’

Such verses should not be isolated. In context, Zechariah 12 only encompasses the surrounding nations:

‘I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves,’ (Zechariah 12:2-3).

In Joel 3:12 we find the same:

‘Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.’

‘The surrounding peoples’ and ‘all the nations of the earth’ are two references pertaining to the same people; ‘all the nations’ and ‘the earth’ is not the entire globe, though the translation may seem to allude to it as such. The problem is that the translation at times makes it difficult since – in English – ‘the earth’ tends to mean ‘the entire globe’ and in Hebrew the word ‘Eretz’ commonly means ‘the land’ and not ‘the entire globe.’

Then we have the culture. In ancient Hebrew, we find a grammatical construct that makes emphatic statements in order to convey a point, whereas using hyperbole is extremely common in eastern cultures. Elaborating on the exceptions would entirely blunt the impact of the statement. For instance, imagine a speed limit sign that listed the exceptions painted on it, ‘speed limit 55—except ambulances, fire trucks, police giving chase, etc.’ Thus, exceptions cannot be ruled out on the basis of exclusive language. This type of language is actually found quite frequently in the Bible. Throughout the prophecies of end-times the Bible is speaking of a regional war and not global (Ezekiel 36:4, 5, Psalm 79:12, Jeremiah 12:14, Ezekiel 28-32).

One common argument I always get is an objection that ‘the earth’ is meant to be ‘the known world,’ that today’s ‘known world’ must then encompass the entire globe. This assumption is false since all ‘Four Beasts’ in Daniel chapter 7 arise out of ‘the Great Sea’ (Daniel 7:2). ‘The Great Sea’ is the Mediterranean region, not the entire globe. That with all the literal nations of end-times encompasses only the Middle East and Asia Minor. If the first beast (Babylon), second beast (Medo-Persia) and third beast (Greece) all were out within the ‘Great Sea’ (Mediterranean) then the fourth beast of Daniel 7 could only pertain to the Mediterranean Sea as well.

To make the Antichrist rule a global one, many western interpreters today allegorize ‘The Great Sea’ as ‘the sea of humanity.’ In so doing, we lose the meaning and the intent of the prophecy. This reference to ‘The Great Sea’ cannot be an allegory pertaining to the ‘sea of humanity’ since every verse in the Bible refers to ‘The Great Sea’ as the Mediterranean Sea (see Num 34:6-7, Jos 1:4, Jos 9:1, Jos 15:12, Jos 15:47, Jos 23:4, Ezek 47:10, 15, 19, 20, Ezek 48: 28).

The Bible makes every effort to clarify that the nations surrounding Israel are the ones to which it is referring:

‘And render unto our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord,’ (Psalm 79:12).

Do Israel’s ‘neighbors’ include The United States? No. This is confirmed in many places in the Bible:

‘Thus Says Jehovah against all mine evil neighbors that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit,’ (Jeremiah 12:14). The neighbors are all Muslim.

In the Bible, Antichrist ‘will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it’ (Daniel 7: 23), yet several prophecies state that Antichrist will be confronted and will not take over the globe (Daniel 11:40-45, Daniel 11:30, Ezekiel 28:7-8).

So where is the United States in the Bible? How many ever think about this, that perhaps in the end, the United States is mentioned fighting against the Antichrist. Daniel 11 tells us that Antichrist ‘acts against the strongest fortresses with a foreign god, which he shall acknowledge, and advance its glory’ (Daniel 11:39).

Who are these ‘strongest fortresses’ [the strongest military might]‘? How could the Antichrist rule the entire globe if we have strongest fortresses that fight against him? Does he truly defeat these strongest fortresses? Does he defeat the United States? Does he rule the entire globe?

The answer to this is ‘No.’

Why then do so many modern Western prophecy analysts insist that Antichrist hold the most powerful military might in the world? Which nations hold the strongest military might? Is it not the United States?

The text regarding end-times is clearly portraying what we see in Islam today. Even when we read that he declares war ‘against the strongest fortresses.’ What could that mean except what it plainly says—to declare war against the most powerful nations on earth? Jihadists already declared war on Europe and the U.S. And now with the Arab Spring clearly becoming an Islamic storm, we see that what we have said to you years ago in advance; everything is happening in accordance to a plan.

However, the West today seems oblivious to this fact. Who else could be as maniacal as Muslim fundamentalists to declare war on the powerful West? Who else is deceiving the West with false peace saying that ‘Islam is a peaceful religion’? And it is all for the purpose of advancing their god, Allah.

This is exactly what we see today.

The position that every nation will fall to Antichrist is impossible since the Bible clearly states that some will even resist the Antichrist and even defeat him. The verses are rarely discussed. In Ezekiel 28, it even confirms that the most powerful nations (strongest fortresses) on earth will annihilate the Antichrist:

‘Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of [them that are] slain in the midst of the seas.’ (Ezekiel 28:7-8)

‘They’ pertains to these powerful nations and the term ‘terrible’ implies to being ‘terrible in battle,’ ‘most powerful,’ ‘strongest fortresses.’ God will rise up several nations who will carry out His judgment and attack the Antichrist in the end. Therefore, it cannot be true that every nation of the globe will fall to the Antichrist and attack Israel. There have always been attempts to establish a One-World Government, yet they have never succeeded; far too many in the West fail to remember that God divided the nations after the Tower of Babel to never allow them to be one; even in the Millennium we will still have nations separated. This promise is as the rainbow for Noah.

Too many today read the Bible narcissistically. Many books have been written that place the West at the center of prophecy and interpret history through a Western-centric lens. Far too many Westerners have missed the obvious fact that the Bible is thoroughly Middle Eastern. In the Biblical worldview, Jerusalem is the center of the earth, not Europe or America. The biblical prophecies about the End-Times are no different.

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Apr 17

The Salafi War on Christians and U.S. Indifference

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America, The Church

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April 17, 2012

In recent years, we’ve begun to brace ourselves for news of bombings, burnings, and other attacks on churches full of Christian worshipers on religious holy days — for example, in Nigeria, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Ethiopia. This violence comes out of the growing community of Salafi Muslims, adherents of the radical brand of Islam that is Saudi Arabia’s official doctrine and which Saudi Arabia exports throughout the Sunni world. We’ve also come to expect the willful blindness of the Obama administration about the religious implications of these horrific events. Last weekend’s Easter Sunday was no exception. 

On Easter morning, a Protestant church in Kaduna, Nigeria, was targeted by a suicide car bombing that killed 39 and wounded dozens, apparently the handiwork of Boko Haram, the Salafi network whose stated aim is to turn Africa’s largest country into a sharia state. Last Christmas, Boko Haram had bombed St. Theresa’s Catholic Church outside the capital Abuja killing 44 worshipers, as well as attacked various Christian churches in the towns of Jos, Kano, Gadaka, and Damaturu.

Four days have now passed and there has been no official comment from the Obama administration about this most recent monstrous example of anti-Christian persecution. However, on April 8, that is, Easter, Secretary Clinton did manage to issue one press release. It announced that “today we celebrate the history, impact and culture of Romani people” (formerly called “gypsies”), and inveighed against Europe, demanding that it become “more inclusive.” But for the northern Nigerian Christians savagely attacked on one of their most important religious days, there has not been a word of condolence.

Even worse, the day after the Nigeria church bombing, at a forum on U.S. policy toward Nigeria held at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson — overlooking Boko Haram’s self-proclaimed identity, pattern of behavior, statements and very name, which means “Western education is a sin” — publicly denied that Boko Haram has religious motives. He went out of his way to stress: “Religion is not driving extremist violence in . . . northern Nigeria.”

Carson is articulating official U.S. policy. Its theory is that Boko Haram is “exploiting religious differences” to “create chaos” to protest “poor government service delivery,” poverty, and a variety of good-governance concerns. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (on which I served as a commissioner until last month) finds that Boko Haram’s violence is indeed “religiously motivated.” Even Nigeria’s Committee of Imams of the Federal Capital Territory has acknowledged that the church bombings are done in the name of Islam and condemned them as “deviant.”

Elsewhere, too, the Obama administration has demonstrated a persistent refusal to acknowledge the pattern of Salafi persecution of Christians. On November 1, 2010, Salafis blew up Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church during a Sunday Mass, killing or wounding virtually all of the congregation, including three priests. This is what the White House said:

The United States strongly condemns this senseless act of hostage taking and violence by terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq that occurred Sunday in Baghdad killing so many innocent Iraqis. Our hearts go out to the people of Iraq who have suffered so much from these attacks. We offer sincerest condolences to the families of the victims and to all the people of Iraq who are targeted by these cowardly acts of terrorism.

There was no acknowledgement that the “innocent Iraqis” targeted in this catastrophic attack were all Christians, that the massacre took place in a church, and that it occurred during Sunday worship. It mistakenly describes as “senseless” what was all too sensibly a deliberate and horrific act of religious cleansing against Christians targeted for their faith. That church bombing — one of 70 in Iraq since 2004 — was the watershed moment for Iraqi Christians: Many then concluded that there would be no future for them in Iraq, and en masse abandoned their ancient homeland.

And in Egypt, in October 2011, when the Arab Spring had long since turned into the Coptic Christian Winter, Egyptian government forces massacred two-dozen Copts as they were staging a peaceful street protest in Cairo’s Maspero area. They were demonstrating precisely to demand religious freedom in the face of Salafi religious violence against Coptic churches and the failure of the Egyptian security forces to protect them from it. After the Maspero massacre, the White House stated: “Now is a time for restraint on all sides so that Egyptians can move forward together to forge a strong and united Egypt.”

The statement made no mention of the identity of those who were killed. Nor did it acknowledge that they were attacked while demonstrating against church bombings and burnings in that country on Christmas, New Year’s Day, and many other occasions. And, it drew a moral equivalency between the victims and their aggressors. My Hudson colleague and Coptic expert Samuel Tadros ironically commented: “Perhaps I ought to join the president in his concern and call for restraint: I call upon the security forces to refrain from killing Christians, and upon Christians to refrain from dying.”

It is not as though the administration is reticent in cases involving other religions. On October 4, 2011, and on January 11, 2012, when two mosques were vandalized — though no one was hurt — in Israel, the State Department issued two statements. They were quite specific about the identity of the victims and impassioned in moralizing against the attacks:

The United States strongly condemns the dangerous and provocative attacks on a mosque in the northern Israeli town of Tuba-Zangariyye, which took place on October 3. Such hateful sectarian actions are never justified.

And:

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s most recent vandalizing of a mosque, as well as the burning of three cars, in the West Bank village of Deir Istiya. Hateful, dangerous, and provocative actions such as these are never justified.

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia –the fountain head of Salafi thought and our “strategic ally” — King Abdullah retains in his distinguished cabinet as Grand Mufti, Salafi Sheikh Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Aal al-Sheikh, who recently issued a fatwa declaring it “necessary to destroy all the churches in the region,” including those outside of Saudi Arabia, itself (which, of course, does not have any churches to blow up). The Kingdom will not be hearing from the Obama administration about the need for “inclusiveness” though — here, again, it has fallen silent.

 

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Apr 12

US weighs limited military action against Assad. Turkey may join

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America

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April 12, 2012

 

Tuesday night, April 10, after Damascus skipped the truce laid down in the UN-Arab envoy Kofi Annan’s plan and escalated its attacks on the Syrian population, a change of tone was detected in the Obama administration.

debkafile’s Washington sources report that, although President Barack Obama is still flat against broad US military intervention in Syria, administration circles feel America could no longer stay aloof from what is happening there. They are thinking in terms of limited military action to show Bashar Assad and the heads of his regime and army the first American red lines against his brutal crackdown. One plan under discussion is for a US air strike against an Assad regime and/or military target would be enough to dent morale in Damascus and demonstrate to his loyal troops and the Syrian opposition that the Syrian ruler is far from infallible.
This lesson might corner Assad into complying with Annan’s six-point peace plan, especially the ceasefire and withdrawal of armored troops from Syrian cities, which he ducked Tuesday.
The pretext Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem offered Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for missing the deadline, our Moscow sources report, was that when the soldiers are pulled out of the cities, rebel forces will move into the evacuated areas; the anti-Assad uprising would flare up again at full strength across Syria.

Moallem appealed to his host to persuade the Americans to continue to abstain from military action in Syria and defend the need for Syrian units to remain in the main cities, even against a complaint by Annan to the UN Security Council accusing Damascus of flouting an agreed plan.
 In consideration of this side play in Moscow, Annan was cautious in his comments to reporters on his visit to a Syrian refugee camp in southern Turkey, saying it was too soon to declare his plan a failure. He explained that the Syrian regime had not taken issue with a single one of his six proposals and the situation could improve once UN observers were on the ground. Annan offered Assad another two days up until Thursday, April 12, to implement the agreed ceasefire.
Talking to reporters In Moscow alongside Moallem, Lavrov proposed that UN observers move into Syria without delay. The team could be enlisted mainly from the UNDOF (United Nations Disengagement Observer Force) serving on the Syrian-Israeli Golan border. The Syrian minister was not in favor of the plan.

Tuesday night, the UN Security Council called on Bashar Assad to meet the Thursday deadline for a truce. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the council would meet Thursday to hear Annan’s report.
She spoke after consulting with Lavrov.
The Lavrov proposal would redeploy the main body of the Golan UN force, which maintains a liaison office in Damascus, in positions for enforcing the truce between Syrian and rebel forces in Syria’s main embattled cities, preferably by April 12. The UN 1,000-strong force has two battalions, one Austrian and one Philippine, and a small Croatian unit.
Our intelligence sources report that Assad objects to the plan because it would be tantamount to internationalizing the civil war raging in Syria and pave the way for rebels and protesters against his regime to gain UN protection.
Convinced that the Syrian ruler would never allow himself to be pushed into accepting UN intervention, the Americans continue to keep limited military intervention on the table.
They will let it simmer there until the Six-Power nuclear talks with Iran beginning Saturday, April 14, in Istanbul are well under way, so as not to give Tehran pretexts for toughening its bargaining position or pulling out of the negotiations.
Turkey too is moving closer than ever before to real military action, not just empty words. Armed Turkish assault helicopters flew Tuesday over the Syrian border. They were there to warn Damascus that if Syrian soldiers again fired across the border into Syrian refugee camps as they did Monday, April 9, they would be targeted by the Turkish gunships.
Sources in Ankara reminded local and Arab media of the existence of the mutual defense cooperation pact known as the “Adana agreement” which Turkey and Syria concluded in 1998.

Article 1 states that “Syria, on the basis of the principle of reciprocity, will not permit any activity that emanates from its territory aimed at jeopardizing the security and stability of Turkey.” 
Under this article, Ankara feels Turkish military intervention in Syria is legitimate. This reminder was offered the media, our military sources confirm, to provide the legal grounding for a potential Turkish military move across its border into Syria.

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Apr 12

Big US-Arab Gulf air force exercise draws Iranian warning to stop at once

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America, Gog-Ezekiel 38 & 39

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April 12, 2012

At least 200 American and Arab Gulf fighter-bombers thundered overhead Sunday, April 8 at the outset of the biggest air force exercise ever conducted in the Gulf region. They are simulating war with Iran and an operation for reopening the strategic Straits of Hormuz if it is closed by Tehran. debkafile’s military sources report that 100 of the warplanes took off from the USS Enterprise and USS Abraham Lincoln which are cruising with their strike groups opposite Iranian shores. The Saudi, UAE, Kuwaiti and Bahraini air forces contributed the other 100.
In an unprecedented show of military solidarity with the US, Bahrain, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet High Command, was also chosen by Gulf Cooperation Council – GCC – members for their unified exercise headquarters to be located at the Shaikh Isa Air Base.  

Tehran was being told that neither the Obama administration nor the Gulf Arab governments were deterred by its threats of retaliation against emirates placing bases at the disposal of foreign forces for an attack on Iran.

However, shortly after the exercise began, Iranian ambassador to Kuwait Rouhullah Qahremani called urgently on Kuwait Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen Khalid Al-Sabah with a warning that the Iranian air and navy would attack the Gulf nations taking part in the exercise unless they withdrew at once.

The Kuwaiti army chief took Iran’s threat to the GCC Secretary General for Military Affairs Maj. Gen. Khalifa Humaid Al-Kaabi. Kuwait and Riyadh also briefed the Americans.
The exercise is due to end on April 15, the day after the six world powers launch resumed nuclear negotiations with Iran in Istanbul. However some Iranian sources were hinting Monday that they would not come to the talks under military threat.
Although the participants are keeping the exercise’s scenario under wraps, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources are able to outline its five segments:
1. A practice operation to pry open the Strait of Hormuz should Iran try to block the waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is exported – whether by deploying warships, scuttling old vessels, strewing sea mines or firing shore-to-ship missiles from the Iranian-controlled islands of Abu Musa, Great Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Sirri Island.
The combined US-Gulf force is practicing air and naval assaults against those Iranian island bases and the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ mainland facilities facing them from Bandar-e-Abbas, Bandar-e-Lengeh and Qeshm island. They plan to  cut off Iranian reinforcements en route to Hormuz.
2.   They also aim to prevent Iranian air or sea assaults on the Persian Gulf emirates’ oil facilities and export terminals, focusing mainly on Saudi, Bahraini and Kuwaiti oil facilities and fields.
3.  Air strikes are conducted against Iranian naval vessels, including speedboats, in a simulated exercise to head them off before they strike American aircraft carriers and warships or Gulf fleet vessels.
4.  Testing the degree of coordination between US air, sea and marine forces and their Persian Gulf counterparts.

5.  The Gulf exercise is in fact the sequel of Noble Dina 12, the US-Israeli-Greek war game conducted earlier this month in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. That war game practiced runs by Israeli fighter-bomber from their home bases to the big American facility on Crete, fueled in flight by American and Israeli tanker planes. The distance between the two points is roughly equivalent to the 1,200 kilometers between Israel and Iran.
In a furious response to that maneuver, the Iranian Chief of Staff Gen. Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, declared Saturday April 7: “Iran will bulldoze and destroy the illegal Zionist nest.”

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Apr 07

President Obama Calls Jesus ‘A Son of God’ Who ‘Knew Doubt’ During Annual Easter Prayer Breakfast

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America

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April 7, 2012

1 Thessalonians 5:21, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

Reflecting upon the “triumph of the resurrection” of Christ and the “all-important gift of grace”,  it seemed good at first glance to hear President Obama taking an apparent step forward at the annual Easter Prayer Breakfast, hosted by the White House yesterday. Knowing that speeches are planned and reviewed well in advance and that words are chosen carefully, it was therefore disappointing to then hear Obama refer to Christ as “a Son of God” — not as the Son of God, the only begotten [unique] Son of the Father — and that Christ was one who “knew doubt”:

It’s an opportunity for us to reflect on the triumph of the resurrection, and to give thanks for the all-important gift of grace.  And for me, and I’m sure for some of you, it’s also a chance to remember the tremendous sacrifice that led up to that day, and all that Christ endured — not just as a Son of God, but as a human being.

It may sound trivial, but often something as seemingly insignificant as the word “a” can be what distinguishes sound Christian doctrine from the kingdom of the cults. Much of what is said can be truth or fall within the pale of orthodoxy, but it is then mixed with “tiny” lies, just enough to poison the body and the message. John 1:1, in referring to Jesus Christ as the Word [Logos], declares that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Yet the New World Translation used by Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, takes John 1:1 and changes the original text’s intended meaning to say that “the Word was a god” and, as such, teach that Jesus is not Almighty God, but rather a “mighty” yet lesser god only.

For like us, Jesus knew doubt.  Like us, Jesus knew fear.  In the garden of Gethsemane, with attackers closing in around him, Jesus told His disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”  He fell to his knees, pleading with His Father, saying, “If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”

Jesus was fully man, but He was also fully God. Sure, the humanity that Christ took upon Himself would have naturally allowed Jesus to be tempted (Matt 4:1) or to feel apprehension and physical distress in knowing that His preordained purpose — to die an agonizing death for the sins of the world — was about to be fulfilled.

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Apr 07

North Korea ‘Prepares to Unveil a Missile Capable of Reaching Mainland U.S.’

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America, Tribulation

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April 7, 2012

As I wrote here, Western intelligence agencies are under the belief that North Korea has been conducting nuclear tests not only for itself, but for Iran as well. If true, it only stands to reason that any technological advances obtained from missile testing will not only be employed by North Korea for the sole purpose of launching an assault against the “Seoul” of their southern neighbor. It will also be employed by another axis partner that would love nothing more than to eventually include the names a few Jewish — and American — cities as well …

By Ian Garland – “North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is preparing to unveil a missile capable of striking mainland U.S., according to government sources in neighbouring South Korea.

The missile has been spotted by reconnaissance satellites on a government base near the North Korean capital Pyongyang.

Experts who have analysed footage of the missile say it is 130 feet long and equipped with boosters that would give it a range of 6,200 miles.

Pyongyang is less than 6,000 miles from the coast of California.

According to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, experts are unable to confirm if the missile is functional, or a very realistic fake.

But the discovery will concern neighbouring countries, already alarmed by Kim Jong-un’s plans to launch a rocket in mid April.

Sources believe the Unha-3 rocket is being prepared for launch at the Tongchang-ri aerospace facility in the far north-west of the country.

The launch date, thought to be sometime between April 12 and 16, will coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il-Sung.”

 

 

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Apr 05

THE COMING STORM

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America, The Church

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April 5, 2012

A great little article from David Wilkerson focusing on the fact that is shaking us right now. We need to be about His will as the time is very short! Keep looking up!

 

When a sleeping child must be awakened, a loving parent takes him by the shoulders and gently shakes him. If the child doesn’t wake up immediately, the shaking becomes a bit firmer. The parent insists, because he knows the child will suffer if he doesn’t wake up on time.

That is precisely what God is doing right now—both to America and to the world. At first, He shook us very tenderly but now His shaking has become violent, because He has not succeeded in awakening us.

The Lord began to literally shake the earth with earthquakes in the late 1980s. A quake in Armenia wiped out almost that entire province. A quake in Japan measuring 6.9 nearly destroyed an entire city. Then came the horrible quake in San Francisco, with more following almost daily in that area. Quakes hit the West Coast constantly, from northern California to San Diego and down into Mexico.

Isaiah prophesies that God will one day rise up and shake the whole earth: “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty . . . and turneth it upside down. . . . All joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. . . . When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree” (Isaiah 24:1, 11, 13). God is going to shake the earth as if it were an olive tree—till every bit of fruit falls.

Ezekiel says that when God’s fury arises, He will shake all that can be shaken: “All the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. . . . And I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 38:20 and 23).

The writer of Hebrews says: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. . . . That [only] those things which cannot be shaken may remain” (Hebrews 12:26-27).

God is going to shake everything in sight so that He is revealed as the only unshakable power!

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Apr 04

Obama Declares War on Supreme Court

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America

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April 4, 2012

Today, President Obama effectively declared war on the Supreme Court. Speaking from the Rose Garden, he suggested that the “unelected” Supreme Court must avoid the “extraordinary … unprecedented” measure of striking down his unconstitutional Obamacare regime:

Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress …

This is not the first time Obama has threatened the Supreme Court. Back in January 2010, in his State of the Union Address, he dramatically misrepresented the Supreme Court’s stance on campaign finance, and explained, “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.” Justice Alito shook his head and mouthed, “Not true.” That’s because it wasn’t true – but Obama’s interpretation of Constitutional law is lacking at best, deeply dishonest at worst.

Obama is now tackling a strategy stated by Rep. Jim Clyburn this morning – he’s going after the Supreme Court as his bête noire, knowing they cannot respond. But he’s bound to fail for a simple reason: the American public understands that the law is unconstitutional. Obama is no FDR, and nobody is interested in packing the courts to raise their taxes and devastate the economic future of the country.

Unfortunately for Obama, he also made the tactical misstep of explaining why if the individual mandate is found unconstitutional, the entire law should be struck down:

I think the justices should understand, in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions can actually have health care.

In other words, the individual mandate lies at the heart of Obamacare; without that beating heart, the rest of the law becomes unworkable.

In the end, Obama was left to argue that there is a “human element” to the law that would require the justices to rule in its favor. He’s calling on them to use his famed empathy standard in dealing with the constitutionality of laws. Unfortunately, it seems that at least five justices understand there’s no jurisdiction over empathy for the third branch. 

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Mar 31

Attacking Iran: Did US just torpedo Israeli deal for a base in Azerbaijan?

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America, Israel

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March 31, 2012

Israel is developing a ‘secret staging ground’ in Azerbaijan for a possible attack on Iran, reports Foreign Policy magazine. US officials aren’t happy with that, and may have leaked the story.

 

The three-way tension between the United States, Israel, and Iran became tenser this week with a widely cited report that Israel is developing a “secret staging ground” in Iran’s neighbor to the north – Azerbaijan – for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

 

Quoting unnamed senior US diplomats and military intelligence officials, a lengthy article in Foreign Policy magazine asserts that “Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran’s northern border.”

 

“The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official is quoted as saying, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”

 

Why would US officials be talking about this? Likely to slow down any rush to war in an already volatile region, some speculate.

 

“I think this leak today is part of the administration’s campaign against an Israeli attack,” former US diplomat John Bolton said Thursday on Fox News. “Clearly, this is an administration-orchestrated leak,” Mr. Bolton said, adding, “It’s just unprecedented to reveal this kind of information about one of your own allies.”

 

The challenge for Israel in planning such a strike is the long distance to potential targets – some 2,000 miles round-trip – for its F-15 and F-16 fighters. Planning for such strikes always involves tradeoffs between fuel and bombs.

 

Bases in nearby Azerbaijan (including abandoned former Soviet airfields) could be used for landing and refueling after any strike, allowing Israeli jets to carry more ordnance. Such airfields also could be a staging point for search-and-rescue helicopters that might be necessary to recover downed Israeli pilots. They also could be used to launch drone aircraft for bomb damage assessment once any strike is concluded.

 

Israel and Azerbaijan have developed an economic military relationship over the years.

 

Israel buys oil from Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan recently agreed to buy $1.6 billion in military hardware from Israel, including drones, antiaircraft, and missile-defense systems.

 

This week’s report of a possible basing agreement with Israel does nothing to improve the relationship between neighbors Azerbaijan and Iran.

 

Tehran has accused Azerbaijan of working with Israel’s spy services suspected of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, and individuals accused of plotting terrorist attacks with Iran have been arrested in Azerbaijan.

 

For their part, officials in Azerbaijan deny granting aircraft landing rights to Israel combat aircraft.

 

“This information is absurd and groundless,” defense ministry spokesman Teymur Abdullayev told Agence France Presse (AFP).

 

“We have stated on numerous occasions and we reiterate that there will be no actions against Iran … from the territory of Azerbaijan,” presidential official Ali Hasanov told journalists in Baku, AFP reported.

 

So far, there’s been no official comment on the Foreign Policy article by Israeli officials, who may be just as happy to increase the psychological pressure on Iran.

 

Early this month, President Obama made clear his position on Iran’s nuclear potential, both in meetings with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the prominent pro-Israel lobbying organization.

 

“Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment,” Obama told AIPAC. “I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

 

“I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say,” Obama said, adding for dramatic effect, “There should not be a shred of doubt by now: when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.”

Still, the US continues to act as a diplomatic brake of sorts on any rush by Israel to attack Iran. Which may be why John Bolton – a noted hawk who served as UN ambassador in the most recent Bush administration – could be right when he says that administration officials leaked their concerns about any basing agreement between Israel and Azerbaijan.

“We’re watching what Iran does closely,” one of the US intelligence sources was quoted as saying in the Foreign Policy article. “But we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it.”

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Mar 29

Obama’s giveaway: Oil-rich islands to Russia

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America, Gog-Ezekiel 38 & 39

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March 29, 2012

What is Russia up to all of a sudden? And what is our President agreeing to?

 

The Obama administration, despite the nation’s economic woes, effectively killed the job-producing Keystone Pipeline last month. The Arab Spring is turning the oil production of Libya and other Arab nations over to the Muslim Brotherhood. Iraq is distancing itself from the U.S. And everyone recognizes that Iran, whose crude supplies are critical to the European economy, will do anything it can to frustrate America’s strategic interests. In the face of all of this, Obama insists on cutting back U.S. oil potential with outrageous restrictions.

Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.

The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake.

The State Department has undertaken the giveaway in the guise of a maritime boundary agreement between Alaska and Siberia. Astoundingly, our federal government itself drew the line to put these seven Alaskan islands on the Russian side. But as an executive agreement, it could be reversed with the stroke of a pen by President Obama or Secretary Clinton.

The agreement was negotiated in total secrecy. The state of Alaska was not allowed to participate in the negotiations, nor was the public given any opportunity for comment. This is despite the fact the Alaska Legislature has passed resolutions of opposition – but the State Department doesn’t seem to care.

The imperiled Arctic Ocean islands include Wrangel, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta. Wrangel became American in 1881 with the landing of the U.S. Revenue Marine ship Thomas Corwin. The landing party included the famed naturalist John Muir. It is 3,000 square miles in size.

Northwest of Wrangel are the DeLong Islands, named for George Washington DeLong, the captain of USS Jeannette. Also in 1881, he discovered and claimed these three islands for the United States. He named them for the voyage co-sponsor, New York City newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett. The ship’s crew received a hero’s welcome back in Washington, and Congress awarded them gold medals.

In the Bering Sea at the far west end of the Aleutian chain are Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rock. They were ceded to the U.S. in Seward’s 1867 treaty with Russia.

Now is the time for the Obama administration to stand up for U.S. and Alaskan rights and invaluable resources. The State Department’s maritime agreement is a loser – it gives us nothing in return for giving up Alaska’s sovereign territory and invaluable resources. We won the Cold War and should start acting like it.

The Obama administration must stop the giveaway immediately.

Author’s addendum, Feb. 17, 2012: This is not a new issue. In fact the Bush and Clinton administrations are directly at fault for the same inaction. A maritime agreement negotiated by the U.S. State Department set the Russian boundary on the other side of the disputed islands, but no treaty has ratified this action. Consequently, it is within the president’s power to stop this giveaway. The Alaska delegation’s failure to put pressure on the administration is inexplicable. State Department Watch, an organization that assisted with this article, has confronted each administration and is currently confronting the Obama administration — and has been met by silence. I’m hoping this piece will help reinvigorate efforts to stop this handover.

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