The Landing of Noah's Ark

Over time,the world has come to regard the Biblical account of Noah's Ark as myth. At best, it’s a good children’s story equivalent to something from the pen of Dr Zeuss.  But in the consumer world, this myth makes money. Toy manufacturers sell models of bulbous boats where all the animals line up two by two to file past Noah at the loading ramp. As innocent as it may appear, this telling of the story undermines the Genesis account, discouraging for the most part, any serious examination of the real evidence that has been visible since the waters receded. Tragically, the Christian church is divided on the value of proving up this archaeological  evidence  that supports the certainty of the Genesis Flood. However,despite these facts, the evidence is there, and it’s undeniable !

The use of steel in shipbuilding is relatively new. One thousand foot tankers are now common. The longest wooden vessel ever built was 330 feet and sailors found that it flexed alarmingly in heavy seas. Contrary to the opinion of the myth makers, Noah was far advanced as a marine engineer. Evidence in eastern Turkey, confirms Noah’s ship was 515 feet long and that fact predates all the knowledge man has accumulated building wooden ships. It’s clear then that Noah’s Ark was not a  rectangular box built of wood, but  a ship with a huge upturned bow and stern, built of reeds  and cemented together with a bitumen like  substance called “gopher."

Secondly, common to all vessels is a means of propulsion. No vessel is safe drifting without power. Sharp coastlines, show no mercy. But the Ark had no means of propulsion. So this vessel, was planned with the confidence that it would drift on an endless sea with no possibility that it would collide with land.

Thirdly, wind together with giant seas can capsize a ship with no power, turning it  broadside to the waves and rolling it over. The Ark, would need a means of preventing  this.…..which compels us to look at the final  piece of  evidence that proves Noah’s Ark was real and that it , preserved Noah and his family while God recreated the world  beneath the flood waters. 

Emergency sea anchors, suspended in the water from one end of an unpowered ship, will keep it “ in irons” always facing the wind and waves. Noah used at least 12 large ship stones or sea anchors, carefully sized so that their mass would  keep his vessel  "in irons". They were wedge shaped and carefully suspended in the water below the ship at different depths by large ropes called hawsers. These were threaded through carefully carved holes at the top of the stone, using an arc which was proportional to the size of the hawser.

The thickness of the hawser was proportional to the size and weight of the stone. The placement of the holes close to the top of the stone conclude that the hawsers were only able to suspend the stones when immersed in water. The weight of the stone suspended in atmosphere would break the hawser out of the hole.

The stone’s shape was also important. If the shape or the means of  suspension produced instability, the spinning would destroy the hawser and the stone would disappear into the depths. Loss of too many stones could mean loss of the ship.

 So from the evidence, it’s possible to conclude that an unpowered vessel, not equalled in size and length until modern times, suspended multiple ship stones to prevent destruction by wave action, and this vessel did not encounter land for a year.

After a year afloat, Noah knew the waters were receding. Land was  beginning to emerge. When several of the ship stones  began bumping the ground below the ship Noah knew he had to beach the ship and quickly. The water, receding  towards the  present ocean basins would soon accelerate between the emerging land masses . If Noah allowed the Ark to  be subject to a current, he had no means of steering  to avoid destruction. If he relied upon the ship stones to hold the ship in one place, the current would eventually drag the ship, and the stones would break, as they bounced along the bottom. Both scenarios would have resulted in the loss of the ship. 

So several jolts felt throughout the Ark one morning, signalled all aboard that the land was not that far below them. That was enough for Noah to command his crew to lower the stones to the bottom and stop any further drifting . Then, with preparations made,  he cut the hawsers, and let them fall to the bottom .  This action reduced the draft of the ship to 20 feet making it possible to propel the ship across the surface towards a mountain they could see on the  distant horizon. The Ark mound has not told us just how that  was done but for certain, some urgent means of propulsion was employed to  move the ship the  21 km. The ancients named the mountain Noah saw, the Wall of Heaven, or Heroes Abode. It would have been the only land that Noah could see when he  brought the Ark to a stop. An unpowered drift ship, controlled only by ship stones discovered  6000 feet above sea level, confirms flood waters covered  the earth. 

Today, there are  9 stones high on the Armenian plateau, 21 km’s from the Ark mound. They stand at the Kurdish village of Arzap for all the world to see . The name in the ancient Armenian language means  “touch the earth,” a reference  to Noah’s decision to stop the drift of the ship by lowering the stones to the bottom.

For centuries, the evidence has been there. Many generations of Pilgrims have  visited the site and carved Christian symbols onto the flat surfaces of the stones. 

Many ancient  cultures  reference the flood in their folk tales. 

While he lived on earth, Jesus Christ, also confirmed  the story of Noah and the flood. After all, He was there, for He is Eternal. In his time on earth, He fulfilled the Father’s plan to save sinners. He lived perfectly, became the acceptable  sacrifice to pay for their sin, and rose from the dead to claim His authority to judge all who have ever lived. The final judgement by fire will consume the world we know in preparation for the new one He has promised

On that day, yet future, on what ground will you stand  ?

Failure: Israel

Israel is a unique country-perhaps the most unique in the world. Inserted illegally into the Middle East by virtue of a UN mandate, it enjoys the tacit support of most of the western world. How did this happen?

How do a group of people, exert an overarching influence over the morality of the world in order to gather the support necessary to steal a country from its ancient owners? Obviously, there must have been powerful factions with their own agendas that collectively brought it about. The Zionist lobby and their erstwhile ally, Christian Zionism is the best short answer. Collectively, they exerted influence in all the right quarters to bring the United Nations to a day, when they would consider it a reasonable decision to divide the holy land up between the Jews and the Arabs. The resolution was never accepted but the Zionists in Palestine went ahead anyway, and by violence and terror, slaughtered and evicted over 700,000 Palestinians to establish a nation they now call Israel.

In observing this for over a half a century of my lifetime, it’s occurred to me that there are facts available that if carefully exposed would vaporize the Zionist support, at least among thinking peoples.
First of all, throughout the West, everybody knows that the Jews are the people of the
Christian Bible. The story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their progeny is well known to Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout the world. As the story goes, the Jewish nation was founded when God himself spoke with Abraham and told him that the people who would descend from him would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore. He also told him that a Redeemer / King would be among them - a Saviour that would fulfil the promise made to Adam in the garden, that the Enemy of man, the Devil, would one day be destroyed.

The story of the Jews' relationship to God unfolds progressively throughout the Old Testament showing how the Almighty watched them multiply into a million strong people who were slaves in Egypt. By divine intervention, and through his servant Moses, He brought them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and to the foot of Mount Horeb, where he gave them the 10 Commandments and the ceremonial law. They were indeed a special people set apart for some purpose yet unknown to the world. But the world around them knew all about the miracles and the deliverances the Hebrews had experienced. The intelligent among them feared the Hebrew’s God.

In all of this miraculous history, God made promises to His people----Conditional promises.

www.inspire21.com

2 Chronicles 7:14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Note the condition. All the  promises often accompanied by the word eternal are also conditional. On the surface it seems to be a contradiction. How can a promise made today be conditional and eternal at the same time?
Abraham and the spiritual remnant among the Hebrews knew the answer. There was a transition inherent in the promise to the church of the Old Testament which they understood. The promise of an earthly land, based on conditional obedience would be fulfilled eternally for the church in the glory of an eternal land- the new heavens and new earth yet to come. The majority of the Jews in the temporal land would fail the obedience test and forfeit the earthly promise of the eternal. When one understands this, the promises of the Old Testament can indeed be conditional in this earthly life and eternal in the life to come. To  qualify, you have to find yourself by faith, part of the spiritual remnant.

That said, the Hebrews of the Old Testament had the blessing of God in their midst. He appeared to them regularly in the tabernacle worship. He supplied their food and clothes. He interceded for them constantly when faced with enemies. But the record shows that they constantly rebelled. In God’s very presence and with all of the historical evidence continually rehearsed  in their ears, they rebelled against God and forfeited the conditional earthly blessings He had promised.

I submit that this was Gods plan, not that he willed their rebellion, for God cannot will evil. Rather He allowed their fallen nature to work the rebellion that is resident in the human heart. For 1400 years, He stayed with his earthly people and his church- the faithful remnant among them- constantly correcting them, forgiving them and restoring them, until it was clear to all the world, that even with God's very presence among them, they could NOT keep the 10 Commandments. Their very nature (ours too) was incapable. As the writer to the Ephesians says, they were "dead in trespasses and sins".

So God remained silent for 400 years. But at the precise moment of history, He sent the Lord Jesus Christ to become the final sacrifice that would suffer the penalty for His church, past present and future. He even permitted his earthly people, the carnal Jews, to be the instrument that would put the God-Man to death - the final blasphemous act that would prove to the world that no people, no matter how privileged could, on their own escape the death sentence inherent in their human nature.
The Law cannot be kept by anyone, and that irrefutable fact, drives all mankind ultimately to the cross and the Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 5:22.

A few years later, in 70 AD, all the prefigurements of the ceremonial law were ended with the destruction of the temple and the scattering of the people. The two purposes for the existence of the temporal Nation of Israel were at an end.

Postscript : so what is this impostor Israel doing in the land that was once promised conditionally to Abraham’s natural seed? They are a deceptive fiction, skilfully introduced by the Devil to create war and turmoil in preparation for the final act of mans rebellion against God - the New World Order.

UNIQUELY TALENTED: Only the Democrats could have lost to Trump

This piece by Fred Reed fills in the details which I, not being an American, have been unable to grasp or articulate. psj

A great uproar goes forth from the enemies of the Trump Beast, with much gnashing of hair and pulling of teeth. He will be a terrible President, they say, and they may well be right. There are ominous signs, particularly as regards foreign policy, and he seems radically incoherent and contradictory. Interestingly, his critics have no slight idea why he won. The reason is obvious: He won because everybody was campaigning for him, in particular the media, Hillary, Black Lives Matter, Obama, Democrats, and far leftists. Everybody worked for Trump. He couldn’t lose.

The election was a referendum on Marie Antoinette’s court. It was the revolt of the unnoticed downtrodden, the financially sinking, the working classes rising against privileged snots–but it was engineered by the elites. The glittering elect of course did not say “working class,” this being a loaded phrase redolent of Marxism and of the Democratic Party of five decades back before it became a royal court. They spoke instead of disgruntled white men, racists, homophobes, sexists, and the Islamonauseated–phobic, I meant.

The rich and powerful are on display in Washington, white, well paid, secure, above average in intelligence, often from Oberlin, Amherst, Swarthmore, Yale. The better sorts of schools, you know. They cluster in Washington’s posh barrios of Bethesda, Upper Connecticut, Cap Hill, and Great Falls. They drink together and talk to each other and believe that they must be right because everyone they know agrees with them.

Theirs is not a personal arrogance–they are nice people and you would like them–but an arrogance of class. Since nobody tells them they they are either arrogant or a class, they do not know. Since everybody around them lives at a high standard, it does not occur to them that they they live at a high standard. They exist in a small mental box.

They do not know that that in the bleak down-scale strip development of Jeff Davis Highway, a half-hour away, reeking of exhaust and blowing with trash, an aged veteran on crutches lives in a dismal residential motel. Every mourning he hobbles to Dixie Lee’s Diner–I forget its actual name–for a cheap breakfast because it is all he has. Or ever will. He is waiting to die. The elite don’t know, and wouldn’t care.

The upper crust are also moral frauds, though they do not know this either. Nice liberals to the roots of their teeth, in principle they believe that we should all love each other, and they hate anyone who doesn’t. In practice, they approximate George Wallace. Ask when they last went to the ghetto for dinner, whether they have ever been in a restaurant with a majority black clientele, whether they would send their precious children to the public schools of New York. Ask whether they have a blue-collar friend.

The privileged worked hard for Trump. Every time they described his people as uneducated white males, implicit dregs, they drove votes to Donald. And they so described the working class unceasingly.

It made him President. Good, bad, or indifferent, it is how he got in.

The privileged denigrated all whites unlike themselves. Then Hillary made her “deplorables” speech, confirming her contempt for half of America–those uneducated, shapeless, dull-witted proles in Flyover Land, obese, farting and belching, swilling Bud, watching NASCAR for god’s sake in awful trailers. And why not not sneer at them? Why did Hillary need their votes? Did not Rachel Maddow love her?

For Trump it was gold, pure gold. If he had written her speech, he could not have come up with a better line to destroy her. It was the purest product of the establishment’s hubris. She did it to herself. Sweet.

It made him President.

Black Lives Matter also did yeoman work for the Donald. As they and snowflake Brown Shirts and excited millennials blocked highways and beat Trump’s supporters and shut down rallies, and vandalized cars, and of course looted, they presumably thought they were working against the Trump Monster. Not a chance. Out there in the uncharted barbarian lands between Manhattan and Hollywood, in dark primeval forests where Cro-Magnons are still a rarity, people were sick of lawlessness, and of an establishment that tolerated it. It produced more votes, perhaps not for Trump or even against Hillary but against the class that she represented.

Immigration. Here Hillary and Obama did great work for Donald. As Obama frantically brought in as many “refugees” as possible from everywhere, anywhere that might not be compatible with the people upon whom he would force them, Hillary promised to import huge numbers of Muslims. It was luminously stupid politics, but politically she was luminously stupid, so it fit.

It is why she is not President.

She knew that the backward peoples of Flyover Land ought to want hundreds of thousands of Somalis and Pakistanis and who-knew-what to live with, and if they didn’t, she would force them and it didn’t matter because she had big donors and everybody in the media loved her.

However incoherent and ignorant Trump was, the Establishment was determined to elect him. Elect him it did.

Then there is the insularity of the privileged. Its extent is hard to grasp. It worked mightily for the new President. Hillary has probably never been in a Legion hall with, god, that kind of people; if she had, she might be President. Instead she set a trotline for big donors and hung with the rich. They told her, didn’t they, that she couldn’t lose.

These, like her, knew nothing of the lives of most Americans. Has Bill Kristol hitchhiked in the chill of three a.m. on a secondary road in Appalachia, total wealth twenty-five dollars, hoping sparse traffic would get him to Roanoke? I am accepting bets. I doubt that Katie Couric, or any of the babbling bubble heads, has ever worked in a truck stop or gas station for minimum wage, if that. How many have ever baited a hook, had a paper route, or had to decide between a warm coat with winter coming on or paying the cable?

This is why Trump took them by such surprise. They were dealing with a country they had never seen. And didn’t like. Lord only knows what kind of President Trump will make (unless God also is wondering, which I find plausible) but he had the country figured out. Which is positively weird, given that he is a filthy rich New Yorker.

And the media. These too did great work for our new President. All the corporate outlets were furiously against him, apparently assuming that their opprobrium would crush the upstart. Were they not CBS and NBC and the Washington Post, respected news outlets that people would believe and trust?

Well, no, actually.

And so the talking heads chuckled and sneered and utterly underestimated and got handed their ass. They should have registered as lobbyists for the Donald.

The newsies did not understand that they were widely hated. Their obvious slant, often approaching verticality, looked like (and was) hostility to anyone who was willing to consider Trump. The common sentiment in Flyover Land became, “If these bastards don’t like Donald, he must be OK.”

They made him President.

It reminds me of when Bob Brown started Soldier of Fortune magazine, purporting to be a rag for, oh horror, squeak, mercenary soldiers. The media fell into convulsions denouncing him, cough, splutter, how could…. And with every denunciation, circulation went up. Ol’ Bob, he just smile.

But the talking heads couldn’t figure it out. Did they not all agree with each other? Did not all of America hate what they hated?

Well, ah…heh. Urg.

So when he slapped down Megyn Kelly of Fox News, the talking heads exploded with delighted horror. Trump had just screwed himself with women, who would vote en bloc for Hillary. Whatever minute chance he might have had was now dead. Chortle, chortle.

Actual results: 42% of women, and 53% of white women, voted for…oops,  ah…Trump.

Why? An obvious hypothesis is that women think for themselves, and did. Perhaps they thought Megyn, an abrasive plastic Barbie who probably gets more daily maintenance than a 747, was…an abrasive Baribie….

Trump could say to them, to Hillary, the media, the Insular Good, to BLM and the Snowflakes, “Thank you, thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.” 

Fred Reed (born 1945 in Crumpler, West Virginia) is a writer and former technology columnist for The Washington Times. He has also written for The American Conservative and LewRockwell.com. A former Marine and Vietnam War veteran, Reed is a police writer and an occasional war correspondent. Reed writes weekly columns for the website Fred on Everything. Reed lives in Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico.

A different "Take" on the Trump Election

Paradigm

1. a framework containing the basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methodology that are commonly accepted by members of a scientific community.
2. such a cognitive framework shared by members of any discipline or group: 
3. Establishment paradigm - the education, prejudice and politically correct opinions the establishment makes freely available from birth.

In the last six days many Democrats and their supporters worldwide have expressed fear, loathing, despair, over the election of Donald Trump. I  find this fascinating for in all previous elections, the  winners celebrated one or two nights and then began the process of planning how they would  enjoy the spoils of their victory. The losers were despondent for a day or two, but were back to normal within the week vowing to do their political part next time so that they too could be on the winning  side.
In other words, every political election I have ever witnessed has gone back to "business  as usual" within a few days. Partisan supporters on both sides were willing to live with the outcome.
But not this time.

Fully half of the voters in the USA went into the election with only one possible outcome in mind-- the election of Hillary Clinton to the office of president. When it did not happen, public  demonstrations, riots, foul language, declarations of suicide moves to Canada, burning cars, creating   public mayhem resulted.

 I would like to attempt an explanation and it has nothing to do with a preference for either candidate or the policies they advocate.

People like to feel that everything is right with their world and that their vote really does count. The establishment also want to have things right in their world and over time, and with great persistence and lots of money, they have inculcated what I will call a "correct paradigm" which serves their  long term agenda.  A false security is therefore guaranteed for the people, when the process is controlled by the establishment who, in an election put forward and fund candidates on both sides of the political center. Candidates who speak for real change, like Jill Stein of the Green Party are marginalized as un-electable, so that people will only vote for the two approved candidates.

This time round (2016) two candidates of dubious reputation were the options on November the 8th- Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. Trump, a self declared candidate who the establishment, would not have run, paid for his own campaign and blew the approved Republican candidates out of the race.
The country then was left with only one approved and endorsed candidate and therefore the world, within which many live and have their comfort zone was threatened with instability.  However the people soldiered on, mouthing all the support lines and  assuring each other that no one outside the correct paradigm could possibly win. To do this, they had to skip over Wikileaks and its revelations about Pay for Play and top secret e-mails and corruption profits and package them as "conspiracy theories" that could easily be neutralized once their candidate Hilary Clinton was president. It seems that during an election, people really do not take  criminal accusations seriously.  Any reference to those things by Trump or 1000's of others had to be explained as just politics.

It was ok of course for most of these same people to believe the evil (and possibly true) stories surrounding Trump, because he was outside their paradigm and destined to lose because of the evil he has undoubtedly committed.  So Hilary got off in the minds of Democrat voters as the victim of conspiracy theorists and Trump was condemned as a felon.

However on Tuesday night the world represented by the correct paradigm, was torn from its foundations because the guy who won the election could NOT possibly (to use the rallying cry) "be my president". There was only one acceptable candidate in the race ......and she lost. Many came unhinged; Normally mild mannered gentle people turned into raving foul mouth idiots, abandoning all courtesies and decorum because the unthinkable had happened. Almost as if a nuclear war had come upon them and they had (unfortunately for those who had to listen) lived through it.

Stop for a minute : this situation is a lot more scary than Trump in power. It shows that the conditioning that has inculcated the paradigm has worked. Such people are robots voting for either puppet that is put on the stage, no matter what their track record or their proposed agenda. They have ceased to think things through; they have no appetite for "alternate media" because it researches and proves things that contradict the correct paradigm;  they blindly follow the paradigm which has assured them from birth that it must not be challenged. It is like gravity or the rotation of the earth- one should not  imagine that you can change them. So all hell broke loose in their minds, because their anchor points (MSM, polls, pundits) were wrong in their predictions.

I'll finish with a little story from Canada which demonstrates that the paradigm discriminates not only against what is perceived as"the bad", but also against "the good". Months of sharing this video  entitled the "Case against the Bank of Canada" to my knowledge has produced few vocal or active supporters. The Canadian Government is clearly breaking the law of the land and making everyone pay higher taxes than are required. The idea of borrowing from the country's national bank at 0% simply does not fit inside the correct paradigm .
You would think such an obvious benefit for all Canadians, would compel them to take to the streets and demonstrate their support for this initiative or tweet by thousands on social media.
To my knowledge "Words of support will just not come forth".

So the paradigm I refer to, produces vocal obscenities and violence as with the Americans over a disappointing election, and absolute silence and apathy with Canadians who should be insisting their government abide by the law of the land.

Why? Public opinion resides within the correct paradigm which often produces an unfortunate or unjust result .

The Church of Laodicea ?

“For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” 2 Corinthians 10:12

Since the first century, Christians have speculated on the historical identity of the churches  mentioned in chapter 3 of the Book of Revelation. As with so many prophetic statements from the  Bible, events are easier to identify looking back than they are looking forward into the future. The prophecies concerning our Lord's crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ascension are an illustration.

However as we move deeper into the 21st century, current events have identified trends which beg for identity from Bible passages that have been examined expectantly for centuries. In saying this, I am aware that the historical record is strewn with mountain top predictions of ominous judgemental events that never occurred. History remembers them in order to mock any one who feels that they may have some insight into the future. Therefore I am aware that I run that risk.

But however it turns out in the actual prophetic calendar, I believe there is value in exposing what the Scripture has to say in principle, and applying it to what we see. We can hold up trends next to the Scripture for comparison, and in doing so be prompted to act in a manner that will preserve us from any judgement that is implied if we do nothing .

Generally, scholars have valued the Letters to the Seven Churches as Christ's revelation of the character of the Church during historical periods known generally as the last days. The Last Days is a term recognized to be all the time between his ascension to heaven after his resurrection and his yet future coming again in Glory. The Lord's admonition to each church is short and not decisive enough to ensure positive identification but there is sufficient detail to prompt comparison to what an individual can see in his own local church and beyond in the Christian world.

Without apology therefore, I contend that the present day evangelical protestant church corresponds tragically to Laodicea. Every church in every age has had its problems and strengths locally, but no where in church history have all the sins of this passage been so general and evident world wide.

First the church, in the west, has withdrawn from the world. It is no longer a player.
No where in Scripture is the Christian church ( the body of believers) ever allowed to have a mountain top mentality. By that phrase, I mean the church is not permitted to withdraw to a safe  place and just put in time. The church is called to be witnesses both to the Gospel of salvation for Sinners and its application---salt and light on the earth. The church is admonished to be in the world but not "of it."  I am persuaded that (1 Peter  5:8  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, seeking whom  he may devour.) this verse is to be considered in its spiritual as well as its real life context. Christians can be destroyed by Sin in the mind and they can also be the victims of persecution as we have seen in Africa, India and Syria. The western church knows nothing of this persecution of the body because they have for generations sheltered themselves within the  toleration limits of their society and the confines of their church buildings.....and this at a time when very little can be hidden from public view.

In the past agrarian societies without any form of electronic communication scrutinized only the events of their local neighborhood. They hardly knew what was happening in the next town or county let alone provincially or nationally. Today, everyone is able to be aware of developments on the national and international scene if they so choose. My fear is that the responsibility to take up this  educational challenge is deliberately avoided,  because the more you know, the more you are held responsible for a meaningful response.

The internet and the alternate media are all available constantly on WIFI systems which deliver data  to your telephone. There is no excuse not to know at least in summary, of policies and events that are planned for you. If you cannot do the research yourself, there  are those who have been exercised to  do it for you. We must recognize that to bury one's head in the sand is not a Christian response. Ignorance is no excuse when all around us is a suffering world.
That is not to say that individuals can change the world, but that  should never be an excuse for not speaking up where there are injustices. It is my view that a sovereign God intervenes against Sin in His own time, but if we are individuals, and if we refuse to speak for the weak and down trodden, we will be judged for our silence. The Samaritan stopped to help the injured victim while the publicans and Pharisees passed by on the other side.

Policies implicate us all, for the tax dollars that we pay to governments become the means of financing what we as a nation become responsible for. Consider abortion, which is everywhere among us. Millions of children have been slaughtered by the permissive policies which allow the mother to take the life of the unborn child. Christians are responsible for that position for it has much Biblical support. The womb after all is said and done, is an intensive care unit from conception until birth.

Similarly, foreign policies of western governments seldom make any sense except in terms of the narrow self interest of a select group of insiders. Millions are killed in wars which through the efforts of investigative reporters have been  shown to be more about oil wealth than national security. In fact Americans constantly talk about defending their  freedom, when their 900 bases world wide are platforms for the launching of aggressive military intervention or invisible subterfuge. The historical record for this statement is undeniable and yet Christians pride themselves in the support of their servicemen who carry out these deeds.

The only way this can happen is for Christians to accept the establishment media's justification  and to deliberately ignore the alternate media's reporting of conflicting evidence. Is this done so that son John can proudly wear his uniform without shame? Are Christians to be exempted from the responsibility to speak out against injustices because they deliberately ignore facts that are easily  obtainable from reliable sources? Media that tells lies has forsaken the responsibility to provide  truthful news and has become the propaganda arm of government. Christians who acquiesce in this ignorance have become complicit in the crimes committed. The alternate media has eliminated any  plausible excuse for ignorance.

That said, it's true, that before the internet, pastors and religious leaders use to be able to claim a certain  level of doubt, therefore excusing themselves from commitments to speak out. After all, if they really didn't know and they were so busy visiting their parishioners to find out, they just may have been excused activism. Tax policy comes in here again because western governments have insisted that church leadership remain silent on all social and international issues in order to keep their tax exempt status. In other words, the government has purchased the silence of the churches. Tax the people hard and then provide tax exemptions for religious social clubs who will not exercise the  "Mind of Christ" on behalf of the weak and powerless for fear of losing their church property. So just maybe --pastors and church leaders have hidden behind tax law too .

The effect of course is predictable: Much sermonizing and exposition on the Scriptures that never gets outside the church walls to condemn the oppressors and apply compassion to those who are the weak and powerless victims.

Revelation 3:15-16
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
----The Lord Jesus Christ






 

Christian Doctrine : on Palestine ? (2)

Introduction :

 This paper is my summary challenge to Christians who argue that there is a supportable interpretation of the Bible regarding Israel’s activities in the land of Palestine. I contend there is No such support. Christians in our generation need to know that there is historical scholarship for a valid Biblical point of view which dissolves the arguments that support Christian Zionism. Christian Zionism is defined loosely as unreserved support for the actions of the present nation of Israel justified by a misguided belief that Jews must be re-gathered to their ancient lands prior to the Lord’s return.

Of itself, this paper does not claim to be a work of theological scholarship, but it does lean heavily on the work of three well qualified theologians for its Biblical accuracy and continuity. The study of theology depends on both the sincerity and the humility of a scholar in order to permit the Scriptures themselves to interpret Scripture. To this exercise we truly bring …….no new thing. Faithfully using this method avoids the human pitfalls of presuming the meaning with only partial information or bringing preconceived human notions to the Bible in order to justify them.

After some years of casual study, I conclude that the sources I have used are faithful to the whole counsel of God and that this paper is worthy of your consideration.. I contend that a great many Christians are supporting a Zionist regime because they assume that Dispensationalism, the popular eschatology of our time, is the only option.

If this is your position, you will for certain have come under pressure to support Zionism which lays aside all the Christian principles you have learned in the Sermon on the Mount for policies that are nothing short of “Apartheid” toward the Palestinians. I urge you therefore to carefully re-consider the matter so that your support is properly placed in the cause of justice and mercy.

Sincerely,     Philip Jarman   voyageur@voyageur.co.cr    8 February 2014

References

1-     Abraham’s Four Seeds - John G. Reisinger http://www.amazon.com/Abrahams-Four-Seeds-John-Reisinger/dp/0966084543/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390963079&sr=1-1&keywords=abraham%27s+four+seeds

2. The Momentous Event - W.J. Grier

 http://www.amazon.com/Momentous-Event-W-J-Grier/dp/0851510205/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390963244&sr=1-1&keywords=W.J+grier+The+momentous+event

 3. Sermons on Romans 11 – Martyn Lloyd Jones

http://www.mljtrust.org/search/?q=romans+11

Without  doubt,  the present nation of Israel, reconstituted in Palestine, by a unilateral United Nations decree dated at sundown 14 May 1948,  has been responsible for disturbing years of peaceful coexistence between Jew and Muslim in the land . Wherever there is controversy, books and articles follow passionately written from differing points of view each seeking to explain or justify one side or the other. This is doubly so in this case because the arbitrary decision to insert a nation called Israel into an already settled Palestine was pre-loaded with religious implications for three of the world’s major religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

The purpose then of this paper is to republish the historical Biblical interpretation of God’s promises to Abraham, which if graciously received, will bring a correct perspective to Christians who want to do the right thing by the Jewish people and to also promote peace in a troubled area of the world.

Contrary to the world’s historical record, the Christian worldview itself is not antagonistic toward the Jews. However, confused persons through the centuries, who have claimed association with Christianity have been intensely anti-semitic to the extremes of tragic persecution and death.

 But Christian doctrine, rightly held, rejects the evil they have perpetrated on the Jewish people. Christianity recognizes that Abraham’s Natural Seed (the Jews ) were the family first, and then the nation that was chosen to bring the Lord Jesus Christ into the world. He arrived in time, to live perfectly under the Mosaic Law, and then to become the Acceptable Sacrifice for all who would believe that his death would pay for their sin. Ironically, the Jews were also the people that brought about his death on a Roman cross. But Christianity also believes that God the Father sovereignly planned that Sacrifice in eternity past, and that God the Son was obedient unto death in order to save Abraham’s Spiritual Seed. These are people, from all ages, both Jew and Gentile, who would believe experimentally that His death covers their sin and that they are delivered from the curse of the Law. *(…the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ezekiiel 18:4 )

The Bible tells the story of Abraham and the promises made to the natural and the spiritual seed. If we understand and embrace this interpretation as the Divine plan, we will not become pawns in support of the present day Israel’s irrational drive for racial mastery in the land of Palestine.

To begin, if God in three persons, planned before the foundation of the world to rescue a people for His Name, (the Church), then that plan must emerge in Genesis and conclude in Revelation and the whole counsel of God on the matter be complete in Holy Writ.

God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees (1) to be the human instrument for this plan. But , Abraham and Sarah had problems conceiving, so Abraham fathered (1) Genesis 12:1-3

Ishmael by an Egyptian servant girl named Hagar. Ishmael under God’s promise of Abraham’s natural seed, became the father of 10 nations known as the Arabs. (2) But then God permitted Abraham through a deliberate preplanned miracle, to father Isaac when he and his wife Rachel were humanly speaking - too old to have children. Isaac, unlike Ishmael, was identified by God as Abraham’s Spiritual Seed. (3) Isaac in turn, married Rebekah and fathered twin sons Esau and Jacob. Again, it was God himself who chose Jacob as the spiritual seed and left Esau as he was - a natural seed.(4)

As difficult as it may seem to our sense of fairness, God chose some from Abraham’s family to be the Spiritual Seed who would believe the Gospel of a coming deliverance through a Messiah, and he left the rest in their unbelief.

So two peoples were at one and the same time--inside Abraham’s family – The Spiritual Seed, those who believed in the promise of the Messiah (5) and those who,

­­­­although natural sons of Abraham, did not believe. Further, Abraham , Isaac and Jacob were all in their turn, the spiritual Fathers of the Spiritual Seed for the Gentiles of all the ages. (6)

The Old Testament then, is the Jews earthly story and the beginnings of a heavenly story for all peoples. Through the Hebrews, and the nation of Israel, God produced a type or an illustration of the Church. The nation of Israel itself, was brought into existence from Jacob’s enslaved descendants in Egypt on the night the death angel passed over the Hebrew homes that had the blood of a lamb daubed on the lintel and door posts . In the Egyptian homes all the first born died. In the Hebrew homes marked by blood, everyone lived. (7)

This is a type of the Lord’s crucifixion. As the Hebrews were protected by the blood daubed about the door, all who are covered by Christ’s blood sacrifice will look to Him and be justified (made righteous) and live forever. (8) Those that do not, though they live for a time on earth, are under an eternal sentence of death.

The Exodus from Egypt is the saga of God’s patient work with an earthly people to whom he gave the Law and the Oracles . Yet despite the Red Sea crossing , the firey pillar, the manna and quail, the rock in the desert that spewed a river of water, the people built an idol at the foot of the mountain while God was writing the 10 commandments on Moses’ tablets of stone (9). The majority in the nation were rebellious unbelievers and because of their failure to believe Joshua and Caleb concerning the promised land, God made them wander in the desert for 40 years until all the adults who had left Egypt had died.

You can read the rest of the story for yourself as the pattern remains the same . In every generation through to the birth of the Messiah, God called only a remnant from the nation of Israel to believe the Gospel of the Messiah’s future saving work on a the Roman cross . These were the Spiritual Seed of Abraham and the remainder of the nation were left in their superstition, idolatry and unbelief.

(2) Genesis 21:13 (3) Genesis 21:12 (4) Romans 9: 11-13 (5) Galations 3:26 (6) Galations 3 24-29

(7) Exodus 12:13 (8)Isaiah 45:2 (9) Exodus 32:1

As to the land, when God promised Abraham the land of Palestine,(10) it was also a type of things to come . It’s true that following the Exodus from Egypt, Joshua more or less conquered the land. But Israel, because of disobedience, had only partial success through the time of the Judges and the Kings. Rebellion and unbelief eventually caused them to be judged for their idolatry and they  became a conquered people.

But back to the beginning, when Abraham received the land promise he knew that he was not looking for the ultimate fulfillment on earth (11) . Abraham knew that if Israel as a nation was to bring forth the Messiah, an earthly territory would indeed be necessary, but he also knew that the land was a type of a heavenly kingdom which he would one day see in glory.

God’s promises for  Jewish rights to the land of Palestine were also made Conditional. (12) If then the condition of obedience was broken what of the promise ? We know from the Biblical record in the prophets , that the majority of the people of Israel were disobedient, rebelled against God, burned their children in the fire to Moloch, worshipped many false Gods and forsook the Gospel. In fact, the prophets were ruthlessly killed because their message was damning to the majority conscience.(13) So God stopped sending prophets 400 years before the Messiah although  the Gospel remained by which a remnant in every generation were saved.

When Jesus did come, the scribes and Pharisees had so modified the Law of Moses and the Gospel, that a whole set of human traditions had been overlaid on top of the Sinai Law perverting its meaning. When you read the Sermon on the Mount, (14) look for all the corrections Jesus made to their errors. They hated him for it, for they had what they wanted ,- respect from men. As far as they were concerned, any and all excuses to reject Jesus’ authority, were valid.

The crucifixion without doubt is the pivotal point in history. The Old Testament and New Testament are on different sides of the crucifixion, yet they both proclaim that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.... is the same. Both  Jews and Gentiles from Abraham to the last trumpet have been  and will be, called to be  members of the Bride of Christ - the Church.

When Jesus died the veil of the temple,through which the high priest priest passed once per year to offer sacrificial blood for atonement, was ripped supernaturally from the top to the bottom because it was no longer needed. With  Jesus sacrificial death, the Priesthood of the Believer had been established .

At the resurrection, the Hebrew nation and all the ceremonial law depicting Jesus’ sacrifice were also finished . The nation through sovereign Providence had fulfilled its role all the way from Abraham to the cross. In 70 AD the Roman General Titus

(10) Psalm 105: 6-11 (11) Hebrews 11: 8-10 (12) Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 (13) Hebrews 11: 36-40

destroyed the last vestiges of the nation and its religion by slaughtering the inhabitants of Jerusalem and destroying the temple completely .

The Lord predicted this would happen for with His ascension to his Heavenly throne and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the “Israel of God” was now proclaimed a spiritual kingdom. There was no further need of earthly types. The earthly nation of Israel had fulfilled the purpose for which God had brought it into existence and it is now gone forever. The Bible needs no other support, but it is significant, that some important sects who are current followers of Judaism agree that God has not recalled Jews to the land to  re establish the nation of Israel.

At Pentecost, as Jesus promised, the followers of Christ were visited by the Holy Spirit and empowered . In one day 3000 souls from many nations and tongues were converted to begin spreading the Christian message out across the world .

The apostles, those that had been chosen by the Lord, and Paul who had been under the Lord’s instruction in the third heaven, are our best authority on just how to view these events. They interpret the Old Testament in many passages of the New Testament. The literal depictions of the Old Testament then, should never be imposed on the New Testament . The prophets knew and accepted the Gospel of the coming Messiah, but when they did prophesy the future, they saw only shadows and types. The New Testament apostles therefore interpret with authority the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and their interpretation declares that the Lord now reigns in His Kingdom in heaven (15) and that the time that has elapsed since his ascension are the last days prophesied by the prophet Joel. (16) The final event we can anticipate is the Last Trumpet - His Second Coming, where ALL the dead of ALL ages will be raised to stand before him.(17)

So what of the Jews themselves ? Is God finished with them?

Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Jews were dispersed throughout the nations . They clung to the memory of their Old Testament privilege and based on portions of Old Testament scripture called the Talmud, they founded the religion of Judaism . Over the centuries there have been many conversions to Judaism among non-Semite peoples . So who among the Jews today, are Abraham’s natural seed? I am sure there are many, but not one of them is able to trace his lineage with any certainty to the Jews of Jesus time. Therefore any self-proclaimed racial identity is a voluntary willingness to be associated with either the religion of Judaism, the present Jewish culture or the political movement Zionism.

Nevertheless, Paul the apostle in Romans 11 says that God still has plans for the descendants from Abraham’s natural seed. But do not make the mistake of equating the Jews with the former nation of Israel or any present counterfeit. Paul prophesies in the book of Romans that one day the Jews will recognize their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and will turn "en masse" to Him in repentance and faith .(18)

(14) Matthew 5 (15) Acts 2: 29-35 (16) Acts 2:14-21 (17) 1 Thessalonians 4: 16-17 (18) Romans 11:26

He also says that this event will strengthen and encourage the true Church world wide,  and that this will all come to pass during this present Kingdom Age . (19)

This event does not define the day or the hour of the second Coming but the Holy Spirit through Paul does promise that God will save his people the Jews before Jesus returns.  The Jews as individual persons will be converted wherever they are on the earth,  and their conversion will graft them into the Church  -  the Bride of Christ .

The land of Palestine or the current nation of Israel is irrelevant to the fulfillment of this prophecy. None of the New Testament writers make any reference to a re-gathered Jewry in the land of Palestine. The apostles agree with Abraham that they look for a heavenly Kingdom which is far better than an earthly one.(20) Admittedly this is an argument from silence, but the New Testament writers were all Jews and they were under pressure from the Jews who were certain that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was bent on destroying their religion. Surely, under the circumstances, if national Israel was to be a factor in the future, the apostles would have mentioned it.

So how should this impact your view of the present tragedy in Palestine ?

Using the Nazi Holocaust for all its worth and more, the Zionist movement has persuaded much of the western world to hold their peace while they carry out “ethnic cleansing” on the Palestinians, wholesale expulsions from their historic lands, and acts of aggression against neigboring Arab nations -- all in the name of a resurgent nation of Israel.

If the historical perspective in this paper is correct, many Christians are in real danger of being complicit in quietly accepting the Zionist Program for reasons that are not Biblical. The Zionists are not Joshua cleansing the land under God’s specific instructions, nor are they regathered to the land  as a precondition of the Lord's  return.  …And finally, the Lord Jesus Christ has given us the Sermon on the Mount to guide us in our behavior and all Christians should therefore be compelled by conscience to advocate a peaceful compromise that foundationally, establishes true democracy and human rights for all ?

(19) Romans 11: 32-33 (20) Hebrews 11: 8-10

The Difference between Facebook and Twitter

 Preface :
For the first time in History the truth in events and motives is no longer the preserve of the establishment media. The internet makes it possible for individuals to “both know the  truth" and to "make it known". For the Christian, the internet also gives a greatly expanded means of “bearing witness”. It is also a window along the road to Jericho. ( Luke 10:25-37)  The hurt and injured show up here in real time and the Lord will hold us accountable if we “Pass by on the other side”.

To make a broad generalization, Twitter looks out at the world and Facebook looks in. 

(1) Twitter allows you to Follow or Unfollow virtually anyone you wish without apology.
 Facebook dredges up all sorts of complicated connections between people, you may have known or were known to someone you know, but I would be embarrassed to even claim such as friends, let alone share my recipes or baby pictures with such a vague or tenuous connection.

(2) Twitter does not allow you to be careless in your preparation. Whatever you have to say has to be brief and to the point because many people who are following you are looking at what you say as the curtain drawn briefly on the “window of your soul.”
Facebook allows you to carry on time after time (ad nauseam) to people who know you and are making allowances for that person they know.

(3) Twitter allows you to put the ideas first instead of the relationship. If you are following someone, you have the option without apology to Retweet your agreement or to challenge their views knowing full well that many other Followers on both sides of a debate are benefiting from the exchange. Further there is no apology to Unfollowing a person with which you share nothing.
Because Facebook majors on friends and maintaining friendship, the subject matter is innocuous  and decreasingly so. Whatever you say has to be nice. Unintelligible is better than quarrelsome .

(4) On Twitter, the ease of Following allows one to witness an active person's world view in action … and what you witness as others respond to the human drama is a catalyst to developing your own “world view” . 
Facebook (in my experience) frowns on anyone raising the level of posts to that exalted height. Keeping the contributions bland is the unspoken code. 

(5) Twitter allows you to make new friends from people who share some or all of your "world view”. You are a different person now when compared to who you were 10 years ago, and your world view, if you're  a free thinker, will undergo gradual change. For the Christian believer, this assumes your foundation in the Lord is like a “Rock”  - unchanging. In fact changes in your world view are to be considered the Spirit’s progressive revelation.
Facebook - majors on levels of association that are based on your social and family history. If your world view is maturing, the friends you have had in the past, will not be your friends now. They may have you in a box or channel that cannot be disturbed. New truth is not necessarily their game and many will refuse to take instruction from one they have known personally, or one who has obviously been influenced by persons unknown to them. Therefore, if you are going to participate on Facebook you must forgo any issue of real significance.

(6) Twitter is liberating in that it addresses the whole world. No one’s views are so unique that you will not find kindred spirits. Those kindred spirits properly joined together become a movement  and movements can become positive revolutions in a world of evil events .
Facebook can never aspire to this level.

This 9/11 Anniversary

On 11 September 2001, my wife and I watched the TV, as the second aircraft hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Like millions of others who were eye witnesses, we have always marked the anniversary, nay--- promoted the anniversary, in the simple hope that the victims will someday be avenged.

That day, some 4000 died. Now, there are hundreds of first Responders and NewYorkers, who are dying with respiratory diseases from the toxic asbestos laden dust that resulted from the explosive destruction of the two World Trade Center buildings. Worse still, millions have died in wars that are a direct response to the War on Terror for which 9/11 is the excuse .

September 11, The New Pearl Harbour, a 3 part film by Massimo Mazzucco, raises the bar for the "truth movement”. More and more factual and circumstantial evidence has come to light in support of the hypothesis that a very sophisticated crime involving 1000’s occurred, and the persons involved were not Arabs.

My expertise is military flying and on the strength of that knowledge, my same day conclusion was that this event could not occur in this airspace without the highest authority grounding the air force. In the years after, other expertise in other fields, most notably the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, have added knowledge which also makes the event impossible without the complicity or the  direct involvement of the highest levels of government. Having followed the expanding knowledge trail with great interest since the event, I find that Mazzucco brings together many other facts from  different quarters to reinforce the conviction that the insistence for a new enquiry should be pushed until it is achieved.

Here are some that standout :
(1) WTC buildings were built with asbestos insulation prior to restrictive legislation against its use. A series of upgrades would exceed the value of the buildings. Economically— they had to come  down. They were obsolete.
(2) Internal explosions prior to collapse has never been explained to me before. Explosive demolition requires major columns to be cut in advance of the sequenced take-down.
(3) The quantity and quality of the explosives and the temperatures generated by them were extreme, pulverizing and melting all types of materials so that very little could be identified.  
Q: Why? *   A: The explosives used (nano-thermite) and the temperatures reached, erased any possibility that the remains of the airline passengers, their luggage or the flight data recorder would be found intact. In fact, very few intact bodies were found; small body parts and bone fragments identified some; roughly 800 persons were vaporized. 
(4) Steel, still standing in the wreckage, had been neatly cut at angles commensurate with explosive demolition procedures.
(5) Maximum operating speeds (VMO) of the aircraft were exceeded by as much as 20% reducing exposure to the public on the ground. In addition all the pilots interviewed said that accurately hand flying an aircraft at those speeds would be impossible for them, let alone novice Arab pilots . - (another argument for Drones)
(6) Watch Larry Silverstein explain his absence.— no survivor remorse here. An astronomical insurance claim follows.
(7) Apparently it was common knowledge among first responders, that the WTC 7 building would also be destroyed. So much so, that the media picked it up, and a BBC reporter stated on air prior to the collapse that the event had already occurred. Not being a native of New York, and not  knowing the profile of the building, she can be excused that WTC7 is still standing in the background of the film footage. Q: Did the perpetrators count on the general level of shock to gloss over the fact that the building would fall 6 hours after the morning's events, without the impact of an airliner, and that the public would readily accept office fires as the explanation ?
....and finally....
(8) The passengers and the Cel Phone traffic from Flight 93, are technically impossible. At the end of what appears to be a scripted message to her husband's answering machine, CeeCee Lyles whispers- “ It’s a frame, It’s a frame” .

….  many more details.

An added feature is the introduction of the leading Conspiracy Debunkers —from the USA, Italy and France as well as NIST.  Their explanations are included followed by the rebuttal.  

Watching this is to gaze straight into the face of evil.

However-  judge not ! 
A new impartial enquiry is required to reach the truth. Surely the ever deepening fog of doubt surrounding this event justifies it.


* Note the many clips of explosive demolition in which the columns are cut and the concrete and steel falls in pieces that are easy to load and transport. 

Refugees and Chaplains

In a recent Counterpunch article by Andre Vltchek entitled the "Refugees are Coming", he identifies the One Percenters of the world as the neo-colonialists who have, through their greedy imperialist policies, claimed the whole world as their oyster at the expense of its inhabitants. For those of us who yet live in the world's few remaining peaceful enclaves, we are now freshly informed that the carnage and bloodshed caused by the West in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the Congo, is producing a "world of people" on the move to what they hope will be places of refuge. Andre also describes the hatred and the selfishness of the people in the historic "Colonizer Nations" who resent the onslaught of destitute humanity to their shores. The   vehemently claim that they have no responsibility to care for them, when in many cases their plight is directly attributable to their country's arrogant foreign policy.

Where Andre and I part company is his conclusion, conspicuously placed in a paragraph of its own, attributing the declared religion of the perpetrators to be the philosophical basis on which they do their deeds. He says,  "In the West, in the Christian West, in fundamentalist West, such arrangement is obviously tolerable",  inferring that Christianity is somehow responsible.

Nothing could be further from the truth.
One need go no further than Matthew Chapters 5 and 6 to conclude that the behavior, he attributes to  christianity is not Christian despite its institutional status or its attempts at justification.  For want of another term, and perhaps I am inventing one, such behavior should be called "Pharisee-ism.".  Jesus told the story of the two men praying in the temple, the one a Pharisee and the other a Publican. The Pharisee in pride proclaimed to God his gratefulness for not being like other men, praying often, giving to the poor, professing his loyalty, while the Publican with his head down and beating his breast said, "God  be merciful to me a Sinner."Jesus declared that only the the Publican was justified.

In our contemporary world then, who..... in this illustration would you identify as the follower of Christ? and who would be the Pharisee ? With no hesitation, the institutional christianity of the west is the Pharisee, so why persist in  measuring Christianity by its false professors rather than a measurement using the words spoken by the very author of "the Way" Himself? 

In another well timed article illustrating the depth of this hypocrisy, "Onward Christian  Military Chaplains- Marching as to War", Rev. William Alberts correctly identifies the false doctrines and justification of military chaplains who, for the sake of their career, aid and abet the atrocities of the West, by comforting the troops that commit them. There is no measurement problem here, if we again measure the christianity they profess with Jesus' teaching in The Sermon on the Mount.
"By their fruits shall ye know them"  Matthew 7:16  It's a very simple test and no matter what post you hold in worldly christianity, be it Pope or Deaconess. How you respond publicly to this human tragedy is vital evidence of your conversion ( or no) to "the Way"---  and every one who claims to profess, can take the test.

If Vltchek errs in his wrongly tagging Christianity, Alberts does not go far enough in identifying complicity among professors of Christianity. Because of the alternate media and the internet, we live in an informed world, much different to previous generations. Before the internet, the establishment media had its way with us, and I suppose religious leaders could rightly claim that they did not have enough conclusive evidence nor was any offered by the establishment media. In that far off time, very few knew of the evil policies that are now justified by the west.  But now, there is no excuse. No religious leader, or for that matter, no sincere Christian, can claim ignorance and remain silent.

That said, I would not claim to judge, but by remaining silent, such persons have no cause for confidence in professing that they follow Christ. Their information world is now bigger than their society, their culture, their church, career, and the petty ignorance of uninformed peers. If they would have assurance of who they are before God, they must stand with the oppressed and teach others to do so.

Banners .... to raise

We live in a society where everyday, we have to resist unsolicited advertising, and yet we admire the giant daylight signs and the clever advertisements for they are a soft form of entertainment. So there is a dichotomy there, one half of us assenting and the other resisting advertising. I conclude that we have little choice for we have to travel and read and communicate and along the way, those with something to sell or promote have set up their signs. It comes with the territory-- the age of consumerism.

So what about what we believe?  If the world will sell us consumer goods, can we sell them just causes ? All of us are passionate about some things in life, and by that I mean that we would like to infect others with our passion. The world is full of evil, and along the way some, would like to make a difference -- to correct something.
I.E. Some of the causes, I embrace adorn this post .

What prevents us ?

Money. Advertising in any form, even a lowly bumper sticker costs  money. E-mail Banners cost nothing and like Google ads or signature blocks they can be attached to every message.

Insecurity.  Privately, we all embrace causes, but we suffer with a natural reticence to say "this is right, and this is wrong". True ?  However, in our  generation, we can now be the researchers. The shyness can go. The alternate media provides ample opportunity to do independent research. Additionally, there are brilliant minds out there who have a passion for the truth and have embraced the internet as their means of making a difference. We have access to all of them, the sincere, as well as the schills and apologists.

Peer Pressure. What can I say other than time and circumstance wait for no man. If we do not seize the opportunity to speak to others, the moment passes and is gone forever. Will concern, reinforced by a new confidence to confirm the truth, overcome peer pressure?

Your Career Channel.  If you are caught up in an enterprise or employment or profession that profits from an injustice, you may just have to choose. Maybe the thought of choosing will never arise as you have been successfully programmed by your training to deal with all the moral issues that result from your vocation or work.  I say..... beware.

 and lastly ..

Selfishness.  There's no  antidote for it  except a change of heart.

Nuclear weapons will never be used!

A great deal has been written about the prospects of man's ultimate survival on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The history of civilization has produced mastery of the physical elements in our world so that almost anything that can be conceived, can be built. Warfare  has always been a catalyst for the development of technology that would enable one side to have an  advantage over the other. Never has a war technology been developed, and never used. From such a track record comes an abject fear, that it is only a matter of time until some nation will use a nuclear  device supposedly to their advantage, and the reprisals that follow, will engulf us all.

There is one small glimmer of hope in this human prediction and that is the fact that it is "a given" that the effects of even a successful preemptive nuclear strike, will also bring a slow destruction on the aggressor too. That scenario has never been played out before. The distances between the trench lines in WWI were not great. An undisturbed pastoral scene was the reality a short distance behind the lines on either side. In WWII, the devastation pattern widened to include whole cities of noncombatants, but still remained reasonably localized. With the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima all that changed.

Nuclear radiation blasted high into the atmosphere, travels on wind currents to lay a pattern of  destruction and disease many thousands of miles from the actual blast. It became very evident, very  quickly, that given enough bombs or warheads delivered preemptively to annihilate an enemy, the  aggressor would also die -- only slower. In fact the whole world could die if the pattern of man's ambition to win at all costs was to be repeated as it has been many times in the past. With such  knowledge, dare man unleash the "god of war?"

So why was the bomb used 70 years ago?  This week I have been reading numerous quotes from the  WWII era that deny that the bomb ever had to be used to bring about the Japanese surrender. Admiral Nimitz, General MacArthur, Admiral Leahy, General Bonner Feller, all said at the time, that Japan  was economically and militarily isolated and that before 1945 ended, Japan would surrender even  without an invasion. In addition, the Russians had already received overtures from the Japanese that they wished to surrender to them rather than the Americans.

The military leaders, I have already quoted were expressing an opinion to counter the view that had been generated by the bloody fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The acceptable theory was that the use of the bomb was justified to prevent the deaths of thousands of Americans if Japan itself had to be invaded .

In 1989, historian Gar Alperovitz reported, “American leaders knew well in advance that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not required to bring about Japan’s surrender;” and later, in his 847-page The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Random House, 1995), “I think it can be proven that the bomb was not only unnecessary but known in advance not to be necessary.” The popular myth “didn’t just happen,” Alperovitz says, “it was created.

When the 70 scientists that were part of the Manhattan project saw the effects of a test bomb on 15 July 1945, they sent a letter to President Truman pleading that he never use it. Truman never received the letter.  From the evidence we have, it is apparent that deep in their souls, they were compelled to admit, that although they were responsible for the first nuclear bomb success, they could see that mankind would now have a weapon that could ultimately destroy everyone. The after effects of a thermo-nuclear war would end life on earth as we know it . Successful though they were in pursuing this invention, they wished no precedent for its use to be a part of their legacy to mankind.

Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets . We can only speculate then that Truman's  goal was to send a message to the world -- that America was #1 in the arms race and that Russian intransigence and arrogance that they had just experienced at Potsdam, would not be tolerated. So President Truman made the decision to use the bomb not for military reasons--- but for political.

The bomb was therefore used as a terror weapon against the civilian population of Japan in order to compel immediate surrender to the Americans and to declare to the world that America was the sole nuclear power. In Nuremburg, that same week, the protocols for war crimes were being drafted in order to condemn the Nazi regime. Ironically the protocols included the terror bombing of civilian cities as a war crime. Obviously, the term "war crime " would apply only to the losers.

All the proceeding is my introduction to this Blog entry. What I really am here to say is, that it is my conviction that (miracle of miracles ) Thermo-Nuclear war will never happen. First, the nuclear club is very small and the entry fee is very expensive. Second, the potential devastation is much higher now than it was at the beginning of the nuclear age because of the increased size and effectiveness of the weapons. Cruise missles can deliver nuclear weapons many times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima ..... and everyone knows it. The Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine therefore, is not dead. Three, there is evidence to suppose that the *2D sanctions, politics and war rhetoric we hear in the news, are belied by published economic and cooperative ties, which indicate that a **3D relationship exists among the Elite of both sides. ....... and Fourth, and most important, the God of the universe has throughout history, systematically revealed knowledge progressively to man, and just because he has allowed him to open the ultimate "Pandora's Box",  He will restrain man and prevent him from destroying the world that He has promised to judge at the last day? To permit the unthinkable would be deny Him glory.  Only a fool can believe that the infinitely complex and precise material universe has no Creator, and that man is at liberty to destroy it.

Psalm 2 : vs 1  and 4 says  " Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing ?....He that  sitteth in the heavens shall  laugh; The Lord shall have them in derision." 

 *2D  refers to events that are published and/or visible to the world . Actions that are analyzed supposedly to reveal motives.
**3D  refers to plans and  relationships which are kept concealed because knowledge of them would  betray plans  that powerful people would want to  remain secret,  especially from their national populations .