Deadly Natural Disasters That Carry A Deadlier Message

 

Could anyone still say that the multitude of natural disasters of 2004 were mere cycles of nature, no different from those that have struck this planet in the past?

For over a decade we have warned the world that end time prophecies were in the making, that things would get progressively worse until humanity has learned the lesson that it cannot live without its Maker, yet few people took note of our warnings. Now, all of a sudden, world leaders and scientists are up in the arms over what is happening to this planet.     

Year 2004 ended up with what the United Nations said was the worst natural disaster in its history, a tsunami of such magnitude that killed people in the hundreds of thousands and destroyed the livelihood of millions of people in twelve countries around the Indian Ocean.  That was only the culmination of a series of catastrophes that struck all over the world.   

There were four times more devastating hurricanes than usual in America, eight times more typhoons in the seas around Japan, floods of the century in China, India and Bangladesh, droughts of the century in Australia, mid west America, Africa and elsewhere, extremes of weather from draught to floods in Europe, deadly earthquakes in many parts of the world but especially in east Asia, plagues of locusts in Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and elsewhere, epidemics that threaten the future of many nations in the Third World, and general weather upheavals in all countries of the world.  

Some television stations had the headline “Apocalypse” in the background as they read reports of these disasters, but generally speaking few people took seriously the notion that we are really in the end time.   But if these are not the signs that Jesus Christ said would preceded the Great Tribulation and His return to this earth, then we would like to know what they are.  Let us have a look at what He said.

 

Mat 24:1  Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.

Mat 24:2  And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

Mat 24:3  Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"

Mat 24:4  And Jesus answered and said to them: "Take heed that no one deceives you.

Mat 24:5  "For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.

Mat 24:6  "And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Mat 24:7  "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes

Mat 24:8  in various places.   "All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Mat 24:9  "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.

Mat 24:10  "And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.

Mat 24:11  "Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.

Mat 24:12  "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

Mat 24:13  "But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

Mat 24:14  "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Mat 24:15  "Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand),

Mat 24:16  "then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Mat 24:17  "Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.

Mat 24:18  "And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes.

Mat 24:19  "But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!

Mat 24:20  "And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.

Mat 24:21  "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.

Mat 24:22  "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.

Mat 24:23  "Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it.

Mat 24:24  "For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

Mat 24:25  "See, I have told you beforehand.

Mat 24:26  "Therefore if they say to you, 'Look, He is in the desert!' do not go out; or 'Look, He is in the inner rooms!' do not believe it.

Mat 24:27  "For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Mat 24:28  "For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.

Mat 24:29  "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Mat 24:30  "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Mat 24:31  "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Mat 24:32  "Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that

Mat 24:33  summer is near.   "So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near; at the doors!

Mat 24:34  "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.

Mat 24:35  "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

Mat 24:36  "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

Mat 24:37  "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.   "For as in the days before the flood,

Mat 24:38  they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,

Mat 24:39  and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Mat 24:40  "Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left.

Mat 24:41  "Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.

Mat 24:42  "Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.

Mat 24:43  "But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.

Mat 24:44  "Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

 

Every single sign that Jesus Christ spoke about in this prophecy has been fulfilled, which means that the world is now in line for their culmination into the Great Tribulation and His return to this earth.  

What is astounding about these impending world shattering events is that although the world has been warned about them countless times, it will still be taken buy surprise by their fulfilment.   If you think that the earthquakes and the tsunamis that struck this planet last year were unprecedented, consider the magnitude of the earthquake that will precede Jesus’ return.

 

Rev 16:17 “ Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the

Rev 16:18  throne, saying, "It is done!"    And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth.

Rev 16:19  Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.

Rev 16:20  Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

Rev 16:21  And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.

Rev 17:1  Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, "Come, I will show you the

Rev 17:2  judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication."

 

The current world travails are mere warnings of a catastrophe the likes of which the world has never seen, an earthquake of such magnitude that will flatten the cities of the nations, cover every island and flatten mountains.  Those who think that this event is yet a long way in the future, will have a crude realisation soon.   Our writings are a witness that we have done our duty before the world, before our Savior and before our God. 

After providing countless scriptural and historical proofs of the bona fide of this work, we can do no more than add to it the latest scientific alarms about global warming and the threat it poses to the very survival of life on this planet, and the need for our heavenly Father to hasten the return of our Lord Jesus Christ and the setting up of the Millennium Kingdom without delay.          

 

“Polar Ice Caps Melting”  “Scientists have found that the ice caps in Greenland are melting ten times faster than previously thought.  What’s happening to the Greenland icesheet is considered a key measure of climatic change, and a sure sign that sea levels will rise dramatically.  “The vast formidable landscape of the Greenland icesheet, compared to which our helicopter is but a speck moving beside it, is one of the largest masses of ice in the world.  If it melts, the global sea levels will rise seven meters.   

This is the frontline of what many scientists see as a key factor in climate change.  It’s remote and hostile, but what happens here could affect us all.  This is volatile terrain.  Huge icebergs brake away all the time, but the latest evidence is alarming – the recent melting is far beyond what normally happens in summer.  It is ten times faster than previously thought.  

This is the very edge of the icesheet, and scientists have discovered that it is in retreat at an alarming speed.  To give you a sense of scale, this massive wall of ice behind me, is dropping in hight at a rate of one meter a month.  Whatever it causes, something pretty drastic is going on here.   “If we’d been here three months ago, how much higher would we be standing”, asked the reporter a local person.

“It’s all changed in just a century. Back then the glaciers were pictured as being far larger. A satellite picture traces the extraordinary retreat of the ice, speeding up in the last fifteen years [Remember, fifteen years ago is when we started this work].  As a simulation shows what could happen – the whole thing is simply vanishing.”

“Ferdinand and his family, has started cultivating potatoes. In the year 2000, he says, it got warmer  [Remember, in the year 2000 we unveiled Daniel’s prophecies about the end time].   Before that, the sea froze solid in winter.  Now we are growing things like never before.   Scientists don’t understand it, but they are clear on two things: there is change, and the whole world will feel it.”  (SBS TV,  July 29, 2004).   

 

Antarctic Ice Caps Melting Eight Times Faster Than a Decade Ago  “As the UN latest climate control conference gets under way, the United States has again resisted calls to ratify the Kyoto protocol.   Leaders and environmentalists from 150 nations are gathering in Buenos Aires, just as scientists reveal that Antarctica’s ice shelf is melting much more quickly than previously thought. 

Jason Om (reporter):  “Under the surface, Antarctica’s glaciers are on the move.  And according to a team of NASA scientists, much of the ice is melting.”

Bob Thomas, Project Manager:  “This has major implications, certainly for the next 10 to 100 years.  Because if sea levels start to raise from this course, it will be impossible not to turn it into a rout.”

J.O.  “Researchers believe as the ice shells crack, the glaciers from behind start to accelerate into the sea at a rate eight times faster than a decade ago.” 

Jim Yungel, NASA scientist.   “We’re finding this in ice caps in Greenland; we’re finding this in ice caps from northern Canada . . .”    Almost everywhere we are making measurements around the world, the ice is in retreat.”

J.O.  It’s more bad news for world leaders gathering in Buenos Aires. They’re here for the UN’s tenth annual climate change conference.  Over the next ten days, they will discuss measures beyond the Kyoto protocol.  It comes into force in February and requires its thirty nine signatories to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012.  But without the world’s worst polluter, the United States,  the treaty will fail to achieve its stated aims.  Washington remains adamant that the targets are too costly and unfair. 

New figures show that China is now the world’s second biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, pumping out one seventh of the world’s CO2 emissions.  The United States is responsible for nearly a quarter.   Outside the conference, protesters are unhappy at the lack of progress. 

Juan Carlos Villalonga, Greenpeace.  “There is absolutely no balance.  In ten years, the world hasn’t been able to agree what type of effort to make to reduce emissions, despite the fact that there is an urgent problem.”

J.O.  Australia, the other industrialised nation refusing to sign up, is expected to face renewed pressure to do so.”  (SBS, TV News, December 7, 2004)

 

We strongly recommend that people read our article “Is It A Question Of Survival Or Salvation?” in The Christian Herald No 3, which we published as early as 1993.  They will see where the roots of many of the current world problems lay.  Here is a quote from that article. 

 

“The former Soviet Union gave us Chernobyl then it collapsed.  The world breathed a sigh of relief in the hope that the Cold War and the danger of nuclear confrontation were over.  What the world did not know then was that the legacy of communism is just as catastrophic for the world as the danger from its nuclear arsenals:  "Russia's nuclear-powered submarines and ice-breakers pose a greater danger of nuclear accidents than do its atomic power plants, according to Jane's Intelligence review" (The Sun-Herald, August 8,1993).

People who are environmentally conscious know about the devastation caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.  But how many people know that in the vast Russian wilderness, four times that amount is being spilled every day from the decaying antiquated oil installations?  The damage done to the environment by the oil spill and its many accompanying fires is incalculable.  The topsoil is being destroyed and the ground below, which was permanently frozen, is beginning to melt.  Scientists fear that this will affect the global climate.  Already in 1990, the temperature in the Arctic Circle reached 40 degrees Celsius, eight degrees above the normal.

On the political scene, things are hardly better.  The West has put all its hopes in President Yeltsin's ability and determination to introduce democratic reforms in Russia.  But what will happen when he is no longer on the scene?  He is in poor health, and while there seem to be no obvious contenders who can step in his shoes and continue his reforms, there are many powerful rivals who call for the restoration of the Russian empire.

On the economic sphere, the one great resource that gives Russia its hard currency and keeps its grossly outdated industry going, is oil.  But now it has been estimated that its oil reserves will dry out within a decade.  What will the political and military leaders do when they see their people being decimated by hunger and their nuclear arsenal brought to nothing for lack of fuel?  The dangers coming from that part of the world are yet to be comprehended.

 

“Last year, gathered at the Rio International Summit, more than one hundred heads of states to discuss the frightening deterioration of the environment.  They discussed things, and that's all.  Has anyone heard anything about that event since?

Human beings have an uncanny ability to discuss things when they get to a crisis point, then leave the problems to others to resolve.  This time, however, the problems will not be resolved by others.  The world is no longer facing temporary local problems, but intractable worldwide problems.  It is no longer a question of survival, but one of salvation.  But science cannot save; only God can.

Human beings, however, have decided that there is no room for God in their deliberations.  Even when the world is crumbling around them, when it is becoming obvious that life itself is in danger of extinction, they will not turn to the only source that can save them.

They seek immortality through "scientific" methods such as cryogenics (deep-­freezing of the corpse in the hope that one day scientists will discover the secret of immortality, cure their diseased bodies and revive them to eternal life), and perpetual replacement of body parts with robotic devises or genetically cloned body parts.  That's the kind of immortality science offers humanity.

That educated people can come up with such absurdities is a witness to the bankruptcy of our educational system.  That is the effect of compartmentalizing our tertiary studies in rigid disciplines without any relation to each other.  It should be obligatory for all university students to study humanity subjects.  As it is, we get medical graduates without ethics, lawyers without morals, and scientists with distorted visions of the future.   They need to study not just any humanity subjects, but the good old fashion classics, philosophy and religion.  During my university studies, the head of the Religious Studies Department once said that "time was when in philosophical studies people talked about God and the meaning of life, about ethics and values, but no more." These days they have a "Theory" that if people understand what they study, it is not worth studying.

Searching for truth, God, and a moral purpose in life does not go well with evolutionary thinking.  In the struggle for survival there is no room for compassion, altruistic feelings and transcendental goals.  Hedonistic materialism and the pursuit of mindless pleasures, are the things that count in our "enlightened" society. That is why humanity finds itself on the brink of catastrophe.” (The Christian Herald No 3, p.4). 

 

When people wonder why the melting of the ice caps has accelerated in the last decade or so they might wish to remember the inferno of oil wells that were set aflame by Saddam Hussein when he was in retreat from Kuwait.

 Who is Saddam Hussein?  The darling of France, Germany and Russia, which even after the discovery of over three hundred mass graves in Iraq still maintain that his removal was “illegal”, and of Kofi Annan who said that he could do business with him even after he set up those enormous fires  which greatly contributed to the global warming. 

The following is a report from Australia’s ABC television network about the perilous condition of the world.

 

TONY JONES [reporter]: Now to tonight's guest - David Goodstein is professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology or Caltech.  In his latest book, 'Out of Gas' - the End of the Age of Oil', he explores the consequences of oil reserves getting lower and lower in the coming decades.   Professor Goodstein joined us from San Francisco.  David Goodstein, thanks for joining us. 

PROFESSOR DAVID GOODSTEIN, AUTHOR 'OUT OF GAS': Thank you. 

TJ: Your most alarming statement you make in your book is that civilisation as we know it will come to an end before the end of this century when we run out of fuel? 

D G: Yes, that is, it's meant to be alarming, it's meant to alarm people, to wake people up and help prevent that from happening. 

T J: So, how long do you reckon we've got in reality? 

D G: Well, that's not an easy question to answer.  We will probably have an oil crisis reasonably soon.
It may have already begun.  We are much too close to the situation to know for sure.  The information we're given is much too undependable for us to know for sure.  It might not actually happen until later this decade or even in the next decade.  Those differences are very important to us because we would like to go on living the comfortable lives we lead.  But on the long scale of human history 10 or 20 years is absolutely negligible.  So we will have a oil crisis.  There are other fossil fuels that can be made a substitute for oil, at a price.  So we might be able to muddle on for a while, though a much more likely scenario is that we will have resource wars and other terrible things happening.  But it is possible we'll be able to muddle on for a while, even turning to coal, for example, which can be liquefied and used as a substitute for oil and which is in very large supply.  But if we do all that, for one thing we will do an unpredictable amount of damage to our climate, and for another thing it's my guess that we would start running out of coal.  Let us say we would reach the point where we're depleting the resource faster than we can develop new sources probably in the this century. 

T J: This is one of the interesting things because people tend to think that coal and natural gas are available in virtually infinite quantities.  If oil runs out you can turn to them.  What you're saying is all fossil fuels are finite?

D G: All fossil fuels are finite.  We don't have a very clear idea of how much there is for the various resources.  The historical peak in oil discovery worldwide occurred around 1960, discoveries have been declining ever since.  The historic peak and natural gas discoveries occurred in the 1970s and so the maximum for natural gas production probably is only 10 years or so behind that for oil.  We seem to make hundreds to thousands of years estimates at the present rate of extraction but that's completely unrealistic because we use twice as much energy now from oil as we do for coal.  If you're going to mine coal to substitute for the oil you have to mine it much faster, the conversion process is inefficient, the world's population is increasing.  the poorer parts of the world want to be more like us and use more energy and finally, we will run out of, we will be in trouble with coal not when we mine the last tonne, but when we reach the peak production which is about the halfway point. 

T J: We've just heard about Hubbard's peak and the speculation that we passed the point of no return.  How does anyone know for sure that we're actually past that point? 

D G: We can't know for sure.  I've always thought that we will know that the peak has occurred when Saudi Arabia maxes out, when it reaches its peak in production.  The Saudis claim they will be able to increase their production by a million barrels a day in a relatively short period of time.  That promise has not yet been kept.  We don't know whether it's true.  If you look at the history of what's called proved oil reserves.  The proved reserves of oil in the OPEC organisation of petroleum exporting countries, increased by 300 to 400 billion barrels in the late 1980s.  There were no important discoveries of oil during that period.  What happened instead was that OPEC changed its quota system how much oil each country could pump based on in part its claimed reserves and the claimed reserves just appeared out of nowhere by magic.  So half the world's proved reserves may be an illusion and the information we're given is so undependable we really just can't say.

T J: Do you believe oil companies have lied about this? 

D G: We know that Royal Dutch Shell did because they were audited by the SEC, by an external auditor an independent auditor forced to reduce their estimated reserves by 20 per cent.  That sent shock waves through the entire oil industry.  But 90 per cent of the proved reserves are held by countries, not by companies and nobody ordered the Saudi books. 

T J: Have we really discovered all the remaining great oilfields though.  We know for example geologists claim there is a great lake of oil under Antarctica? 

D G: The people who would like to believe that the Hubbard's peak is further away than some of us fear, believe that we may make great discoveries in the deep oceans and the Antarctic, as you say, and central and northern Siberia and so on.  I think they're grasping at straws.  Two-thirds of the world's oil reserves are in the Middle East the Persian Gulf.  That's 10 times as much as Africa, ten times as much as the Middle East, ten times as much as in the former Soviet Union.  There are no other important players in the game.  We recently saw a spike because there were a couple of storms in the Gulf of Mexico.  Just think of what's going to happen when the Saudi regime collapses. 

T J: As we know, many scientists are convinced that global warming is happening so fast that if we don't stop burning fossil feel fuels the earth will reach within 30 years a catastrophic tipping point.  Are you saying that effectively we're going to run out of fossil fuels before we destroy the environment? 

D G: There are some people who see that as the silver lining in the cloud.  We'll reach Hubbard's peak and have to reduce our burning of fossil fuels and that will keep us from damaging and doing irreversible damage to the planet.   It seems to me that's like hoping that the patient will have a fatal heart attack to save him from dying of cancer.  It's not the way I think we ought to do things.

T J: Professor James Lovelock who's called by many the father of the environmental movement says "the industry world must now embrace nuclear power as the only viable alternative to oil and other fossil fuels".  What do you say to that argument? 

D G: It depends on what kind of nuclear power you mean.  If you mean the kind of conventional power that we use for power in the United States, burning uranium 235, which is a rare isotope of uranium, there are a couple of problems.  One of them is you would have to build 10,000 of the largest power plants that are feasible by engineering standards in order to replace the 10 terawatts of fossil fuel we're burning today.  10,000 nuclear plants of the largest kind possible - that's a staggering amount and if you did that, the known reserves of uranium would last for 10 to 20 years at that burn rate.  So, it's at best a bridging technology.  If you're talking about nuclear fusion, then in the long range the fuel is almost limitless but it's been 25 years away for the past 50 years and it's still 25 years away.  It has been said of nuclear fusion and also shell oil which is one of the possible fossil fuels that they are the energy sources of the future and always will be. 

T J: So, with nuclear power, even if we could build those 10,000 nuclear power plants presumably right around the world it would only be a temporary thing? 

D G: It would only be a temporary fix.  You can use the rest of the uranium to breed plutonium 239 then we'd have at least 100 times as much fuel to use.  But that means you're making plutonium, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do in the dangerous world that we live in. 

T J: So, what do you say then to the arguments of the Professor Lovelock and others, who say that nuclear power is the only alternative to avoid reaching the fatal tipping point? 

D. G. I agree with them.  I think that we must make use of all possible alternatives to fossil fuels, nuclear power included.  I'm just trying to stress that it's not the magic bullet that will by itself save us from our problems, but I certainly think we have to use it. 

T. J. There is one other alternative we should be talking about and that is hydrogen as fuel for future motor cars.
What do you think of the hydrogen alternative? 

D. G. Hydrogen is made from fossil fuel.  It is not a substitute for fossil fuels.  It's just a way of conveying energy.  It is not a source of energy.  The economics today are if you make hydrogen by burning fossil fuel to generate electricity and then electrolyse water to make the hydrogen, it will require somewhere between three and six gallons of gasoline to make enough hydrogen to replace one gallon of gasoline.  So, a hydrogen economy doesn't solve anything really.  In the long-term future if you had plenty of fusion power available, stationary power, and the only problem was to make it mobile to serve for transportation then making hydrogen might make sense. 

T. J. So, what you're saying is that right now, making hydrogen could actually create more global warming than we're seeing at the moment? 

D. G. Yes, unless you make it from renewable sources such as solar energy or atomic energy. 

T. J.  You were pointing out, and I think this is one of your major points - there is no magic bullet.  So, presumably we have to combine our efforts using what we have - solar power, wind power, tidal power in combinations unlike anything we have seen before.  Is that feasible though, would any politicians agree to make such great changes? 

D. G.  Well, we went through a presidential election in the US in which neither party mentioned anything having to do with this problem, which I think is the most important problem of our era.  Politicians do not want to touch this subject.  Any politician who tells Americans that they'll have to give up their SUVs has committed political suicide.  But it does seem to me that a courageous and visionary politician could say to us, "by burning fossil fuels we're putting ourselves at the mercy of some very nasty and unstable parts of the world and we're also endangering the climate of our planet.  For the sake of our children and grandchildren we simply must learn to kick the fossil fuel habit."  If that kind of challenge were given to our scientists and engineers I think we could do it. 

T. J. But as you say, the vision our political leaders is usually constricted to the three or four years of their electoral cycles.
How long would be it be before the crisis reaches the point where great powers have no choice but to a make radical decisions? 

D. G. It's impossible to guess.  Everything we read about in the papers every day suggests that the worldwide system for production and distribution of oil is stretched to the breaking point.  That certainly is a symptom one would expect if we have already reached the peak.  But the fact we have a symptom doesn't mean we have already reached the peak, it's just an indication.
As I say, we are too close to the situation.  The information we get is far too undependable for us to say.  I can not predict how soon it will happen.  But it will happen and when it happens there will be a huge price shock in the cost of gasoline at the pump, in the cost of everything that has to be transported and not insignificantly, in the cost of all petrochemicals.  There are 6.4 billion people living on the planet today.
Most of them reasonably well-fed as a result of what was called the 'green revolution' in the second half of the 20th Century.  That consisted in a very large part of fertilising land using petrochemical-based fertilisers.  So, that stuff is pretty valuable.  I don't think we can sustain the population we have today, much less what we'll have in 20 or 50 years without petrochemical fertilisers. 

T. J. Just looking around the world, do you see any political leaders who appears to understand the full extent of this crisis? 

D. G. If there is one I have not met him or her yet. 

T. J. All right.  Let's try, if we can, to end on a positive note.  Are you confident that human ingenuity, scientific ingenuity will in the end find a way out of this problem?

D. G.  I'm hopeful, not confident. 

T. J. Professor David Goodstein, let's hope we have better news for our children and grandchildren than you're predicting.  We thank you though, for joining us. 

D. G. Okay.   (Broadcast by Australia’s ABC television network on November 23, 2004). 

 

We conclude this article with a short quote from Australia’s largest circulation newspaper.  

 

“2004 in top ten warmest”  “A two-week hot spell in February, which set new temperature records, contributed to last year being ranked the 10th hottest year on record [in Australia].   The Bureau of Meteorology’s Annual Australian Climate Summary released yesterday said preliminary data showed the country’s annual mean temperature was 0.45C above the 1961-1990 long-term average, making 2004 the tenth warmest year since 1910.  In February, temperatures reached 48.5C in Ivanhoe in western NSW and 46.7C in Ouyen, south of Mildura in Victoria.   The general rise in Australian temperatures during the second half of the 20th century was in line with global warming trends, the survey said.  The World Meteorological Organisation reported the global mean temperature for 2004 at 0.44C above normal, the fourth warmest year since records began in 1861.  The survey showed rainfall patterns to be far from uniform despite the 2004 average of  507mm outstripping the long-term average of 472mm.”  (The Daily Telegraph, January 7, 2005).     

 

 

 

     

                               "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”

 

Just what did Jesus Christ mean when He made that statement?  The Jews of His day thought that they knew the truth and were free, yet He told them that they neither knew the truth nor were free, but were in fact children of the Devil. 

 

John 8:31 “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.

John 8:32  "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

John 8:33  They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, 'You will be made free'?"

John 8:34  Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

John 8:35  "And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.

John 8:36  "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

John 8:37  "I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.

John 8:38  "I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father."

John 8:39  They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.

John 8:40  "But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.

John 8:41  "You do the deeds of your father." Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father; God."

John 8:42  Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.

John 8:43  "Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.

John 8:44  "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the

John 8:45  father of it.  "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.”

 

The implications of these statements are enormous, not the least because they have been misunderstood by most people, particularly by those who have transformed them into a doctrine of hatred towards the Jews.  What they fail to understand is that in their natural state ALL human beings are the same, all are children of the Devil.  

 

Luke 13:1  “There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their

Luke 13:2  sacrifices.   And Jesus answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other

Luke 13:3  Galileans, because they suffered such things?   "I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

Luke 13:4  "Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all

Luke 13:5  other men who dwelt in Jerusalem?   "I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."

 

Repentance is the catalyst that changes human nature, the conscious act of mature individuals that changes them from children of the Devil into children of God. 

Since the beginning of time God had people in the world who passed on this message to humanity, people who spoke His truth without fear or favour.  There are countless examples of people who did so after the Flood of Noah, but not many people know that there were prophets of God who spoke His truth before the Flood too.  Here is but one such example.  

 

Jude 1:14  Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten

Jude 1:15  thousands of His saints,  to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

 

Speaking the truth of God in this world, however, has never been easy or welcomed.  People would rather go their own way and “do their own thing” than have God in their proximity and take note of His messages.  The very first human beings run away from God when they sinned, rather than repent, a characteristic they passed on to all their descendants.  

Even the “chosen people”, who saw an extraordinary array of miracles when they were delivered from Egyptian slavery, became uncomfortable with God in their proximity and demanded a mediator between them and God.  It is worth having a fresh look at their story.  

 

Lev 25:55  'For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Exo 19:3  And Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel:

Exo 19:4  'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself.

Exo 19:5  'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.   'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'

Exo 19:6  These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."

Exo 20:1  And God spoke all these words, saying:

Exo 20:2  "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Exo 20:3  "You shall have no other gods before Me.  (The First Commandment).

Exo 20:4  "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth

Exo 20:5  beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;  you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

Exo 20:6  but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (The Second Commandment).

Exo 20:7  "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. (The Third Commandment). 

Exo 20:8  "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Exo 20:9  Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

Exo 20:10  but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

Exo 20:11  For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. (The Fourth Commandment). 

Exo 20:12  "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you. (The Fifth Commandment).

Exo 20:13  "You shall not murder. (The Sixth Commandment).

Exo 20:14  "You shall not commit adultery. (The Seventh Commandment).

Exo 20:15  "You shall not steal. (The Eighth Commandment).

Exo 20:16  "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (The Ninth Commandment).

Exo 20:17  "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."  (The Tenth Commandment).  

Exo 20:18  Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off.

Exo 20:19  Then they said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die."

Exo 20:20  And Moses said to the people, "Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin."

 

They loved their life so much they feared they would die if God spoke with them directly, yet all He wanted was to test them and teach them a lesson so that they may not sin and depart from His ways; that they may obey His Commandments and treasure the Covenant He made with them.   That Covenant would have given them protection against their enemies, and unsurpassed blessings, but He conditioned it on their obedience to Him and on keeping His Commandments. 

 

Exo 23:20  "Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

Exo 23:21  "Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him.

Exo 23:22  "But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your

Lev 26:1    adversaries.”   You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.

Lev 26:2  You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the LORD.

Lev 26:3  'If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them,

Lev 26:4  then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. . . “

 

Lev 26:7  You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.

Lev 26:8  Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword

Lev 26:9  before you.  'For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you. . . ”

 

Lev 26:14  'But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes,

Lev 26:15  or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,  

Lev 26:16  I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

Lev 26:17  I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.

Lev 26:18  'And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins . . .”

 

The Israelites failed to keep their side of the bargain, and as a result they lost everything: blessings, land, protection, and worst of all, they lost their God.  They had derailed so far from Him that when He came in their midst they did not recognise Him and they killed Him. 

 

John 1:1  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:10  He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

John 1:11   He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

John 1:12   But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His

John 1:13   name:  who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 1:14   And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:15  John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before

John 1:16  me, for He was before me.'   "And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.

John 1:17  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

 

Yes, “the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”.  The question is, does grace and truth override the law?  Let us go back to the very beginning and settle this question once and for all in its context. 

God felt so strongly about the Ten Commandments that He inscribed them again in their Scriptures.  We won’t list them again here, as you can read them for yourself in Deuteronomy chapter five.  What we want to look at here rather is the emphasis He placed on the Second Commandment.   He repeated that Commandment not once or twice, but dozens of times throughout the Old and New Testaments.  And that is the Commandment against idolatry.  Notice what He told the Israelites immediately after He gave them the Ten Commandments.  

 

Exo 20:21  So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.  Then the LORD said to Moses,

Exo 20:22  "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

Exo 20:23  'You shall not make anything to be with Me; gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves.

Exo 20:24  'An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you. 'And if you make Me an altar of stone,

Exo 20:25  you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.

 

God repeated the Commandment against idolatry, then He told them that when they build Him an altar they must do it with stones on which they had not laid their tools, for the moment they did so they had profaned them.  

Can you see why Jesus Christ said that in their natural state human beings are not free, do not know the truth of God, and can never know God Himself?  To use an Old Testament term, carnal human beings are simply “unclean”. 

 Of course He was speaking to the Jews, but His words have universal application.  That is why He sent His disciples into all the world to make converts of all nations.

 

Mat 28:18  “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

Mat 28:19  "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son

Mat 28:20  and of the Holy Spirit,  “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.

 

The Apostles of Jesus Christ understood the true condition of humanity, and the fact that they themselves were subject to the pulls of human nature even after conversion and the receiving of the Holy Spirit.  As Apostle Paul said. 

 

Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is

Rom 7:19  good I do not find.   For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

Rom 7:20  Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.

Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin

Rom 7:24  which is in my members.   O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?   I thank God;

Rom 7:25  through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

 

All human beings who live according to the flesh are children of the Devil, and all who live according to the Spirit become children of God.   

 

Rom 8:5  “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit,

Rom 8:6  the things of the Spirit.  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Rom 8:7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

Rom 8:8  So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.   But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,

Rom 8:9  if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

Rom 8:12  Therefore, brethren, we are debtors; not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

Rom 8:13  For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Rom 8:14  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

 

Because the flesh is the domain of the Devil, those who live according to the flesh are easy pray for his wiles.   

 

Eph 6:11  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Eph 6:12  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Eph 6:13  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

 

The number one danger that comes from the Devil, after the temptations of the flesh, is idolatry.  From God’s point of view, idolatry is a greater danger to human beings for it causes them to commit spiritual adultery, and that sin is more difficult to repent of than the sins of the flesh.  For that is not merely a matter of turning away from dumb and deaf images, but one of changing one’s thoughts and frame of mind, and that is very difficult indeed.  Why do you think people find it so hard to depart from their idols and turn to the true God?  One has to consider the fact that in the Bible idolatry is more than just worshipping forbidden images; it comprises all forms of disobedience to God.  

 

Col 3:5  Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and

Col 3:6  covetousness, which is idolatry.  Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,

Col 3:7  in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.”

 

I will never forget how I agonized for almost a year against my own thoughts when I entered into conflict with the leaders of the Worldwide Church of God some three decades ago when I was a member of that Church.  Having been brainwashed into believing that they were true ministers of Jesus Christ, and that that was the “only true Church of God in the world”, I refused to contemplate any thoughts that did not conform with their preaching, believing that they were coming from the Devil, as they were telling us.       

The truth was quite different.  God was trying to show me deadly scriptural errors on their part and I was refusing to accept it.  How could I see things better then they did when I had been a member of that Church only for a few short years while they for decades, not only as members but ministers as well?   Few people who have not experienced such agony would understand what it means to struggle against your own thoughts.  In the end I had no choice but give in and admit that I was seeing things better than they did.  I feared that by breaching this subject with them would cause them to expel me from that Church, which I did not want to happen for I still believed that that was a true Church of God.   I had the sense to see that although they were false ministers of Jesus Christ, the milieu of the Church was conducive to the discovery of the truth of God for those who were diligently seeking it and were applying themselves to the study of the Bible.  One of my stunning discoveries was that although they were telling people to study the Bible, they were not practicing what they were preaching.  

The unwritten consensus in that Church, as in fact in most churches, was that you studied the Scriptures to confirm what the preachers said, not to confront them or discover new things.  If you ever saw things differently you needed to study even more, not  so much the Bible as their own writings, until you came to see things as they saw them. 

Well, I did my very best to study both the Scriptures and their writings, but the more I studied the more things I saw in which they were wrong.  In the end I did not care whether they expelled me from their church or not, I had to tell them the truth and happen what it may.  That they expelled me did not surprise me anymore, but the hatred with which they did it, and their subsequent actions did.  It was not enough for them to disfellowship me from their church, but they used the two people with whom I was sharing a flat to lock me out and rob me of everything I possessed.  You have never felt real hated until you experienced it from church people, from your own “brothers” in the faith.  When Jesus Christ said that they “travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, they make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” He was not joking. 

Now I would not care to remember or mention those things anymore, for God Almighty has saved me from those troubles and helped achieve far more than they ever will, but I do so because they are now creating even more problems for us in a series of panicked attempts to derail us from this course.  The method they are using now is to burden us with false brethren, who are not satisfied to study our writings and follow our advise, but demand all sorts of material support as well.

How they could imagine that two people who struggle to support a worldwide work from their own pension could support them as well, we don’t know.  Nor do they understand that it is not outsiders who decide who and when one becomes a member of this Foundation, but Jesus Christ Himself.  We are merely in tune with his will and comply with His wishes.

Membership into this Foundation requires repentance, meekness, truth, and righteousness, and we do not see such fruits on their part. 

There are enough charitable organisations in the world to cater for the needs of the poor; our role is different.  

We have been called to restore the long lost Gospel of Jesus Christ, and given enough resources to witness it to the world, a job we have done to the very best of our abilities.  

For a decade and a half we have hoped and encouraged people to join us, and help us do a better and more widespread work, but none has done so.  Then suddenly we find ourselves with ‘converts’ and people who claim to be members of our Foundation whom we have never heard of or seen before.   Even so we would welcome them in our Foundation, except that from what we have seen so far we are not convinced that their works reflect a true repentance.  

Moreover, some of them are telling us that they are Sunday worshippers when we have made it clear that Jesus’ followers are expected to be found, at His return, observing the Sabbath (Mat. 24:20).     

Our role is to cater to the spiritual needs of those who seek the truth of God, not to comply with the traditions of men that are so widespread in the churches of today.

This brings us back to the topic of the Commandments of God, and the question of how relevant these are in the New Testament.  For this we need to go back briefly to the Old Testament, not to the writings of Moses, so beloved by the Jews, but to the much later writings of Isaiah.     

 

Isa 56:1  “Thus says the LORD: "Keep justice, and do righteousness, For My salvation is about to come, And My righteousness to be

Isa 56:2  revealed.  Blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who lays hold on it; Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil."

 

Blessed is the man who keeps himself from defiling the Sabbath.  What man was this?  Not the Israelite man, but the man of the world.  The Covenant of God was given to Israel, but was intended for the whole world.  This was one of Israel’s greatest failures, for when God gave them His laws He did not mean that they had to implode among themselves and hide that law from the world.  They were to be an example to the world, showing other human beings the kind of blessings and protection they too would enjoy if they embraced that law.

Isaiah’s prophecy was addressing the whole world not only the Israelites.

 

Isa 56:3  “Do not let the son of the foreigner Who has joined himself to the LORD speak, saying, "The LORD has utterly separated me from His people"; Nor let the eunuch say, "Here I am, a dry tree."

Isa 56:4  For thus says the LORD: "To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me, And hold fast My

Isa 56:5  covenant,  Even to them I will give in My house And within My walls a place and a name Better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name That shall not be cut off.

Isa 56:6  "Also the sons of the foreigner Who join themselves to the LORD, to serve Him, And to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants; Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And holds fast My covenant;

Isa 56:7  Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." 

Lev 24:22  'You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country; for I am the LORD your God.'"

 

Now if a foreigner went to Israel today and told Jewish leaders that he would like to live among them and be treated like one of them, do you think they would embrace him and treat him as such?  They are hardly more obedient to God now than they were in ancient time.  And they wonder that they never get the blessings and protection that God promised them long ago.  Apparently they do not give equal rights to their own people who turn to Christ, let alone to foreigners who may want to follow Him.  Have the Jews ever stopped to consider these words of Moses?   

 

Deu 18:15  "The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear.”

 

If Jesus Christ is not that Prophet, would they pray tell us who might he be?  We hope they have come around from the apostasy of believing that that Lubavitcher rabbi, who encouraged them to think that he was somebody and died crippled and in his sins, is their “Mossiach”.  Refusal to believe their own Scriptures, about a quarter of which clearly identify Jesus as the Messiah, does not nullify this fact nor spare them of the need for deep repentance.  

We find it incredible that they cling on to the Old Testament even after seeing the light, insights, and incomparable advantages of the New Testament.  All their sins –  failure to conform with the tenets of the Old Testament, failure to treat foreigners who settled in their midst as their own, failure to turn the House of God into a House of Prayer for all nations – would be wiped out overnight if they repented, acknowledged their errors, and became members of the new elect of God.   

Their current theology, which hardly conforms with the Old Testament let alone with the Bible as a whole, is extremely inadequate.  And it cannot be otherwise for the Bible without the Holy Spirit is no longer the World of God.  Yet they cling on to the Old Testament determinedly and as a result they continue to reap the rewards of their unbelief and lack of repentance.

This is the malaise of modern academic theologians too.  They think they can understand the Bible and God’s plan for mankind by dismissing the relevance of the Holy Spirit.  They specialise in peripheral aspects of the Bible – who wrote it, when and in what conditions – but are not particularly knowledgeable of its content.  And it cannot be otherwise since they ignore the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit does not come to human beings on the basis of titles and qualifications, but on the basis of repentance, prayer, worship, and meditation of the law of God, and these are anathema in academic circles.  One can hardly think of a better example of the blind leading the blind.  

Even documented historical facts about the Bible are no longer kosher with those people.   The biblical “documentaries” that have been coming out from those quarters recently are nothing but exercises in ignorance and incursions into demonism and spiritual darkness.  I would never watch those programs anymore if I did not need to keep myself informed for the sake of this work.  Those who have no such need are far better never looking at them.            

The Jews keep blaming Christianity for their troubles during the two thousand years of Diaspora and for the Holocaust.  Christianity had nothing to do with it.  False Christians did all these things, the same that have been a thorn on the side of true Christian for centuries.  We find it extraordinary that even after we have conclusively proved to them that the Christianity of Jesus Christ had nothing to do with their pogroms, they continue to blame His followers for their problems.  

What the mainstream churches have taken to the world IS NOT the Gospel of Jesus Christ but a false gospel.  The Commandments of God were meant to form the basis upon which the New Testament was built, yet those churches have not only been telling their people that the Commandments of God have been done away with, but have been persecuting those who have remained faithful to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.    

These churches have been saying that the Ten Commandments have been substituted with the general Commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself.   Well, this is true, but this Commandment does not do away with the Ten Commandments; rather it augments and builds upon them.  One cannot love his neighbour as himself if he does not keep all of the other Commandments of God.  If that were the case we would see a lot more love and a lot less war in the world today, but as it is, people keep neither the Ten Commandments nor love their neighbour as themselves.  

Let us now go to Jesus Christ, the founder of the New Testament, and have Him speak to us on this matter.        

 

Mat 5:17  "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil.

Mat 5:18  "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one title will by no means pass from the law till all is

Mat 5:19  fulfilled.   "Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

 

Is that clear enough? One cannot reach the Kingdom of Heaven if he brakes the least of God’s Commandments.   

 

John 14:15  "If you love Me, keep My commandments.

John 14:16  "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever;

John 14:17  "the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He

John 14:18  dwells with you and will be in you.   "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

John 14:21  "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."

John 15:10  "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in

John 15:11  His love.   "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

 

Yes, without God’s Commandments neither salvation nor genuine joy are possible.  Now least people may wonder what Commandments Jesus was referring to, He recorded this incident in the Scriptures for us.   

 

Mat 19:16 “ Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?"

Mat 19:17  So He said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep

Mat 19:18  the commandments."   He said to Him, "Which ones?" Jesus said, " 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,'

Mat 19:19  'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Mat 19:20  The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?"

Mat 19:21  Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

Mat 19:22  But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Mat 19:23  Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

If you want to enter into life, KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS.  What Jesus Christ was telling us here is that what we have in this world is not life but misery, that only by keeping the Commandments can one attain true life and salvation.   

He listed only the last six Commandments, the ones that deal with man’s relationship to man, and left out the first four which deal with man’s relationship with God, not because the first are not important, for they are more important than the last, but because the last six are in the power of human beings and are prerequisites for the first.   In other words, those who brake the last six Commandments have little chance of keeping the first, of coming near God, and of knowing Him.  

 

John 17:3 "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

 

Jesus said that His sacrifice was necessary for the arrival of the Holy Spirit, without whom no one could know God. 

 

John 14:25  "These things I have spoken to you while being present with you.  "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father

John 14:26  will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

John 16:7  "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

John 16:8  "And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”

 

The Helper, the Holy Spirit, is being sent by God to those who repent and follow His Son, and to no one else.  

 

John 6:44  "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Acts 4:12  "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

 

Anyone can prove this fact by repenting, turning to a righteous life, and joining the elect of God.  If he will not feel more joy and happiness than he has ever felt in life, he is free to leave and go back to the “pleasures” (enslavement) of this world. 

Unlike other people, Christians do not kill those who depart from their midst and go after other gods and other religions.   Such self-inflicted punishment is enough for them.  We conclude with the immortal words of Jesus Christ, the One and Only true Savior of the world.    

 

John 13:34  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

John 13:35  "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

 

John 15:11  These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

John 15:12  "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

John 15:13  "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.

John 15:14  "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                          The ‘Strictly Secret’ Communist Manifesto

 

The following document was sent from Moscow in 1947 to the newly formed communist governments of Eastern Europe.  One of those Governments was that of Romania.  The document came to life in late 1990s when Romanian democratic parties managed to wrest power briefly from the party of the former communists, the PSD.  We have done our very best to translate it accurately and retain its intended meaning.        

 

                                                                                                    “Strictly Secret”

                    Moscow, 2.6.1947                             

                    K AA/CC 113                                    

                    NK/003/47                              

                                                           

1.  Embassies are forbidden to receive on their territories the natives who work for us as informers.  They will be met by special service agents who are specifically trained and assigned to do this job.  Their information will be passed on to the Embassies through these agents.          

2.  All measures must be taken to prevent the establishment of any links between our soldiers and local population.  It is inadmissible for our officers to visit the natives in their homes; also, it is inadmissible for the simple soldiers to establish relations with native women.  It is inadmissible the establishment of relations between our soldiers and the civilian population, inclusive with native soldiers.        

3. It must accelerated the liquidation of citizens who maintain links, unauthorised by us, with the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Youth Communist Organisation, or with the Army and other associations.  (Throughout this translation Italics are in the original). 

4. In military campaigns against the opposition will take part those soldiers who have spent time on our territory [Soviet Union]. 

5. There must be an acceleration of the process of unification of all parties under a single umbrella, making sure that all leading roles are taken by people who belong to our secret services.  

6. It is necessary the unification of all youth organisations.  Positions of leadership will be given to people who are approved by our special services.   

7. It should be organized and ensured that functionaries who are deputised to participate in congregational meetings, cannot complete their mandate for the entire period for which they have been elected.  Deputies cannot under any circumstances convene meetings between institutions.  If another solution cannot be found and a meeting must be convened, it should be ensured that those who had grievances and been active in calling the meeting in order to put forward their own concepts, are sidelined and prevented from carrying out their agenda.  For every congress there must be new people who are prepared for this purpose, but only those who have been endorsed by our secret services.      

8. Special attention must be paid to those with organizing capabilities, with sure chances of popularity.  These people must be coopted, but if they are opposing it, they must not be given superior hierarchical positions.

9. It must be ensured that State officials (excluding Securitate organs and those working in the mining industry) will receive small retributions.   This must be especially the case with those working in the areas of health, justice, and culture, respective those in positions of leadership. [Emphasis added throughout].

10.  In all governmental institutions, respective in the majority of factories, we must have people who cooperate with our special services (without the knowledge of the local administrative organs).

11. It shall be strictly watched that local press does not publicise statistics regarding the quality and variety of the goods that are made available.   It is not permissible that this activity be called commerce.  It must be made clear that we are talking simply of goods exchange. 

12.  Pressure must be exercised on local authorities to ensure that no documents are issued which prove ownership of land; the documents will show the quality of the land in use, but not who owns it. 

13.  The politics of the little country garden must follow this course in order to render the particular garden unprofitable.  After that, collectivisation must begin in earnest.  In the case of strong opposition, there must be a reduction in the distribution of the mechanisms of production, concomitant with an increase of State taxes.  If the desired outcome is not achieved, it must be ensured that agricultural output will not satisfy the country’s food needs, so that additional imports are needed.  

14. All effort must be made to ensure that the decisions and orders – be they of judicial, economic or organisational  are unpunctual.        

15.  Every effort must be made to ensure that certain cases are discussed concomitant in a number of commissions, offices and institutions, but without any having the right to take decisions without the consent of the others (with the exception of the mining industry).  

16. Administrative bodies cannot exercise any influence over the activities in their own factories.  All they can do is to put in practice decisions taken higher up.

17.  The syndicates have no right to oppose the administration.   They must occupy themselves with other matters, such as the organisation of leisure activities in vacations, discussion of pension requests, cultural and entertaining programs, organisation of excursions, distribution of defective goods, the justification of points of view and decisions taken by the political organs of the administration. 

18. It must be organised that only those leaders be promoted who execute impeccably the problems assigned them, but who do not go beyond their particular sphere of activity. 

19. In regard to the natives that work for the Party, the State, or in administration, conditions must be created for them to be compromised in the face of employees, so that it would be impossible for them to return to their former positions.     

20.  Native military cadres could be given positions of responsibility in places where people in our special services have already been placed.   

21. When army exercises are held, and on the occasion of shooting practices, a strict control must be maintained on the quantity of munitions used, regardless of the type of arms. 

22.  Every laboratory and research institute must be kept under observation.   

23.  Great attention must be given to inventors and innovators, and their activity supported and encouraged, but every invention must be registered with consistency at the centre.  It is permissible the development of only those inventions that have applicability in the mining industry, or those that have our special permission.  It is not permissible the development of inventions that would ensure the growth in the production of finite goods, a reduction in the extraction of prime materials, or which would interfere with the fulfilment of our decisions.  If an invention had become known, measures must be taken to be sold to foreigners.  The documents regarding the value and the description of the invention must not be made public.

24. The punctuality of the means of transport must be perturbed (less those which conform with the directive NK 552-46).    

25. In the factories in which professional meetings and conferences are organised, an account must be kept of all proposals, including their authors.

26. Discussions with the workers that are in charge of solving production problems must be popularized, particularly those which criticise the past and current problems.  Such issues must never be set aside from discussion.  

27. Taking of positions by native leaders could have nationalistic or historical coloratura, and they can lead to national unity. 

28.  Great attention must be paid that under no circumstances must there be water networks that are not linked to the main network in residential districts that are under construction.  Old unconnected channels and independent fountains of water must be systematically liquidated, in time.     

29.  The reconstruction of old industrial objectives and the construction of new ones must be made in such a way that their residual materials are deposited in water reservoirs which could be used as reserves of potable water.  

30.  In cities that are reconstructed or newly constructed, it is not admissible to have excessive spaces that could be used to hold animals for an extended period, or for the deposit of foods. 

  31. Industries that are held privately and personal entrepreneurs must receive only enough prime materials and utilities that ensure their failure to produce quality products.  The price for their goods must be bigger than for similar products from State institutions. 

32.  The expansion of State enterprises must be of the highest order and facilitated in all domains.  It is permissible the criticizing of administrative organs, but under no circumstances will a reduction in personnel of in their normal functioning be allowed.      

33.  Great care must be taken towards all projects of production in the mining industry, including in those institutions that are specifically marked as such.  Care must be taken in preventing good provision of the international market too.  

34.  Special attention must be accorded to churches.  Cultural-educative activities must be directed towards creating general antipathy towards them.  It is necessary to keep under observation church printing workshops, archives, preaching content, songs, all religious education, but also burial ceremonies.     

35. Popular professors in elementary and special schools, but especially in lyceums and faculties, must be removed.  Their places must be taken by appointed people. An analysis must be undertaken of their programs, with a reduction in the number of documentaries. In lyceums there must be a complete removal of studies of Latin and Greek languages, general philosophy, logic and genetics.  In regard to the teaching of history, it must never be pointed out which rulers have served, or wanted to serve, the good of the country.  What must be emphasized instead is the conniving of the rulers and the struggle of the oppressed masses.  In specialty schools must be introduced a narrow curricula.      

36. Initiatives must be taken to organise activities of artistic or sporting nature which celebrate the struggle of the natives against invaders (especially the Germans, but excluding the Russians) and popularize the struggle for socialism.    

37. On the local scene, it is forbidden the appearance of productions about natives that lived with us [USSR] before or during the Second World War.  

38.  If an organization is formed that supports an alliance with us, but at the same time insists over maintaining control over economic activities and official leadership, a campaign of condemnation must be immediately commenced accusing it of nationalism and chauvinism.  This must be done in the following manner: profanation of graves that belong to us, destruction of cemeteries, spreading of manifestos that are defamatory to our nation and culture, and the rising of doubts about contracts made with us.  Native people must be involved in this propaganda work, channelling their hatred towards these organisations.   

39.  Particular attention must be given to the construction and reconstruction of roads, bridges, and interconnecting routes, so that in case there is need for armed intervention, the places of resistance and concentration of reactionary forces can be accessible from all sides.     

40.  Attention must be given to imprisoning the representatives of the political opposition.  Particular attention must be given to those opponents that are popular with the native population.  Before they could imprint themselves in the conscience of the native masses, they must be liquidated through so-called unforseen circumstances or imprisoned and accused of common crimes.     

41.  It must be prevented the rehabilitation of those who were condemned in political processes.  If it becomes inevitable, such rehabilitation is permissible on the pretext that it was a judicial mistake; no reopening of their process must occur, and no convocation of those who accused them in the first place. 

42.  Leaders named by the party, who through their activity have caused dissatisfaction among employees, must not be brought before judicial courts.  In extreme cases, they will be recalled from function, and named in similar or superior positions.  In the end, they must be placed in leadership positions and kept under consideration as reserve cadres for the period of ulterior changes. 

43. It shall be brought to the knowledge of the public those persons in leadership positions (in the first place those from the army, ministerial positions, important services, academic cadres) who are accused of hostile attitude towards the people, socialism, industrialization.  It is an action that must attract the ire of the popular masses. 

44. Those who work in various [professional] functions must be removed and replaced with workers of the poorest professional preparation, or unqualified. 

45.  Priority for university studies must be given to those who belong to the lowest social classes, who are not interested in further specialisation, but only in obtaining a diploma.”

(Translated from, Vladimir Alexe, Ion Iliescu - Biografia Secreta, Annex 9, Elit Comentator, Romania, 2000). 

 

If there ever was a document from Hell, conceived by the Devil and his cronies, this certainly must be it.  

Communism had nothing to do with creating a utopia of well fed, well clothed, happy and contented individuals, and everything to do with creating an atheist hell of hungry, cold, suspicious, fearful and discontented individuals, with no God other than their own belly.  Now we can see and understand why communist leaders were such insensitive hypocrites.  Only one who had no compunction about lying, spying, denouncing and setting people against each other could have become a leader; one who had no feeling of compassion for his suffering compatriots; who had become so hated by his co-workers that he could never return to work in their midst again.  And they wonder that the system came to such a crashing end.    

If one had not lived through it, or seen it with his own eyes, he would have a hard time believing that human beings could come up with such a system.  Those who have not lived through it and may still have doubts whether it was as evil as that should visit the remaining communist tyrannies – Cuba, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, etc. – and see it with their own eyes  before these too take their rightful place in history’s dustbin.

Contrary to the claim that communism meant to do away with the class system, it reinforced a rigid hierarchical bureaucratic system like no other in history, one which engendered hatred and suspicion at every step and level of society.  

A documentary film about Stalin showed how he was so obsessed with the fear of poisoning and murder, that he had his breakfast tasted and delivered on trays at the doors of three different apartments so as to prevent anyone from knowing exactly in which one he could be found at any one time.    

What a life!  Not to have a single person of trust near you.  Even those closest to him abandoned him when they saw what kind of person he was: his wife committed suicide early in his reign, and his daughter fled his ‘paradise’ to the hated capitalist West.  Any wonder that he became such a blood thirsty monster.  He used to send out his secret service agents to murder a certain number of people to serve as examples to those who were reluctant to embrace communism.  The agents knew that they would endear themselves to him by exceeding and even doubling that number.  And we are not talking of just a few people, but of thousands upon thousands.   The total number of communist victims in Russia is said to be as high as sixty million.  And yet he is still revered by many who hunker for the “good old communist times”.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide were sacrificed on the altar of communism, and millions more were duped into giving their life willingly for what they thought was a worthy cause.  One can only imagine their bewilderment at seeing what had become of their dream when they will be brought up in the resurrected for the judgment.

Students of history ought to study afresh the communist ideology in light of these revelations. But does anyone imagine that leftist ideologues who have penetrated educational institutions all over the world would include this document in their curricula?  Why should they be more honest and conscious than their revered communist masters?

We would not be surprised if they declare this document to be a forgery, as they did with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, together of which form the blueprint for communism.   Amazon.com, the largest online bookshop, withstood enormous pressure from Jewish quarters to stop publishing that document.  They refused it in the name of freedom of expression.  One suspects that they also did it because they believe it to be true and historical.     

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was also meant to remain secret, but once brought to light their only option was to declare it a forgery.  But there are a number of things that mitigate for its authenticity.  1) Upon reading it one simply does not get the feeling that it is a forgery.  It is too complex and scholarly a document to be a deliberate forgery.   2) How could it be a forgery when the communist systems that ensued in Russia and in eastern European countries was based on it?  3) It continues to form the secret agenda of  Freemasonry worldwide.   Why do you think religion, family, education, and society as a whole, continue to be under attack from Hollywood, the legal systems, the media, all of which are largely under the control of Freemasonry. 

The march to an atheist new world order has never stoped, only the means for achieving it have.        

Local politicians are scarcely able to enact the will of their people anymore. They are mere pions on a worldwide chess table that seeks to do away with peoples freedoms of speech, freedom of worship and of conscience, in the name of “human rights”.   Human rights for lawbreakers and blasphemers, not for decent law abiding citizens.  Consider this:  A court in Saskatchewan, Canada, “upheld a 2001 ruling that fined a man for submitting a newspaper ad containing citations of four Bible verses that address homosexuality. Three years ago, the Ontario Human Rights Commission penalized printer Scott Brockie $5,000 for refusing to print letterheads for a homosexual advocacy group.”  (WorldNetDaily.com, February 4, 2004).

The courts uphold the “human rights” of homosexuals at the expense of human rights for Christians.  And to think that that legislation was supported by the churches!   When God says that such countries will have little chance of surviving the Great Tribulation into the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ, they think that this is a joke.  How painfully they will discover the truth at that time, but it will be too late.  Those who think that that event is far off into the future will have another painful realisation soon. Very soon!  

Having failed to reform the world by means of violent revolutions, the enemies of God are now putting their efforts into subverting society through the law, the media, education, entertainment industries, and, of all things, the churches. 

Examples of outrageous miscarriages of justice, common in this country as I am sure they are in yours, are not mere happenstances, but a well established agenda that serves two purposes: to silver line the pockets of lawyers with further litigation, and to create social unrest and optimum conditions for hypocrites to rise to the top and demand reforms that further the interests of the new world order.  More than any other people, judges now play the role of social reformers.  The fact that people and their elected representatives are becoming exasperated by their interpretation of the law seems to be of little concern to them.  Their aim is to homogenise local laws into a worldwide legal system that serves the goal of the new atheist world order.  Here is a sample of their work.

 

“Judge rejects ban on gays  Little Rock: A country judge has declared unconstitutional a state ban on placing foster children in households with a gay member.  Ruling in a case brought by the Arkansas chapter of the Civil Liberties American Union, Country Circuit Judge Timothy Fox said the state Child Welfare Agency Review board had overstepped its authority by trying to regulate :”public morality.”

“The testimony and evidence overwhelmingly showed that there was no rational relationship between the . . .  blanket exclusion (of gays) and the health, safety and welfare of the foster Children,” Mr Fox said. ( The Daily Telegraph, December 31, 2004).         

 

Demands for legal reform, usually fomented by God haters, are answered with laws that further curtail people’s freedoms and take the world further away from God, from His laws, and the just society that His laws would engender.  

If carried out equitably and honestly, globalisation would be beneficial for the world, for it would spread out the benefits of fair pay for equal amount of work from the developed to the developing countries.  As it is,  workers in the developing world, who are lucky enough to have a job, get a fraction of what their counterparts in the developed world get.  

An equitable system will operate in the Millennium Kingdom of God when work will be valued equally everywhere.  Those who push for a new world order now do so not to prepare the world for the Millennium Kingdom, but to keep it away.  They are preparing the world to reject any Savior that does not agree with their perversions and false gospels.  They cry out to heaven and to Jesus Christ: ‘we do not want You, we have set up our own global atheist “utopia”.  Need we tell you what will be the outcome of this all? 

 

Rev 17:14  "These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful."

 

 

 

 

                  From Moldova To Chechnya - What One Sows Is What He Reaps

 

Beslan, a tiny town in Russia’s southern province of North Ossetia, has become known around the world as a result of an Islamic terrorist attack in September 2004 that left hundreds of children dead or injured. 

 

“Moscow: Schools in the southern Russian republic of North Ossetia are to resume today except for Beslan, the scene of a hostage drama in which 339 people died, local officials said.   In Beslan itself, schools will reopen tomorrow, except for School No. 1 where the hostage seizure took place.   These children are with their parents in rest homes, where they will attend classes but also receive psychological back-up. The other schools in Beslan will be inspected before they reopen.”   (The Daily Telegraph, September 14, 2004).

 

What the world does not know is that while Russian children were dying in North Ossetia, an almost similar tragedy was taking place in another part of Russia’s Commonwealth of Independent States.  

 

Transnistria  “A campaign for donations began today for the orphans who are being starved by the Russian gendarmes of Igor Smirnov.  Donations of money or food, clothes and books should be brought to the Hall of the Bucharest Palace.   For almost a month now, 70 school children have barricaded themselves in their school against Russian gendarmes who want to expel them and annihilate any Romanian identity in the province of Transnistria.   The campaign is supported by the Youth Romanian League, National Journal, newspaper Ziua, Association of Civic Media, Romanian Global News, World Romanian Council, and others. The World Romanian Council also started an on line petition at www.petitiononline.com/nistru/ which they intend to send to the United Nations, European Union, the White House, the USA Congress, and other world bodies.”  (Ziua, August 20, 2004).

 

 “Chisinau:  “The European Organisation for Security and Cooperation, OSCE, says that separatist Russians who want to create an independent State in Transnistria, a province of the Republic of Moldova, have thrown out into the street thousands of Moldovan children and closed down their schools. The separatists of Igor Smirnov have no intention of suspending the victimisation of Romanians from Transnistria. 

More than a thousand students, of both primary and secondary schools, have been refused access to their schools.  At the end of June, even orphan children from boarding schools, were thrown out into the street by Russian gendarmes.  

“We demand that separatist leader, Igor Smirnov, respects his promise to reopen the Romanian schools from Transnistria, and permit them to function normally”, said William Dell, OSCE Ambasador in Chisinau.   Although Moldovan, Romanian, American and European authorities have demanded several times that Russian separatists from Tiraspol put an end to their anti-Romanian campaign, so far they have given no signs that they intend to conform with it.”   (ZIUA, September 13, 2004).

  

The difference between Beslan and Transnistria is that those who were victims in one place were perpetrators in the other. Beslan made the world media and Moldova did not, because Russia is what it is and Moldova is not.  President Putin of Russia, whose country extends over nine time zones, felt that he did not have enough land and wanted a little bit more.  So he decided to take it from the smallest and weakest member of the ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’, and create another Russian enclave, like the one in Kaliningrad. 

A man of faith that he is, President Putin was seen worshiping in a glittering Russian Orthodox Church alongside the Russian Orthodox Patriarch in the aftermath of the Beslan massacre.   The Patriarch, a man of love and piety, saw what Mr Putin was doing to his brothers in the faith from Transnistria and did not like it.  So he showed him how he ought to deal with them.  

 

“Romanian Orthodox Church persecuted on the eastern side of the river Prut  “The Orthodox Church of Basarabia, which is associated with Moscow, has began an intense campaign of persecution against the Romanian priests of Moldova who want to affiliate with the Romanian Orthodox Church.  The campaign has gone as far as burning down their churches.  Priest Roman Galben was assaulted several times, the last time so severely that he ended up in hospital fighting for his life.  His Church, “The Descending of the Holy Spirit’, was burned down to the ground.  Roman Galben informed the police of what happened to him and his church, but they told him that they were not interested in his problems. They mockingly suggested that he ought to forgive his assailants. The priest was assaulted again and warned that next time he will be killed if he insists on seeking affiliation with the Romanian Patriarchy. (Ziua, September 22, 2004). 

 

Mr Putin got the message.  He knew that if the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church was doing the same and did not condemn him for what he was doing in Transnistria, no one else in the world would.  After all, did the world care much when Hitler annexed the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia?  Of course there is a big difference between Hitler and Mr Putin.  For with all the evil that he created in the world, Hitler is not personally identified in the Bible;  Mr Putin is. (See the article ‘The Beats Of Revelation’ in The Christian Herald No 4).

  About two and a half centuries ago, when the British and the French were fighting in Canada, the French send word to their king that unless he was sending reinforcements he would loose Quebec.  The king is said to have replied that when one’s house is on fire he does not worry about the stables.  Little do the Europeans know that the fire from their eastern stable will soon engulf their homes too. 

 A wise man once said that if might is right then Christ died in vain.  But might is not right, and Christ did not die in vain.   He died so that those who have no hope and are week, may have hope and a defender.  Moldavian Christians value life and do not fight dirty like the Chechen Islamists.  Mr Putin will soon discover that when he took on the gentle but hapless Moldavians, he bit more than he can chew. 

There was an unexpected corollary to this story.  The Republic of Moldova refused to take part in the next meeting of Russia’s Commonwealth of Independent States.  That reduced their number from eleven to ten.  Ten is the number of countries Russia will lead against Israel in the end time.  In biblical prophecies, Israel is not just the nation of Judah, which the Jews have somewhat erroneously called ‘Israel’, but the nations that come from all tribes of Israel, and that means virtually all of Europe plus the Anglo-Saxon nations of the world.  It seems that the end time Great Tribulation will be primarily between the countries that have inherited Israel’s sceptre (Judah) and the primogeniture inheritance (Joseph)   current Israel and the Anglo-Saxons – on the one hand, and the other tribes plus the rest of the world on the other.  Whether Russia’s current Commonwealth of Independent States will be part of that end time alliance, or some other countries, remains to be seen.  One thing is sure though: that alliance will be of a very short duration  one hour in biblical time.

The Republic of Moldova has been making tentative steps to come back into the bosom of its mother country.  It is best if they do not hurry. That friendly, gentle, musical, poetic, Latin culture, deserves to be preserved, and since Romania has little chance of surviving the coming world vortex, that hope remains with Moldova.   Romania’s agents of death – the Securitate men – have struck a deadly blow against us during Iliescu’s regime.  They shamelessly continue to interfere with our work as if to say, ‘see, there is nothing you can do to prevent us from doing what we want’.   So twisted are that country’s judicial and investigative systems, that even after we exposed the murder of my mother to the world, her murderers have not so much as even been asked a question, let alone being brought to justice.  

The new President, Traian Basescu, vowed to wage war against the country’s entrenched corruption, and to clean its judicial, administrative and security systems.  We wish him well and pray for his success, but we are not too confident that he will succeed in the short time that he has.  One of the country’s main newspapers said that unless he removes the heads of that “cancerogen gangrene” within a month he will suffer a similar fate as the former President, Constantinescu, who barely survived one term in power (ZIUA, Dec. 31, 2004).    

If the country is to have any chance of surviving the impending wrath of God it must get rid of Dracula Park without delay, and bring to justice the criminals that have struck against this work.  No country that has been dedicated to Dracula and persecuted the servants of God can hope to survive the Great Tribulation and make it into the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

We warned Romania that it does not have two thousand years of history  to recover from the abyss like Israel did, but its leaders have not heeded our warning.  Now they and the nation will have to face the consequences.  It is that serious. 

We have not put our lives in danger for the sake of an ego trip, but because necessity has been laid upon us.  Jesus Christ is the Life and the Foundation of this work.  Anyone who strikes against this work strikes against Him, and He will not be crucified a second time.

 

 

 

 

                     Reflections On The Collapse Of An Atheist Ideology

 

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 after seventy years of tyranny, it seemed to us impossible that such an important historical event would not have a prophetic meaning.   Yet after more than two decades of theological and historical studies, we had never come across any credible work that would put communism in a proper prophetic context.  We say credible because there are plenty of writings about the Soviet Union that are not worth the paper they are written on. 

I remember how soon after arriving in Australia some thirty years ago, I was waiting for a train at a Brisbane station when I noticed a billboard headline on another platform saying, “Russia Invades Israel.”  

I was shocked because there was no major international crisis to justify such an invasion.  I was convinced that we were on the brink of a nuclear war, for that act could not be left unanswered by the West.  I was puzzled that everybody was still going about as if nothing serious had happened, until I rushed over and read the small print.        

That was not a newspaper headline as I thought, but the prophetic surmising of a church called the “Christadelphians”. It was their belief that communist Russia was about to strike Israel any time.  So sure were they of this fact that they did not even speak of it as a possible future event, but as if it were an already accomplished fact. 

I cannot begin to tell you how angry I was, not the least because while rushing to read their poster, I lost my train.  Being a weekend, when the trains were not running too often, I had to wait another half an hour or until the next train arrived.         

Now it is an undeniable prophetic fact that Russia will one day make war against Israel, but the historical context was not ripe for such an event.  Besides, what people fail to understand is that when the Bible speaks of the countries of the far north coming against Israel, it does not refer only to that tiny state in the Middle East, but to all the countries that came out of the tribes of Israel, and that means Europe, the USA, and the white Anglo-Saxon nations of the world. 

That will occur in the end time, the time of the Great Tribulation spoken of by Jesus Christ, and I knew that there were yet a few prophecies which needed to be fulfilled before that could happen.  (Prophecies which have been fulfilled by now, or are in the process of being fulfilled).     

It is interesting to note at this point that the Worldwide Church of God and its siblings have been preaching for decades that there never will be a war between Russia and the USA, because “it is not in prophecy” and because Germany still represents their mortal danger.  Until, that is, we showed them this prophecy of Zechariah. 

 

Zec 9:13  “For I have bent Judah, My bow, Fitted the bow with Ephraim, And raised up your sons, O Zion, Against your sons, O Greece, And made you like the sword of a mighty man."   

 

Everybody knows who the sons of Zion are, but few people knew that ‘sons of Greece’ in prophecy refers to the countries of the Orthodox Church, whose strongest member is by far Russia.  (See details in The Christian Herald No 13).

Now these churches are preaching a different tune, without, of course, giving credit to whom credit is due for their change of mind.   But then, do thieves and charlatans acknowledge their act when they steal things from others?  

The prophecy about the Great Tribulation is still in the future, short or long as that may be, but we were interested in placing the collapse of the Soviet Union in a prophetic context, and that was in the past, an already accomplished fact. 

For an event that had reverberated around the world, it proved to be a surprisingly difficult task, until we came across some very important clues.  

The first one came when a television documentary revealed Russia’s links to a Viking historical past.  Russia’s underground archives contain many Viking memorabilia, which the communist leaders did their best to keep from public view. 

Biblical scholars rightly believe that Scandinavian people, from where the Vikings originated, are of Israelite stock, descendants of the so-called lost Ten Tribes of Israel.  But for reasons which they have never fully explained, theologians have divided Europe roughly along the lines of the Iron Curtain: the capitalist West versus the communist East, the goodies versus the baddies, the noble Israelites versus the second class Gentiles.  In so doing they have blinded themselves to prophetic facts which unmistakably place Russia within the bounds of Israel. 

Many of Russia’s leaders before communism, and just as many during communism, were of Israelite or Jewish stock.     

The second clue came when we discovered that the famous Cossack warriors of Russia are of Israelite origin, their name being a derivative of Isaacs, or sons of Isaac in the local dialect.   

And the third clue came with the discovery of  The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Jewish blueprint for a new world order.   The Russian Revolution, like the French, and to some extent the American, was nothing but an attempt by Israelite Freemasonry to free themselves from the strictures of religious dogma, particularly the Catholic one, and create an atheist world state.   The Jews held the most important positions in the first Bolshevik Government.  The ideology was theirs, those in charge of the army and secret services were Jews, and the Jews played important roles in setting up the communist governments of eastern Europe too.          

The communist utopia was nothing but a perversion of the biblical concept of the Kingdom of God.  When they departed from the Law and the Covenant of God, and God instituted a New Covenant and shifted the emphasis from an earthly to a heavenly kingdom, instead of conforming with the requirements for the new “elect of God”, the Israelites in general, and the Jews in particular, decided that they will set up their own Kingdom of Israel on earth.  

The Israelite’s predilection to follow their own way was manifested very early in their history.  First they would refuse to obey God, then when He told them that they would be punished and told to do something else, they would want to do what they should have done at first even though God did not want them to do that anymore and told them to do something else.  

 

Num 14:26  And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,  "How long shall I bear with this evil congregation

Num 14:27  who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me.

Num 14:28  "Say to them, 'As I live,' says the LORD, 'just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you:

Num 14:29  'The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.

Num 14:30  'Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I

Num 14:31  would make you dwell in.   'But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the

Num 14:32  land which you have despised.   'But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.

Num 14:33  'And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses

Num 14:34  are consumed in the wilderness.   'According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection.

Num 14:35  'I the LORD have spoken this; I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.'"   Now the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land,

Num 14:36  who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land,

Num 14:37  those very men who brought the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

Num 14:38  But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive, of the men who went to spy out the land.

Num 14:39  Then Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

Num 14:40  And they rose early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, "Here we are, and we will go up to the place which the LORD has promised, for we have sinned!"

Num 14:41  And Moses said, "Now why do you transgress the command of the LORD? For this will not succeed.

Num 14:42  "Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the LORD is not among you.

Num 14:43  "For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned away from the LORD, the LORD will not be with you."

Num 14:44  But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop; nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses

Num 14:45  departed from the camp.  Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain came down and attacked them, and drove them back as far as Hormah.”

 

They were defeated when they presumed to do what God did not want them to do anymore.   They repeated that kind of rebellion later on with Joshua.         

 

Josh 24:13  'I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.'

Josh 24:14  "Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD!

Josh 24:15  "And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

Josh 24:16  So the people answered and said: "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods;

Josh 24:17  "for the LORD our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed.

Josh 24:18  "And the LORD drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the LORD, for He is our God."

Josh 24:19  But Joshua said to the people, "You cannot serve the LORD, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. [Joshua understood the principle of two kinds of people in the world, which did not become apparent until Jesus Christ elaborated upon it in His parables and teachings, but he could not explain it to the Israelites at that time].        

Josh 24:20  "If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done

Josh 24:21  you good.   "And the people said to Joshua, "No, but we will serve the LORD!"

Josh 24:22  So Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD for yourselves, to serve Him." And they said, "We are witnesses!"

Josh 24:23  "Now therefore," he said, "put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD God of

Josh 24:24  Israel."    And the people said to Joshua, "The LORD our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!"

Josh 24:25  So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

Josh 24:26  Then Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God.  And he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.

Josh 24:27  And Joshua said to all the people, "Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God."

Josh 24:28  So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.

Josh 24:29  Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being one hundred and

Josh 24:30  ten years old.    And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash.

Josh 24:31  Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the LORD which He had done for Israel.”

 

As soon as Joshua and the elders who knew him disappeared from the scene, the Israelites broke the promise they made to him and the Covenant they made with God.  It was a habit that would remain with them to the present time, keeping promises when it suited them, and going their own ways when it didn’t. 

They behaved exactly the same way with Jesus Christ too.  They rejected His Messiahship because He would not free them from the Roman domination and would not set up ‘the Kingdom of Israel’ right then and there.  Then, when they realised what they had done, and that they were no longer the ‘chosen people’, they decided to set up their own ‘kingdom of Israel’, and make themselves ‘chosen people’.  

They had been fighting for that dream for two thousand years.  They thought that they had accomplished it in Soviet Russia, but instead they created an atheist hell on earth.     

Now there is a problem with including Russia among the descendants of Israel.  (Certainly not all people of the Russian Federation are descendants of Israel; only those of European Russia, and most likely not all of them either).  The problem comes in relation with the prophecy about “ Jacob’s trouble”. 

 

Jer 30:7  “Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob's trouble, But he shall be saved out of it.”

 

It used to be generally assumed among those who dabbled in biblical prophecies that the Great Tribulation would pit the descendants of Jacob against the Gentile world.  But if Russia is included among the Israelites, this can no longer be the case.  Rather, what now appears more and more likely is that the Great Tribulation will pit some tribes of Israel against other tribes of Israel that have allied themselves with the Gentile world.  More precisely, the tribes that came out of Joseph, which have inherited Jacob primogeniture blessings, and on which Jacob put his name – the Anglo-Saxons – plus Judah who inherited the spiritual sceptre, will find themselves facing the other tries of Israel and the rest of the world.  In other words, that awesome end time conflict will be a repeat on a larger scale of what happened in ancient world when Joseph’s brothers ganged up against him and sold him into Egyptian Slavery.  The outcome however, though painful on all sides, will be quite different this time, for God says that Jacob will be saved out of it”, which He does not says of any other nation.         

This however still does not quite answers our question about the place in prophecy of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Since many of Russia’s leaders and people are of Israelite stock, it is not unreasonable, indeed it is prophetically imperative, that we regard Russia as an Israelite nation or dominion.  When we do that, a whole new prophetic world opens before our eyes.  In particular, it is the seventy years of communist rule that send us to prophecies that could not have been fulfilled at any time in history.           

But before we look at those prophecies, we need some important clarifications.  Virtually all biblical prophecies have dual fulfilments:  a minor and immediate one, and a major and more distant one.  Names such as Chaldea, Babylon, Tyre, etc., which can easily be identified in their ancient context, often become ruses in future fulfilments.  For example, Babylon has long since disappeared from the face of the earth, yet the most prophetic book of the Bible, the Revelation, speaks of a Babylon the Mother of Harlots as an entity at the very end time.  Similarly Tyre, a prosperous city on the East Mediterranean coast in ancient times, has long since vanished from history, yet the king of Tyre is supposed to lead a rebellion against God to the very end time.  

If one were to take these terms literally, he would be searching forever for Chaldea, Babylon, Tyre, and others, which are no longer on the scene but which feature prominently in prophecies that lead to the very end time.  All these terms need to be placed in prophetic and historic contexts that are quite different from the ones tat may appear at first sight.  Even ‘Jerusalem’ could mean more than the capital of Judea, often incorporating Jews who lived in territories outside Judea.

Without accepting the principle of duality in the Bible, one would never be able to understand its prophecies.  For example, we have the Old Testament and the New Testament; the first Adam – a fallen man and the second Adam – a saving One; the Devil versus Christ, an earthly Kingdom and an heavenly Kingdom of God; earthly Jerusalem versus heavenly Jerusalem, and so on. 

Another point to be remembered when discussing biblical prophecies, is that the term ‘end time’ could mean up to a century or more.  For us that may seem quite a long time, but in God’s scheme of things it is but a drop in the ocean.      

It is a specific prophetic and historical context that identifies and determines when a prophecy is being fulfilled.   With these in mind we can now look at some of the prophecies that speak of a seventy year period that can only refer to communist Russia.  

 

Isa 23:15  Now it shall come to pass in that day that Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king.  At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot:

Isa 23:16  "Take a harp, go about the city, You forgotten harlot; Make sweet melody, sing many songs, That you may be remembered."  

Isa 23:17  And it shall be, at the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre.  She will return to her hire, and commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.

 

The mention of seventy years would make little sense if applied to the ancient city by that name because Tyre existed for far longer than seventy years.  Rather, this prophecy could only refer to an easily identifiable period in history, and we can think of no other time in which this seventy years period could apply.  Since we are now coming to the wrapping up of all prophecies, there could never be a time when this prophecy could be fulfilled in the future either.   Moreover, since elsewhere in the Bible the king of Tyre stands for the Devil and his rebellion against God, it is only fitting that the seventy year period of communist Russia be identified with the Devils rule on earth.  After all, what was the Soviet Union if not a demonic rebellion against God?

The  term ‘in that day’ confirms that this prophecy takes us to the end time or close to it, for that is the time of God’s vengeance upon a wayward world, the time of the Great Tribulation.  The world has been in the preceding stages to that catastrophe ever since the Soviet Union collapsed. Is it not remarkable that that coincided with the beginning of the work of restoration of the long lost Gospel of Jesus Christ?   Now back to Isaiah.   

 

Isa 24:2  “And it shall be: As with the people, so with the priest; As with the servant, so with his master; As with the maid, so with her mistress; As with the buyer, so with the seller; As with the lender, so with the borrower; As with the creditor, so with the debtor.

Isa 24:3  The land shall be entirely emptied and utterly plundered, For the LORD has spoken this word.

Isa 24:4  The earth mourns and fades away, The world languishes and fades away; The haughty people of the earth languish.

Isa 24:5  The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, Because they have transgressed the laws, Changed the ordinance, Broken the everlasting covenant.  

Isa 24:6  Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, And those who dwell in it are desolate. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, And few men are left.”

 

The prophecy began with Tyre, then it shifted to the “people of the earth”.   Now notice something quite extraordinary.  The earth mourns and fades away because “they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.   Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell in it are desolate. therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, And few men are left.”  

Who has broken the covenant?  The Israelites, yet the whole world suffers as a result of it.  Why? Because the Covenant was not only for the Israelites, but for the entire world.  That is why we keep on telling people that they must keep the Commandments of God, because these were not only for ancient Israel, but for the whole world, and for all time.   

 

Isa 24:19  “The earth is violently broken, The earth is split open, The earth is shaken exceedingly.

Isa 24:20  The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, And shall totter like a hut; Its transgression shall be heavy upon it,

Isa 24:21  And it will fall, and not rise again.  It shall come to pass in that day That the LORD will punish on high the host of exalted ones, And on the earth the kings of the earth.

 

Now why would the Lord punish the exalted ones and the kings of the earth in that day?  Revelation tells us why.   

 

Rev 16:13  And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of

Rev 16:14  the mouth of the false prophet.   For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

 

Instead of being happy that their Savior is coming to fix this world and set up a righteous Kingdom, the “kings of the earth” are planing to fight him at his return.  Not just some but all of them.  Bear in mind that in the Bible all leaders are referred to as kings.  And why would  they fight  Christ at His return?  Because they have been deceived by a certain “Babylon, the Mother of Harlots”.    

 

Rev 17:1  Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, 

Rev 17:2  with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication."

Rev 17:3  So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

Rev 17:4  The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication.

Rev 17:5  And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Rev 17:6  I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marvelled with great amazement.

 

Isn’t it extraordinary?  Instead of being happy that the Savior of the world is coming, the Mother of Harlots gathers up the kings of the earth to fight Him.  And they meekly follow her.  

When we sent our magazines to world leaders warning them of this fact, many of them made their way to the Vatican, seeking the Pope’s blessings, and showing us exactly what they think of us.  So did our Queen - Elizabeth II, our Prime Minister - John Howard, and President Bush of the USA, the three important personalities that play such important roles in the prophecies of our time. 

The question is, how are all those kings going to fight Jesus Christ at His return?  They are unlikely to take arms to fight Him in the air before He lands on Mount Zion, though given their madness they may well try to do that too, but they will fight Him by sending out the message that He is not wanted and not welcomed.  They do that by worshiping a false god, and by following an idolatrous religion that presents a carved image, an abominable idol, as their saviour.  And they happily approve of it and embrace that false religion.               

Anyone who is not observing the Sabbaths, the Holy Days and the Commandments of God, and not living according with the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, is an enemy of God and of Jesus Christ.  

 

Rev 12:17  And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

 

Rev 17:18  "And the woman [the Mother of Harlots] whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth."

Rev 18:1  After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. 

Rev 18:2  And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!

Rev 18:3  "For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury."

Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.  

Rev 18:5  "For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

Rev 18:6  "Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her.  

Rev 18:7  "In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, 'I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.'

Rev 18:8  "Therefore her plagues will come in one day; death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

Rev 18:9  "The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, 

Rev 18:10  standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, 'Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.'” 

 

Now notice a parallelism between Isaiah’s and Mathew’s prophecies, how they both lead to the Great Tribulation. 

 

Isa 24:22  They will be gathered together, As prisoners are gathered in the pit, And will be shut up in the prison; After many days they will be punished.  

Isa 24:23  Then the moon will be disgraced And the sun ashamed; For the LORD of hosts will reign On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem And before His elders, gloriously.”

 

Mat 24:29  "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Mat 24:30  "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

 

When we go to Jeremiah, the other major prophet of the Bible, we also find prophecies that have an immediate fulfilment and a distant one.  Once again, names that were real in ancient time, become allegorical in future fulfilments.    

 

Jer 25:4  "And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. 

Jer 25:5  "They said, 'Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. 

Jer 25:6  'Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.'

Jer 25:7  "Yet you have not listened to Me," says the LORD, "that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. 

Jer 25:8   "Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Because you have not heard My words, 'behold,  I will send and take all the families of the north,' says the LORD, 'and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon,

Jer 25:9   My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations.  

 

The families of the north are real, but “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon”, like the ‘king of Tyre’, are allegorical and stand for the Devil.  The Devil, of course, works through the agency of human beings.  Once again, what we have here are the horrors of communism and of the shambles that came of it.  Let us not forget that ever since he came to power, Putin has been doing his best to return Russia to the ‘glorious times’ of communism.  It is opposition to this trend that will result in the world exploding into the end time worldwide devastation.   We are now in the preparatory stages for that calamitous event. 

 

Jer 25:10  'Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.

Jer 25:11  'And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.’  

Jer 25:12  Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,' says the LORD; 'and I will make it a perpetual desolation.

Jer 25:13  'So I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations.

Jer 25:14  '(For many nations and great kings shall be served by them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)'"

Jer 25:15  For thus says the LORD God of Israel to me: "Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it.  

Jer 25:16  "And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them."

Jer 25:17  Then I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the LORD had sent me:

Jer 25:18  Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day;  

Jer 25:19  Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes, and all his people;

Jer 25:20  all the mixed multitude, all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the land of the Philistines (namely, Ashkelon, Gaza,

Jer 25:21  Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod);  Edom, Moab, and the people of Ammon;

Jer 25:22  all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands which are across the sea;

Jer 25:23  Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who are in the farthest corners;

Jer 25:24  all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mixed multitude who dwell in the desert;

Jer 25:25  all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes;  all the kings of the north,

Jer 25:26  far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth.

 

All nations that were subjugated by communism suffered grievously,  but all the kingdoms of the world were terrified by that subversive ideology.  They all drunk from “Nebuchadnezzar’s” cup whether they liked it or not.  

 

Jer 25:27  "Therefore you shall say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Drink, be drunk, and vomit! Fall and rise

Jer 25:28  no more, because of the sword which I will send among you."   '"And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "You shall certainly drink!

Jer 25:29  "For behold, I begin to bring calamity on the city which is called by My name, and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth," says the LORD of hosts.'

 

A sword on all inhabitants of the earth will occur only once, just prior to the return of Jesus Christ during the Great Tribulation.  This is why this prophecy is more about our time than about the ancient time when it had only a minor fulfilment.   It is a prophecy that takes us beyond the seventy years of communism, to the very end of this age.       

 

Jer 25:30  "Therefore prophesy against them all these words, and say to them: 'The LORD will roar from on high, And utter His voice from His holy habitation; He will roar mightily against His fold. He will give a shout, as those who tread the grapes, Against all the inhabitants of the earth.  

Jer 25:31 A noise will come to the ends of the earth; For the LORD has a controversy with the nations; He will plead His case with all flesh. He will give those who are wicked to the sword,' says the LORD."

Jer 25:32  Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Behold, disaster shall go forth From nation to nation, And a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the farthest parts of the earth. 

Jer 25:33  "And at that day the slain of the LORD shall be from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or buried; they shall become refuse on the ground.

 

The term ‘the furthest parts of the earth’, needs no further explanation.  The question is, why would all those people become refuse on the earth instead of being lamented and buried?  The answer is rather obvious: there will be no one, or too few people, to lament for them and bury them.  It will be a devastation the likes of which the world had never seen.   

 

Mat 24:20  "And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.   "For then there will be great tribulation,

Mat 24:21  such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.

Mat 24:22  "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.

 

Now finally a prophecy from Zechariah which complements those of Isaiah and Jeremiah, but which brings us some good news too.       

 

Zec 1:3  "Therefore say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Return to Me," says the LORD of hosts, "and I will return to you," says the LORD of hosts. 

Zec 1:4  "Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds." ' But they did not hear nor heed Me," says the LORD.

Zec 1:5  "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?   Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers?

Zec 1:6  "So they returned and said: 'Just as the LORD of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us.'" ' "

Zec 1:7  On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet:

Zec 1:8  I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow; and behind him were horses: red, sorrel, and white.

Zec 1:9  Then I said, "My lord, what are these?" So the angel who talked with me said to me, "I will show you what they are."

Zec 1:10  And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, "These are the ones whom the LORD has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth."

Zec 1:11  So they answered the Angel of the LORD, who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, "We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is resting quietly."

Zec 1:12  Then the Angel of the LORD answered and said, "O LORD of hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were angry these seventy years?"

Zec 1:13  And the LORD answered the angel who talked to me, with good and comforting words.

Zec 1:14  So the angel who spoke with me said to me, "Proclaim, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "I am zealous for Jerusalem And for Zion with great zeal.

Zec 1:15  I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease; For I was a little angry, And they helped; but with evil intent."

Zec 1:16  'Therefore thus says the LORD: "I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy; My house shall be built in it," says the LORD of hosts, "And a surveyor's line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem."'

 

The rebuilding of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah after the seventy years of Babylonian captivity was only minor.  This future “seventy years” prophecy was not about Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, which have been under God’s curse not for seventy years now but for two millennia, but for the cities and people that have been under Jewish domination for seventy years during their ill conceived atheist empire. 

Is it not remarkable that while millions of people have been decimated under that tyrannical atheist ideology, the Jews themselves suffered their greatest calamity ever, the Holocaust, elsewhere in Europe?   As God says, what you do to others it shall be done to you.  But of course this is terribly ‘politically incorrect’, and no Jew would admit to that. 

Or would they?  Unless they admit and repent of the horrors they have brought upon the world through their disdain for the Covenant of God and their ill conceived communist ‘utopia’ on earth they too will perish during the Great Tribulation, just like the nations that would come against them.  Enough of them have turned to Jesus Christ to enable the remaining promises made by God to the patriarchs of old to be fulfilled as stated.   

The Bible says that when they are brought back from Diaspora they would be blessed and protected by God. Well, back they have been brought, but blessed and protected they have not been.   Why?   Because when they came back they were supposed to repent, admit their mistakes, turn to God in heartfelt repentance, and to the One they have foolishly pierced.  

 

Zec 12:8  "In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the LORD before them.

Zec 12:9  "It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

Zec 12:10  "And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.

 

The fact that the Jews have not reached this point yet is no reason for anyone to turn against them, for as the Scriptures make it clear, God is the final arbiter of all that is happening in the world.   Like other people, they have merely fulfilled the role assigned to them from above.  Although they have caused untold sufferings to others, they themselves have suffered more than enough. 

People should never forget what Jesus Christ, who once said that they were children of the Devil, also prayed as He was giving up Hid Spirit:  “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." (Luke 23:34).  Earlier He also said: 

 

Mat 7:1  "Judge not, that you be not judged.

Mat 7:2  "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

 

As Jesus Christ would have said, go and do likewise. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The Benefits Of Meditation, But Which Meditation?

 

Meditation seems to be the buzz word these days: Buddhist meditation, Hindu meditation, Shinto meditation, yoga meditation, whichever way meditation – all meditations according to eastern religions.  These kind of meditations are spreading like bush fire in the West, all promising peace of mind on earth and happiness in heaven.   

There is no doubt that meditation could be beneficial to people’s health, but it has to be the right kind of meditation for it could also be very harmful.  All meditations have religious undertones, and this where major problems arise, and where the differences between eastern and western meditations become important.  For while both seek to slow down the mind and clear it of troublesome thoughts, what they promise in regard to the ultimate destiny of life and soul is very different and very dangerous for the people of God.

Salvation in Buddhism means reaching Nirvana – a state of nothingness where all thoughts are extinguished and all memory is lost.  Nirvana is achieved by meditating oneself to extinction – emptying the mind of everything, and leaving behind a shell that is aware of nothing but the immediate environment – a walking corpse, in other words. It is not for nothing that Buddhists feel best when they can meditate in cemeteries.    But, like in all other religions, over time a huge gap has developed between Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist practice.  While telling their followers that there is no God, they encourage them to worship the Buddha and seek their fortune in idolatry, stargazing and witchcraft.  Idols of the Buddha, the stars, and the spirits of witches, have become the new gods in Buddhism.  But what does the Bible, the Word of the true God, says? 

 

Isa 47:12  "Stand now with your enchantments And the multitude of your sorceries, In which you have laboured from your youth;

Isa 47:13  Perhaps you will be able to profit, perhaps you will prevail.  You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, And the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from what shall come upon you.

Isa 47:14  Behold, they shall be as stubble, The fire shall burn them; They shall not deliver themselves From the power of the flame; It shall not be a coal to be warmed by, nor a fire to sit before!”

   

God was addressing the people of Israel in this passage, but we know that the Bible is a book for the whole world, especially since the New Testament.  Jesus Christ is a Savior of the whole world, and that is why He sent His followers to make disciples of all nations.  

 

Mat 28:18  And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  "Go therefore

Mat 28:19  and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Mat 28:20  "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

 

 Having refused the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit that comes with it, the Jews have made themselves easy prays for eastern demagogues.  They have one of the highest percentages of people who fall victims to eastern religions’ idolatrous philosophies.    

By comparison, Christian meditation, does not seek salvation through emptying one’s mind of everything, or salvation through idols, stargazing and witchcraft.  Christian meditation aims to slow down a troubled mind and replace harmful thoughts with calming beneficial ones.  This is achieved by meditating on the Law of God, on aspects of creation, and on the purpose of human life.  Salvation means attaining the mind of God, expanding one’s consciousness to the consciousness of God, being at peace with God, the self, and the universe.  That cannot be achieved through an empty mind, by separating oneself from God and His creation.  All things have been made for Him and through Him.  

 

John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:2  He was in the beginning with God.

John 1:3  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

John 1:4  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John 1:5  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

 

Rom 11:34  "For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?"

Rom 11:35  "Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?"

Rom 11:36  For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

 

God did not create the universe and the human mind in their wondrous complexity, only to have them annihilated in wilful acts of self immolation.  Denying the existence of God means denying the existence of the self.  Which explains why Buddhists, who say that there is no God, end up seeking salvation in death and thought annihilation.  Which explains also why people who deny God, or act contrary to His life giving laws, have aimless troubled minds and lives. 

Proper meditation leads not only to peaceful and contented minds and souls, but to prosperity and success in life, the very things that are shied away by eastern philosophies, which teach that life is sorrow and misery.   Life is what you make of it: sorrow and misery, or blessing and happiness.   This is what proper meditation is all about, and what it should lead to.

 

 Josh 1:8  "This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

 

Psa 119:97  Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

Psa 119:98  You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me.

Psa 119:99  I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.

Psa 119:100  I understand more than the ancients, Because I keep Your precepts.

Psa 119:103  How sweet are Your words to my taste, Sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psa 119:104  Through Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.

 

Psa 119:12  “Blessed are You, O LORD! Teach me Your statutes!

Psa 119:15  I will meditate on Your precepts, And contemplate Your ways.

Psa 119:16  I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.

 

Psa 1:1  Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the

Psa 1:2  scornful;  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.

Psa 1:3  He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither;

Psa 1:4  And whatever he does shall prosper.  The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Psa 1:5  Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

Psa 1:6  For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

 

People often speak with glee of the immediate benefits of eastern meditation, without realising where it all leads to if carried to its ultimate goal.  By contrast, there are no hidden dangers in Christian meditation, only benefits all around.     

Meditation outside of God’s realm is dangerous because it lets people believe that they can obtain happiness without God, through their own singular efforts.   Christian meditation serves double purpose: harmonious and happy existence in this world, and salvation in the next.  

Christian meditation can be done individually or in groups.  It can be done at home – meditating on the Word of God; in nature – meditating on the unfathomable riches and beauty of God’s creation; listening to a soothing piece of music, travelling, and even working.    The Apostles of Jesus Christ spoke about the beneficial effects of meditation in combination with prayer, supplication and thanksgiving.   

 

Phil 4:4  “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

Phil 4:5  Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.  Be anxious for nothing,

Phil 4:6  but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the

Phil 4:7  peace of God,  which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally,

Phil 4:8  brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy; meditate on these things. 

Phil 4:9  The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”

 

1 Tim 4:8  For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that

1 Tim 4:9  which is to come.  This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance.

1 Tim 4:14  Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership.

1 Tim 4:15  Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.   Take heed

1 Tim 4:16  to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.

 

What wonderful benefits Christian meditation can bring to one’s life:  peace of mind, prosperity, success, wisdom, and, ultimately, salvation.   No contest! 

 

 

 

 

 

                 Crying Aloud In A ‘Wilderness’ Of People

 

                                                                                "Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people

                                                                                their  transgression,  And  the  house  of  Jacob  their  sins.”  (Isa 58:1). 

 

It has fallen to us, people of little significance, of another country and another tongue, to cry aloud the sins of these people and warn them of the consequences of their wayward ways.  As the Scriptures say:

 

Isa 28:9  "Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts?

Isa 28:10  For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little."

Isa 28:11  For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, To whom He said,

Isa 28:12  "This is the rest with which You may cause the weary to rest," And, "This is the refreshing"; Yet they would not hear.

Isa 28:13  But the word of the LORD was to them, "Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little," That they might go and fall backward, and be broken And snared and caught.

Isa 28:14  Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scornful men, Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,

Isa 28:15  Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, It will not come to us, For we have made lies our refuge, And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves."

Isa 28:16  Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a

Isa 28:17  sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.   Also I will make justice the measuring line, And righteousness the plummet; The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, And the waters will overflow the hiding place.

Isa 28:18  Your covenant with death will be annulled, And your agreement with Sheol will not stand; When the overflowing scourge passes through, Then you will be trampled down by it.”

 

Now there is no doubt that Jesus Christ was the precious cornerstone “Foundation” who will make justice the measuring  line and sweep away the refuge of lies, but He was neither of another tongues nor of stammering lips. 

On the other hand, neither myself nor my companion in this work are native English speakers, nor are we particularly good at public speaking.  Only God knows how much we have been struggling with this work, and how much we wished we had someone to at least do the proofreading for us, but we haven’t had that person, nor could we afford it.  And yet, we have done a work that was sorely needed in the world, one that does not resemble anything in the world at present, and one which has reached far and wide.     

 What is even more extraordinary is that this work is being done by people who received an atheist education in their formative years, both of us having spent the first decades of our lives in communist Romania. Our experiences from those early years gave us the strength to cope with the trials that the work of God would inevitably draw from a world full of unbelievers.   We both put our lives in danger when we escaped from one of the most totalitarian regimes this world has ever seen, none of us having any idea at that time that we would end our days working for God.  

Our primary mission has been to the English speaking people, but because this has coincided with astonishing advances in technology we found it easy to extend this work to the whole world.  We are happy to see that even without engaging ourselves in paid advertising we have managed to make this work known “as a witness” to the furthest corners of the earth.   Some people may wonder what we mean by the words “as a witness”.   Well, there are myriads of missionaries out there in the world, seeking converts and preaching all kinds of gospels to gullible people, but there are no reference points by which people may judge whether what they are being preached is right or not.  Now they can do so by referring to The Christian Herald, for just because someone is reading from the Bible does not necessarily mean that what he is preaching is right.  Our magazines are free and easily accessible to everyone who is interested in them.  We witness the original Gospel of Jesus Christ that has become lost in the course of time.   

It was our heavenly Father’s decision to make His Word understandable only to those who gained merit by virtue of an honest quest for truth and righteousness, and to seal it from those who did not deserve to understand it, those who turned it into a commercial venture.   As Jesus said:

 

Mat 11:25  At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.

Mat 11:26  "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”        

 

We have done our very best to make it easy for people to compare what people preach with what the Bible says.  We have been supporting our viewpoints with heavy scriptural quotations.   We have found that what churches and religions are preaching these days is in large measure not true.

At no time in history were these words of Apostle Paul more appropriate than they are now. 

 

2 Cor 11:4  “For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted; you may well put up with it!

2 Cor 11:5  For I consider that I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles.  Even though I am untrained in speech,

2 Cor 11:6  yet I am not in knowledge.  But we have been thoroughly manifested among you in all things.

2 Cor 11:7  Did I commit sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge?”

2 Cor 11:12  But what I do, I will also continue to do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast.

2 Cor 11:13  For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.

2 Cor 11:14  And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.  Therefore it is no great thing if his

2 Cor 11:15  ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

 

2 Cor 11:19  For you put up with fools gladly, since you yourselves are wise!  For you put up with it if one brings you into bondage,

2 Cor 11:20  if one devours you, if one takes from you, if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face.

2 Cor 11:21  To our shame, I say that we were too weak for that! But in whatever anyone is bold; I speak foolishly; I am bold also.

 

2 Cor 11:29  Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?

2 Cor 11:30  If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.

2 Cor 11:31  The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.”

 

2 Cor 13:5  “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is

2 Cor 13:6  in you? Unless indeed you are disqualified.  But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.”

 

How many times have you heard preachers tell their listeners to examine themselves in order to find out whether they are in the faith or not?  How can one find that one out?  By the standards of the Scriptures!  There is no other way by which people may know whether they are in the faith or not than by studying the Scriptures.   You may seek help, you may read what other peoples write, but in the final analysis unless you take your destiny in your own hands, unless you check it out in the Scriptures for yourself, you will not make it into the Kingdom of God.  Those who think that one can distinguish between true and false preachers just by listening to them will almost certainly end up becoming victims of a cruel deception. 

It is not for nothing that Apostle Paul warned people to beware of false preachers who transform themselves into ministers of Christ, who present the Devil as a minister of righteousness.  Do you know any of them?  Of course you don’t.  If you knew you would not attend their churches.  Or do you think that such people cry aloud that they are false preachers, that they preach Satan instead of Christ, that theirs is a false gospel which leads to perdition rather than salvation?  

It is everyone’s duty to “test the spirits” to find out whether they are true or false, whether they are of God or of the Devil.  The spirits, good or bad, work through human beings, through our feelings and actions towards others.  

 

1 John 2:9  “He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now.

1 John 2:10  He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

1 John 2:11  But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

1 John 3:15  Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

 

1 John 4:15  Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

1 John 4:16  And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God,

1 John 4:17  and God in him.  Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.

1 John 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been

1 John 4:19  made perfect in love.  We love Him because He first loved us.

1 John 4:20  If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

1 John 4:21  And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

1 John 5:1  Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is

1 John 5:2  begotten of Him.  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.

1 John 5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”

 

Here we have three tests by which people may know if they are approved by God.  The first one is the test of love.  Those who hold grudges, who are short tempered,  who cannot forgive, who do not love their neighbours as themselves, who do not love even their enemies, who cannot say ‘I am sorry’ when making mistakes, are not approved by God.  And if one is not approved By God he cannot be saved.           

One should always remember the example of Jesus Christ.  As He was dying on the cross, He looked at those who were rejoicing at His feet and casting lots for His clothes, and said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” (Luke 23:34).   Do you think that you suffered a greater loss than Jesus Christ?  If you did not, why can’t you forgive them and ask the Father to forgive them too?  When you do that, you may or may not help them much, but you will certainly do yourself a lot of good.  A positive, loving and forgiving frame of mind works wonder upon your own body and psyche.  It heals you and helps you live a happier, longer, and more fulfilled life.        

Now to the second test: “ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”    Without acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior no one can be saved.  That requires faith, and faith comes from the Scriptures.     

 

Rom 10:17  So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

 

And the third test that came out of these Scriptures:  “this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments”. 

The Commandments of God are the surest standard and most visible test by which people may determine whether they are being preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ or some other concoction.  (See The Christian Herald No 11, for further details on this topic).  

This then has been the purpose of this work from the very beginning – to offer people an honest guide on their road to salvation.

Now it is an extraordinary trait of human nature that when offered something good and particularly useful for salvation, to receive it with a great deal of cynicism and suspicion.  Although thousands upon thousands of people have availed themselves of our services, and an increasing number continue to do so through our web site, no one has taken the plunge to join us in this work.  We knew that this would be the case and said so in more than one edition of this magazine.  How did we know it?  Because we saw that this work fit into a specific prophecy.   The Bible told us that those who would be engaged in it would have to do it alone to the very end.       

Now even though we knew this fact very well, we were still amazed to see that people who started a religious work at about the same time, whose gospels are demonstrably false, who put heavy burdens upon their followers, have been surging ahead in leaps and bounds, having amassed great wealth and large following by now, yet we are still in the same condition that we started with.   Now what does that tell you about human nature?         

Other churches and their preachers would have been mortified to admit that they were so spectacularly unsuccessful, yet we not only did not keep this a secret, but let the whole world know of our predicament.  Why?  As a witness, and because this confirms our bona fides. 

Knowing what the Scriptures say abut this work, we wrote years ago that if a single person converted to our religion and became a genuine follower of us, we would not be whom we say we are.  There was plenty of time for the world to prove us wrong, yet it did not happen.  No one has joined us, and no one has lend us a helping hand, even though we have exhausted ourselves trying to bring people to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, giving little heed to what that might mean for us if our prediction proved wrong.    

Now what shall we say or do about that?  Shall we be terribly heartbroken about it, or rather should we say:  

 

                                                Thank you world for making us who we are!”

 

 

 

 

 

               The Secret to Unveiling the Book of Revelation  

 

When we announced in our last edition that we intended to unveil the mysteries of the book of Revelation, a new wave of sermons about that book took to the air from our nemesis.   They were determined to leave nothing for us to talk about that they have not already covered.  We were quite happy for them to do that, and they did not disappoint us.

As we expected, as biblical scholars have done for ages, when they talk about the book of Rev elation they begin with the so-called “four horsemen of the Apocalypse.”   It suits them well, for those horsemen are usually accompanied by frightening scenarios that send shivers through the hearts of those who watch them.  Nothing pleases preachers more than to keep their followers on their toes and ask for more of the same.  They are good at that, for there is plenty of it in the Bible, but what they are not so good at is placing them in their proper historical setting, in the context of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Apocalypse is the Greek name for the book of Revelation, except that in the course of time the term ‘Apocalypse’ has acquired some sinister end time connotations.  Not long ago, there was a film called ‘Apocalypse Now’, which is still being shown on our screens from time to time.  They used the Greek term for it instead of its English counterpart for its suggestive end time sinister scenarios.  Imagine the effect it might have had if they had called it, ‘Revelation Now.’  Not only would it not have stirred people’s interest, but it would have caused them to run away for it would have implied serious biblical staff.   

Now there is no question that the four horsemen of Revelation convey a frightening scenario.  What is under question is when are they supposed to made their presence in the world. 

Modern theologians who have written or spoken about them, have either placed them in an indeterminate future, or in not very convincing scenarios in connection with the two World Wars and the Cold War, and more recently with Islamic terrorism.  In plain words, what they have offered us is nothing but unsubstantiated guesswork. 

Decades ago, when I used to be a member of the Worldwide Church of God, its leader, the late Herbert W Armstrong, used to say that ninety percent of biblical prophecies are yet to be fulfilled, a theme which has been take by his disciples and still being preached these days. 

What I could not understand then was how on earth could he possibly know that?  I resolved that mystery only recently when those who have been trained in his school of thought said the same thing in connection with ‘four horsemen of Apocalypse.  You see, if those horsemen are yet to make their presence in the world,  or if they have struck only in recent times, then indeed the vast majority of Bible’s prophecies are yet to be fulfilled.  That is because from chapter six of Revelation, when the horsemen make their presence, to the end of it there are sixteen more chapters, all full of prophecies. 

 

That raises another question: why would God put so much importance on the last few years of this age and treat the whole of past history as if were just an appendage.  The truth is He hasn’t.  All of mankind’s history has been important, and all of it has been permeated with prophetic meanings and outcomes.  The best example is offered by none other than these four horsemen.

Just because something has been revealed in the last book of the Bible does not mean that those events are to take place in the last years of history.  We should never forget how prophecy has been written.     

 

Isa 28:9  "Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts?

Isa 28:10  For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little."

Isa 28:11  For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people,

Isa 28:12  To whom He said, "This is the rest with which You may cause the weary to rest," And, "This is the refreshing"; Yet they would not hear.  

Isa 28:13  But the word of the LORD was to them, "Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little," That they might go and fall backward, and be broken And snared and caught.

Isa 28:14  Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scornful men, Who rule this people . . . “  

 

Who is to fall back and be caught and be snared and broken? Not God’s true servants, but scornful men who rule their people with cruelty.  Contrast this with what God says abut His true prophets. 

 

Amos 3:7  “Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”

 

We once said that virtually everything that people have written about the book of Revelation is wrong.  Now how could we have known that?  Have we read and assessed everything that people have written about that book?  No!  We have read a lot, but by no means all of it.  Then how did we know it?   We knew it from this.  

 

Rev 10:5  “The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven

Rev 10:6  and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer,

Rev 10:7  but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.”

 

If what people have written about this book were right, the mystery of God would have been finished, the end would have arrived, Jesus Christ would have returned to this earth, and the world would be now in the Millennial Kingdom. 

But the mystery of God has not been finished and none of those things have occurred, therefore those writings could not have been right.  Indeed, what we have read about this book is so far off the mark, so speculative, as to render them worse than useless. That is why we suggested that people gather them together and make them ready for a good bonfire. 

The biggest mistake people make when talking about Revelation is to assume that this book is about the history of the world since the time of Jesus Christ to the end of time.  Nothing could be further from the truth.   Revelation encapsulates the entire history of the world, from creation to the end of time, as we shall prove.  Let us go directly to chapter six.

 

Rev 6:1  “Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, "Come and see."

Rev 6:2  And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. 

Rev 6:3  When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, "Come and see."  Another horse, fiery red, went out.

Rev 6:4  And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword.  When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say,

Rev 6:5  "Come and see." So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.

Rev 6:6  And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine."

Rev 6:7  When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come and see."

Rev 6:8  So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”

 

This is only the first half of this chapter.  As you can see, it deals with the four horsemen.  This is all one can find in the Bible about these creatures, yet they have fired peoples imagination perhaps more than any other prophetic event.          

Now, there is general agreement among biblical scholars that the first horse, the white one, represents spiritual deception.  Under him, people were conquered and dominated through false religious dogmas.   

The second horse, the red one, represents war among nations.  

The third horse,  the black one, represents famine and starvation. 

And the fourth, the pale horse, is a culmination and combination of all of the above: religious strife, wars, hunger, epidemics, pestilences, earthquakes, etc.  Not too dissimilar from what we see in the word at present.  In fact this is what has derailed many biblical scholars who have tried to fit those horsemen into our contemporary history.  The problem is, this prophecy does not describe our own time.   The time of this prophecy is being revealed in the second part of this chapter.   

 

Rev 6:9  When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the

Rev 6:10  testimony which they held.  And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"

Rev 6:11  Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

Rev 6:12  I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood.

Rev 6:13  And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.

Rev 6:14  Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.

Rev 6:15  And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks,

Rev 6:16  "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!  

Rev 6:17  "For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

 

When would ‘the great day of God’s wrath’ come upon this world other than at the end time? 

The term “the great day of the Lord”, is found many times in the Old Testament.  Almost in every case it refers to the end time Great Tribulation.  Chapter six, however, cannot possibly refer to that event for the following reasons.       

1) Between chapter six and the end of Revelation there are sixteen chapters of major prophetic developments.  If the Great Tribulation comes as early as chapter six, when would the other prophecies of Revelation be fulfilled? 

2) The wording between these expressions is somewhat different:  ‘the great day of His wrath’ versus ‘the great day of the Lord’.  That may appear a minor nominal differences, but in biblical prophecies nothing is minor.  Let us compare verses 12 – 16 of this prophecy with Matthew’s prophecy about the end time Great Tribulation.  See if you can tell the difference.

 

Mat 24:29  "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Mat 24:30  "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.  "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet,

Mat 24:31  and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

 

Did you notice any differences?  A casual reading of it could hardly reveal any, but look at the timing.  In Revelation chapter six all of those events are in the past tense:  ‘there was a great earthquake’,  ‘the sun became black as sackcloth’, ‘the moon became like blood’,  the stars of heaven fell to the earth’, ‘the sky receded’, and ‘every mountain and island was moved out of its place’, whereas in Matthew’s prophecy all of these events are all in the future: ‘there will be great tribulation’,  ‘the sun will be darkened’, ‘the moon will not give its light’, ‘the stars will fall from heaven’, and so on.               

So when could Revelation chapter six have occurred, if not in the future?  Only one time in history has the world been turned up side down in that manner, and that was at the Flood of Noah.  Let us have a brief look at it. 

 

Gen 7:11  "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Gen 7:12  And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

Gen 7:24  And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.

Gen 8:1  Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided.

Gen 8:2  The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.”

 

Add to this Revelation 6:12-17 and you get the full picture.   Here it that account again. 

 

Rev 6:12  “I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood.

Rev 6:13  And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.

Rev 6:14  Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.

Rev 6:15  And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks,

Rev 6:16  "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!  

Rev 6:17  "For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

 

Chapter six gives us in prophetic terms the history of the world from creation to the Flood of Noah.  The four horsemen tell us what occurred in the world during that time.  This is the secret to unveiling the book of Revelation. 

People have been thrown off the track by the events described in Rev. 6:1 and 6:9 – 11. Here is the first verse again.     

 

Rev 6:1  “Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, "Come and see."

 

It is a well known fact that ‘the Lamb’ could only refer to Jesus Christ.   What is not so well know is that from the time of Adam and Eve people knew that a ‘Lamb’ would come to save the world from its sins.  They did not know under what name He would come, and that is why for a long time they only referred to Him as the ‘Lamb’, and not as Jesus Christ.

Leaving aside the first chapter of Revelation which merely sets the stage for Jesus’ revelation of this book to Apostle John, the name ‘Jesus Christ’ appears for the first time in chapter twelve, which is fitting for it is only in that chapter that we come to the historical context of the New Testament.  

Now let us look at the second case that has thrown theologians off the track. 

 

Rev 6:9  “When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the

Rev 6:10  testimony which they held.  And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"

Rev 6:11  Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.”