Apocalyptic times by whatever name

 

For the world, the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, on the 21st of April, was an unfortunate preventable catastrophe; for those in the know, it was the fulfillment of a long standing prophecy about the devastation of the fallen angel, of the bottomless pit.

 

Rev 9:1  Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit.

Rev 9:2  And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.

Rev 9:3  Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

Rev 9:4  They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

Rev 9:5  And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months.

 

You can read the rest of this prophecy in your Bible; we have spoken at large about it in previous editions. Sufficient to say here that the bottomless pit out of which arose smoke and ‘locusts’ which tormented humans but not green things refers to the oil pits and coal mines that fueled the industrial revolution beginning in mid nineteen century.  Carbon monoxide emissions from internal combustion engines and coal burning factories affect humans but not green things, which thrive on it.    

The first oil pit was dug in Texas in 1859, which means that we have just passed the one hundred and fifty years mark – the five biblical months – based on the principle of a day for a year (Ez. 4:6).  It is not a mere coincidence that this catastrophic blowout occurred near the territorial waters of the State that began this unmistakable end of the age sign.  

Add to this the myriad of “natural” signs that continue to strike the world with undiminished frequency: unprecedented floods, cyclones, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, famines, etc., and we truly have the beginning of apocalyptic times. 

What does this portend for the future?  Nothing, but more of the same; and this for a very good reason:  ever since he came to power in the leading nation of the world, we warned Barack Obama not to pursue his homosexual and abortionist agenda, for he would brink catastrophe upon his people and the world.  Now America and the world are reaping the fruits of his and his Administration’s defiance of God’s will and laws.

Nothing happens in this world without our heavenly Father’s knowledge and approval, especially when such grievous sins are concerned. 

 

Amo 3:6  If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?

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

Amo 3:8  A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken! Who can but prophesy?

  

The problem with America is not that it has no prophets, but that it has too many – of the wrong type – false prophets.  They spew their venom and spread their wings worldwide. I am sure you have them in your country, as we have them in Australia. Fortunately, more and more they are been relegated to the wee hours of the night, when only insomniacs can watch them.  People are beginning to wake up to what is really happening around them – the fact that rather than being a source of spiritual enlightenment and salvation, churches have become milking cows for a handful of “prophets” and “apostles”. 

I used to try my hardest to keep myself informed of what is happening in the religious world for the sake of my readers, but not anymore.  Now I only watch them whenever I stumble over their programs and that only for short time.  I find it impossible to watch them for much longer for the following reasons: one, because their messages tend to be the same, regardless of their denomination, and two, because they come across as exasperatedly bombastic, obnoxious, and poorly biblically informed.  

It is no wonder that their nation finds itself in such dire financial, economic, ecological and military straights.  America thinks of itself as a great superpower, and yet it cannot, or does not know how to, win a war with a poorly equipped, scattered, ragtag army, that threatens to bring it to its knees, as it did with the mighty Soviet Empire. 

Only a blind person could not see that God has turned history on its end.  America gloated that it has brought the mighty Soviet Empire to a crushing end without firing a single bullet.  Now, out of the ashes of that Empire, a mighty power arises that is returning America’s favor.  Russia is well on its way to fulfilling the end time prophecy about a ten nation colossus that will trigger the Great Tribulation. 

Our nemesis continue to preach that that power will rise in central Europe around Germany, even though we have amply proven almost two decades ago that Russia will be the centre of that power, not Germany.  And who might the other nations be?  Well, not surprisingly, yet little noticed before, Ezekiel gives us the answer.  Let us look at his prophecy.   

 

Eze 38:1  Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Eze 38:2  "Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him,

Eze 38:3  and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.

Eze 38:4  I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords.

Eze 38:5  Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet;

Eze 38:6  Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you.

Eze 38:7  "Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them.

Eze 38:8  After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely.

Eze 38:9  You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you."

Eze 38:10  'Thus says the Lord GOD: "On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan:

Eze 38:11  You will say, 'I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates'—

Eze 38:12  to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land.

Eze 38:13  Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, 'Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?' " '

Eze 38:14  "Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it?

Eze 38:15  Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.

Eze 38:16  You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes."

Eze 38:17  Thus says the Lord GOD: "Are you he of whom I have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I would bring you against them?

Eze 38:18  "And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," says the Lord GOD, "that My fury will show in My face.

Eze 38:19  For in My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath I have spoken: 'Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel,

Eze 38:20  so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.'

Eze 38:21  I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains," says the Lord GOD. "Every man's sword will be against his brother.

Eze 38:22  And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

Eze 38:23  Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD." '

 

  What nations are mentioned here?  First of all we have Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, “in the far north”. He is the centre of this alliance. This could be none other than Russia.  Then we have Persia, Ethiopia and Libya.  Persia (Iran) and Libya are well known for their anti-West pro Russian attitude.  As far as Ethiopia is concerned, although nominally a democracy, in reality it is still very much a nation with a communist dictatorship. Its “democratic” elections were nothing but a sham, designed to perpetuate the rule of the former communist masters. Like many former clients of the USSR, Ethiopia is very much sympathetic to Russia, and Vladimir Putin has done nothing to discourage that. 

Gomer and Togarmah are mentioned next, which are also said to be “in the far north”. Now what nations are in the far north that could be allies of Russia? Obviously, China and North Korea! Mongolia is too weak, too few, too poor, and too scattered to count much for military purposes.  That makes six nations so far.  

Now who might the other four nations be in the context of the Middle Eastern politics? We must look at that context because Israel will be the first target of that power, and from them the war will quickly spread to the West and the whole world. 

Recent events have placed Turkey firmly in that camp (the flotilla of ships that tried to break Israel’s naval blockade against Hamas rulers of Gaza originated in Turkey. Long thought to be an ally of the West, Turkey is quickly finding a place among its Islamist brothers.  As of late, Turkey has unreservedly allied itself with Iran, Syria, Egypt, and the Palestinians. 

Get the picture?  Russia already has its alliance of ten nations, and all are enemies of Israel.     

Is this the coalition that is prophesied to come against Israel in the end time? Most likely!  The conjecture of time and events would indicate so, however, only God would know that for sure. What we do know is that world events follow the pattern we have predicted for two decades.  And we have spoken about it when no one in the world would even have dreamed about it; Russia was in shambles when its leader Boris Yeltsin held the hand of President George Bush (snr) of America and said that the two countries were no longer enemies but allies.  It was also a time when Germany was surging ahead in leaps and bounds, and our nemeses were crying aloud that Germany and its allies in the Common Market represented a “mortal danger” for the Anglo-Saxon people of this world. 

Some of those prophets have changed their tune, leaving behind Germany and its European allies and pushing instead the idea of an Islamic alliance led by an Islamic antichrist.  All we can say about this idea is that it is as trashy as the previous one.  For although the Arabs feature prominently in the alliance that comes against Israel, Islamic terrorism by itself is hardly more than a pinprick compared with the nuclear devastation that eventuates with the powers from “the far north”.  It is interesting to note that Jeremiah, another major prophet, also had a prophecy that parallels that of Ezekiel.  

 

Jer 25:21  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;

Jer 25:26  all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth. Also the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.

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 no more, because of the sword which I will send among you." '

Jer 25:28  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.'

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.

Jer 25:34  "Wail, shepherds, and cry! Roll about in the ashes, You leaders of the flock! For the days of your slaughter and your dispersions are fulfilled; You shall fall like a precious vessel.

Jer 25:35  And the shepherds will have no way to flee, Nor the leaders of the flock to escape.

Jer 25:36  A voice of the cry of the shepherds, And a wailing of the leaders to the flock will be heard. For the LORD has plundered their pasture,

Jer 25:37  And the peaceful dwellings are cut down Because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

Jer 25:38  He has left His lair like the lion; For their land is desolate Because of the fierceness of the Oppressor, And because of His fierce anger."

 

In this prophecy, virtually all of the Arab nations are mentioned. Dedan, Tema, Buz are, in most likelihood, the smaller sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf.   Edom is Turkey; Moab and Ammon are Jordan; Tyre and Sidon being Lebanon; Medes are the Ukrainians; Zimri and Elam, with the Medes, are said to be among the kings of the north.  Once again, the Arabs are associated with the powers “of the north, far and near”.    

After mentioning the Arabs and the powers north of them, Jeremiah extends his prophecy to “all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth”.  This clearly tells us that this end time conflict which begins in the Middle East quickly spreads out to the rest of the world. 

 

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.

 

Jeremiah confirms, once again, that disaster comes from the north, from the furthest parts of the earth, and extends to the whole world.  Yet most of our nemeses still preach that that danger comes from Germany and its European allies.

The question is, why does God “roar mightily . . . against all the inhabitants of the earth?”  Because in the end time all of them would have departed from Him!  Even the Christians will be against God and Jesus Christ. 

 

Jer 25:34  "Wail, shepherds, and cry! Roll about in the ashes, You leaders of the flock! For the days of your slaughter and your dispersions are fulfilled; You shall fall like a precious vessel.

Jer 25:35  And the shepherds will have no way to flee, Nor the leaders of the flock to escape.

Jer 25:36  A voice of the cry of the shepherds, And a wailing of the leaders to the flock will be heard. For the LORD has plundered their pasture,

 

Not convinced about it?  Maybe this prophecy from the book of Revelation will convince you. It speaks about the same time.

 

Rev 19:11  Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.

Rev 19:12  His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself.

Rev 19:13  He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.

Rev 19:14  And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.

Rev 19:15  Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Rev 19:16  And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Rev 19:17  Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, "Come and gather together for the supper of the great God,

Rev 19:18  that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great."

Rev 19:19  And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.

Rev 19:20  Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.

Rev 19:21  And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.

     

“All people, free and slave, both small and great" rise up against the KING OF KINGS when He returns to save the world from itself before all flesh is wiped out in the Great Tribulation.   Not a single person in the world will rejoice at the return of Jesus Christ.  The only two people who would have rejoiced – God’s last two witnesses (Rev. 11) – are killed just prior to that event.

Now hard as this may be for some people to accept it, the rebellion against God has already occurred.  It is not so much a physical rebellion, as a spiritual one (not that this would prevent puny human beings from taking up arms against the “alien invader”).  Not a church, not a priest, not a single individual in the world, accepts or recognizes the true Gospel of Jesus Christ anymore. We are witnesses to this fact.  For two decades, we have preached a Gospel that is thoroughly based on the Scriptures, yet no one has accepted and embraced it, exactly what the Scriptures say it would happen at this time.  Not only that, but we have had to contend with strong opposition from the Catholic, the Orthodox, and many fundamentalist Churches. 

People come to our web site in droves, yet not one has found the courage to take the final step and request baptism in order to receive the Holy Spirit and become one of God’s elect.  Now for those who wish to have a more in depth look at the prophecies about those apocalyptic times, we offer them also the prophecies of Zechariah.      

 

Zec 12:1  The burden of the word of the LORD against Israel. Thus says the LORD, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him:

Zec 12:2  "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem.

Zec 12:3  And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.

Zec 12:4  In that day," says the LORD, "I will strike every horse with confusion, and its rider with madness; I will open My eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.

Zec 12:5  And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, 'The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength in the LORD of hosts, their God.'

Zec 12:6  In that day I will make the governors of Judah like a firepan in the woodpile, and like a fiery torch in the sheaves; they shall devour all the surrounding peoples on the right hand and on the left, but Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place—Jerusalem.

Zec 12:7  "The LORD will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not become greater than that of Judah.

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.

Zec 12:11  In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

Zec 12:12  And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves;

Zec 12:13  the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves;

Zec 12:14  all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

 

Zec 13:1  "In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.

Zec 13:2  "It shall be in that day," says the LORD of hosts, "that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they shall no longer be remembered. I will also cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to depart from the land.

Zec 13:3  It shall come to pass that if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who begot him will say to him, 'You shall not live, because you have spoken lies in the name of the LORD.' And his father and mother who begot him shall thrust him through when he prophesies.

Zec 13:4  "And it shall be in that day that every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; they will not wear a robe of coarse hair to deceive.

Zec 13:5  But he will say, 'I am no prophet, I am a farmer; for a man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.'

Zec 13:6  And one will say to him, 'What are these wounds between your arms?' Then he will answer, 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.'

Zec 13:7  "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, Against the Man who is My Companion," Says the LORD of hosts. "Strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered; Then I will turn My hand against the little ones.

Zec 13:8  And it shall come to pass in all the land," Says the LORD, "That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it:

Zec 13:9  I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, 'This is My people'; And each one will say, 'The LORD is my God.' "

 

Zec 14:1  Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, And your spoil will be divided in your midst.

Zec 14:2  For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

Zec 14:3  Then the LORD will go forth And fight against those nations, As He fights in the day of battle.

Zec 14:4  And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, Making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north And half of it toward the south.

Zec 14:5  Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee As you fled from the earthquake In the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Thus the LORD my God will come, And all the saints with You.

Zec 14:6  It shall come to pass in that day That there will be no light; The lights will diminish.

Zec 14:7  It shall be one day Which is known to the LORD Neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen That it will be light.

Zec 14:8  And in that day it shall be— That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur.

Zec 14:9  And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be "The LORD is one," And His name one.

Zec 14:10  All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin's Gate to the place of the First Gate and the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses.

Zec 14:11  The people shall dwell in it; And no longer shall there be utter destruction, But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.

Zec 14:12  And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.

Zec 14:13  It shall come to pass in that day That a great panic from the LORD will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, And raise his hand against his neighbor's hand;

Zec 14:14  Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations Shall be gathered together: Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance.

Zec 14:15  Such also shall be the plague On the horse and the mule, On the camel and the donkey, And on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be.

Zec 14:16  And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Zec 14:17  And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain.

Zec 14:18  If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Zec 14:19  This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Zec 14:20  In that day "HOLINESS TO THE LORD" shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the LORD's house shall be like the bowls before the altar.

Zec 14:21  Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the LORD of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.

 

And here are some more of Ezekiel’s prophecies.

 

Eze 38:14  "Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it?

Eze 38:15  Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.

Eze 38:16  You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes."

Eze 38:17  Thus says the Lord GOD: "Are you he of whom I have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I would bring you against them?

Eze 38:18  "And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," says the Lord GOD, "that My fury will show in My face.

Eze 38:19  For in My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath I have spoken: 'Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel,

Eze 38:20  so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.'

Eze 38:21  I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains," says the Lord GOD. "Every man's sword will be against his brother.

Eze 38:22  And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

Eze 38:23  Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD." '

 

Eze 39:1  "And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal;

Eze 39:2  and I will turn you around and lead you on, bringing you up from the far north, and bring you against the mountains of Israel.

Eze 39:3  Then I will knock the bow out of your left hand, and cause the arrows to fall out of your right hand.

Eze 39:4  You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.

Eze 39:5  You shall fall on the open field; for I have spoken," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:6  "And I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in security in the coastlands. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

Eze 39:7  So I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not let them profane My holy name anymore. Then the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.

Eze 39:8  Surely it is coming, and it shall be done," says the Lord GOD. "This is the day of which I have spoken.

Eze 39:9  "Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and bucklers, the bows and arrows, the javelins and spears; and they will make fires with them for seven years.

Eze 39:10  They will not take wood from the field nor cut down any from the forests, because they will make fires with the weapons; and they will plunder those who plundered them, and pillage those who pillaged them," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:11  "It will come to pass in that day that I will give Gog a burial place there in Israel, the valley of those who pass by east of the sea; and it will obstruct travelers, because there they will bury Gog and all his multitude. Therefore they will call it the Valley of Hamon Gog.

Eze 39:12  For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land.

Eze 39:13  Indeed all the people of the land will be burying, and they will gain renown for it on the day that I am glorified," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:14  "They will set apart men regularly employed, with the help of a search party, to pass through the land and bury those bodies remaining on the ground, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search.

Eze 39:15  The search party will pass through the land; and when anyone sees a man's bone, he shall set up a marker by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon Gog.

Eze 39:16  The name of the city will also be Hamonah. Thus they shall cleanse the land." '

Eze 39:17  "And as for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Speak to every sort of bird and to every beast of the field: "Assemble yourselves and come; Gather together from all sides to My sacrificial meal Which I am sacrificing for you, A great sacrificial meal on the mountains of Israel, That you may eat flesh and drink blood.

Eze 39:18  You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, Drink the blood of the princes of the earth, Of rams and lambs, Of goats and bulls, All of them fatlings of Bashan.

Eze 39:19  You shall eat fat till you are full, And drink blood till you are drunk, At My sacrificial meal Which I am sacrificing for you.

Eze 39:20  You shall be filled at My table With horses and riders, With mighty men And with all the men of war," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:21  "I will set My glory among the nations; all the nations shall see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them.

Eze 39:22  So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day forward.

Eze 39:23  The Gentiles shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity; because they were unfaithful to Me, therefore I hid My face from them. I gave them into the hand of their enemies, and they all fell by the sword.

Eze 39:24  According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I have dealt with them, and hidden My face from them." '

Eze 39:25  "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name—

Eze 39:26  after they have borne their shame, and all their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, when they dwelt safely in their own land and no one made them afraid.

Eze 39:27  When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and I am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations,

Eze 39:28  then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their land, and left none of them captive any longer.

Eze 39:29  And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,' says the Lord GOD."

 

Long prophecies, but this is not the time to skimp on the Scriptures. The world needs to know where it stands and where it is going, and secular media would not know it.  They cannot know, because for them the Word of God means nothing. This is why God will fall upon them with a vengeance.  It is not for nothing that the end time Great Tribulation is also called the Day of God’s vengeance.   

Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, the Revelation, many of the Minor Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself, have had much to say about this impending awesome event, and yet, although the signs are overwhelming that the Great Tribulation is upon us, there is not a single word about it in the contemporary media.  Even preachers and religious media are not very hot on this idea anymore.  Although some accept that Jesus Christ will return one day, they just don’t want it to happen in their life time.  They are not quite ready for Him. They do not want us to be proven right as we have exposed the falsity of their preaching. They know that if we are right, it would be a greater catastrophe for them than for the world; for while some people will survive, none of them will.

They just do not want to take the words of Jesus Christ to their face value.     

 

Mat 7:22  Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'

Mat 7:23  And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

 

How could they not practice lawlessness when their followers will turn against Jesus Christ when His returns to this world, as will the rest of the world.

The truth is that if they are not ready for Jesus Christ now, after all that has happened in the world in the last half a dozen years or so, they never will be.  This is what Jesus Christ said about these people.

 

Luk 19:27  Bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.' "

 

We will conclude on a positive note for those who turn to God while He may be found.   

 

1Ch 16:8  Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!

1Ch 16:9  Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works!

1Ch 16:10  Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD!

1Ch 16:11  Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore!

1Ch 16:12  Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth,

1Ch 16:13  O seed of Israel His servant, You children of Jacob, His chosen ones!

1Ch 16:14  He is the LORD our God; His judgments are in all the earth.

1Ch 16:15  Remember His covenant forever, The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations,

1Ch 16:16  The covenant which He made with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac,

1Ch 16:17  And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel for an everlasting covenant,

1Ch 16:18  Saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance,"

1Ch 16:19  When you were few in number, Indeed very few, and strangers in it.

1Ch 16:20  When they went from one nation to another, And from one kingdom to another people,

1Ch 16:21  He permitted no man to do them wrong; Yes, He rebuked kings for their sakes,

1Ch 16:22  Saying, "Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm."

1Ch 16:23  Sing to the LORD, all the earth; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.

1Ch 16:24  Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.

1Ch 16:25  For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; He is also to be feared above all gods.

1Ch 16:26  For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the LORD made the heavens.

1Ch 16:27  Honor and majesty are before Him; Strength and gladness are in His place.

1Ch 16:28  Give to the LORD, O families of the peoples, Give to the LORD glory and strength.

1Ch 16:29  Give to the LORD the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him. Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!

1Ch 16:30  Tremble before Him, all the earth. The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved.

1Ch 16:31  Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; And let them say among the nations, "The LORD reigns."

1Ch 16:32  Let the sea roar, and all its fullness; Let the field rejoice, and all that is in it.

1Ch 16:33  Then the trees of the woods shall rejoice before the LORD, For He is coming to judge the earth.

1Ch 16:34  Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

1Ch 16:35  And say, "Save us, O God of our salvation; Gather us together, and deliver us from the Gentiles, To give thanks to Your holy name, To triumph in Your praise."

1Ch 16:36  Blessed be the LORD God of Israel From everlasting to everlasting! And all the people said, "Amen!" and praised the LORD.

 

 

 

 

 

Moscow’s Unsavory Lesson to the World

 

As we are writing, Russia is sweltering under the worst heat wave in its history.  The country has been caught unprepared by a “once in a thousand years disaster”.  Temperatures have been hovering around the 40 degree mark for weeks.  Much of its agriculture has wilted, its forests on fire on a scale that defies imagination, many country towns and villages have been wiped off the map, and people are crying out for help that never comes.  Authorities are powerless to do much about it due to its sheer size, lack of qualified personnel and inadequate firefighting equipment. 

In the midst of all this, a white knight arose and set out to do something about it and alleviate people’s misery.  Vladimir Putin jumped into a fire fighting plane, took brazenly to the skies, and went out ‘conquering to conquer’, determined to snuff out those fires.   Russian people could only marvel at the enterprising spirit of their Prime Minister.  Where in the world could one find a leader that cares so much for his people?!     

A few years ago, when global warming caught the world’s consciousness, scientists warned that unless the trend is reversed global temperature could rise by up to two degrees over the next two or three centuries.  President Putin was shown saying, tongue and cheek, that Russia could do with a couple of degrees warmer. I do not think he would say that now.  And global temperatures have risen by a mere 0.7C degree so far.   

Things have changed enormously in the last decade or so.  Scientists are no longer talking of a rise in temperature of two degree over a few centuries, but of up to six degrees over one century.  Every one of their estimates has proven to be far too conservative.  Global warming is advancing at a much faster pace than anyone could have imagined only a few short years ago.  The fires in Russia and the floods in Pakistan, to mention but the most obvious weather extremes, are a vivid example of what global warming means for this world.      

The speed by which these climate extremes have descended upon the world tells us that things are not developing gradually, but in leaps and at an accelerated pace.  

This did not come as a surprise to us, as we have been crying out for years that this would happen.  How did we know it? We read it in the Bible, believed it, and told the world about it.  When God says that “men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues, and they did not repent and give Him glory” (Rev 16:9), we knew that this would not be a gradual development. 

And who are the men who received the worst scorching?  Those who live in the land in which atheism ruled for seven decades, are led by people who do not believe in God, or believe in a false god!  This is the time of God’s vengeance upon a wayward world.   And what will be the outcome of all this? Here is the answer from the LORD Himself.     

 

Mal 4:1  "For behold, the day is coming, Burning like an oven, And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," Says the LORD of hosts, "That will leave them neither root nor branch.

Mal 4:2  But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves.

Mal 4:3  You shall trample the wicked, For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet On the day that I do this," Says the LORD of hosts.

Mal 4:4  "Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments.

Mal 4:5  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

Mal 4:6  And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse [utter destruction, Jewish Tanach].

 

The world is caught up in the throes of a dying age and the dawn of another.

There is a great expectation out in the world that the end of the world is supposedly coming on December 21, 2012.  Hollywood itself got caught up in this frenzy with a movie called 2012.  I wish I had seen that movie, so that I could speak from direct experience, but unfortunately I could not find the time when the movie was showing at our local cinema, and now it is gone.  However, I do not think I have missed much, for the title, its blurb, and its reviews, tell me enough to know that it is all bunkum. 

Let me say it here loud and clear: the end of the world WILL NOT occur on December 21, 2012.  If anything, more important prophetic developments are to occur in 2011 than in 2012.  The transition to the new age, a new world order under Jesus Christ, is not a sudden event, but one which extends over a few years, and not before the world explodes into a nuclear nightmare.  This is what is stalking the world at present – not the end of the world, but the end of this age.  Unfortunately this is a messy affair. Here is another biblical quote that says a lot about these developments.

 

Zec 14:1  Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, And your spoil will be divided in your midst.

Zec 14:2  For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

Zec 14:3  Then the LORD will go forth And fight against those nations, As He fights in the day of battle.

Zec 14:4  And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, Making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north And half of it toward the south.

Zec 14:5  Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee As you fled from the earthquake In the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Thus the LORD my God will come, And all the saints with You.

Zec 14:6  It shall come to pass in that day That there will be no light; The lights will diminish.

Zec 14:7  It shall be one day Which is known to the LORD Neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen That it will be light.

Zec 14:8  And in that day it shall be— That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur.

Zec 14:9  And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be "The LORD is one," And His name one.

Zec 14:10  All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin's Gate to the place of the First Gate and the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses.

Zec 14:11  The people shall dwell in it; And no longer shall there be utter destruction, But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.

Zec 14:12  And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.

Zec 14:13  It shall come to pass in that day That a great panic from the LORD will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, And raise his hand against his neighbor's hand;

Zec 14:14  Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations Shall be gathered together: Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance.

Zec 14:15  Such also shall be the plague On the horse and the mule, On the camel and the donkey, And on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be.

Zec 14:16  And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Zec 14:17  And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain.

Zec 14:18  If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Zec 14:19  This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Zec 14:20  In that day "HOLINESS TO THE LORD" shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the LORD's house shall be like the bowls before the altar.

Zec 14:21  Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the LORD of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts. 

 

And here is another one that tells us what follows immediately afterwards.

 

Eze 39:12  For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land.

 

After suffering great devastation at first, Israel will burry its enemy invaders over a period of no less than seven months!  And who are the people that come against Israel in such great numbers?  Here is that verse in its context. 

 

Eze 39:1  "And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal;

Eze 39:2  and I will turn you around and lead you on, bringing you up from the far north, and bring you against the mountains of Israel.

Eze 39:3  Then I will knock the bow out of your left hand, and cause the arrows to fall out of your right hand.

Eze 39:4  You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.

Eze 39:5  You shall fall on the open field; for I have spoken," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:6  "And I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in security in the coastlands. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

Eze 39:7  So I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not let them profane My holy name anymore. Then the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.

Eze 39:8  Surely it is coming, and it shall be done," says the Lord GOD. "This is the day of which I have spoken.

Eze 39:9  "Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and bucklers, the bows and arrows, the javelins and spears; and they will make fires with them for seven years.

Eze 39:10  They will not take wood from the field nor cut down any from the forests, because they will make fires with the weapons; and they will plunder those who plundered them, and pillage those who pillaged them," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:11  "It will come to pass in that day that I will give Gog a burial place there in Israel, the valley of those who pass by east of the sea; and it will obstruct travelers, because there they will bury Gog and all his multitude. Therefore they will call it the Valley of Hamon Gog.

Eze 39:12  For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land.

Eze 39:13  Indeed all the people of the land will be burying, and they will gain renown for it on the day that I am glorified," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:14  "They will set apart men regularly employed, with the help of a search party, to pass through the land and bury those bodies remaining on the ground, in order to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make a search.

Eze 39:15  The search party will pass through the land; and when anyone sees a man's bone, he shall set up a marker by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon Gog.

Eze 39:16  The name of the city will also be Hamonah. Thus they shall cleanse the land." '

Eze 39:17  "And as for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Speak to every sort of bird and to every beast of the field: "Assemble yourselves and come; Gather together from all sides to My sacrificial meal Which I am sacrificing for you, A great sacrificial meal on the mountains of Israel, That you may eat flesh and drink blood.

Eze 39:18  You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, Drink the blood of the princes of the earth, Of rams and lambs, Of goats and bulls, All of them fatlings of Bashan.

Eze 39:19  You shall eat fat till you are full, And drink blood till you are drunk, At My sacrificial meal Which I am sacrificing for you.

Eze 39:20  You shall be filled at My table With horses and riders, With mighty men And with all the men of war," says the Lord GOD.

Eze 39:21  "I will set My glory among the nations; all the nations shall see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them.

Eze 39:22  So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day forward.

Eze 39:23  The Gentiles shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity; because they were unfaithful to Me, therefore I hid My face from them. I gave them into the hand of their enemies, and they all fell by the sword.

Eze 39:24  According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I have dealt with them, and hidden My face from them." '

Eze 39:25  "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name—

Eze 39:26  after they have borne their shame, and all their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, when they dwelt safely in their own land and no one made them afraid.

Eze 39:27  When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and I am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations,

Eze 39:28  then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their land, and left none of them captive any longer.

Eze 39:29  And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,' says the Lord GOD."

 

Two decades ago, we began this work because we saw the need for it and because no one in the world was doing anything similar.  The Scriptures make it clear that God will not allow another work like this because He does not want His people to duplicate each other’s work.  What you hear from other churches and religions is nothing but a self-serving exercise in order to justify themselves to their followers.  We have no such obligation, nor do we draw any advantage from what we do. 

Anyone who does the work of God for self-interest will never understand the mysteries of the Bible.  The Holy Spirit does not work that way. I wish I had the time to show you the clap-trap revelations that our nemesis confront us with, but the job is too great and demanding for our small outfit; sufficient to say here that because our predictions are coming true as expected, our nemeses are showing signs of panic.  But then, this too is in the Scriptures. 

 

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 summer is near.

Mat 24:33  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.

 

Heaven and earth will pass away, but the words of Jesus Christ will not pass away.  How many people believe that?  And how many people do anything about it, seeing that His prophecies are coming true before our very eyes?

Over the years, we have pointed out more than once that it is not a mere coincidence that the world has reached an existential crisis at this exact point in time.  It has been planned that way from above and foretold in biblical prophecies thousands of years in advance.  It is just a matter of reading and understanding the time of their fulfillment.  However, God’s prophecies cannot be understood except in the context of their own time, and only by people who have the Holy Spirit and a clear conscience before God.  We know of no one alive today, or in history, who has unveiled more mysteries and biblical prophecies than we have.  This is why it would a foolish person who reads our revelations and does not turn to God in heartfelt repentance and worship.  

The reason so many end time prophecies have been unveiled in our days is because we live in those times. The Christian Herald took a while to be noticed, but now it soars. People are beginning to take note of the fact that no other publication has placed current world developments, natural and geopolitical, in their proper prophetic timeline the way The Christian Herald has done. 

At present, the world is mesmerized by unprecedented natural disasters, paying little attention to more ominous geopolitical developments.  American leaders never tire appeasing Russia and telling their people how friendly they are with the Russian leaders. Interestingly enough, the Russian leaders never tell that to their people. Most Russians still look upon America as a competitor if not an enemy, blaming it for the calamitous failure and fall of the Soviet Empire.  

Whenever they talk of new treaties it is almost always the Americans who go to Russia, and seldom if ever the other way around.  Moreover, since Putin came to power, he has resurrected Russia’s mothballed long range bombers and sent them in surveillance missions over America’s military bases in the Pacific, and post its nuclear armed submarines on missions 300 km off America’s eastern coast.  And still the Americans think that these are gestures of a friendly nature. 

In the Mediterranean Sea, Russia is building its largest overseas deep water port on Syria’s coast; one capable of harboring Russia’s awesome Mediterranean fleet of surface vessels and nuclear submarines. 

Much as Israel likes to be on good terms with Russia, it too would do well to keep a close eye on developments in its northern neighborhood.  Better yet, it should familiarize itself with its Scriptures, such as Ezekiel 38 and 39 in order to know what is coming its way.  It should also familiarize itself with The Christian Herald because its priests and prophets are not up to their task anymore.   

 

Hos 4:1  Hear the word of the LORD, You children of Israel, For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: "There is no truth or mercy Or knowledge of God in the land.

Hos 4:2  By swearing and lying, Killing and stealing and committing adultery, They break all restraint, With bloodshed upon bloodshed.

Hos 4:3  Therefore the land will mourn; And everyone who dwells there will waste away With the beasts of the field And the birds of the air; Even the fish of the sea will be taken away.

Hos 4:4  "Now let no man contend, or rebuke another; For your people are like those who contend with the priest.

Hos 4:5  Therefore you shall stumble in the day; The prophet also shall stumble with you in the night; And I will destroy your mother.

Hos 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Hos 4:7  "The more they increased, The more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame.

Hos 4:8  They eat up the sin of My people; They set their heart on their iniquity.

Hos 4:9  And it shall be: like people, like priest. So I will punish them for their ways, And reward them for their deeds.

Hos 4:10  For they shall eat, but not have enough; They shall commit harlotry, but not increase; Because they have ceased obeying the LORD.

 

Three years ago, before the world entered a disastrous financial crisis, we sent out a newsletter to the world in which we said, among other things, the following:

 

  “LEADERS OF THE WORLD, YOU ARE HEADING TOWARDS CATASTROPHE!”

“ RETURN TO YOUR CREATOR GOD, OR YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE WILL PERISH!”

“The time of reckoning is at hand.  Turn around from the path of self-destruction and bring your people back to God, or no one will survive the catastrophe into which powerful dark forces are leading the world into.  The planet is being scorched, climate change is causing turmoil around the world, widespread famine is looming, oil supply is running dry, and international relations are on a knife edge.  These, and more, are in biblical prophecy, as is the fact that unless people turn to God now, the world is heading towards annihilation.   

This is the time Jesus Christ spoke about when He said that unless God intervenes to cut those days short, no flesh will be saved alive (Mat. 24). He also gave us this prophecy, which is being fulfilled before our very eyes.

 

Rev 16:9  And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.

 

Human beings cannot resolve these problems on their own anymore, yet they would not repent of their sins and turn to God who has power over these plagues, but continue to blaspheme by denying Him and His creation. 

God is never mentioned in the forums that claim to deal with these problems; the result being that humanity is getting ever closer to the edge of the abyss. You need to address your people and let them know about their dire situation and the fact that only God Almighty can save them now, or you and your people have no future”. 

 

Then, in May this year, we sent out another newsletter in which we said this:  

 

“Our record over the two decades since we commenced this work provides ample proof of where the Holy Spirit could be found these days.  Even the most hardened cynics, if they are honest with themselves, could see that we have God’s support and inspiration in what we do.

For much of that time, we could only gauge our success by the number of letters we received from our correspondents. We do not speak of converts, but of correspondents, because from the beginning we knew that we would have no converts to our cause.  Our work is not one of conversion (not that we would turn anyone away), but one of restoring and witnessing the true Gospel to a wayward world, a fact prophesied to occur at this particular junction in world history. God says that when this work is completed the world will enter a new age.  It is in your interest to familiarize yourselves with our writings if you want to know where the world is heading. All our publications are freely available on this web site: www.thechristianherald.info. 

We do not know who visits our site, and do not wish to know.  We only know the countries from which they come. However, we are happy to hear from our readers and gladly reply to their enquiries.     

The English speaking world has been our main theatre of activity, but we have sent our newsletters to other world leaders as well. Not surprisingly, until a few years ago, we got very little correspondence from the non-English speaking world.  The advent of the World Wide Web, however, has produced some extraordinary developments.  The United States of America, which provided the bulk of our readership for a long time, has now been overtaken by . . . the Russian Federation.  At the current rate, Russia will soon provide more readers than the rest of the world combined.  We can only say, good on you friends; keep up the good work, you are on the right track.  You know that your nation has a mighty job to fulfill in these end times.  You need to stay close to God in order to survive those times.  When you get on your knees, pray to the God of Alpha and Omega Christian Foundation, for Alpha and Omega is none other than Jesus Christ Himself.  We are merely the venue by which He is addressing the world.”

 

What followed this Newsletter was another extraordinary development.  Rather than heading towards providing us with more readers than the rest of the world combined, one month later the number of Russian readers halved, and in another month they came to zero. 

Now does anyone imagine that this was a natural development? Clearly, the Russian leaders – President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin, and more likely Orthodox Patriarch Kirill – panicked and went after our readers.  Within two months they silenced them all.  And what happened to Russia after that?  It exploded in a frenzy of fires that devastated its crops, its forests, and many of its people. A painful but powerful lesson for the world! 

Pakistan which is currently also in great distress due to widespread flooding, is one of the countries that provide zero readerships for our magazines and newsletters too, even though English is their second language.  Another powerful lesson for itself and for the world!

We have reached the point in which we could foresee the countries that are about to endure great hardship by the way they respond to God’s messages.  

So what are the meaning, the message, and the moral in all this?   

 

DO NOT CHALLENGE GOD OR IGNORE HIS MESSAGES, OR YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE WILL PERISH!

 

 

 

 

 

                     State of the World – 2010

 

INTERNATIONAL

Agreement on establishment of Collective Rapid Reaction Forces”

Agreement on establishment of the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (CRRF) has been signed in Moscow at the summit of the CSTO Collective Security Council.

“The main event of this summit is the signing of the Agreement on establishment of the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces that regulates the most important issues of work of the corresponding Forces”, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said at a press conference upon the results of the summit.

The regulatory framework was adopted as well. “It will allow our countries to respond to new threats, international terrorism, local and cross-border crime, including drug trafficking and local conflicts, more effcetively”, D.Medvedev noted.

The Russian President noted that some CSTO member countries do not participate in the formation of the CRRF, including Uzbekistan and Belarus. The Action Plan of the CSTO member states on formation of the collective system of countermeasures to illegal migration was adopted as well. (International Herald Tribune, June 15, 2009)

 

“US and Russia in arms accord”

“US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have agreed on a landmark arms treaty that will cut the nuclear arsenals of the one-time rivals to the lowest levels since 1960s.

The leaders settled on the final detail of an eight-month negotiation yesterday with a morning telephone call.  They also agreed to meet in Prague on April 8 to sign the new pact, which will replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991.

  Mr Obama announced the new agreement in an appearance at the White House with Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen. 

Mr Obama acknowledged that the talks, which were slowed by differences over sensitive issues of missile defence and verification, were long and difficult.        

“It took patience, it took perseverance,” Mr Obama said. “But we never give up.”

The treaty represents a step forward in the US effort to improve relations with Russia.

The White House hopes the US-Russia treaty will open the way to a series of other arms-control agreements.” (Paul Richter, The Sunday Telegraph, March 28, 2010).

[This agreement will prove out to be as effective as the one signed in 1938 between Chamberlain and Hitler. Ed.]

 

“How not to fight a war”

 “Riding shotgun in an armored vehicle as it passed through the heat and confusion of southern Afghanistan this month, an Army sergeant spoke into his headset, summarizing a sentiment often heard in the field this year.  “I wish we had generals who remembered what it was like when they were down in a platoon,” he said to a reporter in the back. “Either they never have been in real fighting, or they forgot what it’s like.”  The sergeant was speaking of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and the circle of counterinsurgents who since last year have been running the Afghan war, and who have, as a matter of both policy and practice, made it much more difficult for troops to use airstrikes and artillery in the fight against the Taliban.

No matter the outcome of his meeting on Wednesday in Washington over caustic comments he and his staff made about President Obama and his national security team, the general, or his successor, faces problems from a constituency as important as his bosses and that no commander wants to lose: his own troops.  As levels of violence in Afghanistan climb, there is a palpable and building sense of unease among troops surrounding one of the most confounding questions about how to wage the war: when and how lethal force should be used.  Since last year, the counterinsurgency doctrine championed by those now leading the campaign has assumed an almost unchallenged supremacy in the ranks of the American military’s career officers. The doctrine, which has been supported by both the Bush and Obama administrations, rests on core assumptions, including that using lethal force against an insurgency intermingled with a civilian population is often counterproductive.

Since General McChrystal assumed command, he has been a central face and salesman of this idea, and he has applied it to warfare in a tangible way: by further tightening rules guiding the use of Western firepower — airstrikes and guided rocket attacks, artillery barrages and even mortar fire — to support troops on the ground. “Winning hearts and minds in COIN is a coldblooded thing,” General McChrystal was quoted as telling an upset American soldier in the Rolling Stone profile that has landed him in trouble. “The Russians killed 1 million Afghans, and that didn’t work.” COIN is the often used abbreviation for counterinsurgency.

The rules have shifted risks from Afghan civilians to Western combatants. They have earned praise in many circles, hailed as a much needed corrective to looser practices that since 2001 killed or maimed many Afghan civilians and undermined support for the American-led war. But the new rules have also come with costs, including a perception now frequently heard among troops that the effort to limit risks to civilians has swung too far, and endangers the lives of Afghan and Western soldiers caught in firefights with insurgents who need not observe any rules at all. Young officers and enlisted soldiers and Marines, typically speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, speak of “being handcuffed,” of not being trusted by their bosses and of being asked to battle a canny and vicious insurgency “in a fair fight.”  Some rules meant to enshrine counterinsurgency principles into daily practices, they say, do not merely transfer risks away from civilians. They transfer risks away from the Taliban.  Before the rules were tightened, one Army major who had commanded an infantry company said, “firefights in Afghanistan had a half-life.” By this he meant that skirmishes often were brief, lasting roughly a half-hour. The Taliban would ambush patrols and typically break contact and slip away as patrol leaders organized and escalated Western firepower in response.

Now, with fire support often restricted, or even idled, Taliban fighters seem noticeably less worried about an American response, many soldiers and Marines say. Firefights often drag on, sometimes lasting hours, and costing lives. The United States’ material advantages are not robustly applied; troops are engaged in rifle-on-rifle fights on their enemy’s turf.  One Marine infantry lieutenant, during fighting in Marja this year, said he had all but stopped seeking air support while engaged in firefights. He spent too much time on the radio trying to justify its need, he said, and the aircraft never arrived or they arrived too late or the pilots were reluctant to drop their ordnance.  “I’m better off just trying to fight my fight, and maneuver the squads, and not waste the time or focus trying to get air,” he said.  Several infantrymen have also said that the rules are so restrictive that pilots are often not allowed to attack fixed targets — say, a building or tree line from which troops are taking fire — unless they can personally see the insurgents doing the firing.  This has lead to situations many soldiers describe as absurd, including decisions by patrol leaders to have fellow soldiers move briefly out into the open to draw fire once aircraft arrive, so the pilots might be cleared to participate in the fight.  (. . .)

 An American counterinsurgency campaign seeks support from at least two publics — the Afghan and the American. Efforts to satisfy one can undermine support in the other. The restrictions on using fire support are part of a larger bundle of instructions, known as rules of engagement that guide decisions on how troops can interact with Afghans, and how they can fight. The rules have shifted frequently over the years, becoming tighter and tighter. Each change, often at the urging of the government of President Hamid Karzai, has shown the delicacy of the balance.

NATO needs the Afghan government’s support. But restrictions that are popular in Kabul have often alienated soldiers and Marines whose lives are at stake, including rules that limit when Western troops can enter Afghan homes. Such rules, soldiers and Marines say, concede advantages to insurgents, making it easier for them to hide, to fight, to meet and to store their weapons or assemble their makeshift bombs.

It is an axiom of military service that troops gripe; venting is part of barracks and battlefield life. Troops complain about food, equipment, lack of sleep, delays in their transportation and the weather where they work.  Complaints about how they are allowed to fight are another matter and can be read as a sign of deeper disaffection and strains within the military over policy choices. One Army colonel, in a conversation this month, said the discomfort and anger about the rules had reached a high pitch.

“The troops hate it,” he said. “Right now we’re losing the tactical-level fight in the chase for a strategic victory. How long can that be sustained?” (C. J. Chivers, International Herald Tribune, June 22, 2010)

 

 “The collapse of the West, with Islam at the gate”

“Internecine civil wars are underway almost everywhere within the West, and most virulently in the United States of America. They are not yet kinetic wars, but wars of grinding prepositioning, the kind which lead to foregone conclusions without a shot being fired. They are wars of survival, nonetheless, because the basic architecture for national strength is being altered incrementally or dramatically. And in many cases consciously.

Almost all of the strategic restructuring of states is occurring in large part as a result of an accumulation of wealth; an accumulation and value of which is seen as permanent. This has resulted in the hubris — expressed by those who did not earn it — of triumph in the Cold War. This is a Western phenomenon because the widespread growth of wealth, the creation of freedoms classically associated with democracy, resulted — as it must inevitably result — in complacencies which in turn led to a "vote too far": the extension of the democratic franchise to those who do not help in the creation of wealth. Once the voting franchise of the West reached the point where those who sought benefits outweighed those who created benefits, the tipping point was reached. The situation of de facto "class warfare" thus emerges automatically under such circumstances, and the envy of those who take against those who provide erupts into "rights" and "entitlement". By deifying "democracy" above justice, the enfranchised non-producers could always outvote the producers. We are at this point. The result can only be collapse, or restructuring around a Cæsar or a Bonaparte until, eventually, a productive hierarchy reappears, usually after considerable pain. Virtually every conscious step of the Administration of President Barack Obama and the overwhelming Democratic Party majority in Congress has been to increase the size and role of government in the economy and society, and to decrease, limit, and control the position of private enterprise and capital formation. Given that this progressively contracts and ultimately eliminates production, and reduces the inherent asset base of the country — its raw materials and productive intellect — to a null value, the tradable value of the U.S. currency will inevitably decline. We cannot be swayed by the enormous wealth of the North American continent. Almost all areas have an inherent wealth of some kind, but assets left idle in the ground or infertile in the brain define countries which fail, or are not victorious in their quest for unbridled sovereignty.  Thus, a decline in currency value is exacerbated, or accelerated, by the increasing supply of money, inextricably depreciating its value, particularly at a time of decreasing productivity in vital perishable and nonperishable output.

The U.S. Obama Administration has focused entirely on an agenda of expanding government — the seizure of the envied (and often ephemeral) "wealth" of the producers — without addressing the process of facilitating the production of essential commodities and goods. Even the USSR and the People's Republic of China, during their communist periods, focused — albeit badly — on the production of goods and services, when they realized that the "wealth" to be "redistributed" existed only as the result of production and innovation. The U.S., meanwhile, heavily as a result of policies of the former Clinton Administration, has "outsourced" production, and the State — that is, the Government — cannot easily, in the U.S., become the producer.

President Obama has addressed the U.S.' economic crisis by expanding government, and government-related, employment in nonproductive sectors, while at the same time blaming and punishing the private sector for all of the U.S. ills. Empowered by the extended franchise, this was the politics of envy now becoming enabled. Moreover, the populist, short-term response to the major oil-spill in the Gulf of Mexico was clearly geared toward (a) transforming a crisis into an opportunity to pursue a green energy agenda by highlighting the evils of the fossil fuels on which the U.S. remains dependent; (b) ensuring that the President was not blamed for the poor crisis response; and (c) ensuring that the Democratic Party did not suffer from the crisis in the November 2010 mid-term Congressional elections.

The result of all the Obama initiatives has been to expand government and reduce or absolutely control and tax the private sector, even though, without the private sector, the U.S. has no viable export or self-sustaining capability. The net effect has been to mirror — and overtake — the situation in which, for example, Germany found itself a decade ago: without the ability to retain capital investment or attract new capital investment. And in order to restrain capital flight from the U.S., the Obama Administration seeks to further control worldwide earnings of U.S. corporations and citizens. For other reasons, the U.S., believing that it still dominates the technology arena, has imposed greater and greater restrictions on international exports of technology through its ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  All of this conspires to limit investment in U.S. manufacturing and restrict foreign interest in U.S. exports because the regulations are being enforced merely for political punitive reasons. The U.S. is making itself increasingly unappealing to foreign investors and has, as this writer has noted, made the appeal of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency evaporate, saved, for the moment, only by the lack of a ready alternative. That situation will change within a very few years.

Thus, the U.S. has, in the space of a couple of years: (i) so dramatically inflated money supply that the value of the dollar is only shored up by the lack of international alternative currencies to act as reserve trading currencies; (ii) so dramatically inflated public debt, without stimulating economic growth, that U.S. economic performance will continue to decline on a national and a per capita basis while competitive economies, such as the PRC and Russia, will grow, reducing strategic differentials; (iii) severely punished the private sector, thereby reducing the opportunities and incentives for strategic capital formation, and in particular punishing the industrial production and energy sectors, almost ensuring major dislocation to the delivery of U.S. basic needs in the near-term; and (iv) so blatantly reduced its strategic capabilities through all of these actions and in its diplomatic and military posture as to guarantee a reduction in U.S. strategic credibility. Concurrent with all of this is an increasingly punitive taxation framework.

The near-term impact will include rising domestic energy prices, possibly even before the November 2010 mid-term Congressional elections, which could result in the Democratic Party losing its substantial majority in both Houses. Even on this matter, Democratic Party ideologues have attempted to suggest that this is exactly what the country needs: expensive energy in order to facilitate change to "green" solutions. This defies the historical reality that preeminent powers must always have vast energy surpluses and use.

So much damage has been done to the U.S. strategic posture in just two years (although building on a base of inefficiencies which have been growing since the end of the Cold War), in many respects equal to the 1917 Russian Revolution (but without the bloodshed), that it is difficult to forecast whether — because of a changing global environment — the U.S. can, within a decade or two, recover its strategic authority and leadership. Domestically, the massively statist and interventionist approaches of the Obama Administration have polarized the country, and the response will be reactive rather than innovative, inducing a period of isolation and nationalism, but with grave difficulty in rebuilding confidence from the international investment community.

Europe: Artificial, wealth-induced complacency following the end of the Cold War led to fury when economic collapse inevitably occurred in 2010, leading to draconian restraint in public spending in many societies, but particularly Greece and Spain. It is said that tourists are warned not to feed bears in Yellowstone National Park, in the U.S., because the bears do not understand when the tourists have run out of food. State-fed populations in Europe, the U.S., and Australia (see below) equally do not understand when the free ride is over, and work must recommence.

Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have begun the arduous path back to recovery, but the euro may, as a currency, have been irrevocably damaged, and the European Union itself may have spent the term of its virility. Clearly, the wealth-induced complacency, which had the compounding effect of allowing a decline in a sense of national survival and national identity among the European Union (EU) component states, has led now to a revived — but as yet unrealized — sense of nationalism. This is beginning to lead to the recognition of the cohesive national efficiency required for survival and competitiveness. It can be said that the EU destroyed nationalism, without replacing it with any mechanism to create a new sense of social cohesion, thus removing Europe's capability for economic competitiveness, self defense, or ability to define a new culture (and identity) to replace the national identities. Had the British Labour Party Government of outgoing Prime Minister Gordon Brown persisted in office with his slavishly doctrinaire governance — and demonstrably unworkable socialism, led by a privileged élite of Labour mandarins wallowing at the trough — it is possible that an economic recovery in the UK would have been problematic. It may still be problematic. And in this, Brown was a prototype Obama, with his rank sense of entitlement. Even now, the British political psyche is fractured along geographic lines, and, wealth-induced, considers itself effectively "post-industrial", and therefore beyond the need for a manufacturing (or even agricultural base). Thus, even though the UK is now far more dependent on a maritime trade base than at any time in its history, it is incapable of defending or projecting that maritime base; neither does it have the wherewithal to trade.

. . .  A pseudo-post-industrial society is one which believes that it can live solely on the intrinsic value of its currency, without the necessity to sustain a balanced agricultural and industrial base to preserve sovereign independence. A true post-industrial society — something thus far a utopian dream — can produce all of its food and goods with a minute fraction of its population, which would largely be left to address intellectual pursuits. . .  We see, then, in the very deliberate acts of envy and entitlement politics, the seeds of national collapse in Australia, the U.S., and Western Europe.

Conclusions: Some of the Western powers have slumped before, and recovered. The United States has yet to demonstrate this resilience. Other Western societies have slumped, and have yet been protected by a strong regional system so that their societies could prosper under foreign protection. The Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal, for example, retained stable and individual prosperous societies and yet never recovered their strategic leadership, relying, instead, on the power of their region for economic and security protection. States which remain dependent on others for their protection never fully regain their wealth and freedom.

States such as New Zealand depend on their greater neighbors for protection. But wither New Zealand if Australia fails? Wither the Netherlands today if the European Union fails? And wither the United States if its fortunes erode? Re-birth is, as Britain has found through history, as did Rome, more arduous than that first, pure flush of strategic victory.  The West is at its watershed, not because of a threat from a less-productive society. The collapse of the West is not because Islam is at the gates. Islam is at the gates because of the collapse of the West.  (Gregory R. Copley, Global Information System, World Tribune, June 10, 2010)

  ECONOMY  

“Financial crisis is ‘far from over’”

“BILLIONAIRE investor George Soros believes we have just entered the second act of the global financial crisis as Europe's fiscal woes worsen and governments are pressed to curb budget deficits that may push the global economy back into recession.

''The collapse of the financial system as we know it is real, and the crisis is far from over,'' he told the Institute of International Finance conference in Vienna. ''Indeed, we have just entered act two of the drama.''  Mr Soros, 79, said the current situation in the world economy was reminiscent of the 1930s, with governments under pressure to narrow budget deficits at a time when the economic recovery was weak.  Concern that Europe's sovereign debt crisis may spread sent the euro to a four-year low against the US dollar this week and has wiped out more than $US4 trillion ($4.7 trillion) from global stock markets this year.  Europe's debt-ridden nations have to raise almost €2 trillion ($2.85 trillion) within the next three years to refinance, according to Bank of America.  ''[As] the financial markets started losing confidence in the credibility of sovereign debt, Greece and the euro have taken centre stage, but the effects are liable to be felt worldwide,'' Mr Soros said.  Mr Soros gained fame in the 1990s when he reportedly made $US1 billion correctly betting against the pound. He also wagered that Germany's mark would appreciate after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and that Japanese stocks would start to fall in the same year.

Credit default swaps, which aim to protect bondholders against the risk of a default, were dangerous and a ''licence to kill'', Mr Soros said. They should only be allowed if there was an insurable interest, he said.  He also said regulators were ''more imperfect than markets'' as they were ''always behind the curve'' and subject to political influences. Mr Soros told delegates that regulation should be kept to a minimum.  (Zoe Schneeweiss and Andrew Macaskill, Bloomberg, Sydney Morning Herald, June 12, 2010)

 

“Ticking time bomb! $600 trillion in derivatives at risk”

“Is the next financial bubble beginning to burst?  With all the focus on Greece and the European Union debt crisis, little attention has been given to what is most likely an even bigger time bomb – the emerging $600 trillion bubble in derivatives that will mostly likely burst as the debt crisis deepens, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports

.   "Nor is it clear that President Obama, who took huge campaign contributions in 2008 from Wall Street, will be able to bring derivatives under federal regulations this year, even if the White House manages to get financial industry reform measures through Congress," Corsi wrote.  As interest rates begin to rise worldwide, Red Alert predicts losses in derivatives may end up bankrupting a wide range of institutions, including but not limited to municipalities and state governments around the globe, major insurance companies, top investment houses and commercial banks, as well as universities of all types, even those with the largest endowments.

"Defaults now beginning to occur in a number of European cities prefigure what may end up being the largest financial bubble in history ever to burst – a bubble that today amounts to more than $600 trillion," Corsi wrote.   The Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, now estimates that derivatives, the complex bets financial institutions and sophisticated institutional investors make with one another on everything from commodities options to credit swaps, topped $604 trillion worldwide – or $0.68 quadrillion – at the end of June 2009.

A quadrillion is the number 1 followed by 15 zeroes, as in: 1,000,000,000,000,000.

To visualize a quadrillion, multiply 1 trillion by 1,000.

To illustrate the relative magnitude of derivative contracts globally, the CIA Factbook estimates the 2009 Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, of the world was just under $60 trillion.

Corsi explained, "In other words, derivative contracts have now reach a level 10 times world GDP, an amount so incomprehensibly great that even a 10 percent default in derivatives would equal world GDP."  (WorldNetDaily, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, May 17,2010)

 

 

RELIGION

“Forced to bow before alien ideals”

“A FEW decades ago, French health authorities took steps to reduce the country's gloriously excessive wine intake. Ads appeared on the Paris Metro advising drinkers to show a little restraint. The suggested limit? One litre of wine a day.

They take their wine very seriously in France, which is why there was considerable opposition even last year to another anti-wine campaign - this time, pointing out in a gentle enough way the health risks associated with alcohol. Naturally, everybody resented this. Xavier de Volontat, representing wine producers, declared: "The extremists must not be allowed to take consumers hostage."

Then France simply went on making wine (some five million litres a year) and drinking like, well, Frenchmen. Until last week, when a method was finally discovered by which a culture could be constrained. As Reuters reported: "A giant 'sausage and wine' party planned later this week in a Paris neighbourhood with many Muslim residents risks sparking disturbances and will therefore be banned, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday."

The extremists, you might say, have taken consumers hostage. Except that, in the view of Reuters - a view remarkably common throughout the frightened, trembling West - the extremists are French citizens who had planned to drink French wine and eat French sausages in France. We're now at a stage where being French in France is considered insensitive, provocative and an incitement to Islamic violence.

The old saying, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" may now be re-written: "When in Rome, Paris, London, New York or Sydney, do as much as your cowardice permits. And do it a long way from any mosques, lest there be consequences."  Those anti-party French cops are following the lead set by former UN chief Kofi Annan, who had this to say four years ago following events in Denmark: "The offensive caricatures of the prophet Muhammad were first published in a European country which has recently acquired a significant Muslim population, and is not yet sure how to adjust to it." Residents of Paris are now discovering what "adjustment" means.  (. . . )

Native Parisians? Foes of our local wines? These are obvious examples of frog-whistling, clearly intended to excite terrible French bigotry. Remember, though, that all these people wanted to do was eat and drink. It wasn't as if they were going to rampage through the suburbs destroying property, something that happens during France's annual car-b-que season. In just one night a few years ago, 400 cars and 27 buses were set afire throughout France by gangs of Islamic immigrants. They're rarely referred to as such, however. The accepted term is "youths". Grill a few pork chops, and the media is all over you; grill a bunch of Citroens, and they actively cover for you. It's tempting to mock the French for their surrendering ways. These days, the Resistance is apparently limited to a few gourmands whose defiance is quickly put down by their own police. But hypersensitivity over Islamic concerns isn't limited to France. Last year, for example, Yale University Press in the US published a book about those caricatures of the prophet Muhammad mentioned earlier by Kofi Annan. Titled The Cartoons That Shook The World, the book excludes the actual cartoons, although it has a number of other illustrations.

Why no cartoons? As a publisher's statement explained: "Re-publication of the cartoons ran a serious risk of instigating violence." That excuse followed this line, just a few sentences earlier: "As an institution deeply committed to free expression ... "

So one nation with freedom of speech written into its constitution declines to exercise that freedom, and another nation shuns its centuries-long dining traditions.

Australia's self-censorship deserves a future column by itself. In the meantime, have a drink, if you dare. (Tim Blair, The Daily Telegraph, June 21, 2010)

 

“FAITH UNDER FIRE - America, 2010: Christians jailed for preaching Jesus”

One of the nation's top legal teams regarding civil and religious rights has stepped into a dispute stemming from last weekend's Arab Festival in Dearborn, Mich., where police are accused of enforcing Islamic law.  "Officers arrested four Christian missionaries and illegally confiscated their video cameras which were recording the events surrounding their arrests," said a statement today from the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich.  But the law center announcement said the incident has been described as "police enforcement of Shariah law." The organization said it would represent the Christians.

"These Christian missionaries were exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, but apparently the Constitution carries little weight in Dearborn, where the Muslim population seems to dominate the political apparatus," said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.   "It's apparent that these arrests were a retaliatory action over the embarrassing video of the strong arm tactics used last year by festival security guards. This time, the first thing police officers did before making the arrests was to confiscate the video cameras in order to prevent a recording of what was actually happening," Thompson said.

Arrested on charges of breach of the peace were Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla and David Wood, the legal team said.  Mayel, an 18-year-old woman whose parents emigrated from Afghanistan and a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, also was charged with failure to obey a police officer's orders. She was approximately 100 feet away and videotaping a discussion with Muslims when her camera was seized, the law firm said. "Contrary to the comments made by Police Chief Ron Haddad, our Constitution does not allow police to ban the right of free speech just because there are some hecklers. Not all police officers approve of the way their department treated these Christians," said Thompson.

The Christian missionaries reported police told them they would have to be five blocks away from the festival to give away copies of the Gospel of John.  The law center also is representing Pastor George Saeig, who was prohibited by the festival and police authorities from distributing religious material at last year's festival. That case is ongoing and a federal appeals court ruled prior to the 2010 event that handing out Christian literature in the proximity of the festival was allowed.  The crowd was cheering "Allahu Akbar!" while the Christians were led away in handcuffs for doing nothing more than engaging in peaceful dialogue and videotaping the event.   The Arab event was June 18 in Dearborn, where an estimated 30,000 of the city's 98,000 residents are Muslim.  The American Arab Chamber of Commerce announced the event was expected to draw "over 300,000 people from across the country, Canada and the Middle East." The festival covers 14 blocks and is free and open to the public.

All the Christian missionaries are from a Christian group called Acts 17 Apologetics.

Qureshi said people at the festival recognized his group from its visit in 2009. Last year, the Acts 17 Apologetics team was escorted from the grounds while being allegedly assaulted by security personnel and several attendees. The following is the group's footage of the incident:

This year, Qureshi said some attendees who recognized them "would come up to us, accusing us, threatening us, saying we were racists, saying they were going to hurt us and yelling curses and insults at us."  However, he said his group was able to engage in civil conversations with many people who initiated discussion. But then the group was arrested by local police. Each of the four are now free on bond.

"Paul, David, Negeen, and I went to the festival to see and comment on the situation," Qureshi wrote on his blog. "Thankfully, we recorded every second of our activity at the festival."  In Saieg's case, WND reported, a federal appeals court granted an emergency motion allowing him to hand out information about his faith at the same festival.

A three-judge panel from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, citing the precedent that even a minimal loss of a fundamental right is irreparable, granted the motion requested by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of the Sudanese Christian.” (WorldNet Daily, June 22, 2010)

 

CULTURE

“What violent lyrics do to our children 

“SONGS with violent lyrics make people who hear them up to four times more aggressive, a Macquarie University study has found.    Wayne Warburton, deputy director of the university’s Children and Families Research Centre, said the findings should prompt a better system for music and encourage parents to take more notice of hat’s on their teens’ iPods.  More than 200 students aged about 21 were split into groups and played three violent songs by US artists, including rapper Violent J and hip-hop band D12. Some heard only backing music, others lyrics and some were exposed to the full songs and their video clips.

Some lyrics referred to raping women, slitting people’s throats and pushing babies onto busy streets.  Students were then asked how much hot chilli sauce they would make a fellow participant eat, knowing they hated spicy food and would have to eat it all. 

Those not exposed to the lyrics or music said they would give an average of 3.8g—a small teaspoon—of chilli, while those who heard the music without lyrics would give an average of 8g.  But for those who heard the lyrics, the average was 12.7g of chilli.

“That’s a lot,” Dr Warburton said.  “It’s more than a tablespoon. Compared with the base line, they said they’d give nearly four times as much and what it shows you is that ant exposure increases your aggressiveness, but the thing that seems to drive it the most is the lyrics.

it’s actually very hot sauce and you know if you put a lot (on a spoon), you can really hurt a person. “If you heard the lyrics, you were significantly more aggressive and if you didn’t hear the lyrics, you were less aggressive—and it didn’t matter whether you saw the video or not.                   

“It doesn’t matter what sort of person you are—it has the same effect.

“I think a (music) rating system that gave much clearer guidance as to the content is going to be helpful.” (Lisa Mayoh, The Sunday Telegraph, May 23, 2010). 

 

“Gay couple freed after global pressure”

“Johannesburg: A gay couple in Malawi sentenced to 14 years in prison for “unnatural acts” have been pardoned shortly after the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, met Malawi’s President.  “These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws,” President Bingu wa Mutharika said at a news conference in Lilongwe, the capital, before adding that he nevertheless was ordering the couple’s unconditional release on “humanitarian grounds”.   Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 33, and Steven Monjeza, 26, were arrested on December 28, two days after holding an engagement party in Blantyre, Malawi’s largest city. As a rule, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people do not dare make any public show of affection in the deeply conservative country. The event made front-page headlines.

On May 18, they were convicted of sodomy and, while the harsh sentence was generally welcomed by the public, it drew international rebuke. Malawi is one of the poorest nations in Africa, heavily dependent on foreign aid. Several donors suggested they might have to reconsider their generosity. 

Pop stars issued their condemnations. Madonna, who has adopted two children from Malawi, said the nation had taken “a giant step backwards”.  Ekton John wrote an appeal to Dr Mutharika, asking him to release the couple and “expunge Malawi’s discriminatory laws against homosexuality”.  In announcing the pardon, Dr Mutharika emphasized that he was not condoning gay marriage. “It’s unheard of in Malawi and it’s illegal,” he said.

Dr Mutharika, an economist and the chairman of the African Union, is praised for improvements in Malawi’s health and education systems. Mr Ban arrived on Saturday for two-day visit.  He told Dr Mutharika “rather strongly” that the controversy was hurting Malawi’s reputation and obscuring progress it had made in other spheres, said a member of the UN delegation.  Mr Ban told Malawi’s MPs “it is unfortunate that laws that criminalise people on the basis of their sexual orientation should still exist in some countries.

Mr Chimbalanga, who has sais he considers himself a woman in a man’s body, and Mr Monjeza were released from custody late on Saturday. The police escorted Mr Chimbalanga back to his home village.

“I’ve been under so much emotional stress that I need to find somewhere to rest,” he said. “I still want to marry Steven. But I don’t know what he is thinking any more.  We’ve been through so much.  I think it is going to be hard to stay in Malawi. I am afraid of what people might do to us. We probably need to seek asylum in some country. Is there a place for us? I don’t know.” (Barry Bearak, The New York Times, May 3, 2010)            

        

JUSTICE

“Leave barristers alone”

“Barrister have to undergo five years of training and professional qualification before they can begin to practice, and most come to the Bar saddled with debts of -L40,000 – -L50,000.  Mr Straw claims there are too many barristers, saying there were 2,500 in the 1970s. There are more than 12,000 barristers in England and Wales, which had a population of 54 million in 2008. In 1900 there were more than 9,500 barristers when the population was 32 million, so there are now fewer barristers per head than a hundred years ago.

There aren’t too many barristers, but there certainly are too many laws. Too many ill-considered and appallingly drafted laws are passed, as one bloated Bill after another is extruded from the sausage factory that Parliament has become. It is not barristers who drive up the cost of legal aid but the increases in the numbers of those prosecuted and jailed, a good few for crimes that never existed until this Government created them. 

The legal aid budget has been capped since 2006, so it has already declined by -L600m in real terms, yet the Ministry of Justice now wants to take out still more – now by making savings by cutting the incomes of dedicated professionals.

Would you be happy to be treated only by the cheapest doctors, or would you want the NHS to pay enough to attract the best? Legal aid is one of the pillars of the welfare state, and the principle is the same.  Drive down rates and you will drive away the best and end up with a second-rate system that will cost more, as more of the wrong people go to prison or the right people go there for too long, and in the years to come society will pay a heavy price for the penny-pinching.  (Paul Mendelle, QC, Chairman Bar Association, The Times, The Week, 3 April 2o10).                

 

“Land where the criminals roam free”

“Grossly expensive system . . .”   The Australian legal system is a cabal run in the interests of lawyers.  Compared with what happens in countries such as France and Germany, the Anglo-Saxon system lets huge numbers of criminals walk free, jails more innocent people and is grossly expensive.  These claims are made in a new book by the award-winning journalist Evan Whitton, author of such classics as Can of Worms and The Hillbilly Dictator.  

In our court system, he writes, barristers battle it out until the jury or judge determines a winner.  Here the judge acts as a sort of debate adjudicator.  In Europe, the judge is far more powerful and directs the course of the trial, the objective being to arrive at the truth.

The argument over which system is better revolves around the role of the state. In our system, justice is substantially privatized. In Europe, the state has far more power.  Australian lawyers argue this increases the chance of corruption and conviction of the innocent. Whitton argues that in practice this occurs so rarely it is time we seriously considered changing from the adversary to the investigative system.  Among claims made in his book  Our Corrupt Legal System: why everyone is a victim (except rich criminals):  

.       About 95 per cent of people tried for crimes are guilty.

.       Despite this, in Australia about half are found not guilty.  In Europe, almost all are convicted.

.       Research conducted for the British government after the freeing of the Birmingham Six in 1991 found the conviction of the innocent is less likely under the European system.

.       Our system has techniques to enable lawyers to get guilty people off, so creating demand for their services. The right to silence helps about a quarter of the guilty go free.

.       Our trials are between two and 10 times longer than in Europe.

Whitton says we have 900 judges and other judicial officers. We would need 5000 if we moved to Europe’s system. But there would be fewer lawyers, and little need for juries.  This is why it won’t happen, he says. Our politics is dominated by one occupation – lawyers. (Evan Whitton, The Sun-Herald, May 30, 2010)   

 

 

WEDDINGS

“Till debt do us part

“FORGET the worry about getting to the church on time, losing the ring, or tripping on the church steps. The biggest worry for couples getting married is money. And with the average cost of an Australian wedding running at around $28,000, it is unsurprising that finances are a big deal. According to a recent survey by wedding expert Anne Mihelakos, from the truebride.com.au website, the most expensive wedding last year cost $130,000 while the cheapest was just $3000. For some people, having the "perfect" wedding is more important than a house deposit or paying off debt. In fact, many brides and grooms are going in to hock to pay for their "big day" and spend years paying back the money. Mihelakos says the average wedding goes 15 per cent over budget.  "We didn't really start off with a strict budget, we just knew roughly what we thought we wanted to do," says Mel Thompson, who was married last year. "But when we starting looking at the different reception places, we quickly realised we were out of our depth money-wise." "In the end, we decided on amore relaxed wedding in the grounds of an old farm, but that meant we could have more people it was like a great, big celebration. "I still had my dream dress and important things like that, but even after cutting back on some of the costs we still went almost $3600 over budget, which ended up being put on our credit cards," Thompson says. Truebride's Mihelakos says this is typical of weddings of today going over budget and being less formal. "Although there are people who still have the expensive, big full-on formal wedding, the majority of weddings these days have become a lot more casual," she says. "They are more relaxed and often include a special location such as a garden or beach. Destination weddings, where family and friends might all meet up overseas in a resort or something like that, are also popular. In this case the couple might pay for the meals or a few nights of accommodation, or else everyone just pays for themselves." According to a survey by card publisher Hallmark, about 80 per cent of couples go over budget on their wedding, with money being their single biggest pre-wedding worry. Loans to finance your wedding are offered by almost every major lender. Although borrowing money, from friends or banks might get you everything you want for the big day, it could also get you off to a poor financial start to your married life. According to Truebride.com.au, the average $28,000 wedding is about $4000 over the original budget. As a guide, most budgets go over by about 15 per cent. Repaying the debt from that big day can take several years, although some couples prefer to use wedding gift money to help make up the shortfall. So how can you make the most of your finances when it comes to getting prepared for a wedding?

Who pays for what?  One of the first steps after deciding where and when is to work out who traditionally pays for what. The bride's family typically carries the biggest financial burden, but these days the costs are often met equally by both families. Tradition, however, dictates the bride pays for things such as invitations, bridal gown, bridesmaids' attire, hair and make-up, reception including drinks, music, flowers, cake and photography. The groom, on the other hand, usually pays for the marriage celebrant or minister, ceremony music and flowers, bridal party flowers, groom's attire, wedding cars, honeymoon and travel. According to Truebride, based on the average $28,000 budget, the bride will spend about $2300 on her gown, headpiece and shoes, while the bridesmaid dresses are about $170 each. The wedding reception will typically cost $11,000. Photography and a video of the day will set you back about $3300, while the average honeymoon on this size budget will cost just under $6000.

Second time around:  Second marriages might be just as important in the emotional stakes, but when it comes to finances, they are definitely cheaper. The average budget for a second marriage is about half the cost of a first-time wedding. "Sure there are other factors at play, such as number of guests etc but having been through two weddings myself, a lot of the savings came from experience and know-how," Mihelakos says.

Prenuptial agreements:  A prenutial agreement is always a thorny issue and, not surprisingly, opinions on the matter are divided. Most people think these agreements are a good idea in practice, but in reality they often cause offence and imply distrust. However prenups or binding financial agreements as they are also known can play a positive role in pre-wedding arrangements. They get everyone thinking about future finances and longer term family inheritance or business plans. According to family law specialist Moores Legal principal partner Stephen Winspear, the use of prenups has jumped about 200 per cent during the past two years. "Generally, they are used in second or subsequent marriages, or the other common category, when one party is very wealthy and the other one brings not much to the marriage," Winspear says.  Changes to the law in January have reinforced the legal status of these agreements and when they are prepared by an experienced, qualified lawyer, they are binding. However, one area of prenups that has not yet been tested by the courts is in the situation where children are subsequently born in the marriage and the prenup agreement does not make allowance for them, says Winspear, who is also the Law Institute of Victoria family law chairman. Although a request for a prenup these days does not necessarily put stress on a relationship, the devil is in thedetail. "The unhappiness turns up when, typically, a woman is taking very little and I tell her 'this is a terrible agreement' and that it's unfair. Then we get the fella screaming at us because he wants to quarantine his money and we're getting in the way of his happy marriage," Winspear says. "It generally gets resolved by compromise. "Occasionally the marriage doesn't go ahead. "Where there is a fairly trusting relationship, and it's close to the wedding, we often say 'why not do it after the marriage?' It's kind of a nice look because it means that they are not signing up just to go ahead with the wedding, but signing out of the goodness of their hearts. "These agreements between a couple can be made at any stage of their relationship, whether they are in a defacto relationship (and) have already been living together. It has the same legal effect."

 Wedding costs:  “The average Australian wedding costs $28,146, according to Truebride.com.au.  Photography: $3320; Rings: $450; Reception: $11,219; Beauty: $828; Gifts: $326; Flowers: $1041; Honeymoon: $5600; Cars: $675; Ceremony: $950; Bride's attire: $2330; Groom's attire: $282; Stationery: $675; Miscellaneous: $450.” (Karina Barrymore, The Daily Telegraph, June 21, 2010).  

 

“Mass Muslim Marriage in Gaza”
       “A gala event has occurred in Gaza. Hamas sponsored a mass wedding for four hundred and fifty couples. Most of the grooms were in their mid to late twenties; most of brides were under ten.  Muslim dignitaries including Mahmud Zahar, a leader of Hamas, were on hand to congratulate the couples who took part in the carefully staged celebration.  We are saying to the world and to America that you cannot deny us joy and happiness, Zahar told the grooms, all of whom were dressed in identical black suits and hailed from the nearby Jabalia refugee camp.  Each groom received a gift of 500 dollars from Hamas.

The pre-pubescent girls, dressed in white gowns and adorned with garish make-up, received bridal bouquets. We are presenting this wedding as a gift to our people who stood firm in the face of the siege and the war, local Hamas strongman Ibrahim Salaf said in a speech.  The wedding photos tell the story.  





The International Center for Research on Women now estimates that there are 51 million child brides now living on planet earth and almost all in Muslim countries. Twenty-nine percent of these child brides are regularly beaten and molested by their husbands in Egypt; twenty six percent receive similar abuse in Jordan.  Every year, three million Muslim girls are subjected to genital mutilation, according to UNICEF. This practice has now been outlawed in many parts of America.

After Muhammad’s elderly wife, Khadijah, died in 619 A.D., he amassed eleven wives.  
He arranged the visits to the tents of his women around their menstrual cycles. His capacity for sexual congress seemed to be boundless. Sahih Bukhari, one of the most revered Islamic texts, recounts: The Prophet used to visit his wives in a round, during the day and night, and they were eleven in number. I asked Anas, Had the Prophet the strength for it? Anas replied, We used to say that the Prophet had the [sexual] stamina of thirty [men].[1]

For in-between treats, the Prophet kept a stable of concubines, including Reihana, his Jewish captive. His wives and mistresses were compelled by Islamic law to satisfy his sexual needs at any time of the day or night, and the Prophet reserved the right to enjoy them from the top of their heads to the bottom of their feet. [2]  This might not appear shocking to students of the Kinsey Report, except for the case of Aisha, Muhammad’s favourite wife. Aisha was the daughter of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's closest friend and most faithful follower. As soon as Muhammad laid eyes on Aisha, he came to fantasize having sex with her. There was a problem with this fantasy. Aisha, at that time, was a small child of four or five, while Muhammad was a middle-aged man of fifty.[3]

Still and all, the Prophet wasted no time in making his fantasy a reality. When Aisha turned six, Muhammad asked Abu Bakr for his daughter's hand in marriage. Abu Bakr thought that such a union would be improper  - not because Aisha was a mere child but rather because he considered himself Muhammad’s brother. The Prophet quickly brushed aside this objection by saying that the union was perfectly right in the eyes of Allah. Abu Bakr consented. And Muhammad took the little girl as his new bride. When they were married, Muhammad, in his mercy, permitted Aisha to take her toys, including her dolls, to their new tent.[4]

The marriage was consummated when Aisha was nine, and the Prophet fifty-three.[5]  The three year waiting period was not caused by Muhammad’s concern of sexually molesting a child but rather by the fact that Aisha contracted a skin disease which caused her to lose her hair.[6]

 

 


Pedophilia was not only practiced by Muhammad but is also sanctioned by the Quran.  In its discussion of the waiting period required to determine if a wife is pregnant before divorce, the sacred text says  if you are in doubt concerning those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months. The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated (65:4).

Those who think that modern Muslims have abandoned this teaching should study the pictures that accompany this article and recall the words of Ayatollah Khomeini, the most famous Islamic cleric of the 20th Century:  “A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate; sodomizing the child is OK. If a man penetrates and damages the child, then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however, does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl's sister. . . It is better for a girl to marry in such a time when she would begin menstruation at her husband's house rather than her father's house. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven.[7].  

 

[1] Sahih Bukhari, 1:268, translated by M. Mushin Khan, Muslim Student Association, The University of Southern California, 2001, http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/
[2] Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, pp. 525-526. [3] Sahih Bukhari, 5: 235. [4] Ibid., 8:151, 5:234. [5] Ibid, 5:62, 63. [6] Ibid, 8:151. [7] Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Tahrirolvasyleh, volume 4 (Gom, Iran: Darol Elm, 1990), p. 186. (Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.
thelastcrusade.org)

 

HEALTH

“Kiss of death as lippie tests positive for lead”

“Women love lipstick. They twist it, glide it, paint it on, and suddenly feel attractive, composed, sexy and ready for the world. Drenched in shades of sangria, dahlia, ruby, cherry and garnet, a lipstick-stained mouth exudes health. But looks can deceive. Tests conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration last year on 22 red lipsticks found lead, a neurotoxin, in every single lipstick sample studied.

The highest levels were in three well-known and common brands: Cover Girl, Revlon, L'Oreal. While the FDA is continuing lead research on additional cosmetic brands and colours, it is reassuring consumers that the lead levels it found in the red lipsticks are very small and not a health threat. The FDA does not regulate lead in finished cosmetics, only in colours added to the products. None of the products exceeded the 20 parts per million limit on colours, the agency said. An industry trade group, the Personal Care Products Council, said manufacturers did not add lead intentionally. ''Because lead is found naturally in air, water, and soil, it may also be found at extremely low levels as a trace contaminant in the raw ingredients used in formulating cosmetics, just as it is in many thousands of other products,'' the group states.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is not convinced.  The lead found in ''Cover Girl Incredifull Lipcolor Maximum Red'' was 34 times higher than the lead found in the lowest scoring lipstick, Avon's ''Ultra Color Rich Cherry Jubilee''. Clearly, the manufacturers are capable of doing better, said Stacy Malkan, of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Cover Girl's media centre at Procter & Gamble did not respond to requests for comment. ''I think some companies are not doing a good job sourcing their ingredients,'' Ms Malkan said.  Studies suggest the average woman inadvertently consumes about 1.8 kilograms of lipstick in the course of her life, licking her lips, eating fruit, sipping tea.  The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is calling on the FDA to require cosmetics manufacturers to reduce lead to the lowest achievable levels. ''The reason we're worried is that lead builds up in the body over time,'' Ms Malkan said. ''Even small levels of lead, recent science shows, is dangerous at any level to developing children.''

What should consumers do? She noted that glosses generally tested lower for lead than highly pigmented, opaque lipsticks, so that's what she uses. Using fewer personal care products was probably a good idea, especially the fragranced ones, Ms Malkan said. ''We need to change the laws to require companies to disclose what's in their products.'' (Stacey Singer, Sydney Morning Herald, May 27, 2010)

 

“Natural births better for babies”

“Babies born by caesarian section are more vulnerable to asthma, allergies and infection as they miss out on receiving the mother’s good bacteria during birth, a scientist says.

Professor Patricia Conway, of the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sc iences at the University of NSW, said babies delivered vaginally received protective bacteria as they passed through the birth canal.  Left on the baby’s skin, this bacteria could then colonise the intestine and help inoculate newborns against hospital bugs. Gut flora was also crucial for developing a balanced immune system, Professor Conway said. “With a C-section,  the new born baby misses an opportunity to pick up a lot of mum’s good bacteria,” she said.  “This can have long-term health implications, as the development of a good intestinal ecosystem is necessary for health and immunity to allergies, from childhood right through to adulthood.”  Professor Conway said emergency caesarians, performed after labour had begun, meant babies did receive some of the beneficial bacteria, particularly if the waters had broken. But elective caesarians were “sterile” and gave babies no chance to pick up any of the mother’s good bacteria.  However babies had other chances to receive their mother’s bacteria, during skin-to-skin contact directly after birth and if they were breastfed. Australian College of Midwives vice-president Hannah Dahlen said babies born vaginally had the advantage of hormonal surges during labour, which made them more wide-eyed and able to connect with their mothers. Both mother and baby experienced a surge in catecholamines – the fight-or-flight hormone – during labour, making babies more alert at birth.

Recent studies had shown white blood cells in babies born by caesarean were different to those born vaginally, potentially altering the way their bodies responded to attacks on their immune systems for the rest of their lives.  The studies could explain dramatic increases in rates of diabetes, testicular cancer, leukaemia and asthma among babies born surgically, Dr Dahlen said.  “In labour, the baby has a gradual escalation in nits stress response and then a gradual decline. Research has shown that this could prime our bodies to respond to stress in a certain way,” she said.  “With a C-section, there is a cold cut and the baby has a dramatic stress response. It could be setting that child up to always over-respond to stress.”

In 2008, European researchers examined 20 previous studies on the link between type 1 diabetes and caesareans and found babies born surgically had a 20 per cent increased risk of developing diabetes.  They hypothesized the increase could be attributed to surgically born babies having gut microbes picked up from hospital environments rather than their mothers’ vaginas, having reduced or delayed exposure to infection in early life or being exposed to non-specific perinatal stress.  (Danielle Teutsch and Kate Benson, The Sun-Herald, May 30, 2010).   

 

 

“Apples: a brain food that may keep more than the doctor away”

“It is not as if apples did not have enough virtues. Sure, one a day keeps the doctor away. That is because they are rich in vitamin C and loaded with fibre – particularly pectin, a soluble fibre that promotes digestive health and lowers blood-cholesterol levels. But increasingly researchers are finding that apples have functional properties well beyond their nutritional value, and many of the goodies are in the juice as well as the flesh. 

Now comes evidence that apples are the new brain food – they can keep you mentally sharp as you age.  Research at the University of Massachusetts has shown apples protect neurons from cognitive decline that typically accompanies ageing, improve nerve-cell communication, and can prevent, halt, and even reverse some signs of Alzheimer’s disease. It is still unclear which apple components do what, but several antioxidants and flavonoids are likely to be active in multiple ways. Drinking two glasses of apple juice a day may be the easiest way to do your brain some good.  One of the many ways apples and apple juice help the brain is by reducing the vulnerability of nerve cells to inflammation and oxidative stress during ageing, which undermines cognitive performance.  Researchers know that apples are effective as antioxidants in the brain because they have been found to reduce free radicals of oxygen in the central nervous system.  But there is more to the neuro-protective effects of apples than taking out free radicals.  Animal studies show that apple components suppress the expression of notoriously harmful genes that are active during the ageing process.   In adult mice a diet supplemented with apple juice prevented an expected increase in the presenilin-1 gene known to promote early development of Alzheimer’s disease.  Another way apples and apple juice probably affect cognition is by boosting levels of neuro-transmitters.

Mice that were fed a vitamin poor diet known to reduce levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine did not experience a decline in the brain chemical if their drinking water was spiked with apple juice. Acetylcholine influences signals important to movement, sensory perception and attention. Apple juice fed to diet-deficient mice reduces both the generation of the neurotoxin beta-amyloid thought to cause Alzheimer’s disease and reduces the toxicity of the harmful substance. Researchers found that consumption of apple juice reversed the effect of a vitamin-poor diet that is known to foster accumulation of the beta-amyloid toxin in brain tissue.  Among 21 people with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease who each consumed about 236 millilitres of apple juice a day for a month, behavioral and psychotic symptoms of the disease fell by 27 per cent. Patients experienced reductions in anxiety levels, agitation, and delusional symptoms.   The researchers see apple juice as a useful adjunct therapy for the mood changes linked to the brain disorder. (Hara Estroff Marano, Psychology Today, SMH, May 27, 2010). 

 

“Mobiles 'too dangerous' for children”

“CHILDREN have been warned to text, rather than talk, on their mobile phones by the federal Government's radiation safety watchdog.

The official caution was issued last week by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, following a decade-long study into the health effects of using mobile phones. The agency said children needed to take precautions to protect themselves from exposure to radiation because health risks from their long-term mobile phone use were still unknown.

 "Children should be encouraged to limit exposure from mobile phones to their heads by reducing call time, by making calls where reception is good, by using hands-free devices or speaker options, or by texting," it said.

The agency - the Commonwealth's main advisory body on radiation protection - reviews Australian and international research and is completing an assessment to develop new recommendations and guidelines.  Its warning comes only weeks after a 10-year international study linked extended mobile phone use to increased risk of brain tumours.  The Interphone project, the world's biggest study into the health effects of mobiles, found no increased risk of cancer overall, but those who talk at least 30 minutes a day are up to 40 per cent more likely to develop glioma, the most common type of brain cancer.

Professor Bruce Armstrong, of Sydney University's School of Public Health, said mobile phone radiation was more harmful to children because their bodies were less developed.  "The skull is thinner and so more of the radiation produced will be absorbed into the brain in a child, who has a mobile phone to their ear, than in an adult who has the same conversation," he said. "It's not a huge amount, but it is material."

Professor Armstrong, who led the Australian part of the Interphone study, said he supported the radiation agency's advice, but stopped short of calling for it to be extended to all users. An Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association spokesman said: "There is no known basis for singling out children for concern." Greens senator Bob Brown said a health warning should be issued to all mobile users.  "There is no proof mobile phone use is safe," he said.  (Miawling Lam, The Sunday Telegraph, June 27, 2010)

 

Social Issues

 Judge overturns California gay marriage ban”

“A federal judge overturned California's ban on same-sex marriage Wednesday, the latest twist in a legal saga which could have nationwide implications for the divisive social issue.

In a written opinion, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in favor of rights activists who argued that a November 2008 referendum which barred gays and lesbians from tying the knot was discriminatory and therefore violated the US Constitution.  The referendum, known as Proposition 8, was passed by a 52 percent majority only six months after California's Supreme Court overturned a previous ban on same-sex weddings triggering a flood of same-sex marriages.  However Walker wrote in a ruling that Proposition 8 failed to "advance any rational basis" to deny gay men and lesbians a marriage license. "Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples," Walker wrote.

"Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligations to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."

Opponents of same sex marriage had already signaled they would appeal Walker's decision if it went against them.  Walker later issued a ruling granting a temporary stay of his order until Friday, allowing opponents of same-sex marriage time to file appeals and appearing to bar an immediate resumption of weddings between gays and lesbians.

Gay rights activists meanwhile praised the decision but warned they were ready for further legal battles ahead.  "There are more legal challenges, debates and votes to come," said Lorri Jean, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center.

California's Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger welcomed Wednesday's ruling, describing it as "a milestone in America's road to equality and freedom for all people."

"For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves," Schwarzenegger said.

However opponents of same-sex marriage lashed out at Walker's ruling, with Randy Thomasson of the socially conservative SaveCalifornia.com -- Campaign for Children and Families describing it as a "terrible blow" to voter rights.  "Judge Walker has ignored the written words of the Constitution, which he swore to support and defend and be impartially faithful to, and has instead imposed his own homosexual agenda upon the voters, the parents and the children of California," Thomasson said.  "This is a blatantly unconstitutional ruling because marriage isn't in the US Constitution," Thomasson added.

Proposition 8 effectively nullified a May 2008 California Supreme Court decision by redefining marriage as a union only between a man and a woman.  A failed attempt to overturn the referendum in California in 2009 prompted activists to take their fight to federal courts, a strategy seen as risky because it could result in a US Supreme Court ruling, which would settle the issue once and for all with no possibility of appeal.

The federal lawsuit was filed by two same-sex couples who are represented in part by Theodore Olson and David Boies, high-powered attorneys who famously sparred on opposite sides in the Bush v. Gore lawsuit in 2000.

Attorneys for gay marriage opponents argued during 13 days of hearings earlier this year that Proposition 8 is legal and based on a centuries-old tradition of male-female marriage, including the inability of same-sex couples to conceive children.

However Walker gave a withering verdict of the tactics used by opponents of gay marriage during the campaign to pass Proposition 8.

"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians," Walker wrote. "The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite sex couples."(Rob Woollard, Sydney Morning Herald, August 5, 2010)