Devotional, Devotion, Prophecy, Bible Study, Bible discussion, End of Days, End Times, Enter Ministry, Underground Church, Church, Fellowship, Tribulation, Salvation, Ordained, Love, Heaven, Miracles
Author: Michael Young, Sr.
I am a practicing Christian, a disciple of Jesus, a husband of over 50 years, a father and a grandfather, a business man, a veteran and a friend to all who will have me.
I have served or am serving, at various times, as an Evangelist, a Pulpit fill pastor, an Associate Pastor of Evangelism and as Senior Pastor of a church plant. My passion is for practicing and teaching the Bible, building small groups, reaching the lost with the message of the Gospel of Jesus, recovering the straying Sheep of God and the gathering together the Called of God, in neighborhoods, business settings and in churches by equipping other Christians.
I have authored a few small books and I have a background in professional business management, finance and investments.
I am glad to meet you, even if it is virtually. Write me at any time and let's become friends.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ – Chapter 1 (And the OVERLOOKED Detail)
EPISODE FOUR
(Now we are going to the text of the Book of The Revelation, complete with chapter, verse, inserted comments and footnotes. These Episodes are not meant just to ask the question, “What”, but also the question, “SO WHAT?”)
Revelation 1:1, This is the revelation,[footnote ‘a’], of Jesus Christ [and His unveiling of the divine mysteries], which God [the Father] gave to Him to show to His bond-servants (believers) the things which must soon take place [in their entirety]; and He sent and communicated it by His angel (divine messenger) to His bond-servant John, verse 2, who testified and gave evidence to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ,even to everything that he saw [in his visions]. Verse 3, Blessed, [footnote ‘b’], (happy, prosperous, and admired) is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and who keep the things which are written in it [by heeding them and taking them to heart]; for the time [of fulfillment] isnear.
Message to the Seven Churches.
Verse 4.John, [footnote ‘c’], to the seven churches that are in [the province of] Asia,[footnote ‘d’]: Grace,[footnote ‘e’], [be granted] to you and peace [inner calm and spiritual well-being], from Him Who is [existing forever] and Who was [continually existing in the past] and Who is to come, and from the seven Spirits,[footnote ‘f’], that are before His throne, verse 5, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful, [footnote ‘g’], and trustworthy Witness, the Firstborn,[footnote ‘h’], of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who [always] loves us and who [has once for all], freed us,[footnote ‘i’], [or washed us] from our sins by His own blood (by His sacrificial death)—verse 6, and formed us into a kingdom [as His subjects], as priests,[footnote ‘‘j], to His God and Father–to Him be the glory and the power and the majesty and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Verse 7. BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him (also see the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:30-31 as He speaks directly to His disciples about this very thing; and remember that this is the time that every eye will see Him and this is the beginning of His second coming), even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes (and nations) of the earth will mourn over Him [realizing their sin and guilt, and anticipating the coming wrath]. So it is to be. Amen.[footnote ‘k’].
Verse 8. “I am the Alpha,[footnote ‘l’], and the Omega [the Beginning and the End],” says the Lord God, “Who is [and Who always has been] and Who was [and has been continually existing in and from the past] and Who is to come [and Who had, by God’s miraculous timing, already come], the Almighty [the Omnipotent, the Ruler of all].” (When Jesus spoke these words in the Book of Matthew, He spoke of these things in the present and future tense. But now He speaks of them in the aorist tense, which has no regard for the past, present or future, as they are, in His timing, occurring simultaneously. For more detail, us this link, “The Signs of Jesus Coming.”)
PATMOS & THE OVERLOOKED DETAIL
Verse 9. I, John, your brother and companion in the tribulation(which has already begun as birth pains and will continue until the consummation of this age, as spoken of in the Book of Daniel) [footnote ‘m’], and kingdom and patient endurance which are in Jesus (and are how anyone can find the strength and resources to endure the stresses of severe trials, and persecutions with a cheerful, steadfast and patient constancy), was on the island called Patmos, [exiled there] because of [my preaching of] the word of God [regarding eternal salvation] and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Verse 10. I was in the Spirit,[footnote ‘n’] [in special communication with the Holy Spirit and empowered to receive and record the revelation from Jesus Christ] on the Lord’s Day,[footnote ‘o’], and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, verse 11, saying, “Write on a scroll what you see [in this revelation], and send it to the seven churches,[footnote ‘p’], to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Verse 12. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And after turning I saw seven golden lampstands; verse 13, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw someone like the Son of Man,[footnote q], dressed in a robe reaching to His feet, and with a golden sash wrapped around His chest. Verse 14. His head and His hair were white like white wool, [glistening white] like snow; and His [all-seeing] eyes were [flashing] like a flame of fire [piercing into my being]. Verse 15. His feet were like burnished [white-hot] bronze, refined in a furnace, and His voice was [powerful] like the sound of many waters. Verse 16. In His right hand He held seven stars, and from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword [of judgment]; and His face [reflecting His majesty and the Shekinah glory], [footnote ‘r’], was like the sun shining in [all] its power [at midday].
Verse 17.When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead. And He placed His right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last [absolute Deity, the Son of God], verse 18, and the Ever-living One [living in and beyond all time and space]. I died, but see, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of [absolute control and victory over] death and of Hades (the realm of the dead). Verse 19.So write the things which, [footnote ‘s’], you have seen [in the vision], and the things,[footnote ‘t’], which are [now happening], and the things which,[footnote ‘u’], will take place after these things. Verse 20. As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels (divine messengers, [footnote ‘v’]), of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (End of Chapter One.)
The Key takeaways in this chapter are:
John is telling us, his fellow bond-servants and the seven churches, that the tribulation has begun, and that he is in the tribulation at this time.
John is writing this letter to his fellow bond-servants in Christ to encourage them and to show them how to find the strength and resources to endure the stresses of severe trials, and persecutions of the tribulation, now and later, with a cheerful, steadfast and patient constancy.
Jesus loves us and has, once for all time, freed and washed us from our sins by His own blood, by His sacrificial death.
He has formed us into a kingdom of His subjects, as priests, to His God and Father.
John is telling us that this is our testimony in the tribulation, and it will be the reason for other to show admiration of Christ Jesus as we endure these trials.
John is writing to and putting the seven churches on notice, describing Jesus in images of His majesty and power.
This presentation is focused on the Book of Revelation but will begin by drawing content and information the Book of Genesis. It is meant to give the reader a simplified chronology and to abbreviate the highlight the events of the Last Days to provide an easier-to-understand study on what is coming to planet earth.
I will be using the NASB and the Amplified versions of the Bible for descriptive clarity and I will add commentary when useful. I will also be using italics and bold lettering for emphasis.
Furthermore, I will not go into the detail of symbolism, the historicity or cultural, political, social, economic backgrounds or traditions, however, I am supplying Text Links to serve those purposes. They are important, and I strongly encourage you to use them).
The literary genres of the book of Revelation are apocalyptic and prophetic, and it is an Epistle (a Letter). The Apostle John, who followed Jesus Christ as His disciple (and earned the title of “the disciple whom Jesus loved”), witnessed His crucifixion, authored the Book of the Revelation between A.D. 90 and A.D. 95.
The immediate background for John and his exile to the Greek island of Patmos, is that Roman authorities were beginning to enforce emperor worship, and Christians who held that Christ, not Caesar, was Lord, were facing increasing hostility. John was writing the Revelation while a prisoner on the Island of Patmos, approximately 85-95 A.D., the site of a Roman penal colony) for his activities as a Christian missionary (see Revelation chapter1 verse 9). Now, John is writing to the believers at Smyrna warning against coming opposition.
Some within the church are advocating a policy of compromise, which has to be corrected before its subtle influence can undermine the determination of believers to stand fast in the perilous days that lie ahead. (see Revelation chapter 2 verses 14, 15 and 20)
John is writing to encourage the Christian faithful to resist the demands of emperor worship. He informs Believers that the final showdown between God and Satan will soon take place. Satan will increase his persecution of believers, and they must stand fast, even to death. John informs them that they are sealed against spiritual harm and will be vindicated when Christ returns.
John’s purpose is to give hope to all Christians and to encourage them to watch for the triumphant return of the Jesus Christ and to warn of the Final Judgments of nonbelievers in the Last Days.
“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near”(Revelation 1, verse 3).
Then, in Revelation chapter 1 verse 9, John makes a statement that should be shaking the modern church to its foundations, but it has been and is being ignored, overlooked or has been misrepresented by most Bible teachers – for decades. Read as John says,
“I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the tribulation…”
NOTE: Most Bible teachers in our postmodern age who will address this verse and these specific words of John will insist or imply that John is, in a manner of speaking, confused. They will say that because John has witnessed the martyrdom of his fellow Apostles, the severe persecution of fellow Believers, because of his advanced age and his isolation on Patmos, John is disoriented or bewildered, causing him to misinterpret the events and signs he is witnessing and the age in which he is living as being the Last Days and the tribulation.
Please, let me be crystal clear: any such interpretation of John’s remarks as being an error in John’s perception, is more than a mistake by Bible teachers and theologians. It is more than just an error in their judgment. It is an egregious and arrogant judgment on the Holy Scriptures. Furthermore, it is the blight of denominationalism to say that John, the bond-servant chosen by God, is confused, mistaken or insane. That is tantamount to accusing the Bible of error. To which I say, nonsense and shame! Here is what the Bible says: God chose John, His bond-servant, “to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything that he saw.” (see Revelation 1 verses 1 and 2),
John’s remarks and testimony are true, accurate and without any error.
John is saying, and if fact is repeating what Jesus and the Apostles Paul, Peter and Timothy have been saying as early as A.D. 30, that these “are the Last Days” and the “birth pains” of the “tribulation” as represented by the breaking (or opening) of the first 5 tribulation Seals which will be followed by the Great Tribulation, also known as the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord and the Wrath of the Lamb, which will commence with the breaking of the 6th Tribulation Seal..
Please See and read:
Acts 2:14-17, (the Apostle Peter), saying, “let this be known to you, and give ear to my words.For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be…’
1 Peter 1:20, (the Apostle Peter), saying,“ He, (Jesus), was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.”
1 Peter 4:7, (the Apostle Peter), saying, “The end of all things is at hand.”
2 Peter 3:3. (the Apostle Peter), saying, “knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days.”
1 Corinthians 10:11, (the Apostle Paul), saying, “Now these things happened to them as an example and warning [to us]; they were written for our instruction [to admonish and equip us], upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
Hebrews 1:2, (the Apostle Paul), saying, “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”
Hebrews 9:26, (the Apostle Paul), saying, “But as it is, Jesus has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
2 Timothy 3:1, (the Apostle Timothy), saying, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.”
1 John 2:18.(the Apostle John), saying, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour.”
Revelation 1:9, (The Apostle John), saying, “I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the tribulation.”
Matthew 24:4-31, (Jesus), describing a panorama and the stages of the tribulation and the Last Days.
(NOTE: I realize that some of what is being presented is a departure from the more traditional dispensational view of a ‘pre-tribulation rapture’.
Traditionally, the tribulation, The Great Tribulation, the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord and the Wrath of the Lamb, are all considered as one seven-year event, (which is also known as Daniel’s Seventieth Week). When these matters are studied and prayerfully scrutinized, the Bible serious student will find that the SEAL JUDGMENTS of the tribulation period comes in TWO STAGES.
Then comes ‘the Great Tribulation stage’, which begins with the breaking of the 6th Tribulation Seal and concludes with the pouring out of the final 7 Bowl Judgments.
There are substantial studies on this view which I will offer at the end of our final episode.)
John gives a summary of The Book of The Revelation in chapters one through three, wherein he describes the details of the Revelation of Jesus he received as an apocalyptic vision from an angel. In this vision John is instructed to write a letter to seven churches:“Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things”.John, in this letter, gives a description of the seven churches, their qualities, strengths and their weaknesses. (This letter to the churches can be seen as a way to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of any current-day church, and even your own spiritual state).
Then, in Revelation chapters four through twenty, John describes the spiritual realm, wherein Jesus Christ is the referred to as “The Slain Lamb” of God, who is the only One worthy to open the book with the SEVEN seals.
The SEVENTH Seal then introduces SEVEN trumpets, which bring another series of judgments. The SIXTH Trumpet Judgment marks the mid-point of the Great Tribulation, brings the death of one-third of the earth’s population, and marks the point in the Great Tribulation when no more can be saved: “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, DID NOT REPENT” (see Revelation 9, verse 20).
Revelation 6, verse 16, Revelation 11, verse 18 and Revelation 14, verse 10, all mention the arrival of the Wrath of the Lamb occurring at or near the blowing of the 6th Tribulation Trumpet.
Next are the final Seven Vials or Bowls of plagues to be poured onto the Earth. These fierce and final plagues demonstrate the Wrath of The Lamb and God’s holy judgment upon the wicked Earth.
John announces that the antichrist and the false prophet are cast into the Lake of Fire where they remain for one thousand years.
Finally, in Revelation chapters twenty-one through twenty-two, John describes the New Heaven and the New Earth and the holy city of the New Jerusalem where there will no longer be any crying or tears, pain, mourning, or death. (see chapter 21 verse 1).
Those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will enter and will live eternally with Jesus Christ. (see Revelation chapter 22 verse 17).
Here is Small Bite’ Video #2. An overview of The Book of The Revelation, chapter 12 through chapter 22. (created by The Bible Project. After viewing these videos, please continue with the following Episodes).
A PROPHETIC WORD FROM JESUS – “Oh, you of little faith”, Part 37
Creative, Causative, Prophetic, Instructional
“Oh, you of little faith”
“And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them,
“Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”
Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
“The men wondered in amazement, saying, “What kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”
The Words of Jesus, Matthew 8:23-27.
Jesus is God, incarnate. God is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. Why would He ask His disciples, “Why are you afraid?” Shouldn’t He know?
This is an ‘emphatic interrogative’ aimed at no one in particular and everyone in general. It is not necessarily meant to garner a response, as it is meant to make everyone aware of what is going on.
These words of Jesus are a proclamation similar to a colloquial expression such as, “What is wrong with you guys?!” A more complete and accurate translation might be, “Which certain ones of you, which someone or anyone, afraid?”
It is also important to know that the word Jesus uses, “afraid”, in the Greek is ‘deilos’ means, “fear-driven, dreadful, describing a person who loses the moral gumption and fortitude that is needed to follow the Lord.”
This word refers to an excessive fear or dread. Being fainthearted and cowardly – hence, to fall short in following Christ as Lord.
This type of fear comes from a lack of faith, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” This is not the typical fear that causes ‘fight or flight’. This kind of fear renders you helpless and vulnerable to circumstances and the wiles of the devil.
Although we, as English-speaking people, may not understand the nuance of what Jesus is saying, His disciples knew exactly what He is saying. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last time Jesus chides His disciples in this manner.
This was spoken to His disciples in the boat during a storm, and it is Creative, Causative, Prophetic, Instructional. It was spoken and is written to you and to me, today!
The Bible instructs us to “fear not” or “do not be afraid” 63 times in the King James Version and 61 times in the New American Standard. Repetition is used to make a very strong and important point. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God”.
God knows all things. He knows what is coming upon you, and He even knows how you will respond and react. There is a Purpose in all things that come upon you. They may be bewildering, unpleasant, even deadly, but know this: “[With great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
The Purpose of God’s Eternal Plan is Perfection. He is maturing and perfecting His people into His image, ultimately to live in Perfect harmony with Him and with one another, in a New and Perfect heaven and earth.
Each and every chapter, verse and word in the Bible, when viewed within this context of God’s Eternal Plan of Perfection, begins to make perfect sense.
This is a Christian’s life experience, and without having been transformed and made new, you cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
When you encounter times of trouble, trials and tribulations, fear not. Jesus says, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, if you have faith, that is personal trust and confidence in Me, and do not doubt or allow yourself to be drawn in two directions, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen as God wills it.” (Matthew 21:21, amplified version).
Let’s be strong and courageous and pray for one another that we endure to the end, for then we are saved!
(Please bookmark this page or subscribe for future episodes).
Isaiah 8:12-14
“You are not to say, ‘It is a conspiracy!’ In regard to all that this people call a conspiracy, And you are not to fear what they fear nor be in dread of it.
“It is the Lord of hosts whom you are to regard as holy and awesome. He shall be your fear, He shall be your dread [not man]. “Then He shall be a sanctuary [a sacred, indestructible shelter for those who fear and trust Him];
Article after article by various credible Christian sources, decry the crisis of Biblical illiteracy – within Christianity.
News magazine “Christianity Today”, calls it “An epidemic of Bible illiteracy”; A Biola University magazine calls it a crisis and says we are starving ourselves to death; a Gospel Coalition article call it spiritual malnourishment.
Why is this considered a crisis? Take the remarks of world-renowned Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, for the best example. Dr. Peterson has said that the Bible is “way more than just true,” it’s the bedrock of Western civilization.
Peterson lamented that “the culture is dissolving” as he detailed his experience touring the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., and his reflections on society.
Peterson has spoken more about Western civilization, characterizing “fundamental texts” as “the texts upon which most other texts depend.” He cited the work of William Shakespeare as one of several “texts that influenced more other texts” before identifying the Bible as the ultimate source of all “linguistic production.”
“It isn’t that the Bible is true. It’s that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth, which makes it way more true than just true. It’s a whole different kind of truth. And I think this is not only literally the case. Factually, I think it can’t be any other way. It’s the only way we can solve the problem of perception.”
Throughout his appearance on the podcast, Peterson spoke about what he saw as the decline of Western civilization. (excerpt taken from a Christian Post article).
THE ODD PART
Approximately 52 million “attend church” in one of the 300,000 plus churches in America, at least once a week each month, and most of these people go to church, among other reasons,
To become closer to God. (81%)
So their children will have a moral foundation. (69%)
To become a better person. (68%)
For comfort in times of trouble or sorrow. (66%)
To be part of a faith community. (57%)
In other words, most people who go to church, do so for a reason. (Pew Research). So then, why are fewer people relying of the Bible and church for answers?
IT BEGINS WITH WHAT YOU HEAR, SEE, LEARN, AND RETAIN.
If you are normal, you have the potential of remembering 10% of what you hear, and that is only the potential. So, how can anyone learn and retain if they cannot remember what they have seen and heard at church?
Furthermore, when people are asked the lead story in the news or the topic of the “sermon” they heard, after 24 hours, only about 10 percent could tell you. When asked to cite the most urgent news item or the important lesson they received, most just shrugged. Pastor and Bible teacher, Rick Warren, says we forget 95% of what we hear after 72 hours.
Studies show that most people don’t remember sermons, lectures, addresses or speeches—they don’t even remember paragraphs. What people remember are simple statements, slogans, and phrases. I don’t remember any speech John F. Kennedy gave, but most of us of a certain age remember his statements,
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” and, “I am a Berliner!”
I don’t remember any sermon preached by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but I do remember his famous phrase,
“I have a dream!”
People tend to remember:
10% of what they read.
20% of what they only hear.
30% of what they only see.
50% of what they see and hear.
70% of what they say and write down.
90% of what they DO.
It seems, however, the News Media Moguls and experts have discovered how to make “their news” stay on the minds of those who watch through repetition. They repeat the same new story, several times each day and for days on end, They use the same graphics, audio and videos, over and over and over – until it sticks! And, it is working. Most people who get their information from the News Media, when asked about a certain social or political topic, tend to answer in ‘media sound bites’. They repeat the short sound bites almost verbatim. The old, ‘monkey see, monkey do’ syndrome.
A conservative estimate, for just the top seven news media outlets to produce a days worth of news is approximately $9,780,000 per week.
Actually, it is next-to-impossible to get an accurate estimate because the numbers are just too overwhelming.
Churches, on the other hand, have not adapted so well. The tendency in most Evangelical Churches is to preach a different topical sermon once a week. Some Churches will preach through a book of the Bible, one a week, chapter by chapter, rarely repeating themselves. Some use visual graphics, audio effects and outline sheets for the listeners to take notes, but, rarely repeat the message in any given year.
It’s a shame Churches aren’t catching on, because, unlike the News Media, Churches have a semi-captive audience, but, are not having the same impact as the News Media.
(#1), An estimated 1.2 million hours each week are spent in sermon preparations throughout American churches; it takes about another 300,000 hours in delivery of these sermons, (#2), at a staggering potential cost of over $750,000,000 (that is millions of dollars) nationally, each week. (#3), Yet, only 5% of those hearing these sermons, remember anything about them after 72 hours.
So, what are we getting for our $750,000,000 in offerings? And, if you are a preacher or a pastor, what are you giving in return for these astronomical costs? Are you preaching, sermonizing, teaching, discipling, lecturing, giving a religious address or discourse which people can remember, thereby improving peoples’ lives?
Review these methods used by churches, and determine which of these you are getting on Sunday mornings – and decide if it is worth the time and money:
Religious Lectures,
Religious Addresses,
Religious Discourses,
Gospel Preaching,
Bible Sermons,
Religious Teaching,
Christian Discipleship training.
People will more frequently remember simple repeated statements, slogans, and phrases. So, when we are told to “Go and preach or tell the Good News (the Gospel) of Jesus”, most of us just can’t remember what to say, short of “God loves you and so do I”.
Do you not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two tunics, or sandals, or a staff?
(These methods produce an amazing and most desirable 90% retention rate.)
The current way of “doing church” seems to be changing monthly. This has been going on for the last 40 years and it is causing the church to falter in influence and to lose its “savor”, as the Bible puts it. The church, it seems, is becoming little more than a religious institution delivering “drive-in” or “drive-up fast food style” preaching, sermons, religious lectures, addresses, discourses and entertainment in competition with NFL Sunday, YouTube TV, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Now I have said it and you have read it. Will it make any difference to the 164,000,000, (that’s millions), Evangelical and Protestant Christians in over 350,000 churches in America? Will you just shrug your shoulders and trundle back to “doing your church thing” this Sunday? Or will you, do like Peter, Andrew, James, Zebedee and John, who dropped everything about the current ways they were living, and followed Jesus, step by step?
Is there a secret in plain sight here? Is there a lesson for us in the 21st century here? Stop making it about you and your church. Stop making it so complicated or scattered and blurred. FOCUS ON JESUS ONLY.
THE ANSWER
So, what if we would simply follow the pattern and method established by Jesus? Nothing more, nothing less. In fact, why not try starting with something simple but profound: Stop making the telling of ‘Stories’ about the Bible our mainstay, and simply TEACH and EXPLAIN what Jesus TEACHES, THE WAY HE TEACHES.
The Sermon on the Mount Principles (Salvation, Sanctification – (Matthew 5:1 ff) .
Disciples and the World (Matthew 5:13).
Personal Relationships (Matthew 5:21).
Charitable Giving and Prayer (Matthew 6:1).
The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9).
Fasting; The True Treasure; Wealth (Matthew 6:16).
The Cure for Anxiety (Matthew 6:25).
Judging Others (Matthew 7:1).
Prayer and the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:7).
The Narrow and Wide Gates (Matthew 7:13).
A Tree and Its Fruit (Matthew 7:15).
The Two Foundations.(Matthew 7:24)
Jesus Cleanses a Man with Leprosy (Matthew8:1).
The Centurion’s Faith (Matthew 8:5).
Peter’s Mother-in-law and Many Others Healed (Matthew 8:14).
Discipleship Tested (Matthew 8:18).
Jesus Calms the Storm (Matthew 8:23).
Jesus Sends Demons into Pigs (Matthew 8:28).
A Paralyzed Man Healed (Matthew9:1).
Fasting (Matthew 9:14).
Miracles of Healing (Matthew 9:18).
The Disciple’s Instructions for Service (Matthew 10:1).
A Hard Road Ahead (Matthew 10:16).
The Meaning of Discipleship (Matthew 10:24).
The Reward for Service (Matthew 10:16).
And please remember, you are not building ‘Your Church”, you are building HIS CHURCH. And, these are not ‘stories’ to be told or to muse about. They are Jesus’ instructions for His disciples. These are instructions for entering the Kingdom of God and working the Works of Jesus, and even greater works than these, because He is with us and with the Father, interceding for us daily – until the end!
Say it often. Say it with both, passion and compassion. Let’s build His Church.
A PROPHETIC WORD FROM JESUS – “Foxes have holes”, Part 36
Creative, Causative, Prophetic, Instructional
“And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” “Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
The Words of Jesus, Matthew 8:20-22.
This is one of the more misunderstood and mysterious of Jesus’ instructions. It seems out of place and a bit callous at first glance, and unless you gain its wisdom, you might well be left behind.
In its fuller context, begin reading in verse eighteen,
“Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea. Then a scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Another of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.”
That is an odd thing to say to someone who wants to follow you, isn’t it? What does Jesus mean?
A scribe in the Bible, was a man learned in the Mosaic law and in the sacred writings, an interpreter, teacher. Scribes examined the more difficult and subtle questions of the law; added to the Mosaic law decisions of various kinds thought to elucidate its meaning and scope, and did this to the detriment of religion.
Scribes were trained and enrolled in the Sanhedrin political and judicial council headed by the high priest (in his role as civil ruler); in the Talmud it is described as primarily a religious legislative body headed by sages, though with certain political and judicial functions. (notes from the Online Bible edition)
So, Jesus tells this Scribe, this judge and sage, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Foxes retreat to the safety of their lair. They live and remain in their holes, venturing out only to gather food and water, then they scurry back to the safety of the hole. Their focus is on their hole in the ground.
Same for the birds. They have the nest they build to lay eggs and raise their young. A safe place. They, too, venture out for food, but their focus is on the safety of a nest.
BUILDING HIS CHURCH
Jesus, however, is on mission. He knows that He is the permanent sacrifice for the reconciliation of all people to God. He is doing the work of His Father. Time is short.
He is telling this scribe and His disciples that He has neither the time nor the intention of settling into a “hole in the ground” or building “a nest” into which they can settle down and feel safe.
He has no time for building programs, no time for social programs, no time for endless debate over the ‘cummin and dill’ of the Torah or the endless list of man’s constructs designed to explain and contain the Holy Scriptures. No time for holes in the ground or nests.
Jesus is saying that He is the foundation of His Church, and He is on the move, building His Church. He is the foundation for Temple of the Holy Spirit in the hearts, minds and souls of people.
His Church is Spiritually alive, organic and naturally fluid and on the move; It cannot be contained by a program or an institution. It is powerful, transformative, life changing, world altering and cannot be taught in a school on religion.
If you come to know Jesus, you will know His Church, and it is not to be found in a building, a hole in the ground or a nest.
THE CHURCH WAS, AND IS, A MOVEMENT
In A.D. 1, The Church of Jesus Christ, The Body of Christ, had no buildings, little money and no wealth. The Church was a Movement.
Jesus said to make disciples; collect no money except to make your journey.
Although the penalty for becoming a Christian was often death, the early Church grew exponentially.
Then, men became disobedient and proudly began to ‘cast their own vision’ for Jesus’ Church and
THE CHURCH BECAME A PHILOSOPHY
Then, by A.D. 49, The Church expanded into Greece. The Church became a philosophy to many. The Church grew and size and influence, and
THE CHURCH BECAME AN INSTITUTION
By A.D. 313, the Church expanded into Rome and it gained recognition. It grew in power and popularity. It obtained wealth, buildings, property and influence; It became an institution and
THE CHURCH BECAME A CULTURE
In A.D. 380, the Church expanded into Europe. It was becoming a worldwide phenomenon. It grew in wealth, stature, power and influence. It had become a culture, and
THE CHURCH BECAME A BUSINESS
A.D. 1607, the Church reaches America, and
By A.D. 1681, the Church became corporate. It had become a business and incorporated. It became regulated by the government.
The Corporate Church grew. It needed money to support growth and expansion, which meant the Corporate Church needed more people.
By A.D. 1777, with the best of intentions, the state of Virginia granted tax exemption to houses of worship, thereby slipping a governmental tax-noose around the neck of the church.
Then, by A.D. 1894, the corporate church was granted tax exemptions by the Federal Government and by
A.D. 1954, the Federal Government regulated what a church could and could not say in order to retain tax-exempt status.
The church worked to grow numerically, and in order to attract more people, the Corporate Church lowered its membership and doctrinal standards. More people became ‘members’ and gave more money to support more growth.
“The Church Incorporated” was complete with leaders, boards and membership and a business model.
Local churches began to compete against one another for members (customers). The church is selling itself in “three-line slogans”.
The Church members now have choices and have become religious consumers. Church people can shop around for the religious brand and standards that best suits them. (see 2 Timothy 3).
The Leadership (pastors and preachers) have become CEOs, disciples have become church leaders, growing their 501(c)(3) business models. The great apostasy is under way.
Church scandals fill media headlines. Record numbers of pastors quitting because of stress, burnout or are being fired by their congregations for misdeeds moral failures or low achievement. (some stats say 1500 – 1700 leave “the ministry” each month).
Church debt in America soars; church foreclosures soar.
A.D. 1968, The church ordains homosexuals as clergy.
A.D. 1972, The United church of Christ ordains homosexual clergy
A.D. 2010, The Lutheran church ordains homosexual clergy
A.D. 2012, The Presbyterian church ordains homosexual clergy
Internationally, churches that have ordained openly lesbian or gay clergy include the Church of Scotland, the Church of England, the Church in Wales, the Church of Sweden, the Church of Norway, the Church of Denmark, the Church of Iceland, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, the Methodist Church in Britain, the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, the United Protestant Church in Belgium, the Swiss Reformed Church, the United Protestant Church of France, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Anglican Church in Canada, the Old Catholic Church, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and the United Church of Christ in Japan.
AD 2020 The church is losing and has lost influence. The church in 2020 is losing members.
AD 2020 The church is teaching and living a different Gospel than that of the Apostles.
We, The Remnant Church, The Body of Christ, You and I, must return to Jesus. The time of His return is very near. We must found be doing what He has said, doing the Works of Jesus.
There has been confusion surrounding several key scriptures, thanks mainly to denominational differences and poor methodology of interpretation and incorrect explanation or analysis of text. (I am not a theologian nor am I an expert. But with prayer and diligent study, the word of God is meant to be understood when kept in the context of the entire Bible. Therefore:
“Now as to the periods and the end times, brothers and sisters, you have no need of anything to be written to you. verse 2. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night. verse 3. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction will come upon them like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. Verse 4. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that the day would overtake you like a thief; verse 5. For you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; verse 6, so then, let’s not sleep as the rest of the others do, but let’s be alert and self-controlled and sober. Verse 7. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who are drunk, get drunk at night. Verse 8. But since we are of the day, let’s be self-controlled and ]sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. Verse 9. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 10. Who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Verse 11. Therefore, comfort and encourage one another and build one another up, just as you also are doing.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:1)
The Sixth Seal: The Wrath of the Lamb
Revelation 6:12, And I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became as black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; verse 13, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. verse 14. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. verse 15. Then the kings of the earth and the eminent people, and the commanders and the wealthy and the strong, and every slave and free person hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; verse 16,. And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the sight of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; verse 17, for the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION
The placement of these verses, twelve through seventeen, of chapter six of the Revelation, is telling. They come after tribulation seals one through five which, throughout the Bible, are consistently referred to as ‘the tribulation period’ or of ‘birth pains“, as opposed to what follows, which is the Great Tribulation, The Great and Terrible Day of The Lord or the Wrath of the Lamb.
What do we know so far?
The Lord is coming just like a thief in the night.
While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction will come upon them like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. Verse 4. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that the day would overtake you like a thief.
God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
This occurs after the 5th tribulation seal – with the breaking of the 6th Tribulation seal, comes Revelation 6 verse 16 and, the wrath of the Lamb; Revelation 6 verse 17, the great day of Their wrath has come.
Next we see, in Revelation 14:9, “Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, verse 10, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”
Revelation 15:1, “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.”
Finally, and, while we are at it… Three great ‘denominational misconceptions’.
Misconception #1. All the tribulation seals are broken after the rapture.
Correction to misconception #1. The tribulation seals ONE through FIVE have been broken as early as the birth of Christ through A.D. 95 and have been progressively overlapping and intensifying to this day. The Great Tribulation, also known as the Great and Terrible Day of The Lord or the Wrath of the Lamb and the rapture, occur at or near the breaking of the 6th Tribulation Seal. (Please refer to “Just Before The Rapture.”)
Misconception #2. The Antichrist will not be revealed until after the rapture.
Correction to misconception #2. The Antichrist is revealed after the Great Apostasy (the 5th tribulation seal) and before the rapture of the Church. (see 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3).
Misconception #3. The mark of the beast will be given before the rapture.
Correction to misconception #3. The mark of the beast comes after the rapture. It will not be given until the 6th Tribulation Trumpet. (see the placement of Revelation 14:9).
The scriptures encourage us to be like the Bereans, noble-minded, receiving the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so.
The Bible is instructional, creative, causative and prophetic. Every word and every detail in the Bible has significance. It is a treasure trove to be discovered and mined. Please read Luke 24, a narration of what occurred three days after Jesus’ crucifixion, as an example.
Once you have read Luke 24, focus on Luke 24, verses 30 and 31.
“And it came about, when He (Jesus) had reclined at the table with them, that He took the bread and blessed it, and He broke it and began giving it to them.And then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.”
The crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus was fantastic enough, then to make things even more unbelievable, after serving this meal, Jesus vanishes before their eyes!
Our pastor posited, “Why would the writer of these verses make this event more difficult to believe than it was already?” He answered his own question, saying, “Because that is what happened”.
True enough. But take a look at the significance and the great symbolism of what occurred:
Dear brothers and sisters in the faith, I hope that from these few verses we can see and know that the Bible is Precision. For our own sake and welfare, we should not trifle with God’s Word.
It is the very Breath of God, speaking truth and wisdom. It is His love-letter to all who will believe.
Know that God is kind and merciful; but if you deliberately deviate from the written instructions contained in the Word of God you risk negating His Word in your life, and if you teach others as such, Jesus has warned, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished! Therefore, whoever nullifies one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Your Brother and Friend,
Mike Young
Prove yourselves doers of the Word and not just hearers who deceive themselves. Be an active doer, and be blessed in all you do. (see James 1:22-25).
God’s Plan of Perfection through Tribulation – An Illustrated Timeline
GOD’S PLAN & PURPOSE
I heard an evangelist once say and ask, “Jesus is coming back soon. Are you excited?”, to which the congregation exploded in cheers and applause. Then this evangelist became quiet and in a low and serious voice he said, “Too many Christians are doing little more than staring skyward waiting for the Lord to return, but He has told us we are to be busy with His works. So, it is time we stopped looking at the sky and get busy with the Father’s business!”
It is true, in my observations, that far too many Christians are doing little more than waiting around for certain events to occur, which have already begun. The Lord Jesus warned against this in no uncertain terms: “Why do you call me Lord, when you have not done the things I commanded you?”
Let’s clear the confusion and bring God’s bigger picture into sharp focus.
God’s PLAN began in the beginning of time. It came into sharper focus with the birth of Jesus. It has continued to unfold since that day, and we are included in His Plan, and It will conclude exactly as He has PURPOSED.
God’s PLAN is a Plan of Perfection. Throughout all of earth’s history, God has been at work perfecting His creation. There is no event in the history of this world that has not been under God’s control and within His Perfect Plan. He is preparing His Church, those who have surrender themselves to follow and obey Jesus, to spend eternity with Him and with one another in perfect harmony in a new and perfect heaven and earth.
The PURPOSE of God’s plan is found in Daniel 9:24, is to
1) “to finish transgression,” (that is, to end man’s rebellion toward God),
2) “to put an end to sin,” (that is, to bring an end to sin),
3) “to atone for wickedness,” (that is, to make amends or reparation for wickedness),
4) “to bring in everlasting righteousness,” (that is, the quality of being morally right or justifiable),
5) “to seal up vision and prophecy,” and (that is, to confirm these prophetic visions),
6) “to anoint the most holy.” (that is, to anoint, or to confer divine or holy office upon; in this case the Holy One, Jesus.).
We are included in God’s PURPOSE. His method is found in Daniel 12 is that
1) Many will be cleansed,
2) Many will be purified,
3) They will be made spotless and,
4) They will be refined.
Here are just a few of the major Biblical events through which God has been working to accomplish His Plan and His Purpose in and through our lives. (I have selected the major events only, in order to simplify this matter. Here, you can see God’s Hand moving in the affairs of humankind, leading to the End of the Age):
God created them, male and female, with a plan, in Their image with a ‘flaw’, i.e., from Strong’s Bible Hebrew language Concordance – ‘a phantom, an illusion, a vain image, of dubious character’, but with potential; which includes me and you!
Adam and Eve disobeyed. The ‘flaw in their character and imagefrom creation’, which is ‘sin’, had its effect, which continues to this day, but it will have an end.
The arrival of Perfection on earth. Jesus, God in the Flesh, is born and the New Covenant – for you and me – is established. Now the ‘called’ can see and be made into the very image of God. The tribulation begins, and The Eternal Plan enters its final stages.
Jesus is tested and shows those who will follow Him – which includes you and me – how to resist the devil and overcome trial, temptations and tribulation.
Jesus gives the picture of salvation and teaches about the process of sanctification and how we – that is, you and me – are to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven through many tests, trials, temptations and much tribulation.
The invasion of earth has begun. Jesus sends His army of saints – which includes you and me – to set the prisoners free. He sends us with His authority, and He is with us until the end!
The sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet blast, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other – and if you are alive at that time, we are included. (The rapture will have occurred).
The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And the Great Tribulation, the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, will have begun. (Those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will have escaped these days.)
From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it, He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath, of God, the Almighty. An angel standing in the sun cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid-heaven, “Come, assemble for the great feast of God,so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, both free and slaves, and small and great. Satan, the Beast and those who are not written in the Lambs Book of Life are relegated to the pit and the fires of hell.”
Those who have overcome, are with God eternally – which includes you and me – and, God’s Plan for Perfection has been completed.
Yes, we will experience difficulties, trials and tribulations in this life, but as The Apostle Peter says,
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,so that the proof of your faith,which is more precious than gold which perishes, and though you are tested by fire, it may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
No matter at what time you will have lived your earthly life, the outcome for all Christians is the same. Those still alive when Christ returns will be raptured from the earth, those Christians who had passed on from this life will be raised from the grave to join them in the heavens, and we all will spend our eternity with the Lord.
I was simply sitting on our screened patio area, drinking a cup of coffee, taking in the scenery across our pond and thoughts (or visions?) began to flash across my mind. They were so vivid that they almost seemed visible (notice, I said ALMOST).
These images were reminiscent of scenes from “The Lord of the Rings” movies. The images were not of the ugly distorted creatures or monstrous figures like in the movies, but they were people with hatred and anger distorting their expressions. They were charging across a landscape, destroying everything in their path.
But, this was not a movie. I thought, perhaps these are just images from the news media of the recent riots which my mind is recalling. Maybe it was as simple as that.
But, I couldn’t shake the realism. And, it was easy to relate what I was “seeing” to what is happening in our world. I kept thinking, “How could the people of our nation go from law-abiding citizens to domestic terrorists in such a short time?
How could almost half the population, in the year 2020, endorse a political party espousing godless Socialism and Communist style rule? How could so many people endorse desecrating our religious institutions, our history and legacies, going about indiscriminately killing our police and first responders? They are destroying business, killing the owners, looting, stealing and rioting saying it is for justice? How could the Democrat Senators, Governors, mayors and public officials allow and even encourage this anarchy? Have they lost their minds? As I pondered on the thought “Have they lost their minds?”, I wondered, “Or, is something more sinister occurring?”
I asked myself, “What would cause so many people to begin to call what been considered as ‘good’, for centuries, now call it ‘evil’ and call evil as being good?
They murder babies for body parts, kill our police out of anger, disparage and attack those who don’t agree with their points of view. These people loot, steal, threaten, murder for no real reason or for any reason. Dishonesty is rampant is all areas of society. Immorality, perversion and pornography is so prevalent and pervasive that one cannot escape it.
I’ll spare the continuing long-winded review of this upside-down world-wide phenomenon, but the one thought that struck me: “Something is going on that is just not right. It is not of this world.”
That’s when the lights came on in my head. “It is not of this world”. Then these words and this realization came to my mind: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”James 4:7. it is time to gird up for war and prepare to confront the spirit of Antichrist!
“And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world.”
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
OUR STRUGGLE IS AGAINST THE RULERS AND POWERS AND WORLD FORCES OF DARKNESS, AGAINST SPIRITUAL FORCES OF WICKEDNESS IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES.
Jesus spoke on these matters more succinctly than anyone, past or present. Hear what Jesus tells us is the ways to confront evil in our day:
WHY DID JESUS COME INTO THE WORLD?
TO TESTIFY TO THE TRUTH, and to teach us to do the same.
John 18:37“Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this purpose, I have been born, and for this I have come into the world: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.”
TO BRING A SWORD, and to teach us to do the same.
Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Verse 35, For I came to TURN A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; verse 36, and A PERSON’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.”
TO FULFILL THE LAW, and to teach us to do the same.
Matthew 5:17“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.”
TO CALL SINNERS, and to teach us to do the same.
Mark 2:17“And hearing this, Jesus *said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
TO SAVE THE WORLD, and to teach us to do the same.
John 12:47 “If anyone hears My teachings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.”
TO CAST FIRE & BRING DIVISION UPON THE EARTH, and to teach us to do the same.
Luke 12:49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! Verse 50, But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! Verse 51, Do you think that I came to provide peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather to create division; “
“WHAT HE REALLY MEANT?”
Jesus has told us, in John 14:12, “Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father. Verse 13. And whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Verse 14. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
I have heard so many preachers, bible teachers and detractors alike, try to justify or explain away these Words of Jesus because they just cannot fathom the gentle and sweet ‘dashboard Jesus’ saying such things as we find in the verses cited. These same confused preachers really get tied in a knot over John 14:12. They will begin their commentary of teaching it with, “what this really means is…”.
Jesus said what He meant and meant exactly what He said. He is our model for our counter cultural resistance to the growing global threat of the Satanic evils of Communist-Marxist-Globalism, And we need to get on with it.
Jesus had a divine appointment with a cruel Roman cross. Read what He said when Peter proposed to get in the way of His mission:
Matthew 16:21- 23, “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You. ”But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
We do not literally have an appointment with a crucifixion, but, the Bible is clear in Galatians 5:24, that “Those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” and again in Galatians 2:20, the Apostle Paul reminds us that, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” which must be true for all who follow Jesus because we are on mission with Jesus. Our ‘old self’ must die so our new selves can follow and serve Him.
Jesus always, taught the Will of His Father, then, demonstrated what He taught. He expects us to do the same. Ephesians, chapter six, gives us a clear teaching and picture of the type of preparation and the kind of resolve we are to assume.
Ephesians 6:10-17, tells us, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Stand, i.e., continue safe and sound, stand unharmed: Acts 26:22.
Stand ready or prepared: Ephesians 6:14. One who does not hesitate, does not waver, of one who vanquishes his adversaries and holds the ground, also of one who in the midst of the fight holds his position against the foe, to persist, continue, persevere: (so as not to fall from thy faith).
Jesus’ example of steadfast, unmovable courage; this is our example and our command to do the same:
Jesus has taught us how to CONFRONT THE STORM.
Mark 4:35-41, “On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Jesus has taught us how to CONFRONT DEMONS.
Luke 8:26-33“Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons; and who had not put on any clothing for a long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs. Seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him, and said in a loud voice, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.” For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For it had seized him many times; and he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and yet he would break his bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert. And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They were imploring Him not to command them to go away into the abyss.
“Now there was a herd of many swine feeding there on the mountain; and the demons implored Him to permit them to enter the swine. And He gave them permission. And the demons came out of the man and entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.”
Jesus has taught us how to CONFRONT GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.
John 19:8-12”Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; and he entered into the Praetorium again and said to Jesus, “Where are You from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So, Pilate said to Him, “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason, he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar.”
Jesus has taught us how to CONFRONT THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT.
Matthew 24:57-67, “Those who had seized Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together. But Peter was following Him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in, and sat down with the officers to see the outcome.
“Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on, two came forward, 61 and said, “This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’” The high priest stood up and said to Him, “Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?” But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, “I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus *said to him, “You have said it yourself; nevertheless, I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy; what do you think?” They answered, “He deserves death!” Then they spat in His face and beat Him with their fists; and others slapped Him.”
Jesus did not draw back and He tells us that we must not draw back. He proceeded boldly to the Cross and secured our salvation! Jesus has all authority in heaven and on the earth and is with us until the end!
Remember, Jesus came to earth for these stated reasons – and these same reasons are our method and our calling:
TO TESTIFY TO THE TRUTH. We are to testify to the truth!
TO BRING A SWORD. We are to bring the sword of the Word of God!
TO FULFILL THE LAW. We are to fulfill the same law!
TO CALL SINNERS. We are to call sinners!
TO SAVE THE WORLD through Jesus. In a very real sense, this, too, is our calling, by lifting the Name of Jesus, telling others and leading them to Him
TO CAST FIRE & BRING DIVISION UPON THE EARTH. This, too, is our calling!The Word of God is a stumbling block to those who do not believe, dividing A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; (Matthew 10:35-36)
Dear Brothers and Sisters, this is not hyperbole, a philosophy or metaphor. Now is the time to gird ourselves up with the full armor of God and follow our Lord, the King of Kings into battle.
For our struggle is not againstflesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places and must be fought with Spiritual Armament!
The things I have written to this point are of greatest importance and are our primary responsibility.
Finally, in a secondary role, in his most recent and provocative book, Letter to the American Church, Eric Metaxas asks, “Can it really be God’s will that His children be silent at a time like this?”
Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as godly meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle.
“The author of a bestselling biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Metaxas reveals the haunting similarities between today’s American Church and the German Church of the 1930s. Echoing the German martyr’s prophetic call, he exhorts his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil.
“An attenuated and unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans.
Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity. As Bonhoeffer and other heroes of the faith insisted, the Church has an irreplaceable role in the culture of a nation. It is our duty to fight the powers of darkness, especially on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.
“Silence is not an option. God calls us to defend the unborn, to confront the lies of cultural Marxism, and to battle the globalist tyranny that crushes human freedom. Confident that this is His fight, the Church must overcome fear and enter the fray, armed with the spiritual weapons of prayer, self-sacrifice, and love.” (see Eric Metaxas.com – Letter to the American Church)
Here is an interview by pastor Gary Hamrick, Cornerstone Chapel, Leesburg, Virginia, as pastor Hamrick and Eric Metaxas discuss how the Church (Christians) can respond to the spreading evil of the spirit of the antichrist which is in the world now without becoming political.
Your Brother and Friend,
Mike Young
Please contact me if you have any questions by using the link below. (Please know that your personal information is strictly confidential and will not be released to anyone for any reason.)
I have heard many people wonder why the Jews who were living in Germany prior to and during World War 2, would willingly board train boxcars to be shuttled off to imprisonment and ultimately, to their death. They knew something bad was going to happen after the ill treatment they had endured up to that point. After all, it seems, from the available photographs, that the Jews outnumbered their captors by hundreds to one. Why didn’t they just turn on them and overcome them?
Nonetheless, between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps.
It’s easy to wonder why groups of people would succumb to evil so readily, even under armed guards. Perhaps they hold out a hope that things will get better if they just submit to and comply with their oppressors demands. But history shows that dictators, despots, evil oppressors always demand the death of their opponents in their quest for domination.
Communism, for example, in its variant forms such as Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc., from the early nineteen hundreds to this current day, is responsible for 94 million to 110 million deaths through executions, man-made hunger, famine, war, deportations, and forced labor – while the world stood by and watched.
Once pronounced dead, Marxist-Communism has reemerged as the new Globalism. It is rebranded as The Sustainable Agenda of the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, and claims to be the ‘savior of the world’.
WARNING: The stated goals are nothing less than remarkable. They are seductive, so beware. Nonetheless, here is a short video which describes these sustainable goals – just beware.
These goals are so remarkable, as to be unbelievable.
But lurking beneath the surface of the grandiose plan are hidden details. Hidden in the tentacles of Marxist ideologies and its insidious methodologies. And, if you will consider the outcome-based-facts, you will discover that things are not as they appear.
Consider these working philosophies and guiding principles:
Struggle for the unity of the working class,
Against all forms of national oppression, national chauvinism, discrimination and segregation,
Against all racist ideologies and practices,
Against all manifestations of male supremacy and discrimination against women,
Against homophobia and all manifestations of discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
$15.00 per hour minimum wage for all workers, national universal health care and
Although these principles mirror the principles of SDG (Sustainable Developmental Goals) of the U.N., these actually come from the constitution of theCommunist Party USA, (C.P.U.S.A.),
Now, consider these methodologies hidden beneath the stated goals of The Sustainable Developmental Goals of the United Nations, the World Economic Forum and UNESCO:
#1] greatly expanded government spending for every conceivable means of getting rid of ever larger sums of American money as wastefully as possible.
#2] higher and then much higher taxes.
#3] an increasingly unbalanced budget despite the higher taxes.
#4] wild inflation of our currency.
#5] government controls of prices wages and materials supposedly to combat inflation.
#6] greatly increased socialistic controls over every operation of our economy and every activity of our daily lives. It is to be accompanied naturally and automatically by a correspondingly huge increase in the size of our bureaucracy and in both the cost and reach of our domestic government.
#7] far more centralization of power in Washington and the practical elimination of our state lines. There is a many-faceted drive to find ways to have our state lines eventually mean no more within the nation than our county lines do now within the state’s.
#8] the steady advance of federal aid to, and control over, our educational system, leading to complete federalization of our public education.
#9] a constant hammering into the American consciousness of the horror of modern warfare. The beauties and the absolute necessity of peace, peace always on communist terms of course.
#10] the consequence willingness of the American people to allow the steps of appeasement by our government which amount to a piecemeal surrender of the rest of the free world and of the United States itself.”
Although these methodologies mirror those of SDG (Sustainable Developmental Goals) of the U.N., these actually come from the constitution of theCommunist Party USA, (C.P.U.S.A.),
Next, please review these quotes from Karl Marx and Joseph Lenin and identify the ones being implemented by the American Democrat Party:
Karl Marx:
“Take away a nation’s heritage, and they are more easily persuaded to Communism. “
“Communism begins where atheism begins. “
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions. “
“We have no compassion, and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. “
“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. “
“If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded. “
“The democratic concept of man is false, because it is Christian. The democratic concept holds that each man is a sovereign being. This is the illusion, dream, and postulate of Christianity. “
There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience. “
“The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property. “
“The Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. “
A heavy or progressive or graduated income tax is necessary for the proper development of Communism. “
“The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
“The unity is brought about by force. “
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. “
“Taxes are the source of life for the bureaucracy, the army and the court, in short, for the whole apparatus of the executive power. Strong government and heavy taxes are identical.”
(Note: If you will stop and think, you will realize that all of these aims of Marx are now evident in America’s systems and institutions, and most of them have come by violent protests and subversion.)
Joseph Lenin:
“Give me your four-year-olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state. “
“The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses. “
“The goal of socialism is communism. “
“Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed?
Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized?
It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns.
Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government? “
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation. “
“People always have been, and they always will be, stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics. “
“Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world. “
“One man with a gun can control 100 without one. “
“As an ultimate objective, “peace” simply means communist world control.”
“Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism. “
“It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain. “
“Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism. “
“One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers Communist and the disarming of the bourgeoisie to the middle class.”
“There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel. “
“It is necessary – secretly and urgently, to prepare the terror. “
“The establishment of a central bank is 90% of communizing a nation. “
“There can be nothing more abominable than religion.”
(Note: Once again, if you will stop and think, you will realize that all of these aims of Lenin are now evident in America’s systems and institutions, and most of them have come by violent protests and subversion.)
Finally, please review the graphics of the United Nation’s SDG (Sustainable Developmental Goals) and COMPARE them to the Joe Biden and the Democrat Party’s own graphics:
The United States SDG graphic The United Nations SDG graphic
NOTE: The current U.S. Administration and the Democrat party is in lockstep with the United Nations and the World Economic Forum’s Marxist developmental goals methodologies.
Every new law, every edict, every executive order by the current U.S. administration is predicated upon the SEVENTEEN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS, which have been developed and propagated by the United Nations, which readily identifiable as MARXIST at their core.
History shows that we, now, are the sheep being prepared for shearing, and if you don’t get on board, you will be led, as a sheep, to the slaughter.
But do not despair. All the foregoing has been foretold and is coming to pass. The road ahead is rough and treacherous. Some will die. Many others will suffer greatly. They way to successfully engage these time – the building of the Modern Tower of Babel – is written in scriptures, and it can be found if you are willing to put aside your religiosity and denominationalism and read the Bible as it was intended.
Know that the Bible is the living Word of God – It is God Breathed, according to the scriptures.
It is without error. It is infallible. It is eternal. It is the only true standard for life and conduct.
It is a lamp, a light, a way forward.
The Bible is prophetic in its nature; it is also instructional, creative and causative. It tells the absolute truth to you and if you take it in, it will tell the truth through you!
Listen and heed. Here is the Word of God:
“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the wrongdoing, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.”
1) “to finish transgression,” (that is, to end man’s rebellion toward God)
2) “to put an end to sin,” (that is, to bring an end to sin)
3) “to atone for wickedness,” (that is, to make amends or reparation for wickedness)
4) “to bring in everlasting righteousness,” (that is, the quality of being morally right or justifiable)
5) “to seal up vision and prophecy,” and (that is, to confirm these prophetic visions)
6) “to anoint the most holy.” (that is, to anoint, or to confer divine or holy office upon; in this case the Holy One, Jesus.)
Notice that the results of this six-fold purpose concerns the total eradication of sin and the establishing of righteousness.
The prophecy of the 70 weeks summarizes what happens before Jesus sets up His millennial kingdom.
Secondly, as I have sad,, this will be a rough and treacherous road. So, it is important to know the four-foldPLANNED OUTCOME of the tribulation found in Daniel12:10, (Which is the purpose of the Tribulation Seals ONE through FIVE):
“Many will be purged,
cleansed, and
refined,
those who have insight will understand.
Politics won’t save you. Technology won’t save you. Vain philosophies from false prophets won’t save you. The trials, tribulation, suffering and persecution you may face are in God’s Hands and will strengthen you or others to endure to the end where you will find your salvation!
None of us can do this alone, Walk with God and with one another. Strengthen each other with prayer and the encouragement that our GOAL is the eternal presence of God. Stand strong in Christ Jesus.
Your Brother and Friend,
Mike Young
If you have questions and want more information, please contact me via this form. (And please be assured all information is held in the strictest of confidence and is never shared with anyone for any reason.)
PS: What is yet to come will make all these things pale in comparison. It is preceded by the appearance of one known as the Antichrist. What follows is the Great Tribulation, also known as the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord or the Wrath of the Lamb.
The Antichrist will be:
Intelligent: Revelation 13:18; Daniel 7:8.
Charismatic Speaker: Daniel 7:8 Revelation 13:5.
Crafty Politician: Daniel 9:27; Revelation 17:12, 13, 17.
Distinct Physical Appearance: Daniel 7:20.
Military Genius: Revelation 4; 17:14; 19:19.
Economic Genius: Daniel 11:38.
Blasphemer: Revelation 13:6.
Utterly Lawless: 2 Thessalonians 2:8.
Selfish, Ambitious Egomaniac: Daniel 11:36, 37; 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
Greedy Materialist: Daniel 11:38.
Controlling: Daniel 7:25.
Proud and Self-exalting Above God and Everything: Daniel 11:36; 2 Thessalonians. 2:4.
Just like the tactics and methods being used by the current Globalist-Marxist movement to implement the United Nations and the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Goals of their Agenda 2030, the purpose of the Antichrist is to deceive. He is a person, prophesied in the Bible, to oppose Jesus Christ and to substitute himself in Christ’s place before the Second Coming.
The Globalist (The United Nations, The World Economic Forum, UNESCO) through thier Agenda 2030, have boldly proclaimed that the war is over. They have won. Except for a slight delay due to the Covid-19 “pandemic”, they have implemented the majority of their global objectives under the guise of ‘saving the planet and the people in it’. But, that is far from the truth. It is all about control under a Global Marxist regime or cabal. It is being done at the cost of the freedom of every person on planet earth. It is a Globalist-Marxist-Communist takeover of the entire planet. Their dream is still about the age-old Communist Utopia. All nations merged into one government, led by a small group of elitists from a few powerful nations. (See the video at the end of this page, “The World Economic Forum: by 2030 you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy “.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.
(Lyrics from Leonard Cohen song, “Everybody Knows”.)
History and statistics show that Communists, everywhere, say one thing but live by a different set of standards and rules. History also shows they will say whatever is necessary to gain power and control and that their endgame is the antithesis of what they say. Everywhere Communism has been tried, it has gone badly. Very badly. It has brought loss of freedoms, lack of basic needs and misery; and if you resist you may face imprisonment or death – or both. (If you doubt it, look at the contemporary examples of Argentina, Brazil and Cuba.)
Historical statistics show Communists have murdered over 110,286,000, (yes, that’s million) people worldwide since 1900. Although in the face of irrefutable historical evidence, the communists today, claim it is not true.
An American community activist and political theorist, Alinksy, through the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation helping poor communities organize to press demands upon landlords, politicians and business leaders won national recognition and notoriety.
Alinsky, was an influencer who contributed to the methodologies of the modern day United Nation’s Globalist-Socialist-Marxist movements. Alinsky often referred to the book, ”The Prince”, written by Niccolò Machiavelli. The general theme of The Prince is ‘accepting that the aims of princes, such as glory and survival’, justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends. Machiavelli’s writings sets readers up for a high degree of ruthlessness and realpolitik, and the book does not disappoint. Subsequently, Saul David Alinsky wrote his book, ”Rules for Radicals” based on much of Machiavelli’s principals for the ‘Haves’ on how to hold power, and for the ‘Have-Nots’ on how to take it away. Alinsky recommended working mostly within the system, though in the twisted way Machiavelli is reputed to have done.
Below, you will find Alinsky’s 13 “Rules for Radicals,” offered with his provision that political activism cannot be a self-serving enterprise: “People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.”
“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. 2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
8. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
11. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
Alinsky’s rules have been used for anti-democratic means and have been effective in setting the stage for and aiding the Communist Party USA to disrupt and transform America’s constitution, legal systems, financial institutions and educational institutions into Socialist-Marxist systems and the unraveling of the fabric of American society.
The history of the C.P.U.S.A. is closely related to the American labor movement and communist parties worldwide. The party was influential in American politics in the first half of the 20th century and played a prominent role in the labor movement from the 1920s through the 1940s.
The C.P.U.S.A. received significant funding from the Soviet Union and crafted its public positions to match those of Moscow. The C.P.U.S.A. also used a covert apparatus to assist the Soviets with their intelligence activities in the United States and utilized a network of front organizations to shape public opinion.
THE BIGGEST LIE
According to the constitution of theCommunist Party USA, (C.P.U.S.A.), adopted at the 30th National Convention in 2014, the Communist Party operates on the principle of democratic centralism, its highest authority being the quadrennial National Convention. Article 6, Section 3 of the 2001 Constitution, laid out certain positions as non-negotiable and all of which are now evident in America’s political, educational and social constructs:
Struggle for the unity of the working class,
against all forms of national oppression, national chauvinism, discrimination and segregation,
against all racist ideologies and practices, …
against all manifestations of male supremacy and discrimination against women, …
against homophobia and all manifestations of discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
Among the points in the party’s “Immediate Program” are a
$15.00 per hour minimum wage for all workers, national universal health care and
You will find the stated goals and methods in all three documents are identical. The only reasonable and logical conclusion is that the Globalist-Socialist-Communist-Marxist movement through the United Nations, over the last 76 years have seized control of the U.S. Government. (Note: If you do not see this or deny it, you are either a Globalist-Marxist, a sympathizer or you are totally unaware of your surroundings.)
The Communist party endorsed bothBarack Obama (2009) and Joe Biden (2020) in their bid for the presidency. The Communist’s grand prize is the subjugation of the United States and with the American democrat party in control of congress and the White House, they are making great strides toward that goal. Their only interruption was the surprise election of Donald Trump in 2017, which was met with the full fury of the clandestine operations of the Globalist-Socialist-Communist-Marxist already embedded in the U.S. government, the FBI and the media.
WE WERE WARNED
We, as a nation, were warned of what was coming and why it was coming in a speech given by Robert Welch, founder of The John Birch Society. Here is the transcript to that speech to the JBS council in 1958 warning about the eventual overthrow and destruction of America by Communists (The video follows the transcript, below):
“…You are a part of that plan of course, which is to induce the gradual surrender of American sovereignty piece by piece and step by step to various international organizations of which the United Nations is the outstanding but far from the only example.
“Now, here are the aims for the (destruction of the) United States (by the Communists).
#1] greatly expanded government spending for every conceivable means of getting rid of ever larger sums of American money as wastefully as possible.
#2] higher and then much higher taxes.
#3] an increasingly unbalanced budget despite the higher taxes.
#4] wild inflation of our currency.
#5] government controls of prices wages and materials supposedly to combat inflation.
#6] greatly increased socialistic controls over every operation of our economy and every activity of our daily lives. It is is to be accompanied naturally and automatically by a correspondingly huge increase in the size of our bureaucracy and in both the cost and reach of our domestic government.
#7] far more centralization of power in Washington and the practical elimination of our state lines. There is a many-faceted drive at way to have our state lines eventually mean no more within the nation than our county lines do now within the state’s.
#8] thee steady advance of federal aid to, and control over, our educational system leading to complete federalization of our public education.
#9] a constant hammering into the American consciousness of the horror of modern warfare. The beauties and the absolute necessity of peace, peace always on communist terms of course.
#10] the consequence willingness of the American people to allow the steps of appeasement by our government which amount to a piecemeal surrender of the rest of the free world and of the United States itself.”
Here is a video produced by the World Economic Forum, bragging about their successful end-game. Brace yourself…
Next, here is a video of a speech by Robert Welch. His predictions were either the result of privileged insider information or keen political acumen. Either way, Welch’s speech bordered on prophetic. The destructive means and methods of the Communist party, as outlined in Welch’s speech, are now a reality in America and Communism is choking the life out of the America’s political system, our economy, our schools and is fracturing our society and has set Americans against one the other.
This is not the end of the story – it is merely the beginning, and the question we should be asking, is not ‘HOW did this happen’, but ‘WHY?’. Why has our government and society fallen prey to the likes of Alinsky and Socialist-Marxism while ignoring the warnings in Welch’s, “The Insider’s Plan to Destroy America”?
The answer is both simple and complex. But, if you are a Christian, a conservative and a freedom loving individual, you need to know the answer and what to do about it.
A foreshadowing of the modern Globalist-Socialist-Communist-Marxist movement can be traced as far back as 2242 B.C.. The Bible, in Genesis 11:1-9, records an event known as the building of the Tower of Babel, a post-Flood rebellion against God by Noah’s descendants. According to the account, a united humanity in the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating eastward, comes to the land of Shinar. There, they agreed to build a city and a tower ‘tall enough to reach heaven’.
The Bible reports these people as saying, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of all the earth.” (Tall enough to reach to heaven” is a metaphor for “man reaching to heaven, making himself god, to accomplish his own desires.)
The Bible goes on to say that “The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the men had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have started to do, and now nothing which they plan to do will be impossible for them.” (In response, God confused their language and scattered them abroad.)
The effort to unite into a global community has been in the heart and mind of humankind for the past 4,200 years. The aims of the architects of the Tower of Babel was similar to the current Socialists and Communists: The State being god – from cradle to grave.
Although similar to the Tower of Babel, the Globalist aims have evolved and developed into greater ambitions than just a global community. The Globalists believe they can eliminate wars and disease while creating worldwide peace. Aided by technology, they truly believe they can end poverty and hunger, improve the health of our planet, and create global prosperity for all people. And with an eye to the future, they believe and are planning future colonization of other planets, beginning with Mars, ‘buildingfor themselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven’. (See the Agenda 2030)
The accomplishment of these ambitious goals are only possible if the world joins together in concert as a global community and submits to a unified global political system of united nations: A One World Government.
The Globalist movement which has emerged through the United Nations has effectively employed Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals while adopting the ideologies of the Socialist and Communists manifestos as the framework for this New World Order. In case you doubt these movements are Communist and Marxist, please compare the steps in Saul Alinsky’s book, “Rules for Radicals”, the warnings issued by Robert Welch, what you see in our government and society with these quotes by Karl Marx and Joseph Lenin.
Karl Marx:
“Take away a nation’s heritage, and they are more easily persuaded to Communsim. “
“Communism begins where atheism begins. “
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions. “
“We have no compassion, and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. “
“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. “
“If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded. “
“The democratic concept of man is false, because it is Christian. The democratic concept holds that each man is a sovereign being. This is the illusion, dream, and postulate of Christianity. “
There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience. “
“The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property. “
“The Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. “
A heavy or progressive or graduated income tax is necessary for the proper development of Communism. “
“The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
“The unity is brought about by force. “
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. “
“Taxes are the source of life for the bureaucracy, the army and the court, in short, for the whole apparatus of the executive power. Strong government and heavy taxes are identical.”
(Note: If you will stop and think, you will realize that all of these aims of Marx are now evident in America’s systems and institutions, and most of them have come by violent protests and subverion.)
Joseph Lenin:
“Give me your four-year-olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state. “
“The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses. “
“The goal of socialism is communism. “
“Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed?
Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized?
It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns.
Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government? “
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation. “
“People always have been, and they always will be, stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics. “
“Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world. “
“One man with a gun can control 100 without one. “
“As an ultimate objective, “peace” simply means communist world control.”
“Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism. “
“It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain. “
“Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism. “
“One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers Communist and the disarming of the bourgeoisie to the middle class.”
“There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel. “
“It is necessary – secretly and urgently, to prepare the terror. “
“The establishment of a central bank is 90% of communizing a nation. “
“There can be nothing more abominable than religion.”
(Note: Once again, if you will stop and think, you will realize that all of these aims of Lenin are now evident in America’s systems and institutions, and most of them have come by violent protests and subverion.)
They have not only made great strides toward implementing the goals of their Socialist Utopia, they have now brazenly stated that they will have achieved their original goal by the year 2030, which is Global domination.
There are two major obstacles the Globalists must still overcome, the United States government and society, and Christianity. Until these two are subdued and eliminated or transformed the final steps of the Globalist One World Government system is stymied.
The advent of the Joe Biden presidency and the passing into law of his American Rescue Plan Act could be harbingers of the final stages of the transformation of America from a free democratic constitutional republic and a world super power to merely a cog in the Globalization of a Socialist United Nations. (See, “We are Getting it Wrong” and “The Secret Buyout of America”).
This leaves Christianity and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the final barrier between a free world and a godless Socialist-Marxist One World Government; and the Church has been under a relentless attack from within and without for decades and has either been replaced by institutions of religious humanism (falsely using the name of the Christian Church) or is being transformed into a religious ecclesiastical hierarchy from the inside, at an alarming rate. A One World church is emerging that is antithetical to the God of Christians and Jews and to The Christ of the Bible. (See, “The One World Church” and “The False Church Emerges”).
Someplace along the way, over the last two thousand years, it seems that many of the people calling themselves Christians, have come to assume that Jesus was either some kind of a ‘progressive left-wing ideologue’ or a pacifist and have modeled their lives as such. Let’s be crystal clear: Both assumptions are wrong. Dead wrong!
Unfortunately, the Church leadership in America has bought into the Leftist propaganda that the Church should stay out of politics. The problem with that assertion is two-fold:
#1. This has created confusion within the church regarding its mission and methods. The mission and methods of Jesus were never political but they were both clear and confrontational. Jesus said, “For this purpose I have been born, and for this I have come into the world: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” This, too, is our calling and our method of resistance!
TO TESTIFY TO THE TRUTH
John 18:37 “Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this purpose I have been born, and for this I have come into the world: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” This, too, is our calling and our method of resistance!
TO BRING A SWORD
Matthew 10:34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Verse 35 For I came to TURN A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; Verse 36 and A PERSON’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.” This, too, is our calling and our method of resistance!
TO FULFILL THE LAW
Matthew 5:17“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.”This, too, is our calling and our method of resistance!
TO CALL SINNERS
Mark 2:17“And hearing this, Jesus *said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”This, too, is our calling!
TO SAVE THE WORLD
John 12:47If anyone hears My teachings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.” In a very real sense, This, too, is our calling and our method of resistance!, by lifting the Name of Jesus, telling others and leading them to Him
TO CAST FIRE & BRING DIVISION UPON THE EARTH
Luke 12:49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!Verse 50But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!Verse 51Do you think that I came to provide peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather to create division; This, too, is our calling and our method of resistance!
#2.The Church through the teachings of the Bible explains and defines politics. It is true that the Church should not become political nor should it let the contemporary politics influence or become the message of the Church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, His life, His teachings, His work of salvation by His death and His resurrection are the core message of the Bible and the Church. But when the Gospel is correctly understood and the life and message of Jesus is correctly lived out with conviction, politics are defined within the framework of the Judeo-Christian ethos. (also see The American civil war is over Judeo-Christian values.)
“WHAT HE REALLY MEANT?”
John 14:12 “Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
I have heard so many preachers and bible teachers try to justify or explain away these Words of Jesus because they just cannot fathom the gentle and sweet ‘dashboard Jesus’ saying such things as we find in the verses cited. These same confused preachers really get tied in a knot over John 14:12. They will begin their commentary of teaching it with, “what this really means is…”.
Jesus said what He meant and meant exactly what He said. We need to get over it and get on with it.
Jesus always, taught the Will of His Father, then, demonstrated what He taught. He expects us to do the same. Ephesians, chapter six, gives us a clear teaching and picture of the type of preparation and resolve we are to assume.
Ephesians 6:10-17, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Your Brother and Friend,
Mike Young
P.S.: Let’s please remeber that ‘God takes no pleasure in those who shrink back’. Let’s boldly advance the message of the Gospel and speak the Truth in the face of the opposition! Resist the devil, and he will flee from you! Draw near to God and He will draw near to you!
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me, baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah, when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there’s gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
And to the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Oh, everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
A PROPHETIC WORD FROM JESUS – “I will come and heal him”, Part 35
Creative, Causative, Prophetic, Instructional
“I will come and heal him”
“When He had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, Come, and he comes, and to my servant, Do this, and he does it.”
“Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.”
The Words of Jesus, Matthew 8:5-13.
Just for the interest of it, the name “Capernaum” comes from two Hebrew words, ‘kaphar’, meaning city and ‘Nachuwm‘ meaning an Israelite prophet. This word is creative, causative, prophetic and instructional. It would serve us all well to read, hear, understand and to do it.
Jesus, the supreme prophet of Israel, entered the city, and a centurion, ‘a captain of one hundred men’, a man of authority, came forward to Jesus and appealed, saying only, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” This is what we know from what scriptures say. The centurion asking for help and healing is implied, but not stated.
Jesus’ next words were not prompted by the centurion’s formality or accuracy of his request. Jesus knows, and He says, “I will come and heal him”.
There is no evidence that this centurion is a disciple of Jesus, and in fact all the information we have says he is not. But this man, a man of authority, comes to Jesus and submits himself in humility, and with his mouth confess that Jesus is “Lord”. He then confesses in faith the assurance, the title deed confirmation of the thing he hopes for, which is divinely guaranteed, knowing that faith is the evidence of things not yet seen, and is the conviction of their reality. This centurion’s faith comprehended as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses. ( see Hebrews 11:1-3)
He did not utter ‘that small little prayer’ we hear about at the end of so many church services, and then go on about his life. This man confessed with his mouth what he believed in his heart and was saved at that moment in that day. (see Roman 10:8-13)
Have you ever considered that God would be amazed at anything? Or perhaps ‘amazed’ is the wrong word here. Jesus says, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.” This is a statement of monumental significance.
Carefully consider the next words of Jesus, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
NOTE Romans 11:20-21: “They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.”
And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.”
This centurion did not have faith in the authority of Jesus. His faith was not in healing. Although, he believed these things were possible, his faith was rooted, grounded and built up in Jesus and in Him alone!
Dear brothers and sisters, let’s keep our perspectives and priorities right: Jesus, first, last and always, then these other things are added!
(Please bookmark this page or subscribe for coming episodes).
PS: I remember, as a young boy, watching the older kids do acrobatic dives off a high-diving board. It looked thrilling and I wanted to try.
The first time, it was difficult to even climb the 10-foot ladder to the diving board. I had no confidence. I had to start the climb and come back down the ladder several times. I was getting discouraged, wondering if I could ever make it to the top and stand at that dizzying height.
It took the encouragement and chiding of my friends to simply climb the ladder. Those same friends helped me muster the courage to finally jump off the end of the board. I was secretly praying that I didn’t die when I hit the water. But what a thrill!
Time after time I would climb the board and jump. The height was less intimidating each time, but the thrill was diminished over time. The time had come to dive in head first from 10 feet in the air! With that, the thrill returned.
After weeks of climbing and diving, my confidence and my courage grew. The time for acrobatics had arrived. First, a ‘jack-knife’ dive. Then, a single flip, followed later by a ‘one and a half’ dive and eventually a full array of flips and dives. The thrill and the challenge was back. I began to wonder if any and all dives were possible for me?
This may be a weak illustration of faith, but in some ways reminds me of the path to practicing and building our faith in Jesus. It is then that ‘all things are possible in God. (see Matthew 19:26)
(You can listen to the article on audio, and pause the audio to follow important page links, then, resume the audio when you are ready. Please note that I use important page links in lieu of footnotes and references for imporant details on this teaching)
THE TENTACLES OF THE SOCIALIST-MARXIST TAKEOVER
It is already in your home, government, schools, hospitals, churches and food production. It is in your Federal, State and local governments. You can find it in:
The United Nations – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – The Commission on Global Governance – The United Nations Globalist Great Reset – Agenda 21 – Agenda 2030 – The Global Community – The Council on Sustainable Development – U.N.C.E.D. – International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives – The Social Security Administration – The Internal Revenue Service – etc.
Explosive documents have surfaced which exposed a planned genocide based on a Malthusian population control method, in order to save the planet from a depletion of resources due to overpopulation.
Was the release of the Corona-19 virus and the resulting ‘pandemic’ an accident, or was it a carefully executed plan of population reduction? Before you cry, “Oh, just another conspiracy theorist nut”, do your homework.
The LEFT, that is progressives, liberals, democrats and socialists, Marxists, Globalists, all, have been propounding population control, in concert with Communist China, for the last 75 years. They have pushed for population control through birth control methods, abortion, legalized euthanasia, by encouraging and endorsing homosexuality, transgenderism and wars. But, with the continued growth of world population, the worldwide Globalist-Marxist movement has activated and unleashed the most insidious and evil plan to date.
Their reasoning is based on the argument that the world is overpopulated and that the only way to save the planet from environmental doomsday is to force people to have fewer children, which has been the rallying cry for Stalinist population control measures around the world. Their methodology is based on extreme Malthusianism.
“Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off.
Deo-Malthusianism is the advocacy of human population planning to ensure resources and environmental integrities for current and future human populations as well as for other species. (Source, Wikipedia)
Stephen Moore, a columnist for The Washington Times, and a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks, writes in a Washington Times article, “China took the population control crusade to a whole new level when it instituted its notorious one-child policy. To this day there are tens of millions of females demographically missing in China. The homicidal environmental policy was cheered on by the United Nations and many of the same left-wing activists and organizations that preach “reproductive freedom” and women’s rights. Similarly brutish population control programs were implemented in Africa, India, Egypt and many South American nations. To save the planet, babies had to be prevented.
Fortunately, scholars like the late Julian Simon of the University of Illinois proved that human beings do not deplete the world’s resources, but help discover and create them. A larger number of human beings — especially when combined with freedom and free enterprise — leave the planet materially and environmentally better off not worse off.
Simon also showed that freedom and prosperity are the best forms of contraception. Population growth happened because we found ways to conquer early death — with infant mortality rates falling by 70 percent and 80 percent — and eradicate killer diseases like small pox and tuberculosis.
The Malthusians were not just immoral; they were dead wrong on their population projections.
All of those population forecasting models that predicted standing room only on the planet over the next 25-50 years were lies. In the 1970s, the left predicted a population by today of more than 10 billion people. The number is closer to 7.5 billion.
These doomsday demographic models of the future were about as accurate as the climate change models predicting catastrophic temperature changes have been.
What the population control crowd didn’t see happening was that population growth has radically slowed down — and not because of government edicts. As people get richer and freer, couples have chosen to have fewer, but healthier children. In most countries of the world today — including in China — the tragedy is not too many children, but too few.
But at its core, the radical greens really do believe that the fundamental problem with the human race is that there are too many of us. People are the pollution. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Prince Harry are urging people to have fewer or no kids. Rep. Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez wondered earlier this year whether young women should feel ethically bound to not have children so as to help prevent climate change. At the end of the day, she rejected that lunacy idea, but the very idea that liberals had to ask the question shows how anti-human the left has become.
This is a fundamentally anti-Judeo Christian ideology that disrespects human life and — as history proves all too well — can lead to dastardly consequences for basic human rights and economic progress. Human ingenuity is the solution to, not the cause of, environmental problems, and the constantly changing climate of our planet.” (Full article at “Democrats Embrace Population Control”)
An article by Human Life International, the world’s largest pro-life and pro-family Catholic advocate, Dr. Brian Clowes, PhD, explains that “the United States National Security Council, highest decision-making body regarding foreign policy in the United States,on December 10, 1974, completed a top-secret document entitled National Security Study Memorandum or NSSM-200, also called The Kissinger Report, since Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State at the time it was written.
“The Subject of NSSM-200 is “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” This document, published shortly after the first major international population conference in Bucharest, was the result of collaboration among the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Departments of State, Defense and Agriculture.
“NSSM-200 was made public when it was declassified and was transferred to the U.S. National Archives in 1990.
“Although the United States government has issued hundreds of policy papers dealing with various aspects of American national security since 1974, The Kissinger Report continues to be the foundational document on U.S. government population control. It therefore continues to represent official United States policy on government population control and, in fact, is still posted on the USAID website.
“NSSM-200 is critically important to pro-life workers all over the world, because it completely exposes the unsavory and unethical motivations and methods of the population control movement. We can use this valuable document to lay bare the strategies used by unscrupulous governments and “aid” agencies that are used to bend developing nations to their wills. Their rote denials will be useless in the face of this evidence.”
“According to The Kissinger Report, elements of the implementation of government population control programs could include the legalization of abortion, financial incentives for countries to increase their abortion, sterilization and contraception-use rates, indoctrination of children, and mandatory population control and coercion of other forms, such as withholding disaster and food aid unless an LDC implements population control programs.
“This last strategy, force and coercion applied to developing countries, is currently used by the population control cartel to push not only abortion, sterilization and birth control, but other evils such as homosexuality and transgenderism.
“There are dozens of examples of this kind of blatant injustice, including the following:
When Nigeria refused to legalize contraception and homosexuality, the United States withdrew financial and military aid that would allow it to combat the Islamic terror group Boko Harem, which has murdered and kidnapped tens of thousands of people in that nation.1
When Ecuador declined to legalize abortion, the United Nations refused to provide any aid for it to battle COVID-19, condemning many more Ecuadorians to death.2
When Kenyan pro-lifers collected irrefutable evidence that Marie Stopes International (MSI), one of the largest abortionists in the world, were committing illegal and dangerous abortions on a vast scale, MSI demanded that they be either muzzled or jailed.3
The United Nations Population Fund halted food and other aid to millions of starving Yemenis because the nation refused to legalize abortion.4
When Zambia refused to legalize sodomy, the United States withdrew much-needed foreign aid to help alleviate the 11% national HIV infection rate and to care for 250,000 AIDS orphans.5
The Joint United Nations Program on AIDS [UNAIDS] threatened to withdraw all of its aid from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia unless it approved language supporting abortion and homosexuality in a political declaration on HIV/AIDS.6” (It is important to read this full article. Go to Human Life International – population control).
Although the global fertility rate is in a steep decline, the Globalists Marxists and Communists, through the United Nations, have decided that in order to reach their proposed goals by the date they had set, the year 2030, they needed to accelerate the process of negative population growth. So, it appears they have taken matters into their own hands and in 2019, early news reports pointed to a virology lab in Wuhan, China, which may have released the Corona-19 virus. Since that time, a cover story has emerged and spread throughout the liberal and Leftist media, worldwide, claiming the Corona-19 virus was transmitted from either bats or a pangolins, (scaly ant eaters).
It was reported widely in the news media that democrats in America were using the phrase, “Don’t let a good pandemic go to waste”. So, we should ask if the Covid-19 pandemic was the Globalist’s opportunity to accelerate their Agenda 2030 completion? (see COVID-19 & GLOBALISM).
The United Nations Global Movement is a complexity of a myriad of sub-organizations, (tentacles), hiding behind many names under the control and direction of the Unite Nations. It is the United Nations which formulated the Agenda 21, which claims to be a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. Its lofty sounding goals and programs are designed to deceive the observer and obscure the nefarious Marxists methodology and end game.
Now, what began as Agenda-21 (the “21” represents the 21st century), has evolved into what is now known as Agenda-2030, and has brazenly stated it will have accomplished all its goals by the year 2030. It has and is achieving what the people could not have imagined possible just a few decades ago.
For the Christian or any serious student of prophecies, this could be considered as the rebuilding of “The Tower of Babel”, an event recorded in the Bible, in Genesis 11:1-9, which tells about humanity as proposing, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of all the earth.” Now the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the men had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have started to do, and now nothing which they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Few, if any, in the United Nation’s Globalist-Marxists movement would recognize or admit their efforts are a continuation of the humanist effort to replace God and become a god of their own design.
The Tower of Babel, from the Christian perspective, is described in Genesis 11:1-9. After the Flood, God commanded humanity to “increase in number and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1). Humanity decided to do the exact opposite, “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth’” (Genesis 11:4). Humanity decided to build a great city and all congregate there. They decided to build a gigantic tower as a symbol of their power, to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4). This tower is remembered as the Tower of Babel.
In response, God confused the languages of humanity so that they could no longer communicate with each other (Genesis 11:7). The result was that people congregated with other people who spoke the same language, and then went together and settled in other parts of the world (Genesis 11:8-9). God confused the languages at the Tower of Babel to enforce His command for humanity to spread throughout the entire world.
Four thousand two-hundred years after the Tower of Babel, the ‘Spirit of The Tower’ has lingered, survived and reemerged on the world stage. Humankind is still determined to defy God and build that tower!
The commission made a standard definition of global governance stating that “Governance is the sum of many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and co-operative action taken. It includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance.”
“FOREIGN TO AND IGNORES IDEAS PRECIOUS TO THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE”
The Commission on Global Governance has publicly stated that when their Agenda-21 plan is fully implemented, “it will bring all the people of the world into a global neighborhood managed by a world-wide bureaucracy, under the direct authority of a minute handful of appointed individuals, and policed by thousands of individuals, paid by accredited NGOs, certified to support a belief system which contains ideas that are foreign to the American experience, and ignores other values and ideas that are precious to the American experience.”
The United Nations Conference on Environment & Development, in June 1992 in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, drafted the Agenda-21, which claims far reaching global goals, while hiding or obscuring their Marxists methodology. They are organizing international cooperation to accelerate sustainable development in developing countries and related domestic policies at the cost of personal human rights and freedoms, the dismantling of democracies around the globe and other goals which are anti-Christian and malevolent to the Jewish Nation and people..
Here are some examples of what the Agenda-21 claims to be their goals:
Combating poverty
Changing consumption patterns
Protecting and promoting human health conditions
Promoting sustainable human settlement development
Integrating environment and development in decision-making
Protection of the atmosphere
Integrated approach to the planning and management of land resources
Combating deforestation
Managing fragile ecosystems: combating desertification and drought
Managing fragile ecosystems: sustainable mountain development
Promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development
Conservation of biological diversity
Environmentally sound management of biotechnology
Protection of the oceans, seas, and coastal areas, etc., and more.
You now have just a glimpse of what has, and is, happening in every country, in every city, village and borough around the world. The question should be, “What can you and I do about it”?
There are many capable and willing people fighting this spreading Global Marxist threat, but, it is my opinion that we have been awakened too late. The deed is done, the plan is in place. It is no longer a question of, “What can I do about it”, rather, we should ask, “What do I do now and how can I prepare or resist?”
Please believe me when I tell you that this current United Nations Global Socialist-Marxist movement and power grab has been in the heart of man and in the planning stage for over 4,000 years, (see The Tower of Babel). It has emerged from time to time in history under different names, but make no mistake, this time it is thorough, established and in control of your life (See “The History and Establishment of Socialism in America“.)
The ONLY response and the ONLY defense to this evil menace is God and His Word. The Bible lays out the perfect plan of resistance and counter attack. This is why the Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Leninists, et al, hate the God of the Bible, Christians and Jews and seek to eradicate every vestige of God and His Principles from our minds and from our planet.
I have prepared a lengthy, 19-part series, on “Effective Spritual Warfare” on how we can resist and fight back. It is the only way, according to the Bible, you and I can endure to the end and overcome this evil, as we await the return of Jesus and the day when He will completely conquer and destroy the works of the enemy.
There is much more to be written and said on these matters, but, I will leave you with some important links for further information and study on the enemies we face and solutions.
The Heartland Organization is one of the world’s leading conservative free-market think tanks. It is a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission since its founding in 1984 is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.
The Heartland Organization is an “action tank” as well as a “think tank,” and we measure our success by the impact we have in the real world. The Heartland Institute plays an essential role in the national (and increasingly in the international) movement for personal liberty and limited government. We are the pipeline between the freedom movement’s leading writers and thinkers and the nation’s 8,400 national and state elected officials.
Human Life International is a Catholic, Pro-Life mission, teaching the world to value life and to follow God’s plan for the family. In1972, Fr. Paul Marx, O.S.B founded the Human Life Center to fight the spread of abortion and breakdown of the family. In 1981, the Human Life Center became Human Life International.
Now we travel the world helping local leaders build a pro-life culture in their families, communities, and countries. The anti-life movement is huge. But we save lives and souls every day with the help of our amazing supporters. Together, we can build a culture that values life at every stage. Legal abortion will never end unless we can change the way our culture treats sexuality and marriage.
https://youtu.be/d9kFPs2RrLE
Actual Events, hidden in plain sight. Please ask yourself, Has the Tribulation begun? Are the SEALS of Revelation being broken? Has the church finished fulfilling the great commission of Jesus Christ? Will you make it to heaven in the Rapture? HAVE WE ENTERED THE SCROLL SEALS OF THE TRIBULATION? Why does it matter?
A REVELATION, TRIBULATION AND RAPTURE PRESENTATION
This presentation has an accompanying audio file. You will need to click on The Revelation Presentation 2024 first (the link left of here or on the image below), then click on the audio link on this web page.
You can then follow the audio by scrolling page to page. Good listening and reading!
This next presentation is similar to the one above with some slight variation.
God created all things with a plan, which includes me and you! (He never needs a re-do).
God created them, male and female, with a plan, in Their 
Adam and Eve disobeyed. The ‘flaw in their character and 
The Abrahamic Covenant is an unconditional covenant. God binding Himself to Abraham and his descendants.
God was sorry He made them. He was grieved. But it was His plan all along. (God is omniscient and omnipresent).
The ‘flaw of sin’ reemerges as pride and rebellion toward God. Instead of destroying them, this time God scattered them.
God prepares the world for Jesus with Isaac through Abraham.
The arrival of Perfection on earth. Jesus, God in the Flesh, is born and the New Covenant – for you and me – is established. Now the ‘called’ can see and be made into the very image of God. The tribulation begins, and The Eternal Plan enters its final stages.
The sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet blast, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other – and if you are alive at that time, we are included. (The rapture will have occurred).
The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And the Great Tribulation, the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, will have begun. (Those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will have escaped these days.)
