A COVENANT WITH DEATH

A Covenant With Death

This Week’s Feature Article by Jack Kelley


Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem. You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death, with the grave we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”
So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.
I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the grave will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by it. (Isaiah 28:14-18)


I first wrote about this passage from Isaiah about six years ago. At the time Israel was in the process of giving up the Gaza Strip in the hopes of moving closer to peace with the Palestinians. Since then things have only gotten worse for the Jewish people. Every effort they’ve made to accommodate world opinion has left them weakened, while their enemies have become stronger.


As I read the accounts of Israel’s current situation, Isaiah’s words still come to mind. Some believe that in his prophecies Isaiah was sending the Southern Kingdom three messages simultaneously. The first had to do with the near term and warned them of a coming judgment at the hands of the Babylonians. It would be similar to the one the Northern Kingdom was about to receive from the Assyrians. The second message concerned the times surrounding the first coming of the Messiah, and the third described events at the End of the Age. Scholars who hold this view claim that in some places Isaiah refers to all three time frames at once. If so Isaiah 28:14-18 is one of them.


What’s He Talking About?
The meaning of the passage is clear. By making treaties with countries committed to their demise, the Israelites were fooling themselves into believing that they’d be exempt from those countries’ plans for expansion and conquest. In truth Israel’s policies of appeasement would generate agreements based on wishful thinking that would be quickly broken whenever the enemy found it convenient to do so. It proved to be true with the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Syrians of Greek times, the Romans, and lately the “Palestinians.” This policy will finally culminate in the ultimate self-deception. A treaty with the anti-Christ will just about bring them to ruin.


The Lord had Isaiah warn His people that there was only one man in the world they could trust, and that was their Messiah. Only He would deal justly and righteously with them. All others, even their supposed friends, would lie to suit their own purposes, which would always run contrary to Israel’s.


Those of us with Biblical background and prophetic understanding watch in open dismay as Israel’s current leaders bow to international pressure and plan once again to evict their own people from God-given land, explaining that by doing so they’re achieving peace with their neighbors. But even those without such understanding need only review the recent actions of Israel’s friends and enemies to gain a clear view of what the future will bring.


Iran keeps stepping up the pace of its nuclear program, having dropped all pretense of just wanting an additional source for domestic power, while repeating their determination to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. A growing consensus among Israel’s commanding generals has resulted in a public plea that they be allowed to attack Iran and destroy their nuclear capabilities before it’s too late.

At the same time, Syria’s current civil strife has left Lebanon almost completely under Iran’s control with Hezbollah a more than willing partner. The arch enemy stands poised at Israel’s northern border. And in the south Iran is turning Hamas soldiers into an army of disciplined commandos, ready to attack. Rocket and mortar fire increases daily.


In May of 2011 US President Obama publicly suggested that any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would likely be made around Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The world jumped on his statement and even though he tried to back down from it a few days later, nobody listened. I don’t think that was an accident. I think Pres. Obama was deliberately making that position official US policy. Since then the world has been bringing almost unbearable pressure on Israel to accept it as well.

Having initially rejected the Obama position in the strongest terms, just recently Israeli PM Netanyahu seemed to be ready to agree to it, with two conditions. He won’t accept a divided Jerusalem and said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state.


Emboldened by the US position, but ignoring Netanyahu’s conditions, the Palestinians are planning a unilateral declaration of statehood to be presented to the UN for ratification in September.


How blind does one have to be to miss the handwriting on the wall? I believe the goal is to make Israel absolutely indefensible, forcing them to rely on the international community for protection. Look for growing pressure to tear down the security fences followed by calls for nuclear disarmament, all in the name of peace. (Remember, Ezekiel 38:11 describes Israel as being a land of un-walled villages just prior to the Moslem coalition’s sneak attack.)


Who You Gonna Call?
Ultimately, Israel will pin its hopes for protection on one man, the one we call the anti-Christ. Shortly after the Moslem coalition led by Iran and armed by Russia takes advantage of Israel’s careless assumption that peace has come and pulls a mammoth sneak attack, he’ll enforce a seven-year treaty that includes provisions for building a Temple in Israel. (Daniel 9:27) Israel will want a Temple by then because they’ll realize that the One who put the attacking forces to flight was God Himself. The Old Covenant, dormant for so long, will be renewed for its final seven years. But even so, they’ll accept the false Messiah who comes in his own name, having rejected the True One who came in His Father’s name (John 5:43) and the result will almost destroy them.


In the middle of the seven years their supposed benefactor will pull the ultimate betrayal, and proclaiming himself to be their God (2 Thes. 2:4), will set about to destroy every last one of them. He’ll do this from the very Temple he helped them build, and then he’ll bring the military resources of every nation on Earth to bear against them. Betrayed by friends and beset by enemies, they’ll have no one to turn to and with Jerusalem surrounded and half the city already taken it will look like the end is upon them at last.


“Come, let us return to the LORD,” they’ll cry. “He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.”
“Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:1-3)

And their Messiah Jesus, Who has been waiting for 2000 years for them to say this, will respond. “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. (Zech 12:10)

On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. (Zech 13:1)

Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. (Zech.14:3-4)
The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name. (Zech 14:9) The One Who is faithful and true will have fulfilled His every commitment to them, and as King of the whole Earth He’ll have the power to make it stick.

If you’re like me, you grieve over the current plight of God’s people. Know that the Lord grieves as well. Know also that as conditions steadily worsen for them, their victory and ours is breathtakingly near. For the One Who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and is ever alert for any sign that His people are ready to return to Him.

In the meantime Psalm 122:6-7 instructs us on the proper response to the events of our time. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.” If you listen closely, you can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah. 08-05-11

THE FUTURE OF THE MIDDLE EAST

The Future of the Middle East: Daily Update 8/4/11 from Gary Stearman on Vimeo.

Be afraid: The proof is in the Putin

Be afraid: The proof is in the Putin

Was Karl Marx a Satanist?

“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of man is a requisite for their real happiness." Karl Marx (page 5)
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Excerpts from

"Was Marx a Satanist?"

This book was written by Richard Wurmbrand, a faithful Romanian Christian who spent eight years in a Communist prison for sharing the Gospel and refusing to deny his Lord. His best known book is Tortured for Christ, his testimony of God's triumph in the midst of Communist persecution.
See Communist Exploitation of Religion: The Congressional Testimony of Richard Wurmbrand
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First, some background information about the uncompromising faithfulness of Pastor Wurmbrand from Voice of the Martyrs:
"Two months after the Communist 'People’s Republic of Romania' was established, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand was arrested. Labeled 'Prisoner Number 1,' he was locked in a solitary cell, where he endured horrendous torture at the hands of the brutal secret police. More than eight years later, 'a doctor masquerading as a Communist Party member discovered Richard alive.' Released in 1956, he 'resumed his work with the ‘underground’ churches....He was re-arrested in 1959 through the conspiracy of an associate, and sentenced to 25 years... accused of preaching ideas contrary to Communist doctrine."
"In 1967, Richard and Sabrina Wurmbrand founded a ministry that would serve the persecuted church. Its name was eventually changed to Voice of the Martyrs. By the mid-1980s, it was reaching out to "80 restricted nations with offices in 30 countries around the world." His book, Tortured for Christ, became a source of encouragement among the persecuted throughout the Soviet system."


Richard Wurmbrand's book about Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), a German "revolutionary socialist," begins with a rebuttal to this misconception: that Marx himself was a compassionate visionary who truly cared for the poor. In reality, both Marx and Engels grew up in wealthy families, far removed from the life of poverty. Together they pursued an anti-Christian utopia that -- from the beginning -- focused on political power, not on meeting the needs of the poor. Like today's seductive vision of change, their socialist/communist transformation required a "crisis" and a "purpose" that would capture public attention and provide the needed momentum.


Thomas Sowell summarized it well in his 1993 book, Is Reality Optional (Hoover Institution, p. 81):
"Running left-wing movements has always been the prerogative of spoiled rich kids. This pattern goes all the way back to the days when an over-indulged and affluent young man named Karl Marx combined with another over-indulged youth from a wealthy family named Friedrich Engels to create the Communist ideology.


"The phoniness of the claim to be a movement of the working class was blatant from the beginning. When Engels was elected as a delegate to the Communist League in 1847, in his own words, 'a working man was proposed for appearances sake, but those who proposed him voted for me.' It may have been the first rigged 'election' of the Communist movement but it was certainly not the last.... The anointed have always wanted to create their own kind of people, as well as their own kind of society."[13]T


Next, ponder the following excerpts from Was Marx a Satanist? Notice that Karl Marx was introduced early to Christianity. In his youth, he even appeared to be a devout Christian. But his views had radically changed soon after he finished the German high school.


Today one third of the world is Marxist. Marxism in one form or another is embraced by many in Capitalist countries, too. There are even Christians, yes, and clergymen, some of high standing, who are sure that while Jesus might have had the right answers about how to get to heaven, Marx had the right answers about how to help the hungry, destitute, and oppressed on earth.


"Marx, it is said, was deeply humane. He was dominated by one idea: how to help the exploited masses. What impoverishes them, he maintained, is capitalism. Once this rotten system is overthrown, after a transitional period of dictatorship of the proletariat, a society will emerge in which everyone will work according to his abilities in factories and farms belonging to the collective, and will be rewarded according to his needs. There will be... no wars, no revolutions, only an everlasting, universal brotherhood.... [p. 5]


"Marx writes: “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of man is a requisite for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their conditions is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusion...."[p. 6]


"Marx was anti-religious because religion obstructs the fulfillment of the Communist ideal which he considers the only answer to the world's problems."[p. 6]


"...a new Marx began to emerge. He writes in a poem, “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above.”[7] So he was convinced that there is One above who rules....


Marx belonged to a relatively well-to-do family. He had not hungered in his childhood. He was much better off than many fellow students. What produced this terrible hatred against God? No personal motive is known. ...why should he have written these lines in his poem Invocation of One in Despair? [9]


So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me!


I shall build my throne high overhead,

Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.

For its bulwark -- superstitious dread.
For its Marshall -- blackest agony.[8]


The words “I shall build my throne high overhead” and the confession that from the one sitting on this throne will emanate only dread and agony, remind us of Lucifer’s proud boast: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” (Isaiah 14:13)


But why does Marx wish such a throne? The answer is found in a little-known drama which he also composed during his student years. It is called Oulanem. To explain this title a digression is needed.[9]


There exists a Satanist church. One of its rituals is the black mass which Satanist priests recite at midnight....An orgy follows... [pp.10-11]


We will be able to understand the drama Oulanem only in the light of a strange confession which Marx made in a poem called The Player, later down-played by both himself and his followers:


The hellish vapors rise and fill the brain,
Till I go mad and my heart is utterly changed.
See this sword? The prince of darkness sold it to me. -
For me beats the time and gives the signs.
Ever more boldly I play the dance of death.[p.12]


Now I quote from [Marx's] drama Oulanem:


And they are also Oulanem, Oulanem.

The name rings forth like death, rings forth

Until it dies away in a wretched crawl.
Stop, I’ve got it now! It rises from my soul....


Yet I have power within my youthful arms
To clench and crush you [i.e., personified humanity] with tempestuous force,
While for us both the abyss yawns in darkness.

You will sink down and I shall follow laughing,

Whispering in your ears, “Descend, come with me, friend.” [p.12]


The Bible which Marx had studied in his high school years... says that the devil will be bound by an angel and cast into the bottomless pit (abyssos in Greek: see Revelation 20:3). Marx wishes to draw the whole of mankind into this pit reserved for the devil and his angels....[p.12-13]

Marx had loved the words of Mephistopheles in Faust, “Everything in existence is worth being destroyed.” Everything — including the proletariat and the comrades. Marx quoted these words.... Stalin acted on them and destroyed even his own family. [p.13]

The Satanist sect is not materialistic. It believes in eternal life. Oulanem, the person for whom Marx speaks, does not contest eternal life. He asserts it, but as a life of hate magnified to its extreme. It is worth noting that eternity for the devils means 'torment.” Thus Jesus was reproached by the demons: “Art you come hither to torment us before our time?” (Matthew 8:29)....


[Marx'] correspondence with his father testifies to his squandering great sums of money on pleasures and his constant quarreling with parental authority about this and other matters. Then he might have fallen in with the tenets of the highly secret Satanist church and received the rites of initiation. Satan, whom his worshippers see in their hallucinatory orgies, speaks through them. Thus Marx is only Satan’s mouthpiece when he utters in his poem Invocation of One in Despair the words, “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above.”


Listen to the end of Oulanem:

If there is a Something which devours,

I’ll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins—
The world which bulks between me and the abyss

I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses....

In Oulanem Marx does what the devil does: he consigns the entire human race to damnation. Oulanem is probably the only drama in the world in which all the characters are aware of their own corruption, which they flaunt and celebrate with conviction. In this drama there is no black and white... All are satanic, corrupt, and doomed.[p.15]


When he wrote these things, Marx... was eighteen. His life’s program had already been established. There was no word about serving mankind, the proletariat, or socialism. He wished to bring the world to ruin. He wished to build for himself a throne whose bulwark should be human shudder.[p.16]


Wurmbrand found some "cryptic passages" as he read the letters between Marx and his father:


The son writes, "My holy of holies was rent asunder and new gods had to be installed."[p.16]

On March 2, 1837, Marx’s father writes to his son: “Your advancement, the dear hope to see your name being once of great repute, and your earthly well-being are not the only desires of my heart.... Only if your heart remains pure and beats humanly and if no demon will be able to alienate your heart from better feelings, only then will I be happy.” [p.16]


What made a father express suddenly the fear of demonic influence upon a young son who until then had been a confessed Christian? Was it the poems he received as a present from his son for his 55th birthday? The following quotation is taken from Marx’s poem On Hegel:


Words I teach all mixed up into a devilish muddle.
Thus, anyone may think just what he chooses to think. [p.17]


In his poem The Pale Maiden, he writes:
Thus heaven I’ve forfeited, I know it full well.
My soul, once true to God, is chosen for hell. [p.20]

Connections that led to socialism, then Communism
Marx met Moses Hess, the man who... made him embrace the Socialist idea. Hess calls him "Dr. Marx--my idol, who will give the last kick to medieval religion and politics."...[[p.20]


Georg Jung, another friend of Marx at that time, writes in 1841... that Marx will surely chase God from his heaven.... Marx calls Christianity one of the most immoral religions. [p.20]

One of his partners in the First International was Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian anarchist, who wrote: "...here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds...[urges] him to disobey and eat the fruit of knowledge."... He writes: "In this revolution we will have to awaken the devil in the people, to stir up the basest passions." [p.22]

Bakunin reveals that Proudhon, another major Socialist thinker and at that time a friend of Karl Marx, also “worshipped Satan.” ... Proudhon...declared that God was the prototype for injustice. "... Every step forward is a victory in which we overcome the Divine."... [p.23]


In Marx’s poems Invocation of One in Despair and Human Pride, man’s supreme ‘supplication is for his own greatness. If man is doomed to perish through his own greatness, this will be a cosmic catastrophe, but he will die as a godlike being, mourned by demons.


Marx' ballad The Player records the singer’s complaints against a God who neither knows nor respects his art.

It emerges from the dark abyss of hell,

bedeviling the mind and bewitching the heart, and his dance is the dance of death....

Art emerging from the dark abyss of hell, bedeviling the mind.... This reminds us of the words of the American revolutionist Jerry Rubin in Do It: “We’ve combined youth, music, sex, drugs, and rebellion with treason — and that’s a combination hard to beat.” [24]

In his poem Human Pride, Marx admits that his aim is not to improve the world, reform or revolutionize it, but simply to ruin it and enjoy it being ruined:


With disdain I will throw my gauntlet full in the face of the world,
And see the collapse of this pygmy giant whose fall will not stifle my ardor.
Then will I wander godlike and victorious through the ruins of the world

And, giving my words an active force, I will feel equal to the Creator. [24]

...The overriding reason for Marx’s conversion to Communism appears clearly in a letter of his friend Georg Jung to Ruge. It is not the emancipation of the proletariat, nor the establishing of a better social order. Jung writes: “If Marx, Bruno Bauer and Feuerbach associate to found a theological-political review, God would do well to surround himself with all his angels and indulge in self-pity, for these three will certainly drive Him out of heaven..." [24]


The man who convinced Engels to become a Communist was the same Moses Hess who had convinced Marx before. Hess writes after he met Engels in Cologne, “He parted from me as an over-zealous Communist. This is how I produce ravages.“ To produce ravages — was this Hess’s supreme purpose in life? It is Lucifer’s, too."[28]

THE DOLLAR AND THE CHRISTIAN/MUSLIM INFLUX

The Dollar and the Christian/Muslim Influx: Daily Update 8/3/11 from Gary Stearman on Vimeo.

Gary talks with Avi Lipkin about the U.S./World economy, Christian/Muslim influx, Muslim Brotherhood, and Israel's Bible Bloc Party.

TRANSHUMANISM- Daily update

Transhumanism: Daily Update 8-1-11 from Gary Stearman on Vimeo.

THE SAUDI AGENDA

The Saudi Agenda: Daily Update 8-2-11 from Gary Stearman on Vimeo.
Gary Stearman sits down with Avi Lipkin to gain an understanding of the goings on of the Middle East from the perspective from someone who lives in Israel. They look at the Saudi Agenda in the U.S. amongst other topics.

Antonio Gramsci, the man and his thoughts.

From Marx to Lenin, Gramsci & Alinsky

Excerpts from The Keys of this Blood by Malachi Martin, 1990 [734 pages]

For further reading on the ideologies that impacted our world in the last century click here: http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/marx-gramsci.htm

13. Antonio Gramsci

"...the political formula Gramsci devised has done much more than classical Leninism -- and certainly more than Stalinism -- to spread Marxism throughout the capitalist West." [p. 243]


"By 1913, he was a member of the Italian Socialist Party. In 1919, he founded a newspaper, whose name alone—L’Ordine Nuovo, The New Order—gave clear indication of his bent of mind and of the fact that, like Lenin, he was both a visionary and a doer of deeds. In 1921... Gramsci [co-]founded the Italian Communist Party. The next year...Benito Mussolini came to power.... Italy became a Fascist nation. And Gramsci took off for what he no doubt expected would be the safer haven of Lenin’s USSR.


"Marxist though he was, and as fully convinced as Lenin that there was a force completely inner to mankind driving it on as a whole to the Marxist ideal of the 'Workers’ Paradise,' Gramsci was too aware of the facts of history and of life to accept other basic and gratuitous assumptions made by Marx, and accepted unquestioningly by Lenin....


"Gramsci himself rejected Christianity and all its transcendent claims. Nevertheless, he knew Christian culture existed.... For that was the force binding all the classes... into a single, homogeneous culture. It was a specifically Christian culture, in which individual men and women understood that the most important things about human life transcended the material conditions in which they lived out their mortal lives.


"Gramsci agreed that the great mass of the world’s population was made up of workers. That much was just plain fact. What became clear to him, however, was that nowhere—and especially not in Christian Europe—did the workers of the world see themselves as separated from the ruling classes by an ideological chasm. ...


"There would never be a glorious uprising of the proletariat. There would be no Marxist-inspired violent overthrow of the ruling 'superstructure' by the working 'underclasses.' Because no matter how oppressed they might be, the 'structure' of the working classes was defined not by their misery or their oppression but by their Christian faith and their Christian culture....


"The Marxist insistence that everything valuable in life was within mankind—was immanent in mankind and its earthly condition—was impotent against such a bulwark." [pps. 244-245]


"Gramsci did not live to witness Hitler’s betrayal of Stalin and the failure of yet another plan for violent proletarian revolt.... Nor did he live to see even the first traces of the vindication and victory of his ideas. Nevertheless, when the first volume of what he had written in prison was published in 1947—a full ten years after his death—the voice of the long-dead Marxist prophet became a reality for which the world at large had no ready answer. A reality that would bedevil Joseph Stalin and each of his successors until Mikhail Gorbachev, who listened at last, would finally take the hand of Gramsci’s ghost and set off on the Leninist-Marxist road to the twenty-first century." [p. 247]


"A key element of Gramsci’s blueprint for the global victory of Marxism rested on Hegel’s distinction between what was 'inner' or 'immanent' to man and what man held to be outside and above him and his world—a superior force transcending the limitations of individuals and of groups, both large and small." [p. 247]


[The next section shows how the church must be adapted to this-worldly vision of a material paradise. The emerging church has already embraced this counterfeit vision of an earthly "kingdom of 'God.'"]


"Marxism's 'transcendent,' said Gramsci, was the utopian ideal....


"Gramsci argued that unless you can systematically touch what is immanent and immediate to individuals and groups and societies in their daily lives, you cannot convince them to struggle for any transcendent." [p. 248]


"...therefore, the call of Marx and Lenin to impose their 'transcendent by violent force was a futile contradiction in human logic. It was no wonder that... the only Marxist state that existed was imposed and maintained by for e and by terrorist policies.... If Marxism could not find a way to change that formula, it would have no future.


"What was essential,' insisted Gramsci, was to Marxize the inner man. Only when that was done could you successfully dangle the utopia of the 'Workers' Paradise' [the classless society] before his eyes.... And he was totally convinced that the material dimension of everything ... was the whole of it....


"Even Stalinist terror methods, Gramsci predicted, could not eliminate what he called “the forces of bourgeois reaction.” Instead, he warned,
those reactionary forces—organized religion, the intellectual and academic establishment, capitalist and entrepreneurial circles—all would be compressed by any such repression into dense streams of tradition, resistance and resentment. ...
"Clearly, if Gramsci was to change the common cultural outlook, the first order of business had to be to change the outward face of the Communist Party. For starters, Marxists would have to drop all Leninist shibboleths. It wouldn’t do to rant about 'revolution' and 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and the 'Workers’ Paradise.' Instead... Marxists would have to exalt such ideas as 'national consensus' and 'national unity'....
"Further, advised Gramsci, Marxists around the world ... would have to engage in the practical and normally accepted democratic processes, in lobbying and voting and the full gamut of parliamentary participation. They would have to behave in every respect the way Western democrats behave—not only accepting the existence of many political parties but forging alliances with some and friendships with others. They would have to defend pluralism, in fact." [p. 249-250]


"And—heresy of all Leninist heresies—Marxists would even have to defend different types of Communist parties in different countries. The Central Committee of the CPSU would still be the operational center of world Marxism—would still direct this new style of world revolution by penetration and corruption. But no Communist Party in any country outside the Soviet Union would be a forced clone of the CPSU.
"On top of all that, Marxists must imitate, perfect and expand the roles already invented by Lenin and his 'intelligence expert.'... Marxists must join with women, with the poor, with those who find certain civil laws oppressive. They must adopt different tactics for different cultures and subcultures. They must never show an inappropriate face. And, in this manner, they must enter into every civil, cultural and political activity in every nation, patiently leavening them all as thoroughly as yeast leavens bread.
"Even such a pervasive blueprint as that would not work in the end, however, unless Gramsci could successfully target Marxism’s greatest enemy. ... the Christianity that had created and still pervaded Western culture in all its forms, activities and expressions. ....
"For this purpose, Gramsci felt the timing was rather good. For though Christianity appeared on the surface to be strong, it had for some time been debilitated by unceasing attacks ag failing remnant of Christianity. ... Marxists must change the residually Christian mind... so that it would become not merely a non-Christian mind but an anti-Christian mind." [p.250]


"...he needed to get individuals and groups in every class and station of life to think about life’s problems without reference to the Christian transcendent, without reference to God and the laws of God. He needed to get them to react with antipathy and positive opposition to any introduction of Christian ideals or the Christian transcendent into the treatment and solution of the problems of modern life." [p. 251]


"...Gramsci was a Marxist through and through. And the bedrock essence of Marxism—the cornerstone of the Marxist ideal of a this-worldly Paradise as the summit of human existence—is that there is nothing beyond the matter of this universe. There is nothing in existence that transcends man—his material organism within his material surroundings."
"...such goals, like most of Gramsci’s blueprint, had to be pursued by means of a quiet and anonymous revolution. No armed and bloody uprisings.... Rather, everything must be done in the name of man’s dignity and rights.... [The new world must not only move beyond -- it must learn to despise] the claims and constraints of Christianity, above all. ...


"Do that, he promised, and in essence you will have Marxized the West. The final step—the Marxization of the politics of life itself—will then follow." [p. 251]


"Liberation Theology was a perfectly faithful exercise of Gramsci's principles. It could be launched with the corruption of a relatively few well placed Judas goats. Yet it could be aimed at the culture and the mentality of the masses. It stripped both of any attachment to the Christian transcendent. It locked both the individual and his culture in the close embrace of a goal that was totally immanent; the class struggle for socio-political liberation. [p. 260-261]


"In the United States and Europe, meanwhile, the poor were too small in numbers, too isolated and too uninterested to serve as a primary target for Gramscian opportunity. No matter, For in both areas there were major seminaries that were already a... anti-traditional in their theology. They rapidly enshrined Liberation Theology as the new way of thinking about all the old questions. [p. 261-262]


The process of secularization in the Catholic and Protestant churches progressed so rapidly and with such energy that, just as Gramsci had foreseen, it fed into other streams of anti-Church influence in the West. Those were streams that, seemingly independent of Marxist influence, advocated a materialistic interpretation of all sectors of human through, investigation and action. [p. 262]


"...the academic faculties of Europe and America, already proud of the position in the vanguard of liberal and forward-looking political thinking, took like ducks to the rising tide of Marxist interpretations of history, law, religion and scientific inquiry.


"(Dawkins -- no God -- just aliens - Look Who's Irrational Now).... All the meaning of human life and the answer to every human hope were contained within the boundaries of the visible, tangible, material world of the here and now." [p. 262]


"The 'liberalized' culture of the West nations essentially converged with the process of mounting secularization, sharing freely and solidly in the new sacred principle that all the life, activities and hopes of mankind rested on the solid structures of this world alone. [see WSJ article on religious superstition]


...secular systems of beliefs-- Humanism, Mega-religion and the grab bag of New Age....forged their own not-so-strange alliances with Gramsci's heirs, rushing into the religious vacuum of formerly Christian societies. For they too, were united in insisting... that faith had no function expect to help all mankind to unite and be at peace within this world, in order to reach its ultimate peak of human development." [p.264]


"...Gramsci's ghost had captivated them all into his "Marxist hegemony of the mind.." The transcendent had bowed to the immanent. Total materialism was freely, peace fully and agreeably adopted everywhere in the name of man's dignity and rights... autonomy and freedom from outside constraints. Above all, as Gramsci had planned, this was done in the name of freedom from the laws and constraints of Christianity." [p.265]


"George Orwell once wrote that 'at any given moment, there is a sort of all-pervading orthodoxy -- a general tacit agreement not to discuss some large and uncomfortable fact.'... What now passes for philosophy is nothing more than a hybrid complex of fashions... and impulses and theories ant mold public opinion..." [p.266]


"They join with the Christian churches in brotherly dialogue and in common humanitarian ventures. But the object is to confirm the new Christianity in its anti-metaphysical and essentially atheistic pursuit of liberation from material inconvenience, from the fear of a nuclear holocaust, from sexual restriction of any kind and, finally, from all supernatural constrictions.... Total liberation is to construct the long-dreamed Leninist-Marxist Utopia.... By just that process, authored by Antonio Gramsci... has Western culture deprived itself of its lifeblood." [p.267-268]

"Mikhail Gorbachev burst upon the world scene as the first Soviet leader big-minded enough to appraise, appreciate and fully embrace the Gramscian formula.... Gorbachev is being very faithful to his hard-core Leninism, while adding his own updating and correctives." [p.272]

BLOG TEACHERV JOANI C.P.: FAIRE LE BIEN

BLOG TEACHERV JOANI C.P.: FAIRE LE BIEN: "Quelqu’un a dit un jour : « Le bien que tu fais aujourd’hui sera oublié demain. Fais quand même le bien. » Cet excellent rappel me plaît. Da..."

Eternal Security and Galatians 5

OSAS And Galatians 5

This Week’s Feature Article by Jack Kelley


People who try to deny the Doctrine of Eternal Security (OSAS) sometimes point to Galatians 5:13-26 to support their position. And if you just considered those verses you might be tempted to agree. But if you look at the entire chapter you get a completely different perspective. So that’s what we’ll do.


Before we begin, it’s important to remind ourselves that the Bible, being the word of God, cannot contradict itself. If Galatians 5 denies OSAS it’s in direct contradiction to statements the Holy Spirit led Paul to make in Ephes. 1:13-14 and 2 Cor. 1:21-22. Ephes. 1:13-14 tells us that our salvation is assured from the moment of belief with the Holy Spirit sealed within us as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. Before we had done anything, either good or bad, before we were baptized, before we had even fully responded to the altar call, we were saved forever. These other things are important, but our belief in the Lord’s completed work on our behalf came first and it’s the one essential ingredient to our salvation which alone brings us eternal life (John 1:12-13, 3:16, 6:28-29, 6:40).


2 Cor. 1:21-22 says, It is God Who makes us stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. There are no passages in Scripture that speak of revoking or even modifying this guarantee. It would be impossible for the Holy Spirit to have led Paul or any of the Bible’s other writers to make any statements that contradict these clear promises.

So what was Paul saying? Let’s start at the beginning of the chapter.

Freedom In Christ

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:1-6)


The context of Galatians 5 is the debate that was raging between two groups there. One consisted of believers in the Doctrine of Grace Paul had taught them. The other was made up of those who were being swayed by the teaching of the “Judaizers”, Jews who claimed that Gentile believers had to come under the Law and be circumcised to be saved.


Paul warned them that while neither circumcision nor uncircumcision was relevant in and of itself, it was being proposed to them as a sign of their acceptance of the Old Covenant. Therefore agreeing to it would obligate them to the whole Law. Attempting to keep the Law alienates us from the Lord because it denies what He’s done for us. It makes His death of no value leaving us responsible for saving ourselves.


"You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! (Galatians 5:7-12)

Law Or Grace?

You can’t have a little bit of Law mixed with Grace. Just as a little bit of yeast will permeate the whole batch of dough to change its composition, a little bit of Law will work its way through the doctrine of Grace, changing it into something it was not intended to be. When Paul said in that case the offense of the cross has been abolished, he meant the Law cancels Grace.

(The Judaizers were hinting that Paul preached the Law among Jews but switched to a watered down version of the Gospel when speaking to Gentiles. His response was, “If I’m preaching the Law to the Jews then why are they persecuting me?” His frustration with them is evident.)

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:13-15)


Paul’s comments here concern the Galatians’ arguments over Law vs. Grace and was a warning to stop it. He called their arguing “indulging the sinful nature”and said while in Christ they were free from the Law they shouldn’t use their freedom to behave that way. Instead, they should serve one another humbly in love.
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. (Galatians 5:16-18)


This is a clear demonstration of the difference between the desires of the sin nature and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our sin nature will always prompt us to do things that are contrary to the Spirit. As He did in Romans 7:18-19 Paul said our sin nature will sometimes cause us to do things we know we shouldn’t do. Here he said if we’re led by the Spirit we’re not under the Law, meaning these things are not counted against us.


The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5:22-26)


The differences between the acts of the sin nature and the fruit of the Spirit can be seen in the comparison of these two passages. In reading the first one we can all admit to periodically doing one or more of these things as believers. In Romans 7:20 Paul said from God’s perspective it’s not us but the sin nature that dwells within us that’s to blame when this happens.

His final words on the subject confirm that the whole chapter had been about about their arguing. He said since the Galatian believers belonged to Christ they should live by the Spirit and not become conceited, a common failing among Law keepers. He said they should stop provoking and envying each other, a reference to the contention among them. These are acts prompted by the sin nature and are not appropriate for believers.


What’s The Meaning Of This?
If you’re going to deny God’s Grace by going under the Law you’ll disqualify yourself from receiving two things that are essential to your salvation. First, you won’t have the Holy Spirit to guide you, so you’ll be left with only your sin nature which will always take you in a direction that’s opposed to God’s Spirit.


But far more importantly you won’t have the guarantee of the Lord’s death on your behalf to save you. You’ll be responsible for your own salvation. Without these two things you can not inherit the Kingdom of God.


Remember, the Law was only given to point out our sins and no one can be saved by keeping it (Romans 3:20). But through faith we can achieve a righteousness apart from the Law and be saved (Romans 3:21-24). So there are only two ways to live one’s life, by Law or by Grace through faith. We can’t have it both ways. If we’re under the Law we can not benefit from God’s grace.

In summary, if we depend solely by faith on our belief that the Lord saved us forever then we’re saved forever. If we think we have to apply our own effort to complete the work Jesus only began, then it’s doubtful we were ever saved. Paul wasn’t contradicting himself. Galatians 5 is not about losing our salvation once we receive it, it’s about whether we ever had it to begin with. Selah 07-30-11

Aliens and the Human Genome: Daily Update

Aliens and the Human Genome: Daily Update 7-29-11 from Gary Stearman on Vimeo.

Gary Stearman and Doug Woodward look at the train of thought that aliens have somehow altered the human genome.

So you say you want a revolution?

REAL AMERICA

So you say you want a revolution?

Exclusive: Patrice Lewis offers solution to U.S. spending addiction, citizen freeloaders

Posted: July 29, 2011
By Patrice Lewis
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Consider these recent news headlines:
Republican and Democratic leaders are floating the idea of a new "Super Congress" not authorized in the Constitution
A legislative proposal in San Francisco seeks to make ex-cons and felons a protected class, along with existing categories of residents like African-Americans, people with disabilities and pregnant women.
The Ohio appellate court handed down a critical Second Amendment-bending decision over the weekend in which a minor offense can eliminate one's right to bear arms.
In the latest chapter of the gunrunning scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, federal officials won't say how two suspects obtained more than 360 weapons despite criminal records that should have prevented them from buying even one gun.
Shall I go on? I located these headlines in about 30 seconds. I can list more if you like.

As these articles abundantly illustrate, our elected officials have abandoned all pretence of adhering to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They don't even bother pretending anymore. In fact, their attitude is mockery and downright hostility whenever it is suggested that the government should limit itself to the small, streamlined entity it was meant to be.

Today, anyone who suggests our government is out of control is labeled a right-wing extremist or even a domestic terrorist. Yet all the constitutionalists and tea partiers want to do is return our nation to the governmental restraints outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We do not want a theocracy. We do not want an oligarchy. Is this too much to ask?

Sadly, yes. The progressives and the constitutionalists have no middle ground anymore. Listening to the arguments on both the left and the right provides abundant evidence that our nation as it currently exists is not salvageable. Freedom and slavery can never reach an accord.

I mean that in all seriousness. America as it was meant to be cannot be brought back on track. There are too many powerful people – virtually the entire government, mainstream media and populations of large urban areas – who are too addicted to spending, to entitlements, to control and to manufactured "rights." It's too late.

In an earlier column, I wrote that We the People are actually living in an occupied nation; the occupier – the enemy – is our own government. But progressives don't see the problem. That is, they don't see that an ever-growing governmental body is a bad thing – and they'd like to see more of it. They want our wealth redistributed. They want unconstitutional entitlements such as health care. They want the debt ceiling raised. They want everything they can lay their hands on when it comes to their agenda, and the Constitution be damned.

"The federal government is an out-of-control beast, no longer a body of representatives of the people but rather a house of aristocracy whose members do nothing unless it's for the good of their house," wrote a reader. "We the People have become nothing more than wage slaves to the gluttonous bloated entity our government has become. Nothing short of a military coup d'etat is capable of restoring our country back to the people, back to what was intended by the Founders."

But I'm not so sure a coup d'etat would work. Oh sure, the tea party could take over Washington and begin to run the government within the original constraints intended by the Founding Fathers, but what then? The progressives would hate it. They would launch a counter-revolution. Civil war would ensue, and no matter who "won," the problems would remain.

And what are the irreconcilable problems on which the left and the right cannot agree? Simple: It's the vision of government. It's the degree to which government should be involved in the lives of individuals.

That's why I'm still of the mind that the only solution is division. We need a Progressive States of America, or PSA, and a Constitutional States of America, or CSA. As cruel and unfair as the mechanics of separating our nation would be, what other answer is there?

So which form of government is likely to work out? Interestingly, the study of history provides abundant examples of both types of government and what the likely outcomes may be.

Examples of progressive governments include Germany, Russia, Italy, North Korea, Cuba, China and endless numbers of other countries in which people have lost their freedoms.

We need look no further than our own history to find an example of constitutional government. Riddled with mistakes as it was, our nation leaped ahead 5,000 years in terms of technology, medicine, manufacturing, standard of living and other benefits – all due to the unique freedom from governmental interference our founders laid out. "By 1976," notes author W. Cleon Skousen, "the 'noble experiment' of American independence and free-enterprise economics had produced some phenomenal results … [it] allowed science to thrive in an explosion of inventions and technical discoveries …" Communication was revolutionized, the average life span was doubled and our standard of living was exponentially enhanced.

But this isn't good enough for the progressives. They want to make over our nation in their own image. They desire power instead of freedom. They prefer to be slave masters of a bankrupt state over being part of a free society.

So let's give them what they want.
Let's leap ahead and pretend that our nation has already divided. Most of the people reading this column will chose to live in the CSA. But what about those who chose to live in the PSA?
When the dust of producing a new country has settled and the hoopla has died down, the citizens of the PSA may eventually recognize what we've been trying to tell them all along: They've been able to get away with all their whining about entitlements and fake "rights" for as long as they have because they've been riding on the backs of those who supported our original Constitution. When that document is thrown out, everyone will want to get on the government dole. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, their socialism will work just fine until they run out of other peoples' money.

Then, and only then, might they realize how good they had it before screwing it up. And then we'll get to say, "I told you so."

Liberal fascism through the ages

Liberal fascism through the ages

Exclusive: Ellis Washington warns, 'Obama is using pernicious ideas to destroy America'
Posted: July 29, 2011

By Ellis Washington

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No matter how mad the plan is – Fraternité, the "New Soviet Man," the Master Race, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Building a New Society, ObamaCare – a [liberal] mob will believe it.

In the world of the liberal, as in the world of Robespierre, there are no crimes, only criminals. Ann Coulter

Saul Alinsky & Lucifer

Saul Alinsky is the father of community organizing, the Marxist-anarchist who so profoundly inspired generations of Democrat insurrectionists, including a young Barack Obama who in 1985 become a community organizer in Chicagoland and in the 1990s did legal work for ACORN, one of the most reactionary and fraudulent community organizations in America.


Alinsky also inspired a former first lady and would-be president, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who in 1969 wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley extolling this villain who influenced generations of community organizations like – ACLU, La Raza, NOW, NAMBLA, PETA, AFL-CIO, NAACP, ACORN, Congressional Black Caucus, Human Rights Campaign, George Soros-funded socialist groups, LGBT agenda (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) and many other liberal mafia pressure groups.


To whom did Saul Alinsky dedicate his manifesto "Rules for Radicals"? — a book whose purpose was to deconstruct Christian nations and Western free-market republics. Let us read the dedication in the author's own words:

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer".

Gideon

In my Sunday school class last week, we studied the story of Gideon found in Judges chapters 7 and 8. Before he became a great judge of Israel, Gideon was a cowardly farmer who in fear threshed wheat in a winepress pit to prevent the pagans from stealing it. However, he had an epiphany, embraced God's calling on his life, repented, destroyed his father pagan idols and, with an army of only 300 men, totally routed the Amalekite-Midianite legions of which the Bible said numbered so many soldiers and camels that it was "a host without number."


After this stupendous victory, Gideon had the unwise idea to collect a portion of gold from all his soldiers whereby he fashioned an ephod to commemorate the battle victory God gave Israel. After Gideon's death, the Jews turned that ephod into an idol of pagan worship, causing the judgment of God to fall on Israel yet again.


Gideon teaches us that good intentions often lead to tragic consequences. So it is with America's greatest liberal progressive presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Clinton and Obama. All of these men had "good" intentions by stealing money from the rich and redistributing it to the poor who didn't earn it. In the end, all that their Marxist, socialist, Keynesian schemes achieved was endemic laziness, societal ignorance, pathology and making Americans voluntary slaves to an ever-expanding government which grows at about $4 billion per day to our present $14.5 trillion debt.

American Loyalists

Mr. Milt Harris, one of my radio colleagues on Joshua's Trail, had these profound words regarding the history of liberal Democrats, which from its beginnings was confederate with treason. In his monologue Milt said:


On the political front ever since George Washington defeated the British in 1781 at the Battle of Yorktown, Americans loyal to Britain, known as Loyalists, rather than accept defeat, began a siege to undermine the new nation. Later, in order to clandestinely expand their siege, they founded the Democrat Party so they could enact politically damaging anti-Constitution legislation.
Now, 230 years later, the political descendants of the Loyalists (the Democratic Party) still dominate politics in all of the New England States including from Maine to as far south as Virginia.

Obama as FDR II

One will never understand who President Obama is, the man, unless you have a rudimentary understanding of history, politics, philosophy and economics. Obama is the liberal establishment's dream: the apotheosis and embodiment of all the fascist, atheist, anti-intellectual, nitwit liberal ideas pontificated in college lecture halls, spoken in university faculty lounges and written in books and academic journals few people have ever read.


Socialists like Barack and Michelle Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, David Axelrod, Hillary Clinton, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Wasserman-Schultz, Cornel West, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Obama's Supreme Court nominees, Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, despite their Ivy League pedigree, show virtually no moral understanding of law, history, politics, economics or philosophy, no critical thinking or logic skills and appear to have accepted utterly the vile, myopic propaganda of their Marxist professors without question.

This groupthink mentality reminds me of FDR's adoption of Mussolini's aphorism: "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."

Conclusion

The French Revolution (1789-99) was an overt war by liberal intellectuals in France against Christianity, the church, the clergy, and came at the end of the Age Enlightenment (1650-1800) and before the later romantic movements of Darwinian evolution, Marxist socialism and Nietzsche's relativism and atheism which all led directly to the decline of Western civilization. The previous intellectual trinity of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, was replaced with the imposter trinity: Marx, Darwin and Nietzsche (with Sigmund Freud thrown in for good measure).

Long before the Pilgrims, the Puritans and the founding of America in 1607, liberalism in all of its myriad of permutations, shadows and disguises infected the history of humanity – from Nimrod's Tower of Babel (precursor to the United Nations), Baal worship, idolatry, materialism, paganism, witchcraft, doctrine of Jezebel (pagan worship of god through sex), doctrine of Molech (child sacrifice [i.e., abortion]), to slavery, secular humanism, democracy, Darwinism, communism, socialism, unionism, progressivism and living constitutionalism – it's all liberal fascism, it's all anti-God, anti-intellectual and Obama is using these pernicious ideas to purposely destroy America and deconstruct the U.S. Constitution so that he, the Democratic Party and its globalist allies can rule into perpetuity.

America at the abyss

America at the abyss

PRETRIBULATION RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH

Pretribulation Rapture of the Church from Gary Stearman on Vimeo.