Poor poor England

How incredibly sad to see the wonderful achievements of historical Protestantism against the viciousness of Rome casually overturned these days, achievements bought at the price of martyrdoms. Just gut-wrenchingly sad. Of course I'm listening to more from Chris Pinto, where else would I learn this stuff? This is from his radio show of October 31st of last year, Pope on the Move.

If you know anything at all about the price paid by the Protestants in England, for instance the stories of those who were burned at the stake for their refusal to abandon their faith, Latimer and Ridley for instance, that glorious testimony of courage and faith, it is just heartbreaking to realize how it is all being treated as insignificant or even disbelieved because of Catholic propaganda.

The Inquisition itself is denied today as propagandists of the same spirit as Holocaust Deniers (even to Jesuitical influence) declare it really didn't happen or wasn't much after all, that the millions tortured and killed were "really" only a few thousand or so.

And now an edict against the marriage of a Catholic to an English monarch has been overturned and how many of us have any idea of the significance of this event in the light of history? I certainly didn't. That ban is now treated as merely an expression of religious discrimination when in reality it was intended to end the bloody cruelties of the Catholic monarchs.
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They still hold on to a shred of the original intent of the ban since they haven't yet allowed the monarch him or herself to BE a Catholic. But Rome requires that children of mixed marriages be raised Catholic so the lifting of the ban is really a much bigger victory for the Antichrist than it may first seem to be.

Of course they tell you the Protestants were just as bad, that's always the comeback, and no doubt many of the rank and file of Catholics actually believe that although the higher-ups know better. You really have to know the history to be able to answer such charges and so few of us know any of this history. Also, these days England isn't just Catholics and Protestants but atheists who know even less and care not at all and think all religious opinions are just silly and meaningless anyway. So the historical reasons for the ban on royal marriage with a Catholic, to prevent Rome from gaining power in England and bringing back the Inquisition, have been lightly discarded and now it's only a matter of time before the momentum of this "liberal" mood allows the monarch him or herself to be a Catholic, and then England will have given itself over completely to the destruction of what was once its true greatness.

And another bit of this undoing of English history I've recently been hearing about has to do with something called Guy Fawke's Day which according to Pinto has been an English celebration of a failed plot since 1605 called the Gunpowder Plot, when Catholic Guy Fawkes failed in his mission to blow up the English Parliament as part of the ongoing war against Protestantism. Not only is the historical meaning of the event as a Catholic attack on Protestantism no longer appreciated but some are turning this around to make Fawkes out to be the hero of some kind of concocted story about civil rights. Have the English all forgotten their own history? Of course again the atheists couldn't care less about a mere religious quarrel. They're sure Guy Fawkes and Catholicism should be put on a par with Protestantism but of course atheism rules anyway.

That's how it's all going down these days. The prevailing propaganda is that all religions are created equal and to put one above another is just "intolerance" and "arrogance" and "bigotry."

Well, they WILL learn the truth eventually but meanwhile all this is terribly terribly sad and is going to get murderous too. And Rome doesn't like atheists either.

Chris Pinto on John Hagee, Extreme Dispensationalism versus Replacement Theology

I just have to keep thanking the Lord for Chris Pinto. I've been struggling through my own understanding of Replacement Theology recently, against arguments from both sides that hit me as wrong in many respects even if right in some respects.

I've been bouncing around in Chris Pinto's long list of radio shows -- sure wish he had a search feature -- hearing whatever happens to grab my attention by its title, and just came across his shows on John Hagee, who is an extreme dispensationalist, quite the opposite of Hank Hanegraaf whose Replacement Theology was the subject of my previous post. They both make the same error, however, not making a distinction between Israel of the flesh and Israel of God.

And here I find Pinto saying clearly and simply what I've been struggling to get into focus and say myself. This has happened recently with other subjects as well: I discover that he's said the same thing I've been saying, but more clearly. And he's corrected me in some areas and strengthened me as well in areas where I've been vacillating and spiritually flabby.

THANK YOU, LORD.

Unbelieving Israel is the enemy of the Church. The idea that Christians should treat them as worthy of our special care because they are Jews is a denial of our Lord and a twisting of the teachings of His apostles, but this is what John Hagee teaches, and to a less extreme extent some other teachers I've heard. Religious Jews are identical to the Pharisees of Jesus' day, and Paul's day. Apparently Hagee misapplies Romans 15:27 to call on the Church to supply the needs of these enemies of Christ, although its true reference is to the BELIEVING Jews of Jerusalem in Paul's day. Our call is to support the people of God, not the enemies of God (although we are of course to show kindness and mercy to all just as God does).

Nevertheless national Israel does fulfill prophecy and on a political level should be defended. This is a completely different level from that of the identity of God's people. God said He would make Jerusalem a "cup of trembling" to the whole world and that is certainly happening as Israel is surrounded by implacable enemies and the war to end all wars appears to be just on the horizon. But "not all Israel is Israel." Out of that war and out of the other sufferings coming on the earth as the end times unfold many Jews will come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

A related subject Pinto touched on in another show I recently heard was the accusation of Martin Luther as an anti-Semite because of his writing, the Lies of the Jews. I haven't written on this in this set of blogs but I have argued it in the past on various message boards. Maybe I'm a coward and avoid it now because of all the hatred that came against me for my arguments before. Luther was no anti-Semite, and was for a long period very generous toward the Jews -- until he found out what they teach against Jesus Christ, especially in the Talmud, the curses they bring against Him, the accusations of His birth to an adulterous woman or a prostitute and other calumnies -- which RIGHTLY offended Luther, although we might take issue with his recommendations for their punishment. It is certainly the reason GOD has punished them and is going to punish them more in the "time of Jacob's trouble." While we aren't to treat them as equal to the Israel of God which is the Church, we also aren't to mistreat them. For us to leave them in their blindness is far from a blessing, we must pray that God will open their eyes to the truth that they may repent and come to Christ and be spared what is coming both in this world and the next. Through Paul we do learn from scripture that God will save many in the end, and the Reformers also taught that.

This post is mostly just to say this much: Thank You, Lord, for Chris Pinto. Please make his work more generally known to the Body of Christ, and protect him and his family and helpers from all the enemies of the truth that are multiplying like rats these days. Amen.

Replacement Theology spelled out

Since I've made some comments on "replacement theology" recently I've been taking notice of the different sides of the controversy somewhat more than I usually do.

It was a comment by Jimmy DeYoung on Brannon Howse's radio show that prompted me to write a post a while back objecting to his statement that animal sacrifices would persist through the reign of Christ during the Millennium, which seems to me to be a radical departure from the revelation of scripture and Christian theology throughout history. I argued that the Old Testament sacrifices all foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ, they all represented atonement for sin which He fulfilled perfectly, and therefore if they are reinstated in Israel it would be a blasphemy. Such a blasphemous reinstatement might occur during the reign of Antichrist but couldn't possibly persist after the return of Christ.

Then I did a post saying that I do not believe that national Israel is God's Chosen People. This argument is more in line with the views of what is called Replacement Theology, but I don't agree with them that this means there is no role left in God's plans for national Israel at all.

Brannon Howse had Jimmy DeYoung on his radio program again today, in which the topic was the presence of Christian Research Journal's Hank Hanegraaf at a basically anti-Israel conference, and Hanegraaf's Replacement Theology was addressed.

I think it may help clarify what Replacement Theology is, and my own position, to present Hanegraaf's point of view and respond to it:

Does the Bible Make a Distinction between Israel and the Church?
Hank Hanegraaff

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:28–292).

At the heart of a currently popular end–times theology is the belief that God has two distinct people—one of whom must be raptured before God can continue His plan with the other.

I also have a problem with this division of God's people into two separate peoples, as I don't see scripture supporting this idea. I haven't yet been completely convinced that the Church will be raptured before the very last days begin, but insofar as I entertain this possibility it is with the idea not that there are separate plans for separate Chosen peoples but that there is nevertheless SOME kind of unfinished business God has with Jacob or national Israel, and certainly there is yet the unfinished business of the redemption of the entire Creation to play out. Jesus is to return to claim the entire world as His own in the end, not just His people. The last days are the Day of the Lord which is described throughout scripture as a time of unparalleled suffering. It is a time when Satan gets to run the show, perhaps without interference from the Church. The only glimpse of comfort I see in this whole scenario is that during the "time of Jacob's trouble" God says "he will be saved out of it." None of this is clear to me and probably won't become clear to anyone until it's under way.

Rather than teaching that God has two categories of people, Scripture reveals only one chosen people who form one covenant community, beautifully symbolized by one cultivated olive tree.

I believe what is called the "wave offering" of two loaves of bread that were ceremonially waved before the Lord in various Old Testament ceremonies prophetically shows the essential unity of BELIEVING Jew and Gentile as two peoples composed of the same spiritual stuff. The two olive trees that give their oil to the lampstand pictured in Zechariah are said in the Book of Revelation to be representative of the two witnesses described there, but they also suggest two sources that combine to make one oil which could represent the Church of both Jew and Gentile. Whether this is the case I don't know for sure (that would suggest Enoch the Gentile and Elijah the Israelite as the two witnesses to my mind since both were taken up into heaven without dying, and both witnesses are going to die as they preach in Jerusalem. I don't think one of the witnesses could be Moses because Moses already died once and can't die a second time.), but the point is that there are images in the Old Testament that picture one out of two, but I don't know of any that argue for two ultimately separate people of God.

Hanegraaf later in this article identifies this tree as described in Romans where Paul says the Gentiles were "grafted in" to the root, or the natural olive tree, which represents the Jews.

First, far from communicating a distinction between Israel and the church, the Scriptures from beginning to end reveal that God has only ever had one chosen people purchased “from every tribe and tongue and language and nation” (Rev. 5:9). As Paul explains, the “mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6, emphasis added). Indeed, the precise terminology used to describe the children of Israel in the Old Testament is ascribed to the church in the New Testament. Peter calls them “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9). Ultimately, they are the one chosen people of God, not by virtue of their genealogical relationship to Abraham, but by virtue of their genuine relationship to “the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God” (1 Pet. 2:4).

Furthermore, just as the Old and New Testaments reveal only one chosen people, so too, they reveal only one covenant community. While that one covenant community is physically rooted in the offspring of Abraham—whose number would be like that of “the stars” of heaven (Gen. 15:5) or “the dust of the earth” (Gen. 13:16)—it is spiritually grounded in one singular Seed. Paul makes this explicit in his letter to the Galatians: “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed’ meaning one person, who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). As Paul goes on to explain: “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). The faithful remnant of Old Testament Israel and New Testament Christianity are together the one genuine seed of Abraham and thus heirs according to the promise. This remnant is not chosen on the basis of religion or race but rather on the basis of relationship to the resurrected Redeemer.

Finally, the one chosen people, who form one covenant community, are beautifully symbolized in the book of Romans as one cultivated olive tree (see Rom. 11:11–24). The tree symbolizes Israel; its branches symbolize those who believe; and its root symbolizes Jesus—the root and the offspring of David (Rev. 22:16). Natural branches broken off represent Jews who reject Jesus. Wild branches grafted in represent Gentiles who receive Jesus. Thus says Paul, “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children….In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring” (Rom. 9:6–8). Jesus is the one genuine seed of Abraham! And all clothed in Christ constitute one congruent chosen covenant community connected by the cross.3

This article first appeared in the Ask Hank column of the Christian Research Journal, volume 31, number 1 (2008). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

I agree with all this, except that he concludes that there is no role left for national Israel whereas I don't, and as I understand it neither did the Protestant Reformers who did envision a role for Israel in the end times but without taking away from the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise in the Church.

What makes the difference here is a confusion between national Israel and spiritual Israel, which occurs on both sides of the dispute. There are not two separate CHOSEN peoples, there are not two separate people of God, but there is still Jew and Gentile OF THE FLESH, as-yet-unredeemed people. National Israel is "Jacob" not the Israel of God but the Israel of the flesh, from which nevertheless scripture promises to draw many Jews into the Israel of God in the end times.

The extreme pro-Israel dispensationalists make the mistake of thinking of national Israel as God's chosen people, and the extreme exponents of Replacement Theology apparently make the same mistake. There will nevertheless be many of them saved out of this Great Tribulation which is to come upon the earth.

Does the Bible make a distinction between Israel and the Church: No, not between spiritual Israel and the Church, they are identical, but national Israel is not spiritual Israel.

Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, echoes the same Isaiah 9:10 spirit of defiance of God as other American leaders

According to Wikipedia,  on April 24, 2009,

Dolan visited Ground Zero, the site of the September 11 attacks, on the following April 24.[58] After reciting the same prayer used by Benedict XVI during his visit to the United States, Dolan remarked, "We will never stop crying. But it's also about September 12 and all the renewal, the rebuilding, hope, solidarity and compassion that symbolized this great community and still does."[58]

No mention of God here, of the attack on the WTC as God's judgment, as a warning of more to come, therefore of the need of the nation to repent if we are to escape further judgment. Just the usual defiance of God through assertions of hope in renewal and rebuilding, the same spirit expressed in Isaiah 9:10 which is the centerpiece of Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger.

Just thought this speech made a nice rounding-out of the so-far-unanimous spirit of defiance of God's judgment against this nation, echoing various American political leaders and most evangelical pastors in the country. No reason the Catholics should have any more discernment.  Just the usual message of hope in man rather than in God:

Jer 17:5 ¶ Thus saith the LORD; Cursed [be] the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

Follow-up on Jan Markell's interview with Jonathan Cahn. Objections and Answers.

In this post I want to publish and in some cases also respond to some of Jan Markell's follow-up thoughts on her interview with Jonathan Cahn that I wrote about yesterday:

The Harbinger: Is This God's Final Warning to America? By Jan Markell www.olivetreeviews.org April 24, 2012

The short answer to that question is, I don't know. I do not know if author Jonathan Cahn was given a message from God or if he has authored rambling fiction. I have carefully looked at the book, The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future, which is written in novel form but is not a novel. World Net Daily publisher, Joseph Farah, has made a film out of the book: The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment. The film is remarkably well done, and the book and film make a powerful one-two punch. Every reader and viewer must draw their own conclusion.

I haven't seen the film but the trailer looks like it was well done. But I really don't know how Jan can say she doesn't know what this book is. Well, of course I don't know either if this is God's "FINAL" warning to America, but I do know this is a message from God Himself and not just somebody's imaginative fiction. Whether it's "rambling" or not, well, I don't know, Rabbi Cahn wasn't called to be a novelist that I know of but I thought he did a pretty decent job of it myself.

Criticisms often heard when discussing The Harbinger

• The Bible has all the warnings we need. The perils of the Tribulation are outlined in the Bible. They are stunning and easy to understand. We do not need Christian books to complement the Bible.

This is certainly true but it would apply to this revelation only if it were a human invention intended to complement the Bible, but it appears to be a revelation direct from God and if this aspect of it is not addressed nothing else said about it is relevant. The whole reason the story is so compelling is that it could not have been invented by human beings, AND the facts are too complex for it to be mere coincidence. That leaves God.  

And that means that in this particular case God wants to give us something more direct and personal than the Bible, in spite of the fact that so many ignored the Bible's warnings of judgment on 9/11, or maybe because of that.  He certainly didn't have to do this, to give us such palpable evidences of His existence and His interventions in the affairs of this earth, but He did in this case, and I think it should be regarded as an extraordinary mercy that He did.  If enough in the nation are jolted into recognition of this and do repent and seek Him that would be a very great mercy.   If not, then those who continue to ignore Him will have both the word of God in the Bible AND these special communications to us to condemn them.

Jan Markell comments:

(Comment: True, but many secularists and Christians not into the end-times scoff at the last days' issues and warnings in the Bible. Yet this may be the strongest argument.)

This suggests a good reason why God would be giving us this revelation at this time, for the sake of unbelievers as well as those Christians who ignore or misread the Biblical warnings. When I hear that people are being saved through it I have to suppose this is God's last-minute mercy to our nation and our world. Yes it's a warning to the nation of America to repent or else, but it comes straight from God Himself. There is no other way to understand these omens Cahn has observed and reported on. Christians who are paying attention know we are in the very last minutes of the end times. For God to send such a direct message to us at this time is an extremely touching gesture. It makes me cry every time I think about it.

• God's primary means of reaching and engaging the world is not through a nation or state -- it's through His Church. America is not His chosen means to spread His salvation and love to the world. The church is. Thus, America has no special calling whatsoever.

The same consideration applies to this objection. If these omens come from God Himself and not from man, you are in the position of arguing with God, not with Jonathan Cahn who didn't invent these things.

Also I don't get how America is being regarded through this revelation as a "means of reaching and engaging the world" instead of the Church. God warned NATIONS in the Old Testament. Not just the nation of Israel but the nations round about them. For whatever reason God does deal with nations as a unit of His concern. Laws are given for whole nations. Whole nations are warned when they transgress the laws. God speaks of judging the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Edomites and so on and so forth.

Without even having a specific revelation from God we can know simply from the Old Testament examples that God would judge America as a nation as well. America proudly defied God after 9/11, vilified those few who even regarded it as God's judgment on the nation, vowed to get even with the enemy, not acknowledging that it was God who had brought the attack.

In that light this seems a very special mercy that He would have sent us these signs or omens that Jonathan Cahn has observed, to force us to recognize His hand in the attack and give us a surprisingly direct heads-up that repentance is what is called for.

But I'd also make the point that a call to a nation to repent must be primarily a call to the Church anyway. Judgment begins at the house of God, says scripture, it's the Church above all who SHOULD be able to recognize a warning from God (even without such a direct intervention as these omens), AND, sad to say, it was pastors all over this nation who DENIED that God had anything to do with 9/11.  It's the Church that needs to repent before anyone else!  These omens are not just a mercy to the nation, but above all a mercy to a blinded and backslidden contemporary Church.

Jan Markell comments:

(Comment: If America has a calling, it is to evangelize the world and be a power-broker friend of Israel. The latter is dwindling thanks to the current administration.)

Through the Church, of course, which makes the objection irrelevant anyway.

• Cahn should not be comparing Israel to America for Israel is "chosen" and America, at best, has been "favored." As a result, there are simply no appropriate parallels and his conclusion is bogus. America is not the hope of the world. God is. America has not become God's "chosen people." (Comment: I don't hear Jonathan Cahn saying any of this.)

I don't either. People who say such things haven't read the book or really heard what Cahn said about this.

• All empires rise and fall. We could fit the The Harbinger script into events leading to the fall of the Roman Empire, the British Empire, etc. America is not in end-time prophecy. We obviously lose our influence. Why are we trying to save a sinking ship? At best we're engaged in a rescue mission -- to rescue souls.

Again, this treats the information as having been dreamed up by Jonathan Cahn. If you really think about what is being said you have to see that it didn't come from any human source and the only option is that God Himself arranged these harbingers or omens. You therefore put yourself in the position of telling God He's going about this all wrong.

• Were the founding fathers really all that spiritual? Is America's "sacred" beginning blown out of proportion in the book? Most were Masons including George Washington who plays a prominent role in Cahn's conclusions. The history books are divided on this issue. (Jan's Comment: There are dark forces, then and now. But the voices insisting our founding fathers had little to no spiritual depth are nonsense. Some of them did. Many were clearly secular. Masonry did abound at the time.)

Chris Pinto has recently most tellingly shown that the American founders were not Christians, at least those most prominent founders we are always referred to: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, also Paine. When you see what he has quoted from them you can only be appalled to discover that not only were they not Christian they were ANTI-Christian -- they specifically rejected and even in some cases denounced and ridiculed essential tenets of the faith, the supernatural events particularly such as the virgin birth.

As I've been saying in my blogs for weeks now, Pinto's studies are essential information Christians need. Yes, they were anti-Christians, they were Unitarians and Deists and Masons and when Pinto shows you what all this means you may be aghast but you will also understand something essential.

NEVERTHELESS, Masons, Deists and Unitarians in those days did at least believe in Providence, believed that God's Law ruled nations, believed that it was important for a nation to follow moral standards and that a failure to do so would lead to disaster for that nation.

It was on this basis that Washington and his first governing body went to the chapel at what is now Ground Zero to pray for the nation right after he was inaugurated into the office of President. There is a famous statement he made that is on a plaque either at that chapel or where his statue is on Wall Street, I forget, about the importance of the nation's adhering to God's laws if we are to expect God's blessings.

Christians have misunderstood this level of belief in God and God's law and morality to reflect a Christian mindset. Pinto makes all this clear if you will spend the time to get into his teachings on this subject.

So Washington's prayer for the nation WAS a consecration of the nation to God, and God apparently honored it as long as the nation remained committed to a moral standard.

Obviously over the last few decades the nation has overthrown God's laws in a variety of ways. This is why God allowed the attack on the WTC, as a first warning of His displeasure. And it is why it the attack occurred at Ground Zero, where Washington consecrated the nation to God, one of the uncanny facts that Jonathan Cahn unearthed for us.

• Cahn's characters in the book seem to have a mystical side with the use of dreams playing a major role. A primary character is a "prophet." Many find these issues too troubling and write the book off. (Comment: Be careful to not throw the baby out with the bath water in case this is a message for today.)

I agree with Jan's comment. I do have to say that the choice to write the book as a novel still bothers me even though I've come to appreciate why it was done that way and how it may be an important factor in bringing the information to a wide readership. Since it is fiction I certainly don't mind that it includes a prophet, and he can be taken as a sort of shadow or spirit of Isaiah himself if you like, but I also believe that God really did send a prophet to Cahn when he was sitting in the airport, as I report in my previous post, another thing that is a simple FACT and not an invention, that people who make these criticisms need to think about.

• II Chronicles 7:14 is for Israel, as they were truly "His people." We need to be very careful applying the passage to America or any other nation. Some have written off The Harbinger primarily for this reason. But others say that the template of ancient Israel is always in play. Every pastor in America consistently makes application to ancient Israel. Jonathan insists Israel is Israel and Israel is "His people." He believes America needs to learn from this even though America is not a "chosen nation" as Israel is chosen.

Of course. Yet all Cahn claimed was that America WAS consecrated to God at Ground Zero by our first President and his government, not to mention that the very first American settlers were true Christians who did their own consecrating of the land. And again, none of this comes from Cahn himself, who simply observed what God himself has done that ought to demonstrate to anyone really paying attention that it is GOD who is calling this nation to turn back to Him.

I have to take a break from this post but I want to publish it now and may come back to it later to think about the rest of Jan Markell's article -- or may let it stand as is anyway.

****POST UNDER CONSTRUCTION****

Reasons to Carefully Reflect on The Harbinger Message:

• Sodom and Gomorrah would have been spared if even 10 righteous could be found. God's message is always, "If you will repent, I will restore favor upon you."

• Is the message of repentance ever out of line? Can we not learn from the mistakes of history? Isn't every line of the Bible for our benefit and can we not learn from all the mistakes made in the Bible by Jew or Gentile (Rom. 15:4)? Cahn's basic premise is on target: Israel blew it big time; America, you're right behind them.

• Jonathan Cahn is a Jewish believer. The accusations that he represents "Replacement Theology" are ludicrous. He doesn't want to disinherit his own people. Additionally, he rejects this specific accusation and never even alludes to this false doctrine. He is not making America equal to Israel or placing a higher calling on America.

• The American dream is looking like a national nightmare. Things cannot continue as they are. America is taxing and spending herself into oblivion thanks to our reckless leaders who are motivated only by corruption and greed. We are looking like a Romans 1 nation with pride, ego, money, lust, and self the only motivators. America is being seized by "spread-the-wealth" Socialists and Marxists at the highest levels of government. We are becoming unrecognizable. This scenario will only get worse unless America's Christians get serious.

• To the surprise of many, politics or a new administration will not "save" America. Conservatism won't save America. A more Bible-friendly administration would help the cause of the country, but no political leader will make God the focus of government, education, public policy, and the market place. Cahn is saying, "we the people" can, through prayer and repentance. He is realistic enough to say it may be too late.

Conclusion:

Christians are called to preach the gospel and win the lost before we save a nation. But watchmen on the wall warn! I am doing that all the time. I am not a prophet -- I just don't want blood on my hands. I sense the church is too riddled with apostasy and too busy majoring in minors to bring about national repentance and I hope I am wrong. But God calls none to be successful, just to be faithful.

There are consequences for individuals and nations who thumb their nose at God! We can't get away with that forever. Can you really look at the events of 9/11 and not comprehend that that was a nod from God to wake us up as a people and a nation? The northern kingdom of Israel had their hedge of protection destroyed with a limited strike, as did America.

God's desire is always that people turn back to Him. And He's the God of second and third chances, even 50 chances. He is infinitely patient and long-suffering. He almost never gives up. But eventually, the northern kingdom of Israel was dispersed to the four corners of the earth. And finally the rain began during Noah's time. Now there is thunder in the distance again.

I chose to ignore The Harbinger until the pastor of a Bible-based church in Appleton, WI called me and told me about it. He started reading the book and then called his staff, telling them he would not be in that day. Knowing this man as I do, I took that contact as my own wake-up call to make the effort to understand the phenomenon.

I'm one who considers Heaven to be my real home. I want very little to do with anything earthly. But one cannot dismiss the parallels between ancient Israel and America! They are stunning and they're not generalities.   They're specific as outlined in Cahn's book and Joseph Farah's film.

Find the book and film at www.wnd.com or www.amazon.com. At the very least, you will be reminded that there are consequences when an individual or nation turns their back on God.

What if this is America's final warning? If you're convinced it is, you can blow the trumpet of warning as well. If you disagree, your investment is minimal. I don't think believers can be casual or indifferent to the demise of America even if our longing for our eternal Home is greater than our love for this one.

America is not a shining city on a hill as Ronald Reagan used to say. Heaven is that city. But I don't want to be so Heavenly-minded that I am absolutely no earthly good for whatever weeks, months, or years I have left in America the beautiful.

It would seem the parallels found by Jonathan Cahn in his book, and portrayed brilliantly by Joseph Farah in the film, defy "coincidence." Using his understanding of Jewish culture and Biblical tradition, Cahn makes a convincing case.

This ministry has nothing to gain as it concerns The Harbinger. But if you could hear the story from beginning to end, (and a good place to start is my nearly two-hour interview of Cahn found here) you will be prompted to think and have a fresh perspective concerning the detail of God and you will be engaged in sober reflection. You will be encouraged to be salt and light for whatever time we have left as a nation and a Church.

God's Warning Harbingers to America Are Getting Recognition and Packing Salvation Power

I'm so happy! So why am I sobbing? Tears of joy. SO good to hear Jan Markell's interview of Jonathan Cahn that aired yesterday that I just got around to listening to this afternoon. This was one of her programs she felt needed to be extended so there is also a Web Bonus to listen to.

I'm so glad that she gets it. She marinated in it for days, she says, in order to fully grasp the message. She understands it, she appreciates it, she knows it's from God and very far from an invention of Jonathan Cahn's, so she was able to conduct the interview with insight and clarity.

But also I was SO glad to hear about how the information is being received. Not only did the book Harbinger get onto the New York Times best seller list but reports have been coming back of people being saved through it.

That's how it first hit me, as a tool to bring people to the Lord. I sent it to friends and family for that reason. I found, however, that I had to be a bit of a bully to get them to think it through so its message could be appreciated, although even after they saw how uncanny and God-wrought it had to be they still balked at stepping past that recognition into belief. Nevertheless, the hope I felt when I first heard about it is now rekindled.

This IS God's work. Everything about it is God's work and that above all has me crying tears of joy. God is doing all of this.

Jonathan Cahn is simply God's chosen vessel for this work. The story itself is about physical omens and signs in the real world that uncannily reflect a Bible verse that relates on many levels to the attack on 9/11. These omens or harbingers point to God's will for America, the judgment He's going to bring if we don't heed His warning, but also the hope He must have for us that He would give us such a direct intervention as this one.

These are signs, omens or harbingers that only God could have brought about, but God also saw to it that the book got published, Jonathan Cahn doing nothing at all to promote it. I'd heard the story before about how God sent a man for that purpose, but this implication of it came through more clearly in this interview than before. This is the story of Cahn's being in an airport and praying to God that since this is His work He must make it known to people, and immediately after praying a man sitting near him strikes up a conversation and tells him that he's going to publish this important book and points him to a publisher. This got described in the Web Bonus part of the interview.

THAT IS HOW PROPHECY DOES HAPPEN THESE DAYS. This is a TRUE prophecy. God DOES still talk to us through prophecy. Those who dismiss out of hand the possibility of such communications from God have closed themselves off from one way God relates to His people even today. Yes, there are all kinds of abuse of claims of prophecy. If an "angel" appears onstage with the "prophet" or is invoked by the "prophet" y0u can be sure he's not hearing from God but from an evil spirit. And people who have experienced true prophetic words may have an unfortunate tendency to fall into the flesh and try to MAKE it happen and mistake their own daydreams for God's speakings.

Yes, that happens, but the TRUE direct communications from God ALSO happen. We just have to stay alert and true to God's word and pray for more discernment.

It was also good to understand how Cahn came to write the book as a novel. He understood from scripture that it is wise to present knowledge in an attractive form and that changed him from his first writing of it as a straight description to creating a fictional structure as its vehicle, and he said that from that point the writing flowed easily.

This too had to have come from God, and this choice is no doubt why it made the best seller lists and why UNbelievers as well as believers are reading and appreciating it. I'm SO happy.

THIS IS ALL GOD'S WORK. God Himself wrought the signs of America's judgment that Jonathan Cahn is telling about, God directed Cahn to the best method of presenting it, God sent a prophet to direct him to a publisher, and God got it onto the best seller list and into mainstream stores rather than just Christian stores.

THANK YOU, LORD. May this revelation you have so mercifully sent to us through Jonathan Cahn save many people. (Even America too, for a while yet, please?).

Religious Liberty is an attack on Christian Liberty

Here we've been, Bible-believing Christians, for years thanking God for this liberty under the American Constitution and never suspecting that it is not really the protection we've taken it to be.

Oh it has seemed to be for a very long time, but that's only because the nation WAS predominantly Christian for that time. Now that our numbers are diminishing and this farcical notion of "liberty" has multiplied the enemies of Christ, and God's truth is being aggressively attacked in America, its true colors can perhaps be better recognized.

I for one have pondered the puzzle that this "liberty" has been allowing the enemies of God more freedom than true religious liberty should, but I interpreted this as due to today's politically correct misreading of its intent by our contemporary advocates of a malleable Constitution.

Then a year or so ago I saw a quote from one of the founding fathers, George Washington I'm pretty sure, specifically naming the religion of Islam as given freedom under this American provision. I didn't know quite what to do with this disturbing information, conditioned as I have been for so long to thinking the original intent of the First Amendment was to protect Christianity.

Protecting Islam, however, is the same thing as authorizing the wolf to eat the lamb, effectively destroying any real political liberty for Christians.  Not yet, of course, but just wait until the tide shifts and Christianity is marginalized enough in this country for the other religions to gain power.  They will not be as tolerant of their competitors as this once-Christian nation has been toward them.

I wondered if Washington was simply naive as so many these days are, treating all religions as equal. Whatever his conscious intent, however, it was clear that he was selling us out with a statement like that, turning Christians and the nation itself over to the wolves, and putting our current crop of Constitutional revisionists more in tune with the nation's founders than Christians.

It did begin to occur to me that our founders possibly intentionally sold us out, but I'm no historian and I just wouldn't be able to read enough in the original writings of that era to find out one way or the other.

All this has been coming more into focus for me finally thanks to Chris Pinto's films and radio shows. Pinto IS a historian who does read thoroughly in the original documents in order to get the full picture, and American Christians should all be learning from his work and thanking God for him.

Yes, they sold us out. Intentionally. They were not Christians, they were in fact haters of Christianity.

I knew Adams was a Unitarian and that Jefferson denied the supernatural truth of the gospel, and I think I had even heard that Washington refused to take Communion in his Anglican church, and I'd even been startled to read of one preacher from that era who specifically said that the founders had dealt treacherously with the Church of Christ. But in spite of all that I could never draw the reasonable conclusion but let it all sink down under a fog of confusion. These men were not only not Christians but unfriendly to Christianity, but it has been hard to see this clearly because there has been so much propaganda against such a conclusion.

David Barton is the main source of this kind of propaganda, as Pinto has been revealing, David Barton who has had such a strong impact on American Christians to the point of deserving credit -- or as I see it now, blame -- for a great deal of the political focus of the Christian Right. When we should have been affirming the gospel against the devices of the world and the devil we've been trying to reinstate a worldly institution that in its essence works against the gospel.

The main thing I've been learning from Pinto which I never would have been able to learn on my own, or from any other Christian teacher out there that I know of, is that the Roman Church through the Jesuit order was behind the concept of religious liberty, that its whole point was to overthrow Protestant strictures against Catholic influence in their communities, and ultimately to put the Catholic Church in a position to impose the rule of the Pope on the whole society.

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Pinto gets into all this in many of his radio programs, but try this one on Freemasonry in the Church #3 of May 5, 2011
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Liberating Catholicism is liberating the slyest and cruelest wolf of them all to eat the lamb of true Christianity. After tenderizing it on the rack and in the iron maiden of course. Interesting that the last Antichrist, Hitler, brought back some of the torture devices of the Inquisition, showing the spirit of Catholicism behind Nazism even in that form.

On the way to bringing all under the Pope they also -- inadvertently? -- liberated the similarly power-hungry religion of Islam with its own agenda to bring the world under Sharia Law.

And don't forget that Mormonism also has ambitions to bring the nation under their rule.

Not to mention that orthodox Judaism also has a rather paranoid desire to undermine Christianity, thanks largely to the common confusion of Catholicism with Christianity and very probably some Jesuitical encouragement there too.

Lotsa wolves out there after the lamb of truth.

Odd perhaps that what just came to mind was the immortal sputtering of that cartoon cat whose identity escapes me: "What a revoltin' development." Totally wrong tone there.

Oh I don't know. Reality often seems like some sort of tragic farce.

Oh, Sylvester the cat, right? Or was that Daffy Duck? No, I'm sure he lithped and spluttered, must have been Sylvester.

Please please come soon, Lord Jesus.

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Wow, Pinto says the Holocaust was directly modeled on the Inquisition, and designed by the Jesuits. He gets into this in his radio show for May 11, 2011.

National Israel is not God's Chosen People

Over the last three days, Chris Pinto has been doing a Bible study in the Letter to the Hebrews in which he clears up some questions I've had about how to view the nation of Israel in relation to the Church. I've never done a thorough study of these issues myself but have picked up bits of the controversies involved over the years from various teachers, which seem to range from the idea that ALL God's promises and prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Israel now belong to the Church, to something close to the opposite extreme, that NONE of it belongs to the Church but all pertain exclusively to national Israel.

As I've thought it through myself I've remained persuaded that God certainly does have plans for national Israel for the last days, though I've never been completely clear which scripture verses apply to this because they are often ambiguous, but I also reject the extreme views that treat the Church as some sort of afterthought rather than the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham, which the New Testament clearly says is the case.

I've come to sort this in terms of the Church as the spiritual fulfillment of the promises and prophecies to Israel, such that we ARE Israel or the New Israel, or the spiritual Israel inheriting the heavenly Jerusalem, which was always the main objective of God's promises that would be realized through the Savior Messiah Jesus Christ, but that physical or fleshly Israel still inherits something from God. I'm not sure to what extent Chris Pinto would see it this way, but it still makes sense to me. He did point me to Ezekiel 36 as a scriptural reference for God's plans for earthly Israel as opposed to the Church, which helps me anchor all this better than I'd been able to before. I've copied out some of that passage below, where it seems pretty clear that attempts to make it apply to the Church are strained to say the least.

Those who apply most of the Old Testament to physical Israel at the expense of the Church are known as Dispensationalists, which is such a theological quagmire to me that I tend to try to avoid it, a theology which is held in varying degrees by different teachers, apportioning scripture more or less to the Church versus the state of Israel. I know I can't accept the full Reformed point of view, which treats Dispensationalism as a complete heresy and applies ALL the scripture to the Church instead, because I do believe scripture points to an end-times role for national Israel, and that we can see this already fulfilled in its becoming a state as of May 14, 1948, and it now seems to me, thanks to Chris Pinto's recent Bible studies, that Ezekiel 36 is the best description of this.

Dispensationalists are the ones who complain so loudly against "replacement theology" which puts the Church in the place of Israel to such an extent that no place is left for the prophecies concerning the literal land God gave to the Jews or the literal return of Christ to the Mount of Olives either, or other events prophesied in the Book of Revelation. And I agree with them that far, but even the best of them tend to go too far beyond that.

The main form this seems to take is in celebrating the State of Israel in its present apostate condition as if it were God's own people. They confuse physical Israel with spiritual Israel. They also call the Jews "God's Chosen People." They also tend to go into raptures over every event that shows Israel preparing to resume its Old Testament form, such as the plans that have been underway for years for the rebuilding of the Temple and the reinstatement of the animal sacrifices, or the search for a perfect Red Heifer, and the like. While these plans do point toward a likely reinstatement of the Old Testament religion, and there is scripture that supports such a reinstatement, after the Messiah has come there's something very wrong with Christians cheering them on.

The Lord Jesus was the Reality that ALL those Old Testament institutions and practices were intended to point to. He has come. There is no way any of that can be reinstated without being an offense to God. Yes, they may well be reinstated in fulfillment of prophecy, but Christians who applaud these developments, who rationalize them as simply a "different" way God has of dealing with Israel as opposed to the Church, who make Israel out to be a separate "dispensation" in God's plans from the Church, have to deny all the clear statements in the New Testament that Jesus Christ IS their fulfillment. I already said all this in my previous post about the animal sacrifices, about John Whitcomb's assertion on Brannon Howse's radio program that the animal sacrifices would continue although Christ Himself reigns from Jerusalem. Cannot be. They may be reinstated during the reign of the Antichrist but they couldn't possibly continue through the reign of Christ.

What I've not quite allowed myself to say in so many words is: Physical Israel is NOT "God's people" any more, the Church is God's people, and the Church is both Jew and Gentile, there is not one dispensation for Jews and one for Gentiles. Of course the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles were all Jewish and it may well be that God will also put other Jewish believers in special roles in the Church, I think there may be scripture to that effect, but they are still The Church and not a separate dispensation. The New Testament makes it clear that the Church is now God's "Elect" and only some fancy twisting of words can make that mean anything other than "Chosen" as if one people were the elect and another the chosen.

This is NOT "Replacement Theology." God still has plans for Israel because God still has plans for the world, to show forth His glory, to redeem not only His Elect but the whole Creation and shame the heathen and the devils who have been ruling this wrecked planet since the Fall. This is to be the finale of the grand drama that began back at the Creation, and He is bringing back His apostate people Israel for the final Act in which first all Hell and then all Glory will break loose.

They ARE apostate, they are NOT the Chosen People any more, though some of them WILL be. The Church is the Chosen People. But many of them WILL yet join us according to scripture, many many of them, as the Day of the Lord, or the times of the heathen, or the times of the Antichrist, unfolds.

It's one thing to watch with interest -- or bated breath with perhaps a little horror thrown in -- prophecy being fulfilled in the plans to reinstate the Old Testament religion, and other to celebrate it as if God could be happy with it. The Dispensationalists who celebrate it are whitewashing sepulchres full of dead men's bones. Orthodox Judaism today is the very same religion of the Pharisees that Christ denounced in His day. Spend any time talking to an Orthodox Jew about his beliefs and you will soon find out that it is the identical belief system, in which the traditions of men through the Talmud eclipse scripture. They still strain a gnat out of their soup lest they eat unclean meat unawares. I could probably write a very long post just on this subject because of conversations I had over many years with an Orthodox Jew. Orthodox Judaism is the aggressive denial of Christ. It was in His day and it still is.

Of course Israel is not just orthodox Judaism but atheism and paganism and devil worship and the sort of stuff to which all the nations of this world are in bondage. The devil's work.

Rev 11:8 And their dead bodies [shall lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

Earthly Jerusalem is not the Holy City and earthly Israel is not God's people. As Paul said, "not all Israel is Israel." But some are and will be revealed in God's own time.

Although I believe this, believe we can't treat Israel as on a par with the Church, mustn't celebrate the reinstatement of the institutional and ceremonial types and shadows which have been fulfilled in Christ, I nevertheless believe we must support Israel for the sake of prophecy and in my opinion also because they are politically and historically in the right and surrounded by devil-driven enemies who are still seeking to overthrow God's rule on this planet. Jesus is to return to earthly Israel. His feet will split the Mount of Olives when He comes. Then it may be that there will be a Millennium as the dispensationalists believe, in which He will reign literally over the entire earth from Jerusalem. That would conclude the drama of Planet Earth in seven millennia which is a very nice number.

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Ezekiel 36:16-38 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman. Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols [wherewith] they had polluted it: And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them. And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These [are] the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land.

Eze 36:21 But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not [this] for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I [am] the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

Eze 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do [them].

Eze 36:28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that [were] not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

Eze 36:32 Not for your sakes do I [this], saith the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause [you] to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities [are become] fenced, [and] are inhabited.

36:36 Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined [places, and] plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken [it], and I will do [it]. Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet [for] this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do [it] for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I [am] the LORD.

Sorting out the history of true Christianity from that of the apostate Antichrist Roman church

I thought I had a pretty good grasp of church history and of the antichrist nature of the Catholic Church, but what I've been learning recently shows me that not only my own education in this area but what the Protestant churches in general know is sadly deficient. And I've heard some very good teaching on church history so this is saying something.

I'm talking about what I've been learning recently through Chris Pinto and Brannon Howse at their websites, and now this morning from Mike Gendron (pro-gospel.org), an ex-Catholic who seeks to educate Catholics to the truth, who was Howse's guest on today's radio show.

Much of the confusion comes from the fact that there are two different streams of church history, the Catholic and the Protestant, and it is possible to read a Catholic history without being aware that you are absorbing false propaganda. I'm sure that's happened to me many times. Getting the true history straight is not easy for the average reader.

A caller from the UK on Howse's program this morning referred to a book about the history of Christianity in England by Charles Bullock, titled The Story of England's Church written in the 19th century, which is online at Google Books. Wish I could copy out some of it. It's the sort of information that all Protestant churches should have been making a major effort to teach their people all along, so that no Protestant could ever be deluded that Roman Catholicism is a Christian church which so often happens.

Broader knowledge of this kind of information would have protected many individuals and even denominations from their own leanings in the direction of that apostasy that unfortunately seems to be growing these days, and it would have made a much stronger base for helping Catholics escape. It's certainly true that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, but of course we cannot remember it unless we are taught it if it is a past before our time.

What I've been learning from these ministries is that the Roman Church was recognized very early on as the seat of the Antichrist, at least back to the first Waldensians, who fled to the mountains upon recognizing the Pope as the Abomination of Desolation sitting in the temple making himself out to be God, as scripture warns us is to occur. I'd otherwise had the notion that it was the Reformers who first identified the papacy as the Antichrist system. I also hadn't digested the fact before that the Pope by receiving the sort of worship he receives does make himself out to be God, if the title "Vicar of Christ" weren't enough of a clue [and the Roman numerals in that title as written in Latin -- VICARIVUS FILII DEI -- add up to 666, by the way (The phrase means "In the place of, or substitute for, the Son of God")]. I've also learned that the Great Apostasy or falling away was attributed to the doctrines of the Roman Church all the way back to the early church as well, and that the apostasy was a thing that grew over the centuries so that it is hard to identify the exact point at which it was fullblown. Perhaps by the time of the first official Pope at least, which was in the late 6th century. I've also learned beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Emperor Constantine was not a true Christian convert since he continued to affirm the pagan religions that a true Christian would have abandoned completely, and that it's even possible he may have confused Christ with the pagan god Sol Invictus.

From this fuller view of history it's easier to see how some would not necessarily be expecting a final individual to be the Antichrist, as he's been in the world all these centuries. It certainly makes clear that Nero was NOT the Antichrist as some argue -- was THAT familiar idea a Roman concoction perhaps?

There's plenty of reading on this subject on the internet. Just following out the entries on this Google page should keep you busy for a while. I see that Michele Bachmann's church rightly says that the Pope is the Antichrist but of course the entry on that has the usual politically correct spin, which in this case is the Roman Catholic slant. I particularly appreciate Ian Paisley on this subject. He's a fire-and-brimstone Irish preacher whose style of preaching can be rather offputting, but I became a fan when he was shown in one of Chris Pinto's films confronting the Pope as the Antichrist when he was speaking in British Parliament [correction:  that's the European Parliament, and Dr. Paisley is more than just a preacher, he's also a high-ranking government leader in Ireland with a chair in the European Parliament]. THAT's the spirit of Protestantism we need more of.

One recent comment by Chris Pinto on a radio show caught my attention as he took to task Marshall Foster who said something to the effect that after Constantine legalized Christianity the Roman Empire furthered the spread of the gospel. Chris Pinto objected that all the Roman Empire did was spread the apostate Christianity of the Roman Church. I need this sorted out better. I hadn't heard of Marshall Foster before, but I have heard teaching along the lines that the Roman Empire was one of God's means for spreading the gospel. This goes along with other teaching I've heard that God chose to send the Lord Jesus into the world when Koine Greek was the universal language so that the gospel writings could be easily disseminated, AND when the Roman Empire with its wide reach made travel easy. God of course disposes all things, and the gospel did spread throughout Europe, but did the legalization of it through Constantine aid that or not? The idea is that after the persecutions of Christians by the Roman Emperors were lifted it was easier for the evangelists to do their work, along with the idea that the fact that Roman institutions were established all over Europe, even just the Roman roads, facilitated the spread of the gospel as well. This may be something along the lines of what Marshall Foster had in mind, but of course I don't know. And even if so, Chris Pinto may be right that the legalization of Christianity didn't aid anything but the spread of apostasy and Marshall Foster simply has the usual Catholicized version of history that we are all so easily made prey to. Or perhaps there's some truth in both views.

That reminded me of a book I read a few years ago about the effect of Christianity in changing the world for the better, Alvin J. Schmidt's Under the Influence. As I recall, the book presents the effect of the spread of Christianity (and I believe he attributes this effect partly to Constantine's legalization of the religion) as specifically fostering humane treatment of the sick and suffering, including rescuing newborn infants left to die and the aged who were also put out on the street to die, by first taking such victims in and caring for them but then by establishing hospitals and orphanages. He also credits Christianity with liberalizing society's attitude toward women through the model of Christ, also with paving the way for true empirical science because of Christianity's view of God as a God of law and order, unlike the gods of the pagans.

But now after seeing Chris Pinto's films I recognize that Schmidt misrepresented Francis Bacon as a Christian, who was an occultist. He also wrote a reference book about secret societies in America, which clearly presents them as benign positive influences, quite the opposite of what Chris Pinto's films reveal.

The plot thickens.