Gay Agenda a "high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God" and needs to be pulled down by a revived Church.

Watching America being destroyed from within keeps driving me back to revival as the only possible solution.  Which amounts to saying that God is the only possible help but He isn't answering prayers for revival these days, as I've noted before.  Either He's determined on judgment as the only righteous response to our condition, or we aren't meeting His conditions for revival.

I keep hoping the latter because that at least gives us the opportunity to ponder what conditions we aren't meeting and whether we could meet them.  The ones I listed in an earlier post are probably not the full list.  In fact I can hardly believe I left out the gay agenda, because there are churches that have capitulated to that too.  The nation is suffering from every kind of Political Correctness and the Gay Agenda is the latest and most aggressive version of it, but I've been thinking of the nation's ills as those the Church is to tackle after we've cleaned up our own act.  How can we rally against violations of the First Amendment freedom of religion when we're full of offenses against God within our own ranks?  Problem is all the ills of the nation are to be found in the churches as well.    We even have "gay churches."   And all churches that call themselves by the name of Christ need to be addressed by the Church at large, meaning denounced in many cases.  I don't know if God would give just a certain collection of repentant cleaned-up churches a revival but if the point is to turn back the evils in the nation, God's judgment on the nation, I don't know how far that would go anyway.  To be effective it would have to be contagious and change minds all over the country.  Genuine revivals do have that effect, but could it happen on the scale we need it to happen?

The main symptom of God's judgment is the ineffectiveness of the churches.  The Wimp Factor as I called it a while back, our inability to act.  Not only the churches but conservatives in general, witness Congress.  It was nice, sort of, to see some pastors in Houston confronting their anti-Constitutional major, and also nice that pastors and others responded to Mike Huckabee's call to send her sermons and Bibles.  Seems to show there's still a pulse in the Church.  But it's a pretty weak pulse.  The call wasn't even for sermons against homosexuality, but that's what has to be confronted by God's word.  I wonder how many were on that topic?  My guess is not many.   Because of the Wimp Factor.

Yes, we're afraid of the gay rights people.  They're a nasty aggressive bunch.  We don't like being called "haters" and "bigots" and "homophobes" which is the tactic of Political Correctness invented by Cultural Marxism aimed at bringing down America.  And they can get nastier than that under certain circumstances.   That's why I liked the idea of pastors across the nation committing to preach specifically against homosexuality in one voice in response to the mayor's move against the Church, for strength in numbers.  It's easier to preach on a controversial subject if you know you are backed by thousands of others.    I still wish something like that had occurred.  If the sermons they sent her were against homosexuality that would maybe have a similar effect but since there is silence on that subject I assume most of them weren't, maybe all.

Chris Pinto had a very interesting radio show recently, The American Founders on Homosexuality, which makes it clear that the founding of this country included a view of homosexuality as sin, and abominable sin at that.  That's the view of the Bible and whatever individual founders may have believed about traditional Christianity, most of them were steeped in the Bible and accepted its moral judgments.   Some of the original colonies had the death penalty for homosexual behavior.  George Washington had to dishonorably discharge a soldier for attempted sodomy.  There was certainly no attitude of tolerance toward homosexuality in those days, but a couple of centuries later we're now bullied into accepting it as a normal sexual preference.

For years we've been subjected to Gay Pride parades which are in themselves a disgusting display that is hard to tolerate, but even the police are required to support the event.  We watch all this happen and don't do much, just let it all roll over us.  Well, what CAN we do?

It's like we're bound and gagged.  If one person speaks up a dozen opponents shout him down with all the PC epithets.  And now if a Christian business refuses to fill an order for something that supports the gay agenda, particularly gay marriage, they are getting sued and fined.  This is a horrendous violation of the First Amendment, a horrendous miscarriage of justice, but it's like we're so used to the reversal of good an evil, or so stunned by it, or so afraid of being targeted ourselves, we let this evil triumph.

But again I'm taken back to the need for revival.  The main reason we're paralyzed has to be that we're deep in sin ourselves, as I've started to outline.  I'm adding tolerance of the gay agenda to this list now, and certainly eliminating churches from any call to revival that endorse homosexuality as a normal lifestyle, ordaining them as preachers and so on.   Also churches that allow women pastors need to be eliminated.  Revival only comes to a biblically pure church, I'm sure of that.  It usually starts with moving people to repentance, but these are huge offenses against God that don't need some special touch of the Holy Spirit to make us aware of them. 

How many churches are free of all those offenses?  Well if you don't count my own concern about the Bible Versions and women not being required to cover our heads in church, there may be some that are free of such offenses.  Again, could we seek revival just for those churches? 

If we don't have revival, if we don't have a waking up of the churches, if we don't get some boldness against the incredible accumulation of sins in America and the west we're just lost, absolutely lost, there is no hope.

Are we ready?

It's been in the works for some time of course, this attack on the Second Amendment.  They may not have engineered the shooting itself although I wouldn't put it past them to find a way to pull it off.  They can probably count on somebody hearing from Satan and doing that without much effort on their own part.  Maybe.  Although the timing was interesting. 

And they've got lots and lots of people thinking this is a great idea to take guns away from the good guys because a drug-crazed person used a gun, of all the idiotic illogical things but that's the way these people think these days.  Feverishly up in arms even, if you'll pardon the pun, indignant as all hell itself against our right to keep and bear arms.  Poor deluded people.  And you can't say anything to them at all that they'll hear.

Nothing moves them, they can rationalize it all away.  It doesn't matter to them that crime goes up when guns are taken away, because rampant crime against law-abiding citizens is somehow supposed to be tolerable by comparison with the rare gun rampage enacted by the NON law-abiding.  We're supposed to be nice to criminals who break into our houses, not good to defend ourselves against the poor things.  Crime is called innocent, and the victim is called criminal.  Sign of the times. 

Point out what happened in World War II when guns were confiscated and Hitler was able to move in freely wherever he wanted, and they'll find some reason why Hitler didn't really care that there were guns pointing at his soldiers from every household which supposedly blows your concern to smithereens.  Point out that Americans sent guns to the Brits because they were unarmed against a possible Nazi invasion and that too gets ridiculed.  Some idea that guns can't really ward off a whole army, what a stupid idea they have about how it would all go down.  Soldiers going door to door would be seriously inconvenienced by heads of household with guns.  So without guns we can now be sure they WILL go door to door because they know they can do it.  Out at the point of a bayonet, into the back of the truck, whatever.  Or just shot dead on the spot.  Or beheaded.

I guess they have some crazy idea another Hitler isn't going to rise up in this best of all possible worlds or something like that.  It's just us Christians who are expecting that, and just around the corner too.  Soon as they take our guns.  Oh and after we've finally fallen off this fiscal cliff which has to happen eventually, so we're gunless and starving both, easy targets.  Or maybe they'll get a nice hot war going in the Middle East to destroy Israel first.  Or all three at once.  Yeah, all three.  Wonder if the deluded ones will have second thoughts then or they won't care because it will be mostly the Christians and the Jews who are targeted.  At first anyway.

The Second Amendment, indeed the Constitution itself, is "antiquated" to these twisted minds.  Let's do away with it altogether, just as we've done away with God, just as we've done away with God's laws, just as we now commit murder of the unborn and call it a right and have bestowed righteous status on just about everything else God calls unrighteous. 

This time it's the whole world under God's judgment at once though, not just America.  Certainly America is under judgment, we've been seeing that for some time now.  God even gave us Jonathan Cahn's book to make it certain in case we missed it, as unfortunately many Christians did when the WTC was attacked.  And are still missing it.  There are Christians who actually think that Cahn got it wrong about the harbingers being from God, and I particularly think of their waving away the public speeches by Daschle and Edwards and other government leaders that quoted Isaiah 9:10 as not really statements of defiance of God at all, so spiritually obtuse are some of our Christians these days.  Judgment begins at the house of God. 

So although Cahn's book goes on selling pretty well it isn't going to be the call to repentance it might have been.  We seem to be well past that possibility.  Seems now that it's just going to stand as a testimony against us, God's way of saying He did all He could to tell us what's coming and we ignored it and now it's on our head.   That's what He did through His prophets to Israel time and time again.  He's been merciful and longsuffering enough even to do it for us now and we're not hearing.  We're going down.  The sins of America are well ripe for the harvest.  Some pastors have begun prepping their congregations for possible martyrdom, which is what they should be doing. 

But the biggest catastrophe is probably going to be Europe again.  Keep your eyes on the European Union.  Something evil this way comes.

It's all in place for the finale.  All it needs is a trigger.  And then it will probably happen very fast.  When?  Tomorrow?  In a few months?  A few years?  Soon. 

I have unsaved family.  That probably bothers me more than anything else.  I don't mind dying.   Well, I must admit I'm afraid of pain, and I'm IN quite a bit of pain with arthritis these days so I know what I'm afraid of there, so I'd rather be killed quickly of course.   But it's God's call and He will sustain me through whatever He decrees.  Will he save any of them?  Am I not praying enough for them? 

"Those who know their God will do exploits" the angel told Daniel.  It would be nice to do some exploits on behalf of the Lord when all this comes down.  May God give us the necessary provision of faith for the task.

I will certainly not miss this world in which evil and good are changing places more and more every day and the vast majority of people are happy with it. 

The resistance to the 9/11 harbingers is a good sign but the church has to overcome it

The message from God through Jonathan Cahn just keeps growing on me.

This is really His direct call to His American church, what else can it be? This kind of direct irrefutable evidence of His existence and His heart for this miserable backslidden American church and sin-glutted nation as a whole just is not something He gives often in this world and it would be a tragedy if we lose the opportunity.

As someone reminded me tonight we're in the eleventh year since 9/11 and the warning to Israel of Isaiah 9:10 was followed by ten years of time to repent until God sent Assyria back to finish them off. We're already past that point, in a dangerous time as Cahn keeps saying. The southern kingdom of Judah had twenty years, perhaps that's the timing that applies to us. In any case we'll be one sorry lazy irresponsible Church if we don't spend whatever time is left to us fasting and repenting and praying our hearts out for God to show mercy. And believe me I'm talking to ME first. My bad habit of waiting for others to go first and inspire me has got to go. I know what's happening so I have the responsibility to do what I say we need to do, now. Oy.

This message has LOTS of resistance against it, some of it in the form of odd "little" things that interfere with it getting out to people. Any resistance is a sign of a call from God though. I got just about no response from those I emailed about all this a while back, either silence or excuses from Christians and unbelievers alike. To be fair, a few did respond the way I responded, and the way the audience of Jim Bakker's show responded, which is great, and they are sending it on to others, but there's still a lot of apathy which is discouraging. This message OUGHT to get us all fired up. What an opportunity! God just doesn't normally give us such opportunities as this one, such a direct irrefutable message straight from Him.

But there IS resistance and the challenge is not to give in to it, because it IS discouraging. But again, it does have to be a good sign, that this is something God really does want us to pursue because the devil does NOT like it.

The fact that it's promoted by some televangelists is going to be a barrier to some so they wouldn't even give it a chance. Even the fact that it's got all this off-putting hype attached to it, or that the book was written as a novel which can seem to undermine its authenticity, these things can prevent people from wanting to learn about it. In fact even that violin that kept playing over the message at the Messianic conference in 2005 can be a problem for some. All these things make it difficult to recommend them to people. But God likes to work through small weak imperfect things (like all of us) and such things just happen to require us to be humble if we want to hear from Him, which is exactly what He wants of us. It may be the devil adding the touches of interference, but ALL things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. He uses those who will listen and we have to humble ourselves and accept whatever packaging the message comes in. The Athenians looked down their noses at Paul "the ragpicker" and we're all ragpickers. If we're Athenians God usually can't use us.

So we're in the eleventh year since the warnings came, and the economy has already been hit hard and more is to come.

Oh Lord, wake up Your church that we may finally be the conduit of Your power and mercy to this world You made us to be. Amen.


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Just heard that Cahn had been on Pat Robertson so I'm putting up that video:

The IRREFUTABLE revelations of "Harbinger" have to overcome some obstacles to get the hearing it deserves

First, these harbingers ARE irrefutable.

There really is an uncannily precise correspondence between the words of Isaiah 9:10 and the events in America of September 11th, 2001 --and afterward. Just as a matter of fact, the verse obviously applies to 9/11 even without the uncanny correspondences, but they seal the deal in a way that ought to convince the most adamantly skeptical.

The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change [them into] cedars

Isaiah 9:10 really is about the defiance of a nation against God's judgment and the next verse is about the inevitable continuing judgment that will follow. All the commentaries on this passage give this understanding of it.

American leaders really did quote Isaiah 9:10 after 9/11, mistaking it for an encouraging word of promise that the nation would rebuild, rather than the act of defiance against God it is. The verse refers to fallen bricks or buildings and the cutting down of sycamore trees as God's act of judgment against the idolatrous nation, really his warning of judgment as it was light compared to what could have been, just as 9/11 was light compared to what could have been. Instead of repenting the nation of Israel simply vowed to rebuild and replant bigger and better. And so did America.

After 9/11 some reporters described fallen bricks in the devastation, but the simple fact of fallen buildings is enough to tie the event to the Isaiah passage. A stone was quarried from the New York mountains to be the cornerstone of the projected "Freedom Tower" which was to replace the WTC, and ceremonially installed with words of defiance echoing the attitude of Isaiah 9:10. That's the hewn stone that Isaiah 9:10 pictures as the act of defiance.

There was also a western version of the sycamore tree that was uprooted by a falling piece of one of the towers. The sycamore became an icon in people's minds. Its roots were put on display to commemorate 9/11 and later a bronze replica of those roots was installed beside the church to which the sycamore had belonged. You can find pictures of this on the internet. The address where it is located also happens to be Wall Street.

The fallen sycamore really was replaced by a conifer of the same family as the cedar, and that tree also became an icon, dubbed the Tree of Hope.

This is all highly ironic since the Isaiah passage these things are so closely following without anyone's intention is all about defiance of God and the determination to do things our own way. This was the predominant sentiment about 9/11 by everybody involved, and is to this day. Anybody hear any calls to repentance for the sins that brought about God's warning judgment? The very few who even called it God's judgment were vilified.

The harbingers don't stop there. It turns out that the sycamore tree was planted in the churchyard of the very chapel where George Washington and his first governing body prayed after his inauguration as our first President. The capital city of the nation at that time was New York City, not Washington D.C.

Oh and there's more than that too, involving Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange, also involving the very property of the World Trade Center. Go listen to Jonathan Cahn's talk I've posted two or three times in recent posts below, or get Jonathan Cahn's book "Harbinger." He fictionalized the story of how the correspondence with Isaiah 9:10 was discovered, using fictional characters, alas, but all the true facts are there.

I do have to report that I finally read Cahn's book, took me a while to get to it but I read it over the weekend and finished it this morning. I can't say I'm happy that he chose to put it in fictional form, and I can only hope that it won't be a problem for many figuring out what parts are fiction and what parts reality, but overall for me it didn't detract from the message itself so I've finally accepted his decision to do it that way. At least it gave him the opportunity to present the material in a measured way so that we have time to digest each part before being hit with the next. There are a LOT of parts to this revelation, each as uncanny as the previous, and anything that makes it easier to assimilate has to be welcomed. As characters in the book say: "The point is to get the message out to as many people as possible (p. 248)." If the fiction mode accomplishes that I have to be all for it.

Later: It occurred to me that maybe this could be considered a literary form for the orderly presentation of a complex subject rather than a novel. A teaching device. Seems to me something like this has been done in history, though I have to admit I don't know where or by whom or what it would be called.

In the book he gets to the subject of the church's responsibility, and here's what he says about what believers need to repent of:

From their apathy, from their complacency ... their compromises with darkness ... their omissions ... their serving of other gods ... their sins committed in secret ...their withholding of life ... and their failure to fulfill their call (p. 224).

The job of unpacking that statement would bring out every category of sin we need to face.

====================
I'm certainly no supporter of the charismatic movement, or of televangelists either, so it does put me in an uncomfortable position to be so strongly convinced of Jonathan Cahn's revelation of the meaning of 9/11 as God's judgment on America, because those are the contexts in which his message is being promoted, while the rest of the churches apparently either don't know about him, or, perhaps, reject what he has to say. I really don't know how he is being received outside those contexts, though, it could be simply that they aren't hearing his message at all. I just know that my own attempts to get his message out to others have mostly been met with silence.

I didn't even know that Jim Bakker was on television again, or that he had a second wife, that's how out of touch with the world of televangelism I've been. But his program aired a series of interviews with Jonathan Cahn just last month, and Bakker says he was one of the few who recognized early on that 9/11 was God's judgment on America and took a lot of criticism for it.

The interviews are rather choppy, frequently interrupted, and at times repetitive but pretty much all the material does get covered by the end, and it's more up-to-date than the Messianic conference speech I keep linking. The Biblical connections concerning judgment on the economy are staggeringly uncanny, but much too detailed for an economically-challenged person like me to keep track of. You just have to hear it for yourself.

Here are the Bakker interviews, again with the warning that they may be frustrating to watch: Part #1 Part #2 Part #3 Part #4 Part #5 Part #6

Getting the message out to as many as possible is Bakker's desire and that makes me very happy as it's my own desire too. I've been experiencing much resistance but he's gained a large audience for it, praise the Lord. There do seem to be obstacles to getting it out in general, though, which is to be expected about such a message. At first I thought this message is so just plain IRREFUTABLE it should spread like wildfire through the churches and we'll all be humbled and turn from our wicked ways, a great revival will engulf the nation and America will be saved. Turns out that as usual that's ridiculously optimistic and in reality we have a spiritual battle on our hands if we want God's kingdom to advance in this world. Rabbi Cahn describes various ways he's been in spiritual battle over this in these interviews.

This message needs to break down all the walls and get to EVERYBODY.

What do the churches need to repent of?

Thinking about how Christians need to fast and pray and repent for the sake of America I was trying to determine what the main sins of the churches are -- where we should start. There are plenty of problems with America at large of course, but how much of it should be laid at the door of the churches? In a sense all of them, I believe, simply because a strong Bible-based and Spirit-led church utterly dependent on God would have prevented them from happening. I'm assuming the failure started with the church back somewhere but I don't know how to locate that point. The Deism of our Founders perhaps? The Higher Criticism that infected so many in the middle of the 19th century? Well, the churches that succumbed to that are now utterly apostate, denying the full inspiration and authority of the Bible, allowing women pastors, treating homosexuality as a normal expression rather than a sin, even having homosexual pastors. And that's just the start of it. Whole church denominations are given over to some false doctrine or another and if this isn't the Great Apostasy predicted in scripture it's hard to imagine what that would look like. There is also an amazing trend of supposedly Protestant churches treating Romanism as a true church.

But I'd like to think more about the specific sins of the churches that are still good churches, that still adhere to Biblical inerrancy for instance, that teach the true gospel of salvation by faith alone through grace alone.

Even in those churches you may hear teaching that is very soft on divorce and remarriage for instance. Studies have determined that Christians are divorced in the same proportions as the rest of the society, even possibly greater proportions. We hear these statistics and they make us sad but does anybody stop to think that this has to be because the churches themselves aren't upholding Biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage? I've thought this for some time but hardly ever hear this preached against. I found one good discussion of the problem BY A ROMAN CATHOLIC (can't find the link right now, hope I can track it down). I had to agree with him. Too bad. The Catholics do get some things right biblically which is a terrible indictment of the Protestant and nonCatholic churches.

I know of churches that are more or less Bible believing and true to the gospel that nevertheless have divorced/remarried pastors and elders and deacons, which seems to me to be clearly in violation of scripture, specifically Jesus' own teaching on the subject. Seems to me if God should bless such a church with revival He'd have to begin by convicting them of this violation and the only way it could be properly dealt with would be pretty inconvenient to put it mildly. The Israelites who had married foreign women in the time of Ezra, and even had children by them, were put through the wrenching experience of separating from them because their marriages were a violation of God's word in that case too. Sometimes repentance and restitution are messy.

But if churches want to be in God's favor, if we want revival, something like this is going to have to happen. I'm going to have to find that link and get into the specifics of this, but it does seem to me that if Christians would simply pray and honestly seek God's will instead of "leaning to our own understanding" it would be revealed to them directly, they would be personally convicted of sin in these matters and wouldn't need to hear a lot of sermons on it. Of course if they've been hearing permissive sermons that support them in their sin then they are trained in resisting the Holy Spirit for starters, and may not even listen to a contrary view of the scripture anyway.

Another issue that continues to strike me as a violation in the churches is the abandonment of the requirement for women to cover our heads in the assembly. My study of this completely convinced me that the vast majority of the churches are in violation of scripture on this point, and this is also a matter that I think an honest and protracted seeking of God's will would resolve. Not to cover our heads is to violate God's creation ordinance of man as the image of God and woman as the glory of man. In the churches this means that the glory of man is allowed to compete with the glory of Christ. This is one practice that ought to be simple and straightforward that has been made unnecessarily complicated because people just don't want to have to do this.

It ought to be clear enough from the fact that on the basis of the same scripture that calls for a woman to cover her head in church a man is required to uncover his, and we enforce that part of the directive while ignoring the other. It's not about women having long hair either because there was never a time when women did NOT wear their hair long until very recently, so Paul would have had no reason to exhort them to wear it long.

Those two issues, divorce/remarriage and the head covering, are where it seems to me the churches need to start the process of repentance.

(Not that I think it's going to happen, of course, I'm afraid I'm pretty sure that America is going to be destroyed by God's judgments because the churches will not rally to our calling, but nevertheless I hold out a small hope that I'm wrong.)

Just sitting here waiting for God to wipe America off the map

Now I'm disappointed with Jonathan Cahn. On the one hand he presented his prophetic vision as simple fact, as in that speech at a Messianic Jewish conference that I keep posting here, but on the other hand the book he wrote about it is written as a novel. I haven't seen it yet but that's what people say about it. I expected it to provide more detail about the facts he had discovered and maybe it does, but a novel I do not need and treating this kind of information as fiction is a horrendous offense! It turns out that Cahn himself indulges in the hype tone I mention in the previous post though I'd been saying it wasn't his doing.

And yet I still have to regard the mere facts of the matter he presents as just as uncanny and meaningful as I first found them to be. Ground Zero really is where George Washington's inauguration was consecrated by prayer by the first members of the US Government. Whether America is to be regarded as consecrated to God in the sense ancient Israel was is questionable, but Cahn's point that some form of consecration took place seems undeniable, and MUST explain why God treats us the same as He did Israel, which is clearly what is happening with the Isaiah 9:10 connections. Cahn mentions both the plaque at Jamestown and the dedication of Washington's presidency at Ground Zero as two instances in which the nation was consecrated to God. It's hard to dismiss this as a meaningless coincidence.

Isaiah 9:10 certainly does refer to the felling of sycamore trees as God's judgment on Israel, and to the planting of cedar trees or conifers as Israel's defiance of God in response. How can we possibly overlook the uncanny symbolism of a single sycamore tree in the churchyard of that same historic church being destroyed by part of a falling WTC tower and replaced by -- a conifer? And there's also the replacement of the fallen bricks with the hewn stone echoing Isaiah 9:10 as well. That too is uncanny. In doing these things America has certainly had the same attitude as ancient Israel as recorded in Isaiah 9:10 -- we'll redo and rebuild what God destroyed, and we'll do it bigger and better and stronger. The sycamore itself is now memorialized in a bronze replica of its roots, which I find spooky in the extreme, like celebrating death, in this case the death of America, what else? Unwittingly of course. And it's right beside that historic church in which our first government was consecrated.

But most uncanny of all is the attitude of American leaders who exactly echoed the spirit of the leaders of ancient Israel in their denial that this was God's judgment and their refusal to repent but instead to rebuild in their own strength what God had destroyed. There is no way to deny that parallel, there's no way to deny that this follows the same lines as Isaiah 9:10. Of course it wasn't a President who quoted Isaiah 9:10, it was merely the Majority Leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle at the time, but that IS a leader of the nation and it has to mean something. The fact that John Edwards quoted the same verse a few years later in a prayer breakfast on the anniversary of 9/11 isn't quite so telling, because he wasn't in a high position of leadership, but it certainly does at least reflect the attitude of defiance America as a whole was taking at the time, strangely unaware of its actual meaning, thinking to be speaking words of comfort about 9/11 instead. And he made that speech at a typical government prayer breakfast, an official appealing to God for the nation. Again, all this was unwitting, they all think they are comforting the nation with promises to rebuild.

But here is how that passage continues:

11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; 12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still. Isa 9:13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. 14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.

Sure sounds to me like God is promising more judgment to come BECAUSE Israel didn't repent but vowed to plant better trees and build better buildings.

Some of us didn't need all these signs and symbols to know that 9/11 was God's judgment on America, or warning judgment. All you need to know is how God dealt with nations in the OT and specifically how He dealt with Israel. He TOLD them -- Deuteronomy 28 for instance -- how he would deal with them if they obeyed and if they disobeyed. Disobedience calls for the triumph of enemies and the destruction of the economy for instance -- surely this is a principle that applies to all nations, not just God's own people, although in lesser degree simply because "to whom much is given much is required." Those principles are all we should need to know to understand 9/11 as God's judgment -- a warning judgement of more to come, I should say, simply because it was such a limited event compared to what it could have been. A warning judgment to wake us up and lead us to repentance. But Americans refused to see that in it, and the biggest shame of all is that the pastors of churches all over the land refused to see it that way. Thousands of churches could have been fasting and praying for repentance in earnest except for that.

So a few years later along comes Jonathan Cahn who discovers these uncanny correspondences between a little-known verse in the Old Testament and the events and attitudes in America surrounding 9/11. This has to be God's mercy, giving us some indisputable signs to prove that He's bringing judgment against America even in the teeth of the nation's determined denial and defiance. NOW, I think to myself, how can anyone avoid the fact that America is under God's judgment? This revelation, I think to myself, ought to speed through the churches and send us all to our knees. But no, it hardly gets off the ground.

And now it turns out to be presented in some questionable forms with a questionable tone itself, and we still have no problem avoiding the truth of the situation. How much this hype has to do with our avoiding it I don't know, I just know the whole thing is incredibly sad, we are under God's judgment and we have plenty of reason to know we are under God's judgment and we are doing nothing about it.

I wish I hadn't ordered the book because I can't afford much these days and I don't need a novel. I'd like to have all the material he offers in support of this prophetic vision but the money is too much for me. And now I'm really angry that he has been treating this material this way, hyping it up as a novel, using all the spooky hokey hypy words that should not be used in reference to Biblical revelation.

Even with all that, as I said, I still believe this message is authentic at its core. The parallels with Isaiah 9:10 can't be denied. This is a strange case of amazing TRUTH being manhandled by the techniques that belong to lies. I don't know how to put all this together.

I've been disappointed in Christians' response to this. And I still am, but this problem with how the main protagonist has been treating the material does give some excuse to the churches for ignoring it. SOME excuse, though, that's all. I still think the facts themselves ought to have overridden such a reaction to the hype, if that is part of the reason it's been ignored.

So here we are, looking at a major warning of God's judgment in the events of 9/11, given to us in unmistakable signs, being ignored by God's people instead of taken to heart as it should be, as we are the only hope for the nation to escape future escalation of God's judgment, which is inevitable if we do nothing, and we ARE doing nothing. Going-on-eleven years after the event we are doing nothing despite this revelation that ought to have set a fire under us long ago.

Our state of paralysis is itself a form of judgment.

Will the next hit, whatever it is, wake us up? Probably not. We've had a few hits since 9/11 in fact, not just the Wall Street hits but some pretty heavy weather hits across the nation as well. That's certainly what Katrina was. Anybody moved to repentance? Naa, just the usual complaints against anyone who suggests it was God's judgment.

Prayer for repentance and humbling of God's people and the healing of America

O Lord God, if there is still any hope that You would restrain Your judgment on America I pray that the revelation You gave Jonathan Cahn about 9/11 be spread to all the true churches in this nation and be recognized as truly Your message to us, of both judgment and mercy. I pray that You would send a spirit of repentance to all Your people in this nation, and especially to those pastors who denied that 9/11 was judgment and a warning of more judgment to come. Lord, it is YOUR people who must humble ourselves if we are to have any hope that You will yet heal this nation. I pray it in Jesus' Name who died for us, and in whose Name this nation was founded. Amen.

Mourning and Hoping and Mourning for America

HARBINGER (OMEN, SIGN) OF GOD'S JUDGMENT AGAINST AMERICA: The Trinity Tree Root, from the Trinity Wall Street Church website. The picture below of the sculpture as seen from above is from the same site. Click to enlarge.

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After learning through Jonathan Cahn's study about the uncanny harbingers or omens of God's judgment on America yet to come I've been on a rollercoaster of hope alternating with despair.

These symbols left in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that so uncannily reflect Isaiah 9:10 are like God speaking directly to us, directly pronouncing judgment yet to come, but who is paying attention? A hunk of hewn stone at Ground Zero,* a bronze tribute to a dead uprooted tree (and bronze in the Bible is symbolic of judgment, said Cahn), on the property of the church where George Washington prayed at his inauguration to the Presidency -- these are God's calling cards. That church is now thoroughly anti-christ, and it has a Wall Street address. The whole shebang points to judgment against America as a nation, specifically against the American economy, and seems to explain it all as it were by fingering THE CHURCH, the apostate churches for sure but the church at large which has let the nation down by failing to be the spiritual protection we're supposed to be.

The harbingers, the omens, are symbols of human arrogance and defiance of God blithely unrecognized even by most supposed Bible believers. It's all been signed and sealed as it were by three of our political leaders pronouncing the vow of defiance against God in the very words of Isaiah 9:10 -- "we will rebuild" -- rather than humbling ourselves in the face of God's judgments against us.

Where do I get any hope out of this at all? I get it out of the fact that the symbolism IS so uncanny it seems that even the most obtuse unbeliever has to recognize it and if they recognize it then there is a chance for the repentance that is the only way the nation could possibly avoid what the omens portend.

But as I said, it's a rollercoaster and I soon fall into doubt. Even after it's pointed out and explained I know only too well that a determined resister of God can still deny it.

Of course the true churches could fast and pray in sackcloth and ashes, and confess the sins of the nation as Daniel did, but is that going to happen? Well, if something like that doesn't happen, then the judgment is inevitable.

I've puzzled and lamented for a long time about why God isn't sending us revival. Now I know for sure why we haven't had revival. Our doom is signed and sealed by our leaders, and by that hewn cornerstone* and that bronze tree root that God made sure got placed where they can't be ignored. Oh sure, they can and will be aggressively misinterpreted just as the scripture that describes them was unless Cahn's message gets out. They strike me as something like the seal of a notary, on the Ground Zero site, at the site of the apostate church. Or like the handwriting on the wall against the Babylonian king Belshazzar, only set in bronze and stone so it can't just disappear but will remain as a testimony against us. Even if the entire country were razed to the ground those symbols would most likely remain untouched,* because they are God's witnesses against us. Oh, and the "Tree of Hope" too, the Norway spruce which replaced the felled sycamore, which should really be called the "Tree of Judgment" or the "Tree of Doom."

Three witnesses against us in those icons, all reflecting the words of Isaiah 9:10, plus three of our leaders declaring our doom, also in the words of Isaiah 9:10. Isaiah 9:10 gave the reason God brought judgment against Israel and now He's allowed that very verse of the Bible to stand for His intention to bring judgment against America as well. It seems impossible that anyone could explain away the uncanny equivalence of terms and imagery but I have to remember that today's atheists don't have any problem denying the obvious.

Cahn even mentioned in the interview by Jonathan Bernis (link below) how we missed revival at the time of 9/11: After 9/11 the churches filled up, people were hurting and seeking an explanation. Instead of hearing the truth from the preachers, that this is God's judgment and the nation needs to repent and turn to Him, what they heard was all that mealymouthed denial that it was God's doing. As Cahn said, there was an opportunity for the revival we've been yearning for, right there as people flocked to the churches, and the CHURCHES BLEW IT.

Here's the link to the interview of Jonathan Cahn by Jonathan Bernis on Jewish Voice. And here is the link to Jonathan Bernis' website. There is to be a second part of the interview coming up this week, I think on Sunday. [Correction, Saturday the 14th]

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*I have asterisked mentions of the cut stone that was placed at Ground Zero, that was intended to be the cornerstone of a new building called the "Freedom Tower," because I ran across the information that two years after it was placed there it was removed. This was because of a change in plans for the rebuilding of the area. Of course its placement in the first place and the speeches over it that maintained the theme of Isaiah 9:10 in America's defiance of God still stand against us, but I was wrong when I said that all these physical harbingers based on that scripture would no doubt outlive the nation itself.

The Harbingers of Nine Eleven and the Biggest Harbinger of them all and is there any hope of turning back God's judgment against America?

I am still studying Jonathan Cahn's revelations about 9/11 in light of Isaiah 9:10 as reported in my previous post. I've begun to study some aspects of it in detail for future posts but that's going to take some time. I also want to read his book, which I ordered yesterday.

Interestingly, the book was available the day before at Amazon but at that point I wanted to wait to order it, then yesterday it was sold out and they are having to restock! I think I know why. Rabbi Cahn --I have a problem with that title myself, he's a Christian after all, but that's what he calls himself so I'll use it -- was interviewed on a TV show called Jewish Voice with a Rabbi Jonathan Bernis, also a Messianic (Christian) Jew, which aired on the 8th (you can find it at You Tube) and Bernis encouraged his audience to get the book. It could very well be that this information is going to fly around the nation and maybe even the world very soon and they'll have to reprint the book.

I consider this topic to be of paramount importance and I want to learn as much about it as I can, and it's going to take time and right now I don't have the time to write a really thorough post about it but I want to write something. I'm not even going to take the time to include links until later.

Here's the main message I want to get across: As Cahn has reported, American leaders actually quoted the verse in Isaiah that so painfully applies to the American attitude after 9/11, which was an attitude of proud reliance on human strength in defiance of God instead of repentance, after an act of God warning of judgment to come against the nation. Tom Daschle was Senate Majority Leader when he declared that we will rebuild, thinking Isaiah 9:10 a message of hope instead of recognizing it as defiance against God. He was one of the nation's leaders. Therefore he spoke for the nation in that capacity, in other words he spoke prophetically. Just as Gamaliel in his leadership position spoke prophetically of Jesus dying for the people, also without knowing the meaning of his own words.

Likewise John Edwards was in a position of leadership when he proclaimed the same message on the anniversary of 9/11 three years later. Obama himself also said essentially the same thing seven years after Daschle's speech on the subject, but without reference to the verse in Isaiah, when he vowed that "we will rebuild" the economy, after a first stage of its collapse.

As Cahn notes, especially in the Bernis interview, that's three American leaders who pronounced a vow of defiance against God, just as ancient Israel did after God brought the first wave of judgment against them, a warning blow that was a harbinger of more to come unless they repented. Cahn makes much of the fact that it was political leaders who did this, saying that is like an official pronouncement of defiance on behalf of the entire nation.

That's three American leaders who essentially PRONOUNCED A CURSE ON AMERICA and invited more of God's judgment.

As I recall, the general attitude at the time was this same defiance. I'm surprised if President Bush didn't say something along the same lines but it would take more research than I have time for to find out at the moment. He offended God enough with his statement that "Islam is a religion of peace" and with his blasphemous ecumenical service in the National Cathedral supposedly on behalf of the nation which was itself a curse on the nation. I know that on the conservative internet forums the attitude was They can't do this to us, we are the strongest and best nation blah blah blah, with a militant tone of defiance that outdoes the vow of Isaiah 9:10 in sheer emotional belligerence at least. When they were passing around a mock "plan" for the rebuilding of the towers with five towers in a row with the middle one very tall, that looked like a fist with its middle finger extended -- wonderful "joke" -- I recognized that they were "giving God the finger." I don't know where our conservative LEADERS were but the conservative rank and file was ASKING for God to smack us down.

But back to Cahn's revelations, the pronouncements by our leaders are all backed up by the other "harbingers" of further judgment from the Isaiah verse. God brought an army against Israel and they knocked down their bricks and the leaders vowed to rebuild stronger and better. God brought an attack on the World Trade Center and American leaders fell all over themselves to announce that we would rebuild, we are the strongest nation, they can't keep us down, and so on. But GOD can keep us down and He has plenty of reason to do so.

Some of our political leaders also brought in a quarried stone and placed it at Ground Zero as the cornerstone of a new tower they called the Freedom Tower, dedicating it with speeches that further affirmed our defiance of God. The Isaiah passage said the leaders of Israel vowed to rebuild with hewn stones, or quarried stones, in place of the bricks that were knocked down. Our one hewn cornerstone is enough to symbolize our defiant attitude in exactly the spirit of Isaiah 9:10, the REAL meaning of 9/11, not what blind politicians kept promising. The cornerstone's simply standing there is testimony to American defiance inviting God's further judgment against us.

Same with the "sycomores" that were also felled in ancient Israel as part of God's warning of judgment to come. It's not the same tree but we call it a sycamore nevertheless and it was an ancient sycamore in the churchyard of Trinity Wall Street Church -- really, the churchyard of St. Paul's chapel which is a separated part of Trinity Church -- that was knocked down by a piece of one of the towers, and it became a huge symbol of the event. A sculptor who likes to sculpt tree roots took it and made a memorial to it in bronze which was placed right next to the church. It's a huge creepy spidery bronze monstrosity of tree roots. Like the hewn cornerstone of the "Freedom Tower," it has become another symbol of America's defiance of God's warning of judgment. A dead tree, its roots exposed, is a fitting symbol for judgment on our nation and it stands there in stark testimony to the truth of the situation for anyone with eyes to see. God is going to uproot us completely if we don't repent, if there is even time for that.

On top of that, it was a "cedar" tree that ancient Israel vowed to put in to replace their felled sycomores, and would you believe that our blind blind sentimental fools who are doing all these things in the face of God's warning brought in a tree of the same basic type to put in the place of the dead sycamore tree? Cahn says the Hebrew word translated "cedar" actually refers to a different tree than specifically a cedar, but it's uncanny enough that Israel used an evergreen, a conifer, to replace their destroyed sycomores, and so did we!! A Norway spruce now stands where the felled sycamore once stood.

Read the signs. There they are. Our blind political leaders mean one thing by them but God means something else. God felled the towers, God felled the sycomore, God moved the fools to commemorate the event with SYMBOLS OF JUDGMENT though they had no clue that was what they were doing!

There's LOTS MORE SYMBOLISM in this whole event that I've been discovering on my own and that Cahn probably also covers in his book, but these very pointed symbols in themselves ought to be enough to get across our dire situation as a result of our defiance of God.

All this makes me cry, I don't know about you. Here we are under judgment in a far more official way than I had any idea. I knew we were under judgment and that 9/11 was a warning judgment, and anxiety would overtake me from time to time thinking about it and thinking about the foolishness of Americans in our refusal to repent. It was a helpless feeling, the nation is hell bent on destroying itself. But it was a vague fear, and now I see that God Himself has very pointedly declared His judgment against America in these awful specific symbols that most don't have a clue how to read, and I keep thinking, IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO AT THIS POINT? Is that hewn cornerstone that declares our intention to rebuild what God knocked down going to go on standing there as a testimony against us without repentance? Is that bronze monstrosity of an uprooted tree going to represent God's final curse against us or is there still something we can do?

Repentance is what is needed if there is any time for that at all, if God's judgment is not yet final and He still extends grace to us at all. But where will the will come from to repent? What American leaders are there who would stand up and repent for the vows of defiance already pronounced, or fall down publicly in sackcloth and ashes on behalf of the nation in the hope God might rescind His judgment on us?

But there is one more sign that I want to pursue concerning these harbingers, and I can't really do it justice in this off-the-cuff post, but I have to point out something I think is important that I learned from pursuing Cahn's revelations:

TRINITY WALL STREET CHURCH:

This is the biggest "harbinger" of them all, Harbinger #10 perhaps?

The church to which the sycamore belonged that was killed on 9/11, the church which replaced it with a conifer and decorated it with "holiday lights" its first year, the church next to which now stands that frighteningly symbolic monstrosity of a bronze statue of an uprooted tree, the very church in which George Washington prayed, even upon his inauguration as our first President, which therefore symbolizes the founding of our nation, the church which is bounded on one side by the downed World Trade Center (whose address by the way was simply "Church Street!!") and bounded on another by Wall Street, making it a symbol of so many elements of American life and history that to miss its significance after a little thought would take invincible obtuseness -- THAT CHURCH IS AN APOSTATE CHURCH. Go read the disgusting antichrist stuff that church stands for. I'll get links up soon but I can't take the time at the moment. That church in itself represents THE REASON THE NATION WAS JUDGED.

Sure, it's all our sins, it's the officially sanctioned murder of 50 million Americans through abortion, it's the destruction of the institution of marriage which God ordained, not just by the favorable attitude to "gay marriage" but also by our easy divorce laws and the rampant disregard of marriage in the common occurrence of unmarried cohabitation, single parenting and the like, and it's our "freedom" of pornography and other twistings of the original American concept of freedom, all of which Cahn briefly mentioned, and much much more, and all the movements that have brought us to this pass, the influence of "Postmodernism" of "Secular humanism" of "Cultural Marxism" and on and on and on.

But IT'S THE APOSTASY OF THE CHURCH that is the first and foremost reason for America's fall. Among all the symbols Rabbi Cahn unearthed in his study of 9/11 this one overshadows them all. The church that should uphold God's will has rejected Him and the particular church at Ground Zero with its downed sycamore and its bronze harbinger of this nation's death OUGHT TO BE RECOGNIZED AS SYMBOLIZING THE FOUNDATIONAL EXPLANATION FOR THE WHOLE DISASTER.

Christians ought to be praying against the apostate churches more than against all our other sins. JUDGMENT BEGINS AT THE HOUSE OF GOD!!!

Instead of -- or along with -- doing prayer walks around fortune-telling parlors and abortion clinics, DO PRAYER WALKS AROUND THE LOCAL APOSTATE CHURCHES, around the cult "churches" too, the Mormon churches, the Jehovah's Witnesses and so on. Catholic churches, apostate churches like Trinity Wall Street, Joel Osteen's church. DENOUNCE THEM TO GOD. Ask God to free their captives.

There's plenty more to say about all this but I had to get this much said in the little time I have at the moment. Back later.

God's Judgment on America prophesied in 9/11: Scripture linked to 9/11 in the most amazing uncanny ways

I knew 9/11 was God's judgment on America, but I was one of few it seems. I heard a few sermons that said the same thing, notably David Wilkerson's, but they were in the extreme minority while most preachers were trying to deny that God would have had anything to do with it. I also saw symbolism in the event, the World Trade Center clearly symbolizing the wealth of the world but America's wealth in particular because the WTC is in America, so it is a clear warning that God will judge us through economic disaster; and the Pentagon symbolizing our military, being a sign that He will judge us by weakening us against our enemies. Seems to me both are clearly underway.

9/11 was a big event in that it was the first time (OK, first time in a very long time) we'd been attacked on our own land, but it was a tiny event compared to what it could have been. It was clearly a warning, God saying "repent or there will be more to come."

Did America repent? No, we sang loud choruses of "God Bless America" effectively denying that we had anything to repent of or that God was trying to tell us something. What happens when a nation ignores God's warnings of judgment? Judgment keeps coming. America has not repented and clearly we are looking at far far worse yet to come.

Yesterday I was listening to some of Chris Pinto's recent broadcasts and found one where he is discussing a book about September 11th in light of Biblical prophecy of God's judgment on Israel, a judgment echoed in uncanny ways in the 9/11 attack. This is the Chris Pinto broadcast for January 5, 2012, A Prophetic Warning about the book by Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger.

The book is wrapped around Isaiah 9:10:

The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change [them into] cedars

He finds 9 "harbingers" of God's judgment in that passage which all apply not only to Israel at the time but to 9/11 in the most uncanny ways, but the main similarity is that both Israel and America defied God's judgment instead of repenting, vowing to replace the bricks that had been knocked down with stronger hewn stone, and the sycamores with stronger cedars, thus inviting further judgment from God.

Cahn reports on two speeches by American leaders concerning September 11th, Tom Daschle and John Edwards, in which this passage from Isaiah was quoted as supposedly an encouragement to rebuild after September 11th. David Wilkerson received this very same passage as the topic for his first post-9/11 sermon at his Times Square Church. He knew it was about God's judgment and what happens when a nation defies God's judgment, but Dasche and Edwards had no clue, both taking it to mean the very opposite of what it means. Same with most of the rest of America.

Jonathan Cahn lays out the whole scenario in all its amazing uncanniness in this presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXei0Zb3dxM&feature=related

Isaiah 9:8 The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. 9 And all the people shall know, [even] Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, 10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change [them into] cedars. 11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; 12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still.

Listen to Jonathan Cahn as he connects this passage with amazing "coincidences" that occurred in relation to September 11th at Ground Zero that perfectly reflect this passage in Isaiah. It is clearly a passage about judgment on Israel, but the people of Israel defied the judgment. God knocked down the bricks of Israel (and the twin towers of NYC) and instead of acknowledging the rightness of God's judgment and repenting the leaders of the people said "We will rebuild" and do it even better, with stronger stones and stronger trees. So God's hand "is stretched out still" in judgment, since they did not repent, and further judgments are prophesied.

Hear it to the end. Did you know that the very founding of our nation is intimately connected with the area known as Ground Zero? I didn't until I heard this.

It is hard for me to believe that anyone could hear all the amazing uncanny details Cahn unearthed in his prophetic study of 9/11 and not come to recognize that there is a God who oversees the smallest details of life on this planet and is definitely judging America and still (I hope) waiting for the nation to repent.

Isa 9:13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. 14 Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. 15 The ancient and honourable, he [is] the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he [is] the tail. 16 For the leaders of this people cause [them] to err; and [they that are] led of them [are] destroyed. 17 Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one [is] an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still. 18 For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up [like] the lifting up of smoke. 19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. 20 And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: 21 Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: [and] they together [shall be] against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still.

Thy Kingdom come, Lord, to this benighted world

Been watching a documentary on Netflix off and on today, Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. Despite its many good reviews I had put off watching it because it has the involvement of so many well- known Hollywood leftists. I expected a heavy dose of leftist propaganda.

Instead, because of the nature of the Tibetan situation, their sympathies are against the biggest leftist force on the planet these days, China, and the enormities perpetrated by China against the Tibetans over the last fifty years and more are thoroughly documented and profoundly disturbing.

I had known nothing about the political situation in Tibet until now. I certainly knew of the Dalai Lama who has traveled the world speaking for his Buddhist beliefs, but somehow it had escaped me that his primary concern is the horrendous misery of his Tibetan people at the hands of the Communist Chinese -- possibly because I avoid liberal/leftie demonstrations like the plague and there have been some on behalf of the Dalai Lama -- one of them shown at the end of this film.

The artificial ideology-driven nature of Communism is quite apparent in the statements by various Chinese spokesmen, the false ideas of "oppression" and of "religion" and the like that rationalize their brutalization and murder of the "oppressed" in their program to "liberate" them. How much of this is believed by the people who use it for propaganda I don't know, but I have the feeling at least some of it is.

The version of Buddhism preached by the Dalai Lama is completely nonviolent and quite touching in its insistence on forgiveness and nonhatred toward the Chinese. At one point in the film (around 1 hour, ten minutes into it - you can watch it on your computer from Netflix) a narrator comments how different it would be if Christians had such an immediate relationship with their leader as the Tibetans have with their Dalai Lama, because much motivation comes from such a relationship that we are apparently lacking -- a remark which is still reverberating in my head.

But we DO have such a relationship, I want to protest, and so much MORE of a relationship since it is not with a mere holy man but the God Who made all things. Our leader is NOT someone who died two thousand years ago and whom we do not expect to see again until He returns for our salvation, as the narrator claimed; our leader is MORE immediately with us than the Dalai Lama is to the Tibetans, and we don't have to go anywhere to see Him; we can address Him all day long.

But how sad that this is not apparent to others. Is this our fault or is it the nature of Christianity that it is not apparent?

I have to think it's our fault.

I often wonder to myself how it can be that we Christians are intimately connected with the omnipotent God who made this universe and yet the power that ought to be associated with that connection is so apparently lacking.

I've discovered that it takes very little exposure to the plight of peoples in the rest of the world to show up the western version of Christianity for our trivial pursuits and our powerlessness. How can we justify our humdrum preoccupations when we are potentially wielders of the power of God Himself on behalf of the world and yet keep our sights so low, so personal, instead? I receive information from a small church in India (as well as other ministries in India) a very small poor church where the pastor works all day long for his people as well as for other pastors and their people in neighboring areas when needed. His transportation is a bicycle. His people have the bare necessities but no more, simple food and clothing, a roof overhead. Periodically, houses in the area are swamped in monsoon floods. Not too far away other Christians have been suffering violent attacks from the Hindus who beat and kill them and burn their houses, tear the clothes off the women and rape them, and drive the people into the woods. It can leave a person feeling utterly helpless and useless to know just a little about these things. Then I see this film about Tibet and feel the same way. American Christians are very generous, give to causes all over the world, and yet it still leaves one feeling helpless and useless to see the need that can never be met, knowing the main need is for them to come to Christ.

And Tibet's religion of nonviolence is unfortunately a lesson to us I think, or should be. How did we ever get to defending participation in war at all? Yes, I know American wars have been good, or for good causes and all that, I know that violence on behalf of good causes can be justified easily enough ... and yet I can't get out of my mind the fact that Jesus told us not to resist evil, barely allowed a mere couple of swords for His disciples when the crucifixion was looming, preached against even hatred in the heart as murder and told us to be meek, to die to ourselves, to love, bless and forgive our enemies and the like. Aren't we told our strength is in our weakness, that HE is our strength and we only possess it by emptying ourselves of our selves? What we must sacrifice of His power by leaning to our own understanding!

Yet the Tibetan Buddhists practice meekness and nonviolence and forgiveness and we don't? A tribal religion that also practices rote ritual prayers and appeases spirits? The strength we receive in weakness is a supernatural strength; theirs is at best psychological and yet even when they lose faith in it they have more faith in theirs than we in ours.

How can this be?

The self-indulgence and worldliness and consequent spiritual weakness of the western churches is a terrible shame.

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One more thing. I think capitalism is the best economic system for producing wealth and growing the economy, BUT I also think it needs restraints, and about 25 minutes or so before the end of this documentary, it does unfortunately begin to be demonstrated that another sin Christians should be working to overcome is the love of money -- a root of all evil for sure, as is shown in the growth of trade with China that has drowned out protests against their abuses of human rights.

A Gloomy Day-After Independence Day

It's the day after The Fourth of July and I know so many people who are sad about the situation of America, see our cherished history and institutions being trashed in various ways, wondering if the nation is even going to survive.

There are calls for prayer for the nation of course, and some groups and individuals do pray for the nation. Perhaps God is hearing, though it doesn't seem so. Things seem to be getting worse rather than better, but of course they might be a lot worse if people weren't praying.

Still, you have to ask why things seem to continue to go from bad to worse. When I ask that question and pray about it the answer I keep coming up with is that the churches are out of favor with God, and not until the churches reform will our prayers be heard for healing the land.

The famous call to pray for one's nation in 2 Chronicles 7:14 is often quoted to exhort Christians to pray for America, but not very often are the conditions in that verse emphasized enough.

2 Chron 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

When we pray for America how many of us humble ourselves? Do we even think about what that means? How about fasting as a start? How many do that? What about turning from our "wicked ways?" Do we even think we HAVE any wicked ways to turn from? My impression is that most Christians just blithely pray that God would bless America without even thinking about meeting these conditions.

This exhortation was God's answer to Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the newly built temple, after it had been hallowed to God's purposes.

The passage goes on:

15 Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place. 16 For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. 17 And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments; 18 Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel. 19 But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; 20 Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. 21 And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house? 22 And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.

Our temple today is built up of living stones, God's people themselves. We are God's house. We know He will never forsake or abandon us if we hold in faith to His promise of salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, but what if we stray from His teachings? Can we believe we are saved by grace and think it's OK to ordain women or homosexuals to preach? Or are those only the really apostate churches that are no longer God's anyway? Didn't Jesus threaten to remove the lampstands of those churches which had strayed too far?

There are many questions like these that should be asked. I think before we can expect God to hear our prayers for the nation we need to pray first that God would show us where we are out of His will and set ourselves to reform, both personally and corporately in His churches.

I really am convinced that women's not covering our heads in church, and maybe outside of church as well, has shut us out of hope for the nation. I really do, and it's very sad because it's hard to think of this requirement being widely accepted any more by anyone in the churches. It's treated as trivial and it's rationalized and interpreted away by so many respected leaders. Could it at least be asked that people pray that God would show them the truth about this? That's where we need to start anyway, FINDING OUT where we have gone wrong with God so we can reform. We can only find out through His Holy Spirit; thinking alone won't get us anywhere.

I also suspect strongly that the widespread acceptance of the modern Bible versions that really are based on corrupt -- even heretical -- texts, and translations that have been done by men of liberal persuasion who reject much of His word, MAY play a part in this too. I wouldn't dismiss the thought lightly, people, but I know getting a serious hearing for this is not very likely.

These of course are my own hobbyhorses that I've been pursuing in my blogs. Don't take my word for any of it, but DO go read the many references I've given to these subjects; let THEM tell you.

But I'm sure there's more. Any capitulation to liberalism or feminism in a church needs to be confronted. It may be subtle, not easily recognized as a problem.

Or personal sins too. A pastor or elder or deacon who has been divorced? Or compromised teaching about divorce and remarriage? That sort of thing. These things are not just sins, they're actually false doctrine that promotes sin.

I get a sinking feeling thinking about all this. I see so many ways we are out of God's will lately, and so many ways I don't think Christians want to deal with any of it, but rationalize it away, dismiss it as legalism, or otherwise insist that it's not a problem and so on.

If only people would at least pray for light on the subject, ask God to show us where we may have gone wrong as His people. Pray through the Sermon on the Mount asking if we're REALLY obeying Him, perhaps. Anything along these lines would be a huge beginning.

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Later. I'm going to stop reading about feminism, which is only depressing anyway, a real horror story and a BIG reason why the nation is in the pits and some churches have gone desperately wrong as well, and reread some Leonard Ravenhill. He wrote a lot about why we aren't having revival and he wrote a book with the interesting title, America Is Too Young To Die. I think that's the direction I need to go right now.

The Last Twelve Verses of Mark further defended

The post I wrote two weeks ago about the unwarranted doubt of the last verses of Mark was just a sudden inspiration I had on the subject, not expecting to have more to say. But I got a very encouraging comment on that post from a pastor James Snapp about it, with a link to his website where he has a summary of his own research into the manuscript evidence for the authenticity of the verses, and an invitation to write for his complete study. It looks very thorough and well worth reading but I don't think I have enough scholarly patience to pursue it myself right now, knowing that he has to address the many speculations and hypotheses about unknowable historical possibilities. I hope others will have the desire to follow it on out though.

Here is the manuscript summary at his own church site.

But it is also available for download at this address: Here's the site owner's introduction, and here's the whole manuscript.

(Some of the labels I've attached to this post reflect content in Pastor Snapp's study of the Bible manuscripts).

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As I said in my own post on the subject, the only reason this passage is held in doubt is that Westcott and Hort happened to prefer a couple of early Greek manuscripts to those that had previously been accepted as the authoritative Greek text. Not only do the W&H manuscripts have really very little to recommend their authority over the traditional texts when you are aware of all the evidence, but they are notorious for throwing readings into doubt that had been accepted by Christians for all the centuries up until 1881 when W&H cast their spell over our Bible. Oh yes, there are many reasonings based on the texts themselves that support that doubting mentality, but it all started with those two men and their very questionable qualifications and their subterfuge in massively altering the Bible text when they were only commissioned to do a minimum of updating. Unfortunately those who defend this line of Bibles also manage to keep themselves from knowing about the arguments against it, such as the work of Dean John W Burgon, a contemporary of W&H.

The Last Twelve Verses of Mark

9 Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10 She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 11 And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. 12 And after these things he was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country. 13 And they went away and told it unto the rest: neither believed they them.

14 And afterward he was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen. 15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. 17 And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen

Why are we to doubt this passage? Don't we know for a fact, from the testimony of scripture itself, that the apostolic generation did have these experiences? Don't we know they cast out demons over and over and over? That they spoke in tongues? That Paul picked up a poisonous viper and shook it off without harm? Don't we know they healed the sick miraculously over and over and over? Why is there any doubt about this passage? Why do the scholars choose to believe the corrupted texts preferred by Westcott and Hort? Answer: They are trusting in their fallible minds instead of in GOD.

Yes, I know the problem with this text comes in with applying it to the church after the apostolic age, but taking it just as written there is no need to insist on that application, since we know it is almost word for word prophetic of the ministry of the apostles. We know mostly of Paul plus some accounts of a few others, but from their experience we shouldn't have any trouble surmising that all the apostles experienced such miraculous powers. Some other time I might even be willing to argue that they are still available today under certain circumstances, but for now just on the face of it this much-disputed passage in Mark ought to be regarded as unimpeachably the word of the Lord.

And then if you read the evidence for its legitimate transmission in the following you should have no more doubts at all. This is a page about Mark 16 from Dr. Thomas Holland's Crowned With Glory which gives historical reasons to accept the passage and gets at the mutilating effects of the fleshly mind on God's word:

Most scholars believe the original ending to Mark's Gospel has been lost. [3] If this is true, the concept of preserving the words of Scripture is forever annihilated. The words cannot be preserved and lost at the same time. However, textual scholars usually call for its inclusion even if they question its originality. Dr. Bruce Metzger departs from the maxim of modern textual critics, Brevior lectio potior (the shorter reading is preferable), and supports the longer ending even though admittedly he does not regard the passage as genuine. He considers it to be a legitimate part of the New Testament because of its traditional significance to the body of Christendom. [4] The passage is not contained in the Alexandrian texts, minuscule 2386, the Syrian Sinaitic Version, and a few other translations.

However, it is in many of the Greek uncials (A, C, D, K, X, D, Q, and P) dating between the fifth and ninth centuries. It is also contained in later dated Greek minuscules (137, 138, 1110, 1210, 1215, 1216, 1217, 1221, and 1582). It is the reading found in the majority of Old Latin texts as well as the Coptic versions and other early translations. Finally, it is cited (at least in part) by many of the early church fathers such as Justin (165 AD), Tertullian (220 AD), Hippolytus (235 AD), Ambrose (397 AD) and Augustine (430 AD). [5]

In 177 AD Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies. In it he cites from Mark 16:19, establishing that the longer reading was in existence at this time and was considered canonical, at least by Irenaeus:

Also, towards the conclusion of his Gospel, Mark says: "So then, after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God; " confirming what had been spoken by the prophet: "The LORD said to my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy footstool." Thus God and the Father are truly one and the same; He who was announced by the prophets, and handed down by the true Gospel; whom we Christians worship and love with the whole heart, as the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things therein. (3:10:5).

The difference here is extremely important. If we conclude that this passage is not authentic, then we must question what happened to the original ending of Mark. It is not logical that the Gospel would end at this place so abruptly. Nor is it likely, as some scholars have suggested, that the Gospel was never finished, calling biblical inspiration into question. The conclusion held by most textual scholars, whether liberal or conservative, that the original ending has been lost over the passage of time certainly denies the doctrine of biblical preservation.

Seems to me the W&H defenders need to shake off their trust in the scholarly establishment, or more to the point shake off their fleshly intellect and open their spiritual eyes! If you exercise your fleshly mind on these things without immersing yourself in prayer in the fear of God and abiding in Him, you will end up discarding His very word and missing the spiritual riches He has given us.

Doubt about the passage is based completely on accepting Westcott and Hort's text and their despising of the Textus Receptus which was the traditional text on which the KJV was based. It also suggests the liberal prejudice against the supernatural we're so familiar with today. Both inclinations have brought about the mutilation of the Biblical text which had been passed down through the centuries, a mutilation apparently accepted today even by the most conservative scholars, even those who are usually alert to this kind of destruction. Following Westcott and Hort's mugging of the Bible, today conscientious studious pastors of even the most Bible-focused churches determine the canon of Holy Scripture by the flesh rather than the spirit. That is why they have either done away with Mark 16:9-20 or hold it in oh-so-fussy head-proud "doubt."

I know so many sincere Christians who will defend the Westcott and Hort profanation of God's word. Otherwise good preachers trust in their scholarly training and their carnal intellectual strengths for judging God' word. The church is so weak compared to what it seems to me the Bible shows us is possible and desired by the Lord. The flesh can preach the Bible, can even preach spiritual truth (and I am susceptible to the same mistake), but only what is preached in the spirit has value and has power to save.

If men are to remove their hats in church, shouldn't women cover their heads?

Since someone who has a website about head covering (Lisa) recently came along and posted here I've been thinking I need to do more on that subject. In fact I may have to start a separate blog because the topic can get very involved, as you can see if you visit that link and start tracking down other links from that site.

My own focus is strictly Biblical, and I do believe the Bible requires us to cover our heads. It's interesting that more women seem to be discovering this in the last few years, to judge by the number of blogs on the subject that have appeared recently.

I think that the more women spend time praying about this the more we'll see a move in this direction, because the Holy Spirit will certainly bring about that conviction for any who wait on Him for guidance. He would also show the wrongness of the idea that Paul was saying that long hair is the covering, or that he could have had a mere cultural custom in mind that is now no longer in force. I have no doubt about this. The churches understood Paul to be requiring a head covering and enforced it for 1800 years, until feminism came along.

This question, like too many others, has been too often decided by intellectual investigation of the scripture with too little prayer behind it. I'm convinced that serious dedicated prayer and meditation on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 along with diligent research into the history of the question would show that we are required to cover our heads. Research should be based on intimations from the Holy Spirit, it shouldn't itself be the foundation for arriving at a conclusion.

As I read that passage I don't connect it as directly with the other Biblical writings on women's role as many do. Of course it's not unrelated, but just in itself it isn't calling women to submissiveness or to modesty or even particular roles as other passages are, it's making a completely objective statement about the meaning of the head and whether it is covered or uncovered.

Paul says quite a bit about the necessity of the man's head being uncovered as well as the woman's being covered, and the fact that Jewish men did and still do cover their heads for worship helps prove that Paul was giving a specifically Christian directive. Even Roman men covered their heads for worship of their pagan gods.

Paul uses hair as an example for BOTH men and women. He points to the natural state of men's usually having shorter hair, even less hair than women if you consider that baldness is natural to men, as well as the natural state of women's hair being longer. When you recognize that he is addressing both sexes it may be easier to see that his point is that the natural state is to be reflected in men's uncovering their heads in church as well as women's covering theirs. Women's naturally longer way of wearing their hair (universal in Paul's day and in fact throughout history with some striking but rare exceptions) is to be taken as a cue to cover their heads, just as men's shorter hair is a natural cue to uncover.

Therefore: if we ask men to uncover their heads when they enter church, we should also ask women to cover their heads.

But we do the former and don't do the latter.

You'll often find discussions that treat it as a matter of a woman's conscience and advocate leaving it up to her whether to cover or not. Well, as long as church leadership doesn't take a position on it I suppose there's no other choice, but in the spirit of the teaching it's not about individual conscience, it's something the church should simply require of its members. Instead, they obey part of Paul's teaching and ask men to take off their hats while leaving the women's heads to their own discretion. This all by itself ought to show that the teaching has become infected with feminist hypersensitivities and is far from reflecting God's will.

The more I think about this the more I think it's far from a minor little thing, and Paul didn't treat it as minor. He appealed to God's order at Creation, he appealed to nature, he appealed to the fact that angels watch. I'm convinced this is one of the things the church is doing that offends God and has weakened us spiritually and in fact is bringing judgment against the church.

This topic is usually discussed in the blogs in tandem with modest feminine dress, and while I don't think it's specifically related in Paul's thinking in the passage about the head covering, both are certainly Paul's concern and I think there's a lot to be said about how women are pushing the envelope about dressing modestly, even in the conservative churches. I think this is apparent to anyone who gives it any serious thought. I'll take that up soon, or maybe I'll move all this to another blog.

Later: Here's my new blog Hidden Glory.

The modern Bible versions are judgment on the church

Dean John William Burgon, who wrote passionately against the Bible revision of 1881, is my hero these days. Reading his Revision Revised is balm -- because it is truth. I read a bit in it every day lately. A good man, a man writing for God's honor and the good of God's people. Naturally such a man will be slandered. Naturally the devil is going to target him. What's amazing is how well the attack has succeeded. The churches pay him no attention. If anyone has heard of him, what they've heard is some kind of slanderous hearsay, such as that he wrote a conspiracy theory. He wrote no conspiracy theory. He wrote a masterful denunciation of the work of Westcott and Hort.

This too must be God's judgment, that their work has survived and come to dominate the church over the entire world, while the work of Burgon is barely heard of and treated like trash.

Mullings on God's will in hurricanes and politics

I just keep thinking about it. It makes me very sad. The God, THE God, the God of all things, the one and only, the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the God who made the world and everything in it, God who deserves the worship of every one of His creatures, God who puts up with those who hate Him, who is even good to those who hate Him, God who hears the prayers of those who acknowledge Him, is forgotten and ignored in our sophisticated time. He is also ignored by those who seek Him where He has not put His name, in the false religions. He has only put His name on His word, and on the people of the Bible. Then there are people who claim to be Christians who aren't. Then there are the Christians, those who do belong to Him, who nevertheless don't live up to our calling, who don't seek Him as we should, who don't obey Him as He has clearly told us to in His word, who remain stupid in the face of acts of God when of all people we should know what is going on because of all people we should know HIM.
So this hurricane comes and maybe we'll hear a call to pray, but when do we hear a call to humble ourselves and repent in sackcloth and ashes for the sins that have deserved the hurricane? The sins of the CHURCH, mind you, even before the sins of the nation: we're to turn from OUR wicked ways it says in 2 Chron 7:14.

So the twin towers of New York are demolished and people say "God bless America" but very very few would admit that it was God's doing. Of course it was the doing of Muslim jihadists, but isn't God in charge of the actions of Muslim jihadists as well as everyone else? They are merely instruments in God's hands, just as the Assyrians and the Babylonians and other great empires were God's instruments of judgment against God's own people as reported in the Old Testament.

I heard I think four sermons that acknowledged that 9/11 was God's judgment, only because local Christian radio sought them out and played them as a series well after the event, and I doubt there were many more than that across the nation. Everybody else was saying God wouldn't do such a thing, or if He did there is no way to know why, and so on. But what a myopic view of it, what a shame if such things are said by people who call themselves Christians. Of course we can't know why in the case of individuals, the persons who died in such catastrophes, that's only for God to know -- He takes the unrighteous AND the righteous according to His own timetable. In the case of the attack on the World Trade Center He showed more mercy than judgment -- there were so few who died compared to the numbers that could have been killed, and there were many miracle rescue stories, all heartening signs of His mercy in judgment. But if we know the Bible at all we ought to be able to surmise that God is saying something to the nation as a whole in such a disaster. But it seems we don't. The church is backslidden, out of touch with God. The church needs to repent.

So we're sitting and watching for Gustav to hit. I for one am not going to pray that God will deflect the hurricane. He's not going to let many be killed, there's been time for a massive evacuation, but a nation that doesn't give God the glory, that doesn't recognize its own sins, that doesn't repent and seek His face, doesn't deserve to be spared His judgments. Elijah prayed for famine on Israel because they had left their God for the pagan demon god Baal. America has done the same. I wonder if anything will turn us back? How hard does God have to hit us? Or will we just continue to say it's only Nature, just a matter for government and human ingenuity to deal with?