Am I wrong to be happy seeing this coming?

I want to chronicle here an unexpected reaction I'm having to the end times information I've been posting about and reading about. As I reported some time back, I'm occasionally hit with a wave of fear when the reality of these things comes through to me with force. I suppose I'm not alone in this. No matter how committed a Christian is, we must occasionally succumb to such feelings. But that is just a good reason to seek the Lord in more earnest and He will lift us out of it. Prayer and immersion in the Word take away the fear. It helps to pray particularly for the perfect love that casts out fear.

But the unexpected reaction I want to report on is an almost giddy feeling of happiness that the end times are really upon us. Now, you must understand that this excitement is not coming with any apprehension of anybody's suffering as a result of what's coming -- as soon as I'm aware of that aspect of things I sober up fast. But just the apprehension that it really is upon us, that a whole body of Biblical prophecy really is beginning to come to fulfillment, that the truth of the Word is coming alive in our time, that the Lord Himself is going to come soon, gives me a feeling of elation that's hard to describe, a sensation of giddy joy bubbling through me.

It happens when the outrageous lying and cheating and corruption going on in this election is made apparent. Now, I need to make clear here that for weeks now the more I've seen of this the sadder it's made me. I've probably cried more in the last few weeks and months than ever before because of the way the world is going and the way this country is going. But just a couple of times recently I've had this elated feeling instead.

It just happened to me after seeing a video showing how Barack Obama's candidacy for President has been planned and staged for years, through decades-long associations with the Weather Underground people and Muslim supporters for instance, and how the usual necessary information about a candidate is in his case severely suppressed (how, with bribes?). His candidacy has been many years in the making, though it seems to us that he just came out of the blue. Fulfillment of the prophecy of the little horn that just pushes its way up from nowhere to dominate the field? The thought makes me giddy. It COULD I suppose give me fear but it makes me giddy instead. (Whether this becomes reality or not doesn't matter; the thought itself makes me giddy).

It's brief, a momentary wonderment and excitement, but I think it's a good thing overall. I'm typically far from what they call a Sanguine type, really a Melancholy, to use those overworked categories, so the terrible things that must happen will probably keep me from bubbling over much as events progress, but I'm glad I can be glad at a time like this, at a time of merely contemplating the unfolding of the Lord's grand finale, horrific though it is going to be, for me no doubt along with everybody else. (What makes me saddest when I do sober up is the family and friends who are not saved, who are believing the lie. THAT can make me VERY sad.)

The last days will be the opportunity for the unfettering of the human spirit, the "flesh," to its expansive maximum, in its aim to rule the world and deny God. It's going to be an all-out demonstration of whatever is in fallen human nature, what it considers its goodness but in reality is its depths of evil, but in the end the goodness and glory of the Lord will show it for what it is. I almost feel giddy enough to say "Pass the popcorn" but I know I need to sober up. For one thing, this isn't going to be a spectator event. But we should have joy through it anyway, if not giddy excitement (but I wouldn't mind having giddy excitement through it all, if possible).

I hope that God's people will become very strong in these last days, that we will cast off everything we have let hinder us, every bit of worldly baggage that has a hold on us, and throw ourselves completely into dependence on the Lord in trust and obedience. Strength in prayer, strength in obedience.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

Who is Maitreya?

I hadn't been expecting to post more on Maitreya, candidate for World Leader soon to emerge on the scene according to different predictions, but I found myself tracking down some pictures on Google Image and now I have more to say.

There is a website devoted to a supposed Maitreya, one I've mentioned before, with connections to the United Nations, and hosted by Benjamin Creme: Share International. The Maitreya presented there looks more or less Middle Eastern or Muslim: This Maitreya is said to have been in seclusion in London, although he has supposedly appeared at various religious gatherings from time to time, as reported by Scott Johnson.

But the original Maitreya is Maitreya Buddha (or Buddha Maitreya), and he is represented by many elaborate statues all over Asia, as I discovered only today. I suppose I've seen pictures of these statues before and just took them for variations on the usual Buddha images but apparently there is a specific Maitreya Buddha image.

From Answers.com:

Buddhists do not consider Siddhartha Gautama to have been the only Buddha. The Pali Canon refers to many previous ones (see List of the 28 Buddhas), while the Mahayana tradition additionally has many Buddhas of celestial, rather than historical, origin (see Amitabha or Vairocana as examples). A common Buddhist belief across all Buddhism is that the next Buddha will be one named Maitreya (Pali: Metteyya).

But what has intrigued me as I've been looking at pictures of Buddha and Maitreya statues is that some of them appear to have African characteristics, which puts me in mind of what Alexander Hislop wrote about the black Nimrod being the real model for the heathen gods of many religions. In my post on that subject I posted pictures of Krishna who in many images is clearly black. Well, it seems that so is Maitreya Buddha:

At least I THINK this statue has a black face:






























And this one has African type hair:





























Here I'm going to link to The Bodhi Tree bookstore in Los Angeles -- well, to be exact on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood -- which hosted lectures called the Maitreya Project, but here's one picture from there, showing the very kinky hair of the Maitreya Buddha:



And here's the biggest Maitreya statue in the world so far, which seems to have a black hand. This biggest Maitreya is apparently about to be outstripped by a new Maitreya Project in India, with a huge statue that is really a building or a complex of buildings.




But then nonMaitreya Buddha statues also have African traits, the indication of kinky hair for instance although the features may appear Asian:































Maybe so many images is overkill but I want to show that there is a conventional way of depicting Gautama Buddha: eyes may be closed as in meditation, and the hands are held in a few stylized positions. He's wearing a simple draped cloth or robe. He appears to have some version of a topknot, more pronounced in some images than others, and elongated earlobes. And in most of the images he seems to have "kinky" type hair, and in the first image his face appears to have been darkened.

The Maitreya Buddha images are quite distinct from the Gautama images despite the similarities: Where Gautama is usually pictured crosslegged, Maitreya is pictured either sitting with his feet planted on the ground or standing. His eyes are usually open. Where Gautama is pictured dressed in a simple monk's robe, Maitreya is dressed as a prince or king.

After writing the above it was then interesting to run across a diagram of a typical Buddhist image, explaining the various points:
























Explained at the site as follows:

KEY TO ABOVE DIAGRAM:

1. . . . the Bump of Knowledge; the uppermost bump of the head, which symbolizes spiritual wisdom; also said to represent accumulated wisdom.

2. . . . The Nikkei Jewel, which radiates the light of wisdom, is located at the base of the Nikkei. In Buddhist statuary, a small circle is typically carved here, or a circular crystal placed here. . .

3. Rahotsu (Japanese). Hair on head in small spiral curls; supposedly represents the stubble left on Prince Siddhartha's head after he cut off his hair; according to one legend, he pulled his hair together into a top knot and chopped it off; it apparently went into fine curls (spiraling to the right), and never needed cutting again. Statues of the Amida Nyorai are said to contain 656 curls, a specific characteristic of that deity.

4. . . . boss, or all-seeing third eye, in middle of forehead; symbolic third eye (spiritual eye), which appears on all statues of the Buddha (Nyorai). . .

5. Three creases in the neck. Not sure about this symbolism. Needs further research.

6. Robe stitched together from rags, in manner prescribed for early monks.

7. Mudra. There are five basic hand positions, each corresponding to five defining episodes in the life of the Historical Buddha (see Mudra page for details).

8. Mandorla. Stylized representation of the magnificent light radiating from the Buddha. The word for halo in Japanese is Kohai -- not sure if this is the light of wisdom or of compassion or of something else.

9. Leg Positioning. Here we see the cross-legged meditation pose called the Lotus Position, one of three basic poses. . . .

Siddhartha, the original Buddha, was supposed to be Indian but Indians don't have kinky hair, nor do Asians, which makes this convention of Buddha depictions particularly intriguing in the light of what Alexander Hislop wrote.

On a side note, I found this interesting painting of Krishna as a baby being carried in a basket by his father Vasudeva. The father isn't black but Krishna is:



Both Krishna and Buddha are often portrayed with a multi-headed cobra over them, at least in older images:



Who is Maitreya? Well, he's a Buddhist concept, a being waiting in the wings to appear as the next Buddha, and in that respect he has something in common with the Imam Mahdi of Islam, who is their great savior they also are expecting to appear soon. The Theosophists and others at the top of New Age occultism have also been heralding the appearance of a great one, Benjamin Creme's version going by the name of Maitreya without the specifically Buddhist characteristics. The Theosophic/New Age version is often called The Christ.

Nobody has ever said he will be a black man, and even though I keep finding these characteristics in the heathen gods that Alexander Hislop traces back to Nimrod as the first deified man, I don't know what it all means.

There is still the connection with the Roman Church of course, that odd image of the Moor's head or Ethiopian's head on Benedict XVI's coat of arms. If you track Krishna through Google Image you'll find mother-and-child images similar to those we are familiar with from the Catholics.

I do think that Christians are to recognize the Antichrist when he comes, so that we should have some idea of the world context in which he is to appear, and we should take all serious possibilities seriously, but beyond that, Jesus Christ is Lord and our eyes should be on Him no matter what.

Muslim kids celebrate THE KENYAN MUSLIM Obama's destruction of America

Muslim kids chant on You Tube video about how the Kenyan Muslim Obama is going to undermine The Great Satan from within.

I'm going to put this version of the link here too because the other one keeps disappearing for some reason:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08iomNFrzU4

Hymn to Obama our own Fuhrer

Seems people are seeing the Hitler resemblance in Obama. I put these links at my post ...Enigma ...Liar below, but I think they should have their own post. The first one is the voice of a child singing about how Obama is going to make everybody happy superimposed on footage of Hitler Youth, and it keeps getting pulled off You Tube, and apparently reinstated. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't.

Maybe you'll catch it: Obama the Fuhrer

That video only shows that some people recognize the Nazi spirit in the worshipful attitude to Obama, but the Nazi spirit is obvious enough in the original of the girl singing that song, and that one is still up at You Tube, a full-blown hymn to Obama exploiting children for political purposes just as Hitler did, and really, it's way scarier than the Nazi Youth video, just because it's Ours and it's Here and it's Now.

America the Good

Pastor John Piper has written a couple of reminders that Christians are not of this world:

One is from a few years ago:
Taking the Swagger out of Christian Cultural Influence.

While conceding the truth of what he says, I want to add that Piper is perhaps a bit hard on us Christian lovers of America. He's right of course that there should be no swagger or triumphalism or crankiness or self-righteousness in any of our doings. The world is fallen and we are to be conforming ourselves to another model. But surely overall we admire America for the right reasons.

We often do feel that America belongs to us, and ultimately we have to let go of that. We can quote the Christian underpinnings of our institutions, the Christian sentiments of our founders and leaders down the years, Christian practices of our government, besides the predominantly Christian identity of American citizens until recently at least. Even if the founders and many leaders were not Christian per se, the culture of America, the laws of America, were founded on culture developed over centuries of Christian influence in Europe and then brought to fine expression in the American concept. We were raised to be patriotic citizens most of us and the anti-patriotism of the Marxist Leftists who started attacking the country in earnest in the 60s is like a blow to ourselves.

Yes, of course Piper is right that ultimately it is not about left versus right; the right has no better claim to righteousness than the left, because we're all sinners. But I think it needs to be recognized that the fact that we're all sinners is exactly what the American concept was brilliantly designed to manage to the best possible outcome. In a fallen world the American concept is the best possible form of government, allowing the most freedom to its citizens while at the same time establishing the strongest protections against the corruption of that freedom and the tyranny of fallen rulers.

It wasn't perfect though (of course). It required a vigilance and a citizenry educated in the true purposes of its Constitution beyond the capacity of a nation of sinners, and was in the end vulnerable to determined forces of evil. Although of course Piper is right that neither Left and Right has a special claim to righteousness, it really does have to be acknowledged that it has been the Left's concerted attacks on the foundations of America over the last few decades that have been bringing the nation down. The Left is aggressive in their repudiation of everything God requires of us. Ultimately the Constitution itself has been made to serve purposes the opposite to its original conception. The Left has redefined its concept of freedom to be a freedom for sin and even for crime, calling evil good and good evil. Calling abortion a "right," calling the publication of pornography a "right," flirting with calling capital punishment for crime an evil, redefining marriage against God's own definition of the making of one flesh out of male and female, treating marriage as not a God-defined institution but a matter of human contracts that are easily broken, calling God's Word and God's Law "hate speech" -- These are all projects of the Left since it went Marxist in the 60s, some not yet completely installed in the legal machinery but getting there. These are not the projects of the Right, even if some on the Right have capitulated to them.

But as things are progressing perhaps it's getting clearer that it's only because most Christians have gathered on the Right that it maintains any semblance of righteousness over the Left. In the end of course there will be no political party at all where Christians can find a home. Then we will surely know that our citizenship is not of this world at all and will be weaned from our emotional attachment to America.

We should always have held that attachment lightly as Christians of course, but I felt that a good word does have to be put in for this nation as a great blessing from God and as a great protector of His mercies toward the fallen human race.

I also want to put in a word here about the conspiracy thinking that seems to find no good whatever in this nation, finds it established on the Masonic satanic mysteries rather than the true God, for instance, finds all its leaders to be corrupted by evil designs and hidden evil motives, and so on. These conspiracy thinkers are lacking in judgment of what this nation has actually accomplished in this world in the way of freedom for the worship of the true God and the fulfillment of His purposes throughout the world as a result. We should be thanking God for this nation despite its flaws, because overall it has been a great blessing, to its citizens and to the world. This isn't to say that there aren't evil forces hovering in the background, and even now coming into their day, but the cynical sardonic tone of denunciation of America that is found in those discussions is undeserved, and it unfortunately sounds more like the false Marxist slams of America as "imperialist" and so on that rang throughout the sixties -- anything to call good evil. The Marxist goal was to bring down America because they recognized it as good, as a promoter of human worth, even as the instrument of the true God, and they could not bear that. They wanted the One World Order that will be America's downfall. Well, they're going to get it. Soon I'm afraid. Meanwhile, the conspiracy people need to recognize that in a world of good AND evil very little is completely one or the other and they are giving a false judgment of America.

Meanwhile, yes, Christians should hold all our loves in this world lightly, even the best loves, the most righteous loves, because our citizenship and our greater love is in heaven, but let's not call bad what has been in fact a great good, while remembering that no good in this world is going to last, but the Kingdom of God is forever.

Another from Piper:
Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting.

I think I can say I did that. I voted what I thought was the best vote under the circumstances, even considering that as a Christian I'd rather not have had to vote for McCain whose record isn't quite what it should be, and I did it without a lot of stake in the outcome. I really think Obama is going to win. I had to vote against him no matter what. Whatever the outcome my citizenship is in heaven and I want to vote as salt to an increasingly rotting world.

I agree with Piper overall so I believe we must ask the Lord to wean us off our attachment to America, which is part of the world we are to be in but not of. And I can add now because it has become reality for me recently, that we may be more easily aided in this effort by an appreciation of how far down the road to ruin the nation has gone in a short time, with its anti-God laws and now God's judgment in the economic collapse among other disasters of recent years.

The more I see the degeneration of the nation and the world the more I long for the Kingdom of God, the more fervently I pray His Kingdom come, His will be done. Maranatha, Lord Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Point of No Return for America?

Friend sent me Mark Steyn's latest this morning, Point of No Return, and who can disagree, if Obama gets the Presidency it will certainly be that point of no return, from which America will no doubt not ever recover. If McCain gets in we'll still get there but more slowly. Thanks to the fantastic emptyheaded idealism of the Left and its arrogant aggressive hatred of the Right, we're inexorably headed for the One World Order and the dissolution of the wonderful experiment in freedom that was America.

Some quotes from Steyn:

McCain vs Obama is not the choice many of us would have liked in an ideal world. But then it’s not an “ideal world”, and the belief that it can be made so is one of the things that separates those who think Obama will “heal the planet” and those of us who support McCain faute de mieux.* I agree with Thomas Sowell that an Obama-Pelosi supermajority will mark what he calls “a point of no return”. It would not be, as some naysayers scoff, “Jimmy Carter’s second term”, but something far more transformative. The new president would front the fourth great wave of liberal annexation — the first being FDR’s New Deal, the second LBJ’s Great Society, and the third the incremental but remorseless cultural advance when Reagan conservatives began winning victories at the ballot box and liberals turned their attention to the other levers of the society, from grade school up. The terrorist educator William Ayers, Obama’s patron in Chicago, is an exemplar of the last model: forty years ago, he was in favor of blowing up public buildings; then he figured out it was easier to get inside and undermine them from within.

It's been working.

“People of the world,” declared Senator Obama sonorously at his self-worship service in Germany, “look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”

No, sorry. History proved no such thing. In the Cold War, the world did not stand as one. One half of Europe was a prison, and in the other half far too many people — the Barack Obamas of the day — were happy to go along with that division in perpetuity.

And the wall came down not because “the world stood as one” but because a few courageous people stood against the conventional wisdom of the day. Had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan been like Helmut Schmidt and Francois Mitterand and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter, the Soviet empire (notwithstanding its own incompetence) would have survived and the wall would still be standing.

Senator Obama’s feeble passivity will get you a big round of applause precisely because it’s the easy option: Do nothing but hold hands and sing the easy listening anthems of one-worldism, and the planet will heal.

Obama has been running for savior of the world from the beginning. I think that's apparent now. He now regularly talks about changing not only America but the world. But he also says it's WE who are going to change the world. WE must all work together, WE must be united. "United in what?" you might ask. Well, in his fuzzyheaded agenda for changing the world for starters, at least in holding hands and singing those anthems, and then in whatever causes he gets around to defining eventually. We know it starts with redistributing the wealth.

I don't know about you but that gives me the impression of an army of true believers all in lockstep with the Fuhrer who is calling the moves. The Fuhrer at first will talk in soothing lulling tones with a look of sweet serenity permanently stamped on his face and the worshipers will hold hands and sway to his tune.

Any dissident, anyone who resists being "united" is going to become the enemy of the state (and the enemy of the world-state as well).

To govern is to choose. And sometimes the choices are tough ones. When has Barack Obama chosen to take a stand? When he got along to get along with the Chicago machine? When he sat for 20 years in the pews listening to an ugly neo-segregationist, race-baiting, grievance-monger? When he voted to deny the surviving “fetuses” of botched abortions medical treatment? When in his short time in national politics he racked up the most liberal – ie, the most doctrinaire, the most orthodox, the most reflex — voting record in the Senate? Or when, on those many occasions the questions got complex and required a choice, he dodged it and voted merely “present”?

... Peggy Noonan thinks a President Obama will be like the dog who chases the car and finally catches it: Now what? I think Obama will be content to be King Barack the Benign, Spreader of Wealth and Healer of Planets. His rise is, in many ways, testament to the persistence of the monarchical urge even in a two-century old republic. So the “Now what?” questions will be answered by others, beginning with the liberal supermajority in Congress. And as he has done all his life he will take the path of least resistance. An Obama Administration will pitch America toward EU domestic policy and UN foreign policy. Thomas Sowell is right: It would be a “point of no return”, the most explicit repudiation of the animating principles of America. For a vigilant republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens, it would be a Declaration of Dependence.

If a majority of Americans want that, we holdouts must respect their choice.

I think we can be sure that we holdouts will respect their choice, because most conservatives believe in the fundamental principles of America which have always allowed us to give way peaceably to opposing viewpoints and opposing administrations, but if instead McCain and Palin win, their opponents are not likely to respect the voice of the other half of America as they have not done so for quite a long time already, and the aggression is going to get louder and perhaps physical.

I have my reservations about the idea that Obama would be content to be a benign monarch for his appointed term, though. I think all that taking of the easy path is a symptom of his refusal to declare himself on specifics, including his own history. It's possibly even a strategy, designed to leave him free to define himself and his administration when he has the power to back it up. I think when the time comes the empty suit will be channeling some pretty potent versions of the One-World "We Are the Children" type sweettalk, backed up by reprisals against those who will not go along with it.

Which of course means us Christians, and I hope there will be many others who will yet wake up and join us. The cost will be great but nothing compared to the reward.

============
* Faute de mieux means "For lack of something better."

Obama the Enigma, Obama the Liar

I'm just going to post some bare links here for now, because they are good references I'd like to see people read, and I don't have time to quote from them or make comments on them until later.

What Obama gets away with is staggering.

An attempt to piece together facts about Obama that he himself is not forthcoming about: Obama Timeline.

An Enigma Named Barack by Blogger L.A. Sunset

Dear Mr. Obama by Blogger Z, showing the Alinsky guidelines for winning elections and destroying the opposition among other things.

A Letter to Obama detailing his lies.

Later: Had planned to expand this but I'm not going to get to it. The links speak for themselves.

Later yet: There are some videos at You Tube about Obama the Fuhrer, complete with Obama (Nazi) Youth, worth taking a look at. Here's one

And still later: That video with the pictures of Hitler Youth keeps being pulled and then reinstated. The original of the music is here, and really, it's way scarier.

====================
Nov. 6: Here's an article psychoanalyzing President-elect Obama. I don't think we really need the official diagnostic category, the description speaks for itself.