Saturday, August 12, 2023
Does the Bible Prohibit Profanity?
Does the Bible Prohibit Profanity?: Christians must purify their minds because God's Word forbids profanity. Profanity is sinful, but distorting the Bible to justify fleshly behavior is not.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Does the Bible Really Speak to the Gay Agenda?
Advising someone not to be fooled precludes the idea that they are not already complete fools to start with. The Bible says “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” (Psalm 14: 1) To those who believe there is no God; there is no advice, especially from the Bible, that would work anyway.
The exordium used here is not mean spirited but is used because today it is those who allegedly believe in God who are arguing for gays and it is the gays themselves who are struggling to find reconciliation between their practices and the Bible. Is there any reconciliation; let’s see.
Not all, but certainly many Catholics have been chomping at the bit for years to allow the gays into their number but until the present have been hindered by the Pope. That can all change in an instant depending on the longevity of the present Pontiff and just who might succeed him. In other mainline denominations such as Lutheran, Methodist, some Baptists and of late Presbyterians the green light has been given for ordination of gays and other prohibitions have been lifted.
In May of 2011 the Presbyterian Church (USA) ended a 33 year debate about ordaining homosexuals. The 205 to 56 vote tally that ended the debate in favor of the gays was followed by statements such as those of Rev Gradye Parsons saying “I hope that going forward we can stay together and be faithful witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ” Parsons also said he thought the new vote for gays came because of the new acceptance of homosexuality in the larger culture and a general weariness with the whole debate felt by leaders and membership of the church according to Laurie Goodstein, The New York Times May 10, 2011.
Both of the statements made by the Presbyterians leave a sad feeling in the hearts and minds of those who are struggling to carry out the teachings and admonitions of the Bible. It is their Bibles that contradict the hopes set forth by the leaders of the church. The faithful witness to the gospel is all but lost and the fact that the church bent, bowed and blew away under the pressure of the world at large says that we are not dealing with what the Bible refers to as discipleship but only what society calls good church membership.
At the risk of repeating the old saying far too much it is here we would say that it is possible to be an excellent church member and a completely lousy disciple. In fact in true biblical theology the world’s moral views and the church that is guided by scripture are always mutually exclusive.
Americans generally know little about the laws and customs of other nations around the globe. As a result our own culture, trends and social movements are the filter by which we view the rest of the world. This tunnel vision can be costly and does lead to a general weariness when we are bombarded by social movements pressing in on the modern culture and trying to radically change it. Just going along with the crowd is much easier and ends the conflict. Gay activists and community organizers are fully aware of this and play it to their own advantage. They would have us to view our nation through pink colored glasses.
For the biblically grounded there is little doubt that they cannot give in. They are guided by many things the least of which is this passage. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.” (Ex 23: 2)
For the rest it is the general aloofness about the spread and acceptance of the gay agenda in which they are guided or more succinctly, misguided. Few people are aware that over 70 countries still hold the practice of homosexuality as illegal, immoral and unacceptable. Slightly over half of these countries are Muslim. In Uganda the vote was narrowly defeated that would have made the practice of homosexuality an offense punishable by death.
The general disdain of the gay life in Muslim countries may account for the lack of gay activists in those nations but it also speaks volumes about the lack of gay support for Muslim endeavors in this country. You have never seen a placard carrying group of gays interfering with a Muslim gathering or protest; now you know why.
Gay activist seem to be wearing out the general public as in Virginia where same sex marriages were recently brought in by a narrow margin but nevertheless people in the Old Dominion amended their state constitution to OK same sex marriages. In California the gays were not satisfied to allow the vote of the general population to stand, but dragged the matter to the federal courts for a look see. Does all of this social wrangling indicate that we are approaching new heights of social advancement and freedom or is it the indicator that we are sinking to new depths of reprobation?
If we use the Bible alone to answer the question it will show that the rise in gay activism is not only a new low for the nation but it is part and parcel to last day’s prophecy. It is only a small part of a pervasive deepening of immorality that the Bible says must precede the rise of the antichrist and the final judgments of God against a rebellious and totally reprobate generation.
Could we have misunderstood, mistranslated or misapplied the biblical message about homosexuality? The recurrence of scriptures that speak to the subject of homosexuality makes that completely impossible. The preponderance of scripture on the subject is assurance that God meant business, he was not laying out a list of suggestions or conveying his mood or the way it should be in the ancient world versus the present enlightened age.
Using the preponderance of passages to verify a matter in the Bible is standard practice. As an example the evolutionist may think the believer is depending on the Genesis account of the creation to bolster the belief that God created everything in the universe. But the claim to creation is made almost 75 times throughout the Bible and most of those times it is God himself speaking. If it were not enough that he says it how about considering the number of times he has repeated it?
There are 18 passages that deal with the matter of homosexuality either directly or indirectly. Seven of the eighteen condemn the practice in no uncertain terms. The only way to skirt around those passages is to say God never spoke them, or that he has changed his mind. Nothing speaks to that crazy notion better than the Message Bible which says “Israel's God-of-Glory doesn't deceive and he doesn't dither. He says what he means and means what he says” (1Samuel 15: 29b)
Just what hasn’t God changed his mind about? Here is the list of the seven passages or verses that indicate God’s position on homosexuality. In a nation where we cannot attack another’s conscience with our religious beliefs it should be noted that the church of true believers who stand on the Bible must not be swayed or forced to change to meet the morality of the secular world. Here is what we believe, take it or leave it.
· Destruction and judgment of entire cities, regions or nations that practice homosexuality. (Genesis 19: 1f)
· Described as an abomination, (sin that leaves God disgusted) and strictly forbidden. (Leviticus 18: 22)
· Severe penalties added to the practice of homosexuality. (Leviticus 20: 13)
· Those who profess that it’s perfectly normal have become fools and are charged with lying and leading themselves and others to a state of reprobation. (Romans 1: 22-32)
· Kept out of future entrance into the Kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6: 9)
· Defilement and misuse of the laws of God. (1 Timothy 1: 9, 10)
· Undignified perversion that leads to eternal fire. (Jude 1: 7)
There is an ample supply of heated rhetoric, anger and abusive language leveled at anyone who takes a stand against the pervasive acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle but the screaming voices of the condemned on the judgment day, wailing at believers for not warning them, would be a lot more difficult to endure.
I cannot speak for every preacher, prophet or messenger but for myself I know I don’t want another’s blood on my hands just because I thought the social climate suddenly became more important than the revealed word of the living God. Perhaps it is the charge given to the prophet Ezekiel that says it the best.
“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.” (Ezekiel 2: 13)
http://www.americanprophet.org/ has since 2005 featured the articles of columnist Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight. Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.
The exordium used here is not mean spirited but is used because today it is those who allegedly believe in God who are arguing for gays and it is the gays themselves who are struggling to find reconciliation between their practices and the Bible. Is there any reconciliation; let’s see.
Not all, but certainly many Catholics have been chomping at the bit for years to allow the gays into their number but until the present have been hindered by the Pope. That can all change in an instant depending on the longevity of the present Pontiff and just who might succeed him. In other mainline denominations such as Lutheran, Methodist, some Baptists and of late Presbyterians the green light has been given for ordination of gays and other prohibitions have been lifted.
In May of 2011 the Presbyterian Church (USA) ended a 33 year debate about ordaining homosexuals. The 205 to 56 vote tally that ended the debate in favor of the gays was followed by statements such as those of Rev Gradye Parsons saying “I hope that going forward we can stay together and be faithful witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ” Parsons also said he thought the new vote for gays came because of the new acceptance of homosexuality in the larger culture and a general weariness with the whole debate felt by leaders and membership of the church according to Laurie Goodstein, The New York Times May 10, 2011.
Both of the statements made by the Presbyterians leave a sad feeling in the hearts and minds of those who are struggling to carry out the teachings and admonitions of the Bible. It is their Bibles that contradict the hopes set forth by the leaders of the church. The faithful witness to the gospel is all but lost and the fact that the church bent, bowed and blew away under the pressure of the world at large says that we are not dealing with what the Bible refers to as discipleship but only what society calls good church membership.
At the risk of repeating the old saying far too much it is here we would say that it is possible to be an excellent church member and a completely lousy disciple. In fact in true biblical theology the world’s moral views and the church that is guided by scripture are always mutually exclusive.
Americans generally know little about the laws and customs of other nations around the globe. As a result our own culture, trends and social movements are the filter by which we view the rest of the world. This tunnel vision can be costly and does lead to a general weariness when we are bombarded by social movements pressing in on the modern culture and trying to radically change it. Just going along with the crowd is much easier and ends the conflict. Gay activists and community organizers are fully aware of this and play it to their own advantage. They would have us to view our nation through pink colored glasses.
For the biblically grounded there is little doubt that they cannot give in. They are guided by many things the least of which is this passage. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.” (Ex 23: 2)
For the rest it is the general aloofness about the spread and acceptance of the gay agenda in which they are guided or more succinctly, misguided. Few people are aware that over 70 countries still hold the practice of homosexuality as illegal, immoral and unacceptable. Slightly over half of these countries are Muslim. In Uganda the vote was narrowly defeated that would have made the practice of homosexuality an offense punishable by death.
The general disdain of the gay life in Muslim countries may account for the lack of gay activists in those nations but it also speaks volumes about the lack of gay support for Muslim endeavors in this country. You have never seen a placard carrying group of gays interfering with a Muslim gathering or protest; now you know why.
Gay activist seem to be wearing out the general public as in Virginia where same sex marriages were recently brought in by a narrow margin but nevertheless people in the Old Dominion amended their state constitution to OK same sex marriages. In California the gays were not satisfied to allow the vote of the general population to stand, but dragged the matter to the federal courts for a look see. Does all of this social wrangling indicate that we are approaching new heights of social advancement and freedom or is it the indicator that we are sinking to new depths of reprobation?
If we use the Bible alone to answer the question it will show that the rise in gay activism is not only a new low for the nation but it is part and parcel to last day’s prophecy. It is only a small part of a pervasive deepening of immorality that the Bible says must precede the rise of the antichrist and the final judgments of God against a rebellious and totally reprobate generation.
Could we have misunderstood, mistranslated or misapplied the biblical message about homosexuality? The recurrence of scriptures that speak to the subject of homosexuality makes that completely impossible. The preponderance of scripture on the subject is assurance that God meant business, he was not laying out a list of suggestions or conveying his mood or the way it should be in the ancient world versus the present enlightened age.
Using the preponderance of passages to verify a matter in the Bible is standard practice. As an example the evolutionist may think the believer is depending on the Genesis account of the creation to bolster the belief that God created everything in the universe. But the claim to creation is made almost 75 times throughout the Bible and most of those times it is God himself speaking. If it were not enough that he says it how about considering the number of times he has repeated it?
There are 18 passages that deal with the matter of homosexuality either directly or indirectly. Seven of the eighteen condemn the practice in no uncertain terms. The only way to skirt around those passages is to say God never spoke them, or that he has changed his mind. Nothing speaks to that crazy notion better than the Message Bible which says “Israel's God-of-Glory doesn't deceive and he doesn't dither. He says what he means and means what he says” (1Samuel 15: 29b)
Just what hasn’t God changed his mind about? Here is the list of the seven passages or verses that indicate God’s position on homosexuality. In a nation where we cannot attack another’s conscience with our religious beliefs it should be noted that the church of true believers who stand on the Bible must not be swayed or forced to change to meet the morality of the secular world. Here is what we believe, take it or leave it.
· Destruction and judgment of entire cities, regions or nations that practice homosexuality. (Genesis 19: 1f)
· Described as an abomination, (sin that leaves God disgusted) and strictly forbidden. (Leviticus 18: 22)
· Severe penalties added to the practice of homosexuality. (Leviticus 20: 13)
· Those who profess that it’s perfectly normal have become fools and are charged with lying and leading themselves and others to a state of reprobation. (Romans 1: 22-32)
· Kept out of future entrance into the Kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6: 9)
· Defilement and misuse of the laws of God. (1 Timothy 1: 9, 10)
· Undignified perversion that leads to eternal fire. (Jude 1: 7)
There is an ample supply of heated rhetoric, anger and abusive language leveled at anyone who takes a stand against the pervasive acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle but the screaming voices of the condemned on the judgment day, wailing at believers for not warning them, would be a lot more difficult to endure.
I cannot speak for every preacher, prophet or messenger but for myself I know I don’t want another’s blood on my hands just because I thought the social climate suddenly became more important than the revealed word of the living God. Perhaps it is the charge given to the prophet Ezekiel that says it the best.
“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.” (Ezekiel 2: 13)
http://www.americanprophet.org/ has since 2005 featured the articles of columnist Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight. Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
America and the Doctrine of the Last Chance
The History Channel cooks up a nice pot of Nostradamus and eschatological soup with their multi episodic “The Nostradamus Effect.” As usual their best is salted with doubt, dissing and secularist expertise that would be better used in a college course entitled “Unbelief 101.”
When the best minds have done their worst at sliming the “rapture” (The instant removal of believers at the approach of the antichrist.) you get the feeling that the world went to get a palm reading from the local butcher. After slicing away at unwanted life lines and other superfluous indicators and lobbing off a few bothersome fingers that kept getting in the way, the seekers of the TV prognosticators are left to go out somewhere and bleed to death.
At the end of each episode the idea that any natural man would see the “rapture” teachings as doubtful, dubious and dumb can go either way. Is it the belief in the very clear biblical doctrine of the rapture or the History Channel production that is doubtful, dubious and dumb? The same bible that says the rapture is a forgone seems to answer the question with no doubt whatsoever. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1Cor 2:14)
TVs critique of scriptural prophecies should always be tempered by first recalling the prophetic utterances of a former chairman of the FCC, Mr. Newton Minow, who in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961 said, “TV is a vast wasteland.”
Should Minow be heralded as the media’s Isaiah or television’s prophet Jeremiah? Mr. Minow was nearly burned at the stake for his assertions, who would guess that only 49 years later that millions of Americans would rather burn their TVs at the stake.
In reruns of a ten year old episode of South Park, the character known as Cartman (a child) becomes the poster child of NAMBLA, (North American Man Boy Love Association.) When Cartman announces that he wants to join NAMBLA the groups leader replies with “thank you Jesus,” proving that TV has long ago traversed across the fine line between snickers and blasphemy. What can we expect in TVs colorful future? Perhaps we should kick up TV ratings to warn when barf bags should be kept handy. Is pedophilia something to laugh about?
In fact what America is laughing about is no laughing matter. All the latest polls are unanimous, the top concern Americans are kicking around in their minds is the economy. It is clear that the stock market index is taking precedence over the moral decline index. When will the History Channel tackle that burgeoning trend?
We have a President who promised to give a lot more love to the gays’ even as he advised his NASA chief to smooth things over with the Muslims around the world. If it weren’t for the absurdity of it, that would make for good humor. For most Americans it is just too hard to believe, much less laugh about.
The prevailing attitude seems to be that, it doesn’t much matter what the TV or the President are allowing, espousing or offering as long as the mighty buck keeps coming in, but alas, this President has become the great “buck basher” in spite of glowing but obviously contrived promises to the contrary. Maybe we should overlook his smoking habit and just convince someone to steal his rose colored glasses.
For the first time since the moral decline began, the dollar may be the one thing that is declining faster than morality in America. If we could just get the printers to stay a little ahead of the bookkeepers, we could keep on laughing at all those other things that are no laughing matter. Having the best of irony, sarcasm, wit and satire and, lots of cash too: isn’t that the American dream?
Personally I ascribe to the belief that by telling people of second coming events (return of the Lord Jesus Christ) we are giving them a possible second chance to believe after Christians are raptured (removed) even if they don’t believe it now. It may take more of the events we have described to convince them but when enough of them are fulfilled they may revert to the warnings they were given and respond appropriately. The doctrine of the second chance is not a biblical thing but it is nonetheless a sound concept that could save many in the near future.
Perhaps, at the moment it may be “the doctrine of the last chance” that is what now most pressing in America. If a hard look at our moral decline isn’t made now, along with a rush to put conservatives back into the Senate and the Congress to bring our two party system back into check it may well be our last chance to save our nation from a long hard winter of fiscal, social and moral collapse.
If we take the first step in 2010 it will be easier to take a second in 2012 and remove from office what will certainly go down as the most un-American administration in US history. If partisanship is restored we can then go on to attack the two pronged system of licentiousness that Hollywood and media are working from, namely, sleaze and violence.
We will not ever thank the porn industry or the criminal element for giving us content for TV and the media, except in the case of where it has made a lot of money for a few of us, and that’s what it does. But that is not where mainstream America lives and very few people are thankful for the product of violence and immorality. Whoever coined the phrase, “crime doesn’t pay” must not have owned a television.
Not even the gold which so many are now looking to for future security will suffice. When goods, services, utilities and most everything else dries up, gold is not very useful. A line from an old Christian song entitled “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” says it best, “A piece of bread would buy a bag of gold.”
Think it’s the economy? The prophet Ezekiel told the ancient Israelites who trusted in their riches, idle time and prurient interests not to count on any of those things to continue endlessly when he said, “When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread.” (Eze 5:16) That rejected prophetic warning matured into what is now prophetic fulfillment echoing from the past.
Let’s take this last chance thing seriously in every aspect of our national life, isn’t America worth it?
http://www.americanprophet.org has since 2005 featured the articles of columnist Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.
When the best minds have done their worst at sliming the “rapture” (The instant removal of believers at the approach of the antichrist.) you get the feeling that the world went to get a palm reading from the local butcher. After slicing away at unwanted life lines and other superfluous indicators and lobbing off a few bothersome fingers that kept getting in the way, the seekers of the TV prognosticators are left to go out somewhere and bleed to death.
At the end of each episode the idea that any natural man would see the “rapture” teachings as doubtful, dubious and dumb can go either way. Is it the belief in the very clear biblical doctrine of the rapture or the History Channel production that is doubtful, dubious and dumb? The same bible that says the rapture is a forgone seems to answer the question with no doubt whatsoever. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1Cor 2:14)
TVs critique of scriptural prophecies should always be tempered by first recalling the prophetic utterances of a former chairman of the FCC, Mr. Newton Minow, who in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961 said, “TV is a vast wasteland.”
Should Minow be heralded as the media’s Isaiah or television’s prophet Jeremiah? Mr. Minow was nearly burned at the stake for his assertions, who would guess that only 49 years later that millions of Americans would rather burn their TVs at the stake.
In reruns of a ten year old episode of South Park, the character known as Cartman (a child) becomes the poster child of NAMBLA, (North American Man Boy Love Association.) When Cartman announces that he wants to join NAMBLA the groups leader replies with “thank you Jesus,” proving that TV has long ago traversed across the fine line between snickers and blasphemy. What can we expect in TVs colorful future? Perhaps we should kick up TV ratings to warn when barf bags should be kept handy. Is pedophilia something to laugh about?
In fact what America is laughing about is no laughing matter. All the latest polls are unanimous, the top concern Americans are kicking around in their minds is the economy. It is clear that the stock market index is taking precedence over the moral decline index. When will the History Channel tackle that burgeoning trend?
We have a President who promised to give a lot more love to the gays’ even as he advised his NASA chief to smooth things over with the Muslims around the world. If it weren’t for the absurdity of it, that would make for good humor. For most Americans it is just too hard to believe, much less laugh about.
The prevailing attitude seems to be that, it doesn’t much matter what the TV or the President are allowing, espousing or offering as long as the mighty buck keeps coming in, but alas, this President has become the great “buck basher” in spite of glowing but obviously contrived promises to the contrary. Maybe we should overlook his smoking habit and just convince someone to steal his rose colored glasses.
For the first time since the moral decline began, the dollar may be the one thing that is declining faster than morality in America. If we could just get the printers to stay a little ahead of the bookkeepers, we could keep on laughing at all those other things that are no laughing matter. Having the best of irony, sarcasm, wit and satire and, lots of cash too: isn’t that the American dream?
Personally I ascribe to the belief that by telling people of second coming events (return of the Lord Jesus Christ) we are giving them a possible second chance to believe after Christians are raptured (removed) even if they don’t believe it now. It may take more of the events we have described to convince them but when enough of them are fulfilled they may revert to the warnings they were given and respond appropriately. The doctrine of the second chance is not a biblical thing but it is nonetheless a sound concept that could save many in the near future.
Perhaps, at the moment it may be “the doctrine of the last chance” that is what now most pressing in America. If a hard look at our moral decline isn’t made now, along with a rush to put conservatives back into the Senate and the Congress to bring our two party system back into check it may well be our last chance to save our nation from a long hard winter of fiscal, social and moral collapse.
If we take the first step in 2010 it will be easier to take a second in 2012 and remove from office what will certainly go down as the most un-American administration in US history. If partisanship is restored we can then go on to attack the two pronged system of licentiousness that Hollywood and media are working from, namely, sleaze and violence.
We will not ever thank the porn industry or the criminal element for giving us content for TV and the media, except in the case of where it has made a lot of money for a few of us, and that’s what it does. But that is not where mainstream America lives and very few people are thankful for the product of violence and immorality. Whoever coined the phrase, “crime doesn’t pay” must not have owned a television.
Not even the gold which so many are now looking to for future security will suffice. When goods, services, utilities and most everything else dries up, gold is not very useful. A line from an old Christian song entitled “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” says it best, “A piece of bread would buy a bag of gold.”
Think it’s the economy? The prophet Ezekiel told the ancient Israelites who trusted in their riches, idle time and prurient interests not to count on any of those things to continue endlessly when he said, “When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread.” (Eze 5:16) That rejected prophetic warning matured into what is now prophetic fulfillment echoing from the past.
Let’s take this last chance thing seriously in every aspect of our national life, isn’t America worth it?
http://www.americanprophet.org has since 2005 featured the articles of columnist Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Prophecy 2010 – America Approaches the Fork in the Road
Since my articles entitled Prophecy 2008 and Prophecy 2009 were the most read articles of each respective year I have undertaken this piece with much care and forethought. The prophetic message has changed little in the last two years but the country has changed significantly, unfortunately the changes have not all been good.
What has not changed one whit is the prophetic charge I was given almost forty years past. In no uncertain terms I can say that our economy will plummet because our dollar will begin to fail across the globe. The current flush of spending by the government and the health care proposals now in the Senate are the single greatest threat to economic security the nation has ever had to face. It will not end well. I make no apologies and I seek no one’s support nor do I care what the naysayers have for arguments, this is a foregone. This is revelation not mere prediction.
It is only natural that when hard times are looming that we seek some form of preparation to stave off the worst. Survival garden seeds, investment in gold and arming to the teeth and finding places in remote areas of the country to hide or take a sort of last stand are all being touted as real and reasonable responses to the coming difficulties.
I can safely say that gold will fail you. Gold is as worthless as money when there are no goods to be purchased. Survival gardens are not a bad idea but they are vulnerable to marauding hungry people who have no garden. Hiding in the mountains may seem like its safe but it is still just running away. Arming to the teeth may lead to harming others which is the opposite of the biblical teaching and will not remove anyone’s culpability and they will still have to answer to the law of the land.
We will have to grow up, stand up and put up, as every true American has done before us in tough times. Each person’s solution will be a separate story but hearts and minds will change for the better with or without lots of the creature comforts we have come to take for granted.
What I see beyond the shadow of a doubt is a nation that is coming to a fork in the road of its national life. It is the most serious decision its people will ever have to make in these modern times. It will indeed decide the future of the nation until what we who are versed in eschatology or have a prophetic charge call the last days. By the way the last days are not the end of the world, it culminates in the battle of Armageddon but even that does not end the world. There will be a worldwide power shift after Armageddon but that is a subject for another time.
Changes are happening at breakneck speed today. If there is any doubt witness that in only two months after the final vote on the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish, there is a permanent first President in the EU. Why didn’t you hear of a long and illustrious campaign to elect him? How about a secret ballot that America was too busy to note and has shocked many Europeans as well, not to mention a foreign secretary, Baroness, Lady Ashton, who has not held a political office in her entire life.
In America we have a President and Congress that is spending money faster than we can print it and seems to think if we don’t hurriedly pass a new healthcare bill that costs more than a mountain of gold the nation will fall headlong to its eternal demise. This administration is in a race to make change like it was the holy grail of our future. It may be, but it will hardly be seen as holy if they are successful.
The campaign of Barack Obama touted the slogan “change that we can believe in” but only one year into his administration America is bombarded daily with reports of change that no one can believe for trying. Complaining about political developments is as American as country music but what we are seeing today is more like social shock and awe. We ignore the warnings of statesmen, prophets and the shepherds of what’s left to the true church in the land. We treat the messengers like they are meddling knuckle rapping over enthusiastic school marms trying to keep us from just having a little fun.
We think they are supposed to tell us to cut it out like the over anxious parent of a teen or a professional counselor who is paid to tell us we are taking the wrong path. We have learned to dismiss, deny and tune out the common droll of the voice of reason. The preachers assertion that a nation’s economy, defenses and its domestic tranquility are all hard connected to its morality are as welcome as a wet dog on a clean carpet.
It is easy enough to block our ears but it is almost impossible to block our eyes from seeing what any daily news cycle has to offer. We see a President on his way to Oslo to pick up a Nobel peace prize even though he has brought no peace to any place in the world including his own back yard to which thousands of recent tea partiers can attest.
We see a California Senator Barbara Boxer has found a way to equate abortion with the use of Viagra. We see the appointment of a school safety Czar who backs literature promoting sex acts between preschoolers. We see more filth and debauchery spewing forth from Hollywood and media in general than the rupture of a major waste treatment facility. But who is making the connection between all of this and the warnings now mostly unheeded?
It is our conscious decision to ignore what we see that is bringing us collectively to a fork in the road. The messengers don’t create the fork; it is our own national behavior that creates the divide in the road. We are a nation of people that knows how to plot a course to the moon but can’t see we are about to drive our own little buggy smack into a tree.
Between 2010 and 2012 America will be forced to decide between restoring herself once again to her constitutional roots, conservative politics and her Christian foundations. That’s a lot to hope for without some kind of national upheaval. Perhaps the twisted and frightening direction the present administration has taken the country will be all that it takes to renew the push toward recovery and no more. Time alone holds that answer.
The first fork in the road will appear in the elections of 2010 and if the House and the Senate see a shift to the conservative side then at least balance may be restored for a while. The Dem’s are stepping in line with Obama rather than honestly representing their constituents at the moment and a shift back to conservatism will be a welcomed sign that the people still want representative government and not something slightly short of a dictatorship at worst, or a non-benevolent constitutional monarchy at best.
The great fork in the road naturally extends through to 2012 when America must decide something far bigger than the simple question of who will win an election. In 2012 the nation will decide how it will face the calamities that the entire world is about to encounter. The choices of 2012 will affect every man woman and child because if the nation returns to its foundations or its original course it will have to face the rest of the world almost alone. If America retains its sovereignty it will insure its isolation. This is not a bad thing but it will be extremely costly in many ways.
Only two scenarios are possible. First, if we stay on our present course we will simply fit into the coming world changes without a hitch or a glitch. We will become an arm of the emerging glob of nations now being formed in the EU. This is not religious hokey pokey and even as America debates its own internal problems the largest political, military and economic block of nations in the history of the world is being formed.
The EU has three times our GDP, controls almost fifty percent of the worlds shipping, and has the most stable currency on earth. Now politically joined at the hip with America, these nations have a combination of military clout including nuclear capability that in many areas already exceeds anything America now has but with one huge exception, the EU is located strategically and geographically in the world where huge mobilization efforts are not needed to put force almost anywhere it is needed in short notice.
Under the banner of our shared history, the global warming fiasco, NATO treaties and the elusive but eternal quest for world peace we may just jump onboard and ride this train to Armageddon or we could opt to stand as a sovereign nation as we always have. America’s willingness to fly off with every new kid on the block is evidenced by her penchant for pop culture and idle preoccupation with everything new and change just for the sake of change. We are more like the Apostle James’ “a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” (James 1:6) than a nation haply heading for the brave new world.
The second scenario might play out like the elements of the now fairly well known prophecy of our first President. Said to have occurred during his campaign in Valley Forge, George Washington’s vision of three great portents that will befall America is well known and while its veracity may still be debated the scenario it depicts can, with or without the vision, easily become a fact of history if our present course is not altered.
Washington is said to have seen the times of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and then a time much further into the future when we were invaded by a great pact of Eurasian nations and for a while it looked like America would be overcome. America did prevail and was able to drive back the invaders in Washington’s vision, but at great cost.
Whether Washington’s vision is true or not is hard to say for sure but the result is very likely if we return to our former state instead of careening down this road of socialism, big government and wholesale and unbridled licentiousness. The Biblical record says that the kingdom that forms in the last days in the same geographical location as the old Roman Empire will not tolerate any nation’s dissent from its purpose to provide a central leadership and an economy for the entire globe.
Although most of the world will ignore the prophetic warnings as just the beating of the same old drum the repercussions and the end result will be more like a cannon retort when the world sees it has gone to a place where no recovery is possible. No, all of this does not kick off right at the start of 2010 but more likely it will come into full view at the start of 2012. There will be a time of preparations, posturing, and political shifting. What we decide as a nation will play a major part in the outcome both nationally and globally, but it is a fork in the road unlike any we have ever seen before, or will ever see again.
I could lace these warnings with hundreds of scriptural passages that outline the course of events but even that would not be heeded by some. Suffice it to say that for the moment the power of choice is still in our own hands. May God help us to choose wisely?
Even though one of the darkest prophecies of those days says the church will lean towards apostasy (falling away) it also promises that a contingent of the faithful will continue to present the gospel of salvation mixed with warnings of nearing judgment. The effort to proclaim the message will be met with fierce resistance but even at the point where it is almost completely snuffed out God faithfully sends yet someone else to give the final warnings.
Two special evangelists (Rev 11:1f) who cannot be stopped by any means are engaged for three and one half years to call America and the entire world away from blindly following the newly risen leader of the EU and the world. The two are finally stopped (killed and resurrected before the cameras and seen globally) by the intervention of that leader himself (name yet unknown) but it doesn’t end there.
When every mortal messenger has been silenced God yet provides a witness, his love for all mankind goes on calling to all, so none might be lost. I would to God that I could report that everyone will heed the call but that is not the case. In the absence of any terrestrial witnesses God sends a few celestial voices.
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. (Rev 14: 6-7)
The judgment spoken of here is not the eternal separation of the sheep and the goats but it is the judgment of nations. The power shift will be permanent and Christ will set his feet on the same place they last rested, yet once again.
Don’t worry, we won’t be dodging meteors or trying to stop some guy with 666 tattooed on his scalp in a physical battle in the vestibule of some Catholic church in the Bronx. We won’t be debating how the second coming will take place and you can be sure it is not some all new messiah or one of the choice of religious leaders or founders who did not give his own life for the sheep. (John 10: 1-11)
Here is what we will see, but rest assured, this is the short version. The events of the last days take a full seven years to reach their height but Christ himself repeatedly concurred with all of the ancient prophets and the Apostles that it would end exactly like this, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Mt 24:30)
http://www.americanprophet.org has since 2005 featured the articles of Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.
What has not changed one whit is the prophetic charge I was given almost forty years past. In no uncertain terms I can say that our economy will plummet because our dollar will begin to fail across the globe. The current flush of spending by the government and the health care proposals now in the Senate are the single greatest threat to economic security the nation has ever had to face. It will not end well. I make no apologies and I seek no one’s support nor do I care what the naysayers have for arguments, this is a foregone. This is revelation not mere prediction.
It is only natural that when hard times are looming that we seek some form of preparation to stave off the worst. Survival garden seeds, investment in gold and arming to the teeth and finding places in remote areas of the country to hide or take a sort of last stand are all being touted as real and reasonable responses to the coming difficulties.
I can safely say that gold will fail you. Gold is as worthless as money when there are no goods to be purchased. Survival gardens are not a bad idea but they are vulnerable to marauding hungry people who have no garden. Hiding in the mountains may seem like its safe but it is still just running away. Arming to the teeth may lead to harming others which is the opposite of the biblical teaching and will not remove anyone’s culpability and they will still have to answer to the law of the land.
We will have to grow up, stand up and put up, as every true American has done before us in tough times. Each person’s solution will be a separate story but hearts and minds will change for the better with or without lots of the creature comforts we have come to take for granted.
What I see beyond the shadow of a doubt is a nation that is coming to a fork in the road of its national life. It is the most serious decision its people will ever have to make in these modern times. It will indeed decide the future of the nation until what we who are versed in eschatology or have a prophetic charge call the last days. By the way the last days are not the end of the world, it culminates in the battle of Armageddon but even that does not end the world. There will be a worldwide power shift after Armageddon but that is a subject for another time.
Changes are happening at breakneck speed today. If there is any doubt witness that in only two months after the final vote on the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish, there is a permanent first President in the EU. Why didn’t you hear of a long and illustrious campaign to elect him? How about a secret ballot that America was too busy to note and has shocked many Europeans as well, not to mention a foreign secretary, Baroness, Lady Ashton, who has not held a political office in her entire life.
In America we have a President and Congress that is spending money faster than we can print it and seems to think if we don’t hurriedly pass a new healthcare bill that costs more than a mountain of gold the nation will fall headlong to its eternal demise. This administration is in a race to make change like it was the holy grail of our future. It may be, but it will hardly be seen as holy if they are successful.
The campaign of Barack Obama touted the slogan “change that we can believe in” but only one year into his administration America is bombarded daily with reports of change that no one can believe for trying. Complaining about political developments is as American as country music but what we are seeing today is more like social shock and awe. We ignore the warnings of statesmen, prophets and the shepherds of what’s left to the true church in the land. We treat the messengers like they are meddling knuckle rapping over enthusiastic school marms trying to keep us from just having a little fun.
We think they are supposed to tell us to cut it out like the over anxious parent of a teen or a professional counselor who is paid to tell us we are taking the wrong path. We have learned to dismiss, deny and tune out the common droll of the voice of reason. The preachers assertion that a nation’s economy, defenses and its domestic tranquility are all hard connected to its morality are as welcome as a wet dog on a clean carpet.
It is easy enough to block our ears but it is almost impossible to block our eyes from seeing what any daily news cycle has to offer. We see a President on his way to Oslo to pick up a Nobel peace prize even though he has brought no peace to any place in the world including his own back yard to which thousands of recent tea partiers can attest.
We see a California Senator Barbara Boxer has found a way to equate abortion with the use of Viagra. We see the appointment of a school safety Czar who backs literature promoting sex acts between preschoolers. We see more filth and debauchery spewing forth from Hollywood and media in general than the rupture of a major waste treatment facility. But who is making the connection between all of this and the warnings now mostly unheeded?
It is our conscious decision to ignore what we see that is bringing us collectively to a fork in the road. The messengers don’t create the fork; it is our own national behavior that creates the divide in the road. We are a nation of people that knows how to plot a course to the moon but can’t see we are about to drive our own little buggy smack into a tree.
Between 2010 and 2012 America will be forced to decide between restoring herself once again to her constitutional roots, conservative politics and her Christian foundations. That’s a lot to hope for without some kind of national upheaval. Perhaps the twisted and frightening direction the present administration has taken the country will be all that it takes to renew the push toward recovery and no more. Time alone holds that answer.
The first fork in the road will appear in the elections of 2010 and if the House and the Senate see a shift to the conservative side then at least balance may be restored for a while. The Dem’s are stepping in line with Obama rather than honestly representing their constituents at the moment and a shift back to conservatism will be a welcomed sign that the people still want representative government and not something slightly short of a dictatorship at worst, or a non-benevolent constitutional monarchy at best.
The great fork in the road naturally extends through to 2012 when America must decide something far bigger than the simple question of who will win an election. In 2012 the nation will decide how it will face the calamities that the entire world is about to encounter. The choices of 2012 will affect every man woman and child because if the nation returns to its foundations or its original course it will have to face the rest of the world almost alone. If America retains its sovereignty it will insure its isolation. This is not a bad thing but it will be extremely costly in many ways.
Only two scenarios are possible. First, if we stay on our present course we will simply fit into the coming world changes without a hitch or a glitch. We will become an arm of the emerging glob of nations now being formed in the EU. This is not religious hokey pokey and even as America debates its own internal problems the largest political, military and economic block of nations in the history of the world is being formed.
The EU has three times our GDP, controls almost fifty percent of the worlds shipping, and has the most stable currency on earth. Now politically joined at the hip with America, these nations have a combination of military clout including nuclear capability that in many areas already exceeds anything America now has but with one huge exception, the EU is located strategically and geographically in the world where huge mobilization efforts are not needed to put force almost anywhere it is needed in short notice.
Under the banner of our shared history, the global warming fiasco, NATO treaties and the elusive but eternal quest for world peace we may just jump onboard and ride this train to Armageddon or we could opt to stand as a sovereign nation as we always have. America’s willingness to fly off with every new kid on the block is evidenced by her penchant for pop culture and idle preoccupation with everything new and change just for the sake of change. We are more like the Apostle James’ “a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” (James 1:6) than a nation haply heading for the brave new world.
The second scenario might play out like the elements of the now fairly well known prophecy of our first President. Said to have occurred during his campaign in Valley Forge, George Washington’s vision of three great portents that will befall America is well known and while its veracity may still be debated the scenario it depicts can, with or without the vision, easily become a fact of history if our present course is not altered.
Washington is said to have seen the times of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and then a time much further into the future when we were invaded by a great pact of Eurasian nations and for a while it looked like America would be overcome. America did prevail and was able to drive back the invaders in Washington’s vision, but at great cost.
Whether Washington’s vision is true or not is hard to say for sure but the result is very likely if we return to our former state instead of careening down this road of socialism, big government and wholesale and unbridled licentiousness. The Biblical record says that the kingdom that forms in the last days in the same geographical location as the old Roman Empire will not tolerate any nation’s dissent from its purpose to provide a central leadership and an economy for the entire globe.
Although most of the world will ignore the prophetic warnings as just the beating of the same old drum the repercussions and the end result will be more like a cannon retort when the world sees it has gone to a place where no recovery is possible. No, all of this does not kick off right at the start of 2010 but more likely it will come into full view at the start of 2012. There will be a time of preparations, posturing, and political shifting. What we decide as a nation will play a major part in the outcome both nationally and globally, but it is a fork in the road unlike any we have ever seen before, or will ever see again.
I could lace these warnings with hundreds of scriptural passages that outline the course of events but even that would not be heeded by some. Suffice it to say that for the moment the power of choice is still in our own hands. May God help us to choose wisely?
Even though one of the darkest prophecies of those days says the church will lean towards apostasy (falling away) it also promises that a contingent of the faithful will continue to present the gospel of salvation mixed with warnings of nearing judgment. The effort to proclaim the message will be met with fierce resistance but even at the point where it is almost completely snuffed out God faithfully sends yet someone else to give the final warnings.
Two special evangelists (Rev 11:1f) who cannot be stopped by any means are engaged for three and one half years to call America and the entire world away from blindly following the newly risen leader of the EU and the world. The two are finally stopped (killed and resurrected before the cameras and seen globally) by the intervention of that leader himself (name yet unknown) but it doesn’t end there.
When every mortal messenger has been silenced God yet provides a witness, his love for all mankind goes on calling to all, so none might be lost. I would to God that I could report that everyone will heed the call but that is not the case. In the absence of any terrestrial witnesses God sends a few celestial voices.
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. (Rev 14: 6-7)
The judgment spoken of here is not the eternal separation of the sheep and the goats but it is the judgment of nations. The power shift will be permanent and Christ will set his feet on the same place they last rested, yet once again.
Don’t worry, we won’t be dodging meteors or trying to stop some guy with 666 tattooed on his scalp in a physical battle in the vestibule of some Catholic church in the Bronx. We won’t be debating how the second coming will take place and you can be sure it is not some all new messiah or one of the choice of religious leaders or founders who did not give his own life for the sheep. (John 10: 1-11)
Here is what we will see, but rest assured, this is the short version. The events of the last days take a full seven years to reach their height but Christ himself repeatedly concurred with all of the ancient prophets and the Apostles that it would end exactly like this, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Mt 24:30)
http://www.americanprophet.org has since 2005 featured the articles of Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Better than Satire but not better than truth
"Better than Satire"On The Bayou Blog
Your assesment of the World Net Daily article is pompous at best. You may not like the WND but their is more truth on their front page than in the Houston paper and the N.Y. Times combined from front pages to last.
You scoffed at the writer of the soybeans article but you did no examination of the science he used as the premise of the piece. You may or may not agree with the scientific findings but that does not make the writer or the WND "loony."
You affirm to me the all important truth about blogs, which is that swelling opinions do not a journalist make.
Michael Bresciani
http:www.americanprophet.org
Your assesment of the World Net Daily article is pompous at best. You may not like the WND but their is more truth on their front page than in the Houston paper and the N.Y. Times combined from front pages to last.
You scoffed at the writer of the soybeans article but you did no examination of the science he used as the premise of the piece. You may or may not agree with the scientific findings but that does not make the writer or the WND "loony."
You affirm to me the all important truth about blogs, which is that swelling opinions do not a journalist make.
Michael Bresciani
http:www.americanprophet.org
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